This is more of a general topic about the Recon Drone primarily and the Scouting feature on a lesser note. I am not trying to, at this time, get anything changed about these two features. I am simply listing my observations and wanting to have conversations with others on how it impacts gameplay in the battle ratings the Recon Drone inhabits compared to the battle ratings that it does not.
I think it’s pretty obvious that scouting is a pretty large tool to have at your disposal as a tank in GRB. The primary gameplay mechanic of GRB to me is the fact that the enemy team is completely hidden until spotted by your own eyeball contrasting with most other video games in general or Arcade ground within war thunder where the enemies will be listed by HUD. This makes the game much more “real” in a way where you must spot your own targets most of the time and it creates gameplay that wants you to stay hidden to the best of your ability while also trying to scout out where the enemy is or will be. For the entire GRB game up until around ~8.0-8.3 this is the case. Engagements are often won by who had the better initial positioning, who was observant of their surroundings, and generally who was more prepared.
This sort of gameplay allows for vehicles that aren’t maybe super strong in frontal engagements still work well because they can flank, hide, and maybe even scout their enemies for their team. Scouting itself I do not think is something that fundamentally changes this core gameplay because scouting can only be done with (more or less, some nuances exist) direct line of sight and therefore require the scouter to both potentially expose themselves while also limiting who and where they can scout on the map. Scouting gives information on exact location on the map with a small delay on updated information; it gives the type of vehicle that was scouted, and it ultimately causes the person scouted to have a giant target on their back.
The Recon Drone enters the game around BR 8.3 or so (I am not sure which BR has the first drone) and fundamentally changes this concept. The recon drone removes the need to have direct line of sight (to your main vehicle) and makes scouting much simpler. Where as before a scout tank may have the ability to scout out a flank, the recon drone enables you to scout out a map. Later recon drones at 9.3+ or so also start having thermal optics with high magnification making it impossible to not see the entire enemy team if you fly it high enough.
To balance this, gaijin decided to make scouting take longer to recharge if you have a recon drone active. I do not think this adequately compensates for the power increase the recon drone brings. You can still have 6-8 people scouted all at once if you scout everytime the cooldown ends.
Scouting is something that is pretty annoying to die to but you often can’t tell until you’ve died that you might have been scouted, and even then it can be a mystery. The game gives you no indication or hint that you were spotted both before or after you die, and the entire game (of grb) revolves around the idea that you are not lit up like a christmas tree to the other team. The way I play is, if I believe I have been spotted I basically lock down to below cover for 60+ seconds because I know if I start moving in any direction I will be preaimed on by the entire enemy team. The only thing I can use to tell if I’ve been spotted are assumptions based on 1. What the enemy vehicle is and 2. If it was looking in my direction when I shot it or not or 3. If a recon drone is in the air, and if I’m nearish to it.
On top of all this, the recon drone itself is very hard to shoot down in most cases with gun spaa requiring direct hits on a tiny vehicle, or missiles needing to be shot and guide themselves into a target anywhere between 100 meters or 2 kilometers away. IR missiles also won’t even lock onto these drones past 2.5km so if the recon drone climbs and goes a little away from the battle, IR missiles won’t work either.
All of this combined makes me say that basically any vehicle with a recon drone essentially cannot be considered a bad vehicle (relative to the game overall) no matter how bad the core vehicle is because the recon drone is so powerful by itself that it can hard carry any vehicle that can use it.
What do you think about recon drones and the impact they have on the core GRB gameplay? Do you think my paragraph above is correct?