Driver/Gunners... NO!

[Flaropri]

Originally Posted by Figment

...I was refering to his suggestion about having two three player tanks and one two player tank...

Optional my arse. There's no option there.

The suggestion, IIRC, was that there would be an optional Certification that some tanks could be modded to have 3 crew instead of 2. That's where the option is. People don't need to use that Cert/Mod and thus whether or not they put more manpower into those tanks is optional.

No one would be forcing people to use the 3-crew variant of their MBT, choosing to use it is the playstyle preference (by this suggestion, obviously, there are some people, such as the OP, that don't want optional but that's not what you were responding to at the time).

If the situation calls for it, just use the 2-crew variant.*

Resources mean squat.

I can't say how you can be sure of that. So far, we've seen Alpha footage with access to debugging tools and admin commands, and E3 (also Alpha) footage where everyone was given a bunch of resources. Even considering that though, there were several terminals that ran out of resources on the first day.

Ultimately, whether resources (both incomes and costs) are balanced or not will play a lot into whether or not vehicles in general are balanced, and the importance of efficiently using vehicles vs. using a lot of vehicles.

Unless you're saying because the Vanguard would need three gunners for the "prefered" playstyle, the Magrider should cost 1.5x as much. Even though it will face tanks with one or two players as well?

There's no reason to alter cost because of an option on other tanks. My point, which you perhaps missed as it relates to my previous posts in this thread, is that specifically in the long term the resources make a difference. The more players that pull MBTs the fewer resources that group will have towards other vehicles or MBTs at a later time... assuming resources do have meaning like the Devs seem to want them to.

You don't get it maybe, but there's a HUGE problem in manpower distribution there. It's the basis of all balance.

And what I guess you don't get is that most people are suggesting that the 3-crew variant for a given tank should be optional. Manpower distribution is important, it's why I don't think a cert to decrease required players is the way to go for example, but...

I also think that people are undervaluing resources as a means of balance. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if resource gains were modified based on relative Empire population in a similar way to XP gains in PS1. Likewise, the more places you control, the more resources you'll get, but also the more area you'll have to defend, so those resources still get split up (relatively at least).

In any event... as long as it's optional, there isn't any real harm to it.


*(I think the 2-Crew Variant will be by far the most used even if this cert. method was used. However, I can understand people wanting to play in a specific style, and there are some situations where fitting more people into less armor is a good choice... but not enough situations to care whether or not VS would get that choice.)