Creative/Odd Mods for Vehicles

[Zekeen]

Hello all, just thought I'd bring up a discussion on the more bizarre (or rarely done) modifications with vehicles and some on vehicle mods entirely.

Considering the current aspect of how Planetside 2 is being developed, one big thing is they are, of course, going for balance. Making every vehicle mod and sidegrade useful in keeping the power struggle alive and everything working with 80-120% power of another. We know that there will be a gigantic amount of mods for weapons and vehicles, and this will definately make PS2 come alive, but one of my concerns is this - Are we going to get the ability to use underpowered modifications for our own choice to use in certain situations.

My dream vehicle - apart from every possible galaxy mod in the world - is this. I want a Reaver that has 5 gun pods instead of one gun pod and 4 rocket or missile pods. Gun pods would probably make it weaker, below the average they would go for, but it would have more versatility, but would not have have any dominating power. You wouldn't be locking on in mid air, or blasting tanks below, but you could be dividing infantry with strafing runs with the widened bullet pattern and still be able to dogfight aircraft (some of us prefer guns over missiles). Point is, it's an uncommon mod to think of, and I think more strange options would add some life to the game. Give a mod for a BTR type gun to tanks, less power but semi rapid fire to hit lighter vehicles and heavy infantry. Keep the imagination alive.

Another aspect of attention is how vehicles will be able to over diversify their abilities too much. It's one thing for a Reaver to have anti air and anti ground capacities, it's another to be able to turn a Vanguard into an anti air vehicle. I think it would be better if instead of making that main gun an anti air battery, give more use to the secondary gunner. Add a mod for the secondary gun to be a flak gun instead of making the Vanguard just pure anti air power. If too many vehicles specialize too much, you can't spot anti-air, anti-armor, ect. It's nice to give some more defense oriented specializations and more meaning to secondary positions, but to give it to the primary is borish. Vehicles need to have a primary specializations that sticks, if you go too far, it changes entirely and should be more easily noticed. Make a separate AA, give a secondary gunner spot mod to have a light cannon for vehicles, just keep these role mods to defensive style.

My point of this post is we should redirect a few questions and attention to getting more imaginative mods for vehicles without changing their roles entirely. If I say a Vanguard is here, we know it can hurt anything, but vehicles are fodder for it and we know it won't be tearing a squadron of air vehicles to shred. If I say Reaver, it's death from above, it can gun down infantry even when decked for anti air and can hurt tanks if decked for anti armor. Keep it easy to know primary role and allow secondary. But even when saying that, remember to be imaginative. This is, of course, putting a gigantic pressure on the dev team - how can you be imaginative AND adhere to role types? It's difficult, but not impossible. I want my Reaver with full on machine guns to do strafing runs and gunfire dogfights, I want an auto-cannon on my tank to take out light vehicles and unwary low altitude VTOLs hovering about. I want a Sunderer to lock down, become a fortress, and allow infantry inside to fire out of gunner slots. Or give the Liberator bomber a guided missile over a hoard of bombs - less damage but precise hits. Strange, useful, and not too farfetched, this is what can keep the game more interesting. Also I want a big armored truck with a redneck lighting array that can be used to blind a squad of enemy infantry. The sky is the limit. Weird mods would just make the game more fun, so long as they don't go "too" far.


I'm hoping the devs have some wild and crazy ideas of their own in the works. With the awesome lighting system in the game, even MORE mods could make vehicles even more unique. Spotlights on top of tanks, instead of a secondary gun, would be interesting for nighttime fights, for instance.

What type of weird, outside the box, or for that matter, outside the traditional box, would you guys like to see make it into PS2?