Dropships

[Hamma]

How useful does everyone thing Dropships will be? They seem great now.. but what if they are so slow and useless nobody uses them? ie, they suffer the fate of teh Havok in T2?

[Tolvy]

You could have a dropship with a cloaking device :p Then it wouldnt be shot down as much.

[War Mongrel]

Or give dropships the ability to disrupt radar and jam sensors when approaching an enemy base or platoon.

[War Mongrel]

BTW, meant to ask a while ago, guess I'll ask now...

Will vehicles take more damage depending on where they were hit by enemy fire like in BF1942?

[Tobias]

I think drops ships will be useful. They will be slow yes, but with an escort they can fight off most AA i think, and i should hope it would take 2-5 phinixs or 8-12 lancer/Cheap TR gun to shoot it down, but with a skeeter for repair en route and a reaver or something as escort, plus its own powerful guns, i think it will be able to get the troops to the LZ in one piece. Of course like 9 guys in fighters or with lotsa AA could take it out but if they want to kill a galaxy so bad let them get one, and send in the MAX's or snipers to wack em and get anther though.

[Tolvy]

Even Though Galaxies may be slow, they can still shoot down a few things. Why else would there be guns on the sides? And they will be useful if they have an escort or two.

[Ravon Dark]

Back hand the havoc will you? ;) Actually, T2 speaking, the havoc's weren't bad as long as you confused the shrikes and also rushed their base with them. We had this tactics of loading it up with heavies and rush the base, sending a shrike about 5 seconds behind, heavies head in, clear out the death trap, hopefully get to the flag and bring it outside and die, the light that was 5 seconds behind in a shrike would come in and pick it up. As for confusing the shrikes... You ever seen a havoc pull a half loop, roll out and turn? hehe, it funny and in my experience it usually confused the shrikes 7 out of 10 times since they didn't expect it.

Now.. for PS... I think the galaxies will be effective, if they're getting shot at too much, they always can fly low... that is.... if their pilot is good enough. ;) I think this will really start getting down to some real skill here for once. In games like Tribes and Tribes 2 if you took your time a bit you could just avoid everything, but with the scale we're talking here, you're bound to run into people unless it's like a 3 IRL day trip, heh. So I think it's really going to come down to... How good are the pilots and then, how good are the gunners.

[xuur]

its gonna take a special breed to effectively use a dropship (and survive that is).

you'd better have a good idea of where you plan to drop your load off, have an incoming route planned to keep you and your crew alive, have an escape route ready, give your load ample warning of an upcoming landing and a good solid 'Go!' signal that everyone is aware of and heeds.

failure to do any one of those things, well...lets just say the hindenburg was a soft landing compared to what you'll experience.

as far as 'no one wants em'. I think that would be one of the biggest mistakes you could make. if you cant lay a ton of ground troops into an area in a big hurry I dont forsee alot of victories comin your way.

mi dos centavos

[�io]

The thing to remember is in T2 havok's weren't used because 1-Too little heavies ready to baserape 2-Jet packs helped moving on foot a lot.

I'm guessing PS will be very different.

[Hamma]

Yea in the level of comp I played in using a havok would get you laughed at. Any team with a half good shrike defense (fighters for those of you non t2 people ;) ) would own it before it got near your base.. It was a sitting duck. I actually have some footage of me owning one :p

[xuur]

the havoc was simply too underpowered to get out of its own way most times. you needed a slew of folks set up for flares and missle defense before you dared even take one to a enemy base. even then most times it was just an orbital weapons platform (heavies and mortars to bombard a base).

most times, you'd end up with a slew of dead buds raining down on the enemy base....cursing the pilot the whole way.

one tactic that would occasionally work...or at least make trouble for em. get everyone on the havoc raining mines into the enemy base. if anything it slowed movment within the base slightly.


fun stuff. hmmm......I wonder where my T2 cd went.

[Airlift]

I liked the Havoc. It proved out to be fairly useful in larger games if you took it out to the edge of the playing area and brought your troops in from the back. That means (to me) that it will be more useful in pside because there is no edge of the map, just huge expanses of poorly guarded landscape. The key will be to find soft spots in the enemy defenses and punch through with as many dropships as you can.

[Hamma]

^ That is probably one of the things that will make it most useful, the fact there are vast areas of unclaimed terrain.. Making it a bit easier to fly in undetected

[xuur]

good point. the map sizes and varied access to combat zones will make a huge difference between PS and T2.


a good commander will have all troops staged and ready at various points before ever beginning an attack.

