Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Kinda like how nobody is complaining that the Lib has a powerful driver cannon, despite being a 3 man teamwork oriented vehicle. Why? Because thats how it was in PS1.

I was a Libby pilot, and would not have objected if the pilot gun was removed, especially now that they've changed from a bombardier to a downward-facing turret.

The nose gun on the Liberator in PS1 was only ever really any good at occasional potshots of opportunity. If you wanted to be in a dedicated air fight, you were better off in anything but a Liberator. If you wanted to perform the primary function of the Liberator, you don't have time to change heading to seek targets on a level with you, and you need to provide level flight over the target zone for your bombardier. So the Liberator was only ever good for 2 functional weapons at a time, in a 3-man vehicle.

Removing that nose gun and giving the bombardier a turret maintains that power balance and achieves the dedicated driver teamwork experience.

I'd be happy as a clam if nothing bigger than a Lightning was driver-gunned, and no air vehicles were. Give me two-man ES fighters, 3-man Liberators, and Galaxies with bunches of guns, and no fixed forward guns for pilots. Then also give me a dedicated MBT driver with two crew, and 1-man Lightnings that offer similar durability to beefy MAX suits (a few shots with dedicated AV weaponry). That sounds like a blast!

The reason that sounds fun as heck to me is that with that level of teamwork and manpower dedicated to each vehicle, you can balance them to be rugged and powerful without invalidating infantry choices in mixed-arms environments. Because the infantry maintains the power of numbers.

Ever wonder why Planetside 1 was all about the Reaver out in the open? Because it was a class of armament that allowed one person access to very high amounts of firepower along with an armor type (vehicle) which afforded him much more durability than otherwise available and required specialized dedicated weaponry to threaten him.

The only AV will be other vehicles, MAXes, and HA, folks. Allowing armored vehicles to be solo-operated is just begging to obviate infantry playstyles in any situation where the vehicle is permitted.

[Rocknoise]

imo the maingun at 2nd seat was perfect. Driving and gunning like in bf3 is so not funny. As driver i want to keep my eyes to the front. As gunner i very often to keep my eyes aftwards. Doing both is really crappy. One big reason FOR ps1 were the seperated roles in a tank.

So a hybrid version would be acceptable and a new aspect to ps2, but removing the rolesplit completly would compromise ps2´s mmo feeling alot.

Also the dependence of the 2 or 3 crewmen has been really a boost to teamplay and abilities.

So here im appealing: PLS MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR GUNNER TO USE MAINGUN!

sry for caps. but that really freaks me out to lose such an important feature.