I still think just giving it 3d flying, and perhaps vertical mount-ability might be the most viable for the Tow. I think those are things that have been agreed on from the many of these Tow rework threads that I’ve bothered reading. I think I’d like to just see that stuff done and then move on to if it needs more dmg as that’s going to open it up for use against helis as well as better use from helis.
but what your saying here is make them like the flute and thats a no. we have flutes, they are called flutes. i agree they need 3d flight but having them laser guided would just be making a singular flute with no real pay off. i prefer the tow the way it is being able to be guided. it has a downside for a reason.
this is crossout, not warthunder. the games work by completely different mechanics in both games.
jubokko description: When dealing damage, the trap gradually reduces the power and maximum speed of the enemy armored vehicle.
it doesnt slow down the car immediately to its minimum speed. its a gradual over time effect, the longer the wire stays on the car the slower they get. seriously you have it in game, look it up.
then slap on 2 cans of redbull and watch the magic!
What bothers me the most with TOW, is that a single 5 energy weapon CANNOT be enough, regardless of the PS you’re playing at. As long as it stays 5 energy 1 max, it’s going to be crap.
So my suggestion to fix is to slowly ramp up its stats and energy cost until it feels like it somewhat has a place in the game. Something like +10% blast damage +10% radius +10% durability +10% projectile durability + 5% boosted speed +1 energy
Giving it a perk that makes sense would be the icing on the cake. I kinda like OP’s tandem warhead suggestion, both in terms of logic and in terms of gameplay (tho straight up piercing 3 blocks is bonkers). Another suggestion would be to increase the damage and radius based on distance in boosted mode, with a bonus in case of manual detonation.
I’ll start with what the weapon needs at this point:
3D flight and vertical launch. In order to be usable in the helicopter mode. Because:
a) That’s a large part of the game it can’t be used in.
b) It’d be super fun to use against helicopters.
More flight time.
a) 11-12 sec. in the ground mode. With Hans’ +2 sec. = 10 sec., it felt just right fighting the Icarus VII at 75 km/h. At 85 km/h, it has to be more.
b) In the helicopter mode, even more flight time, to account for having to gain altitude (ground launch - because how else, with the missile view and having to stay in cover), as well as to cover even more distance chasing helicopters. This is tricky to balance - because the new maps designed specifically for the helicopter mode are larger, so the weapon could need more range to be practicable there. But now, with the older maps being added, maybe not as much in some cases. However, it should be remembered that more time spent on piloting the missile = lower overall damage output. So this aspects balances itself. Alternatively, this could be solved with the help of perks or co-driver skills (see 3c).
Weapon perks or co-driver skills:
a) +100% damage at launch, dropping to +0% upon travelling 100 m. To counter close-range attackers, such as Destructor hovercrafts boldly rushing solo all the time, vaporizing everything with their OP crap.
b) Missile turn speed increasing with the distance travelled or with time, to offset the time investment on the Clarinet pilot’s part. I didn’t need this in the ground mode, but in the helicopter mode, with greater distances, hence more time invested, it would be useful. I’m not yet sure if I’d absolutely need this perk/skill, but it should be tested, and perhaps it’d be needed.
c) More range in exchange for the damage dropping with bonus flight time or distance travelled. This would be a co-driver skill. Let’s say, the base flight time would be 11 or 12 sec. And the skill would add between 10 and 15 seconds, with the damage gradually decreasing by 3-5% per second. This may seem like a lot, but with a perk or skill increasing the missile turn speed, it could work. The weapon’s effectiveness would thus depend on the pilot’s skill. They still would be able to attack targets far away, and the closer they are, the more damage remaining.
d) The ability to activate other weapons and modules while piloting the missile. Such as to use a verifier without having to cancel a missile, or cloak up.
e) The ability to assign more energy points, thus increasing the damage. Or maybe the flight time too. It would be a way to scale the weapon for higher power scores. Of course, the weapon PS would increase accordingly. This would be done in the weapon’s properties, or via a module, possibly by adding multiples of it. I had this idea years ago.
f) A free cloak or force field (for the whole vehicle or at a certain radius around the weapon) activating automatically when an enemy gets witihn a certain distance - maybe. As an active co-driver skill. I’m not sure about this; it could be too much.
