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[Ken]

Here's a question.

If death is just an annoyance at worst and a learning experience at best, might some DUST 514 units employ "ultimate contingency" weapons?  By that I mean, high-powered suicide devices.  This is a tactic employed on modern battlefields where suicide attackers will use small arms until they exhaust their ammunition, are surrounded, or are mortally wounded, and then detonate an explosive vest in the hopes of causing additional casualties.  IMO, this is the sort of last ditch tertiary weapon with which every DUST soldier should be equipped.  Think they'd actually do it?

[Matariki Rain]

Here's a question.

If death is just an annoyance at worst and a learning experience at best, might some DUST 514 units employ "ultimate contingency" weapons?  By that I mean, high-powered suicide devices.  This is a tactic employed on modern battlefields where suicide attackers will use small arms until they exhaust their ammunition, are surrounded, or are mortally wounded, and then detonate an explosive vest in the hopes of causing additional casualties.  IMO, this is the sort of last ditch tertiary weapon with which every DUST soldier should be equipped.  Think they'd actually do it?

Practically in-game: I honestly can't see why not. Also, tactics get different (and more like game mechanics) when you don't need to get your assets out.

Practically from an out-of-game perspective: I'm not sure if CCP would be comfortable with the potential media line that "this game has you play a terrorist suicide bomber". What do you think?

[Mithfindel]

Unconditional blowing yourself up is plain daft. What if a sniper shoots you while you're in the middle of your own squad? So, we get to blowing yourself up by your own choice. This is called hand grenades, or possibly explosive charges if you want to emphasize that the bang is big.

[Amann Karris]

You obviously don't understand the mindset of the average FPS player.

An average conversation from a FPS match:
"Stop dying you a**holes, you're killing our score!"
"Stop TK'ing, you're killing our score!"
"Stop orbital bombarding us, you're killing our score!"
"I swear to God, I will kick your lazy a** if you don't get that objective and stop jumping around like a r****d."

It's not just about objectives, it's maybe taking the objective, killing as many of the "other guys" as possible while keeping the rest of the team alive to rack up kills and efficiency ratings.  It's this little thing called the "competitive mindset".

What really ticks people like this off are the ones who "don't fight fair", by avoiding fights or using "support" methods to do all the kills.  Nukes, artillery, etc.  That is, if the entire opposing team does this.

Point is, orbital strikes are not really a good idea.  At least, not the "let's glass the surface while they're finishing up objective B" variety.  Also, if you're having them fight for you to get X resource, you really don't want to ruin all the factories and stuff.  Seriously, if you're just going to nuke it anyway, why send troops in the first place?

Same thing with "suicide" kill tactics.  Efficiency is something that a lot of FPS players pride themselves on.  There might be objectives like this, for instance, "Cause factory X to explode", which requires a sacrifice to complete (having to stay at the terminal while a hack is taking place, for instance) that might require one soldier to die in order for the rest of the team to succeed.  That's one situation which I would fully endorse.

[Ken]

"Stop dying you a**holes, you're killing our score!"

But will dying actually be a negative in DUST?  I think there's a potential for a rather interesting take on small unit combat with the brainscan/respawn concept being a fully integrated part of not only the game, but also the story, as it is in EVE.  Unreal Tournament explained respawns this way, but it was mostly tongue in cheek about it in favor of shuttup--moar shooting.  The new tactics and new evaluations of certain actions taken during a fight that deathless soldiers would create might make DUST different enough to really stand out from the FPS pack.  I for one hope they go for broke on the weird and unusual consequences of the technology.

[Saede Riordan]

"Stop dying you a**holes, you're killing our score!"

But will dying actually be a negative in DUST?  I think there's a potential for a rather interesting take on small unit combat with the brainscan/respawn concept being a fully integrated part of not only the game, but also the story, as it is in EVE.  Unreal Tournament explained respawns this way, but it was mostly tongue in cheek about it in favor of shuttup--moar shooting.  The new tactics and new evaluations of certain actions taken during a fight that deathless soldiers would create might make DUST different enough to really stand out from the FPS pack.  I for one hope they go for broke on the weird and unusual consequences of the technology.

I really hope they do this. If they release a halo clone with one new gun, I'm going to cry.

[Morwen Lagann]

Death walks beside every man, but only the mercenary turns and waves.
- Troye-Ame-Ven, Writer, Philosopher, Mortal

[Saede Riordan]

Death walks beside every man, but only the mercenary turns and waves.
- Troye-Ame-Ven, Writer, Philosopher, Mortal

I rather like that one. Its...clever.

[Amann Karris]

But will dying actually be a negative in DUST?

It won't matter.  Dying has no consequence in Star Trek Online PvP, yet people continue to act like it's a regular FPS.  Same with Pirates Online (absolutely no death penalty, yet "Pull your weight or you'll be kicked" still gets tossed around).

It's the whole, "If you weren't busy dying, you'd be busy scoring more points," idea.

[Graelyn]

I dunno....

Dying in EVE isn't 'nothing'. Those clones are expensive...maybe not compared to those 5 mile long warships, but still not at all fucking cheap.

I hope DUST will at least try to address this.

[Ken]

But will dying actually be a negative in DUST?

It won't matter.  Dying has no consequence... yet people continue to act like it's a regular FPS.

