Gameplay: From old PS1 Sug Thread - Arty & Command AMS

[Krishtov]

I lost the thread but dug up my images... I drew these when I was like... 16 I think. I hated the "alien tech" artillery... images are self explanatory. I just wanted to re-share these old things

If I am remembering right...

Faction Artillery
-Each Empire gets its own piece
-Each piece reflects the Empire's weapon type
-Each piece has two ordnance
-Indirect fire like PS1 Flail
-All systems must deploy and take time to do so.
-Each piece is built off existing chassis to consolidate production time.
-We will assume 1x Range = 1 KM range, actual range would vary for balance etc. Originally it was "flail range x #"


The Vanguard Artillery Chassis
-Railgun to reflect NC's use of accurate weapon systems.
-2km range
-Very Accurate primary ammunition
-Scatter-shot (Air burst munition) secondary ammunition


The Prowler Artillery Chassis
-MLRs to reflect TR's use of high RoF lower accuracy weaponry.
-1.5km range
-Loose accuracy slow rate of fire high damage shells
-Very in accurate area of affect high rate of fire low damage shells.


The Magrider Artillery Chassis
-Energy Artillery to reflect VS's use of energy area of affect weapons.
-1km range
-Mid rate of fire, high damage, area burst (think Lasher on a larger scale) mode
-High rate of fire, low damage, high accuracy mode



Command "AMS"/Vehicle
-In PS1 at least, an AMS vehicle with no spawn capability.
-Provides the ability to do a small shield that can absorb an amount of fire or
-A directional radar scan of up to [balanced range] without eyes on.
-Can resupply friends on the field still, minus MAXs.
-Can be used to mark locations on map for all artillery pieces to see.

[basti]

Care to go into detail about the stuff? Not deleting things randomly, every idea shall be shared, good or bad.

[Krishtov]

I'll go into detail when I'm off work in 2 hours? I'll try to hunt down my old post somewhere deep in the internet...I had far more extensive content there. Will try to update thread with appropriate details today.

[MedicDude]

I'd much rather infantry spot directly for artillery, perhaps relegate the role to infiltrators.

The inherent problem with artillery is that it's designed to either hit static targets, or to blow up tons of squishies.

Static squishies were a problem in PS1, which were mostly countered by snipers, and to a lesser extent by successful infiltrators. (unless you were a wall-hugging pheonix spammer, which was extremely broken for this very reason).

Static vehicles were never really an issue, usually they were the result of terrain bottlenecks.

So, artillery ends up devolving into a base versus base standoff, which was exactly what we saw in PS1. You'd get lots of kills against vech pad lines and at repair terminals, which was no fun for the receiving party, and in my opinion was quite broken.

For this reason, I'd rather say no to artillery vehicles. It would be cool to use, and I'd love it, but I don't think it has a role to fill in PS2. Perhaps infiltrators or squad commanders could call in high-cost off-map artillery for use in the field to route out static positions, hopefully this will continue to be the role of the orbital strike.

[Saifoda]

Good point about the vic terminal arty spamming; definitely an issue with liberators, but then some people will make a good argument that it was necessarily part of the gameplay and others will make good arguments saying it damaged the overall tactical mechanics of the game.

For me this is the first anti-artillery response that makes sense (imo). I think maybe a massive cooldown timer (45-90 seconds maybe) between salvos (3-4 rounds/salvo) could be good. And maybe no air-burst, as a counter to the possible terminal spamming (if it's point of impact with only a slight aoe/splash then it will counter it, along with the long setup times and all the other nerfing that can be done to balance the arty, and expensive resource purchase).