Recently there was a discussion on the Discord about how useful/not useful radio calls were, and I had some thoughts on the subject.

I'll start listing off some of my own thoughts.

Mortar/Mortar 3: In my experience, the enemies tend to escape the relatively small blast radius before the strike hits. Then again, it's meant to be fairly cheap and opportunistic, so it's fine in that regard. It has less to do with mortar calls being weak than artillery calls being much more cost effective. At most, I'd reduce the delay by a second or two.

Paratrooper 4/8: Now this is where I tend to see calls as inefficient. I don't see any reason why I'd pay 30/25 RP for a bog-standard soldier who'll probably be killed before he even hits the ground except for two reasons: As a call-in medkit, or to force capture a point through massed calls.

So instead, separate the calls so they bring in specialized soldiers depending on the situation. Some ideas:

Medical Team (100RP): Four soldiers that have 2 medkits each, in addition to standard gear. Slightly lower call delay.
Combat Pioneers (150): Four soldiers equipped with 2 SMAWs and 2 Impact Grenades apiece in addition to standard gear.
Assault Force (200): Four soldiers armed with T2 vests and UTS-15's. Normal shotguns are also okay, but it may lack the punch to push forward, which is what this team is meant for. You may consider having their gear flagged as undroppable if you're worrying about the commonness of the UTS; though I find it already fairly common as is.

That takes care of the more common situations, but there's still a slot open for general reinforcements. I'd recommend raising the soldiers to 20 for 200. However, instead of coming down all at once, have then drop down one by one every few seconds. So the call is primarily used to trickle in reinforcements while the smaller teams are used more tactically.

One other thing to consider is to have this as a transport helicopter, the helicopter comes down, unloads soldiers one by one - like how a destroyed prison bus works. Not a necessity but interesting to consider.

Artillery 2/8: Now here's the thing, while Arty 8 is an incredibly situational call, Arty 2 is incredibly versatile and RP-efficient. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I'd say a semi-nerf could be considered.

Consider decreasing the accuracy of Arty 2 while having the shell impacts spread out a bit to cover more space. It's better for killing open targets, but emplacements and vehicles have a better chance of surviving.

Turn Arty 8 into Arty 4 (400). Since combo bonuses were nerfed into near-nonexistence, halving the cost and effect of the arty 8 strike can help it find more use. Of course, the reduced RP cost means that more artillery will be called onto players by AI; although it's still an incredibly small chance.

If not, then perhaps giving artillery calls a longer delay will let the mortar calls be somewhat competitive.

As for vehicle calls, it's incredibly difficult to balance vehicle calls since there's no accounting for player skill and preference. I personally never use vehicles unless they're already on the map; and even then I don't do it unless we really need to. I find that the most common complaint about vehicle calls is that they're not locked on a player-basis, meaning someone of higher rank can kick you out and you can't do anything about it.

Then there's the Supply Quad, where the primary problem is player stupidity. If nothing else, I'd like to see a stationary deploy sold in the armory so I don't have to babysit my investment or lose it within 5 minutes.

Finally, the boat drop which you might as well remove now that boatdropping no longer works. I think I can see one, maybe two places I'd ever use one.

As for an original call, one problem I face on a regular basis is finding a rare I want to stash, but having to run all the way back to the stash and watching the frontline disintegrate while doing so.

If you've played The Division, there's an aspect of the game where you can call an item extraction to have someone pick up your stuff and bring it to safety. I'd like to see a similar call, say for 100RP, a transport chopper comes down and gives you access to your stash for 30 seconds. Not very long, but long enough to dump whatever you need and get back to the front.

That's it for now, if anyone can add more, then you're welcome to reply.

Being a looter myself, I've always wanted a portable stash. But I do think making it portable would make it feel wrong. Besides, more often than not when you do have it stash it's usually safe. This would make it a bit more likely for an expeirenced player to be caught off gaurd stashing away goods, that the summer sale noobs passed up, by 18 soldiers that plowed through the AI and aforementioned summer sale victims.

_________________
Don't let the noob near the C4