VTOL vs STOL

[Riekopo]

I've been reading so many threads about the Air and AA balance and it got me thinking. I have the best air and AA certifications and weapons unlocked and I find the air vs ground battle very unsatisfying. It suddenly hit me that I think the main reason we have this problem is because all the aircraft in the game are hovering VTOL. I think if the air game in Planetside 2 was revamped with mostly STOL (short take off and landing) then we wouldn't have this problem.

Thoughts?

[Sirisian]

Yeah was suggested. The devs didn't like it I don't think since it was brought up a few times. I even wrote up a section on my site after a discussion on PSU about it before tech test since a few people saw an issue with their implementation of VTOL from the videos.

I don't think STOL would work though. Landing vertically is important.

VTOL

Each plane in the game would have an afterburner bar. This would recharge slowly over time. Pretend you get into a jet and press e to go up it would drain the bar applying thrust to lift the vehicle vertically. You would then move forward and drop with gravity and begin flying like normal. If you slow down your plane will begin to fall out of the air. Using the afterburner thrust would stop this.
What this means is that an aircraft could take off in VTOL and fly for a bit to recharge the after-burner and then land vertically pretty easily. It could also slow down and hover for a moment to launch rockets. It would however then need to speed up and regain flight as the bar depletes.
This means a plane like a mossy or Reaver can't do a perpetual hover over a target. It would encourage sweeping quick attacks.
A galaxy and other vehicles would use the thrust to take off also and hover momentarily to release units. A bomber could also use this hover to position itself over a target for a moment before depleting the bar.

[CraazyCanuck]

That's a fantastic idea

[Tatwi]

Yup. I've been saying this since beta. It's especially important for air to air combat, because it prevents every encounter from devolving into who can stop and "turret" the fastest. Instead, people would have to learn and use all of those great/fun acrobatic maneuvers that WWI and WWII pilots dreamed up. VTOL really puts a damper on those. It also takes away from air to ground by lessening the usefulness of making a good strafing run.

Personally, I still try to do these things, mostly because they are fun, but in part to lead by example.

[CraazyCanuck]

Yup. I've been saying this since beta. It's especially important for air to air combat, because it prevents every encounter from devolving into who can stop and "turret" the fastest. Instead, people would have to learn and use all of those great/fun acrobatic maneuvers that WWI and WWII pilots dreamed up. VTOL really puts a damper on those. It also takes away from air to ground by lessening the usefulness of making a good strafing run.

Personally, I still try to do these things, mostly because they are fun, but in part to lead by example.

Your a rare bird then Tatwi, but thanks for the effort. I always hoped they would have a dedicated VTOL unit (aka helicopter gunship equivalent) and have everything else STOL.

[Pella]

100% No. No. And No.

And this will never happen. Who would want to suck the only good thing out of Dog fighting. It was in PS1 and now PS2 keep it that way. This isnt BF3.

[NewSith]

I've been reading so many threads about the Air and AA balance and it got me thinking. I have the best air and AA certifications and weapons unlocked and I find the air vs ground battle very unsatisfying. It suddenly hit me that I think the main reason we have this problem is because all the aircraft in the game are hovering VTOL. I think if the air game in Planetside 2 was revamped with mostly STOL (short take off and landing) then we wouldn't have this problem.

Thoughts?

In all fairness such thought crossed my mind too, and even several times... But then I though about it and figured that removing hovering from jets will just take away too much from the game.

[PredatorFour]

How would we scythe wrestle in the warpgate if we didn't have vtol ???

[Phantomdestiny]

what about keeping the VTOL's we have right now?

and then introducing STOL as interception jets and carpet bombers .
The devs could make part of the warpgates and the top of the tech plants as landing strips. That would also bring to the meta game because we could only spawn and land them at tech plants ,warpgate OR bastion :) :evil:

[Dougnifico]

I've always said that the ESF should have been 2 vehicles: An AtG VTOL and a AtA STOL.

[maradine]

I think you could mitigate turreting pretty substantially by just increasing the magnitude of the gravity effect once the parties cut engines. There's nothing wrong with a turret fight as long as it's a rapidly falling turret fight. Would add a little bit of chicken to the engagement, especially for those of us who habitually live within 50 meters of the deck.

