MBTs - 3-man or 2-man - Discuss!

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

It's not a penalty at all, it can move in all directions, it can aim in one direction while moving in other directions just like any other tank can, with the added benefit of not having to turn to change in any direction. The only difference is the visual.

Explain why it's a negative, given that all tanks right now in the game have their turrets controlled by drivers.

It works perfectly fine in Halo, it has absolutely no negative to it, there is nothing wrong with it.

A fixed forward turret would only cease to be a penalty if the Mag's strafing and reverse top speed were as fast as its forward top speed and the hull's turning rate were equal to a MBTs turret turning rate. Then yes, you're correct that it would have similar capabilities to a traditional turreted tank.

It also needs to be able to adjust the Mag's hull facing in a moment's noticed otherwise it won't be able to move its crosshairs quickly enough to track an opponent whose quickly changing movement vectors. And it needs to be able to continually make fine adjustments in order to accurately track its target while still being able to move the tank in the direction he wants.

If any of the above movements is any slower or less responsive though it would be at a disadvantage any time it was attacked from or tried to engage enemy units in any direction other than the front and that were moving at all laterally to the Mag's current vector.

Giving the Mag such agility is certainly within the Devs' ability, but I would think it would be hard to balance such an agile craft against the Vannie, Prowler, and Lightning. I guess I'd have to see such a craft in action before I could judge whether or not it'd be possible to give it that w/o making the Mag OP'd in other respects.

I also have concerns about how easy it'd be to track a target while the Mag is on an incline, especially if the Mag is moving in a direction that is not exactly parallel or perpendicular to the incline. I'm pretty sure I'd actually have to drive the thing before I could make an accurate judgement on that though.

However, IMO it'd be just easier to give the Mag a 360 turret for the main cannon and call it a day.

[Canaris]

I'm all for having the MBT with 2 man crews, it means fielding more tanks onto the battlefield and having EPIC tank warfare!

[Malorn]

There's nothing wrong with fixed gun.

BF2142 had a hovertank with a fixed gun and I thought it was the better tank purely due to its ability to strafe and always keep its strong frontal armor facing its threats.

[Coreldan]

Ive never touched BF2142 and I rarely enjoy watching videos of games I dont play myself or understand anything about, but that was a very enjoyable video to watch.

Like a Magrider with Vanguards firing arc

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Nothing wrong with three man tanks, IMO. One dedicated driver, one main cannon gunner, and the chain gunner. Tanks should be the Liberators on the ground.

Dedicated drivers w/dedicated gunners > One man army drivers, in all cases.



Do it guys.

Absolutely agree.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Malorn

There's nothing wrong with fixed gun.

BF2142 had a hovertank with a fixed gun and I thought it was the better tank purely due to its ability to strafe and always keep its strong frontal armor facing its threats.


2142 Vehicle Gameplay- Type 32 Nekomata [PAC hovertank] Driver - YouTube

That video is a joke. It shows a sluggish hovertank that handles like a boat, on flat ground, with an extremely limited number of sluggish enemy vehicles, almost all of which either 1) were stationary, 2) attacked the tank from the front by charging straight at him across a bridge, or 3) were so close to him that no fine-level aiming adjustments - or real aiming ability at all - were even required to score a hit.

Either that driver was terribad or the tank was just too unresponsive to be able to accurately track even a moderately fast target moving laterally across his heading. I got seasick just watching that thing slosh around and I'd scream bloody murder if the Mag handled that poorly in PS2...

An example of a good hovertank implementation would be this Battlezone 2 vid CutterJohn posted a few weeks back:



Now that I think would be a decent level of control for a Mag with a fixed turret. Although it's top forward speed might be a bit high and its strafing speed a little too low. I'd have to actually use it against traditional turreted tanks to tell for sure tho...

Another way they could help balance a fixed turret setup is to increase the cannon's muzzle velocity. If its shots move fast enough then just painting your reticle across your desired aim point could be enough to consistently land hits. You wouldn't have to constantly track a target at just the right spot then.

[Skitrel]

Have you played both of these games? Because I have. Both the tank you're attacking in 2142 and the Battlezone video you've posted handle almost identically.

2 videos of different drivers do not make a mechanic any different.

[Malorn]

Those tanks function the same; thanks for other examples.

Anyway, lets bring this back around to the topic.

[Figment]

Depends on their armour vs firepower. 3 men tank should be equal to three one man tanks (Lightning) if not slightly better.

Which would probably mean that it would be crewed by two anyway to get more endurance total...

