Excavator perk - Spaten frei!

In short term:
Building fox holes, trenches, tank traps - being able to dig is a game mechanic is a great game mechanic with a lot of potential.
Really looking forward to use this in russian woods, french coasts and “Märkisch sand” (meaning Seelow Heights^^^).
Actually the spade is one of the soldiers best friends even nowadays i would appreciate a perk that would give you a slightly higher digging speed or which would enlarge the radius of moved soil.

Best regards (and thx for “Buy one shovel, get a second one for free”-sale! ^^)

10 Likes

Great idea!

I also love the shovel. It’s pretty useful

3 Likes

Sometimes I wanna dig myself into a hole and ‘hibernate’ after a bad match, with some vodka and a special picture from back home…

3 Likes

Damn heres the shovel again ^^ Jk but dont think theres time to shovel things, the impact is to fast

I play on Xbox X/S.

Shovel is great but really needs a proper melee animation and proper damage.

  • shovel’s default action is melee via melee hotkey
  • secondary action is to dig via “fire” button
  • tertiary action for Engineer is to build via right bumper(throw grenade). Hitting right bumper brings up the build overlay. Build as normal. Activate melee hotkey or dig hotkey to switch back to melee/dog mode.
  • shovel melee attack is slightly slower than knife attack but shovel does more damage.

While this might sound complicated it is is less complicated for Engineer then having to swap from Primary weapon to Hammer to shovel just to dig. Or going from digging to building you have to pull up mines, then primary weapon, then hammer. All the while you have NO MELEE ATTACK with hammer or shovel.

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I fully agree, that it needs a nice close combat animation and should work like the axe on impact. “Spaten frei!” is actually the quite common german infantry command to unleash the spade for close combat.

And there is always time to dig. :smiley:

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Ahah yes because of the messes I’d create with such perk!

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Hell yeah, -mess-ive satisfaction!

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Starting your engine with vodka before starting the game is the scientifical way to get immune to bad matches.