Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2

[Azren]

Originally Posted by Figment

Alright, let's say Gun 1 (driver) does damage (D1) and Gun 2 (gunner) does damage (D2). Now, I'm not going to bother with firing modes. Tank has a total of armour (Arm) that provides endurance. Alright? For the sake of argument, I'm going to equate Arm to endurance directly (depends in reality on gun firing at it, normally the attrition would determine just how fast it dies, but that's irrelevant right now since I'm only going to adress the same tanks being used against eachother).

So, damage dealt by one tank is Arm * (D1*rof + D2*rof). So let's assume D1 and D2 put out equal damage over time. Then total damage potential is 2Arm*D1*rof, for one tank with two gunners of "equal" strength.

Now, if we bring two tanks, things are different. And then I'm not even talking about bonus to damage dealing time by outmaneuvring an enemy (getting behind their turrets, rotation speed and angles).

Just looking at endurance and firepower, two tanks have 2Arm * 2(D1*rof), not counting any gunners that might jump in along the way by accident. So, we got 4Arm*D1*rof, which is twice as much firepower-endurance.

That means that with one opponent, with two crew in both situations, you only need to wear down ONE lifespan worth of armour when facing a tank with two people in it. On the other hand, two tanks are two lifespans and you can only kill one in the time they need to kill you since both the single tank and two tanks have equal firepower.

So although it'll be equally fast at killing one single tank (2D1*rof), it will not win as its guns are mere equals (or less) between the crews. Simply because it has to deal twice as much damage in the same time. One of your opponents will not have taken damage at all in the time it took for you to kill the other, it will get another full lifetime to hit on you, so in total you are basically fighting "three lifetimes" worth of tank. You can't possibly win that with equal guns.

So to compensate, you need a much, MUCH stronger secondary weapon to bring down the total TTK to a half of the original in the case of AV. Hence it needs to be at least twice as strong as the main gun seeing as you are fighting three lifespans of tanks vs your one.



In any case, by the time it kills one tank, it itself is already dead or limping. I don't understand why this isn't obvious?

I like the math in this, shows the probably fault of ps2 drivergunner system. Having a very powerful secondary AV gun might help, but with instant seat changes, not much.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Wow, if you say the aurora sucked vs. infantry, you never gunned for one properly.

The aurora gun was the best AI in-game both short, medium and long range. You could accurately hit the same mark at max range by using the single-shot mode.

With both gunners shooting at the same location from max range, the aurora was effectively a field mortar. At short range, it was the real "thresher".

Hold on, I'm not saying it's not good. It was quite fun. Just not effective. You can tell this by what vehicles were actually used: people prefered the Magrider and Tresher. Aurora's were hardly used. Why? Mostly increased vulnerability to aircraft and vehicles, second because a Magrider did well enough against infantry and third because amphibious was not special to VS.

[sylphaen]

oh right... I forgot about the water part for you guys.


IMO, the aurora was misunderstood because its guns compensated for our terrible AI. Even the thresher could not kill 10 guys under a second but the arc line of fire made people hate it. The only vehicles we had with an arc-ed fire line was the lightning and the VS BFR AI gun... To be honest, it was pretty hard to find a gunner good enough with arcs on the VS side and even harder to find one who did not hate them.

VS gunners did not have enough experience with the aurora's curve or simply hated gunning for one.

I'll conclude with one statement: magriders spoiled our gunners.


Edit: and yes, one reason it was seldom used is because the transport cert had less appeal for the VS due to hovering and also because the Aurora was hyper-specialized for AI so you only saw them near base under assault from waves of footzerg. The Thunderer and Raider were more rounded and were seldom used too. I often felt the Aurora guns were OP but those thundies, ouuuuuch. At least, they had a crappy CoF: couldn't hit straight on target with a direct line of fire weapon.

[Figment]

As an avid Thundy driver, I usualy flanked Magriders and told people to wait with spamming till the Mag either saw us, or we were within 80-100 m distance. Then the cof was reliable enough against a large side view of a Magrider. Thundy would win if you could keep the Magrider's front from firing at you.

Of course my outfit usualy did raids of two Thundies and a Deli, to optimise damage output on multiple enemy types. Deliverer was prefered against air obviously, but against infantry or vehicles, Thundies all the way.


Once, after a failed Sundy event due to SOE disabling Sundies, I organised 18 Thunderers to move together as a group against TR on Cyssor (we came south from Wele), who were using Magriders as they had VS tech after some event.

Noob Magrider drivers vs 18 Thundies? :P Hell, we were firing 36 thundy rounds every few seconds, even a group of 6 Reavers died almost instantly if they made a pass at us. The first round, only one Thundy died to mines, all the others ran out of ammo. That went on as a single wolfpack of Thundies for a few hours. TR were quite desperate.

Maths + chance statistics of hitting something even with bad cof when in a large group = win.

That's also what I see happening with big tank groups. Someone will hit.

[sylphaen]

lol

Awesome story.


