Gameplay: Squad Remote Artillery Vehicles

[Xyntech]

Just give the artillery high damage and a tiny splash radius, but make it very inaccurate, unable to hit within 10m of the same spot consistently

It would end up being like real artillery barrages, where it helps you deny an area and send the enemy for cover, while rarely actually hitting that many people.

The flip side would be that a target that is currently being lazed could be hit with pinpoint accuracy. This would allow the artillery to home in on a vehicle pad or doorway, or a specific enemy unit, but still be balanced due to the fact that everyone will be able to see that it's being lazed and snipers would be able to target the spotter and end the threat.

Proper use of precision lazing would turn into a high team work affair, with the spotter wanting to laz the target for as short as possible to avoid retaliation.

Maybe artillery could just be a variant for the new Lightning. A big gun that's more powerful like an MBT gun, but unable to fire at low angle trajectories and having a slower rate of fire than MBT's, preventing it from using the powerful artillery piece as a close range tank brawling weapon.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

1. It seems more annoying than engaging. Manual interception sounds more like a chore than anything. You've got people having to sit in the AA turret just to shoot down occasional fire from cloakers hiding behind rocks half a klick away,

Star asked me why this thread listed a 50 m range for lazing in the original post. It's to solve this problem. Infiltrators using the LOS weapon or a sniper using it from a range isn't directly possible. In this design you might aim down from a bridge or say you're hiding on a bridge and jump out for a second to tag a tank sitting and launching shells.

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

and you're essentially bombarding people with "press X to not die" events or just instagibbing them because they weren't looking in the right direction depending on what warning they get. I'm presuming a hit from this thing would be at least near fatal. They don't use the phrase "rods from god" to suggest the gentle caress of our loving savior. Automatic interception on the other hand makes me concerned about mandatory optional modules and whether there would be a chilling effect on field warfare, which I want there to be more of.

This is definitely where squad communication comes into play. You have a level of being able to use say voice macros in Planetside 1. "Incoming artillery" to warn soldiers and vehicles around you. That is if vehicles don't have a warning system for it that tells them. (Could be a module or something that detects such threats along with air etc). This adds some complexity in teamwork and gets people to talk.

The damage actually would be balanceable. It could be low depending on the amount people pull. If you had a squad of 10 people and 3 of them specialized in artillery. You might have a person with a laze use all 3 rounds at a time on one target. Depending on the location you might see 3 rounds hitting in the same exact spot. How this is balanced would need testing. I'm not imaging a one-shot or even two-shot weapon. Probably closer to the damage of a tank shell. It would be expected to one hit a soldier if they are within the small blast radius.

Sidegrades could also determine the damage and firerate and projectile speed. Maybe someone likes a slower projectile that hits harder? That would give you the hard hitting artillery shell. Lot of balancing options available. Could also have sidegrades that minimize the tail length for stealthier less lethal hits.

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

2. Aesthetically the idea of an artillery shell that moves slowly enough to be shot down manually just feels weird. That's easy enough though. Just have it be a cruise missile or something. It does also bring up the subject of whether there would be warning, who would get the warning, and how much information would be given.

I'm talking AA like flak and leading it. Or lock-on where a jet is traveling fast and gets a lock in mid-air and launches a rocket into it. I'd expect aircraft to detect the rounds on their radar seeing the general direction. Basically because it's an air hazard also. The planes in the gameplay videos seem to travel relatively fast so this should work. You wouldn't have planes shooting down every round, but if they're in the right position they might take the shot. If that makes sense. AA is already looking at the sky aiming at planes. They might see the shell and lead it and fire off some flak damaging it if they see it in time.

Originally Posted by Pollo Jack

Artillery doesn't work in a game like Planet Side.

You never played so we can't expect you to understand.

I've played the game since it was in beta on and off seeing all the changes to the game. You have a very naive picture of how gameplay can work if you believe artillery can't be modeled as a useful and fun tool. Also be specific about your complaints. A lot of them might have been covered if you read the thread. Again this should feel different than the Flail in Planetside 1 if you've read the current posts. (I hated the flail and always wanted the laze to fire the round. So many times I was cloaking around a base and saw a cool looking target. The blast radius really bothered me and the inability to stop such a strong round. This is all reflected in the changes and motives in this design to negate any feeling of "oh it's some newb specializing in a spam weapon for random kills").

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Proper use of precision lazing would turn into a high team work affair, with the spotter wanting to laz the target for as short as possible to avoid retaliation.

I'd prefer this to be used by anyone during battle. You're running and quickly switch to the laze and tag a tank and pull out your weapon again. The long reload on the artillery piece ensures that uses are more thought out. Wasting a round on a tank that's moving for instance unless you know where it will stop would be wasted and your squadmates would hate you for using it when another person might have a nice shot. It's ideally a huge tradeoff. You could have pulled a tank but you chose to pull artillery and remain an infantry unit. Really gives soldiers their own vehicle weapon without forcing them in the driver seat all the time.

