Galaxy gunships and drop pods as well as other side grades.

[Timealude]

Well after watching the FPS guru interview today, we have a few things that seem confirmed. Galaxy gunship is back and Galaxy drop pods along with other things. I want to know what my fellow Galaxy Pilots feel about this. Do we think its awesome? do we hate it? Discuss peeps! :D

[Figment]

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

[The Kush]

Love the galaxy gunship so much fun:)

[VelRa]

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

Bit early to be talking balance I think. I'm very excited to see this. There are so few vehicles currently, so it's great to have this kind of diversity coming up in the sidegrades.

[WorldOfForms]

GGs were a mixed bag in PS1. Sometimes it was awesome to see one come over a mountain and make you crap your pants.

Other times, it was supremely annoying when they arrived and your empire hadn't quite set up enough AA. At that point, the GG could have a freaking field day on an entire base, easily creaming any AA that tried to poke their heads out.

That type of unit - large, heavily armored, massive firepower, and quite mobile - is extremely difficult to balance. The current devs have created a headache for themselves. But hey, if they get it right, it could be fun.

[Figment]

Bit early to be talking balance I think. I'm very excited to see this. There are so few vehicles currently, so it's great to have this kind of diversity coming up in the sidegrades.

Balance?

Q: Will a Galaxy Gunship (GG) have more hitpoints than ground vehicles (GV)?
A: Yes, because GG "will have more people inside, maybe".

Q: Will a GG have issues with terrain obstacles, angles, speed differences and threats such as mines?
A: No.

Q: Will a GV have issues with terrain obstacles, angles, speed differences and threats such as mines??
A: Yes.

Q: Will a GG have more firepower than a GV when fighting one on one?
A: Yes, because GG "will have more people inside, maybe".

Q: Will a GG have height advantage?
A: Yes.

Q: Will a GG have downward angle advantage?
A: Probable. Air can pitch, roll and yaw freely, GV cannot and will have to use terrain to get hard angles, which is not continuosly possible.

Q: Will a three dimensionally flying object at hard to define range and without a ground behind it to splash damage on, be harder to hit than a 2D-path moving unit where you can use terrain to funnel and splash damage from?
A: Yes.

Q: Can a GG or a GV use terrain features like hills more quickly create angles the other cannot fire through in order to escape?
A: GG can more easily use terrain to hide as it can ignore terrain and can hover over terrain or higher to recreate angles whereas GV cannot.

Q: With same crew, will the cumulative effect of three GGs be equal to the cumulative effect of three GVs?
A: No, the GG will have far more endurance per player and firepower will therefore last much longer. Hence multiple GGs will have more impact than multiple GVs, while the aforementioned advantages worsen this situation.

Q: Will then a fully crewed GG be equal to the same crew numbers distributed over tanks?
A: Probably not, because when one tank dies, the GG faces less and less resistance.

Q: But can't you use AA units to ward them off?
A: If you bring plenty, yes. Counter question, should and can you at all times be expected to bring loads of people in AA while combatting other types of units a lot more? ie. will it be a "in hindsight you should have brought something else" situation? Yes.

Q: Will it be balanced in low pop situations?
A: Hell no.


That answer your questions about balance? I don't need specifics to know it's going to suck. It'll suck bad or very bad, either way, it will suck.

[Naz The Eternal]

Can't wait to see how the drop-pods work, as well as the available armament to the gun ship version.

[RSphil]

if a gg come to a combat area and pins down your troop/gv's ou could always as for air support. there will be alot of players in the area and some may not be in the battle you are in. this game looks like it will be huge. and with any war of a good size air support or air superiority is a must. i can see there being some great battles in this game already.
cant wait to give it a try

[NCLynx]

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

Then it's a good you would be playing PS2 and not PS1. I would assume a Galaxy equipped with more guns is one specced to survive as a spawn point longer, whereas one with less will be used as a dropship.

[VelRa]

Balance?

Firstly, we don't know any actual numbers, so we can't begin to speak about dps. Secondly, we don't know how advanced the certs are for GG. It might be something only for dedicated pilots. Lastly, I have faith in the developers that if something is as gamebreaking as you suggest, it will be fixed. I'm not sure I share your concern about low population encounters, either.

My point was simply that it's hard to theorycraft about balance with so little information.

[Timealude]

Im very excited about the drop pods sidegrade, and i know earlier on higby said there was a cloaking side grade for galaxy, im pretty sure it would be OP but I love to run spec ops missions dropping a squad behind enemy lines to sabotage and extracting out as fast a possible. :)

[Mastachief]

Personally I think the GG can work with a well populated server

[Figment]

The Galaxy Gunship is like a BFR or mammoth mkii: it works in very limited numbers against large numbers of players.

What most people forget is the severe lack of numerical restrictions in a PlanetSide style MMO. You should always balance a unit such that it can be taken out by two or three players, otherwise you create big leverage issues.

The exact dps is completely irrelevant in relation to the gross balancing. The exact dps is for finetuning a concept that works. GG is fundamentally flawed because it is based on very specific use scenario's, presuming and involving large numbers of players on the enemy side that practically may well not be present at all, in order to justify balance.

[JPalmer]

Don't see how a GG could be any more dangerous than 5 aircraft or Libs.


Oh and side grades. Just throw on some AA on your lightning and MBT. Done.

[Figment]

You kill small aircraft one by one and reduce their firepower over time while you concentrate your firepower on less targets that fight back less hard over time. A GG though has full firepower till it dies. Meaning that its endurance allows for more total damage over time. Especially if you don't fill them up and bring more to abuse its extreme endurance.

On top of that, it distracts fire and preoccupies anti air for a long time, allowing other aircraft to dominate and take out the AA before dealing with the rest.

[Stardouser]

That doesn't mean that there is a problem. Strategic asset, deploy assets to counter it.

[Synical]

Don't you think it is a little bit early to assume that Galaxy gunships are ruining the balance of the game?

Anyway, such side grades sound pretty good to me, gives the vehicles a lot more utility and roles that they can fill.

Can't wait to see a gunship or two escorted by a dozen Mosquitos bearing down on an enemy base.

My only problem with the Galaxy is that they are very hard to kill with mines.

:p

[CutterJohn]

Big AV turrets may have a difficult time hitting aircav/libs, but something like a gal? GGs are going to have to be very careful, else they'll get torn up hard. Those tanks aren't sporting mortars anymore.


Also, it won't have to be as surviveable. There are more places to get them than PS1, which only had 1 dropship center per cont.

[BorisBlade]

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

Completely wrong, very balanced for the manpower needed. 5 reavers or 1 gunship, reavers are better hands down. 3 wasps will smoke the gunship then you can use the other two players for whatever else. If the gunship was 2 man then yeah, you'd have a point, but it takes half a freaking squad and requires a DSC, its also slow as hell and you can never get more than 3 guns on a target at once anyway. Luckily you arent on the balance team because you just dont get it.

If they make it weak like you want it, then it would be like the Raider, a complete and total waste of manpower. It has to be fairly good when it takes that many to crew it and has those other downsides.

Personally i like to see em, really not hard to tear the hell out of em in my skyguard as long as they dont get a jump on ya. Its a nice XP pinata. =D

[Koenside]

GG sounds like the air version of BFRs.

[JPalmer]

GG sounds like the air version of BFRs.

Except one requires 5 people and another requires 1.

[Carbanu]

I think the timing of the original GG was its downfall. If we had the GG from inception it would be a much different story. I forsee A LOT of aircraft in the skies above Auraxis 2.0.

[Synical]

I forsee A LOT of aircraft in the skies above Auraxis 2.0.

Exactly, and once the GG becomes a nuisance all the players have to do is scramble some dedicated AA Mosquitos/Reavers/Scythes and it won't be long before the GG is taken out. I'm not really sure why everyone thinks it is going to be some unstoppable juggernaut when we have absolutely NO information about it other than the fact that it exists.

[Timealude]

Exactly, and once the GG becomes a nuisance all the players have to do is scramble some dedicated AA Mosquitos/Reavers/Scythes and it won't be long before the GG is taken out. I'm not really sure why everyone thinks it is going to be some unstoppable juggernaut when we have absolutely NO information about it other than the fact that it exists.

could always have one of those air dedicated outfits that would protect it, but yeah it can become unstoppable along with team work, but then again if you have good team work anything is gonna be unstoppable :rofl:

[Zekeen]

Can't wait to see how the drop-pods work, as well as the available armament to the gun ship version.

WOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!

I think Higby has been reading my thread in the idea section. It feels good to see such confirmation on something I feel so strongly about. You should check my thread in the idea section, I lay down a lot of concepts on that stuff.


I think you guys are panicking a bit too much on the GG. "It has more power cause it has more people". Yeah, you guys pouting over this are overlooking a VERY VERY important thing.

IT MEANS MULTIPLE PEOPLE ARE GUNNING. So a GG ends up, maybe, 2-3 times tougher than a Reaver. So what? It's less powerful if you use DIVISION. 300% attack power, divided by one pilot and 3 gunners.... 75% as much attack power per airman! And that's just in raw armor and firepower. The other vehicles will be flying circles around them. A GG is still easily taken out by a Reaver, even an AT Reaver. Don't even expect a non-veteran gunner to hit a Mossy or Scythe. The speed and maneuverability will really play down the GG.

Gotta look at all the numbers. It's like how a two man tank should be almost 2x as strong as a one man tank. Cause it's either one, two man tank, or two, one man tanks.

[Figment]

Love how you all make assumptions about how easy it is to kill and shrug off its armour and abuse possibilities without learning a single lesson from ps1...

There were one crew Galaxy gunships dual boxing and getting 300/0 k/d ratios. Ask a person called Thunderwomen! With free to play dual boxing is going to happen a lot.

Balanced!

[Zekeen]

Wasn't the PS1 GG an AC-130 type specializing in anti ground? Wasn't it more susceptible to aircraft? I remember it had bigger MGs too, but it was still a sluggish sitting duck from what I can tell.

I never got to use it much, I only came back for short whiles occasionally and I prefer being a dropship pilot over a gunship pilot

Personally, I'm eyeing the quad gatling gun units T-Ray posted. I prefer raw heavy MGs over mortar fire anyways. AND we got the liberator with a mortar type gun now, so a GG is rather useless now. We're going to be outfitting each part from what I heard the devs saying too, so it all depends if they give a mortar or something oversized to stick on a Galaxy or not. That's going to be a big point.

[Timealude]

Love how you all make assumptions about how easy it is to kill and shrug off its armour and abuse possibilities without learning a single lesson from ps1...

There were one crew Galaxy gunships dual boxing and getting 300/0 k/d ratios. Ask a person called Thunderwomen! With free to play dual boxing is going to happen a lot.

Balanced!

how often do people actually dual box in planetside? seriously.......

[Zenben]

Really hoping they model the new GG after an AC-130, rather than just beef up the guns on the old Galaxy, and add some mortars. I loved flying circles around a base at a slight angle to give my gunners on one side a perfect shot. Always felt bad if I had gunners in the other side because all they got to do was look at the sky and hope a Reaver or Mossie showed up on their side. I also want a gunner camera when in the pilot's seat!

[Figment]

how often do people actually dual box in planetside? seriously.......

More often than you think and when an account won't cost anything... even more often.

Dualboxing Vanguards were somewhat common. Know at least four people that did that.


The first thing you should think of when a unit is designed is the scenarios you DON'T want to see happen. Not just the "OMGIMMAPWNWITHIT!!!!11!!!"-scenarios.


Btw, saying AA can deal with it is also saying lighter aircraft stand no chance against AA because there'll be shitloads of it everywhere. Remember what all the pilots whined about near the end of PS? AA everywhere! When a GG and aircav comes in? You should have had AA everywhere! When it is present? "F@*$&^@*#*** AA, CAN'T PLAY!"

[Toppopia]

Forgive me for being naive, but what is DuelBoxing? I can't contribute until i know what this strange phenomenon is..

[Figment]

Forgive me for being naive, but what is DuelBoxing? I can't contribute until i know what this strange phenomenon is..

Using two accounts on two computers and playing multi-crew with one player.

