Improvement: Top Turret for the Liberator

The Degenatron · 2012-06-16, 03:31 PM

This was an Idea I pitched for the Liberator in PS1:

The Liberator is just too vulnerable from the top.

Please consider adding a top turret that faces towards the back and has a 90 degree arc of rotation.

Edit: Added for clarity:

Here's the balance: The top turret is manned by the bombadier. Either you can be attacking ground targets or defending yourself from attacks from above, but not both. The top turret would be a 20mm cannon - nothing that will "shred" an attackers but will ward them off after a couple of seconds of fire. The top turret and the ball turrets would obviously NOT have overlapping fields of fire.

Side grades to the top turrent could include:

a wider arc of turning vs lower magazine count
a heavier caliber ammo vs lower magazine count
A larger magazine vs a lower caliber ammo
A faster rate of fire (double cannons) vs lower caliber ammo

To all of the interceptor pilots out there who will hate this: Please keep in mind that just because there's a gun up on top that means it will kill everything it's pointed at. There still has to be someone there who can put bullets on target.

This is just prevent the easy kill that happens now with liberators vs reavers in PS1.

Give the lib crews a fighting chance to get away.

Kriegson · 2012-06-16, 05:16 PM

Psshh. A REAL crew will just flip the lib upsidown in mid air and kill interceptors with the belly turret.

Baneblade · 2012-06-16, 08:30 PM

The Lib always should have had a full dorsal turret with 360/110 arcs.

Haro · 2012-06-16, 08:43 PM

I was originally gonna shoot this idea down (baddum tish) but I actually kind of like the dual gunner-bombardier idea. My main concern is I really don't want vehicles to act totally independent of other units. I'm hoping softer vehicles encourage people to work more closely with other units to really cooperate. For example, rather than just having libby pilots on their own, organize pilots for escorts. Its mutually beneficial: Libby gets to focus on ground targets for lots of xp and kills, escorts can focus on the fighters that inevitably will pursue the juicy target of the liberator, for aforementioned xp and kills. And both elements can know that by coordinating, they can seriously aid their empire. I never really felt like there was enough of that in Planetside, though maybe that was just me. I always felt most vehicles could take enough abuse that, if the driver was remotely cautious and intelligent about damage, he could pull away and repair more often than not.

That said, you can't always count on people getting that level of coordination, so maybe the turret is a good idea. I just feel like the liberator is going to be an absolute air to ground beast (much more than the original) so I'd like it to rely on other units to really reach its full potential.

Rexdezi · 2012-06-18, 06:49 AM

going by the E3 footage, the Liberator is an air to ground beast. Strong armour, Strong DPS. The only drawbacks are the speed/maneuverability and the lack of defence topside. Those drawbacks are purely for balance imo, so I say no to the top turret. Leave the Lib as it is

Fab · 2012-06-18, 07:05 AM

^ good point. The lib needs a weakness.

ChipMHazard · 2012-06-18, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

going by the E3 footage, the Liberator is an air to ground beast. Strong armour, Strong DPS. The only drawbacks are the speed/maneuverability and the lack of defence topside. Those drawbacks are purely for balance imo, so I say no to the top turret. Leave the Lib as it is

Aye, I also seem to remember Higby actually commenting on that specific weakness.

The Degenatron · 2012-06-18, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

going by the E3 footage, the Liberator is an air to ground beast. Strong armour, Strong DPS. The only drawbacks are the speed/maneuverability and the lack of defence topside. Those drawbacks are purely for balance imo, so I say no to the top turret. Leave the Lib as it is

That's a good point, but I'm willing to bet that the Lib cannon gets nerfed before it even reaches our greedy little hands in beta.

Also, the whole point of the bombadier being the top gunner is that if the Lib is actually being a A2G beast, then it IS vulnerable from the top.

In fact, the way I've described it means that the top turret would be most used in "Run away!" mode. And again, just because you put someone up there doesn't mean the Lib become invulnerable to attack from above. In my extensive experience as a Lib ball-gunner I can tell you there were plenty of times we got "bulldogged" from BELOW and got shot down before I could put enough bullets on target to ward off the attacker. Put just TWO attackers in the equation (not a stretch of the imagination) and already the top gunner is already getting over-whelmed.

Haro made an excellent point about fostering team play and I COMPLETELY agree with that. However, the dev team have stated over and over that they want people to have enough otions to play they WANT to play - and if you can only muster up two buddies to go flying with you, then the liberator should still be a viable option for you. A team of three freinds should still be able to make a bombing pass, run away, and have a fighting chance at landing and repairing and doing it again.

