Heart of Deimos: New K-Drive Mods, Shooting & Velocipods Megathread

[Ursoon]

new vapor trail mod energy cost. 10 energy/s for a k-drive boost? should be tuned town a little or be affected by efficiency mods. also hildryn uses 10 shields instead of energy. it's the best k-drive frame now (if it's intended).
also k-drive speed + both k-drive boost speed mods + maxed magus drive still doesn't feel that it can outrun the archwing.

velocipod spawn is random and i don't want to look for them when i can use my k-drive instead.

[Celetille]

Juice and Vapor Trail are awesome mods that really enable what I think K-Drives should be about: going fast and looking cool. The 10 boost speed is very noticeable and welcome, and it's fueled by doing tricks which is very flavorful. I don't mind putting another 2 forma into my K-Drive to for these mods.

Velocipods are utterly pointless in my opinion. It's just a base K-Drive, which you already have if you did the intro quest for Fortuna. The only reason to go through the hassle of running up and mounting one is for the novelty. I farmed Vent Kids reputation, spent rep to buy parts, put a potato in my K-Drive, leveled my K-Drive not once, but enough to put 4 forma into it, bought mods with even more reputation, spent endo leveling these mods, and have it customized to my color-scheme. My K-Drive is summoned on demand where for a Velocipod I must run, skate, or fly around the world to even find one. What reason is there for me to abandon all the effort and benefits granted by my customized, modded K-Drive compared to a Velocipod?

[Larrell]

Dismounting off the k-boards (and velocipods) feels very, very 'sticky' now. I seem to have to hold X for a second or two and then release to dismount, instead of pressing X. May I also be no doubt the nth player to go "Velocipod for kboard slot when?"

[Her_Lovely_Tentacles]

When doing the new K-Drive Races on Deimos, the ring-markers are pretty far apart from each other, which makes keeping on track pretty difficult - I am often unsure where I am even supposed to be going. This makes them feel less fluid than on Fortuna.

The new mods Juice and Vapor Trail are fantastic, they work very well together and encourage you to do tricks even while using them for transportation, make that a very fun and cohesive experience!

[Azamagon]

Important QoL

When using the Tranq Rifle and aiming down its sights, let the Tranq "scan" for highlight Velocipods too. They are very hard to find and tag compared to all other Deimos' wildlife, due to lacking this specific scanning highlighting option.

[kohlths]

a mod that allows the player to change their in air velocity with more ease (air jets sound like a good name for them)

also if we could use warframe ability's on k drive that would be a good insentive to use them! 

[NeroEzioDelacroix]

Please give us summonable velocipods

[Frostyinferno]

Juice and Vapor Trail are both top-tier mods. I'm very pleased with these additions, Juice is especially interesting as you can fully regen your energy pretty easily on the way to a destination even with Vapor Trail active.

Velocipods are cool, but the fact that they are random spawns makes me hardly ever use them. There definitely should be a way to permanently obtain a velocipod as a vehicle, maybe after trading 15-20 tags of a type or something. Having them as a permanent option would be something I personally would be happy to grind for.

[Her_Lovely_Tentacles]

On 2020-08-30 at 3:43 PM, Azamagon said:

Important QoL

When using the Tranq Rifle and aiming down its sights, let the Tranq "scan" for Velocipods too. They are very hard to find and tag compared to all other Deimos' wildlife, due to lacking this specific scanning option.

I misread this at first. What you mean is the highlighting, which doesn't work properly for Velocipods, right?

It did get me thinking, however, about codex scans as well. If we want to get codex scans, we have to scan animals first, and then collect them (same with fish, which is extra bothersome, since they tend to dispawn in the time you can pull out the spear again!) This doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, catching fish and conservation animals should always also grant a scan.

[kohlths]

I've found that even with the rail magnetism mod for rail grinding the "meat rails?" are often glitchy and hard to grind on

 

[CopperBezel]

Velocipods are cute. They're fine. Some people like to fly bugs and I can appreciate that. 

But I've been wanting secondaries on K-Drive since uh, pretty much they launched, and it's exactly as silly and questionably useful as I'd hoped. K-Drives don't have the utility of archwing and this doesn't change that, but it does mean I don't have to jump off for small things, and it's fun. It's good. 

[Getsugaru]

I too desire these lovely dragonflies as summonables.  Additionally, please make them detectable by the tranq rifle since they are conservation targets.  Ironically, I find the rarer White velocipods more often than the violet or green simply because they stand out enough for me to spot them without the codex scanner.

I say this because I care; it's obvious the dev team put a lot of time and care into these adorable bugs and I want to use them more.

On a semi-related note, could we possibly get a mode that allows players to race against each other around specialized tracks for prizes?  Even as an event, that would certainly appeal to many.

[BrazilianJoe]

I want to be able to breed velocipods as pets and equipping them in the k-drive slot. 