The question is how powerful this person will be: will it have the armour and firepower of two people (Vanguard played like Lightning), or the armour of 10 people and the firepower of one (GG)?


I'd prefer the dualboxing Vanguard situation over the GG. Taking this to the extreme, imagine for a second that a single outfit brings 12 Gal Gunships with 12 people. 12 enemies can have 12 Lightning AA tanks or 6 MBTs with AA gunner. Who will win?

[Toppopia]

So how is that more powerful? Did having more than 1 person automatically have more power than only 1 person and how did he control both people at once? I mean did it give you a 10% damage bonus for having an extra person or something like that?

[ringring]

The Galaxy Gunship is like a BFR or mammoth mkii: it works in very limited numbers against large numbers of players.

What most people forget is the severe lack of numerical restrictions in a PlanetSide style MMO. You should always balance a unit such that it can be taken out by two or three players, otherwise you create big leverage issues.

The exact dps is completely irrelevant in relation to the gross balancing. The exact dps is for finetuning a concept that works. GG is fundamentally flawed because it is based on very specific use scenario's, presuming and involving large numbers of players on the enemy side that practically may well not be present at all, in order to justify balance.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself a little here figgy. Even in ps1 a GG dies to 2 AA base turrets.

How it will perform in ps2 will all depend on the armour and damage they decide to give it. They probably haven't even done that yet.

[Khrusky]

One thing I don't understand is what the Liberator is supposed to be. What we've heard so far is that it was some kind of flying artillery unit, but surely the Galaxy Gunship has usurped that role. Is the Liberator the new Reaver now?

[Ceska]

And nobody is speaking of ressource cost of GG ? We can assume that it will be pretty high...
It's too soon to worry about. I am concerned, but I'm sure beta test will clear the use of Galaxy Gunship

[Kipper]

Going back a few posts - there will be splash damage in the or because some of the AA will be air-burst. Direct hits not needed.

[Figment]

So how is that more powerful? Did having more than 1 person automatically have more power than only 1 person and how did he control both people at once? I mean did it give you a 10% damage bonus for having an extra person or something like that?

With one person manning, you can coordinate angles better as you coordinate with yourself. This makes you more efficient than a crew.

If you have 6 people in ONE aircraft, the endurance per player is 1/6th of the aircraft. If one player operates the aircraft, you can have six aircraft, 6 times the endurance and yet the SAME firepower + one gun through dualboxing, even if it is a fraction of the total firepower were all those GGs manned. The assumption made by you and the devs is that the endurance per player is far lower.

Everyone else has far lower endurance and endurance for a unit is typically assigned by the amount of players operating it.

This is called exploiting.

[Tikuto]

Galaxy gunships were shit in-game, their design as a variation - everything except its purpose.

[Trolltaxi]

I don't think GGs will be the BFRs of PS2. They require way more men to operate, way more easy to counter with AA or aircav (this role will be extremely popular). And probably it will cost a huge amount of resources.

[Figment]

They don't require more men to operate. To assert that is tunnelvision.

They can take off just as easily with two people in it as with 6. The endurance is the same, the only difference is the amount of firepower you wield.

Note though that the new Galaxy can have an AA gun (perhaps even Flak) ON TOP. I'm not sure if the people saying Reavers/Mosquitos/Scythes will kill these with ease realise just how powerful that is.

[Figment]

Just some simple maths for the people that don't quite get what I'm saying:

4 crew GG:
Pilot + 3 gunners.
Assume firepower of two guns is equal, one is of different type.
Three guns: 2A damage + B damage or A + 2B
1x Endurance

2x 2 crew GG:
2Pilots + 2 gunners.
Two guns: 2A or 2B or A+B
2x Endurance

This is already 2/3s of the firepower for twice the endurance. So it costs you one gun, but you get twice the BASIC staying power. Which with the Law of Leverage increases exponentially. Basic staying power after all does not incorporate such things as flanking, dual sided attacks, multiple targets, tag team, etc.

4x dualboxing GG:
Double the above:
4 Pilots + 4 gunners.
Four guns, meaning either 4A or 4B or 2A + 2B or 3A + B or 3B+A.
Perhaps other combinations still if more types of guns are available.
4x Endurance

This means you get both 1.33x the firepower of a single GG, but also FOUR times the basic staying power.


In each case four users. Dualboxing is not going to be a problem with high endurance units? Say what?

EDIT: The only limitation will be resources. BUT resources can't be that low that you can't ever acquire one daily. Four Galaxy Gunships covering each other are less prone to dieing so will need LESS resources to maintain than a single Galaxy Gunship. On top of that, each individual will have their OWN balance for resources. Meaning that if you dual box, you have TWO characters to rely on as they both gain resources. Similarly, with a crew of five, each of those would be able to pull the next Galaxy Gunship. This is similar to avoiding timers.


Such units should probably have three hour timers or they will dominate every single battle. And that's not a good thing. Note that Thunderwomen was able to keep his Gal Gunship flying for five hours straight.

[Satexios]

You don't know anything to come to any conclusions. What if the sidegraded gal cost so many resources you can only get a few.. what if PS2 has a shit loads of people playing AA/Air cav? What if... etc etc etc.

My point is let's wait for beta, if you are right I will compliment you on your nostradamus skills ;)

[Kipper]

Hmm, discussion about what may be is all well and good - but stating facts when no information has been revealed seems a little bit silly.

[moosepoop]

make it cost A LOT. problem solved.

[Pyreal]

make it cost A LOT. problem solved.


The game would be funner if it cost less but was also less powerful then previous versions.

I think the whole idea is rather cool simply for the fact that for the GG to shine you need TEAMWORK. A vehicle that can be manned by a TEAM opens up a lot of TEAMWORK possibilities, and that is always a good thing.

[Hmr85]

I'm fine with the GG making another appearance in PS2. Its all gonna come down to how they balance it out. I'll reserve my judgment till beta to see how it goes before I start screaming from the rafters about it being op.

[Trolltaxi]

They don't require more men to operate. To assert that is tunnelvision.

They can take off just as easily with two people in it as with 6. The endurance is the same, the only difference is the amount of firepower you wield.

Note though that the new Galaxy can have an AA gun (perhaps even Flak) ON TOP. I'm not sure if the people saying Reavers/Mosquitos/Scythes will kill these with ease realise just how powerful that is.

No matter how hard you try to prove that a GG can be effectively used with only 2 people in it, it is still not true. (Let doubleboxing and other magic stuff left at what it is - a unique rarity, not something that affect anything in the whole picture.)

A PS1 GG required 4 men to operate at it's full potential. That's when 1 side is filled + the rear gun. They were vulnerable to enemy air and AA, and as they were large as a cloud and slow as a sloth so you could even hit it with whatever you wanted. It was a bullet magnet so while it was intended to be powerful it was usually forced to flee after the first pass. Then it took ages to repair.

We don't know much about PS2 GG-s, but the loadout will be the same - probably. A weaponless pilot, a 'mortar', a heavy chaingun on both sides and the tailgun probably moves to the top. That means a 4 seater where 2 gunners attack, 1 gunner defends, and 1 pilot. Or 4 gunners attacking but 2 of them will usually face the off side and will be bored to hell. Considering the resource cost, the skill cost and the vulnerability it already has some major flaws.

The top gun - even if it is a flak - will probably have a huge blindspot behind and under the GG. The chainguns and mortars will face forward (and downward) so the gunship without friendly air will have a pretty short lifespan. If a group manages to provide air cover they will own. You know that this is a feature in PS, not a bug! :) But back to the point. The galgunship has no real ways to defend itself from enemy air.

About the skill: at a point the galpilot will probably have to decide wheter he goes for the standard gal features or the GG setup. After some hundreds(?) of hours played they may be able to max out both but untill then, respawn and logistics of the troops will suffer. It is fun to play AC-130 but if a whole empire goes that way, they will be much slower with the respawn and troop transport. And a 10% longer respawn timer is like a 10% pop disadvntage when the grinder starts.

It will cost a lot. We don't know how it really will affect gameplay, but we are told that it will dramatically, so we can expect that this will also work against mass use of GGs.

I see that you feel GGs are the gamebreaker and they will never be balanced. As I see there are ways to counter them, they have never been an "I win button" for anyone, and they will require the coordination of a larger group to operate effectively. I think they will be a great addition to the game and if they really become overused and PS2 turns out to be the battle of AC-130s, SOE can still mess a bit with the numbers to (not nerfing, but raising the costs for example) so the number of GGs will be normal.

[ringring]

One thing I don't understand is what the Liberator is supposed to be. What we've heard so far is that it was some kind of flying artillery unit, but surely the Galaxy Gunship has usurped that role. Is the Liberator the new Reaver now?

No, the is mossie/reaver/scythe A2G variant.

It sounds like the new Lib is a mini GG

[Baneblade]

So what does this mean for the Liberator?

[Sabot]

So what does this mean for the Liberator?

The liberator as we know it from PS1 is gone... no more bombing ala bomb planes from WW2. The Liberator in PS2 is sort of like a GG.. don't tihnk it's as big, and iirc, they are testing it as a 3 or 4 seater... pilot with a big chaingun, I believe it was... gunner to the side (I don't know if they will have 2 gunners there... on for each side, or if there's just one and the guns can be swung around or something). And a tail gunner.

[IMMentat]

Don't worry to much about figment, he's the resident fatalist.
See's imbalance and potential for exploits everywhere, not without good cause sometimes but a bit over-tenacious in his pursuit of hard facts (the most easily abused grade of information abailable).

I'm glad of the gal side-grades, it could mean a lot for potential modification of other vehicles.

In terms of the GG, I forsee less threat than figment does.
Air in PS2 will probably need to skirmish, ambush or outrange most targets, with the lightning being the new primary AA platform and being 1 crew a lot more mobile AA will be available to the average player.
The skyguard was a fearsome vehicle but it was lightly armoured and outside of outfits there could sometimes be a problem finding a willing driver/gunner.
I see the GG being the mid-long range artillery of PS2, great for pounding targets from a safe distance, but slow, valuable (XP based advancement remember) and vunerable at closer ranges.
On top of this I still see some form of dropship center grade of air terminal being needed to spawn one, some roaming AA wilfpack will probably have them bookmarked as potential victim sources making GG's less common and a highly tempting target. This is before considering cert requirements to spawn one.

As for 2boxing, yes it happened and yes it probably will continue to happen, but only a fraction of the total playerbase will ever have the resources and willingness to do this in an FPS game and the main reason they did it in PS1 ws due to many vehicles having little/nothing to do as the driver, especially if you were driving around a random (rather eat my own boomer and get emp'd) and not on voicecomms. I don't see PS2 having this particular problem.
A common NC-TR tactic was to park up in range of a base/tower door and spam the main cannon till the xp stopped, Smurfs/NC had a splash damage instakill on the vanguard, Elmo/TR had direct hit instakill on the prowler and faster firing speed, Barney/Vanu had an AV gun strapped to their tank so usually just ran a max over to the tower and walked into a hacked roof door.

To my knowledge PS2 will let anyone drive any basic variant of a vehicle (not once to i recall a dev saying a cert would be needed to drive any specific vehicle, or that anything would be unavailable initially), so if the AA option for the lightning is low enough on the cert-tree (cant think of a single reason it wouldn't be) then a lot of people will be able to adapt quickly to a change in the battlefield needs.

[Figment]

Resident fatalist?

Try only person stress testing while the majority of players here just puts up pink goggles, the irony is pink goggles make you do nothing. :/

See, the stats I put up last page are true by definition, you can substitute any values and it will always be true. Dualboxing will mean you have 8 characters gathering resources for four. The Galaxy itself won't cost that much since they will be the only spawnpoint. The question is how much the sidegrading will cost on a regular basis, the firepower and how fast the resources are earned. Beyond that, they will be powerful enough to be intersting for exploiters and there will be more dualboxers due to f2p.

Most players in ps1 not just lacked the equipment (which more people have now), money (account cost, saw more dual boxers during fodder program), but most of all the imagination to dualbox. I very much wonder how many here even think of it as a use-scenario. Well, I do... Hence I see issues sooner and also why I say I think further ahead and further out of the box in use. I'd think of the worst things you could do with something, because if I can think of it, someone else can as well. Ask people about how I play PS. I'm not 'standard issue'. Thing is, once someone does it, others will copy if it is effective and known.