g) Damage resistance increasing with the missile,flight time or distance travelled - could be too much.
h) The ability to control the missile in the boosted mode. IIRC, on 2019.09.21, that was possible for a few hours, until a quickfix disabled it. I’m biased, so to me it may not seem OP, because the missile turn speed stayed the same, so it was harder to hit targets. But perhaps it was OP. Anyway, it meant that someone was testing that functionality and it went live by mistake.
i) More damage in the non-controlled phase? I want to be careful with implementing a perk or skill increasing damage directly. If the damage increased with time or distance travelled, it would mean lower risk = greater reward, which seems like the opposite of what it should be. Same for the blast radius. But the damage or blast radius increasing only in the non-controlled phase could possibly be not-OP; I’m not sure about this.
j) A tandem warhead, with penetrating of stuff and so on. Not my idea, but how I would solve this.
Only active up to a certain distance travelled, or for X seconds of flight time. Two missiles flying together, one stuck in the rear of another, like some fabulous queer duo, a couple of albatroses broken free out of bounds of rigid societal mores. That’s what you guys want. Sorry for “guys.” Whatever your chosen pronoun(s). More as a defensive measure, because it would be OP at greater distances. Similarly as above, less risk should equal a smaller reward. Let’s say the rear missile would serve as the propulsion source for both, until that gets exhaused, and then only one missile remaining. A tragic end to this captivating love story.
Co-driver suggestion: Hans, the white German knight is back from the gulag! (Perhaps usable only in the helicopter mode, if he’d be OP in the ground mode.)
Passive skills:
Missile turn speed increasing with the flight time or the distance travelled by the missile.
+100% damage at launch, dropping to +0% after the missile travels 100 m.
Extra 10-15 sec. flight time, with the damage dropping by 3-5% per second.
Active skill: I don’t know what it should be. Does there have to be one? Like what? More blast radius, more damage, or a penetrating warhead if you don’t miss several times in a row, like what Jay has? I’m not sure if I need that. Or a free cloak activating when an enemy gets within a certain distance - but only when piloting a missile? Or a force field instead? For the whole vehicle or only within a certain radius around the weapon? Or just some damage resistance, perhaps increasing with the missile flight time or distance travelled?
The Clarinet is a ‘cheat’ weapon, in the sense that targets can’t shoot back. I used it with success for 3,5+ years at 10-12K PS, and I didn’t need more damage, explosion or missiles in one launch (frome the weapon alone ). So every buff has to be carefully considered, because it’s easy to make this weapon OP, for the very reason that you don’t get shot at (ideally).
One major nerf involved sending co-driver Hans to a gulag, along with his +2 second missile flight time, as well as increasing the Icarus VII’s top speed to 90 km/h (now 85 km/h). With hovercrafts being the primary targets of this weapon, there is a quintessential relationship between how fast a hovercraft is approaching the Clarinet pilot, and how soon it can be intercepted. With a faster Icarus VII and the Clarinet’s reduced range, that balance was disturbed to the point where I could no longer use boosted Clarinet cars. I had managed to still use them after the Cockpit’s damage max damage bonus was reduced to +40% (should’ve been left at 50% or more for 80-part vehicles, and a separate perk for leviathans). But the loss of Hans was too much.
Then I switched to using the Clarinet with 4 Barriers, in order to make up for the shorter range. It worked, until the Omni (which is best for such a vehicle) lost the ability to insta-brake just over a year ago. I started to fall off cliffs, into chasms, and so on. And I’d just began spending hours per map learning new fancy tricks with the Omni. That, paired with the Barrier’s force field being destroyed by ACs in 2 seconds, was too much. And fundamentally, a Clarinet vehicle needs to be able to stop on the spot and immediately launch a missile, or it won’t be efficient. And now it doesn’t. So, after months of mainly playing raids, I switched to the helicopter mode once it was added, and that was it.
So a flute variant. No more camera view?
This is OP. Would you want to face such a weapon in battle?
Yes, but with the camera view. With a setting to toggle between stabilizing the view relative the ground and no stabilization. The former would result in suddenly flipping the view while performing vertical loops.