Hence I would go for two crew on a MBT (driver + gunner) with gunner controlling all weaponry and save three crew on a very heavy tank if they ever add that to each empire (driver + 2 gunners). Benefit of two crew would be all gun control for one player and more battlefield efficiency and a bit more survivability over a 1 crew vehicle.

A three crew vehicle should have high firepower per gunner (dedicated roles) but also severe weaknesses like for instance turret rotation speed, overall speed and poor gun depression angles to ensure there's both advantages and disadvantages to playing them. There should not be a default choice, but a situational choice to pick one of the three tanks if you have three people. To ensure there's more than one person in a tank with high endurance and they don't become Epic Lightnings and Lightnings are a gameplaystyle choice, IMO never give the gun to the driver if there are more people inside unless it's a peashooter (like a fixed frontal AI gun) for defensive purposes.

[Skitrel]

In order for a 3 men tank to equal 3 1 man tanks it would have to do the same damage 3 tanks could do in one shot. That would be ludicrously OP.

The actual benefit here would be to have a primarygunner/driver, a secondary gunner, and a third AA man. That would be balanced and give the vehicle something tangible that eliminates a weakness at the cost of having an extra person on board.

[DviddLeff]

My favourite thing to do in PS was to run mag columns with 5 tanks or more.

With one squad in Planetside 2 I will (potentially) have the option of having 10 one man tanks, 5 two man tanks or 3 three man tanks... unless the driver does not control the main gun or the main gun is not effective AA I will go for the 10 tank option every time; that option has more armour, more tactical flexibility and presents more targets for the enemy to engage.

The driver should have a gun yes, but not the main gun with the most damage.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Have you played both of these games? Because I have. Both the tank you're attacking in 2142 and the Battlezone video you've posted handle almost identically.

2 videos of different drivers do not make a mechanic any different.

No I haven't, unfortunately, so I can only go by the footage posted. A few months back I went to find better 2142 hovertank footage but had no luck so that vid's the only footage I've seen of one in action. Apparently tho it's just the driver who sucks and not the tank.

But yes, Mal is right, back to the topic at hand and sorry for the derailment.


Personally I'd like to see both 2- and 3-man MBTs as options. In this thread on the SOE boards, Brewko stated the following:

Originally Posted by Brewko

In PS2 the gunner role will be more of a defensive role than anything else; and having a dedicated gunner whose primary role is to fend off attackers is going to be critical in PS2.

With this in mind, IMO in a 2-man MBT the driver should get the defensive, secondary weapon, and the gunner should get the main cannon. This makes more logical sense to me since it's the driver's job to keep the tank alive anyway, so controlling the defensive secondary weapon would help him achieve this goal. Then the gunner, who has the main cannon, can concentrate on killing the enemy. This will also elminate the "two solo MBTs > one 2-man MBT" issue since if someone decided to use a MBT solo they'd only have access to the secondary weapon.

However, the driver should have the option to hand off the secondary weapon to another gunner if he desires, making it a 3-man tank. Many people on this board have expressed that they don't like driving and gunning at the same time so they shouldn't be forced to in order to get the full combat effectiveness of their tank.

Plus, as many have said, simultaneously driving and gunning is a difficult skill for many to master, and a driver who doesn't have to worry about gunning as well will inherently be a better driver since that's all he has to concentrate on.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

In order for a 3 men tank to equal 3 1 man tanks it would have to do the same damage 3 tanks could do in one shot. That would be ludicrously OP.

One shot? Not exactly. It would have to split the firepower of three tanks over two gunners and equal the endurance (or have lower endurance, yet higher firepower, or higher endurance and lower firepower).

The actual benefit here would be to have a primarygunner/driver, a secondary gunner, and a third AA man. That would be balanced and give the vehicle something tangible that eliminates a weakness at the cost of having an extra person on board.

That would eliminate the AA man as he'd be used in a seperate tank.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Figment

One shot? Not exactly. It would have to split the firepower of three tanks over two gunners and equal the endurance (or have lower endurance, yet higher firepower, or higher endurance and lower firepower).

That means having 2 primary weapons a secondary weapon of equal strength to a primary? No thanks.

Besides that, any tank with the strength of 3 tanks is still outgunned unless his armour is also the strength of 3 tanks.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

That means having 2 primary weapons a secondary weapon of equal strength to a primary? No thanks.

Besides that, any tank with the strength of 3 tanks is still outgunned unless his armour is also the strength of 3 tanks.

That's not true.

Think Fury: high firepower, extremely non-durable.