The Aurora was definitely too limited to do something like that. The Mag's low armor always made me cry a little but its railgun was so sweet it was hard to complain.


Now about that nerf on the Mag's CoF because we could hit aircav... Never forgive, never forget.

[Figment]

The most hilarious bit was a VS Aphelion we came across near Bomazi. It died instantly.

[MrBloodworth]

This goes contrary to the originals core design of 1 + 1 = 3.

It really just feels like its to enable those who see teamwork as a roadblock to personal gains.

With this set up, you do not have to relay on others to gain power.

[Raymac]

This isn't World of Tanks. You can't try to balance it ONLY based on tank v tank when you have infantry and especially air to factor in as well. I think it is premature to say that MBTs won't need the secondary gunner. Save the dedicated drivers for the transports and let the assault vehicles, you know, shoot stuff.

[Malorn]

Other than for its Skyguard role, wtf would anyone ever use a lightning over a MBT?

The only answer I can think of that makes sense to me is that the Lightning is cheaper in resources to acquire than a MBT.

I think they will use resource cost to address this gunner issue. Having a 2nd gunner will certainly be cheaper resource-wise than running two tanks.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Raymac

This isn't World of Tanks. You can't try to balance it ONLY based on tank v tank when you have infantry and especially air to factor in as well.

Ehrm, no? One balances tank vs tank balance either first or last by balancing the AV loadouts, then you balance AI and AA guns against the other units as required. Either way, you are going to to balance it directly.

I would like to hear your strategy on 'not balancing tanks'. Do you know exactly how much support each vehicle will have? No. You can't. Thus you balance units against each other and more importantly in this case, ITSELF (as I was demonstrating above), first. THEN you look at how to balance it against other units. OR rather, you first balance it against other units THEN balance it to itself. Just depends what you take as your starting point (most likely the lightest units, ie. infantry).

Regardless, you are going to eventually balance pure tank vs tank.

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other than for its Skyguard role, wtf would anyone ever use a lightning over a MBT?

The only answer I can think of that makes sense to me is that the Lightning is cheaper in resources to acquire than a MBT.

I think they will use resource cost to address this gunner issue. Having a 2nd gunner will certainly be cheaper resource-wise than running two tanks.

I'd also guess that there might be a chance that you can't pull MBTs from everywhere and/or you might need special conditions (although i feel there wont be the old benefit type things and rather just resources). But yes, I guess resources and with some luck, Lightning driver might be able to get their hands on two weapons at the same time. Like a solo Vannie only gets the big cannon which is hardish to use against infantry, but Lightning driver might be able to also switch into a machine gun of some sort?

Other reasons could be that Lightning is likely to be a lot faster, cheaper to pull as you mentioned, more maneuverable anyways, well.. We just gotta wait and see

That said, it's not like many would've pulled Lightnings if they could pull MBTs in PS1 either, yet to say Lightnings didnt have their place is a tad wrong IMO.

Maybe they take the MAX approach? Right click controls one weapons, left click another weapon? This way Lightning might be more worth it.

EDIT: Also all that said, I'm pretty sure even just for the Skyguard role it will be mandatory and around a lot.

[Azren]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other than for its Skyguard role, wtf would anyone ever use a lightning over a MBT?

The only answer I can think of that makes sense to me is that the Lightning is cheaper in resources to acquire than a MBT.

I think they will use resource cost to address this gunner issue. Having a 2nd gunner will certainly be cheaper resource-wise than running two tanks.

I doubt this will factor into it. A high resource cost vehicle does not really fit into the fast paced action PS2 features. If people are very careful to stay alive (and so save resources), the battles will end up very long range. You will probably aquire the resources needed to pull a tank by killing two or three grunts (not to mention the constant resource flow you get from captured territories).

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Raymac

This isn't World of Tanks. You can't try to balance it ONLY based on tank v tank when you have infantry and especially air to factor in as well. I think it is premature to say that MBTs won't need the secondary gunner. Save the dedicated drivers for the transports and let the assault vehicles, you know, shoot stuff.

We're not just balancing it based solely on tank vs tank warfare. We're just using that scenario as an effective illustration because it's the clearest and simplest way to show the inherent manpower vs firepower problem that arises when you give the main cannon to the driver. However, we also know this issue exists against air because 1 solo MBT + 1 AA Lightning will be more effective in a mixed AA/AV role than a single 2-man AA/AV MBT will.

That just leaves AI. But I'm willing to be the Devs have made an AI Lightning more powerful than the MBT's secondary AI options as well. I have nothing to base on tho other than their mention of the 6-shell rapid fire AI burst its cannon can be sidegraded to.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other than for its Skyguard role, wtf would anyone ever use a lightning over a MBT?

The only answer I can think of that makes sense to me is that the Lightning is cheaper in resources to acquire than a MBT.

I think they will use resource cost to address this gunner issue. Having a 2nd gunner will certainly be cheaper resource-wise than running two tanks.

