AMS Mk.3 design (for when it does get into PS2)

[Figment]

Originally Posted by ParisTeta

We understand you, don`t worry, but i am more concerned of the actual gameflow. Yes it was an art, very important, and some people can get accomplishment out of it. Dual purpose allows just for more to do then the single object of driving to point A and deploy, guns, the transportation of troops, is quite fitting and allows for better gameflow, which des devs say is important to them (that is the reason why the AMS was cut).

I don`t agree with you (single use to mulit role), but you put up some nice work! Thank you for being part in this community, see you on the battlefield.

That's the thing though, the argumentation used by the devs is very weak on several key points where they completely missed the point behind certain units, combat and tbh, PlanetSide itself.

Nothing that can't be fixed but must nonetheless.

The AMS is multirole. Incredibly multirole. It supports every single kind of infantry combat both defensively as offensively. But, through placement and use with other features, its role changes even more.

PlanetSide roles need support. Combat needs support. Logistics is the most important thing in warfare. More important than killing, because it enables combat to take place on your terms and in locations otherwise impossible.

The developers think in zerg combat only and that makes half their design decisions ill-thoughtout. I mean, they expect people to guard 20 points in a base and the spawnpoints at once. You realise how many troops that requires? :/ How far away spawns will be from objectives? :/

It is like those people that only use rexo and can't cap something through fighting and then state nothing can be done. After which you grab an infil suit, don't fight but bypass the enemy and win without killing.

Not every unit should be about direct combat. That is just utter retarded and narrowminded thinking and tbh it means one knows fuck all about lateral thinking, warfare and use scenario's. That is the one thing that worries me about PS2, that these devs only design for their own idea of PlanetSide scale combat as a player who only wants direct shooting action.

The infil suit they created is testament to this. Infils aren't primarily about killing and least of all about ranged combat, yet they gave them instant kill power with one shot sniper rifles. It is decisions and poor argumentation and lack of vision on how roles affect each other and what is needed for small groups of players that worry me. They design for the individual in huge zergs and nothing else. That is very bad IMO.

[Talek Krell]

I realize you have a distaste for the modular units Figment, but how would you feel about re-tooling the concept of the Deliverer or Phantasm to act as a stealthier spawn point as well as a light transport? Either of them should be pretty well suited to sneaking about, and designing them with transport capacity would both fill the light transport niche and encourage the use of transports.

[Cuross]

I would absolutely love the AMS to come back, something about the risk and reward of driving a virtually defenseless vehicle to the front lines and deploying it. Sure they could make the Sundie do the same thing and maybe they'll make an AMS cert that takes away the guns and puts spawn tubes on it, but we'll see how it actually plays out. Love the concepts of the variations that you've described.

[Greenthy]

Totally forgot about Mk I

I'd love to have the AMS back, using the gal as a local spawn point seems the total opposite of that stealthed AMS.

[Baneblade]

If the AMS does make a comeback (it won't), it should be the keystone in a modular FOB that engineers dedicated to fortification can use to create their own mini base. Remove all of the functions of the PS1, except the bubble, and make them modules you add on manually.

Two base types of AMS: Covert and Overt. Covert uses classic cloak bubble, Overt uses a strong Defense Shield (BFR shield rules; fast regen).

Use a hex based layout guide for modules:

The AMS counts as a hex and supports 6 inner and 12 outer hexes. The six inner hexes can be used for:

Defense Upgrade Module - Cloak bubble doesn't reveal contents even when taking damage/Defense Shield hp increased 50%
Spawn Module - Infantry Spawn
Equipment Module - Equipment Terminal (non MAX)
MAX Key Module - allows Equipment Term to service MAXes
Surveillance Network Module - reveals enemy movements within the AMS Soi*
*Sphere of Influence Module - gives the AMS a reasonable SOI
Medical Module - Regenerates health within the SOI* (no delay)
Vehicle Service Module - Vehicle Rearm/Repair Station, repairs vehicles in SOI*
Vehicle Module - Allows spawning of ATVs, Lightnings, and Mosquito/Reaver/Scythe
Fortification Service Module - Repairs all modules in the AMS grid. Repair rate is constant and divided between damaged modules equally. One damaged module will be repaired faster than an engineer can, but two halves the repair rate. Four halves it again.

