Seeing the discussions about veteran’s power-level relative to Arbites, it occured to me that veteran’s supportive utility almost entirely lies in his shout, and his survivalist aura. While these are both powerful in their own right, it occured to me that suppression as a mechanic is severly underutilised by veteran’s kit, despite it fitting them well thematically and mechanically given all their skills involving long-range fire support (Covering Fire, Keep Their Heads Down!, and Competitive Urge).
I’ve suggested this before, but I think veteran would benefit greatly from a tweak to either the Fire Team aura, or the Keep Their Heads Down! talent that allows teammates in coherency to see an obvious indicator when enemies they are fighting are being suppressed. This would allow Veteran players to coordinate with their team non-verbally by giving a visual cue to their melee-focused teammates.
At the moment, vet’s best bets for long-term suppression are the autopistol, recon lasguns, and braced autoguns. Visualising suppression might solve this problem by giving players the tools to only fire as much as necessary to suppress enemies, but some weapons with longer sustained fire wouldn’t hurt in this area. (Recon lasgun already fits this niche)
Feel free to suggest your own, but I was thinking that a new weapon in the form of a hellgun or LMG stubber could fit this niche neatly. One way to accomplish this might be to make each one use regular-sized magazines by default, but allow the player to swap to a backpack feed that draws directly from your ammo pool at any time. The catch is that switching away from the weapon and back again while it is in this mode reverts you back to using magazines, and requires you to load a new mag when you switch back to the weapon. Naturally, the player would be able to switch back to regular magazines voluntarily to avoid having to switch back to an empty weapon when they’re finished with melee. (In the case of a stubber, these would be short ammo belts)
This would force players to commit to using the backpack mode when they feel it is necessary, not unlike the flamer and bolter, without giving the player the constant benefit of an endless magazine.
One talent I could see being changed is Close and Kill (movement speed), +DMG or +Ammo is just a better option. Not sure what it would be maybe could lean into +dmg vs suppressed targets to help with your ideas.
I would change covering fire all together, Id prefer the vet to be shooting at targets out of my engagement range. When ranged fire does kill the chaff I’m about to clean up (for the hope of some sweet toughness replenishment) I don’t even gain toughness. ..
Plus what’s the point of gaining Dmg increase for 3 seconds if the unit you targeted died. It will most likely take me 3 seconds to get to the next enemy and the first hit for each class usually has its own buffs the player is considering, not the dmg buff from Covering Fire
TLDR you need the dmg now, not after something has died.
Swapping to a backpack feed during play or as an option (or mark) for the weapon? Meaning a no reload gun for the vet? Or do you mean a backpack mode as a talent option on the tech tree? Like a new ability?
Alternatively , We may just see an increase in Infiltrate vets(or Shroud Zlots) as Arbitrators (and Ogryn) like as much melee in front of them as possible.
I mean that backpack mode is a feature of the gun itself. So if you equip the hellgun, it will be loaded with normal lasgun magazines with 30-something rounds each when you first wield it. Swapping to melee and back in this mode will leave the mag in, just like any other weapon.
Activating the special attack key causes you to install a cable connecting it to the backpack, and cause it to draw directly from your ammo pool. The downside to this is that if you swap to melee and back again, the cable will be detatched, forcing you to either install a fresh magazine, or reinstall the cable.
The idea here is to give the player access to a powerful sustained damage weapon, but require them to commit to using it if they want to take full advantage of its capabilities.
I wanted to design something that could have a high volume of fire without necessarily having to be innacurate. Making it inconvenient in other ways was my solution.
Nice, basically replicate what the gunners are doing to us but with more suppression. I’m on board! I think the one Lasgun that sets everyone on fire with rapid fire accomplishes this but I could be wrong.
Your OP asks for a new Talent, not a new weapon, so I was confused!