Also, Dwarf versions of Velocipods AND Deimos Drones as options for sentinels. 

K-drives will never be preferred over archwing because Archwings on atmosphere have infinite fuel. 

If they had a boost meter which consumes while they are in the air and replanish when on the ground from the start, players would always have felt Skywing as a quick burst of jetpack to use every now and then and conserve. This would give K-Drive an edge, as it would not require fuel. Introducing this limitation on Archwings after all this time would be difficult, it would be a straight nerf and hard to swallow. 

K-drives still fail to have a reason to be chosen over Archwings. 

If they had the ability to create walls like TRON, their abilities were better, then things could look different. 

[HelixRook]

1 minute ago, BrazilianJoe said:

I want to be able to breed velocipods as pets and equipping them in the k-drive slot. 

Also, Dwarf versions of Velocipods AND Deimos Drones as options for sentinels. 

Thoroughly agree. I mean we are already getting Otak/Loid so I feel like this is rather reasonable. But I dunno that a mini velicipod would...attack? It would be interesting to say the least. 

[Azamagon]

10 hours ago, Her_Lovely_Tentacles said:

I misread this at first. What you mean is the highlighting, which doesn't work properly for Velocipods, right?

It did get me thinking, however, about codex scans as well. If we want to get codex scans, we have to scan animals first, and then collect them (same with fish, which is extra bothersome, since they tend to dispawn in the time you can pull out the spear again!) This doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, catching fish and conservation animals should always also grant a scan.

Ah yes, highlighting is what I meant, thanks! Editted my post to clarify that 🙂

Also yeah, getting an automatic codex scan when fishing/capturing animals makes a lot of sense.

[Kefirno]

K-Drive shooting feels kinda janky.

1. Secondary-only makes no sense. Primary and Secondary guns don't have any specific roles that are balanced against each other, it's just two separate pools of guns with separate pools of mods. Allow primary, it's not gonna break the game. Also sometimes you have to swap from no weapon to secondary on K-Drive because of that, which is annoying. Allow gear items too. The Son mentions tranqing Velocipod while riding another Velocipod while it's literally impossible in the game.

2. Character being dead center is not very convenient for shooting. Allow switching camera position (over the shoulder left/middle/over the shoulder right) just like in normal on-foot mode + automatically shifting to centered view when boosting.

3. RMB having two functions (flips/aim) is a big source of jank and confusion. Move flips to E (melee) since melee isn't used on the drive and bring dismount back to X (interact). Maybe tweaking keybinds can remedy this, I haven't tried yet, but there's still problem with shooting being only available when you aren't doing tricks. Which brings us to the next point:

4. Allow shooting at any time as well as add aim glide. Aim glide is amazing feature that adds A LOT of control to warframes' movement and K-drives need it. They are very wobbly and stuck to the ground most of time.

5. Too many things kick you off the K-drive.

K-Drives as they are now still aren't very good traversal alternative to archwings or even on-foot warframes. They need to be more fluid, less restrictive. With warframe you can freely transition from one move to another, while K-drive is basically two modes (skating tricks and shooting) crammed into one and being in conflict with each other on top of being unreliable (small mistake can dismount you). While competing with archwings as a means of fast-travel between objectives 1km apart is definitely impossible for K-Drives, they can be good alternative to regular parkouring and void dashing after some refinement.

[BrazilianJoe]

I think it would be fair to make it so that the faster you go with either K-drive or Archwing, the less accurate you are. 

There is not a significant power delta from secondary to primary weapons, primaries should be useable as well. 

 

[BrazilianJoe]

One more thing: WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO FISH AND HUNT WHILE RIDING A VELOCIPOD. (wink, wink)

(or k-drive)

[CopperBezel]

1 hour ago, Kefirno said:

1. Secondary-only makes no sense. Primary and Secondary guns don't have any specific roles that are balanced against each other, it's just two separate pools of guns with separate pools of mods. Allow primary, it's not gonna break the game. Also sometimes you have to swap from no weapon to secondary on K-Drive because of that, which is annoying.

It's the same mechanic as Volt's shield or carrying datamasses and canisters. You're not wrong that secondaries and primaries can do exactly the same thing, but being limited to one limits your versatility. That's why dual secondaries are wielded one-handed on K-Drive as well. You're using the other hand to balance.

[PunishedWelfare]

Son warned me about shooting a velocipod with tranq while riding one. Can't even use tranq while riding it. Disappointed.

[(PSN)PheonixFontaine]

Okay, real talk.

Kdrives suck as a form of tranportation and add a layer to the game that amounts to very little.

Do I like the idea of Kdrives? Yeah, but as pointed out, there's nothing to separate them from Archwings and why would you use them when compared to those.