That’s OP.
Yes, thank you. 3D flight and vertical launch to make it usable in the helicopter mode, and then let’s see if the weapon is lacking. Probably more range, if only to account for the extra distance to air targets from the ground. Let’s start with 20 sec. like in the TOW brawls. Gaijin would probably prefer to sell us a new TOW, maybe even a legendary in a BP, unless they settle for a pack-exclusive epic.
Was enough for years :
Feel free to browse my YT channel to find out that it already did have a place, even at 12K.
Kindly see point 3e above.
I agree.
Something having to do with the travel time or distance would be a way to offset the time investment on the part of the pilot. In the past, I’ve suggested increasing turn speed - that would be enough for me. Maybe more damage or blast could work in the non-controlled phase, but it could be OP against slow ground vehicle.
1-hit instapop on a pristine 12K hovercraft in the first 25 seconds of a battle or less?
Because you only have 25 seconds until a hovercraft carrying 2 scorpions does damage to someone on your team. Oh, wait, that was with the Icarus VII at 75 km/h… Now it could be even less.
The Clarinet is like a scalpel. I didn’t need it to be a hammer, because with enough skill, this hard-to-master weapon was powerful enough. Most buff suggestions I see are from players that don’t realize what it could do - maybe not anymore, for various reasons. So they want it to be like a cannon with a lot of damage and little skill required.
It certainly doesn’t help that there’s now more vegetation and trash on the ground, or that the bridge debris can’t be flown over. I had to re-learn piloting the missile in Old Town after the new shrubbery appeared, but that’s doable. Still, maybe 3D flight is needed for the groud mode too, now that we know the vehicle wrecks aren’t going anywhere.
No, I’m the top Clarinet pilot in the entire game, used to it being a challenging weapon to use - as a trade-off for staying in cover. These changes would make it OP in my hands. I invite anyone to get good - because it feels real good once you’re there.
Not really, it dropped out of use 1 year after its release do to nerfs. like some heavy nerfs now days it is a joke weapon. and has been for 4 of the five years I have been playing this game now. It was only viable for a bout a year before nerfs hit it.
And even after it stopped being useful they kept nerfing it, until it was so useless most blues out DPS and DPH it.
when your damage per shot is out shown by a median and that is a special yeah it got nerfed to much.
On the tandum warhead idea being OP, it wouldn’t espcially if it and the can have Z axis control was added. it would allow the tow to be an armor buster that counters spaced armor builds.
Do you mean, like, June 2018? By August of 2020, when the Cockpit was released, I’d been using the Clarinet for 1.5 years at 10K+, with 2 Fuze drones. Dropping hovercraft like candy rain.
If viewed as a hammer. Which it isn’t. My main channel video, The Road to Valhalla, is made up of footage from late 2020, and the weapon still looks fine there. But it depends on how one used it.
Because you have to know where to aim. But you should know that, as perhaps the one who first came up with using it with the Neutrino (which I didn’t find necessary or appealing, but I realize it’s useful). you know, as in “get good.”
Oh, yes, and hit the enemies from above, so they’d have to armor the top of the vehicle too, where there is usally less armor. I see two different notions conflated here - why do you need an armor-buster warhead to counter space armor if you’re striking from the top? Seems really excessive. Like you have an ulterior motive to in fact bypass the cabin and hit the generator udnerneath.
I’ve sen you relegate the weapon to 6K in the general chat a number of times, through the window of my 12K boosted Clarinet cars. I’ve read some of your creative ideas, and I assume your skill to be much more than could be inferred from what you just wrote. In fact, I considered you one of the best Clarinet pilots. But you refused to grow, to explore new, bountiful avenues (just like GreekRebel36, whose latest vehicle is at 6803 PS - and he’d complain a lot, too). While I only kept upping the stakes, from 6K+ in 2017, to then switch to cannons and Barriers, to come back at 10K with 2 Fuzes, and then go past 11K with the Cockpit, to end up at 12K or very close to that number. And I was just fine. And all the while, reading your complaints from time to time, not really embarrassed, just confused. Because I knew you were good. For someone of that caliber to be stopped by some barrier that I hadn’t even realized was there.