Also if this isn't obvious you could have an implant that if you're near where artillery or a heavy projectile is about to land it gives you warning separate from any vehicle module. This would allow a single person in a squad to detect such a threat and communicate it to their friendlies.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Pollo Jack

Artillery doesn't work in a game like Planet Side.

You never played so we can't expect you to understand.

There are people in Battlefield who want to cleanse the entire game of anything but face to face kills. Claymores, mines, mortars, these people want to get rid of it all. Servers are even disallowing you to get on rooftops. Planetside isn't special in that regard. The key is that you can't let these people decide the game or else you may as well just have a gunfight simulator that spawns you and your opponent at 20 paces on the street of a dusty old West town, and you have to outdraw and fire.

[Baneblade]

I'm not against artillery, I just don't want some guy sitting pretty in a base somewhere farming kills with no personal effort. Make em get into the field and target their own artillery shots.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

I'm not against artillery, I just don't want some guy sitting pretty in a base somewhere farming kills with no personal effort. Make em get into the field and target their own artillery shots.

So you're for this idea? I assume you read the original post before posting?

[Toppopia]

I will like this idea if its a vehicle someone has to be using to work, and they can shoot where they want but they won't see any enemies on the map overlay unless someone designates (with a proper target designator) either an enemy or the ground, thats probably the only good way of doing it.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

I will like this idea if its a vehicle someone has to be using to work, and they can shoot where they want but they won't see any enemies on the map overlay unless someone designates (with a proper target designator) either an enemy or the ground, thats probably the only good way of doing it.

That's not what this is about at all. Forcing someone to sit back 500m from a battle doesn't promote a "fair" vehicle. That is indirect kills are one of the reasons people, like myself, detested the Flail. If you never experienced this in Planetside 1, you could sit back inside of a base and just click in the sky in the direction of a base being fought over by two opposing factions and rack up kills without ever putting yourself in harms way. My best K/D was 215/2 when I lined up on a fight between NC and TR and was ignored in a friendly third base. I want to say this was rare, but it wasn't, and was exploited to no end. (Bombing opposing factions was the more direct version of this, while the orbital strike was simply a variation of this).

The fix for this indirectness, that a lot of people have mentioned in previous threads, is requiring some kind of line of sight. That's where positional lazing comes into play. Another complaint was the lack of a sacrifice. Having to pull and setup a vehicle to then use without the option to pull another vehicle while it is deployed somewhat fulfills this. Another was that it can't be used to easily camp doorways and allowing the rounds to be destroyed somewhat fulfills that. Another complaint was that it should promote teamwork, and allowing it to be shared within a squad (since ideally it won't be used continuously by one person, except maybe an infiltrator) opens up the ability to have teamwork with it, while still rewarding the person that owns the vehicle. (This is akin to an engineer deploying a ton of field turrets for people to use and getting experience). A big complaint was the ability for the weapon to be exploited as a spam weapon against infantry, and the visible tail and low (compared to the Flail) blast range mitigates this chance except for unsuspecting targets which are precisely chosen (like a sniper). The last complaint I read and already mentioned previously was that with unlimited range it would be exploited worse than the Flail. That is you're within line of sight but so far away you might as well be indirectly attacking. The limit of 50 meters almost completely removes this worry. Most of this is in the original post, but lacked an explanation as to why I was making maybe seemingly random suggestions.

I hope what I just wrote clears up a lot of the confusion regarding my decisions. They were made after reading all of the complaints and categorizing them in the artillery threads. (If anyone knows about the summaries I've done in previous threads you'd notice I like to order complaints to understand core problems with an idea and fully understand criticisms).

[Raka Maru]

I completely agree with Siristan's vehicle idea. I could expound more, but it has been said already.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

So you're for this idea? I assume you read the original post before posting?

Yes, but some people are saying you should be able to drive a Flail.

[Sirisian]

Here's a rough concept of what I was imagining for the NS vehicle. Kind of looks boring. I'm not really an artist, but I had in my mind a 6 wheeled vehicle that could deploy an artillery piece. (Right click view image).

// edit I forgot to say I based it on this image they gave us, but didn't say what it was.

[Kilmoran]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

How about you can drive an artillery vehicle to a safe spot and deploy and get out. (Have an engineer defend it with CE). Then take a special "weapon" from the trunk (or grab it from a terminal and it links to your vehicle or squad's vehicles). It has fire modes to cycle between artillery pieces if there are more than one in the squad/platoon and allows you to switch between anti-infantry and anti-armor shells, but the basic idea is you click on an object and it tags the ground and launches a shell. There's a reload delay for each artillery piece.

A squad could use these as a group or even set up say 5 pieces if they wanted and let a single cloaker go into a base and use them. They're weak so they need to be protected but they allow clean ranged attack.

