Mandalorian Option: "Jump Jets"

[Lessen]

Thought of this while writing my other jetpack thread.

There could be a 0-point "upgrade" that appears if you have Fuel 3, and switches your jetpack between two types:

1: What we have now. Can fly for a very long time, but has a substantial cooldown.
2: "Jump jets." Controls exactly the same, but can only fly for somewhere between one and two seconds before it shuts off. Has a very short cooldown.

Jump Jetters would sacrifice the prolonged safety of long hovers/flights for the ability to always/constantly be able to make quick repositioning "hops." Against Jedi, for example, a jump jetter would never be caught vulnerable on cooldown, but would risk being pushed over while coming down after a high jetpack hop.

A quick cooldown would also potentially mean we'd see more roll-launch jet-kicks, which would be fun. It would give Mandos the chance to play more like the dynamic, over-the-top badasses they are, instead of just being... hover tanks.

If the cooldown was short enough, you'd also see mandos launching themselves into the air and then jetpacking again before they touch the ground, allowing for sort of infinite flight. This might not be a bad thing? They would be extremely vulnerable to pushing in the time that their jetpack is off.

It ought to have different sound effects and maybe visual effects, so everyone has a heads up to adjust their tactics. And because the current jetpack sfx would get pretty tiring if you heard them this frequently.

In combination with the Dual Pistols tweak, this would make Mandos very nearly as exciting and mind-bending as ARCs.

It would probably also make the... uh... Batmandalorian, more viable. And by Batmandalorian, I mean the Mandalorian who fights using just gadgets and boxing/jiu-jitsu. Did you know that you can use the Wrist Blaster in the middle of any melee attack? It's true. Being able to constantly reposition with large horizontal hops would make for.. some antics.

(on that note, Melee fuckaround ARCs aren't seen enough. ... makes me wish ARCs could buy reinforcements but only on the condition that they only buy max dex/stam and armor. It would be cool to have an almost legitimate punchy Melee character who's agile and dynamic instead of being a steamroller like Wook. There's not really a canon precedent for kung fu ARCs, though.)

also: how hilarious and wonderful would it be if the kick while jetpacking did Push-type knockback depending on how fast you were going? As in, if you landed a kick while jetpacking at full speed, it would be an entirely unblockable, but easily avoidable, "super-push." That would be incredible. And also, almost entirely reasonable, given the kind of momentum we're talking about here. I want to rocket kick a jedi to oblivion.

 

[Damn Polak]

pls someone competent judge this idea from balance point of view
sure it sounds interesting, but wouldn't it affect gameplay too much (from reb pov)?

 

[Lessen]

Variation idea significant enough to warrant a new post rather than an edit:

The way the current jetpack works, as far as I can tell, is that there is some particular acceleration constant that you can apply in any direction.

The way jump jets could work could be: The acceleration value starts very high, and then falls either linearly or exponentially to zero.

Meaning that at the moment that the jetpack turns on, you can gain a bunch of speed in a particular direction, but your ability to influence your direction then drops quickly as time passes, and your jetpack naturally reaches "off" by itself rather than suddenly going from "on" to "off."

(regular jetpack would stay the way it is.)

This would give it that kind of launch/jump feel that it ought to have, and would further distinguish it from the regular jetpack. The activation sound effect would be a bassy "BWOOMPSH" that sounds powerful but is still mellow enough that one doesn't mind hearing it every two seconds. The "running" sound effect would be a fwoosh that fades out as the jetpack dies out.

@Damn Polak I don't think it would affect the Rebel experience too much. It doesn't really add any entirely new roles to fight against, by which I mean, it doesn't add any new sniper threat, it doesn't really let Mandos get anywhere faster than they already can, and it doesn't give them a new way of escape that they don't already have. It doesn't really add anything that you have to adjust to or get wiped out by.

