here’s an idea: add a more dedicated mobile mortar, with a high capacity bag, and low range, with lower health, and add the normal mortar as an option for req/engineering to choose on medium/high pop
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We need to add an additional slop role of designated mortarmen who will be responsible for moving and utilizing the mortar. If the mortar is expected to be mobile and have a range limit, storage for the shells should be specialized with each mortarman able to carry a significant amount of them.
Maybe even add a skill that speeds up the adjustment time.
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The idea of a dedicated mortar operator has been shot down by the maintainer’s before.
I believe the argument was that we don’t want to shut off capabilities into hyper-niche job roles. (Don’t quote me on that).
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Which is kinda funny, since the current state of mortar literally requires a hyper niche kind of inventory/team composition. How ironic :V
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Long term this mortar thing seems like it’ll become cartoonish or reverted back.
Someone will propose a Howitzer or something so FOB can fire artillery.
Or mortar bags will just hold like 100 rounds.
Every time I’ve seen pictures of mortar teams, either it’s a giant team of like 12 guys basically all carrying mortar rounds, there’s trucks carrying ammo, or it’s in a base. IRL yeah you have the weight to worry about, not so much in CM.
A player can carry 8 + 4 + 4, so 16 rounds.
assuming 4 cam shells, and 2 lethal shells per strike,
6 times the mortar can fire, 2 without cams, assuming all 4 cams are good.
I think Mortar already has a difficult enough time staying loaded and being used; maybe if mortar rounds are put into “handheld crates” like mag boxes as they are IRL, and can be dumped instantly into a mortar backpack like refilling the flare pouch, maybe this can work?
Somewhere in this manual, at least one type of mortar has rounds in 8 packs; probably the light mortar.
Overall, I’m almost certain this would make the most sense reverting back to being in FOB. I only queue for bravo to man the mortar. I assume others do the same.
This just helps focus marines on staying at the front and not being at the FOB which I think is bad. FOB should have marines want to be there.
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eventuly mortar will recive dedicated budget in req idealy and some furhter reworks in terms of shell count and their power and also how mortar is operated, so far the pr does what it was intended for, force out mortar from fob. you might disagree with the rest I would like to see other changes myself but it does what it was intended to do
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If you think they will throw a bone at req you’d be horribly mistaken, it’s been constant budget nerfs for the past year or so. We still don’t even get our box of loose rounds we used to start with that’s been gone since the req vendor restructure PR.
Req budgeting was nerfed hard, req budget infusions via tech points was horribly nerfed. We still don’t even have scaling restock of comms keys. You want a JTAC key past the first 5 req spawns with? 4k down the drain. Hope you dont need to send rockets or SG ammo.
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req is planed for rull rework, but it is gona take a lot of time, also wtf you mean budget infusions via tech points were not nerfed, I was the one who made the change, if you get one it is cheaper, if you get two it is the same, it gets more expensive if you buy third during the same round and that does not happen. that change was rather buff then nerf as you can afford req budget with less intel points and first one has better req/intel point ratio.
For as limted as tech points are, the 6k to 7k you get is pretty much jack all when command could be actually using their points for something that is way more useful than a box and a half of AP ammo or maybe two boxes of spec ammo.
At least in the past you used to get 10k - 12k which actually was viable to do anything with. Why give me 6k when you can order two more OB shells, get the ARC which is infinitely more useful as a mobile sensor tower, or get 5 more marines and a spec?
Edited after the fact:
Last time req got a ‘grand rework’ we are still missing things from req that was promised but never was implemented. I have no hopes for anything ‘planned’ instead of trying to re-work was isn’t broken, just fix the things that should of been added awhile a go.
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is it just me or the formatting on the comment above absolutely fucked? Is my forum bugging out?
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you used to get 10k, for 15 points, now you get 5k for 7 point and then 5 k for 8 points, do the math man. if anything it made the req points more viable as you can choose them at position when you would not be able to do so before (the points get multiplied by marine ratio but that has not changed so the 5k is base value). also this is open source game, if you want a change you can go and make it yourself, none gets payed for this and anyone can contribute, if you try you will recive help with it. (ah welp that is what you went to do and I am trying to help you so…)
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XM88 is currently being nerfed, same with the AMR atleast. and they are planning on removing warden to something worse imo.
