Gameplay: Light Air Cav Transport

[Peacemaker]

If its gonna be a light transport, it should be akin to a Blackhawk. A door gunner or two and that's it for weapons. Make it fast, agile, low armor.

[Malorn]

the BF2142 VTOL transports are the perfect analogy for a light air transport IMO. They hold about 5-6 guys, are fairly agile and great from getting from control point to control point. They also get shot down in a few hits. Provided everyone and their dog isn't running around with av/aa this would work out quite well.

I even liked the handling / flight characteristics of those transports. It was so very well done, fun to fly, and really damn useful.

They also made ground transports useful with buggies and APCs that could take a beating and launch drop pods. I'd like to see all of those dynamics in PS2. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the sort of vehicle gameplay seen in BF2142 would be a great model for PS2. You could tell Dice was inspired by Planetside with that one and I think PS could learn from what they did with it.

I like BF's approach to AV/AA, with a few classes having access to it but it being very effective at what it does. But that is also countered by the ability to quickly re-pull vehicles, and since PS mechanics have them coming from bases or structures I can see vehicles being a little bit stronger but not much.

[EASyEightyEight]

Mosquito/reaver. Side mounted seats. = Light air transport. Quick and convenient, it can pick up 4-6 guys, take them to the battle, drop them off, and then continue doing what it does best.

The "light air transport" you're thinking of is LITERALLY a deliverer, only airborne (and thus vulnerable to flak) and unless you allow hot dropping from any height, it will NEVER see the level of use you believe it will and even with hotdropping, it may not anyway, because a Galaxy is simply better overall. Hell, no one uses the current deliverer. They use the ES variants as weapon platforms, not troop transports. The sunderer is the ground variant of the galaxy, and still no one uses it as a troop transport. BF 2142 does not have Galaxies, making it a horrible reference. They can get away with weaponless transports there, because they have no other form of aerial troop transport.

Unless it offers:
Hotdropping from safe heights,
Ass-loads of armor,
Troop spawning,
and troop transport,

-It will get shoved to the back burner with the rest of the lesser transports. It will require a function the Galaxy does not offer to have any form of allure over one. With a safe haven for each empire on every continent, it's likely we'll see even more Galaxies this time around too.

[Talek Krell]

I suspect that a smaller, faster, cheaper, more agile transport would see a lot of use. Especially if it's before the gal in the cert tree.

If you're going to use an existing vehicle I'd pick the Liberator. It was already part of the air support cert in PS1, so it would make sense in the same cert tree as the gal. It has enough armor to get in and out of a base, but not enough to make sitting there under fire feasible. Just make the bomb bay modular and let it switch out for a troop carry module with some mounted weapons. Personally I'd like to see it with a gunship module too, since they apparently abandoned the 2 man reaver, but that's a different thread.

Alternatively you could re-invent the phantasm. Visual stealth seems to be out of favor, but maybe an appropriate sensor stealth and ewar package could replace it.

[Malorn]

The main reason I liked the light transport is precisely because it would see more use than the gal. In PS1 you had to go to the dropship center or sanc to get a gal and they were pretty easy to shoot down. So I figure if they want faster pacing they need a vehicle more suited for the job of getting to the front line quickly but not have huge resource costs or require you to go to some special terminal to pull it. Light air transport would be something you could pull from any vehicle term w/o tech plant, etc.

However, in PS2 they said that you don't need a specific facility to pull any vehicles, but they also described the resource system using an example that described going after a resource to deny the VS tanks. So while they may have removed the tech facility I have a feeling it was replaced by the more flexible and robust resource system.

In PS2 the difference between the gal and the light air cav would be speed, maneuverability vs carrying capacity and armor. Economically the difference would be resource cost. The light transport would have little or no resource cost while the gal might have more.

For a small squad, the light air cav transport would likely be well suited since some would be in the transport and others might be in escort craft. Or simply 2 small transports vs 1 big gal. A platoon consisting of 15+ players would likely prefer gals.

[exLupo]

^^^ That perfectly covers the niche for this type of vehicle at its core.

Having read the thread and the mentions of guns I was thinking maybe an implementation based on depth of speccing into Light Air Transport.

The base craft has 1 pilot and 4 passengers. Deeper specs unlock mods to remove seats and add passenger weapons, each with its own additional resource cost. So, at most, 1 pilot, 2 gunners. For people who put in the time, you'd get a light, cheap, teamwork powered VTOL useful for stop-and-pop engaging infantry and light vehicles. Light enough armor that even MA would make you flee in time and AV would make you flee -right now-. The LT equivalent of the Gal Gunship.

Opportunity costs being both resources and skill training that specializes LT pilots. Passenger guns (gatling, rocket and missile) would be unlocked by the vehicle's builder (pilot) but passive enhanced by the passenger's Air Turret Gunner skills. Or whatever.