It just adds a gunner who uses crazy bursts of horizontal AND vertical movement, meaning you need to adjust your aim and get used to rapidly changing positional situations. (edit: but it's still fundamentally a gunner in all of its functionality) And a lot of its utility is countered pretty hard by Push, arguably, although that's not to say there aren't probably some unforseen balance things that would get cleaned up in testing. For example, if it had the burst acceleration described above, AND the one-button activation from my other thread, then it would be kind of a superior Dash, for Mando.

that could be resolved by adding mandatory upwards acceleration, so that the Mando is forced to have a moment of falling, meaning that they have a predictably-timed Push vulnerability window.

 

[DaloLorn]

This sounds a lot like Dark Trooper jetpacks from the Battlefront series. Much harder to shoot down, but much harder to shoot from as well.

Great mobility, though.

 

[Lessen]

harder to shoot from as well

Yeah, the regular jetpack by contrast would start to look like the "hover" pack, with a remarkable ability for air stability. (Which we're used to by now.)

 

[DaloLorn]

Honestly, compared to the Jet Trooper's jetpack, the Mandalorian one feels quite a bit faster - too fast for me to shoot at, and too fast for me to shoot from.

 

[SneakDissing]

this sounds kind of gay

 

[Lessen]

I'm on to you. I know that means you liked it.

Mostly because you literally Liked it.

 

[Noob]

Idk fam, theres gonna be a lot of falling to death mandos with this.

 

[DaloLorn]

It could work like jump 3, where using the jump jets will reduce fall damage by a substantial margin.

 

[Fang]

Mobility of that jetpack is underestimated. Crouch roll direction activate and you re across something in no time.

Land it right and jump as you land gives u an even faster burst of speed.

Never had a problem with aiming mando sniper in jetpack tho

 

[DaloLorn]

The jet roll is fairly unreliable, though. I've managed to make it work about two times out of twenty or more.

 

[Lessen]

@DaloLorn Ah, I probably know what you're doing wrong, since I used to be completely unable to do it, and now I can do it almost every time. The secret, for me, was: You gotta let go of crouch before you double-tap jump. You only hold crouch for as long as is necessary to initiate the roll.

@Fang I can't actually tell what you're saying, but if your main point was "the jetpack is already very mobile," I certainly agree. It's just that with the rather long cooldown, it's often very dangerous to use that mobility to get INTO a situation rather than holding on to it to get you out of a situation. Having a jetpack with a quick cooldown would create an alternate playstyle.

 

[Fang]

If we are taking it to be like swbf2 dark trooper jetpack I think it would be as problematic as dash can be for some people. Less it took huge chunk outta fuel as an example. Sound ok to me tho

I do agree with the in and out cooldown too long but not sure if that would be op if it was shorter

Then again one of my mains is mando so bias

 

[DaloLorn]

@DaloLorn Ah, I probably know what you're doing wrong, since I used to be completely unable to do it, and now I can do it almost every time. The secret, for me, was: You gotta let go of crouch before you double-tap jump. You only hold crouch for as long as is necessary to initiate the roll.

I read your post about that shortly before my last major attempt (the one that yielded the two successes). The sweet spot is pretty tight, tight enough that I don't try it anymore.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

I think a jumppack is a good idea.
Since mandalorian is the only gunner class besides arc i like to play.
And since jetpack freezes my game randomly, it would be good to have alternative options.
Last time i played manda without fuel, i did well, but i felt ashamed when the other mandas used their jetpack. xD

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

I don't know how I haven't seen this thread before but I think that'd be amazing. It'd give Mando new possibilities of play, especially aggressive melee + dual pistol playstyles.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Mando definitely needs some variety. Right now mando is fun, but a bit repetative - all you do is quickscope with EE-3 and roll-jetpack to move around. Sure, you can go for pistols, but they suck major balls to say the least. Wrist laser is garbage, flamethrower is good against jedi but useless vs everyone else. Rocket is usually just a cheap kill for 15 points, which I don't like in the slightest.

So, I'm all for new things for manda! This class is fun as it is, and can be even better if you can introduce something good.

 

[Onysfx]

I believe the jump jet idea was discussed before. I'd like to see some implementation of it, even if it's not mando (although it would probably be best just for mando or arc trooper (although arc has enough customization already), to keep class variety).

 

[Gumba]

Nerf ee3 snipe and you can have unlimited jetpack idc.