I always go out of my way as SL to buy the NV Optic, primarily because it’s one of the few things in the vendor I can’t get from Req, and hand it to a Specialist. However, after a Spec round recently where I was given NV Optics, I’m not even sure it’s that useful? Most of the time the front is pretty bright.
Polls follow:
When I play X Specialist, my round is much better with a NV Optic.
SADAR
Pyro
Grenadier
Sharp
My rounds are always the same or better without an NV Optic
0voters
When I play X Specialist, my round is the same or better without a NV Optic.
If I ever end up sniper (which I do often, scout is too contested), I always hand off my scout sight based on a few factors
Going down a list of importance of SADAR, GL, IO, PYRO, Fragger SLs, Fragger anyone, and CMP
are you a known Competent Guy ™, I will hand out my sight to someone else if I think the SADARs a gibber or new.
Are you my metafriend
I think one of the issues of NV optics is that they can’t be used with binos, which is really huge. Being able to see everything infront of you at range is really powerful especially if your lasing in obs or fire support. Furthermore they’re clunky to use. Its so much nicer not having to worry about charging it or whens the best time to have it on. And finally in most maps you pretty much will need to return to fob and hope that the APC is still on if you want to recharge it which no one really wants to go back to fob unless they need to.
NVGs are pretty useless unless you’re in the backline imo or larping as a navy seal (alone in caves with a buddy or two)
They offer no real advantage over an MD. Spotter sight and scout sight are different though, they’re unlimited and dont impair your vision so they’re always nice to have regardless of what role you are.
The only spec classes im gonna be excited to get NVGs on (besides sniper) would be pyro as I tend to play in the backline with flamer mk2 on pyro spec on occasion depending on how actionable I am at the front.
you can turn it off or not apparently? i thought you could, or at least you used to have an option for it to be just black and white vision with some grain
I think its super useful to see in the dark on da front. Most benos feel safe outside of flare range, and info of nvg binocs is op af. Plus on a spec its less likely the spec will go and die on their own by chasing into a warrior stack or w/e
Its just a tangible, permanent resource advtg since flares and information are a resource that greatly aid all aspects of combat
You really need to manage your battery. Even if front is lit up, extra couple tiles of vision never hurt.
Also, quite often few marines bring flares or they simply ran out and there is no resupply.
I dont really notice any tangible effect when im using NVGs but thats probably because of my playstyle and that I also take an MD 9/10 rounds I am on.
The MD alerts to warriors and sneaky xenos, NVGs when I use em always end up impairing my vision. Many times I have burned to death or walked past xenos cause NVG’s slowly lobotomize ur eyes untill you cant tell the difference between what is what if used long enough.
The biggest advantage NVG’s have are pretty limited - I’d say the biggest advantage is being able to chase a xeno into darkness to finish them off, and then following that it’s edge cases of being able to see xenos just out of range of the flares and shoulder lights of everyone, which mostly helps avoid frontline ambushes like warrior grabs.
Grenadier and SHARP don’t need to frontline, and they can’t really chase too well either.
SADAR frontlines a lot, so it’s useful for him, but chasing not so much.
Pyro can frontline (not necessarily AT the frontline) and chase, so I think they benefit the most out of the specialists, even in spite of having an on-demand light source.
When it comes down to it though, probably the best roles for NVG’s would be guys with M4RA’s with 2x scopes or guys with XM88’s, as they can still use the scope with the NVG in this case AND the directions and distances they’re covering will tend to be dark and outside the range of everyone’s flares.
I think it’s actually better to give it to these PFC’s/FTL’s than the specialists because it’s more impactful for them. For a specialist, it’s a ‘nice to have’, but for PFC’s with scoped XM88/M4RA it actually genuinely changes how you play.
