Gameplay: Artillery In Planetside 2

[Brogan]

I actually was thinking the same thing recently. I was thinking that artillery would be a great benefit to the game.

One thing I would do to prevent spamming besides the deployment limit (I liked that) would be limited ammo, low rate of fire, and having a higher chance of being detected once you fire.

Another idea that I had would be an assault gun or tank destroyer. Basically a low profile tank, with no turret and the gun in the hull with a limited traverse (say, 15-30 degrees). Look up the Panzerjagers from World War Two for good examples. Basically these have good frontal armor (but side and rear is another story) and good stealth because of the low profile. They are used for ambush tactics. What I want these to do is promote strategic thinking. A perfect example is countering a blitz. You lure them into a trap, preferably a Valley or settlement, forcing the enemy into single or double file. Then concentrated fire will make short work. This also promotes a wider variety of vehicles in blitzes, because air superiority and fast redeployment can save the day for the attackers. I am kinda sick of seeing endless conga lines of MBTs.

[SDaxxter]

I like that.
But it should need at least 2 people. One Spotter (seated oder by ability) and the gunner. Interesting would be a non-sight operating by control panel instead of mouse-aiming.

[Takoita]

Sounds promising. A coordinated strike would disperse a tank blob very nicely. Certainly better than orbital stirke suggestion on the roadmap.

[Rothnang]

The problem I see with long range artillery units is simply that people will not shut up about how unfair it is when they get bombed by a Liberator and how badly that needs a nerf, so why would anyone thing they would be any happier to get bombed by artillery?

[Brogan]

Perhaps the artillery doesn't need to possess a god like range. Like just enough to sit behind the front line, like at most barely enough to reach across the valley to the south of the crown, and at that range it'd be laughably inaccurate. I'd be more of a heavy mortar than true artillery, but still fit the role.

[SDaxxter]

Agree with the Mortar. But still not that "Cepher"-like.

[Brogan]

It could also be made to be painfully obvious unless you put some effort into hiding the artillery, while still remaining within the short range of its gun. Like this:



From above it'd be a giant neon sign saying "shoot me" and/or every time it fires the recoil would send up a big dust cloud. It'd be skill based to be able to fire off more than a few shots, really balancing out however big of a gun they decide to put on it.