That is why I often say "I thought it through further"... I just... do... :/ and someone has to run wild, out of the box theories, because plain thinking is not going to find exploits. The GG is a pretty easy to exploit unit because it has so much potential for it: hitpoints, firepower and vantage point.


Another question you should ask yourself, is: hoe many of my 1332 enemies on the continent can afford a Galaxy Gunship - and have the intention to pull one. And if they are powerful, how many outfits will use large groups of them? And will you be able to deal with not just one, but large groups of GGs? BFRs were no problem alone. Not even when they were OP. GGs became real problems when they grouped up.

One VS outfit with three GGs lasted quite, QUITE long in full base combat: first to die: AA. After that, getting enough AA up is impossible, especially if then the more refined Aircav makes use of the opportunity. Once they pin you inside, you cannot get out anymore as you cannot bring AA out that suffices. That is not good game design.

Don't know about you, but I don't want tank and base combat to once again be dominated from above by very heavy aircraft constantly. Fast and hard firing solo Aircav will do that plenty.

[Raka Maru]

I'm not too worried about the GG's being OP'd. They were a force to be reconnect with in PS1 when fully manned, as they should be. The key was, they were a team and deserved the power. A team of AA foot or GV's could be just as deadly.

Seeing that my main ride (the AMS) will not be showing up, my main ride is now this big flying fortress. I'm wondering how to adapt this to stealth squads in beta. Cannot make judgement until I play it however. Was there a confirmed stealth or cloak option? That may ease my AMS withdrawals.

[velleity]

Galaxy Gunships are far too good on defense in PS1, especially around Drop Ships. Also, GGs basically ruined armor fights everywhere else. If this happens in PS2, it's a problem.

I have no morals or qualms about using one, but the fact stands that they helped kill a dying game, along with the mechs.

Skimming this thread, I see a lot of players talk like there is going to be some effective empire high command who will say "do this" and players will. That won't happen. Players will do what they want, which is farming kills.

[Raka Maru]

Galaxy Gunships are far too good on defense in PS1, especially around Drop Ships. Also, GGs basically ruined armor fights everywhere else. If this happens in PS2, it's a problem.

I have no morals or qualms about using one, but the fact stands that they helped kill a dying game, along with the mechs.

Skimming this thread, I see a lot of players talk like there is going to be some effective empire high command who will say "do this" and players will. That won't happen. Players will do what they want, which is farming kills.


If they want the rewards for the mission that the new system will provide, then they will follow orders. Otherwise it is just xp from kills/captures which will be normal but not as significant. I understand the Zerg, if the mission system lives up to its promises, the incentive for doing YOUR missions as a commander can reign in the zerglings to do your will.

[Timealude]

Galaxy Gunships are far too good on defense in PS1, especially around Drop Ships. Also, GGs basically ruined armor fights everywhere else. If this happens in PS2, it's a problem.

I have no morals or qualms about using one, but the fact stands that they helped kill a dying game, along with the mechs.

Skimming this thread, I see a lot of players talk like there is going to be some effective empire high command who will say "do this" and players will. That won't happen. Players will do what they want, which is farming kills.

Have you played planetside? If you have you should know that doing what you want will get you owned over and over again. the only way to win in planetside is to follow orders and work together.

[velleity]

Doing what my outfit(s) leaders wanted was immensely effective for my time in game and pleasure. We generally fought outnumbered and won.

Cow herding an empire as continental commander is another story.

[Eyeklops]

Galaxy Gunship is coming back? COOL! I hope they have "spare" non-gunner seats so an engineer can ride along to repair in-flight like in BF3. That will help them stay out in the field longer raping tanks and infantry.

[Stardouser]

No, just no to in-flight repair. THAT is like having vehicle regen, no vulnerability as you stop to repair. At the very least it must be extremely weak. Battlefield lets helicopters act like flying tanks.

[IMMentat]

Once they pin you inside, you cannot get out anymore as you cannot bring AA out that suffices. That is not good game design.


I fully agree about this.
The best thing the devs could have done or do is place access in the bases leading to under the wall turrets that you could, repair re-arm and possibly even control them from. Entry only through a hackable door deep within the base.
That said PS2 has far more 3D bases so turret and entrance positioning could allow for much better troop AV and AA defences.

PS1 bases operated like medieval castles, 1st true defence was turrets and vehicle patrols, 2nd was mines and chokepoints around courtyard entrances, 3rd yet more mines within an infantry killzone (courtyard), 4th was the main base entrances, and finally the stairwells then the choke-points around the spawns and Control Console.

The external battle was only half the war in a pitched fight, the NTU silo forcing a much needed timer on each base defence tended to mean that attackers had the advantage in a lengthly engagement (until the side that got pinned in resupplied with vehicles and came back to return the favour).

[IMMentat]

Agreed, in-flight repair is just asking for trouble.
I am of the opinion that any and all heals and repairs should be out of battle.
I am praying the medic class is just that, a medic.
A healbeam up the ass providing insane regen "heal-bot" role has the potential to ruin any work put into the game.

Unkillable enemies make for annoying combat, the only thing that will matter in such a case is who has the most healers backing up the front line. Healbeams worked in TF2 because there were 9 players per side, in an MMO there is no such restriction.

Scrape them off the floor, patch em up in relative safety (bullets flying around your head not into it :p) and send em back into the fray. Thats how a medic should roll.

[Zekeen]

In flight repair is one of THE most retarded things I have ever seen. I've played BF3, with a 5 minute battle of me and a gunner in an attack helicopter tearing up a transport chopper that never ever goes down, no matter how many rockets and bullets we put into it.

It's a game breaker for PS2. In BF 3 it's fine, because it's about fast play and I enjoy sniping the crew members out of a chopper, but in PS2 we don't need such strange stuff.

"We're going down unless someone can fix this thing by aiming a blow torch at their seat!"

[Toppopia]

The only time i saw it happen was if one of my friends did or or an engineer was actually useful and decided to heal us, but it became retarded when you got xp for repairing it while inside the helicopter, that crossed the line imo.

[velleity]

Eyeclops is trolling. And its been in BF since BFV at least, perhaps earlier but that was the point where bads could fly choppers and it made any difference.

His main point is that the GG in PS1 is retarded. 1 GG and 30 people at a base should not be able to break multiple armored columns including multiple AA peregrine support from over 100 players. Even if those players are bad.

And that is what the players in this thread against the GG are concerned about. Because at some point, mass should win or all the bads will quit and I will have no one to farm.

[Baneblade]

Cow herding an empire as continental commander is another story.

Almost had my name changed to Drover instead of Baneblade...

[Stardouser]

Eyeclops is trolling. And its been in BF since BFV at least, perhaps earlier but that was the point where bads could fly choppers and it made any difference.

His main point is that the GG in PS1 is retarded. 1 GG and 30 people at a base should not be able to break multiple armored columns including multiple AA peregrine support from over 100 players. Even if those players are bad.

And that is what the players in this thread against the GG are concerned about. Because at some point, mass should win or all the bads will quit and I will have no one to farm.


Well, in BF2, most maps with Blackhawks had AA vehicles or attack choppers that could rip em up even if being repaired(except Mashtuur, lack of AA vehicle or attack chopper made it the Stat Pad Hawk).

In BF3 though it's worse overall, things just don't work the same, neither attack choppers, nor AA vehicles, and even tanks, now that they have bullet drop and stuff, aren't that good for blasting choppers from range.

[Toppopia]

I miss the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Black Hawk, such fun times, circling the map annihilating everything. And avoiding the tracer darts and rpgs.

[Synical]

I understand some people are a little worried about the GG possibly being overpowered. Some of your concerns are warranted, some, not so much. I realize that some people absolutely hated their implementation in PS1.

Give the dev team some credit. I think they know a little more about game balance then the majority of us do, especially seeing as how they have ten years of experience with PS1 to work with. For some reason I don't think they are going to implement the GG in a way that will completely and utterly destroy the balance of the entire game like some of you think.

Like I said before, the only information we have right now on the GG is the fact that it exists. Not to mention we don't have much information about AA either.

It's a little too early to be screaming nerf.

[Zekeen]

I understand some people are a little worried about the GG possibly being overpowered. Some of your concerns are warranted, some, not so much. I realize that some people absolutely hated their implementation in PS1.

Give the dev team some credit. I think they know a little more about game balance then the majority of us do, especially seeing as how they have ten years of experience with PS1 to work with. For some reason I don't think they are going to implement the GG in a way that will completely and utterly destroy the balance of the entire game like some of you think.

Like I said before, the only information we have right now on the GG is the fact that it exists. Not to mention we don't have much information about AA either.

It's a little too early to be screaming nerf.

You forget, we DO have more information. It's a bit of a puzzle, but if you put it together, it makes sense.

The GG in PS1 was overpowered cause of it's Anti Ground capacity. I watched videos of it covering a base in explosions. But in PS2, we have the Liberator with such a mortar style gun.

Now, we know the Liberator fills that role, obviously, but there are videos of the devs talking about what not to implement in other things because they take over the Liberators role. Thus, the GG probably won't have mortar style weapons. To further this concept, look through the media, one of the biggest mods they show for the Galaxy so far, is a quad Gatling Gun System. Most likely, it seems, that the Galaxy Gunship will be a machine gun spraying fortress rather than a bomb blasting fiend. It will probably still be powerful, but I bet that is easily balanced with the number of crew members and the heavy cost of such a large vehicle.

[Synical]

You forget, we DO have more information. It's a bit of a puzzle, but if you put it together, it makes sense.

The GG in PS1 was overpowered cause of it's Anti Ground capacity. I watched videos of it covering a base in explosions. But in PS2, we have the Liberator with such a mortar style gun.

Now, we know the Liberator fills that role, obviously, but there are videos of the devs talking about what not to implement in other things because they take over the Liberators role. Thus, the GG probably won't have mortar style weapons. To further this concept, look through the media, one of the biggest mods they show for the Galaxy so far, is a quad Gatling Gun System. Most likely, it seems, that the Galaxy Gunship will be a machine gun spraying fortress rather than a bomb blasting fiend. It will probably still be powerful, but I bet that is easily balanced with the number of crew members and the heavy cost of such a large vehicle.

I was always bad at puzzles. I usually got half way done and threw all the pieces on the floor.

:p

Yes, this is all very true, and yes, it would seem that the Galaxy will be equipped with gatling guns from what has been shown so far, as to not outshine the Liberator in it's designated role. Which is a good thing, because this should help to further alleviate peoples fears that it will be an unstoppable flying death machine.

I personally try to stay away from theory crafting though, while it is fun, it can be problematic. It usually does one of two things, makes people hyped for something that won't likely happen, or makes people fearful of something that won't likely happen.

Thankfully some people are applying more logic to the issue. You have a basis and source for your information. However, most of the people who are afraid that the GG is going to be overpowered are just making wild assumptions that the GG is going to be the scourge of every PS2 player simply because it was poorly implemented in PS1.

The biggest wildcard in my opinion is how much AA is available, and in what forms, without knowing this we can't really theorize anything at all.

Edit - Just so there isn't any confusion I mean base AA more than vehicle AA. While we know some about which vehicles can be outfitted to be AA platforms (the Lightning, for example) we don't know much about base AA turrets that I know of.

[Figment]

What I hope to achieve with the worst case scenario's (and have) is talk about potential bad implementation. Why? Because if the devs only read about the good parts and how much people look forward to it, they won't always know the downsides.

Someone said the devs have ten years of experience with ps1? Wrong. We do. Most of these devs worked on EQ2, Free Realms, DCUO, The Agency. Of course they will have played ps1 but I don't think they played as active cr5s on a daily basis. They are only human. Look at how after 8 (!) years the Reaver got an armour buff, by a dev (Brewko) that had been a GM in game longest of all GMs.

I don't trust devs to be omniscience. Why do you think they love these forums? Treasure trove of info and player use scenario's on things they have not played as in ps1, from angles they did not think of themselves or would not have applied themselves.

