What's the point of Homing Beacon?

(Kingcole225) #1

The only thing I can imagine this would be good for is disguising and then spotting all of the enemies, but everyone has combat intuition and for some reason SD decided to make it so that disguised operatives still trigger Combat Intuition so why should I even bother with this ability?

(radiogenicsky) #2

when shooting an enemy if they move out of your field of view you can still track them or you die everyone else knows where they are.

(iezza) #3

You must have extremely accurate aim and recoil must not hit your gun our of the way. impossible.

(Kingcole225) #4

…What? I have no idea how this has to do with my point…

(Tetra) #5

Close to worthless ability because 1) outline duration is too short and 2) in most situations it’s more useful to everyone if you just shoot them dead instead of trying to highlight them for a couple seconds.

I’m pretty sure combat intuition isn’t triggered if you’re disguised.

(Surkov E Jaeger) #6

Combat Intuition does trigger if disguised.

The use? Well imagine this. You are holding a Barnett rifle aiming quite a ways downrange at a target who has full health. You have some difficulty locking him as combat intuition warns him to move. While trying to sight him you mark him, then shoot him. He is wounded but not dead. A teammates notices, then sights him and kills him with light SMG fire.

Get it?

(iezza) #7

Easy points. mark everyone(not online though, that would be nooby) and get lods of points(ur team lose tho :()

(iezza) #8

HB also homes in when you holt aim not when ur ADS(sounds same right) but hold LT(or pc thingy) while reloading and u will home in, like ur ADS ing, handy reit.

(A.i) #9

its useful in some situations (reactor for eg) I was providing my team(sec) with a wall hack for the whole map duration :slight_smile: I would never be able to kill all the enemies I was marking at the same time (4-6) with smg

(iezza) #10

Also usefull on resort, more so on offense.

(Exedore) #11

A key to the Homing Beacon is that you can paint many targets at once, if they’re close to each other (like a coordinated rush). I’ll admit, it’s not really all that useful in pub play, but with teamwork it can be very effective.

(zenstar) #12

Super useful for picking out the engineers when you’re disguised and they’re moving in to remove a hackbox or a HE charge, or for picking out medics.
I often try pick out any class that can complete an objective when I’m disguised or anyone who’s waiting in an ambush position.
Sometimes it’s not worth breaking a disguise to shoot when I can mark someone for teammates and then move away (to hack a turret or launch an attack on another flank).

(obliviondoll) #13

Another really good use is when you’ve managed to get isolated from your team long enough to run out of ammo, but really want to do SOMETHING as an enemy’s moving up towards the front lines. Especially when the enemy is a mission-critical target or a Medic.

I’ve done that a couple of times before - both times a friendly Soldier happened to be the one to gun him down, and I got to run in and get more ammo straight away.

(Humate) #14

Its not even useful in competitive play.
In fact its banned. :stroggtapir:

(tokamak) #15

It’s really simple, if you’re tagged, you’re dead.

Should be usable in disguise though. In ETQW it’s great fun to just hang back and tag all the enemies that defend a room.

(zenstar) #16

[QUOTE=Humate;330265]Its not even useful in competitive play.
In fact its banned. :stroggtapir:[/QUOTE]

That sounds contradictory. Why would you ban something that isn’t useful?
That’d be like banning blue shorts in the 100m sprints (if it truely is useless: I don’t think it is).

(zenstar) #17

[QUOTE=tokamak;330267]It’s really simple, if you’re tagged, you’re dead.

Should be usable in disguise though. In ETQW it’s great fun to just hang back and tag all the enemies that defend a room.[/QUOTE]

It is usable in disguise and it doesn’t trigger combat intuition if you’re disguised at the time.
The only issue I have is that it’s tricky to tag someone far away while in disguise because you can’t see your ironsights.

sigh I need to draw a dot in the middle of my monitor some time :smiley:

(Darrus Dreadtiger) #18

[QUOTE=zenstar;330270]It is usable in disguise and it doesn’t trigger combat intuition if you’re disguised at the time.
The only issue I have is that it’s tricky to tag someone far away while in disguise because you can’t see your ironsights.

sigh I need to draw a dot in the middle of my monitor some time :D[/QUOTE]

This is perfectly true
and perfectly hilarious.

I once disguised on a server and sat with a few campers on a chokepoint for about a minute, spotting any mine or player that came into my sight. It might not have been more useful than just shooting them… but it was a hundred times funnier!

(tokamak) #19

[QUOTE=zenstar;330270]It is usable in disguise and it doesn’t trigger combat intuition if you’re disguised at the time.
The only issue I have is that it’s tricky to tag someone far away while in disguise because you can’t see your ironsights.

sigh I need to draw a dot in the middle of my monitor some time :D[/QUOTE]

It doesn’t break disguise?

I really need to play this game more.

(Smoochy) #20

is it automatic?

i rarely play with op but i have him at level 19 with a medic (mixed abilities). i have seen and killed a few ‘painted’ enemies but im not sure i have ever painted one myself.

its the red highlight right?