Thruster pack is possibly the least powerful armor ability available to us, yet I've chosen to use it exclusively since launch. Why? Because I think it's cool and enjoy not choosing the obvious options sometimes. I just thought I'd briefly share what I've learned from using it

- It's clearly not evade. It doesn't boost very far, has a lengthy recovery animation, and is unable to dodge heavy weapons or grenades effectively

- I find it most useful as a means of quickly taking cover. At range, this allows me to harass enemies and successfully disengage when I'm at a disadvantage. I find it largely impractical in close quarters, mostly due to the lengthy recovery animation

- It can be used midair to change your trajectory. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to jump any further. Using it midair reduces your hang time and cancels the use of man cannons

- It can be used while crouching

- On solace, you can boost into the central lift and it will jettison you high above. This trick can be used to access each bases' balcony

- Towards the end of the recovery animation, you may initiate entering vehicles. When exiting vehicles, you may initiate a boost towards the end of the exiting animation. You may hold the respective buttons down, so input timing isn't an issue

I hope you find my discoveries useful! I think they're cool and I'm pretty proud of 'em

Anybody have any insight of their own to share?

Thruster pack is super strong. If you watch Ninja's stream he uses it exclusively. That was my main inspiration for trying it, and now it's all I use. It allows you to recover from stupid mistakes if you move out and are getting team DMR'd, as well as lots of other times. Love it, feels far less... janky than the other AAs.

Yep, it allows you to quickly take cover. It's cool that Ninja uses it, but I don't think that makes it super strong relative to the other abilities. Abilities like jet pack and hardlight shield have huge impacts on the game. In many cases, hardlight shield does thruster pack's job better, in addition to having plenty of other uses

I do think thruster pack allows more room for finesse than other abilities, which may be why Ninja uses it. Other abilities' uses aren't as nuanced either. I think it's awesome

At least that's my take on it

Thruster also has a invinciblity frame animation.

I started using it yesterday after using it in a MLG custom. Useful when applied well. Good for avoiding melees or disorienting the opponent.
Terrible recovery time, agreed...

when im playing BTB i find myself choosing my DMR sniper class which uses camo. i found out its harder for a mantis to spot a camo guy. used it to sneak up behind it and jack it. plus not many people can notice the camo on this one. for me theres alot of times where ive crouch camo walked right infront of a guy threw a plasma then the guy jumped backwards, getting me out of the blast range.

I enjoy movement above all else in this game. Use jet pack and thruster pack. I'm just not a defenvise guy with shield or camo. I use vison a few times to, pretty useful. Anyways

( I can't get this linky thing working... what...

EDIT_ fix'd link ~ Laffy~

Moving this thread to the War Room.

Deaf Smith wrote:

Thruster also has a invinciblity frame animation.

Haha, well that's sweet if true, but I looked it up and found nothing conclusive. I'm betting it's just a rumor, unless you know first hand

Lost Planet 2's evade had invincibility frames. It was great

Read it off a gamefaqs post. Nothing concrete.

Is it me or is the auto turret sentry a joke? Been trying to use it a bit, doesn't seem worth it.

I almost exclusively utilize the active camo ability, I find that at long range it makes you particularily hard to locate often giving you that first shot advantage. In close range, when engulfed with good camo it disables your enemies aim assist until either you break it with movement or recieve some damage. On occasion, the blue tri-scrambler glitches making you invisible without the motion sensor revealing downside. Once again, against new players the radar spam may act as a means of confusion; as they can not accuartely depict an enemy's location in the heat of battle. Holding onto you camoflague during combat may also help reduce the chance of enemy ally intervention aswell. I have found that a suprising number of enemies fall prey to the aforementioned scrambler and detection, in the midst of battle. I wonder if that is attributed to the current awareness epidemic, hmm?

Right now Camo is my sniper loadout, and Promethian vision is my everything else loadout. I'm considering playing around with other abilities, but for what I tend to do in games those two abilities compliment my playstyle the most.

I use Jet Pack for Haven, because it's so easy to move around the map that way. Other then that I'll use Regen or Thruster, I love thruster because it has so much potential compared to the other armor abilities. Been thing of trying out Autosentry as well.

Quick tip: When going up a grab lift like on Abandon or Adrift, you can thrust to the side to increase the time spent in the lift. This can disorient players as they are used to associating the whoosh sound with the player coming up immediately after, but with this trick you can catch them off guard! This is extremely useful in the middle on Abandon.

Been using the thruster more and more, for getting in and out of scrapes its brilliant, also its mid air boost means you can make jumps you couldn't normally

Deaf Smith wrote:

Is it me or is the auto turret sentry a joke? Been trying to use it a bit, doesn't seem worth it.

I agree, but an entire team using autosentry? That might be pretty effective


Also, hologram can be used for radar misdirection this time around

Storm 0ne wrote:

I agree, but an entire team using autosentry? That might be pretty effective


Also, hologram can be used for radar misdirection this time around

I would like to see whole teams all using the same AA.

Hologram: Enemies would waste a lot of ammo. Tanks, lasers, gauss hogs, and other single shot wepons that have a long reload time would be wasting a lot of time shooting nothing, while being shot in return.

Shield: every time you're about to die, put up your shield. I think the enemy team's kills would be drastically reduced if EVERY person they shoot at uses a shield. This would reduce enemy ordnance, as well. I suspect you could have big team games ending 100-25 quite often. And imagine the rage!

who's up for trying this?!