Trust me, as a designer myself, the extreme use scenario's are THE most useful ones since it helps find potential flaws. In PS2 terms one of THE most important scenario's is huge numbers. Especially for powerful units.

[Synical]

What I hope to achieve with the worst case scenario's (and have) is talk about potential bad implementation. Why? Because if the devs only read about the good parts and how much people look forward to it, they won't always know the downsides.

Someone said the devs have ten years of experience with ps1? Wrong. We do. Most of these devs worked on EQ2, Free Realms, DCUO, The Agency. Of course they will have played ps1 but I don't think they played as active cr5s on a daily basis. They are only human. Look at how after 8 (!) years the Reaver got an armour buff, by a dev (Brewko) that had been a GM in game longest of all GMs.

I don't trust devs to be omniscience. Why do you think they love these forums? Treasure trove of info and player use scenario's on things they have not played as in ps1, from angles they did not think of themselves or would not have applied themselves.

Trust me, as a designer myself, the extreme use scenario's are THE most useful ones since it helps find potential flaws. In PS2 terms one of THE most important scenario's is huge numbers. Especially for powerful units.

I have no problem discussing "worst case scenarios", but at least label your discussion as such so that people understand where you are going with it. Right now it just seems like you absolutely hate the idea of GGs being in the game in general (you stated as much in your first post in this thread).

Like I said before, it would be better to have this discussion once we know more information about certain things. For example, what kind of side grades can a Galaxy pilot get when it comes to outfitting his GG? Can they outfit the GG with mortar type weapons like in PS1, or only gatling guns? How prevalent are AA base turrets? We know Engineers can build AI and AV turrets, can they build AA turrets as well? Just how viable are dedicated AA vehicle platforms i.e. the Lightning. Knowing certain things about the hard counters to the GG would make a "worst case scenario" debate more useful.

I agree with you having discussions like that are a good thing, don't get me wrong. I think if not careful they could easily become overpowered just as you do. I just think we need more information before anyone sounds the alarms.

[Mechzz]

No, just no to in-flight repair. THAT is like having vehicle regen, no vulnerability as you stop to repair. At the very least it must be extremely weak.

Agreed, in-flight repair is just asking for trouble.
I am of the opinion that any and all heals and repairs should be out of battle.


In flight repair is one of THE most retarded things I have ever seen.

Guys, calm down. In-flight repair was part of PS1 and was definitely not OP. It could only be done at specialist air towers of which there were only a few on the continent. You could repair and rearm at the same time without getting out of your plane, but it probably took you out of the battle for as long as landing and repping using a glue gun.

A similar mechanic being retained presents no issues.

[Toppopia]

Guys, calm down. In-flight repair was part of PS1 and was definitely not OP. It could only be done at specialist air towers of which there were only a few on the continent. You could repair and rearm at the same time without getting out of your plane, but it probably took you out of the battle for as long as landing and repping using a glue gun.

A similar mechanic being retained presents no issues.

I'm gonna guess that what people mean by inflight repair could be using a glue gun as a passenger while flying, like in BF3, or they are talking about what you said, i agree that flying to a tower doesn't sound too bad, but someone pulling out a glue gun and repairing while flying making you almost invincible? Don't have that, that made me hate BF3 a bit, especially when they gave you xp for doing it... soo horrible...

[Mechzz]

I'm gonna guess that what people mean by inflight repair could be using a glue gun as a passenger while flying, like in BF3, or they are talking about what you said, i agree that flying to a tower doesn't sound too bad, but someone pulling out a glue gun and repairing while flying making you almost invincible? Don't have that, that made me hate BF3 a bit, especially when they gave you xp for doing it... soo horrible...

That was my thought - they were thinking about repping with a gun inside a flying plane. If that was done, it would be horrible. However, if the Devs stay true to the original mechanic we will be fine.

I don't recall seeing if planes and tanks get regenerating shields on top of vehicle health, but even if they do I wouldn't have a huge issue with that.

[Bags]

I'm gonna guess that what people mean by inflight repair could be using a glue gun as a passenger while flying, like in BF3, or they are talking about what you said, i agree that flying to a tower doesn't sound too bad, but someone pulling out a glue gun and repairing while flying making you almost invincible? Don't have that, that made me hate BF3 a bit, especially when they gave you xp for doing it... soo horrible...

The guy you originally quoted was joking.

[Figment]

Guys, calm down. In-flight repair was part of PS1 and was definitely not OP. It could only be done at specialist air towers of which there were only a few on the continent. You could repair and rearm at the same time without getting out of your plane, but it probably took you out of the battle for as long as landing and repping using a glue gun.

A similar mechanic being retained presents no issues.

Actually it did and does. Many a times you would be close to beating an aircraft like a Mosquito or Reaver and would have paid a heavy price in hitpoints doing so and then it'd just sprint of to the other side of a wall (with much more ease than a vehicle could get to a repair silo) and within 5 seconds it'd be back, fully armed, repaired and would beat the utter crap out of you.

That was very disheartening to see all your hard work be reduced to nothing JUST because they could get to a repair pad and sustain themselves while you could not.

This was true for both infantry and ground vehicles, who always suffer ALL the disadvantages:


Predominantly multi-crew vehicles (2-3 people) unless REALLY WEAK (opposite is true for aircraft in PS)
Terrain issues with:

Angles of guns
Impassable (water/steep hill)
Speed reductions (water/hill)

Lacking supply access
Lower speed and agility
Less and less advantageous access points at buildings
Less situational awareness,
Lower rate of fire and TTK
No acceleration boosts
Have to get out of their vehicle to repair in 95% of the situations
Easier to hit profile
More predictable routes through choke points
Vehicle timers actually mattered
Good chance of hitting with splash damage
More expensive to get in terms of cert points.


Aircav compared to ground vehicles was the most pampered type of unit in PS1 used mostly by people who thought it was their personal skill and not the unit that allowed them to win over others and it was very frustrating for the rest of the playerbase to be regarded as their fodder and snacks.

Tbh, this just got worse with the free acquisition of unit types in PS2 and the modifications as in PS2 a PS1 Mosuito layout may change to a PS1 Reaver or Wasp layout in seconds if they get to customize their weapons at the same time as they resupply.

To me, air should be penalized to compensate for all the advantages they get. Not get even stronger units or more solo power. They'll dominate everything, again. That was one of the main complaints in early PlanetSide: Mosquito and Reaver farming. It drove away dedicated FPS infantry players and ground vehicle combat has suffered from BFRs and Galaxy Gunships way WAY more than aircav users.

I'm not surprised that the aircav users don't fret about more Air-to-Ground units: The more distracted AA is fighting huge aircav targets, the less problems they will face farming. The more air-to-ground there is, the less AA stands a chance of maintaining itself. OF COURSE they don't mind a huge exp piñata they can deal with and that also takes 3/4s of their problems facing ground units away. THEY don't look at things from a ground up perspective: those are all "unskilled fodder to rape and farm"...

[ringring]

This thread is so full of Chicken Little.

Things you don't know about the GG: The damage output, the armour, the speed, the manourverability, the cost (sp, Doh!).

Things you don't know about the Lib: The damage output, the armour, the speed, the manourverability, the cost (Doh again!).

Things you don't know about AA turrets: Placement freedom/restriction, damage output, range, cost

Things you don't know about A2A: Speed, manouverability (that word again), damage output, range from which damage can be dished out, cost.

(where 'cost' is in terms of xp required to cert it, cool down time and resource usage).

[Synical]

This thread is so full of Chicken Little.

Things you don't know about the GG: The damage output, the armour, the speed, the manourverability, the cost (sp, Doh!).

Things you don't know about the Lib: The damage output, the armour, the speed, the manourverability, the cost (Doh again!).

Things you don't know about AA turrets: Placement freedom/restriction, damage output, range, cost

Things you don't know about A2A: Speed, manouverability (that word again), damage output, range from which damage can be dished out, cost.

(where 'cost' is in terms of xp required to cert it, cool down time and resource usage).

So, basically everything, as I have been trying to point out for pages...

I think duomaxwl said it best:


You guys really need to stop flipping out over everything.
Just chill and wait for Beta like the rest of the sane people.

[Mechzz]

... and within 5 seconds it'd be back, fully armed, repaired and would beat the utter crap out of you...

A lot of what you say is correct, but this is an over-statement. It was at least 6 seconds :cool:

The real issue with aircav, imo, was not too-easy repairing, but the lack of an effective counter. The mossie/reaver got away because VS AA didn't pack enough of a punch. VS AA Max could lock on, but a full clip didn't kill a fecking hovering reaver, let alone a moving one and we had no other AA weapon iirc. There are more and varied AA units in the new game, so I'm happy to wait for beta and see how it balances out.

[Sabot]

A lot of what you say is correct, but this is an over-statement. It was at least 6 seconds :cool:

The real issue with aircav, imo, was not too-easy repairing, but the lack of an effective counter. The mossie/reaver got away because VS AA didn't pack enough of a punch. VS AA Max could lock on, but a full clip didn't kill a fecking hovering reaver, let alone a moving one and we had no other AA weapon iirc. There are more and varied AA units in the new game, so I'm happy to wait for beta and see how it balances out.

You had a better chance taking out a hovering reaver with a Lancer than with MAX AA. And no.. no other options besides AA BFR and the obvious Skyguard/friendly Reavers etc. However, even though out AA were horribly underpower (yes, it was), our AT were incredibly powerful... no lock-on, meaning enemy tanks never saw the barage of Lancer shots coming at them, and it did good dmg and were insanely accurate. Half a clip and an enemy MAX were down.. and it took like 5 seconds
Point is.. maybe the lancer needs a little slower rate of fire, and our AA need a buff somewhere.. dmg perhaps.

As for aircav repairing and re-arming... I have no problem with it. You have to remember that aircav gets focused down before anything else, they are very vulnareble and everyone can see them... the only time they were "OP", were when an outfit ran aircan ops with like 10 of them, all hitting the same target. But then again, an outfit running AA ops in MAXes/Skyguards or, in the case of PS2, AA fighters, could/can counter it, so it's not really OP at all, is it? A lone ES fighter needs that "easy" access to repairs and re-arm. Or they're fairly useless, if coutered.

[Synical]

Also, TotalBiscuit mentioned that right now some of the air vehicles are flimsy, he only mentioned the Mosquito and Reaver specifically so we don't know if it also extends to the Liberator and Galaxy, but at least it is some indication of what kind of armor the air vehicles have.

[Sabot]

Flimsy.. great word for describing something. We have no idea what he actually means by it, other than that he doesn't feel comfortable with it. But seeing Higby pilot the reaver in the alpha game play vid, it looks prefectly fine to me. Point is, to me his opinion on it being "flimsy", I care about as much as I care about the washing up right now... not much at all. It's too much of an individual opinion to take to heart, imo.

[Kipper]

Also, TotalBiscuit mentioned that right now some of the air vehicles are flimsy, he only mentioned the Mosquito and Reaver specifically so we don't know if it also extends to the Liberator and Galaxy, but at least it is some indication of what kind of armor the air vehicles have.

Pretty much this.

Air units in real life are powerful, that's why military forces like them. They are fast, accurate, carry powerful weapons, and can get out of trouble quickly, unless trouble is lock-on AA or other aircraft.

IMO, their flimsiness is the trade-off, they shouldn't be so paper-thin that a few assault rifle rounds can take them down (unless with modular damage + luck) - but one good hit with air-bursting flak, unguided RPG or AA weapon should put paid to them, or at least force them to withdraw.

Another weakness is that they can't operate indefinitely with a limited weapon load - they should have to withdraw to re-arm after only a couple of runs against targets.

Finally, it would probably be a good idea if you couldn't repair and re-arm in field, or at least if you can - it should be very slow, or require an engineer to deploy something to set up a FOB. In reality, while a driver might be able to hop out of a tank or truck and patch up a bit of battle damage, aircraft generally have to be repaired at some sort of base with specialist equipment.

Thinking about it, having a Sunderer module that took some time to deploy, but allowed you to re-arm and repair aircraft in field would be pretty cool, and help to keep a dynamic, target rich environment.