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It seems the general trend is to nerf marine tools in a way that theoretically they can still be effective, but in reality they’re really cumbersome and such a pain in the ass that you might not even want to bother. It’s difficult to get an M56D up in time before the xenos have backed off or are already in melee with you, how are they expecting a mortar team to:
1.Set up in a relevant spot
2.Have cades or dedicate enough marines to sitting back and baby sitting them
3.Finally get firing coords
4.Fire
All before the bugs are gone or all of this is pointless because the fight is in a cave choke? 50 tiles is hilariously tiny for this sort of thing.
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Use a fireteam.
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M56D is a static defense. If you want a more mobile defense, other guns are better. Or, you get better at utilizing the m56d’s strengths to pressure the enemy (a whole playstyle can be built around this with enough effort - but it won’t be as easy as just pick it up and go, like mk2). Or, you get better at using it situationally, which can be a huge undertaking imo.
while you may not see its impact (xenos will not go in range), it nonetheless impacts the decision making of a beno to shoot it. With it being 50 ap it’s useful against berserker, hedgehog, crusher, defender, and other high armor xenos while being fairly light to carry. It is an active play when no other active plays seem available.
Can it be more powerful then mk2 in certain situations? Yes, it has iff, and afaik good dps.
Will it be more powerful then mk2 in most situations? Probably not, movement and positioning is everything when it comes to dealing dps. Cheap ap and easy pressure tho!
it’s so fundamentally different from normal gameplay tho that it’s impossible to say it’s bad until someone figures out how to use it optimally and consistently.
Mortar should be a commitment to play. 30 second cycle isn’t that bad either if you’re on offense. Just play better, coord faster, etc.
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I bring up the M56D as an example of how even a “short” amount of time to set up an M56D has the shorter sporadic fight that is a part of the larger battle already over with by the time you’ve got it ready to fire. I’m aware that the long set up time is deliberately designed to make it difficult to use offensively.
I’m simply going to have to disagree, the amount of time it takes to set up the mortar, keep it fed with shells, safe, and relevant is going to be a huge pain in the ass and not worth it in the field. Unless you dedicate like 3-5 marines to man and protect the thing, you’re going to be getting smart back liners capturing the crew or simply harassing them to the point that they can’t get any shells in the air. And that’s not even mentioning that you’re spending all that time and those resources just to have xenos safely dodge most of the shells because they come with a text box and audio warning.
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As a solo player anything you do to the scale that a mortar can do, is worth it on the field. It really is less “It’s a huge pain in the ass” and more “If I go through the effort through trial and error, learning the new system, it will pay a lot.” It won’t be easy if you’re not used to front lining/backlining but its a good time to learn.
Further, mortar ammo is spec ammo and you can carry like 8 in a pack iirc (better then rockets). Don’t waste it, just use it well.
Just stand near medics. If no position is available to use it, no position is available, just like any other gun in the game.
Further it’s kind of expected that a comtech tries to cade up and protect the supply line. It doesn’t happen every round because there isn’t always a comtech who understands how important that is, or there’s not enough resources or manpower.
Certain things like binocs, flaring around you, finding backliner hunting routes are sort of basic fundamentals of the game and keep you strong against backliners. There will be plenty of techniques to help you stay safe if you choose to learn the gun.
It is double the workload yes (playing both mortar and spotter) but it doesn’t mean it’s unpowerful.
Keep better attention to the fight then, and how xenos move if you want to kill with mortar. Do techniques like pre-aiming a spot, writing coords on paper, etc. Otherwise, just use incen shells to block off flanks. It’s off-screen damage and isn’t meant to be free, especially since the gun literally instakills if u get hit by it enough or hit in a bad position.
Learning all sorts of maps will help a lot, remembering good mortar spots will help a lot.
The gun is similar to what it was and if you were bad at spotting before you’ll still be bad at spotting now. Some of these things are even faster because you are your own spotter now, and mortar lands faster the closer it is to the aimed spot.
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