Actually IIRC, running two stock MBT's will cost exactly zilch, so speccing out that second gunner spot in any way will automatically make a single 2-man MBT more expensive than 2 stock, solo MBT's, since stock = free. My understanding is they did this because they never wanted the losing side in a battle to not be able to pull at least the barebones vehicles so they could still somewhat defend themselves if they didn't have enough resources to pull specced vehicles.


That said, it's hard to say why someone would pull a Lightning over a solo MBT because we know so little about Lightnings. We haven't even seen what one looks like! And both kevmo and higby have given me the cold shoulder when I asked them on Twitter if it still had a cannon/LMG combo turret, so we don't know its base-level armament either (It bloddy well better still have that dual turret tho! ).

However, I will say this: I fell in luv w/ the Lightning in PS1 the second they slapped a 360-degree turret on it during the first Balance Pass in 2003. I've spent more time in a Lightning than in any other vehicle in the game, so I know that if it's anything like the PS1 version it can be quite capable in the right hands. And based on my experiences with the Lightning in PS1 I think I can make a few inferences on its potential merits in PS2...


EDIT: I see some of the below points got ninja'd. I'm leaving them in anyway...

• As you stated, a pimped out Lightning will probably cost less resources than a pimped MBT
• Lightning certs/unlocks will probably cost less to acquire so you can advance in the Lightning tree more quickly
• It might be more readily available than MBT's, like having a shorter timer, or be available at more locations (like enemy vterms, etc)
• They said it can be made into a "tank killer" (whatever that means by their standards ), so an AV-pimped Lightning could be an impressive glass-cannon
• It's significantly faster so it's better at quick flanking, interception, moving to support friendly units in trouble, and running down fleeing opponents, as well as running to safety when needed.
• It's lighter armour means you can get repaired back to "full strength" and get back in the battle faster than MBTs
• It's smaller and probably still a lot quieter than a MBT, and it's not 100 feet in the air like an ES Fighter, so it's often more difficult to spot and can easily go unnoticed, making it a great ambush or scout vehicle
• Its size and speed makes it a much harder target to hit and probably means it can go places other MBTs can't (although that flying Magrider in the GDC video might make a liar out of me on this point )
• Farming killwhores aside, it'll generally be passed over by the enemy in favor of larger, juicier targets when friendly, more threatening MBTs/Gals/Sunderers are nearby
• Most people don't see it as a serious threat so they're usually not looking out for it, grossly underestimate its effectiveness in skilled hands, and often ignore it or don't even notice it until its too late
• When being actively damaged by multiple vehicles, enemy forces will almost always ignore the lightning and deal with other, larger vehicles attacking it first since they're perceived as the bigger threat
• It's an underdog - a thinking man's vehicle. In order to stay alive in a world filled with vehicles scarier than you are you have to constantly plan ahead, and be alert, ready, and quick on your feet (fingers?) when using one, and it can be quite a rush to drive one in the middle of a MBT tank battle
• It's incredibly satisfying when you can kill - or even solo - the bigger, badder vehicles out there with one..

So yeah..... If you haven't already figured it out, unless the Devs anally-rape the Lightning's design or the Magrider's abilities as a solo tank really really impress me, I'll probably use a Lightning quite a bit in PS2.

[Mezorin]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Other than for its Skyguard role, wtf would anyone ever use a lightning over a MBT?

The only answer I can think of that makes sense to me is that the Lightning is cheaper in resources to acquire than a MBT.

I think they will use resource cost to address this gunner issue. Having a 2nd gunner will certainly be cheaper resource-wise than running two tanks.

Remember, this isn't PlanetSide 1, and we haven't seen the Lightning yet. There is no arbitrary reason that balance wise a one man MBT has to be "better" than a Lightning anymore than a Heavy Assault troop must be "better" than a light assault on the ground. The developers have made it clear they want each vehicle to have its own set of strengths and roles, so they wouldn't want the Lightning to be the thing you buy when you are slumming it or need AA, but an actual viable unit that fits into the ecosystem of the game.

If the Lightning tanks have similar auto cannon armaments to an LAV-25 or a BTR-90 they will be very lethal infantry and MAX hunters that can still put the hurt on regular tanks. The fact that a Lightning will be bloody quick too will make it also great for chasing down ATVs, Sunderers, and other vehicles an MBT would be left in the dust by.

Lightnings can also react to stuff on the ground a lot quicker than MBTs can, and will be great for skirmishing. Remember, you need to control much more of the map in PS2 than in the original to win, and part of that is being able to react fast with vehicle/troop assets. A small group of lightnings (with varied load outs) can patrol friendly territory along a front line looking for enemies trying to sneak through, or areas where an enemy might be weak for an attack.

EDIT: Woot, nice to see fellow Lightning tank drivers in the forum!

[Coreldan]

BTW, has it been confirmed that Lightning is still a 1 player tank? They changed they are changing it quite radically, but I understood that would remain?