If you take into account the mantra "Teamwork > Solo Always" then a three-man Liberator should have a good chance against a lone interceptor. As it stands now, in PS1, that's not really the case specificly because of the huge gaping hole in the the Libs defense.

Baneblade · 2012-06-18, 09:05 AM

The dorsal turret won't stop Libs from being shot down, but it will make them more than a free kill.

Kriegson · 2012-06-18, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

The dorsal turret won't stop Libs from being shot down, but it will make them more than a free kill.

The lib in itself requires teamwork from at least 3 people to fully man it. What's one more person to escort in an air superiority fighter?

Baneblade · 2012-06-18, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by Kriegson

The lib in itself requires teamwork from at least 3 people to fully man it. What's one more person to escort in an air superiority fighter?

So the Lib should be a four player/two vehicle aircraft?

BillyBob · 2012-06-18, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by The Degenatron

The Liberator is just too vulnerable from the top.

So where's your Wasp escort then, having a coffee break?

As others pointed out...it's balancing combined with placing emphasis on teamplay by having to bring Air-to-Air protection along (e.g. Wasps).

I can see where you're coming from, but personally I think the Liberator is fine with the turrets it currently has. The need for cooperation between different types of units is IMO one of the major strongpoints of the game and should be encouraged.

/BB

Baneblade · 2012-06-18, 04:00 PM

Why not remove the tailgunner then?

The Degenatron · 2012-06-18, 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by Kriegson

The lib in itself requires teamwork from at least 3 people to fully man it. What's one more person to escort in an air superiority fighter?

Originally Posted by BillyBob

So where's your Wasp escort then, having a coffee break?

As others pointed out...it's balancing combined with placing emphasis on teamplay by having to bring Air-to-Air protection along (e.g. Wasps).

I can see where you're coming from, but personally I think the Liberator is fine with the turrets it currently has. The need for cooperation between different types of units is IMO one of the major strongpoints of the game and should be encouraged.

/BB

To me, this is like saying "The TR Prowler, even though it's a 3 man tank, should have a huge area of blindspot where it completely vulnerable to Lightnings. That way, it needs a lightning to drive around with it to protect it."

How is it logical that a vehicle that requires a 3 man crew be so vulnerable to a 1 man vehicle? Teamwork > Solo. That means that a fair balance would mean that it would require TWO fighters to take it down, AT THE VERY LEAST.

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

Why not remove the tailgunner then?

Exactly. If the Lib is meant to be completely vulnerable to air-to-air, why give it a tail gunner at all? Why even make it a multiplayer vehicle at all? A lone pilot could drop bombs just as easy. Why not make a side-grade to the Air-Fighter which turns them into Dive Bombers?

What I'm proposing is NOT radical, it's LOGICAL. It's also MORE FUN, and THAT should be the overriding concern.

The reason the high altitude bombing tactics were widely adopted were specificly to protect the libs vulnerable top-side. But the lib was first invisioned as a low altitude bomber doing strafing runs and using terain for cover against the skyguard. At max alt, you can hardly even see ground targets because of the draw distance limitations.

I want liberator crews to be empowered to get down into the action and mix it up. Giving them a top gun will allow them to at least TRY it - even idf the top gun ends up just being a "Woobie" (i'd perfer it didn't, I think it should pack enough punch to ward off attackers).

BillyBob · 2012-06-19, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by The Degenatron

I want liberator crews to be empowered to get down into the action and mix it up. Giving them a top gun will allow them to at least TRY it - even idf the top gun ends up just being a "Woobie" (i'd perfer it didn't, I think it should pack enough punch to ward off attackers).

Yes, but that's purely from the perspective of the Liberator crew, isn't it?

What about the pilot attempting to shoot the Liberator down?

All I'm saying is I never experienced this as an issue in PS and I'm not sure it will be in PS2.

Regardless, as these questions are all regarding the balancing of the game, I think it will all become quite obvious once beta starts and we see these situations play out on a greater scale.

Best you can do IMO, is to get into beta and fly a lot of Liberators to see if this "blindspot" is a weakness making it imbalanced in any way.

If this turns out to be the case, then it will probably be pretty obvious and many will report on it.

However, I think it's perhaps a bit premature to assume that any possible imbalance present in PS will automatically be there in PS2. I'd say we should maybe play the game first, observe and then pass final judgement based on that.

/BB