IsaacPancakes

In regard to STV's original post, I dont think removing gunstore vacancy signs would be good for gameplay. They keep the game urgent and goal oriented, creating both a sense of ownership while you occupy them and the sense of threat knowing enemies are holding a weapons cache. Gunstores are notorious locations, being in them is dangerous. They are hardpoints that create good King of the hill type gameplay. What they are not is a candyland of gear that everyone can frolic through holding hands. If we all expected to be able to buy any gear we want and walk out unscathed why bother with them at all, why not spawn geared. If it wasn't a mortar or a jet it would be an indie camping with a rifle, they are dangerous all the time. Also , the stores aren't the only source of gear, you can just shoot a sniper in the back, there are heaps of predictable sniper locations. Its like farming mobs. And picking up on some other points made in the thread: The real problem is teambalance. Veteran team based players choose Opfor and veteran solo/small group players play indie, but indie doesn't get the inertia of opfor without shared beacons. A look at the score board any time of day will confirm that. Ideally opfor/blufor would be numbers and skill balanced, with indie as wildcard factors. Then you would see Blufor leveraging their shared beacons, gunstores changing hands and areas becoming no-fly zones which would slowly spread as players arm up with AA and move out from them, eventually denying safe access to the runway. Regarding mortars, they have a 4km range limit, you can find it every time within 5 minutes from the air. If its in a gunstore then hit it from the air or buy a mortar from a gunstore thats out of its range and hit it back. Most of the time unless they make a fortification for the ammo truck you can see the top of it and still hit it with a titan. I think the gameplay mechanics as they stand are fine. Taking airfield gunstore and holding the runway to support your CAS is legitimate high level team gameplay. Sending out a kill squad to destroy a mortar you've identified, guiding them in for an ambush, also awesome mission oriented gameplay. Just sitting on the hill east of the south end of the runway with AT waiting for the jet to land will get you accolades. Still, I'll concede that it can be tough, but its legitimate hardship that experience, tactics, and intel can overcome. If you use all the tools at your disposal you can always come up with a solution.