[Unregistered]

Send a team of 5 or so in drop pods to one side as a deversion, and have your galaxies come in from the back and unload.

Creating deversions will be a bigger part of this game then other games we can compare it to.

[Incompetent]

if you ask me dropship piloting is going to be the absolute most exciting thing and the absolute most boring thing in the game. Nothing beats the rush of having 9 or 10 lives in your hands, but your also going to be in for some very, very boring flights.

I think the key to defending against Galaxies is to have effective skeeter patrols to give early warnings and to drive the galaxy off course.

I think the best way to use them would be a varient of Unregistered's idea, get a couple of orbital drop specializing squads and have them batter themselves against the base near the base's spawn tubes a few times. Then rush the other, hopefully underdefended side, with a flight of dropships. If you time it right the enemy might overcorrect and the captroopers might be able to get the spawn tubes. Oh and this is for deepstrikes, otherwise i think tank rushes will probly be the most effective, as long as they have a good number of sunderers and deliverers behind them to unload CQB warriors.

sigh, i need to think more coherently

(if you ask me the havoc was almost worthless except on massive maps and tac2, they were just to damn easy to spot and to easy to kill/flip)

[Mtx]

I never thought about a dropship coming into a hot zone. I wouldn't fly one into an area of heavy resistance. I don't like being shot down. It's probably wise to just drop your payload strategically outside the conflict area. You could have a main force hit the enemy from one position and have a few galaxys deploy a flanking force on the other side. That way the enemy would be taken by surprise after being worn down by the main assault force.

It works in paintball.

[Hamma]

Havoks were useless in high level matches, ie TWL top 10-15

[Hamma]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Creating deversions will be a bigger part of this game then other games we can compare it to.
Indeed, especially when you think how damn big it will be :eek:

[NapalmEnima]

Point 1: People don't take falling damage. They've got some vaguely hokey gizo in everyone's suits to explain it.

Point 2: You can bail out of a moving dropship.


PARATROOPERS!


Zip over the enemy base at top speed (however slow that might be). Everyone but the pilot bails out. Pilot lands, hops in the vehicle, and joins the party.

This could be VERY COOL.

And yes, I AM a genius. Thank you.

[�io]

All this talk about abushes makes me wonder, will their be huge turrets in bases and if so can you control them?

You know like you get in the seat of a 150mm Cannon(Vanguard's cannon) and shoot incoming invasion forces. That would be sweet. :D

[NapalmEnima]

I've seen several comments hither and yon about fixed base defenses. Some ones that can be controlled by players, others that are automated.

Is there some overlap here? Can we control the automated ones? Not sure.

And don't forget the deployable turrets.

[Unregistered]

I seem to remember reading once (maybe in the Dev Chat?) that you can "Hack" into a base's systems and turn the turrets on the players that are trying to defend the base.

Now wouldn't that be a kick.

You've just busted through the walls into the courtyard, turrets are 0wning people so you dive for cover. Your pinned down and the enemy is coming for you.

Looks like a failed opperation :(

All of a sudden *WHAM* the turrets start shooting at the defenders, so you jump up let the lead fly, and your Outfit takes the base!!

All thanks to that sissy Stealth Guy that lurked around in the base while you did all the fighting.

Thanks Sissy Stealth Guy!!

[Ravon Dark]

:lol:

Ohhh man that would be classic.

[�io]

Yeah but can't be too cocky, just because something has been hacked doesn't mean it can't be hacked a 2nd time. :)

[Nohimn]

Just to let you all know, the Galaxy is HEAVILY ARMED. It will not be shot down easily. how armed? we can find out during beta.

[Incompetent]

heavily armed but with MASSIVE blind spots

[NapalmEnima]

Guys.... It's not that heavily armed.


2x 75mm cannon. Same cannon as on the Lightening light tank.

These weapons will not be suitable for AA duty. Low rate of fire, possibly low projectile speed.

And as was just mentioned: Blind Spots.


A gunship or skeeter need only park itself in one of these blind spots and stay there.... then hold down the trigger until the Galaxy is whittled down to size. And while this may take a while, it will be done.

[Lazare]

As i read this Posts more and more i can NOT await to Play this wonderful game with you all out there.:hug:

This is an official Anti-Flame thread:love:

[Nohimn]

but there are two of the cannons, and yes, I see the blind spots. escorts should solve that, but all in all, it looks good. :)

[�io]

Originally posted by Nohimn
Just to let you all know, the Galaxy is HEAVILY ARMED. It will not be shot down easily. how armed? we can find out during beta.