[NewSith]

I think you could mitigate turreting pretty substantially by just increasing the magnitude of the gravity effect once the parties cut engines. There's nothing wrong with a turret fight as long as it's a rapidly falling turret fight. Would add a little bit of chicken to the engagement, especially for those of us who habitually live within 50 meters of the deck.

It was like that in Beta, actually. Even while I'm absolutely not an ESF pilot, I would safely say that that was a bad idea.

[maradine]

I don't remember that being the case, but that's just as easily my memory. Anybody have some video?

[Rothnang]

Oh, but we already have a system that prevents people from hovering. Let's call it "the 5 second rule".

I would like to see a requirement to keep moving built into the ESFs because I hate the dogfighting in this game. The fact that you can instantly negate the advantage anyone has by being on your tail by going to hover just makes dogfighting really boring to me. Why bother running and trying to shake off your pursuer if you can simply stop, turn around and open fire?

[RSphil]

maybe future aircraft could be STOL. but the flying area would need be increased for that and the max hight increased. i play aces high a lot and the good old dog fighting in the WW2 aircraft is awesome.

dog fighting is missing the excitement atm. lock on missiles take the fun out of it tbh. and the round and round flying people do. air combat isn't as fun as id like it to be atm.

lets hope it gets better in the future

[CraazyCanuck]

Yeah hard to dogfight with such a low celing. I've been trying to improve at the low flying acrobatics and using the terrain more. Usually go to Amerish to "practice" maintaining the "Freddy Flintstone" style now, but can get a little over confident. Wish my joystick worked properly with PS2.

[Riekopo]

I don't think it's a gravity problem. I think it's a problem of unrealistic inertia and physics. It also seems like there is a continuous thrust being generated from all sides of the aircraft. If more realistic physics were implemented into the flight model then that would fix this I think. However, the aircraft would then need to be redesigned. The ESFs could be made into dedicated air superiority fighters and the Liberators into dedicated gunships. Maybe a new fighter-bomber and bomber could then be introduced and a resupply galaxy.

[maradine]

There wasn't much appetite for a more complicated and realistic flight model early on, but I'd be pleased to learn that's changed.

[Rothnang]

I think the easiest fix to the whole hovering thing would be to make fighters roll and pitch much slower if they aren't at speed. That way if you're slowing down for a landing or to drop missiles on someone it won't severely impede you, but if you try to turn your fighter into a floating turret that simply wouldn't work.

More dogfights, more bombing runs, less hover-turret.

[Obstruction]

everyone wants to change everything in the main forum. i thought there was an "ideas" forum for that? this is the area to discuss current gameplay. i come here to see if anyone has done testing on different cert lines or weapons, check out cool videos and read discussions about patch notes, hotfixes, weird bugs, etc.

i avoid the SOE forums and the ideas section because of the butthurt whining and nonsense changes that people want. you honestly have no idea what the smallest changes are going to do in a game this complex, so you have to change one small thing at a time or else the whole thing could start to suck so fast you wouldn't believe it.

[Sirisian]

everyone wants to change everything in the main forum. i thought there was an "ideas" forum for that? this is the area to discuss current gameplay. i come here to see if anyone has done testing on different cert lines or weapons, check out cool videos and read discussions about patch notes, hotfixes, weird bugs, etc.
I think you're in the wrong thread. This is obviously a discussion of the gameplay of flight in this game and some of the implementation issues after trying different cert lines and their gameplay in regards to ground combat.
you honestly have no idea what the smallest changes are going to do in a game this complex, so you have to change one small thing at a time or else the whole thing could start to suck so fast you wouldn't believe it.
Indeed. That's why I suggested not making a large change from VTOL to STOL. There are minor changes which would just repurpose the existing cert lines. For instance hover would allow a person to hover more efficiently using less afterburner where as a dog fighting frame would give high efficiency in forward flight. Very minor changes without requiring runways or removing airpads from the game.

[Baneblade]

Aircraft shouldn't be able to fly below 50% speed unless they are landing, and to land or take off requires VTOL mode, which has a capacitor. Capacitor should be strong enough to handle even the worst take offs and landings, but once it is depleted, you better be moving or your ass is ground bound.

[Rothnang]

More hover restrictions make sense for fighters, but for the bigger aircraft that's hardly feasible. They can't engage in dogfights anyways, so they don't ruin air battles by turning them into hover dances.