New soldier class: Pilot
Martin Mystik Jonáš
With fastering skies it would be interesting to have new specialised class that focus on air combat. It should provide skills improving aircraft performance. Few examples:
- increase aircraft speed by 10%
- increase aircraft range by 20%
- increase dodge chance
- increase hit chance with visualy/heat guided weapons
- after fight repair up to 20% of damage taken
Aircrafts would get these bonuses if any of soldiers on plane have it.
The King
I think the pilot class should have a mix of battlescape and geoscape abilities to make them viable on both.
The main problem I see with pilots is how standardized they're going to be, so here's a few ideas.
Instead of normal random perks, the pilot gets random perks for air combat.
If you want a pilot with normal perks, you can multiclass another class into a pilot.
If Festering Skies is disabled, the pilot gets normal perks instead.
Here's my take on the pilot skills:
Lv 1 = Pistol + jetpack proficiency and a bonus for the aircraft (+10% range and speed).
Lv 2 = The pilot can call in one air strike (I'd suggest having a 1 turn delay before an air strike happens, for balance reasons). There should also be a global cooldown for this ability so only one pilot can use an air strike per turn (or 2+ turns, depending on how powerful an airstrike is).
Lv 3 = The pilot can repair broken vehicle parts to 1 HP if the pilot is inside the vehicle.
Lv 4 = Multiclass.
Lv 5 = The (first) pilot doesn't count toward the aircraft capacity; there's still the deployment limit, but the pilot can help you cram in that extra teammate or vehicle.
Lv 6 = The pilot boosts a vehicle's damage by 15% if the pilot is inside the vehicle.
Lv 7 = The pilot can call in two extra air strikes.
With these skills, I think the pilot will be an interesting support class.
There should be a limit to how many buffs an aircraft can get from random aircraft perks (I'm thinking 3 max).
This way you can use underleveled (or combat-oriented) pilots as copilots.
I'm assuming air strikes don't work inside of colonies, but a pilot should contribute a lot to the team, regardless.
Martin Mystik Jonáš
The King: I really like how you improved my basic idea.
S
Sergey Kykov
The King: "Lv 5 = The (first) pilot doesn't count toward the aircraft capacity;" - good idea. But lvl 5 is too high.
S
Sergey Kykov
Let me remind you: 90% of the gameplay is ground combat. What will he do in ground combat?
Martin Mystik Jonáš
Sergey Kykov: You can multiclass pilot with any ground combat class. He can call airstrikes. And he can also act as normal soldier just without special skills - I am not sure about weapon proficiency - i would consider only handguns or assault rifles.
S
Sergey Kykov
Martin Mystik Jonáš: Is "normal soldier just without special skills" really normal?
The King
I think your idea could lead to some interesting geoscape - battlescape interactions, so I'm all for it.
Pilots should be able to use handguns and jetpacks, in my opinion.
Martin Mystik Jonáš
And there was already idea of air support in ground missions. Maybe triggering air support can be tied to new "weapon" called remote aircraft control locked to pilot class.
Martin Mystik Jonáš
Also pilots should get XPs by participating in air combats.