Andros, the Remote-Control Engineer


(desertOsprey) #1

Andros
“Others call it ‘unexploded ordnance’; I call it ‘target practice’.”

Nationality- Greek
Class- Engineer
HP- 90
Speed- 410

Profile-
Plenty of men and women risk their lives daily, knowing that they might die, but at least they’ll do it saving orphans from a fire or civilians from the rapacious hordes of an enemy force. Andros knows there are enough of said men and women around to let him sit comfortably far from the bombs and bullets, treating war like a video game where the only ones dying are his “pet” remote-control drones… and the courageous men and women of the enemy force, whatever that may be. A period of national peace for his homeland left him displeased at the sudden removal of his daily entertainment, and now, Andros is in London - not for the money, but for sightseeing through a camera.

Ability 1/2: RCV/RCV Uplink
Cooldown- 80 seconds after destruction
Duration- Unlimited
[i]When activated, Andros deploys a treaded robot at his feet. While this robot is deployed, the ability switches to a context-sensitive PDA that is used to control the robot.

The RCV itself is a remotely-controlled robot with a number of utilities.
-It is equipped with a small autorifle (700 RPM, 12 damage on bodyshot, 24 on headshot) that can fire continuously for five seconds and recharges when not in use. If fired until empty, it will go on a ten-second cooldown.
-It is also equipped with a repair arm, which can repair objectives and defuse C4 at a rate of 110% of a normal (non-engineer) merc.
-The RCV is relatively fast, but its speed will decrease by a set margin for every [x] metres it is away from Andros, and a readout will inform him of the distance and the current speed penalty. When it is more than 50 meters away, it will stop responding and Andros will have to move back into range for at least five seconds to reactivate it. It is entirely immobile and vulnerable when this is happening.
-If Andros has line of sight on the RCV, it moves 20% faster (though distance penalties still apply) and performs repair/defuse objectives at 120% the rate of a normal merc
-When Andros is not actively controlling the RCV, it will automatically stop where it is currently standing and, after a 5-second delay, become a stationary turret [that is naturally a fair bit weaker than Bushwhacker’s dedicated turret, though that isn’t saying much] until reactivated.[/i]

Ability 3: Nanotorch
Cooldown- 10 seconds to recharge fully from empty
Duration- 4 seconds of continuous use
The Nanotorch is a multipurpose ability weapon that can be used to repair the RCV. However, it can also be used to construct objectives or defuse C4 10% faster than normal engineer tools and deals 50 damage to an enemy upon use, though it has an extremely short melee range.

Weapons-
Primary- Tolen MP (default), Empire-9, MP400
Secondary- M9 (default), Selbstadt .40, Caulden
Melee- Stilnotto Stilletto (default), Beckhill Combat Knife, Cricket Bat

Notes
Andros is an interesting take on a support merc that can contribute both to assault and objectives while keeping himself and others out of harm’s way. He would probably be annoying to code but I have deliberately tried to set him up in such a way to make it as minimally difficult as possible.

Obviously, Andros is not meant to get into combat himself all too often, what with underwhelming personal weapons and very slow movement speed relative to his health. However, the range requirement and line-of-sight bonuses on the RCV, as well as the Nanotorch, ensure that he is encouraged (and often forced) to take risks and put himself a little closer to the action than would be ideal, as well as remaining viable (though crippled) even when the RCV is on cooldown.


(Dr_Plantboss) #2

I had an idea for this a while ago that I never published, but my idea had a throwable device that could repair/destroy objectives remotely. Cool idea, but I think it’s too complicated.


(JJMAJR) #3

Cool, so we have a character with 140 effective DPS.

The drone gun needs a ton of spread while the RCV is moving, so that players have to stop moving the dang thing in order for it to properly deal damage. Either that, or the drone needs to be extremely weak in survivability, which would require a repair node or something in order to regenerate health.

Otherwise, it’s a much more mobile and more effective Rhino.

On top of that, I think keeping the engineer perks set to 2x to everything would be a lot better than having this new 2.1x repair/defuse thing going.


(desertOsprey) #4

@JJMAJR said:
Cool, so we have a character with 140 effective DPS.

The drone gun needs a ton of spread while the RCV is moving, so that players have to stop moving the dang thing in order for it to properly deal damage. Either that, or the drone needs to be extremely weak in survivability, which would require a repair node or something in order to regenerate health.

Otherwise, it’s a much more mobile and more effective Rhino.

On top of that, I think keeping the engineer perks set to 2x to everything would be a lot better than having this new 2.1x repair/defuse thing going.

I think spread sounds fair, yeah. It’s not meant to be in direct combat but instead a combat-oriented RCV would be used for sneaking around behind enemy lines and picking off the snipers. Either that or a high-speed, low-damage distraction (with high spread).

I deliberately didn’t set it to 2x repair/defuse rate because it sounds a bit OP to put on a small, high-speed drone, but maybe I’m wrong.


(yesser) #5

so the player will need to be stationary to move the robot and thats will make him/her too vulnerable from snipers explosion or even flankers
i dont think it would work well


(desertOsprey) #6

@yesser said:
so the player will need to be stationary to move the robot and thats will make him/her too vulnerable from snipers explosion or even flankers
i dont think it would work well

Precisely the point!

High-risk, high-reward.


(raspberryPike) #7

The problem with this is the same as very old Aimee and some camera merc ideas; it’s too slow. You created a very clever character design for a character, but it just doesn’t fit a fast game like Dirty Bomb.


(desertOsprey) #8

@raspberryPike said:
The problem with this is the same as very old Aimee and some camera merc ideas; it’s too slow. You created a very clever character design for a character, but it just doesn’t fit a fast game like Dirty Bomb.

That’s a very good point.

I’m considering ways of changing this to make it more synergetic with DB in general. Will update at some stage.


(raspberryPike) #9

[quote=“desertOsprey;c-216444”]> @raspberryPike said:

The problem with this is the same as very old Aimee and some camera merc ideas; it’s too slow. You created a very clever character design for a character, but it just doesn’t fit a fast game like Dirty Bomb.

That’s a very good point.

I’m considering ways of changing this to make it more synergetic with DB in general. Will update at some stage.[/quote]

Here’s what I had in mind for this, because this could work if we think this through. Instead of an automatic rifle, make it an SMG functionality, that way the drone is weak at long range, yet doesn’t dominate long range. Also make it so that the drone can return to Andros in order to let him repair it (you have to walk him back to where you were, and only andros can repair it) at the same rate as repairing a generator (as an engineer merc).

As for Andros himself, he could use some weapons to aid him and make it so he is not worthless. Make it so that the drone either can’t defuse or he does at half rate, forcing Andros out, keeping a reason to switch back to Andros and not just leaving Andros in spawn on a map like terminal. Also, machine pistols as a primary are worthless if there is no ability weapon to combo with like sparks’ REVIVR (Nanotorch is too short range to be very helpful). Give him either a hochfir or a new SMG that fires fast but packs no punch.

Keep up the good ideas, good luck!


(Naonna) #10

I’m losing count of how many times I’ve advised against both remote control damage dealers AND abilities which complete the objective with no danger to the user.

It’s become a bit exhausting explaining it over and over, but in the simplest terms, both of these are unique in the problems of balance they bring up - mostly due to the difficulty in preventing a repair/defuse if there’s no human to shoot at in one case, while with the other, remote control abilities make counter play literally impossible. If you kill their vehicle, it’s not doing any real damage. Any damage dealt from that vehicle is free with no possible cost in any way.

Seeing both of these ideas on a single merc is a bit painful. Why would you pick any other engineer than this one, for any reason?