If I remember from the USCM technical manual, the APC is equipped with some sort of plasma weapon that is fueled with hydrogen canisters. That could be neat to have.
If I remember from the USCM technical manual, the APC is equipped with some sort of plasma weapon that is fueled with hydrogen canisters. That could be neat to have.
Gonna throw in my two cents as a Squad Medic..
Sometimes I forget the APC even exists, because the rounds Ive been with it the TC were either SSD/nonexistant or the APC was actually packing an LTB TOW and tricked me into thinking it was an APC round-
Jokes aside, I dont believe it can be useless. Again, its mobile surgery. Toss in SL with a cracked skull and everything and he pops out brand new. Toss in heartbroken PFC and hes good to roll. Toss in Spec missing a hand and...
You get the point. I kinda wish it was bigger though...and maybe had a recharger or something for defibs.
Give it a nitro booster thats on a cooldown so it can outrun things trying to murder it. Dont give it more firepower. The thing should be upgraded to be worth having just based on utility. The tank shouldnt even be in the game so we shouldnt make the APC able to fight as well as the tank. We should make the APC good enough to have as a support unit.
It reminds me of the sunderer in planetside but without any of the benefits.
maybe have the transport variant be default, and have a few different upgrades on defcon 2 at the choice of the tank crew
as a side note, maybe give CO's the ability to choose tank/apc if they roundstart and have ~2 minutes to choose then it goes to vehicle crew?
Needs viewports on South side, sound should filter into the APC, you should also be able to read action macros through viewports like "X makes a "Back up" gesture with his hands!" Or something so outside marines can still have some resemblance of communication. Also can you build inside of an APC? Perhaps an intelligence module that can dispense Fulton's and acts as a mini tac map/long range MD.
I haven't had the chance to play it myself, but from what I've seen by observing the APC is just bad. Real bad.
The weapons on it are too weak to damage t3s, and t1-2s can just run circles around it and solo the damn thing.
I get it's not meant to be a tank, but the overall support roles it has aren't good enough to compensate for its weakness in frontline combat, and I've seen plenty of TCs try to use it in that role, then getting shredded.
My own suggestions on how to make it better are as follows:
1. Give the MG a 360 degree firing arc as well as full IFF. The APC is supposed to be a support vehicle, but it can't reliably protect itself from anything, and at the same time it can't support marines with its guns without just shooting them in the back.
2. Give the autocannon a direct damage boost, possibly removing the flak. It needs to be able to hurt t3s for the APC to have any real utility in combat. At the same time, the flak seems to hurt marines more than it hurts the xenos.
(For the above, ideally swap their places on the sprite too, so the MG goes on top and the autocannon in front.)
3. Remove or reduce the pop minimum on VC, and instead impose a pop minimum on spawning the Longstreet. The APC seems better suited to lowpop rounds where it can't influence the fight so disproportionately, but can still support and assist the marines.
Those are my main suggestions, ones that'd hopefully make it both more able to protect itself from solo runners, assist in frontline combat without being overly powerful.
When it comes to secondary utility, the medical APC seems to be the best. There's really no point in using the command APC, as overwatch is the same whether you do it in the field or from the Almayer, and the transport APC is only really useful as a taxi to protect solo marines from lurkers. Meanwhile, the ability to do frontline surgery is always handy, no matter how limited it might be.
That said, there are some ways to buff the other variants.
1. Allow people in the command module to issue orders, and buff the range of them when they're issued. Something to that effect.
2. Give the transport module a pair of portholes, buff it's capacity slightly, or just give it more chairs to make it safer.
I've been playing xeno a bit more recently (mainly due to my internet connection)
And it seems that most xenos see the APC outside of cadelines as a free kill. Whenever its outside of them I see like several of them scream that its an easy kill and they are normally right.
Even with on road routes between the FOB and the front/outpost you'll see lurker and runner gangs go at it because they can easily down it without much risk.
The three variants are kinda bad in my opinion too.
Command variant is literal garbage. OH BOY A FIFTH OVERWATCH CONSOLE. YEA THAT'LL REALLY CHANGE THE ROUND.
Transport variant is only fast on non blocked lanes and even then most people can either outrun it since light armor or is a worse medevac since you still need to wait on transport PO.
Medical variant is the best of the three, but you could just do easy ghetto surgery in an outpost/FOB without using up vehicle.
It doesn't help that APC gets literal nothing at DEFCON 2 as opposed to Tank getting the unholy mess that is LTB "fuck off" Cannon.
And the fact that it doesn't have armor DESPITE BEING CALLED AN ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER.
What I feel it needs is:
- A much larger firing arc, so at least runners and lurkers can't just meme it
- Better module armor at least due to no armor
- Command variant needs more then just an overwatch console of all things. Probably the buff thing that like every person and their mother has mentioned in this post.
- Transport needs to hold more to be truly called transport
- Medical needs either like an autodoc or limb printer so it isn't just beaten out by ghetto surgery at FOB
- Maybe let us shoot out of portholes or something I dunno
tl;dr APC is just a free kill for xenos ATM
Off the top of my head why not give the command variant the same tracking map as the "experimental" tower on trijent?
Would at least give command a reason to pick it and a reason to be in it
Felix the Synth: hat fanatic, nice robot, one time double agent almayer synth executed for sedition. Occasional murderous mopbot.
Could make APC A "deployable" where you anchor it and drop a ramp letting marines see and walk into the back to remove supplies or whatever. Would make deploying marines, moving supplies and getting wounded in/out faster.