Towable Artillery/AA (as per Hayoo's request)

[oddfish]

I've finally compiled the info on my plan for Towable Artillery/Anti-aircraft guns and Placeable Machine Gun and Recoiless Cannon Nests.

Objective:
The objective behind adding Towable Artillery and Anti-Aircraft guns and also Infantry Placeable Machine Gun and Recoiless Cannon Nests is to open up the playing field. The addition of Towable Artillery and AA, and the Nests allows for temporary fire-support positions to be set up essentially anywhere on the map, utilizing all the open fields, mountainous zones, and wooded areas that were made available to us by the devs/mappers. There is a lot of unused real estate in Planetside, especially on continents like Esamir, Ishundar, and Cyssor. Lots of space, but half of it is unused, unexplored, and underappreciated. Sure, there are towers scattered here and there, but they still don't utilize all that open space. This is merely one of the reasons why including Towable Artillery and Anti-Aircraft guns and the MG and RC Nests would be beneficial to the game.

Other reasons include the addition of new objectives to the scope of Planetside. When Temporary Arty/AA outposts are able to be deployed and manned they afford a whole new selection of missions to anyone who plays PS.

These missions include:
> Joining a convoy on a mission to deploy an outpost.
> Manning and/or Maintaining an outpost/fire position by gunning or engineering.
> Guarding an outpost/fire postions.
> Setting up an ambush along the road to a tower/base with MG and RC nests.
> Air-recon or Air-assault on an outpost/fire position.
> Preparing and performing an assault on an outpost/fire position.
> Increasing base/tower defenses with MG/RC nests.
> Spotting/scouting for outposts/fire positions.
> Scouting out outposts/fire positions for teammates.

I will go into greater detail on these missions and their benefits in further sections of this post. Right now, I would like to explain some details of the Towable Artillery and AA, and also the MG/RC Nests. Also, Hayoo has introduced the concept of placeable cover to me. When he brought this to my attention I made it a point to try to integrate the two concepts. Here is what I have come up with thus far:


Towable Aritillery
The Outpost concept is simple. Deliverers (I'm thinking of perhaps including the Harasser into the equation) will now be able to be acquired from Vehicle terminals with the option of an attached Towable/Deployable Artillery/AA gun or Sensor Array. I will give more details on the Sensor Array momentarily. First, I would like to explain about the artillery. I had toyed with the notion of making the Artillery Cannon varieties Empire Specific but I would prefer to leave that up to the Devs. Personnaly, I think that Common Pool Artillery and AA guns would be best, just with a variety of ammunitions. But, as I said, it's up to the devs. At any rate, here's the specs for the artillery.

Artillery pieces would be acquired from the Vehicle Terminals just as any vehicle, only they would come hitched to a Deliverer like a boat trailer is hitched to a truck. Only players with the Ground Transport certification could acquire Towable Artillery guns for the simple reasons of limiting the amount of Towable Artillery that would show up in the game. If just anyone could acquire a cannon or AA gun at any Vehicle Terminal then there would be a massive overuse of the weapons and they would become more frustrating than fun and interesting. At any rate, here is the first of three rather crude diagrams that I have created (I need the Drivers for my Wacom Art Tablet or these drawings would be more arty farty )

Thumbnailed Diagram


This diagram shows, in a very basic manner, how the artillery will be packed/deployed/transported.

I will explain deployment of the artillery in a later segment.
Next I will discuss Anti-Aircraft Guns