Should the Sunderer act as a spawn point?

[Kipper]

Originally Posted by KTNApollo

I wasn't aware that Sunderers acted as class changing/rearm stations and vehicle repair stations. Source?

Official site (http://www.planetside2.com/news/jan172012vehicle)

Originally Posted by Planetside2.com

The Sunderer is a massive 12 man armored truck designed to break through or "sunder" an enemy’s defensive line and deliver troops safely to a strategic location behind enemy lines. Its heavy armor allows the Sunderer to withstand large amounts of focused enemy fire giving it a much longer life expectancy. Its powerful engine and heavy mass also allows it to push almost any other vehicle out of its way, including tanks. Finally, the Sunderer has several support capabilities supplying medical supplies to troops and ammo to troops and vehicles.

To me, that says re-arm and heal, not respawn. Nothing about class changing.

[Gandhi]

I think if we need a ground AMS too then we should add a ground AMS, not tack another role onto the Sunderer (which already seems to have multiple roles). I really don't want to see one vehicle filling the troop transport, mobile repair, mobile rearm and mobile respawn roles all at the same time.

And there's something to be said for having single role vehicles. In PS1 if I see an AMS I know exactly what it does. If I see a Galaxy, I know exactly what it'll be doing around my base. In PS2 if I see a Sunderer will I know what it's doing? Will there be any way to tell by looking if a Sundy is specced out for troop transport only? Or mobile repair only? Or some combination? Will I be limping behind a friendly Sunderer hoping for a repair only to realize after 30 seconds that he's actually specced for transport?

When I see an enemy Galaxy coming in, will I be able to tell he's specced for troop transport before he starts pouring guys all over my base? Maybe he sacrificed most of his transport ability to beef up his respawn and rearm abilities, how should I know?

I honestly liked the single role vehicles better, but I do understand that combining roles cuts down on the number of models and textures. So if that's the price we have to pay for performance I'm ok with it, just so long as I can tell at a glance what the thing I'm fighting can actually do to me.

[Kipper]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

When I see an enemy Galaxy coming in, will I be able to tell he's specced for troop transport before he starts pouring guys all over my base? Maybe he sacrificed most of his transport ability to beef up his respawn and rearm abilities, how should I know?

I'm gonna guess that you'll identify roles by visuals. The vehicles will all have a common chassis which is what gives the vehicle its name, and then a module area which will make it look different, and do different stuff.

You'll know a tank is AV because you'll see a distinct 'tank gun' turret, or AI because it'll have a chaingun or something instead.

I assume a troop carrying Sundy will have little window-slits and back doors, and a healing or re-arm sundy to have some sort of tech console on the side instead. The cab and wheels will look the same.

Likewise a vehicle carrying Galaxy will probably be slightly different shape in the body section, fatter with no windows perhaps, while the cockpit/wings etc all remain the same.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Kipper

Likewise a vehicle carrying Galaxy will probably be slightly different shape in the body section, fatter with no windows perhaps, while the cockpit/wings etc all remain the same.

If that's the case I hope you can tell from a distance too. For example as a Mossie knowing whether that Lightning down there is fitted for AA is a pretty important bit of info.

But anyway this is pretty obvious stuff, I'm sure they've thought about it already.

[Xyntech]

I've been thinking. It's been mentioned a lot that Galaxies won't make good spawn points due to their higher visibility and lower survivability. One thing I have been thinking is that Galaxies acting as spawn points may find its greatest use as a means to more easily load up a Galaxy to do a drop.

In PS1, the pilot had to park at a friendly base, then the players had to spawn somewhere (relatively) near by, run to the galaxy, then load up and wait for others to do the same.

In PS2, perhaps the pilot will be able to park a safe distance away from enemy lines, but not necessarily at a base or other spawn point since the Galaxy itself is the spawn. Put up a mission letting players know you are loading up for a drop on x target. Players interested can spawn there and load up much faster than in PS1.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that the Galaxy may not even end up getting used like an AMS a lot of the time.

Looking at it from that point of view, there would seem to be a little more room for crossover.

A Galaxy would spawn players more to facilitate hot dropping them, while conversely a Sunderer could carry passengers to better help secure an area to set up a forward spawn point. Sort of polar opposites in how they each could use their passenger slots and spawning abilities.

I still don't think I'm sold on the Sunderer being a straight up spawn point, but I'm warming to the idea.

As of yet, the Galaxy is the only confirmed deployable spawn point though.

[Hamma]

I would say no - at least not with what we know currently. Hard to say how I will feel once I get in the game though.

[IMMentat]

In PS2, perhaps the pilot will be able to park a safe distance away from enemy lines, but not necessarily at a base or other spawn point since the Galaxy itself is the spawn. Put up a mission letting players know you are loading up for a drop on x target. Players interested can spawn there and load up much faster than in PS1.

I like this idea #puts on a pirate hat#

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I think you are on to something here. Why don't we just have one basic vehicle cert tree and as you progress into it we can have the basic vehicle transform into a multitude of things. On demand transform into a Galaxy, Reaver, Sunderer, tower, or even a base. Just a click of the mouse and it can be anything in the game. I'm digging it.

You completely missed the point of the idea... but nice try. A lot of people have said that the Sunderer should be able to deploy into a forward base, and this immediately popped in my head after reading them.

You really seemed to have pulled that out of your ass, I never even hinted at an idea of having an all-in-one vehicle.

