Larger Crew Vehicles, Good or Bad?

[Trolltaxi]

Originally Posted by Shogun

i want an unarmed buggy type vehicle that can be used as mobile weapon platform by 4 max units.

4 ports for max units to cling on and use their maxsuit weapons while being carried around by the buggy ;-)

I have always dreamt of anchoring 4-6 Pounders on the wings of the Galaxy. And some Bursters too for defensive purposes...

[LongBow]

"Large" crew vehicles are always fun ... but I can't see any implementation of a mega vehicle working until we have a better understanding of the pacing in PS2.

[HELLFISH88]

I think large crew vehicles will be even more important now that fighting over remote locations away from facility's is more relevant. You will want to be able to maintain vehicles on site as importing more from a base could prove difficult due to time or encroaching enemy forces. Large vehicles such as heavy tanks encourage this.

Long before the great second coming and back in the day's of BFR's we had a similar discussion over heavy vehicles. Sporkfire said one of the original concept's for Battleframe robotic's (At least the heavy variants) was for the unit to serve as a heavy turret position. Powerful weapon's and shielding allowed the BFR to outclass most lesser ground threats while still delivering and awesome amount of fire power. The weakness to this is of course the shield generator makes reckless wandering BFR's easy to overwhelm and kill. BFR's needed protection from ground infantry. If you could you wanted air cover so libs couldn't tank bust you. This seemed to be pretty balanced but over time various changes lead to OP. The Flying variant's were very fun but as they also became OP it felt as if everyone now had a Gundam.

I believe the new heavy vehicle should serve a similar purpose but incarnate in a new form. As much as I love Mecha I think this new Heavy Tank/Vehicle should be just that. A "Conventional" ground vehicle moved by Treads or Wheels. (Magic for you Vanu) I personally think some kind of super heavy armored vehicle should be acquirable. To save you from reading more bricks of text:

"Heavy/Super Heavy Ground vehicle Concept"

Modualization

Planetside 2 seem's big on customization (MeGusta.jpg) and as such this new vehicle should have many options. Special armor and weapons are a given but i would like to see other things such as spawn tubes or advanced sensor equipment also available. This would add depth and allow the vehicle to serve as a mobile HQ or "base". Higby's law of Trade off's would occur as a "logistics fit" vehicle would be weaker in combat and therefore more vulnerable. Some of these moduals or fittings could only be accessed by specifically skilled characters (Engineer,medic,CR etc) and/or via the tech tree. IE: Need a Tech Center or X amount of unobtanium and X amount of Hydrocarbons. This vehicle could be fitted to carry X amount of infantry to serve as an APC or forgo that and use the space for more advanced weapons and armor.

Uses

- PVP Anti armor: Lots of armor and Anti tank weapons. Cannons, missiles and all that shit.

- PVP Anti-personnel: Anti personnel weapons such as machine guns, grenade launchers or even flamethrowers.

- APC Driver plus 6-8 passengers +1 MAX? Lighter weapons and armor but possible room for sensor suite or equipment terminal or storage

-EWAR or "Command" Variants These are more specialized vehicles outfitted by skilled characters. The Benefits could include SOI or squad style benefits to Health,stealth, Radar Ect. This one has lots of possibility's given what other things in game it might be able to interact with. Jamming Aircraft Radar maybe?

- ENG or the "repair" type would be a vehicle equipped and operated by a skilled engineer. It would have a turret mounted welding torch to repair friendly vehicles and machines. This variant could get away with light armor and maybe even a hatch mounted machine gun to keep infantry at bay as it will operate under direct combat conditions. Other abilities could include constructing or deploying large engineering objects or mine fields. This is where this get's really interesting and quite possibly Pandora's box. Such a variant could arguably be used to collect resources directly via WoW or EVE style Mining. This would add an intriguing yet also a literally game changing element.

