A serious suggestion for AV weaponry

[gaz_zilla]

I'm writing this in the hopes that someone such as Sporkfire or Smokejumper will read this. This is a suggestion that came up in the Community Discussion on Planetside-Universe.
The AV weapon at the moment, has very little firepower. This is obvious if you ask any Empire's troops. The whole weapon system in Planetside more or less concentrates on destroying.

Now if we took a different approach to the idea of AV weapons rather than simply destroying them. Good job with the Decimator, that destroys vehicles or maxis. Now we need to concentrate on a more AV related role rather than simple destruction.

I don't want people who post replies to this to simply cry out about it being overpowered or underpowered, it is simply an idea, and should be treated as such. This is a development discussion and should be discussed rather than shouted at.

Now here is the idea. The AV weapon. Taking the idea of the striker or phoenix, a missile system which tracks or is guided to an aircraft or vehicle. And then taking the idea of the jammer grenade, messing up systems, delicate circuitry or even permanantly damaging systems. Taking these two together would be a logical step.

I'm not especially sure what would happen with the lancer, but the simple idea is to have the AV weapons disable or inconvience rather than destroy.
Say you fire this weapon at an aircraft, various ideas were brought up in the discussion. One idea would be to make the weapons systems mess up and misfire, crosshairs jump across the screen, and have the engine systems shut down for a period of time, watching it drop out of the sky, certainly useful against low flying air.
Another idea would be to have the aircraft locked in its current flight path, and current thrust for a certain length of time. In my own opinion, I like this idea better (well, it is mine). Reasons for this would be that it would make destroying the aircraft much less certain, you may hit a craft whilst its pulling up, so it won't cause any damage, whilst if you hit it whilst its incoming downwards, you could smile with glee as it hits the ground with force.

AV is anti-vehicle, and so other vehicles and not just aircraft should be looked at.
For other vehicles, the effects would be random firing of weapons in random directions, steering locks or steering going out of control, ammo containers exploding(this could also be placed on the aircraft effects).

This is all I have to describe at the moment, but do feel free to reply with your observations, and lets hope that the Devs who scan these forums pick up this one out of the nerf and buff posts. This isn't a nerf or buff, its a universal rethink of a group of weaponry.

An additional note, why isn't the decimator in AV, for it is used in an anti-vehicle or anti-maxi role. Just an observation, I'm sure there are posts of this around the place already.

[Flammey]

Idea Needs work.

As for my idea, I think that the Lancer should have SOME tracking or lock on ability. I mean, why can't it? Because it's a rail gun? Why should that change anything? It doesn't have to be a complete lock on, it COULD be simply a magnetic lock, which means it won't fire straight at the target, merely it will CURVE towards the intended target, making change-to-hit increase.

As for your idea, I won't say good or bad. Honestly, I would rather have the ability of Chaff than to have my AV weapon simply disarm or malfunction a vehicle. I was really wondering why PS doesn't have Chaff. Either as a grenade or as a weapon system. For vehicles it would be like taking out a box of precious ammo, so you can put in a box of precious chaff. It would allow you to evade locked on missles for a second. One second per chaff shot. But in one second you would have enough time to move out of range, or behind an object.

The only problem with this is that each empire would have one weapon disabled by the chaff. For TR it would be the Striker, but the MAx would still be able to hit, as it is flak. NC would be the Sparrow MAX would be disabled, but the Pheonix, which is camera guided, would still be able to lock on. With VS, it's the Starfire MAX. Lancer would still strike. But then again, the Lancer isn't easy to aim at a moving target.

Just a thought to the WHOLE idea of how to make AV better. BETTER, not more powerful.

[Destroyeron]

I do like that idea, however I do think i should be if anything, a new weapon. Maybe one for AI too. You shoot guy and he can't move, shoots eradically and stuff. Like a taser!

[Veteran]

Good ideas.

[WritheNC]

If you're thinking in that respect, I think AV weapons should scramble the cof of all vehicles for 1 second.

It would be funny to see anyone in any vehicle be firing, then all of a sudden, they get hit and it all goes crazy. Reaver rocket spam would be spread around a courtyard, magriders would fire awry, vanguards and prowlers would waaaay miss the mark and hit friendlies.

That would be cool.

[Rbstr]

Well an AV wepon could have all sorts of fun efects, like kocking of a tread on a tanks, or taking out an engine of a reaver, but that woudl require either more code, for a random chance, or more hitboxes, both would have an adverse effect on lag and FPS witch are not somthing we want to give up at the moment. The best solution imo is make the AV weps do a bit more damage, and give them perhaps a chance of a critical hit that kills the vehicle on that hit no matter what, give it a 2% chance of doing it, or better yet give different vehicles higher %ages, like a reaver or a skeeter may have 5% chances becasue if you hit an engine it would go down like a rock, but a prowler or van would only have a 2%, and an open cab thing like a harraser could have a 10% chance becasue its easy to hit the driver or other very critical component.

[SandTrout]

The main difference between AV and the decimator is not destructive ability; it is accuracy, primaraly against moveing targets. AV was designed to be able to take down vehciles at range, before they could effectively engage you. Each of the weapons has it's own strengths in this area.

The Phoenix can engage targets that are behind cover. The stiker can easaly target erraticly moveing vehicles. The lancer can has the longest range and shortest TTK.

However, these weapons are far too weak in other areas to compleat their pupose. The Phoenix has a terrible TTK because it must reload after every shot. The lancer is difficult to aim because it has no guidence. The Stiker looses its lock easaly if the target gets behind cover for a split second. This, combined with a lack of ammo shared by all 3 weapons makes for a varry unappealing weapon.

I think that some of these effects, such as loss of control for a few seconds would be a great addition to the cert, and/or we can move the Decimator into AV, where it should be.