not done- some brief points

1. Route making:
	The new mods should be somewhat familiar to old players. In a physics set that's "vanilla-ish" we can retain the same routes even if we get rid of regen or adopt a new weapon system. a) produce an explosive weapon that has the same impulse an explosive nitron. b) adjust damage so that light health pool wont run out from 2 hits of said weapon. c) adjust health recovery system to come in at a viable amount of health.

Example:
Concussion Nitron: deals 400 damage, 132,000 impulse to self (adds ~65 sanics)
Light health: 900
health recovery: 2 health packs, 350 health each

Start after a hill: 900 H, 135 sanics
Step 1: Impulse Jump, 500 H, 200 Sanics
Step 2: Health Pack, 850 H, 200 Sanics
Step 3: Impulse Jump, 450 H, 265 Sanics
Step 4: Health Pack, 800 H, 265 Sanics
Step 5: Grab flag

This replicates both T:A style Explosive Nitron routes and T1/T2 style Health Packs health system. Before you mention that chasers do not have time to do 2 Impulse Jumps, read the perks section.

X.

X. Perks

In T:A, perks are a real cluster fuck. Seemingly random placement and combinations, and stupid mechanics. I have a solution here: break perks into two types, ability perks and buff perks. Ability perks help balance roles and buff perks grant situational advantages.

Quickdraw weapon swap now standard. Quickdraw 'nade throw deactivated.

Ability Perks:

Lightweight: New mechanic- double self impulse in exchange for double self-damage. Chasers/cappers.
Superheavy: Half all impulse recieved, no screen shake from explosives. No splat damage. HOFs/snipers
Survivalist: Ammo cookies carry 2 Health packs. Offense.
Moar?

Buff Perks:

Looter: Ammo cookies fully restock your ammo.
Ultra Capacitor: +20 E.
Quick Feet: +25% Run speed.
Safe Fall: Vanilla
Moar needed

2. OP by magnitude vs mechanic

Hirez was never very careful about weapon balance, but there needs to be a distinction in what makes something too powerful for the game.

For example, a weapon that is like many others but deals more damage than typical would be op by magnitude. Simply scaling down the damage would make the weapon appropriately powered.

A weapon that's OP by mechanic is something like the Stealth Pack. You can nerf the stealth pack by making it cost more energy, and that will certainly make it more difficult to use and be effective with. However, those who are still effective with it post-nerf will just continue to be as much of a problem as they were pre-nerf. The nerf wouldn't solve the real problem. Major changes in the mechanic would be the answer.

3. Weapon scaling per armor (power vs number of)

4. Benefits and drawbacks of class system

5. Countering Snipers

It's pretty common knowledge that countering snipers has not been done very effectively in T:A. In a game like Tribes with big open maps a sniper's range advantage is really powerful, especially against cappers travelling in nice, predictable parabolas. This is a case where cappers MUST rely on teamates in order to have success, but countering snipers, from a mechanics standpoint, is difficult because of their superior range.

A good counter for snipers needs to be able to close the distance to the sniper quickly. It isn't about making offenses frag harder or the sniper being easier to defeat, it's about nullifying the range advantage.

This was why T2 inviso-man worked. Invisibility allowed players to close distances undetected, but when they arrived, enemies were alerted by the sound. Now, I think invisibility is a shitty mechanic for an FPS.There are much better options for closing distances.

6. Sniper Bandaids

As much as Tribes Vets praise how well balanced snipers were in past games, I think the mechanics behind the balance were shitty. Let's take a minute and analyze how the sniper was balanced in these games.

* shot costs energy
* mandatory light class
* mandatory energy pack

In their words, these are bandaids. These are auxillary features of the weapon that deviate from the mechanics of other weapons and limit how you would play the class.

I think we should take a different attitude on sniper balance. We should develop a mechanic for the weapon that rewards using it in a balanced fashion.

New sniper-weapon function: damage related to the fire-ers health, in such a way that less health = more powerful.

Consequences:
* Snipers are most vulnerable when they are most deadly to cappers.
* Since they are vulnerable while they are deadly, any reasonably balanced pack should be ok to run with a sniper.
* Snipers cannot DJ while they are deadly to cappers, because it will cause them to die.
* Snipers will be able to DJ while they are not vulnerable to cappers, allowing for creative mobile sniper play styles.
* Snipers who attempt to chase will be very vulnerable to enemy snipers, chain in the midfield, or even cappers chaining back.
* Snipers will choose light classes to take full advantage of mobility. Since the sniper will have to be low on health in order to be deadly, Mediums and Heavies lose their health advantage over Light classes.

* Thrust pack
* Overdrive core from Legions (maintains speed)
* Energy Shield pack
* [Binary] Shield core from Legions (blocks all damage for a certain amount of time)

Note 1: If I were to Tribes-ify the Overdrive core, I would give it a mechanic similar to the Energy Shield pack, where it costs a bit of energy to be active and quite a bit of energy to maintain speed in a situation where you would have slowed down. (new Rockbouncing)

Note 2: If I were to Tribes-ify the Shield core, I would give it a mechanic similar to the Thrust pack, where it costs  given amount of energy. After a brief moment it would activate, and then nullify the next damage you take and deactivate, or deactivate after a short period of time. Like the Thrust pack, it would get less effective if you activated it with less energy, quickly diminishing the time it was active for. The result would be a hard counter to burst damage sources, but the shield would be useless against higher ROF weapons such as a GL or Chaingun. The slight lag in activation would prevent abuse by reactively pushing C as soon as a disk heads your way. You would have to use some foresight to predict when the shot was incoming. Additionally, this shield would depart from Legions in that it won't protect you from self damage or fall damage.

You should see a pattern develop here.



This is an idea that will make Tribes vets scream, but I think that this would be a great way to implement snipers in a way that removes most bandaidy features, listed below.

T1/T2 Sniper Balance bandaids:
* mandatory light class
* mandatory energy pack
* energy cost per shot

Fix: Redesign weapon, new function
* Sniper-weapon damage related to the fire-ers health, in such a way that less health= more powerful. (as bandaidy as the energy cost function)

Example: At 900+ Health, Sniper Rifle deals 100 Damage. At 100 Health, Sniper deals...400?500?650?

Function: ?



7. Sniper mobility