[ringring]

Flimsy.. great word for describing something. We have no idea what he actually means by it, other than that he doesn't feel comfortable with it. But seeing Higby pilot the reaver in the alpha game play vid, it looks prefectly fine to me. Point is, to me his opinion on it being "flimsy", I care about as much as I care about the washing up right now... not much at all. It's too much of an individual opinion to take to heart, imo.
Well, flimsy means paper thin. I think the thing you can draw from that it that the balancing of those hasn't been completed as yet. But then I suppose interm of completeness the balancing of everything is not 'complete' and when it is or close close to, beta!

[Stardouser]

Powerful multicrew platforms with good armor are absolutely fine, but no unlimited ammo, no repairing from within, and no repair towers every 5 feet that repair you to full in 5 seconds.

Exactly how far on average did you have to fly to get to a repair tower in an offensive battle? (fighting at an enemy controlled base)

[Pyreal]

Low health has always been the trade off for high damage. Glass cannon.

[xSlideShow]

...So, now we get 2 gunships?

[Figment]

Exactly how far on average did you have to fly to get to a repair tower in an offensive battle? (fighting at an enemy controlled base)

When at an enemy base with Oshur repair benefit, 20-50 meters into the base. If they were used to fight infantry at a tower, it was approximately 10 seconds away tops.

Air Towers (with constant repair) were basically at most 40 seconds away, but of course control of the tower mattered. Of course it only took 40 seconds to capture it if it wasn't yours and no defenders were present. Even if you were on the other side of a large continent, the nearest friendly air tower would be a few minutes away at most, meaning most would just cap a nearby air tower out of the way of the main fight instead before going into an area and then hit and run from there.

In the caverns, the green crystals repaired vehicles, those were 10 seconds away from basically anywhere in the cave, for aircraft that is.

For ground vehicles, a repair point typically took several minutes to reach, so most brought their own repair kit (had to get out to use it though).

[Stardouser]

Hm. I think repair stations for air vehicles like that should be at least 35 seconds away, not at most 40, they should space them out to achieve this.

Of course I am talking about offensive actions, if you are defending your own base, it's only natural that a repair point will be handy. Perhaps not every tower should provide air repair.

[Immigrant]

Never played PS1 but that level of customization for vehicles sounds amazing! You'll be able to adjust them to your play style and also even though there'll be only dozen of basic types of vehicles these customization will allow for much larger variety of roles. It'll also add a bit of surprise element to combat since you won't be able to tell what certain vehicle is fully capable off by merely glancing at it.

[Sabot]

Any good pilot brings his own glue gun, air tower or not! just stick it in the trunk if you're using a mozzy as transport to your prefered sniping spot.

[Ceska]

I doubt there won't be trunk anymore in PS2

[Figment]

This thread is so full of Chicken Little.

You don't need any specifics on those stats, just rough assumptions, which you can easily make.


If you dare, fill in some numbers.

Two GGs will ALWAYS have two times the Endurance of one GG.

Two GGs with one gunner will ALWAYS have more damage over time than one GG with three gunners.

The maths are extremely simple and don't need values, it's just algebra.

Endurance (E = Hitpoints/damage absorbed per second*time fired upon till dead = hp/dps*ttk =)
Firepower (F = damage output per second).

Let's assume 4 crew. Let's also assume firepower F is an average for a gunner damage output.

For one GG:

Damage over time = E*3F = 3EF

For two GGs facing the same enemy, damage absorbed per second = 0 as long as the other is taking the beating above. Therefore one GG gets "an extra life". This time two gunners. Thus:

Damage over time = 3E*2F = 6EF

Which is more effective? And yes, it's a simplified equation of reality.

[Figment]

Btw the efficiency of one gunner will be higher than that of three gunners as the pilot has it easier angling for one gun than for three (coordination issue).

Efficiency would be defined by effective firing time. I would say an average efficiency of 0,5-0,9 for multi gunners (some on other side may be looking at the sky constantly, which would be an efficiency of 0), while for one gunner it should be 0,8-1,0.

As you can see, you don't need actual numbers. Numbers are about tuning, not core effective gameplay use.

[Tikuto]

Instead of Galaxy gunship as a variation, keep Galaxy as its sole purpose of bringing-in troops : respawn station and transport.


Galaxy - single-purpose logistics ship. (Transport, 'tank')
<new ship> - single-purpose attack ship. (Barrage, 'damage-over-time')
Liberator - single-purpose bomber ship. (Surgical, 'damage-dealer')
Mosquito, Reaver, Scythe - multi-purpose combat ships. (Tactical; AA, AV, AI, Other)
Renew ship: Lodestar (not 'Galaxy gunship' which is a transport!!!!!)
Role: Suppressive Barraging. Disperse frontline concentrations with aid from bombers.
Method: High frequency, high-volume non-stop attacks: damage-over-time. With variable defenses (AA projectile, AA area-effect, top-heavy Shield-hardener (anti-orbital strike), etc).

[CuddlyChud]

Are GG's really that op? I didn't play when they first came out, but i've been playing pretty regularly for the past 6 months. GG's seem pretty balanced. In a low pop environment, they dominate, but that's just because there's so little AA. I mean, in a low pop environment 2 mbts would also dominate. In larger battles, I feel like the GG is a flying coffin unless they also have AA support to keep wasps/mossies/reavers off them. Overall they seem pretty balanced for a 4 man vehicle.

[ringring]

Hm. I think repair stations for air vehicles like that should be at least 35 seconds away, not at most 40, they should space them out to achieve this.

Of course I am talking about offensive actions, if you are defending your own base, it's only natural that a repair point will be handy. Perhaps not every tower should provide air repair.

Not every tower provided repair, it was about 1 in 3 and they were spaced out, so there were varying transit times.

Ofc, you may not have an air tower at all on the cont. and if you wanted one you may need to fight for it but remember a your opponents may want it too.

Lastly, you may not have oshur benefit or a linked dropship (these give repair function in bases). If not, go get them.( For the most part of 9 years TR owned Oshur pretty much constantly and defended it fiercely.)

GG's are/were high value targets. If they're around they are bullet magnets.

[Stardouser]

Not every tower provided repair, it was about 1 in 3 and they were spaced out, so there were varying transit times.

Ofc, you may not have an air tower at all on the cont. and if you wanted one you may need to fight for it but remember a your opponents may want it too.

Lastly, you may not have oshur benefit or a linked dropship (these give repair function in bases). If not, go get them.( For the most part of 9 years TR owned Oshur pretty much constantly and defended it fiercely.)

GG's are/were high value targets. If they're around they are bullet magnets.

That gives me an idea. First off, if Oshur causes ALL your bases/towers or whatever to do repairs, I don't agree with that.

But with that said, it would be interesting if there could be a way to turn off, temporarily or more long term, a base's(or even continent's) repair abilities without capturing it - in other words, providing a special ops target- if you're having a problem with aircraft fleeing at 5% health and coming back 100% in 30 seconds, send out spec ops teams to do something about it.

Anything that provides special ops missions away from the main zerg/meatgrind is a plus, imo.

[DarkSkyes]

Looking forward to see the the new GG. Always loved them in PS1 always fun seeing all the NC and VS run like rats when one came over the hill hehe.

[Synical]

You don't need any specifics on those stats, just rough assumptions, which you can easily make.


If you dare, fill in some numbers.

Two GGs will ALWAYS have two times the Endurance of one GG.

Two GGs with one gunner will ALWAYS have more damage over time than one GG with three gunners.

The maths are extremely simple and don't need values, it's just algebra.

Endurance (E = Hitpoints/damage absorbed per second*time fired upon till dead = hp/dps*ttk =)
Firepower (F = damage output per second).

Let's assume 4 crew. Let's also assume firepower F is an average for a gunner damage output.

For one GG:

Damage over time = E*3F = 3EF

For two GGs facing the same enemy, damage absorbed per second = 0 as long as the other is taking the beating above. Therefore one GG gets "an extra life". This time two gunners. Thus:

Damage over time = 3E*2F = 6EF

Which is more effective? And yes, it's a simplified equation of reality.

The efficiency of the gunners is indeed a very important statistic. However, we have no idea how the turret hardpoints are spread about the hull of the Galaxy, so we cannot make any assumptions about the efficiency. For example, there could be two on each side, one front mounted, and one tail mounted, or there could simply be three on each side. Knowing this information would change the efficiency greatly.

You say two GGs with one gunner a piece will have greater DPS than two GGs with three gunners, but if all three gunners can get an angle on their target depending on the location of the turret hardpoints then this statement no longer holds true.

Another thing that would make a large difference is the possible weapon loadouts of the GG. Can they equip bomb type weapons, mortars, chainguns? We know they can equip chainguns but is that all they can equip? They will be extremely lethal against enemy infantry, but what about enemy armor? Are the chainguns loaded with standard ammunition? Explosive rounds?

Also, you aren't taking their durability, speed, or maneuverability into account. The DPS of the GG could be astronomical, but if they can't stay in the sky for very long long their DPS is not so much of an issue anymore.

Basically what I am trying to say is there are FAR too many variables at this point to make any assumptions about the power of the Galaxy Gunship.

[ringring]

@ figgy: I think you said, 2 GG's are better than 1.....
I've just flown a GG in ps1 .... we died faster than I could escape. :huh:

@ Stardowser: in Ps1 you could do that .... if you didn't want your enemy to have tech benefit and hence not being able to pull battle tanks nor ground attack aircraft you could go kill the gen in the tech plant and then defend it with your squad. This was/is often done and is fun. I hope an equivalent is in PS2.

I understand in ps2 you can go capture a hex that provides a certain resource. But does that mean the benefit of that resource end immediately or would your enemy have some in the 'bank' as it were? I don't know.

[Raka Maru]

I don't understand why the side guns cannot shoot at bigger angles even directly under the GG and a bit to the other side, unless of course it is by design.

And, I like the idea of spec ops taking out air tower repair stations. It would be better of course to just take the tower.

[Figment]

@Synical: I said damage over time, not damage per second. The first is a total. Also, you can easily make assumptions for each of those situations and assume some numbers or ranges of numbers. How do you think new aircraft are calculated? Not by knowing numbers in advance! You have to assume something as a basis to work from - iterating and making educated guesses till you get likely numbers. Note that you do this on past experiences to get a quick start. Also you seem to Miss that durability is a synonym of endurance.

Say there are three configurations you can try. The exact type of weapon and damage does not matter at all. Crewnumbers however, do. In fact, for any unit that can have two or more gunners, the example above is true. It goes for the Prowler, it is why we used TWO thunderers or Deliverers with four people and why the Raider failed. It is the same argument for the driver/gunner debacle.

There are very few variables for these units, many irrelevant for the main balancing. I'm used to working with a few hundred...

As said before, ONE GG is not as relevant to balance than multiple. So yes, one GG can be shot down more easily. Especially by VS and TR with their AV. NC... Are screwed.

[Baneblade]

I hope what Galaxy Gunship means in PS2 is Galaxy with a big MBT gun on one side.

[Figment]

Question about numbers, maybe then those that NEED numbers to think can participate in my thoughtprocess.

Will a Galaxy Gunship have low-medium-high endurance to be worthwhile?
Will a solo unit like the Lightning have low-medium-high endurance?
Is it supposed to be used while engaging a large number of enemies?

In other words will the first have a time to die of 1, 10, 20 or 50 seconds?

Why are you unable to conclude that the hitpoints will be a factor 4-8 higher than a single Lightning? Ratios are important, not exact numbers. numbers are just refinement. I just work with order sizes. Those assumptions are easy to make, because the majority of options would not make such an unit worthwhile in the most extreme contexts in which it has to function, such as a base siege with 100-200-300 defenders. If it died instantly, why would anyone ever bring anything? If it can survive to do some damage in THAT situation, then why wouldn't it completely overpower smaller groups?

And why wouldn't you bring five solo Aircav? Clearly this should have advantages since everyone also has access to Aircav?


Are you all looking at the bigger context? Where you would (have to) use these? What the competition and alternatives would be? What requirements it puts on the players? It is not that hard to derive basic requirements in terms of comparative/relative numbers and sizes.

Knowing the exact numbers allows refined debate, but doesn't change anything major.

