Rethinking the ANT

[Sirisian]

In PS1 the ANT was an unarmed NTU storage vehicle. It used to act like a very powerful bomb when fully charged back in the day. It's being brought back in PS2 according to Higby, but it's purpose wasn't fully explained.

We don't really know what purpose NTU will have in the new game other than it might be another resource.

I'm going to say some ideas and you can shoot them down if you want to keep the ant in its current form.

I'd prefer if the ANT came in a few different variants with a rethinking about how they function. ANT is just advanced nanite transport. At their core they'd still transport nanites but I think the NTU could be used for other purposes making it a more skill-tree friendly vehicle without trampling on other vehicles. (Thinking mostly passive support).

So one variant could be a plane that requires NTU to function. It spawns with a limited amount and would fall out of the air if it runs out. However, it has a large storage capacity. The whole idea would be it can't enter a warp gate. It would risk being overloaded and explode. It must skim along the surface of the warp gate a la Stargate SGU and pull energy slowly into itself.

It could then use the power of the warpgate and spend NTU to revive fallen soldiers using bombs at a very large cost. That and the ability to activate a very long lasting shield when flying to protect itself or on the ground in a spherical orb that drains NTU. It's final ability would be to discharge its energy to power things like the old ANT. This would be a very slow operation. The pilot would need to stop the discharge manually if they wanted to continue to fly.

EMP grenades would greatly drain the vehicle's NTU especially with the shield activated.

Then the ground variant would function as a shield generator that's larger than the plane's and much more powerful. Any player can walk inside of the shield, but it just blocks incoming fire (a property taken from the Warp Gate). There is no cloak to it. Unlike the flying version it doesn't require NTU to drive. Not sure if it should have its bomb ability back. That thing was powerful back in the day.

Any thoughts or different ideas? Keep it the same?

[CutterJohn]

I'd just be happy with emergency ANT runs being necessary, while upkeep is taken care of automatically.

Wouldn't be bad if it had a secondary ability as a mobile shield either.

[Talek Krell]

I wouldn't change much about it, I think they got it pretty well right the first time. I would suggest that perhaps it could be used to transport resources other than NTU, if a mode of play is introduced to make such a thing necessary. Like the "hold the meteorite" thread in the suggestions forum?

[SgtMAD]

if they change anything, they should bring back the ant bomb

[Sirisian]

I should probably elaborate. The shield idea is more of a defense. ANTs are generally weak but if you have people defending the resources then being able to stop for a moment and deploy a shield to help friendlies protect you is really what I'm after. When the threat is neutralized then it can continue moving.

[Redshift]

emergency ant runs where great, i agree with cutterjohn on this, it would be nice if bases could regenereate enough NTU to not need looking after, but a base that's under siege would run out and need refuel.

I'd love to see the ANT bomb back again too allow an ANT specialist to unlock a ANTbomb, top speed is limited to 30% or something but you have an explode button, you'd need a gal or lode to drop it into position. ^_^

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Redshift

emergency ant runs where great, i agree with cutterjohn on this, it would be nice if bases could regenereate enough NTU to not need looking after, but a base that's under siege would run out and need refuel.

I'd love to see the ANT bomb back again too allow an ANT specialist to unlock a ANTbomb, top speed is limited to 30% or something but you have an explode button, you'd need a gal or lode to drop it into position. ^_^

Yes! This would be something fun! Perhaps the ANT must be armed by a combat engineer before it can be detonated though, making it more of a team oriented action.

[Mirror]

If you want the ANT to make it to its destination then other players will need to cover the ANT. I dont think ANTs (based on the PS 1 model anyway) need any defensive buffs.

Some vehicles like the ANT need protecting and requires escorting now and again.

[PrISM]

They should buff the engine so it has more than 10 horsepower.

[Peacemaker]

I wonder how many people will spend a year buffing up their ANT skills.