But let's talk about basic functionality:

1. Grinding. Most skateboarding games have a functionality that clips you to the track of the rail, even if there's a balance system to determine if you stay on it. There's a reason it's like that in those games. There's a allusion to something like this, but it doesn't do the trick in a reliable way. If you take a look at the new Kdrive races, some of them require grinding. This may be different when compared console to PC, but the overall effect bars players from participating or completing those races. In 1 hour of gameplay, I've gotten it to trigger exactly once where it allows me to follow the entire rail.
2. Dismounting. Congratulations, at least 3 buttons on the controller for PS4 are dismount buttons. That's on top of archwing, crashing and various other dismount methods. Accidentally hit one of the various triggers and you're off your board.
3. Races. You cannot start a Kdrive race while on a Kdrive. (Or it's bugged.)
4. Points and Standing. Streamlining how that trick multiplier, point value and races all tie together is going to be important for improving the overall usability. If I need/want to get those mods, I need to get faction ranking. The current system just doesn't work smoothly. I just completed 5 races and 1 hour of intermittent Kdriving in the Vallis. (With a brief switch to Deimos to try some more races... and by try, I mean fail, because it requires 5 grinds.) I did not max out my available standing. Also 1 point does not equal 1 faction standing. In the run on Deimos, I even got -169 standing, because it was that bad. I'm not even sure how the scoring works, because with the "Primo Flair" mod, you can apparently get up to 6k... my high score for points was like 800-ish.
5. Races again. We need an incentive to hit all the rings, because currently, you can just skip rings and there's no reason to hit them all, despite that being what everyone thinks. The timer on Deimos enforces it with such little forgiveness period, but honestly that's not the way to do it. I don't think people should have to worry about the time when basic success is a challenge to begin with.
6. Races 3.0. Whoever designed some of these is a sadist. I get the grinding and the way it flows through the terrain, but I just did a Deimos race that wanted me to go down a nice smooth slope... but then that slope has poor visual read and lots of little steps that go up against the grain hidden behind steps that go with the grain. I got caught on 7 separate spots. The starting ring in one case literally has a branch across the visual between it and the second ring. Visual read is so important in any race-based activity and this doesn't have it in some cases.
7. Hippity-hop. Jumping in chained patterns. It doesn't work. There's a delay between jump and jump that is not exactly great.
8. Tricks. I have two trick buttons and I'm not really actually sure how they work. I have the side-turn that I can theoretically grind with and the flip. I have managed to do a 360 spin and I'm not sure how I did it. Is there actually any unique tricks or are they all just spins of different angles and directions?
9. Jump ramps. In one specific race, you end up going over a ramp by the Temple of Profit. There is no indicator that this is a jump ramp, but you'll know it when you hit it. Congratulations, you are now on a collision course with a wall on the entire opposite side of the courtyard area. Readability. Is. Key.

HoD specific wishlist:

• Infested Kdrive parts please.
• Grandmother VO lines for "Her youth spent rocking the board."
• Velocipods, special built-in skills please. Give them something special to tool around with when you ride them.
• Velocipods, auto-capture status if you ride them X distance. You are their friend now, you've been through a lot.
• Velocipods, extra jump time laterally, something like a glide.
• Perma-velocipod friend for Deimos. Remember that "friend" status I suggested? Like some games let you leash your horse up, your designated Velocipod will wait for you outside your spawn point. This perma-friend will not be capturable, but give you opportunity to always have one if you think that's the best way to travel. It's immune to damage and shares your current Kdrive mods. Simply ride a different rarity Velocipod to switch it up.
• Shooting feels a bit off, you have aim, but not so great on the run-and-gun. Homing for Kdrive that let your bullets become seeking when on Kdrive if you hit within a margin? Maybe even as a mod?
• Vome and Foss implications? Maybe some weird interaction if the time is right? Boosts in their residue zones.
• Planetary power-ups. Pickup range boosts, shooting boosts (like AoE and +multishot/punchthrough).

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

Kdrive flat out across the board needs another control refinement pass.

Its clunky cumbersome and hard to stay on. It needs to flow over geometry/land better. Push pull and slides need to be dialed in some more

[Shaderox]

I am highly displeased that we cannot use the tranq rifle on K-drives and Velocipods to hunt other Velocipods as the son suggest we should NOT do....

Also since we do not automatically equip the 2ndary, can we restore the old function of pressing X (xbox controller, not sure what the keyboard binding is) to dismount/remount K-drive when just doing tricks/driving/jumping/falling and not holding a gun?

[_Anise_]

I just want to know how to pull out my traq rifle so I can try capture a velocipod while riding a velocipod, I heard someone tried todo that and want to see what will happen

[Gailus]

On 2020-08-28 at 6:11 AM, Celetille said:

Velocipods are utterly pointless in my opinion. It's just a base K-Drive, which you already have if you did the intro quest for Fortuna. The only reason to go through the hassle of running up and mounting one is for the novelty.

I spent a shameful amount of time riding around on these giant bugs just because it was funny. I'm really glad they added this even if there's no mechanical reason for it.