Originally Posted by Carbon Copied
If Malorn/Kev-mo/Art team use this option please for all love of god just use the chassis as a start point however a complete unique back end; (i.e you equip the module it looks significantly aesthetically different to just adding a little cone and a couple of glow effects). While giving it downsides and compromises like not being able to transport a full complement of troops (think along an armored bank van line of a plus 1 - 3 etc.) - just something to break the "jack of all trades - it looks the same as everything else" monotonous tone.
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I kinda like this option as a compromise from a production standpoint (with the obvious caveat that, as a player and not a member of the dev team, I know just next to squat about the Planetside 2 vehicle pipeline, and thus have no business commenting on production issues :P). Reskinning the Sunderer with a new model, but keeping the overall rig, sound design and vehicle physics, bypasses some (though not all) of the major development costs, but still allows some important tweaks, like giving it a visibly different silhouette or removing troop capacity/combat effectiveness.
Even so, I could hardly blame them if they decided not to. A new vehicle (even a reskin) is still an order of magnitude more work and requires more developers from different disciplines. Still, if they decided to go the extra mile here it'd definitely be noticed and appreciated! I think there's a LOT of interesting things you could do with a new vehicle for ANT, like expanding their capabilities later on to having optional modules that do things like distribute resources to people instead of bases, or convert them into a temporary battlefield advantage like a cloak or shield, but even without that kind of "I want a pony" wishlist, just providing the ANT with a unique silhouette that can be identified at long range would be super helpful for conveying gameplay information.