[Garem]

I'm not sure the "separation of roles" argument is particularly strong in this case. Having a tougher, slower, and ground-based spawning vehicle is certainly a vehicle playing a very different role than a weaker, faster, air-capable spawning vehicle. Sometimes one will be better than the other, and there will certainly be some overlap, but overall they play two totally different roles.

For a short form of that argument- look at the Lightening and the MBTs. They play virtually identical roles. Nobody is bitching about that for a reason; they're distinct enough from one another to make choosing one or the other a strategic choice. Airborne or ground-based spawner is an even more important choice than this (one that may make or break a base siege).


Modulation is a big part of the game and vehicles. The flip argument to "bring back the AMS" is - why? The truck-like vehicle is already in the game. Modulate it.


There's a significant bonus to letting Sunderers have a spawning function- more spawn points mean the battles will stay bigger for longer. More people will be able to use them, since not everyone will want to cert into piloting Galaxies. Galaxies will retain a massive advantage over Sunderers; they can FLY.

This may not be a necessary change, but it would still be a good change.

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I wasn't really directing that at you but at a higher power. They seem to have an affinity for multipurpose vehicles and I don't necessarily agree with it.

Well in that case I agree with you. I just responded to what seemed like a sarcastic mock.

[Retrograde]

"You're screaming along the jungle, Ride of the Valkyries blaring on the radio. You come screaming over the top with chain guns keeping barney pinned down. Flying tree scraping low to get to a drop point and then DROP DROP DROP. Your strike team drops into the base to unleash hell. Move out to get back to base before your bullet ridden ship drops from the sky, quick repair, then back again into the breach."

"You brought the one thing every battle needed: Reinforcements."

Making the galaxy a spawn point is a mistake and a sore spot for me. It's missing the concept completely of why I enjoyed flying it.

I always felt like a Huey pilot in 'nam. (a bit much, but hey) or like a AC-130U Spectre.

Here's what I had in mind when I was flying gals.


The Galaxy is infantry airlift aka Special Forces style & logistics. x

My suggestion would be to switch the spawn point on the Sunderer, making it an all purpose utility vehicle that's used for battle support. A moble intelligence command center. Give it radar, repair, resupply, satellite uplinks for nearby orbital strikes. The whole 9 yards. Command post primary, transport secondary.

Then let galaxies airlift them.

[Toppopia]

Now... can we use the galaxy like that and sit high in the sky raining fire down on all that oppose you? Like in BF3, the only time i used a transport helicopter was when i had a friend to use the side gun, and i would circle the map like the good pilot i was, not the idiots that were like "Oooh, helicopter, *fly towards enemy, bail out and condemn all on board a fiery demise*" and in that match i got no kills but my friend got over 30 i belive, that is what a support aircraft should be like. That also reminds me of the black hawk from Battlefield Bad Company, those were the good days...

[Kipper]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

Now... can we use the galaxy like that and sit high in the sky raining fire down on all that oppose you? Like in BF3, the only time i used a transport helicopter was when i had a friend to use the side gun, and i would circle the map like the good pilot i was

Did that on BFBC2 as well, had a random guy in the side gun, we flew for the entire round, circling just far enough away to make the chain-gun suppressive (and get some good kills on idiots who came out in the open) and allow most incoming RPGs to miss or be avoided.

Must have been in the air for about 20 minutes, same helicopter - went back to base about 3 times to repair and re-arm, and turned the tide of the battle for the ground troops.

IMO - you need to understand what the role of each craft is in relation to current aircraft. As I understand it:

Galaxy = Chinook (Insertion/extraction)
Liberator = A-10 Thunderbolt (Close air support)
ES Aircraft = Eurofighter or equiv. (Multi role intercept/patrol/tactical strike)

I suppose whats missing from that is a Blackhawk type that you can circle and suppress with, but you can probably fly the Liberator or a Galaxy in that way, if they have usable side-mounted guns that can be fired in-flight?

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Kipper

I suppose whats missing from that is a Blackhawk type that you can circle and suppress with, but you can probably fly the Liberator or a Galaxy in that way, if they have usable side-mounted guns that can be fired in-flight?

Perhaps this would leave room for a Galaxy Gunship type of variant while not infringing on the Liberator.

It may just end up being the Liberator that gets that role though.

[IMMentat]

Gal gunship would make more sense though, its already been done once and modular design lives for that sort of thing.
Especially as a lib should not command the sort of firepower that the gal gunship used to it is a bit small to be carrying 2+ large ground supression cannon/launcheers/artillery weapons.

The Liberator was changed from a bomber to a gunship to make it more active for the gunner. The end result firepower-wise is supposed to be the same

This leads me to believe its more of an Apache/hind than a galaxy gunner style supression platform.
I think the new liberator setup will be missiles for the pilot, Big chain-gun/cannon for the former bomber, and a pew pew defensive turret (hopefully a bank of 2-3 linked weapons instead of that single 20?mm) for the protector.



I agree with kippers assessment of comparable roles as well.

TBH I probably agree that a ground vehicle makes for a better mobile spawnpoint, but the sunderer should be driving around full of players, laying supressive fire and running over squishies, not sitting still endlessly spawning zerglings. A revamped AMS with a shield instead of a cloak would suit me also, invis worked just a bit too well when there were 2 or more AMS' parked locally, only the obvious ones tended to get taken down, and even then it would be an OS or airchav swarm that did it.