It’s because the color effect overlay doesn’t preserve hue differences. What you’re getting with the NVG’s (even in different colors) is just luminance preservation, and is roughly equivalent to achromotopsia (total color blindness) which severely impacts your ability to distinguish shapes and objects, as two completely different hues (red and green for example) can have the same luminance and thus blend together (This is what happens in the more common deuteranopia - red/green color blindness, rather than total color blindness, that effects 5-8% of men); to put this another way, it’s an effect that camouflage attempts to mimic with blending edges into the background and eliminating hue differences.
Real analog NVG’s work in this same fashion and don’t preserve hue differences well/at all. Newer NVG’s however are improving on this.
I think normal nvgs is garbage i agree tbh. I think its better to just carry a flare pack somewhere in your inventory and that’s better then nvgs because it helps everyone push when you throw a flare, not just yourself. Altho its not mutually exclusive, you can carry both nvg and flare
But spotter vision is absolutely super powerful because of nvg binocs imo, i agree that perma green vision is a mega hassle too
I always made the assumption that everyone liked NV Optics but this thread shows me it’s a little more nuanced than that.
RE the poll: SADAR very clearly winning but I think GL and SHARP being wildly unpopular is probably significant to it being absent in the poll, I would think that they both fill similar-ish roles on the front.
Kind of. I would say Sharp being unpopular is big thing but for the GL you got to keep in mind they get IFF and can shoot past marines, this in turn means they don’t need to be at the very tip of the push many of times…the tip being where the NV would be of the most use.
Where on the other hand Demo doesn’t get IFF, meaning that they will be at the tip of the push much more often…Meaning that NV would be of greater use. Also it helps to see the T3 incoming before pushing through the marine mass to take aim.
I think for SADAR specifically it’s really good because you get just a little bit more warning that a threat is coming so you can get your shot ready, otherwise in my experience because of the filter on them and the fact the front is usually pretty bright anyway their utility is limited. And that’s just for SADAR, for the others it’s not very useful at all.
Issue is, most NV-less specs are in great positions to rescue marines, and given that most helmets only take 1 optic attachment on the helmet it means that you must sacrifice the posibility of getting medHUDs to check out if marines on the floor are revivable or not.
The pyro and standard GL are specially good at recovering marines and thus giving up medHUDs for NVs tends to be ass.
sure you can have both and swap them on the go with a screwdriver but who the hell has time for that on the frontline, specially when those two specs are literally on the very vanguard.
Not going to lie, the NV optics are just… so bad that there’s almost no point in bothering with fiddling with them especially since its mutually exclusive with the medic visor. The battery is really short, you cant use anything with them and if your super limited shitty night vision runs out you need to go back to fob, screwdriver your helmet and recharge the visor itself. …and its really expensive and only accessible to SLs and FTLs really - who themselves don’t even buy this stinker most of the time. It’s just… so bad its almost pointless.
NVGs are good. Underrated, overhated. The white NVG colour isn’t too hard on the eyes, and honestly you get used to it with time. The battery isn’t nearly as short as it once was before helmet optics, and recharging it is super easy - you take a recharger to FOB (if you’re IO you’re doing FOB trips anyway, you shouldn’t ever be running out of charge). FTL is the other one to usually take it, because they get 2 helmet slots also. You can also store an optic in your helmet STORAGE slot and swap between them with a screwdriver, so as to use as SL, but personally I don’t really bother and I tend to bring a flare gun to keep everything lit up for my squad to be able to see.
Information is very important in this game, and you seldom can kill what you can’t see. Set up a key to cycle helmet optics and you get over any clunkiness of NVG optics, swapping between using binoculars and using NVG at will.
Also super cool fun fact! You can use the NVG optic with 2x scope, including the XM88. I’ve gotten several really nasty kills I wouldn’t have in other situations because of the advantage of NVGs and getting the drop on xenos who don’t expect you to see them.
But as for the question in the OP, only as pyro really.
I’ve been using white NVGs but looking at recent post screenshots the contrast on yellow seems to be better. Gotta check it on my monitor.
ngl the grain makes it hard for me to spot lurkers
