I think I'd prefer a timed spy highlighter:

Perhaps 8 seconds of being able to see invisible spies within a certain radius, with a cooldown period between uses?

Or maybe just an audio warning that an invisible spy is in the immediate area, without actually highlighting the spy's exact location. "Knowing is half the battle - the other half is actually finding the back-stabbing sneak!"

I really like tangen's second idea, letting the engie know a spy is in the area, without pointing him out. But it'd have to be subtle. Like, maybe really low white noise? Something like that. And the radius would need to have a good balance because if it's really short, the engie can just tell a pyro to check the area, if it's big, well.. Depends on the map size. If it's a small map, then it's pointless to have it at all.

So we haveto figure out the sweet-spot for the detection range. Not so far as to render it pointless, but not so close as to essentially insta-kill the spy if a pyro is babysitting the engie. Granted, if a pryo is babysitting the engie, you probably don't really need this anyway - this device seems to be more for freeing up your team mates by letting the engie know when to call for help rather than tying up somebody with babysitting duties.

The audio que could be the click a Geiger counter (Radiation Meter) Getting louder and more frequent the closer the spy is

Ooh! I like that one! Hehe... It could get louder with each enemy spy within range too. Perhaps up to three before the noise becomes pointless. While this would make it attractive for the opposing team to field more spies, that sometimes happens anyway.

And by deliperately provoking extra spies, the Engi's team could set up with extra pyros and heavies, which discourages extra spies, which makes the device useful again, which encourages extra spies, which... :D

so they spend the whole time switching in and out of spy?

It's already not too easy to sap a nest and kill an engi as it is for a spy, so it would effectively nerf engi's biggest counter. This would be fine though if it replaced your primary (not sure what else it would replace).

maby a radar with team corored dots some where in the enges hud.

It would be cool if you could place the motion detector and get a signal if somebody walks past it

Idc what it does, engi has 3 secondaries, and one of them is kinda useless so we really need some good ideas.

Pings every 5 seconds when spies are around.

Originally posted by tangentrambles:

I think I'd prefer a timed spy highlighter:

Perhaps 8 seconds of being able to see invisible spies within a certain radius, with a cooldown period between uses?

Or maybe just an audio warning that an invisible spy is in the immediate area, without actually highlighting the spy's exact location. "Knowing is half the battle - the other half is actually finding the back-stabbing sneak!"

Wow, that would be soooo annoying to play against as spy. It would be great to have, but if you are self-aware in the game now, it would be a waste of an item slot. What would be cool is if it would be placed on a building and would block 75% of their damage to the building. For a downside, the building would take 300% damage from pills, meaning it is a one-shot to a level 3. It would be interesting what stratagies people use with it (like the Sigafoo Save with the Wrangler). Anyway, great ideas, everyone! :)