The outer modulars are more confrontation related and all of them are outside the cloak/defense bubbles:

Wall Module - Strong destructible wall, infantry can stand on it (like in PS1). Does not regen, must be repaired by module or direct repairing.
Tower Module - Wall compatible, provides access to wall ramparts for infantry. Can have single engineer turret deployed on the roof. 50% defense bonus for placed turret. Towers cannot be adjacent to each other or to the Gate Module. Tower has 25% more hp than a wall module.
Gate Module - IFF access door. Infantry can cross above it on ramparts. Less health (25%) than wall module.

The hexes would be far enough to have a cy large enough for spawned vehicles to maneuver.

Anyway that is a Baneblade brainstormsurge idea dump.

[Marine Six]

Im pretty sure they already stated the gals are going to be the spawn points, much more mobility know what i mean?

[OutlawDr]

Originally Posted by Marine Six

Im pretty sure they already stated the gals are going to be the spawn points, much more mobility know what i mean?

These ideas can be applied to the galaxy or sunderer, and I wouldn't mind seeing some of these ideas implemented as side-grades (for galaxy and/or sunderer). Making a separate AMS vehicle would be a bit redundant imo (and unnecessary vehicle bloat).

[Russ]

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

These ideas can be applied to the galaxy or sunderer, and I wouldn't mind seeing some of these ideas implemented as side-grades (for galaxy and/or sunderer). Making a separate AMS vehicle would be a bit redundant imo (and unnecessary vehicle bloat).

Ya, even though id love to see the old vehicles we all loved back. At this point it would seem redundant. And as of now we cant really see what the Sunderer or the Galaxy have as far as support, or even defense/offense option. I know people hate hearing this but... we will have to wait for beta.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Marine Six

Im pretty sure they already stated the gals are going to be the spawn points, much more mobility know what i mean?

The Galaxy's mobility is a non-asset to a spawnpoint.

In fact, it's detriment. It will be far too obvious due to size and being airborne. The point of an AMS is reaching a position stealthfully. The Galaxy is the least suited unit of all for this sort of thing.



As for a Deliverer variant (I take it you mean the APC concept we've seen?). It'd be possible... But I don't see why you would use a combat vehicle for this and like the Sunderer, it's not designed for its purposes with visual use cues (meaning you see terminals or something you can use). I wouldn't mind seeing an Amphibious module installed though.

Besides, you don't take a spawnpoint into, but close to combat as you want it to survive and troops spawn in a safe environment so they can orientate, grab or exchange gear, heal etc. That's also why the Galaxy will fail as a spawnpoint. It won't be safe to spawn at unless it's miles away from the fighting (meaning you might as well spawn at a tower) and then it will be pointless for anything but gal drops. The only exception is if you land on a cliff overlooking a base with some air superiority and then have light assault glide in. But that's too situational to be an "all purposes" vehicle, which the AMS is.

Meaning it's fine for Gal drops and a select few other situations, but that has never been the function of an AMS: the AMS is there to consistently cut the logistics short and be a far more stable spawnpoint that doesn't require a lot of effort to keep alive. A Galaxy that runs gal drops is a temporary spawnpoint and that would upset a frontline a lot because it's there one second then gone the next, because either it flies off constantly to do drops (and then dies or gets discarded) or it will blow up due to being a huge and thus easy to track down target.



The Phantasm would be a bit overpowered in terms of locational positioning IMO, perhaps a bit too easy to get into position. On the other hand, with the canyon system it could be a benefit to avoid detection. But you might as well just fly behind them and grab an AMS from a local terminal, tbh.


Btw, people who think all sorts of units should be combined into one unit suffer from this:


Those people are like the three generals in this clip. They simply have too much ambition and lose sight of what's important in good design: that something is not half arsed for its job, but simply GOOD for what it does. It shouldn't "ALSO" be something completely different, because it won't do that role as well as something dedicated to THAT purpose would.

[Figment]

Here's some ideas and thoughts about what the AMS Mk.3 could be like. Click on any image for a bit bigger sized image.



The AMS Mk.3 as shown below aims to be a fully intuitive and practical spawn and rally point vehicle and serve a full support role, without being compromised to other roles.

