In today’s update, we’veadded the ability to scout enemies while using Scout UAVs without having to switch to a tank. Alongside this are a number of changes made for balance purposes:
When a Scout UAV is up in the air and operational, the delay before reusing Active Scouting after a successful scout has been increased:
In Arcade Battles, the cooldown after a successful scout is now 12 seconds, and in Realistic Battles it is now 18 seconds. In both modes, this extended cooldown occurs regardless of whether you scouted with a UAV or a tank.
When no Scout UAV is up in the air and operational, the cooldown time in both modes remains at 6 seconds, as before.
When the Scout UAV is up in the air and operational, the reduction in the aircraft’s spawn cost (in spawn points) for each target destroyed by an ally you scouted is halved, regardless of whether you were using a Scout UAV or a tank during scouting. However, the rewards in research points, Silver Lions, and mission points remain the same.
The maximum scout range when using a Scout UAV is limited and depends on whether the Scout UAV has a thermal imager. For Scout UAVs without a thermal imager, the scout range is limited to 1,500 meters. For ones with a thermal imager, it is 3,000 meters. If the distance to the selected target (in Arcade Battles) or the distance to the aiming point (in Realistic Battles) exceeds the maximum scout range, the action in the panel will be grayed out and become unavailable. If you still try to scout the target, a hint will appear on screen informing you that the maximum range has been exceeded.
We expect these changes to balance the introduction of Active Scouting from Scout UAVs. We’ll be monitoring its effectiveness and if necessary, will adjust it to ensure an interesting and balanced gameplay experience.
It was already possible by marking the target using the UAV and then scouting the mark with your vehicle. This update seems to make it easier but less rewarding, so no big difference here. The only issue I see is more people just sitting on drones and not doing anything useful.
The first balance change I am placing my upvote under. Scouting is a Fantasy Fictional mechanic (the way it is implemented), that should never be introduced to the game.
Now it balances legal spotting cheatscouting drone, at least.
I didn’t expect this to come this early :D I assumed it would come alongside the next major update. Nice little surprise ^^
Does this mean that if i try to scout a target that is to far away the scouting option goes on the longer cooldown in the same way as if you used it when there was no target in the crosshair to scout?
This was already the case before without any of the restrictions that will now be in place, this is in practice a nerf that will 3x the time per scout and 1/2 the air spawn point reward. So effectively a 6 times nerf to the mechanic but it’s made more available to all players instead of those few in the know.
It’s grayed out if you’re exceeding range but have not yet used it. It doesn’t mention what happens mechanically when you try anyway (other than the on-screen hint). I think the same hint comes up when you fail to scout in a tank and the scout option goes on a longer cooldown.
Maybe a mechanic to get the drone back (land on the tank?) so that I’m not forced to having the 18s delay. Perhaps a range limit on the drone itself would be nice too, like a 1km bubble around the tank
So now, if you have a UAV in the air but scout without the use of it, you get the UAV penalties ? That seems quite terrible to me. I understand that it is made to prevent spamming the current scouting method, but I think a better way to do that would be to only apply the penalty when in the UAV or up to say, 5s after leaving the UAV. This way if someone is doing regular scouting they are not penalized from having launched a scout drone 5 minutes prior and not being able to take it back (since you can only lose it by destroying it and you can’t get it back, even when on a cap point)
Why even do this? maps are already tiny, light tanks are very fast and binos and commander sights can spot from behind cover, this is going to ruin flanking and make second spawning even more pointless because the whole team will be lit up by a few light tanks hanging around at spawn and the enemy will just wait around corners to pop u, and add to that the fact that the uav drones are so hard to shoot down.
This is absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary, might as we just ad arcade markers at this point…