As said it's far from being heavily armed. It's 2 flying light tanks. It's not for combat it's for transport.

[Hamma]

Refer to this thread
http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=265

there was allot of talk about galaxy's and their arms in that thread. Then again, its about 98208029348 pages :eek:

[Tobias]

Praise be to the Galaxy, Praise be!

and may it pwn all you fools who dont think it will pwn. GALAXY POWER! and the fire power of two light tanks is considerable in my opinion. Teach those AA wielding pansies who's boss, and it that doesnt work, land on them.

[Bane Grievver]

Well if you have good gunners (I assume you'll need tailgunners for those two turrets) then you can stave off some good attacks. Same went in Tribes 2. If you had a well-equipped jugg in the back, he could have a jammer to keep aa off the thing, as well as missiles and a chaingun.

http://www.banegrievver.netfirms.com/BaneForum.jpg

[xuur]

oooh. "Puff the magic Galaxy"


modifed Galaxy upgraded with two 105mm recoiless rifles (per side), 2 turrent mounted quad chainguns (one top and one bottom) and additional armor.


it can only carry a pilot and two gunners, but what a mess that sucker could create on the ground, eh?

oh, did I mention the single free-fall nuclear JDAM for good measure? :eek:

:jawdrop:

(sorry...just doin a bit of dreaming)

[Tobias]

you have fookin 75mm cannons its got firepower enough!

oh you can look at a real 75mm cannon off bombers and the such here :

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm20.htm

[Unregistered]

I'm gonna shoot one down just to see If Tobias is in it. It's the only way I'll be able to say "Hi" to him in game since we'll be in diffrent empires :D

[Tobias]

I will say "Hi" back by landing the flaming hulk on you and your squad.

[Hamma]

:rofl:

[Unregistered]

:lol:

Now that would be funny. I can see it now. "Hey Hamma, is that Tobias? *BAMM* flaming Galaxy crushes me to death "Yep, that's him alright."

[Qanamil_Rafiki]

:rofl:

hahahaha, good stuff.

Tobias will also be the one who taunts/emotes to you "Vanu Power!" whenever he gets a chance :)

[Tolvy]

There are also ground transports. The Deliverer for example would be the ground transport in Planetside. I wonder if anyone would use this. Wouldn't everyone use the galaxy? There has to be some disadvantages to the galaxy.

[Ravon Dark]

I'm curious to know if those Deliverers will fit in a galaxy. ;)

[Valmont]

No more 75mm cannons, 20mm chainguns now.

Posted by SmokeJumperPS:
"Fungeneer: Just an update on the Galaxy...
Three gunners now (we added a tailgunner).

And the original loadout was reported to you all incorrectly. The full complement of a Galaxy is:
- pilot
- two wing gunners (with 20mm chainguns now...not 75mm cannons)
- tailgunner (with 20mm chaingun)
- six regular passengers
- two MAX passengers
- a light assault vehicle in the vehicle bay (either Lightning, Harasser, or the empire-specific "heavy buggy")
- the vehicle in the back can have passengers, so up to three more passengers can ride in that vehicle.

Total = 13-15 total (depending on if the vehicle is a 1-, 2-, or 3-person vehicle), and a light assault vehicle."

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum2/HTML/000244.html

[Hamma]

Nice:D

Good catch

[Incompetent]

4 always seemed a bit small for a ship that big.
edit: oops, they got there names and all in that thread, need to pay attention

[Ravon Dark]

Think it would be possible to make those two MAX suits just a normal soldier? Or does it have to be a MAX suit... :thumbsup:

[SVoyager]

imho i think the deliverer will have maybe the extra advantage of stealth. Since its on the ground it cant be seen as much as a galaxy. It would also depends on the pilot. If you have a pilot that flys under tree level and barely scratches the ground then i think its gonna be better in than the deliverer. But if the pilot isnt too comfortable at flying 0.001 feet from the ground heh, then the deliverer would be better, slower, maybe tougher but stealthier.

Ill be in choice number one tho hehe. If u get ur head chopped off from a galaxy, u might ask urself if its me hehehe :D .

[Hamma]

Yea they will each have their own applications. I can think of one person who will be scraping the ground :D

[EarlyDawn]

Jetpack drops could have crazy possibilities. Imagine this one...

You and your group are assigned to hot-drop into a battlefield a couple of miles wide, so you form a squad. You grab a dune buggy, attach it to the galaxy, get your men and take off. Everyone is equipped with jetpacks for versitility in case of a problem,or AA defences make landing an impossibility.