[Synical]

@Synical: I said damage over time, not damage per second. The first is a total. Also, you can easily make assumptions for each of those situations and assume some numbers or ranges of numbers. How do you think new aircraft are calculated? Not by knowing numbers in advance! You have to assume something as a basis to work from - iterating and making educated guesses till you get likely numbers. Note that you do this on past experiences to get a quick start. Also you seem to Miss that durability is a synonym of endurance.

Say there are three configurations you can try. The exact type of weapon and damage does not matter at all. Crewnumbers however, do. In fact, for any unit that can have two or more gunners, the example above is true. It goes for the Prowler, it is why we used TWO thunderers or Deliverers with four people and why the Raider failed. It is the same argument for the driver/gunner debacle.

There are very few variables for these units, many irrelevant for the main balancing. I'm used to working with a few hundred...

As said before, ONE GG is not as relevant to balance than multiple. So yes, one GG can be shot down more easily. Especially by VS and TR with their AV. NC... Are screwed.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this discussion to be honest, more substance then the usual, even if I am having a hard time keeping up with some of your ideas. :p

As far as my last post goes, I meant total damage, not DPS but I'm so used to typing it that it came out that way. Also, I know that endurance and durability are indeed one in the same, but I seemed to have focused in on the damage part more than the endurance part, my mistake.

I'll be the first to admit I am not great when it comes to working with abstract ideas, I'm much better at collecting data and analyzing said data to form a theory or argument, and seeing as how I have no data to work with I am just waiting patiently. Also, I have no experience in game development or programming, so you have a leg up on me there as well.

Anyway, back on-topic.

I agree that crew numbers are very important, I also agree, as I said before, that the efficiency of said crew is also very important, in fact in my opinion it should be the deciding factor. However I disagree that the weapon type and damage type are not.

I believe they are important because it gives us a better idea of the survive-ability and viability of the the GG. For example, if a squad of GGs engages a column of AA specced Lightnings will the GGs be able to survive the encounter to push on and actually apply their damage to their intended target. Take the same example but replace the Lightning with AA specced Mosquitos. If they can only equip chainguns which are meant for more of an AI role, then I doubt it, but if they can be outfitted with a large assortment of weapons in my opinion this is what would lead to them being overpowered.

In my opinion the GG, and the Liberator for that matter should need support from air cavalry in order to be used to their full potential, and in my opinion this is really the key to balancing them. Without support they should should be strong units, but nothing that some good teamwork can't put down. With them they should be a force to be feared. While the GGs neutralize the infantry threat, Mosquitos with different loadouts (AV/AA) can handle the ground and air vehicle based threat.

As I said earlier in the thread I am all for the Galaxy Gunship and such sidegrades that give vehicles extra utility and the ability to fill additional roles. I am in favor of anything that allows players to find a playstyle they like, tweak it, and make it their own. That is part of what made PS so great. However, I do understand some peoples concerns, and some of them I agree with even. I don't think vehicles with sidegrades like this one should ever be used to replace vehicles that are dedicated to that role. For example The GG should never outshine the Liberator as a gunship as the Liberator IS a gunship while the Galaxy is a transport vehicle with additional turret hardpoint side grades.

Phew... that was a lot longer than I had originally intended, but that basically summarizes my feelings on the issue.

[Furber]

GG's were pretty ridiculous in ps1. If they're putting them in ps2,I hope they're very careful about balancing them.

[Xyntech]

Considering how drastic some of the changes have been to some vehicles (Liberator), I wouldn't put it past the devs to do what ever it took to modify the GG to fit in with the game.

Hopefully it doesn't end up being too difficult to strike a balance between being useless and being overpowered.

A lot of attention has been paid towards a lot of vehicles having AI, AA and AV variants. I wonder if the GG will end up being more AV/AI, while the regular Galaxy will be more AI/AA. If that were the case, it would be pretty easy to balance, since an unescorted GG would be easy pickings for aircav.

Hopefully the regular Galaxy is a little better at defending itself against aircraft than in the first game. I like escorting Galaxies, but considering how important they will be, I think it would only be fair that they can take care of themselves against a few fighters, having to more more concerned about ground AA than air superiority.

[Stardouser]

As we were saying in the other thread about air power, there is confusion about whether vehicles cost resources, or only specializations to vehicles cost resources. Personally, I think a GG would be a specialization of a Galaxy Transport, so it should cost mega resources either way. So, a GG should be very powerful, but it should cost so much in resources, that losing a few in a row would completely deplete all 6 people flying one of their resources. Which means, if you are getting ripped up by a GG squad, you call in your fighter support to clean one up, or God forbid, respawn fighter yourself, and blow them out of the sky. If GG costs as much in resources as I think it should, people complaining about dying to it can make the enemy GG crew broke in resources just by calling in or respawning as the appropriate counter(under MY vision; since we don't know what reality is yet).

[Xyntech]

Just so long as resource cost isn't the only balancing factor.

Just because six people spent an assload of resources shouldn't allow them to be overpowered. It should just force them to be extra careful in using their balanced yet powerful craft, to not make it some sort of rape mobile that can just fly in and wipe everything out uncontested.

The same number of people driving Skyguard turreted Lightnings or Air to Air aircraft should bring it down easily. It would still be balanced, because those people have to organize their response.

[Eyeklops]

I think empire specific side grades for the GG would be neat.

1. TR: Guns upgrade to Pounder grenades.
2. NC: Guns upgrade to Thunderer "anti-gravity" rounds.
3. VS: Guns upgrade to Large Orbital Strikes.

[Geist]

Have not read entire thread, but I just wanted to say that GG can be balanced, since it will likely cost a huge amount of resources, require a lot more people to utilize it's weapons, and the fact that nearly every vehicles will be able to equip some type of AA secondary weapon.

[Figment]

@Xyntech: I'm betting only the pilot pays resources. It's an interesting question though, would gunners have to pay for their weapons and would it matter one bit?

I'm just wondering why the hell you'd ever stuff 6 people in an aircraft if you can stuff 6 people in three aircraft at the cost of three gunners.

Those 3 additional weapons would have to be extremely powerful to negate the effect of the extra endurance of 3 Galaxy Gunships. That would make each Galaxy Gunship gun insanely powerful.

I don't see how it'd be algebraically possible to be more interesting. :/

I'm not even sure if timers and cost would reduce the numbers, since if they don't have to pay for their own guns, just for the Gunship, then you got 6 people of which one at any point should have enough resources to acquire one. Meaning you could continuously bring one back in.

MAYBE if they cost so much resources you can only purchase one from the profits of a week. Heh.

[Mechzz]

I'm not even sure if timers and cost would reduce the numbers, since if they don't have to pay for their own guns, just for the Gunship, then you got 6 people of which one at any point should have enough resources to acquire one. Meaning you could continuously bring one back in.

MAYBE if they cost so much resources you can only purchase one from the profits of a week. Heh.

Isn't it great how the human brain can find so many different ways to pass the hours until this all becomes real? Actually, once we can no longer speculate, and have to face harsh reality it may be less enjoyable?

Naaaaaaa....won't happen :groovy::groovy::groovy::groovy:

[Kipper]

Maybe each gunner plugs himself into the aircraft in such a way that his 'personal' shield/hitpoints extend to the vehicle.

So GG with pilot only is at 25% health, 1 gunner is at 50% health, 2 gunners 75% and 3 gunners 100%.

That way, its as sensible to bring one fully loaded GG than it is to bring 3 with a single gunner - here comes the science bit:

1 GG, 1 crew = 25% power = 250hp
1 GG, 2 crew = 50% power = 500hp
1 GG, 3 crew = 75% power = 750hp
1 GG, 4 crew = 100% power = 1000hp

So, 4 people taking 4 aircraft would still get 1000hp, as would 4 people in one aircraft, or 4 people across 2 aircraft etc etc.

The more people in a single aircraft though, the less overall resource cost, and since it will take at least 2 to fly and man one gun, it always makes sense to fill up fewer aircraft than fly more aircraft half empty.

[Eyeklops]

Multiple hit boxes...

That way we can shoot out the most annoying gunners.

[Timealude]

Isn't it great how the human brain can find so many different ways to pass the hours until this all becomes real? Actually, once we can no longer speculate, and have to face harsh reality it may be less enjoyable?

Naaaaaaa....won't happen :groovy::groovy::groovy::groovy:

or that the people worrying that its going to be op will realize its not as powerful as they think?

[Figment]

@Kipper: That would work. I'm simply doubting it would happen that way.

or that the people worrying that its going to be op will realize its not as powerful as they think?

You just wait till the first time you come across ten Galaxy Gunships at once, shit your pants, try to play tanks for a minute, then log off as you can't even reach a vehicle creation pad and when you do die upon getting a vehicle and squandered all your resources, got stuck in the base and your AA options are reduced to AA MAX, which upon getting outside dies to heavy infantry, solo aircav and of course the GGs. If you DO manage to damage one, it flies over and lands behind the nearest hill, out of your reach, repairs and is back before you had a chance to damage any of the other GGs significantly. :p

That's how it worked with BFRs. That's how it worked with triple GGs tag teaming together. That's how it will work with any quick get-away, high endurance unit. :/

[Shlomoshun]

Just make the armor in a GG relative to how many crew are included, and youv'e got balance regardless of how people try to exploit it. A GG with 2 crew or a dualboxer gets 2/6 of the total armor that a 6/6 fully staffed one gets. Play with this ratio to find some sort of balance (or slight imbalance to encourage whatever playstyle the Dev's want) and it's an unexploitable vehicle.

[Kipper]

@Kipper: That would work. I'm simply doubting it would happen that way.

Maybe... But I highly doubt they'll spend all of this time (and beta time) balancing the shit out of every other vehicle and class, and then throw in an unkillable OP flying machine. That would just be dumb.

[Figment]

It's not unkillable, nothing ever is (in theory). It just should be practicle for the game and not be too dominant. A lot of players left PS1 because infantry outdoors and ground vehicles outdoors would have been fun if they wern't left to wims of the aircav users. :/

I really do hope that this time around aircav users realise they're just a fraction of the playerbase. They have every right to have fun, every right to - in a situation that suits them - pwn, but they should realise that shouldn't be at the cost of the fun of others.


For instance, Aircav users in PS1 demanded they could have AA free zones to dogfight, yet insisted they should not be stopped from engaging ground targets. Why should they have AA free zones, but ground vehicles not "aircav free" zones? I'm all for AA to be like "bubbles" of protection, just as long as entering those bubbles is certain death for aircraft.

Even stealth aircraft avoid radar bubbles for good reason in real life! They'd instantly be engaged if detected. So IMO, when entering an airzone where AA is present, air should speed in, strike and remove themselves as soon as possible, or fear death by AA.

In that scenario, infantry doesn't have to fear air as much as they did in PS1 and outdoor combat for infantry would be much better and that would do the player numbers in PS2 well. Most players after all, will be FPS players first and foremost and look forward to infantry combat.

Just delegating these players to indoors since that is FPS exclusive is too restrictive for this group of players as most will love to dodge bullets running at a base. Cover will be very important. Very important indeed.

[Kipper]

So IMO, when entering an airzone where AA is present, air should speed in, strike and remove themselves as soon as possible, or fear death by AA.

Exactly correct.

In a situation where the AA is expecting the aircraft, and the aircraft is expecting the AA, it should be fairly even as to who is going to come out on top. My expectation is that most of the time, both would miss and abort - but some additional skill on either side should tip the balance.

If the aircraft comes in fast and the AA is surprised, then the aircraft should be able to target it and depending on its physical size and the weapons used and skill of the pilot in aiming, destroy it. (AA needs to be vigilant).

If the aircraft comes in is surprised by / doesn't see the AA until its committed, then the AA should destroy or severely damage the aircraft before it gets out (again depending on the aircraft and the weapon being used).

If for any reason the aircraft doesn't come in fast, and/or starts to linger in an area, then advantage AA, IMO.

[Mechzz]

How realistic is this scenario:

..The 10 Galaxy Gunships had been circling Allatum Tech plant for 10 minutes now. The base courtyard was heaving with explosions as the GG's mercilessly pounded any grunt brave or mad enough to try and make his way out to repair the smashed anti-aircraft turrets. Enemy tanks were closing in now using the GGs awesome firepower to cover their menacing approach.