Note it would launch one shell only when you click. It wouldn't keep firing.

The tag distance would be 50 meters.

Uses include destroying terminals, destroying AMS you find, and killing people/vehicles sitting still.

Also they're would be a cool UI element for them so you could see who owned each of them and who was the last to use it and the current reload time on a progress bar.

I don't understand why it has to be done remotely. Why is sitting in artillary... being avoided here?

Edit: Reading up a bit, i see some reasons.. but to be honest.. I still don't understand why simply having to be closer to the battle while in your artillary vehicle is a bad thing and against team tactics. This idea to me seems alot like Call of Duty style Kill Streak rewards options. Instead of making it so that you are safe in a base miles away, you are making it so that you really aren't at risk at the location of the artillary at all. Just because a player has to get close doesn't necessarily put them at risk unless they have to be increadibly close to the target which defeats the point altogether. So I guess the basic break down of what i'm saying is.. I don't get how not being in the vehicle is better than being in the vehicle that is far away but able to be traced back to it's shots.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Kilmoran

I don't understand why it has to be done remotely. Why is sitting in artillary... being avoided here?

Edit: Reading up a bit, i see some reasons.. but to be honest.. I still don't understand why simply having to be closer to the battle while in your artillary vehicle is a bad thing and against team tactics. This idea to me seems alot like Call of Duty style Kill Streak rewards options. Instead of making it so that you are safe in a base miles away, you are making it so that you really aren't at risk at the location of the artillary at all. Just because a player has to get close doesn't necessarily put them at risk unless they have to be increadibly close to the target which defeats the point altogether. So I guess the basic break down of what i'm saying is.. I don't get how not being in the vehicle is better than being in the vehicle that is far away but able to be traced back to it's shots.

I don't agree that it's like killstreaks, someone still has to go place these artillery pieces. With that said, there isn't anything wrong with sitting back in artillery, but some people get upset if they aren't able to immediately return fire and they want to sterilize indirect fire weapons out of the game, and that is true purpose of this idea, because it forces the user of the artillery to sit where he can be countersniped. But there's no need for that, Planetside is supposed to be more strategic. Artillery can't hide, their shots give away their location, send a Reaver to go blast them. Ultimately, Sirisian's idea is better than no artillery at all.

[Toppopia]

Would we beable to agree on a short range artillery (200-500metres or lower if people think its over powered) vehicle that needs to be driven to where you want then lock it down and someone has to be inside it for it to operate then it takes a long time to reload and has a slow projectile so you have time to dodge it if warned about it?

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

Would we beable to agree on a short range artillery (200-500metres or lower if people think its over powered) vehicle that needs to be driven to where you want then lock it down and someone has to be inside it for it to operate then it takes a long time to reload and has a slow projectile so you have time to dodge it if warned about it?

Here are my thoughts:
1. At least 500m range, prefer 750, maybe 1km depending. Long enough range to set up strategically, not long enough to hide in your own base and shell the whole continent. Short enough that you must be out in the open in order to attack. This would not preclude the use of artillery defensively, however, by setting up in your base(and remember it will be short enough you can't reach enemy bases from your own base), but since attackers don't sit still, and I would propose that the artillery cannot hit anything closer than 150m, this should not be a problem.
2. 5m blast radius, not 30m like the flail
3. Must deploy to fire, takes at least 10 seconds to undeploy(so you can't escape from being C4ed if someone comes after you)
4. Can be fired with laser designation for accurate fire(and thus, the guy lasing is at risk directly), and can be fired without designation but if it is, there would be a 10-30 meter random shot deviation. Since the blast radius would only be 5 meters, this means you cannot simply memorize setup locations and elevation to fire at for specific spots.
5. Slow travel time

And there we are, perfectly balanced.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

Here are my thoughts:
1. At least 500m range, prefer 750, maybe 1km depending. Long enough range to set up strategically, not long enough to hide in your own base and shell the whole continent. Short enough that you must be out in the open in order to attack. This would not preclude the use of artillery defensively, however, by setting up in your base(and remember it will be short enough you can't reach enemy bases from your own base), but since attackers don't sit still, and I would propose that the artillery cannot hit anything closer than 150m, this should not be a problem.
2. 5m blast radius, not 30m like the flail
3. Must deploy to fire, takes at least 10 seconds to undeploy(so you can't escape from being C4ed if someone comes after you)
4. Can be fired with laser designation for accurate fire(and thus, the guy lasing is at risk directly), and can be fired without designation but if it is, there would be a 10-30 meter random shot deviation. Since the blast radius would only be 5 meters, this means you cannot simply memorize setup locations and elevation to fire at for specific spots.
5. Slow travel time

And there we are, perfectly balanced.

That all sounds perfect, now hopefully this discussion can be put to rest and the devs see this and implement it.