About midway there, you get jumped by Air Superority. Accessing the empire chat channels, you get a fighter from an escourt group to take out your agressor, but you take heavy damage. Realizing that you are going down, you dump your buggy and bail, everyone scattered across the hge battlefield, linked only by a radio and the sheer will to regroup, find the buggy and survive...

[Hamma]

:eek:

[�io]

Originally posted by LNS0388
Jetpack drops could have crazy possibilities. Imagine this one...

You and your group are assigned to hot-drop into a battlefield a couple of miles wide, so you form a squad. You grab a dune buggy, attach it to the galaxy, get your men and take off. Everyone is equipped with jetpacks for versitility in case of a problem,or AA defences make landing an impossibility.


Sorry no Tribes jetpacks. Only 1 "unit" will have limited jetpack abilities and that's the Vanu MAX.

[Incompetent]

imho i think the deliverer will have maybe the extra advantage of stealth

The deliverer/sunderer will both have the same stealth advantage over the galaxy, the real advantage of the deliverer over the other transports is that it's amphibious, good armorments (at least the concept) and is faster, but it has less armor/troop compacity.

Edit: Better?

[SVoyager]

!!?? i compared it to the galaxy!!

[Incompetent]

i know, i i kinda lost track of my original intent for the post

[SVoyager]

oh hehe ok lol

[Hamma]

i think he was referring to the jetpack like things when you bail from a mosquito, galaxy.. etc

[m0rphiu5]

i think everyone here agrees with a crazy pilot flying at extremely low altitude with a fully loaded (or series of?) galaxy(s) and an adequet diversion a succesful depp attack into enemy territory is entirely possible......

this game just keeps gettin better and better doesn't it.......

[Doobz]

heheh, i can fly so low in bf1942 that i can actually turn my plane into dirt sled :cool:

hell i can even do it upside down, scraping my canopy against the ground, without taking damage, no exageration. man u have no idea the crazy stuff i am capable of doing with that big b-17

heheh, imagine the screams of my passengers as i scrape the ground, inverted trying to shake the reaver chasing me down, the reaver pilot, saying "where the hell did he go?"

god, that will be awsome:cool:

[SVoyager]

hehe i can imagine with also those lill forest, like the one in ur sig. That could be fun flying in there :). If the ship can actually fit lol but still it can be a nice hiding spot.

The only thing im interrested to see is how the Flight Model will work out. How you will drive them, what will be the restrictions. If i compare a lill to t2 (sorry, its just the closest thing for my example), when u drive u cant do much with them. Making loops for example can easly be hazardeous to inexperienced people, simply because the plane always wants to level, so while u reach the top of the loop, the plane will want to level making it a immelman instead of the actual loop. If you dont have any corrections of some sort in PS, like super absolute plane leveling, then it might work good. Ull see people make some pretty good manoeveurs to get someone off his tail, instead of just running for mountains n such a la t2.

To me the almost perfect game so far that i tryed that has some nice FM is wwiiol's. U get some very very nice dogfights in there and a skilled pilot will own you badly, simply because you can do anything/evrything u could possibly do without any ai helping you keep the plane strait or limiting you in any way (besides the flying capabilities for the plane itself). Its hard at first but that way you make real good pilots.

I hope they model it so that the skill of the pilot actually matters. In a lot of action oriented games (such as PS tend to go to), skilled ground fighting does matter (u know when u get killed by someone skilled :-) ). The problem is that they tend to simplify so much the FM so that the most inexperienced wannabe flyboys can be good at it. IMHO, like the ground guys, if the pilots practice long enough, they'll be good. If its the first time you play ground, ull probably get ur ass kicked. For the planes, the first time you fly them you'll probably be hitting the ground often, it suck for the pilot but at least hes learning. If you have 20 different things helping you to prevent hitting the ground, u wont learn. So i hope the FM will not be giving "second chances", that way u can truly appreciate a skilled pilot, and you can appreciate good dogfights between skilled people :).

feel free to discuss :)

.02$

-edit. typos

[Doobz]

i personally think the best flight model for an action game yet is BF's. its perfect. it takes some time to understand, but ull be flying in a few minutes, but actually mastering it (like me :cool: ) can take days.

[SVoyager]

well bf is good. well in a way lol. i think for this type of game bf1942's FM is good. You can actually do some manoevers that can throw your ennemies off and you dont have some sort of ai trying to help you. Altho the controls are slow, the plane takes 2 year to react from your move, but its not too bad.