The defenders, cowering in the base could see that their rich fields of Auraxium and Higbium were going to be lost unless they could hold this base, severly hampering the war effort on this continent. But there was no hope, their AA Maxes were pinned in the base and the mysterious "Devs" who had given so much to help the war effort, had failed to provide any serviceable handheld AA equipment. If the GGs couldn't be dislodged, this base was toast.

At this moment of deepest despair, the local leader of *insert your outfit name here* had a great idea. Along with 19 other brave soldiers, they pulled back to the next base in line and pulled 10 AA aircraft and 10 AV.

The AA machines swooped on the enemy GGs at high speed, smashing them from the sky. As the enemy tanks had not brought their own AA, they were powerless against the second wave of AV aircraft which rapidly reduced them to burning wrecks.

As the pressure on the base fell, the remaining defending troops at the base were able to cautiously enter the courtyard and begin the process of repairing the base defences. Thanks to the heroes of *insert your outfit name here* this corner of Auraxis was safe for now. The next phase in this long war was about to begin......

The End

Now, if that was to be my experience going up against GG's, I may still play the game!

TL;DR I'm hoping the new spawning system and/or having footholds close by will encourage this sort of "cavalry over the hill" type of rescue for bases under pressure.

Thoughts?

[Marinealver]

Funny thing is the best counter for Gal Gunships is Magriders and and Lashers. But any BFR with dual AA weapons works.

[Figment]

At this moment of deepest despair, the local leader of *insert your outfit name here* had a great idea. Along with 19 other brave soldiers, they pulled back to the next base in line and pulled 10 AA aircraft and 10 AV.

The AA machines swooped on the enemy GGs at high speed, smashing them from the sky. As the enemy tanks had not brought their own AA, they were powerless against the second wave of AV aircraft which rapidly reduced them to burning wrecks.

Thoughts?

It's always been a good idea to have a fall back point, in many cases that can even be an enemy base. Unfortunately it's for most people unlikely to organise this for three reasons:

1. Effort and planning...
Falling back requires an actively available spawnpoint, which in most cases means you should have thought ahead by placing or matrixing to one behind your lines. In some cases, a stray AMS or tower can muck up that whole placement thing. :/

2. Fastest action idiocy.
They just don't see it or don't want to dislodge themselves from the direct action. Nearest spawnpoint is what 95% of the people prefer at all times. Often people don't want to go through the extra logistics (especially if they have to recall).

I often put up an AMS on the same continent in an enemy base with a hacked vehicle term. I commed to all on continent about the only other spawnpoint on the continent being next to an airpad with access to Reavers and Mosquitos. In some cases I asked people to spawn at the nearest tower, then deconstruct into the base (which would have allowed them to get to the other side of the continent.

Often the first three to respond spawn right before the base implodes, then suddenly everyone spawns because the base is already lost.

People just don't respond. After all that, people have to organise to go in together, which they are often too impatient for. The few that do get picked off by the enemy with ease. :/

Worse, there's always someone who will go and blow the enemy vehicle pad, generator and terms. Either because they're egocentrists who want to take an AMS through a shielded CY exit, ignorant newbees who think they spawn there to attack the local base and blowing the gen is how you do that or because they want the fight to end and move to another continent... *cough*Cyssor*cough*

3. To remove ten GGs and their allies, including AA and aircav, you will need way more than ten aircav, tbh...

[Stardouser]

10 GGs is 60 people not capturing flags. It works out in more ways than one.

I would, however, like to see tank shells with fast flight time and minimum bullet drop so that even basic tanks can put the hurt on something that slows down a bit to take shots.

[Mechzz]

It's always been a good idea to have a fall back point, in many cases that can even be an enemy base. Unfortunately it's for most people unlikely to organise this for three reasons:


I guess what I'm hoping is that either the new spawn mechanic or simply always having a foothold will encourage the more organised outifts to perform a strategic withdrawal to bring along the toys we need to break out of a defence.

Another thing we might see as emergent gameplay is a RL tactic where some air-centric outfit has a number of AA ships permanently in the air waiting to be called in to break up enemy attacks. And if there are enough GGs around, the number of AA pilots who will find it worthwhile to wait in a stack will be higher.

?

[Kipper]

I would, however, like to see tank shells with fast flight time and minimum bullet drop....

Bullet drop should always depend on muzzle velocity, shell weight, range, air resistance, gravity, angle, and whatever else goes into the calculation. Everything should behave according to the same rules in that way.

If there's a tank gun that fires small, fast, light shells and it has that effect, then great - but no to creating the effect artificially. It would be weird.

Another thing we might see as emergent gameplay is a RL tactic

I hope the game rewards teamwork > everything else so it looks like a proper battle involving organised empires, rather than a zergload of individuals just doing their own thing.

It would be cool if the game really emphasised to new players the benefits of squads and outfits, maybe even before they get into the battle at all - and really rewarded people who play as units by giving them more survivability and thus ability to earn more kills and resources.

[Figment]

10 GGs is 60 people not capturing flags. It works out in more ways than one.

I would, however, like to see tank shells with fast flight time and minimum bullet drop so that even basic tanks can put the hurt on something that slows down a bit to take shots.

No, it's 60 people (probably around 20-30 since they're hardly ever full, but fair enough) preventing you from doing anything about any capture the flag attempt being made by a third party that's fighting on the side of the GGs. >_>

Even as a psychological deterrent, since nobody will be willing to go on suicide missions against them. A lot of times, if a base was known ot have an "Orange Alert" to "Red Alert" warning (multiple platoons inside), people would be hesitant if not downright unwilling to move to the base. Gunships or not. Ironically, I've resecured quite a few bases with 99% enemy population on the continent because nobody guarded the doors and the control console IN the room...

[ringring]

@Kipper: That would work. I'm simply doubting it would happen that way.



You just wait till the first time you come across ten Galaxy Gunships at once, shit your pants, try to play tanks for a minute, then log off as you can't even reach a vehicle creation pad and when you do die upon getting a vehicle and squandered all your resources, got stuck in the base and your AA options are reduced to AA MAX, which upon getting outside dies to heavy infantry, solo aircav and of course the GGs. If you DO manage to damage one, it flies over and lands behind the nearest hill, out of your reach, repairs and is back before you had a chance to damage any of the other GGs significantly. :p

That's how it worked with BFRs. That's how it worked with triple GGs tag teaming together. That's how it will work with any quick get-away, high endurance unit. :/

I recall once, the NC were settling in at cave locked Bomazi. They thought they were about to farm the TR, and they were except my outfit arrived with 5 GG's and we circled the base and blasted them back indoors. (that was before the GG nerf)

So instead of a full-on farm, they only got half a one.

Now Figgy seems to suggest it would be better if the GG's hadn't been there.

;)

[The Kush]

@Kipper: That would work. I'm simply doubting it would happen that way.



You just wait till the first time you come across ten Galaxy Gunships at once, shit your pants, try to play tanks for a minute, then log off as you can't even reach a vehicle creation pad and when you do die upon getting a vehicle and squandered all your resources, got stuck in the base and your AA options are reduced to AA MAX, which upon getting outside dies to heavy infantry, solo aircav and of course the GGs. If you DO manage to damage one, it flies over and lands behind the nearest hill, out of your reach, repairs and is back before you had a chance to damage any of the other GGs significantly. :p

That's how it worked with BFRs. That's how it worked with triple GGs tag teaming together. That's how it will work with any quick get-away, high endurance unit. :/
Then go to your factions safe zone and spawn 10 galaxy gunships yourself.. or keep dying. There is always a way to defeat the enemy. Your exact post is the reason not everyone is a leader. You accept defeat, I use my mind to come up with a strategy to counter the enemy. This strategy is very basic, but you could come up with some more advanced stuff to counter gunships.

[Figment]

5 GGs is very crappy to deal with, especially if you struggle to as an outfit get three Deliverers going (and are one of the biggest NC outfits left). :(

It just shows that of all unit types, AA is the most easy to get overwhelmed. Once that happens, you might as well go play Tetris, because you'll never get enough back up to fight back. You only get one chance to fend off 5 GGs, if half your turrets are down for instance and without access to (against GGs somewhat useless) Skyguards due to not having Tech... You can't expect to put up a defense with AA MAXes. The NC Sparrow required if I recall correctly a little over 100 missiles to kill a GG on their own. Which meant you needed about 10 MAXes emptying an entire clip just to down one GG, while a GG's mortar killed a AA MAX in mere seconds (which immediately go on timers).

Bring 5 GGs, with 2 mortars each and then some... eh. You'll never get sufficient defenses back up if you need 10% or more of your potential playerbase on the continent in AA units. Especially since those GGs aren't the only enemies you face. And that's even assuming you got a full cont pop, a hold like Bomazi tended to be done by small groups of around 10-20 players. Nothing you can do then when faced with a GG, since you cannot spare the AA troops while defending the base.

Plus they'd have to be in the right location at the right time, meaning they couldn't EVER protect more than one base. If that. Hence it was impossible to run any armoured collumn since the introduction of GGs. :/ TR crossing Ceryshen bridge without a massive NC distraction assault south? Forget it. Not with GGs going back in and out of capital force domes!

@Kush: No. The moment the counter to something else is only itself, it's broken game balance. There should always be multiple options in a game from different playstyle perspectives to reach victory.

Your argument is as old as pre-nerf BFRs: completely broken. Bringing 20 pre-nerf BFRs to face 20 pre-nerf BFRs is not fun for anyone. Not even the BFR users.

[Xyntech]

I think that a unit should almost always be a good counter to itself, but never the best counter.

[Kipper]

You seem to be comparing PS2 with PS1.

I wasn't in PS1 when they brought in GG's.... but whatever happened there, and in fact, whatever happened with ANYTHING in PS1 is out the window for PS2. There will be similarities, vehicle names, basic shapes and uses - but the whole setup as far as armament/toughness/handling is gonna be different and known only to those who've played so far (SOE staff and the few journalists).

If they'd come up with a whole new set of vehicles with different names, it seems this conversation wouldn't be happening... But you should just think about it as different vehicles that happen to have the same name.

[Figment]

You seem to be comparing PS2 with PS1.

I wasn't in PS1 when they brought in GG's.... but whatever happened there, and in fact, whatever happened with ANYTHING in PS1 is out the window for PS2. There will be similarities, vehicle names, basic shapes and uses - but the whole setup as far as armament/toughness/handling is gonna be different and known only to those who've played so far (SOE staff and the few journalists).

If they'd come up with a whole new set of vehicles with different names, it seems this conversation wouldn't be happening... But you should just think about it as different vehicles that happen to have the same name.

The exact values don't mean much when the intrinsic properties are the same.

[Xyntech]

The exact values don't mean much when the intrinsic properties are the same.

We don't even know what kind of weapons a GG will have in PS2.

It may very well be that ES fighters can strike at a GG without any danger, meaning that even if there were other AA units guarding the GG, its sheer size would allow rapid strikes by a few air to air fighters to decimate it.

The Lightnings new Skyguard turret may end up being so powerful on direct hits that a couple of Lightnings could knock a GG out of the sky before the GG could even take a single one of them out.

It's not just that the armor and speed and damage may be different for the PS2 GG's vs the PS1 GG's, it may be that their role is entirely rethought.

As kipper noted, they are retaining the names of a lot of vehicles and weapons, and some of them are similar to their namesakes, but clearly there are some significant divergences. The Liberator has missiles instead of bombs now. I don't see why the Galaxy Gunship couldn't be significantly reimagined.

And if this turns into another "It would be have to either be overpowered or underpowered, there is no middle ground" situation, I give up trying to argue on the matter, because that's just a bullshit idea.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in support of having an overpowerd unit dominate the battlefield. In fact, I'm not the biggest fan of how powerful MBT's were compared to Lightnings or how powerful HA weapons were compared to most other weapons in the first game, so I would actually like to see the lethality of a lot of weapons and vehicles brought slightly closer in line with each other, not spread out into a bunch of mostly useless weapons, with a few overpowered weapons that everyone always uses.