Right.  The suggestion I'm floating is whether they'll be willing to incorporate a suicide attack/failsafe as a gameplay option and thus redefine the usefulness of "being busy dying".  Clones are expensive, but so is the squad/tank/aircraft/command bunker you saunter up to and detonate yourself on once the ammo's run out.

Dying in EVE isn't 'nothing'.

Death isn't totally negligible, but as they've already shown, this is a setting where "[d]eath walks beside every man, but only the mercenary turns and waves."

[Amann Karris]

But will dying actually be a negative in DUST?

It won't matter.  Dying has no consequence... yet people continue to act like it's a regular FPS.

Right.  The suggestion I'm floating is whether they'll be willing to incorporate a suicide attack/failsafe as a gameplay option and thus redefine the usefulness of "being busy dying".  Clones are expensive, but so is the squad/tank/aircraft/command bunker you saunter up to and detonate yourself on once the ammo's run out.

Crashing planes, tanks, jeeps, etc. into targets could have the desired effect.  However, I doubt that when presented with these options, people will carry around suicide bombs.

It's just... not efficient.  You'll find that the FPS players that you want to "do the dying", will be the ones that are efficient, competitive, and will see such tactics as very inefficient.  Would you want to spend your money on tons of Zerg rushes, or do you want professionals who will get the job done for less?  I know I'd want some elite soldiers, the so-called "force multiplication" effect that you would get from a special forces unit.

Heh, in Battlefield 2 terms, I'd rather have 1 Engineer with a P90 and 1 Sniper with Claymores and a .50 cal by my side than 3-5 assault soldiers who bunny hop their way across the battlefield and throw grenades at their own feet.

EDIT:  For a reference, I've played Battletech, Mechwarrior, countless FPS games, tabletop war sims...  the guys who can get the most "bang for their buck" and want to win at all costs (and yes, that would include suicide options NOT linked to "Let's buy some suicide bombers") are the ones who win.

It's not the size of the gun (or the bang) but how you use it.

[Ken]

It's just... not efficient.

Actually, it's rather efficient.  One person with a suicide belt or vest can take out a lot of people.  The costs add up to simply finding the explosives and someone stupid enough to blow themselves up.  Idiots, explosives, and shrapnel are cheap.  The payoff is the potential to generate mass casualties and disarming psychological impact on large groups.  Why do you think the tactic is employed on modern counterinsurgency battlefields and by terrorists?  It is effective and cheap.  "The bomber will always get through."

Now, in DUST, where your elite troops don't have to worry about coming out of an attack alive, you can put the same kind of suicide weapon on them for use in contingencies.  As a primary form of attack in a fight involving heavy weapons and significant standoff, it makes little sense as you're less like to encounter viable targets at close enough ranges, but for an assault team trying to breach and clear an objective of enemy infantry (urban areas, buildings/complexes, starship interiors) it might just be the perfect back-up to ensure success or at least squeeze a little more oopmh out of the attack.

For example, Team A attempts to assault and take a command structure.  Heavy weapons and air assets cannot support as the structure/some item must be taken intact.  In the assault, Team A is defeated.  One or more members then detonate a suicide weapon in the attempt to cause additional casualties before going down, making a follow-on assault by Team B (or even Team A themselves in Round 2 bodies) easier.  Trying to think outside the box in a setting (EVE/DUST) that embraces the 'respawn' as something fundamental to its story and tactics rather than a necessary game mechanic.

EDIT:  An additional thought I had was perhaps giving DUST team leaders/commanders (presume they'll have some kind of overhead command and control interface to gather intel and issue orders) the ability to detonate a device carried by one of their troops after they're killed.  See an enemy squad/vehicle moving to loot your trooper's body on your C2 overview?  (Maybe he was carrying some CTF "crypto keycard" item and they need it.)  Send the command to blow the bomb and ruin their day.  Even if not used, it adds a booby-trapping element to things and makes for an effective psychological weapon if the enemy knows you could possibly do it.

SECOND EDIT:  Deploying short-range ECM could interfere with the detonation or remote-det of such weapons.  Adds another layer to the gameplay.

[Victoria Stecker]

Unless your next clone is right next to your battlefield, which is really only viable for the defender, it seems like dying should take you out of the fight, at least for a while.

So, something more like AA and less like Halo.

I most of the disagreement in this thread is based on when/why someone would blow themselves up. I believe the OP (or whoever it was) suggested it as a last ditch, out of ammo, surrounded, wounded, etc, rather than as a planed, "I'm gonna run up to that tank and kerplode!"

In the absence of anything else productive to do, going to die anyways, why not take someone/something with you?

[Kohiko Sun]

Maybe there will be something in the game mechanics to influence it. I don't play FPSeseses (unless you count Fallout or Mass Effect), but don't some that aren't RPG based let you 'skill up' between games, rounds, levels, or whatever? If the DUSTers use the slow scanning method to put back-up scans in storage for their cloning instead of pilot's insta-burn ones built into a pod, they'd not get all the 'experience' gained since the last update if they die. So, maybe they'd start to fall behind the SP/XP/whatever of others who survive the fights if they suicide too often.

I'm just supposing about something I know nothing about - FPSes in general and what type of cloning method DUST will have. Please don't shoot me. Unless they have said something about this stuff (and they may have; I don't pay attention to it), isn't this a bit of putting the cart before the horse?