One thing i found funny the first time i tryed it was. REVERSE on planes WEEEEEE lol. I'm using a HOTAS and my throttle was all the way down (idle on normal planes, but bf1942 decided it was reverse), so i went on reverse on the wake map as axis and ended up in the water behind the carrier lol. I lmao'ed for a good 10 minutes after that hehe. The other thing was when u landed the plane. It took .000001 feets of runway to land that thing heh. Just go REVERSE PFFF mid air and u come to a almost stop MID AIR PFFFF. omg just typing this makes me laugh again.

But besides that, yes bf1942's FM is pretty good, i would like it for PS yup.

.02$

-edit more typos

[Hamma]

I think at one point dave said it would be similar to t2.. he designed that FM afterall :eek:

[SVoyager]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

damn

-edit. too bad u cant do much with it in terms of manoevers besides flying between mountains and close to the ground. Its not too bad tho because if its like t2, then fear me cuz evrtime im in a shrike i kick evryone's butts lol (to the point of being kicked in t2:renegades bc i was killing too many guys with the ground missiles on the interceptor lol j/k). The lack of being able to do anything with it is bad, well i hope they do better job for the ground vehicles tho. The MPB had such hard time rolling around lol.

[Hamma]

Yea im sure the engine code will be much better.. I seriously doubt it would be an exact replica of the T2 flight model, probably something that takes a bit more skill.. but who knows. :)

[SVoyager]

i still beleive, err hope :).

well basicly what was almost missing/wrong in t2's FM was that, for turning, it was using "side thrusters" kinda. Instead of having to turn the plane (bank? sorry my english, im a frenchie), and then pull to make the plane turn (like any other plane in the world), so that you can do more stuff instead of just use ur mouse to point and shoot.

[Doobz]

i personally didnt really like the t2 engine all that much.
it felt way too much like some kind of giant cartoon with ppl who were about 15 feet tall, i dont know why, it just did.

also everything u shot felt like u were throwing nerf footballs at the enemy. plus u couldnt fly high enough or do any really cool meneuvers in aircraft. plus everything was WAY too freaking fast to have any kind of real strategy.

the physic just felt all screwy to me. i hope the physics in planetside are more grounded, and the action a litle slower, and with much faster projectiles and bullets. that would make it much more military-minded

[Hamma]

Just referring to the flight controls.. PS will have much different physics im sure.. there will be no skiing in PS :p

[Doobz]

oh, dont even get me started....

[Tobias]

In t2 i liked getting the invis thingy and a shotgun, and blsting people when they went to buy stuff (after getting to the NME base of course.) It was great, for like a week. Then i went back to t1

[Doobz]

how was t1 better? i never played it

[Ravon Dark]

:(

I was a very good shriker in T2, but if PS FM is like T2's in that you can't do any sort of complex manuver, unless of course... OMG he's flying upside down!! ohh Yeah! real strategic manuver there... :p I just won't fly in PS if it's too much like the T2 FM.. I thought the T2 FM was horribly under developed and the fact that you couldn't even roll it or fly upside down for more then 5 seconds before the y velocity took over and slammed you into the ground was quite appalling and annoying. It took a lot of skill out of the game and just made it about as run and gun as Top Gun on the NES.

[SVoyager]

ahhh, yea agree with you doobz. no chainguns where u can actually see the bullet slowly reach ur target (especially when u gotta lead 20 meters in front of em to hit :) j/k).

I hope they have in mind to set the pace slow enough so that it promotes teamplay (fast pace, 1death/20seconds = no teamplay, just rush in. medium-slow pace promotes teamplay, u dont wanna walk the way in again :).)

.02$

[SVoyager]

haha ravon, you just summed it all :). S! u dont know how many times ive seen people die that way lol

[Incompetent]

Your all thinking wrong, the devs have said over and over that the aircraft are HELICOPTERS. and as far as T2, i hate that flight model, but there was a mod that had a kickass one. i can't for the life of me remember its name, it started with a T i think.

Edit: Terminal mod

[SVoyager]

yea, that pretty much what hamma said. helicopters a la t2 kinda yup thats what kinda suck, u cant do much with helicopters :).

[Tobias]

Im just gonna use a skeeter to get around, if its fast and i dont crash alot its all gravy. Course if someone attacks me in my skeeter i will get shot up, burn, and fall in an inferno to the ground, where i will die. But im a sniper, not a fighter.