Goonhub
02-24-2025, 09:49 AM
So currently I feel like there's a common experience that's been talked about in the discord. Which is with the armory pod launcher. The anti-pod missiles that shoot at pods and explode on or near them, the experience goes like this.
The rocket hits the pod. Their pod is damaged but not destroyed. Using the fast speed of even the slowest of pods they fly away into space. They pull out a wielder and fully repair their pod. They're back in action in under 30 seconds. If you attempt to follow the pod they turn around, ram or shoot you, and you die. If you sit still they return, possibly soaking another missile, possibly just shooting you with a deadly pod weapon and blowing off your limbs.
With this weapon there's multiple steps in having to successfully use it. Getting within line of sight of the enemy pod, and firing before it leaves your effective range, without friendly fire, dying to space, being shot/rammed by the pod. This is all after pulling the weapon out of the armory which is a entire hurdle in itself, requiring ether 3 sec officers or a HOS, or breaking and entering. If it's a antagonist in a pod attacking a area it requires the specific person carrying the pod launcher to successfully get to the correct area on foot in time as well, and pods tend to move around quite fast.
As further complications in instances of shooting at pods made by violent antagonists it's not uncommon for there to be multiple pods to contend with. Salv's work by this as design. Off the top of my head I can recall multiple situations with having to contend against multiple pods at once from normal syndicate agents (mindhacks or just different ones working together). If you've stolen the pod launcher and are attacking against security then it's even more likely you'll be working against multiple opponents too.
The intended use against antagonist's who have made super pods in this situation is probably to shoot the enemy pod and follow up with security pods to chase them. But it's incredibly difficult to coordinate something like that and more often I've just seen the people in security pods get killed by those with incredibly advanced pods before the pod launcher on foot can fire, or even worse, the security pod lose AFTER because they repaired it enough or it simply didn't deal enough damage to give the security pods a edge even with the armory pod weapons.
In my experience having the pod launcher used against me specifically, it's been troublesome, but not even that scary. I survived it in a miniput, got out of the pod, and simply pulled out a gun and shot the officer who used it against me. A pod is a entire vehicle with a second health bar that takes a lot of resources for somebody to destroy, and once they have, it's plenty easy enough to carry on any offense on foot as long as you're equipped for it, which as a antagonist is easy enough to be ready for and often why we see these kind of attacks at over a hour shift time.
I feel like with all of these hiccups and factors that need to go in the pod launcher's favor (normally a security officer but not always, anybody who successfully steals a armory weapon should be just as rewarded by its use). I feel like the pod launcher should be a more considerable threat to pods, especially considering how dangerous and frustrating antagonist's in super-pods can be in general. And if I'm putting my time as a antagonist to fight with a pod, I shouldn't be able to easily dismiss anybody on foot even if they have the very specific weapon to ruin my day. Like I said I know from other people talking about this I'm not the only person whose experienced difficulty using the weapon even when everything goes WELL. And somebody else even DM'd me suggesting I make this forum post.
Suggestions I've seen or thought about are making the pod launcher be more damaging to pods directly, to the point one surviving a hit is impossible, or it forces a long stun or slowdown to allow somebody to force the enemy out of their pod with the time it grants, or possibly even destroying components like the engine outright for sure. Or the solution could be as simple as putting 2 or 3 in the armory instead of a single one. It would be a lot less frustrating for it to fail if it wasn't so easily lost by the eager officer taking it and then getting blasted with a shotgun into space after all.
What do other people think? Have you had more luck and success with the launcher? Do you think it's working as intended? Do you have better ideas for ways to streamline its use and make people encounter less frustration?
The rocket hits the pod. Their pod is damaged but not destroyed. Using the fast speed of even the slowest of pods they fly away into space. They pull out a wielder and fully repair their pod. They're back in action in under 30 seconds. If you attempt to follow the pod they turn around, ram or shoot you, and you die. If you sit still they return, possibly soaking another missile, possibly just shooting you with a deadly pod weapon and blowing off your limbs.
With this weapon there's multiple steps in having to successfully use it. Getting within line of sight of the enemy pod, and firing before it leaves your effective range, without friendly fire, dying to space, being shot/rammed by the pod. This is all after pulling the weapon out of the armory which is a entire hurdle in itself, requiring ether 3 sec officers or a HOS, or breaking and entering. If it's a antagonist in a pod attacking a area it requires the specific person carrying the pod launcher to successfully get to the correct area on foot in time as well, and pods tend to move around quite fast.
As further complications in instances of shooting at pods made by violent antagonists it's not uncommon for there to be multiple pods to contend with. Salv's work by this as design. Off the top of my head I can recall multiple situations with having to contend against multiple pods at once from normal syndicate agents (mindhacks or just different ones working together). If you've stolen the pod launcher and are attacking against security then it's even more likely you'll be working against multiple opponents too.
The intended use against antagonist's who have made super pods in this situation is probably to shoot the enemy pod and follow up with security pods to chase them. But it's incredibly difficult to coordinate something like that and more often I've just seen the people in security pods get killed by those with incredibly advanced pods before the pod launcher on foot can fire, or even worse, the security pod lose AFTER because they repaired it enough or it simply didn't deal enough damage to give the security pods a edge even with the armory pod weapons.
In my experience having the pod launcher used against me specifically, it's been troublesome, but not even that scary. I survived it in a miniput, got out of the pod, and simply pulled out a gun and shot the officer who used it against me. A pod is a entire vehicle with a second health bar that takes a lot of resources for somebody to destroy, and once they have, it's plenty easy enough to carry on any offense on foot as long as you're equipped for it, which as a antagonist is easy enough to be ready for and often why we see these kind of attacks at over a hour shift time.
I feel like with all of these hiccups and factors that need to go in the pod launcher's favor (normally a security officer but not always, anybody who successfully steals a armory weapon should be just as rewarded by its use). I feel like the pod launcher should be a more considerable threat to pods, especially considering how dangerous and frustrating antagonist's in super-pods can be in general. And if I'm putting my time as a antagonist to fight with a pod, I shouldn't be able to easily dismiss anybody on foot even if they have the very specific weapon to ruin my day. Like I said I know from other people talking about this I'm not the only person whose experienced difficulty using the weapon even when everything goes WELL. And somebody else even DM'd me suggesting I make this forum post.
Suggestions I've seen or thought about are making the pod launcher be more damaging to pods directly, to the point one surviving a hit is impossible, or it forces a long stun or slowdown to allow somebody to force the enemy out of their pod with the time it grants, or possibly even destroying components like the engine outright for sure. Or the solution could be as simple as putting 2 or 3 in the armory instead of a single one. It would be a lot less frustrating for it to fail if it wasn't so easily lost by the eager officer taking it and then getting blasted with a shotgun into space after all.
What do other people think? Have you had more luck and success with the launcher? Do you think it's working as intended? Do you have better ideas for ways to streamline its use and make people encounter less frustration?