- MED/SPAWN This one is last for a reason because It's essentially a wet dream about the AMS. The vehicle could have spawn tubes...perhaps even augmented spawn tubes with longer spawn times for balance. (maybe you could even train down spawn times via medical skills eh? ;D) Along with Spawn tube's we would of course have equipment terminal's. Cloaking seems fine but maybe as a skill to train or tech level to unlock. Cloaking field or Stealth from Radar and sensors.

These Hybrid vehicles could be deployed in any conceivable way. They can very easily fill the heavy armor roll while just as easily being used as mobile covert operations base for a squad of commando's and cloaker's. Squads of the engineering variants would move behind the armor keeping them repaired and fueled with ammunition.



This would be quite the task to implement but I feel the modular concept may cut down the workload a bit. I love having a variety of dedicated vehicle's to play with but this idea is to fascinating to let go of. I would imagine this could be added via expansion pack or large seasonal patch as opposed to launch.

[acosmo]

i love big frames, big guns and loud engines. i'm glad the liberator is a 3 man vehicle.

[xSlideShow]

Originally Posted by acosmo

i love big frames, big guns and loud engines. i'm glad the liberator is a 3 man vehicle.

And a gunship.

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by xSlideShow

And a gunship.

and if it's balanced with finese fitting for a AAA game, it will be one hell of a gunship.

[xSlideShow]

Originally Posted by acosmo

and if it's balanced with finese fitting for a AAA game, it will be one hell of a gunship.

I'm excited about it! Want to see more of that baby. Gonna be kill whoring it up in that beast of a machine!

[CutterJohn]

I'd love a Fatboy(from Supreme Commander) style unit, something really large and really slow, but is bristling with firepower. Has an equipment module that lets you fit a mobile spawn point(MAX included), an overhead shield(protection from bombing/artillery/gal drops) or air/veh repair/rearm functionality.

Bonus points if it can be run around on.

Best not to make it an air unit though. GG could too easily bypass the front.

[cellinaire]

What about the Big Huge sky battleship in one of the concept arts ?

[Azren]

For a multi crew vehicle to be used in PS2, it would have to be much more powerful than everything else ingame.

At the early days of PS1 you could get gunners for just about anything, including the bus, because of the low number of certified drivers. In case of PS2 however, everyone will have a number of vehicles avaiable.

So here is the question: Why would anyone jump into a bus as a 4th or 5th gunner instead of rolling a reaver or solo MBT? It will only happen if they are playing as a team (talking it over TS, ect), or if the multi manned vehicles are far better than any solo ones.

[Fate]

This is for the shitheads that didn't play the original PlanetSide when Galaxy Gunships were introduced. They were horrible and gamebreaking. Zergfits would drive three of them over the base and that would be the end of the courtyard fight. The only counter were AA Wall Turrets which were also stupid and OP. Basically, you'd have one OP thing vs another OP thing. Anything that wasn't OP that caught in the middle would get completely destroyed. Sounds kinda like BFRs. If you think that sounds good then you should go stab yourself in the neck with the sharpest thing possible.

[Fate]

To clarify, I don't think large crew vehicles are bad. I think OP multi-crew vehicles are retarded. I think coordinated single crew vehicle should be able to take on multi-crew vehicles. The original Gal Gunship would rape everything in it's airspace. That's wrong and stupid.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by DarkFate

To clarify, I don't think large crew vehicles are bad. I think OP multi-crew vehicles are retarded. I think coordinated single crew vehicle should be able to take on multi-crew vehicles. The original Gal Gunship would rape everything in it's airspace. That's wrong and stupid.

yea...35mm on the tail...you ain't getting taken from behind in a hurry by anything less than a kaoss mega reaver zerg that blocks out the sun and thats only after the zerg respawns, grabs new reavers and kill you while you're trying to repair the 25% damage they did.

[Figment]

Oh my gosh, I agree with TWO Darkfate posts!



*twitch*

[Azren]

Originally Posted by DarkFate

If you think that sounds good then you should go stab yourself in the neck with the sharpest thing possible.

You really are the lowest kind possible. Asking anyone to commit suicide, especially for such a meaningless reason can not be excused in any context. Do you think it is cool to talk/write such things?