I want to see all vehicles/weapons/classes/items get as close to an equal amount of use as possible, and I want them to get used because they are all useful, just not overpowered.

I just firmly believe that something similar to a Galaxy Gunship can fall into that balanced spectrum, and none of us can honestly know if it will end up balanced or not until we get our hands on it.

The devs have tended to be pretty tight lipped about whether something is in the game until they have a little more firm data, so that suggests to me that they have created at least some kind of preliminary GG variant and done some testing on it. If they think it is worth keeping, they know better than us, at least until we try it out ourselves.

Lets just all plan on exploiting the hell out of the GG in beta, to make sure it isn't as overpowered as some fear, or that if it is exploitable, it gets fixed. It's a variant, not an entirely new unique vehicle, so axing it if it ends up universally being a bad idea wouldn't even be a huge loss of time and resources.

[Figment]

Can you know in advance whether a Micheal Bay movie will have explosions and a bad plot?

[Xyntech]

Can you know in advance whether a Micheal Bay movie will have explosions and a bad plot?

Can you know in advance if an action movie will have explosions and a bad plot?

You're thinking it will be too similar to PS1. If there is anything we have seen, it's that the devs aren't afraid of changing things up.

[Mechzz]

...

The Liberator has missiles instead of bombs now....

Did anyone else see this tweet from arclegger:

https://twitter.com/#!/Arclegger/status/202521139598209025

Strong hint at return of bombing role for Libby?

[Kipper]

Can you know in advance whether a Micheal Bay movie will have explosions and a bad plot?

Actually, no. You can at best make an educated guess based on previous information available.

Movie 1 and Movie 2 are independent creations (as Planetside and Planetside 2 are) - so you can't actually KNOW what similarities there are unless you've got insider info - all the info we have is very general, we don't know much about balance yet.

Its possible a movie director could make 5 gritty action films and then come out with a romantic comedy just to change it up. It may not be likely, but its still possible.

[Figment]

You don't know Micheal Bay then. :D

A tank is a tank, when it is heavier than another, you know some basic properties in relation to another tank. Unit type is half the indication you need. They don't call it a Gunship if they are going to make an ANT out of it! If something is airborne it gets a set of basic traits, due to flight. Assumptions on those are things like the answer to questions like: 'faster or slower than a fighter?' etc. Simple questions giving you an idea of what they are like in comparison on each trait.

Names are not just to keep veterans happy, but also communicate roles to players, new and old alike. You are the one making assumptions based on nothing but fear of getting it wrong or hope that devs know what they are doing.

If you know it has more crew, than that gives an indication of the balance, as individual players have to be worthwhile regardless of their role. That means dps, speed and armour indications depending on unit type. No it does not say if you need a three or four to one ratio, but that's also not the balance I'm talking about. I'm talking about general balance and how many units of what is better than one unit of itself. Furthermore, I give an indication of what type of balance with another unit would be needed and I check what situation it goes into with how large a portion of a squad.

So if you get a big crew into something, general rule of thumb is more armour. This is true in any game, but especially for PS. Initial balance discussion only needs order of magnitude. Specifics are fine tuning. You can't balance something that is fundamentally broken. If you base a GG on storming a heavily fortified base full of AA like they did in PS1, then you just break combat for situations where this magnitude of resistance is missing. You have to balance for the amount of AA you can expect anywhere in the field. And if you can bring in theory 20 GGs than by definition of unit type properties, this is harder to deal with than with 50 tanks.

Yet would they balance for encountering small units in the field? Like say one or two AA tanks? No, it would make the amount of players in the GG relatively worthless. That too is an indication of relative strength and this is what bothers me, all the answers to little questions give a bigger picture that is worrysome. :/

[Mechzz]

So if you get a big crew into something, general rule of thumb is more armour. This is true in any game, but especially for PS. Initial balance discussion only needs order of magnitude. Specifics are fine tuning. You can't balance something that is fundamentally broken. If you base a GG on storming a heavily fortified base full of AA like they did in PS1, then you just break combat for situations where this magnitude of resistance is missing. You have to balance for the amount of AA you can expect anywhere in the field. And if you can bring in theory 20 GGs than by definition of unit type properties, this is harder to deal with than with 50 tanks.


I have to say I agree with this. You get good examples of this effect on game balance design if you consider how other "major" online FPS games work:

CoD avoids vehicles completely. There are no true driveable tanks, jeeps, planes etc. Anyone in the game can kill anyone else in the game on a pretty even footing. In other words, the CoD Devs decided they could make their game the most "fun" by avoiding balance-hell altogether!

BF series allows limited tanks and planes. I'm always surprised at how fragile tanks are in BF games (1 or 2 AT hits, 1 or 2 AT mines and you're dead), but I believe their philosophy is to limit the power of any single unit. Aircraft can be trickier to kill due to the lack of decent AA (at least in BF:BC2 which is my most recent experience). The balance to this seems to be to make the planes/helis hard to fly (at least, I can't and crashing them is an internet meme). I'm going to assume for my argument that if the BF planes were as easy to fly as the PS2 planes seem to be, then in a BF game they would be as fragile as BF tanks.

but PS allows everyone to drive whatever they want within cert, resource and plant benefit limits. So you could have 10, 20, 30 GGs circling your base, or 100 tanks, etc.

In the BF tank model this would not present a balance issue, since the individual units would be fragile, not much stronger than the cumulative HP of the crew, and grunts would have a reasonable chance to kill the GGs. So the use of a GG would be limited by how much extra fun was to be had flying as a team trying to keep a powerful but fragile unit alive, NOT by "omg this is soo powerful, I can kill everyone!"

If the GG is made too powerful relative to common group sizes of single units, it could become an annoyance to the players going up against it, since you will need to travel about in packs or risk being picked off.

Now, I can hear the "teamwork" card being played, but realistically, people will always want to run off to the next base to attack. And having to wait on an armoured column to form up, while it will suit the military-minded, will probably not suit someone who wants fast-action modern gameplay.

TL;DR - big powerful single units are a deterrent to fast-paced gameplay and reduce the fun of players going up against them by requiring an equal level of organisation to beat the single unit. We learned that with BFR's and need to be sure that putting "a BFR with a bigger crew" into the game won't break it.

Lots of words, Beta will judge.

[The Janitor]

GG's are sexy. This game needs as much sexy as the devs can cram into it. Balance is irrelevant. That is all.

[Senyu]

This thread feels like the forums 5 months ago. A whole lot of speculation/theories that can't be tested until we get more info/play time.

[Kipper]

The way I see it is that everything has at least one effective counter.

Actually, everything seems to be able to counter everything else, whether you're in a tank, on foot or in an aircraft, you seem to have to make a choice between AA,AI,AV and live with not being (as) effective against the two things you didn't pick.

If one team can get organised enough to pull 20 GGs and fly them in formation, concentrating fire and generally surpressing the hell out of everything then they may well be pretty unbeatable, but that's not the unit thats overpowered, thats the team being well organised - exchange GG's for tanks, infantry squads, whatever - doesn't matter - a lot of something in one place is going to be more powerful than a few of something.

The opposing team is free (and encouraged) to organise themselves and pull the effective counter if they want to shoot these things down, but that isn't even the only option.

Assuming a GG takes 5 crew and 20x5 = 100, and server pop-cap of 666 per team, that would require 15% of your population to be in that group so 85% left to cover the rest of the continent. An opposing empire could choose to give up that base and move their forces elsewhere, with a 15% advantage in numbers on other parts of the map, they should make some good gains.

[Figment]

Kipper, there are a lot of problems with the post you made here:

The way I see it is that everything has at least one effective counter.

Actually, everything seems to be able to counter everything else, whether you're in a tank, on foot or in an aircraft, you seem to have to make a choice between AA,AI,AV and live with not being (as) effective against the two things you didn't pick.

Unless you are an aircraft that has air-to-surface power, particularly not when it has high firepower or high endurance to compensate for medium firepower. This is actually a unit type that does not get hit by any sort of significant deficiency. This was true for the PS1 Reaver and GG in particular.

The Wasp and Mosquito had both low endurance and limited firepower. The Lib had high firepower and reasonable endurance, but the bombs were often hard to put on target so it wasn't very efficient.

IMO, effective counters would suggest that a single unit can beat another single unit. Otherwise you have a dependent unit fighting an independent unit. This is particularly true for AA, which is a unit type that is extremely dependent on others.

If one team can get organised enough to pull 20 GGs and fly them in formation, concentrating fire and generally surpressing the hell out of everything then they may well be pretty unbeatable, but that's not the unit thats overpowered, thats the team being well organised - exchange GG's for tanks, infantry squads, whatever - doesn't matter - a lot of something in one place is going to be more powerful than a few of something.

The opposing team is free (and encouraged) to organise themselves and pull the effective counter if they want to shoot these things down, but that isn't even the only option.

The GGs can handle any kind of enemy, ground, air, infantry, AA, tanks, doesn't matter; they are hazardous to all of those. AA does not. AA ONLY hurts aircraft and they are a liability when also fighting other units.

That means that when you are forced to get a huge percentage of people on AA duty to fight of the GGs, the resistance against the remainder of the enemies (with support from the GGs) is reduced severely.

While being in a GG does not really reduce the threat of your team against specific unit types. Ground units, air units, infantry and AA units can after all, all be engaged by a large group of GGs.

Assuming a GG takes 5 crew and 20x5 = 100, and server pop-cap of 666 per team, that would require 15% of your population to be in that group so 85% left to cover the rest of the continent. An opposing empire could choose to give up that base and move their forces elsewhere, with a 15% advantage in numbers on other parts of the map, they should make some good gains.

If the opposing empire to the GGs moves on... The GGs move on. Avoiding is not possible, moving is simply postponing or relocating an engagement with the GGs, the loss of ground is not necessarily compensated by applying more pressure elsewhere.

In fact, the GGs may move with you and now both your sites have been put under overwhelming pressure. When will you be able to make your stand?

Since GGs are capable of ignoring terrain... I don't think it matters much where you go. With tanks, it's a different situation, you can create choke points for instance to trap large groups of tanks and limit their movement while shooting them like fish in a barrel. There's no barrel to trap GGs since aircraft do not "do" choke points.

[Satexios]

I think fig means this:
Titanic SUPER 3D - YouTube

Regarding Michael Bay ;)

[xSlideShow]

I'm still not understanding why we need 2 gunships... What happened to my liberator.

[Zekeen]

I'm still not understanding why we need 2 gunships... What happened to my liberator.

Gunship just means it is an assault aircraft. The Reaver, Sycthe, and Mosquito count as gunships. Liberator is an anti ground type vehicle with less AA capacities, and the Galaxy Gunship is a damage soaking low altitude support craft.

A more correct questions is "why do we need more than one VEHICLE?"

Because more is awesome.

[Kipper]

Again, your argument is at worst theoretical and at best, based on PS1 experiences which was not a game made famous for its careful balancing.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned at all - but you shouldn't be TOO concerned. PS2 is a different game, built from the ground up, with a more modern approach to balancing (ie, stuff goes in that fits, not just because it's cool).

In the above story - the big GG formation couldn't capture anything, so they'd suppress, but still lose territory overall because it's harder for them to gain it. Lack of territory means lack of resources, and that makes it harder to replace any losses. I don't see 20 GG being able to farm 30-40 AA lightnings without taking any damage or losses at all, I just don't.

[Timealude]

Again, your argument is at worst theoretical and at best, based on PS1 experiences which was not a game made famous for its careful balancing.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned at all - but you shouldn't be TOO concerned. PS2 is a different game, built from the ground up, with a more modern approach to balancing (ie, stuff goes in that fits, not just because it's cool).

In the above story - the big GG formation couldn't capture anything, so they'd suppress, but still lose territory overall because it's harder for them to gain it. Lack of territory means lack of resources, and that makes it harder to replace any losses. I don't see 20 GG being able to farm 30-40 AA lightnings without taking any damage or losses at all, I just don't.

Plus with the current TTK the vehicles take very high damage from weapons so im sure they will fix this in beta but im still think vehicles aren't going to be as strong armor wise as PS1