By the time Black Hat released the video showing a vertically boosting Cockpit Clarinet car, that required grouping with another vehicle to boost from, I’d already driven a boosted Cockpit Clarinet solo for 1.5 months, one that didn’t need anyone’s help. Mine was a complete solution to the hover menace, an early version, before I started recording (or actually remembered how to use OBS, because I’d recorded a lot of videos some time before the Cockpit). Even that early version was efficient, independent. I was a pioneer, always on the cutting edge of the latest Clarinet tricks. It just happened. By browsing the available hardware and deciding what was needed to compose the most effective Clarinet car at the time. It didn’t matter that I’d hit 10K, 11K, 12K - as long as I was was getting results, and of use to the team, I knew I was on the right path.
Weeks before the Cockpit released, I knew from the leaks that some kind of spinning would be involved. I was able to do it with 4 Bigfoots ST, and then the advent of the Buggy wheels made the job even easier. But for that, one had to keep an open mind and always be on the lookout for ways to innovate.
In December of 2021, one nasty Evil Monkey schooled me in the battle chat on how I should be using Kermits - I chose not to educate that pretentious noob that the Buggy ST is better for the Cockpit.
I built an Avalanche car 6 weeks before the weapon released, with accounting for the weight, everything (2 upgraded Kermits ST, 2 Claws, as the Sabbath hadn’t been released, 2 upgraded Bigfoots ST).
On 2024.02.16, when the news post detailing the proposed changes to the energy system appeared on the website, I already knew how to improve my favorite vehicle at the time. And some week later, took advantage of the hardware discount upgrading event to prepare a Razorback in lieu of the Hot Red, which was supposed to use the same amount of energy later on (which is now either cancelled or delayed - but I’m ready anyway).
Deep down at 6K, you won’t see everything that’s possible. Otherwise, we would’ve met in a battle (which I seem to remember we had).
And I have been playing for 5 years at all PS. I can tell you the tow is in a poor state compared to what it could be.
I don’t view it as a hammer hell I use to use it upto 9k and even some at 10k before it just got unusable as they kept nerfing it.
you are spearking to the guy who was known as the “TOW MAIN” for 3 years, you are preaching to the quire. the thing is the medians can do its job better now days and the flute even more so as just one of those rockets does the same as the tow does. and tehy have longer range.
DING you now know why the Tow, the Kornit, and javelin exist. That is literally one of the things they are designed to do.
Yeah not going through that long post, Omega I had to ask around you are known as a handycap on teams.
funny considering all my builds are 10k+ and only ONE of my builds uses hovers and its an incinerator build. also goes to show you know nothing about me.
i find it funny that i dont agree with your stances so you have to resort to insulting me, or attempting to insult me. grow up.
but you know what, ill say this in regards to the tow.
make it like the guided rockets in warthunder, launch the rocket and control the rocket using the stick you use to drive but from a distance. it would have 3d flight and its own mode/scope to go into while firing it. up the damage a bit and add a perk to deal increased damage to helis / flying enemies.
no this would not have laser guides like the flutes, it would instead be completely controlled by the player as they watch the rocket fly from a distance and being able to steer it on their own. however the downside would be the player being in the open and having to stand still to fire it.
Bruh no offense meant, I’m sure you are good with TOW since that’s basically all you play, but if I had to chose between listening to clarinet boosted car dude playing at 12kPS with great success for years, or art build dude with TOW + grenadiers who never showed gameplay… Well I’m listening to Omega.
I think it’s ridiculous from both of you to claim you’re the best clarinet player btw so there’s that, but your “and I never heard of you!” (“there’s only room for one of us in this town!”) is hilarious considering Omega is the only person I’ve seen post TOW gameplay in 6+ years.
edit: lmao my man I am reading some of those posts, you need to deflate that ego quickly or I’ll call you Marie-Antoinette lmfao.
i think you should be able to have two, it should be mouse controlled and have the camera view in currently has, it should have 3d flight, and the tandem charge doesn’t sound too bad actually. more flight time and Caucasus machine guns automatically defend your car when attacked while using the missle (and maybe an auto driving cab)