The difference between mobile (undeployed) and deployed modes are obvious as it should be obvious to a player if they can make use of the functionality right away and if not, then when.

Secondly, the player should be informed of what the functions are that they can use instantly. One such feature is the entry point for the driver: upon deployment the grill splits to allow the driver to enter and exit the vehicle at the front. The grill itself indicates it's pretty good at ramming small objects so you best try to avoid that.

Thirdly, the AMS Mk3 has a slightly lower profile opposed to the AMS, but at the same time is a bit longer. The main reason for this is that the AMS in PS2 is to serve larger groups of players and therefore needs more accesspoints. This can only be done by elongating the design. However, an elongated design with four wheels would further increase the problem the old design had with getting stuck on the top of steep slopes. Therefore, an extra set of wheels is added as well as a big joint in the middle, that allows the front and hind section to be at different angles to one another (!). The main reason to have a lower profile, is because to further increase the maneuvrability, the ground clearance is increased when undeployed.

To allow for increased access and to ensure players can not get stuck between AMS and objects, the equipment consoles are placed some distance from the hull of the AMS. For immersion, I would think it nice if a change in gear at such a term is actually visualised by means of a "nanite projector beam" that "programs and adds nanites" to the player's avatar.



Note that I'm still contemplating ideas for the hind-section of the AMS Mk.3. For one, I would like the section with the three equipment modules to be interchangable with other sections.

Structure Section
It is possible to expand this idea to the basic AMS functionality, in that the AMS could leave the Equip Term section behind with its own cloak field behind, just like the following ideas.

Backend can be detached and left behind as a local, destructable fortification structure.

These could be things such as bunkers, small, sniper towers, radar towers, etc. These structures could be undeployed as well. A bridge builder could be an option too. Though that of course could be abused quite easily as ramps to get on top and over structures.


Vehicle support:
Aircraft repair and resupply + ground vehicle repair and resupply (function should IMO be stripped from the Sunderer, which should IMO get one or two holographic equipment terms with limited juice instead).

Turret section:
Engineers can install three turrets on a specific version of the hind-section of the AMS Mk3, more or less in place of equipment terminals. The turrets would share the same HP pool with the AMS Mk.3's (hind section) and can be transported with the fight, rather than be rebuilt somewhere else every time, saving a lot of time.


Spawntube vs Deconbeam
Here's some ideas about how the "Spawntube" could be dealt with alternatively. The current spawntube communicates its spawning role, but really doesn't need to since if you spawn in a random location near the vehicle it doesn't mean much. Furthermore, it doesn't communicate its deconstruction role. So instead of a spawntube, it's possible to focus on the decon role instead (see below).

Of course this can be located differently too; for instance by putting the front wheels closer together and integrate the decon into the section above the middle wheel as well in a different manner.

It is in my opinion however important that even if a new player has no idea what it is, they get an idea of what it might do. I also think it would be nice if this were more automated deconstruction (so no need to press 'G') and more like how easy it is to use a zipline or Router beam. In fact, one of the ideas I've been pondering on (further down) is a combination of the Router and zipline for a siege module.

I located it in between the two front wheels to make sure you don't really walk in there by accident. Further more, the colour of the beam denotes which empire it is. The remainder of the texts should explain further.




Here's a number of basic ideas for module options for the roof socket (one or two sockets?). They've not all been worked out at all and I haven't quite decided yet if they're all wanted, if it should be possible to combine some (or even have standard sets if multiple could be installed at the same time).






Anyway, I suppose you should catch the drift by now.

[Figment]

No thoughts on this yet? >.>

[Baneblade]

I think the fact SOE eliminated the AMS has people thinking it might not be worth talking about any longer.

[Figment]

Which is stupid.

They also said they'd evaluate if anything needed to be added if the Galaxy was proven insufficient (which I expect it will be) and have long term plans to add units.

Might take quite a few months, having things specified in advance should help.

[Baneblade]

As detailed in my big post, I think as long as they more resemble siege towers than covert hypermobile spawns, they will enhance gameplay.

[Crator]

I'll gladly bump this thread once I get more info from playing. I'm sure a lot will... Some really great thought out ideas and loved the sketches!