Artillery Support - Page 2

Traak · 2011-07-19, 02:09 PM

Missile-deployable minefields.

Mines that aren't lethal, but annoyingly damaging. And can still be taken out by jammers.

Mortars sound nice. Something you actually have to aim properly, not point at a wp and click.

Treerat · 2011-07-19, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Zerikin Loukbel

Making artillery that had multiple shells with smaller splash radius like a real arty would also make it better. When the first shell hits you can try and run for cover at least.

A reasonable suggestion instead of mindless "it's not HA Surgile so it's skillless!"... *keels over in shock*.

Seriously, I think you are about the first person I've seen whose suggestion wasn't basically "I want artillery so restricted it won't ever be used" with different window dressing. Artillery by it's nature is a "spam" weapon - the more rounds you can put into the target zone the greater the chance of destroying the target and keeping the survivors heads down. Take that ability to suppress troops out of cover away, and artillery loses it's greatest contribution to battle.

The problem I saw with artillery in Planetside as it was implemented (aka the Flail) was that is was more effective and more often used as a self-propelled gun than as true field artillery. Primarily because the interface didn't allow for any communications, asset searchers, or information exchange beyond the platoon level and none between platoons. A key part of modern artillery (since most often the actual gun/ launcher isn't that different from their 1940's precursors) is the fire control and communications systems. That allows for a almost direct line between the requesting unit and the battery best able to respond. Imagine if a squad in a tower that was camped by 4 tanks could see which Flail units were in range to bombard the area outside them, could send the request and coordinates to the Flail pilot(s) and receive confirmation back that artillery fire was inbound. It would radically alter how siege situations work; no longer would it be safe to simple park outside the door after the OS and thus actual breaching tactics become more important.

Coreldan · 2011-07-19, 02:53 PM

That could require it's own "artillery chat"/request system or something, cos at least currently a lowbie person has little ways to communicate with someone they dont know/arnt squadies/outfitties with unless I'm missing something.

On another note, it might be a thing that should be done by CRs anyways.

dm Akolyte · 2011-07-19, 02:59 PM

Make the flail only be able to fire when locked onto a laze beacon. But let the flail user see the beacons of anybody in the empire.
Increase the speed/damage of the projectile and make it more accurate, but decrease refire rate. Let the flail user see where the shot is landing. (Follow the shot, like the SPMA in UT2k4)

So if there's a tower camping vanguard, if someone sneaks out and lazes the target, they can have a massive artillery strike come in the clear it out.

The issue remaining is camping the vehicle pad. A slower refire means there would be a big enough gap between shots to pull a vehicle. But having to constantly repair the pad is super annoying, and with a big line you're pretty screwed.

Volw · 2011-07-19, 03:06 PM

First of all, I don't like being killed by something I can't see. In fact, most of people don't, that's why all-bar-flail vehicles in PS require line of sight.

The biggest issue with artillery can be seen on Flail example.

If it's powerful, then it *will* be spammed and therefore made OP.

If it's sub-par, to balance out 'spammability' of it, then no-one will bother using them.

dm Akolyte · 2011-07-19, 03:14 PM

The solution to that is to make it situationally powerful.
So implement restrictions that make it fufill a very specific role, but let it do that very well.

Say, destroying camping, stationary vehicles.

Volw · 2011-07-19, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by dm Akolyte

The solution to that is to make it situationally powerful.
So implement restrictions that make it fufill a very specific role, but let it do that very well.

Say, destroying camping, stationary vehicles.

SADARM rounds could potentially work ....

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ons/sadarm.htm

Treerat · 2011-07-19, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by dm Akolyte

Make the flail only be able to fire when locked onto a laze beacon. But let the flail user see the beacons of anybody in the empire.
Increase the speed/damage of the projectile and make it more accurate, but decrease refire rate. Let the flail user see where the shot is landing. (Follow the shot, like the SPMA in UT2k4)

So if there's a tower camping vanguard, if someone sneaks out and lazes the target, they can have a massive artillery strike come in the clear it out.

The issue remaining is camping the vehicle pad. A slower refire means there would be a big enough gap between shots to pull a vehicle. But having to constantly repair the pad is super annoying, and with a big line you're pretty screwed.

Slow refire would make it really difficult to open up other aspects of artillery. One of the ways modern artillery can be very destructive is to fire at such a high rate of fire that combined with decreasing the angle of elevation multiple shells can land nearly simultaneously. Fast rates of fire also allow artillery to fire off it's round then move to another location to avoid counter-battery fire (see below).

I think part of the v-pad camping problem (which I personally found annoying as hell no matter if it was flails, liberators, reavers, or CRs with OS'es doing the camping) is poor design of facilities. Bases in Planetside had been laid out before ideas such as the flail or liberator were barely concepts, which put most vehicle pads out in the open and under the assumption that few people would reach CR4/5 and even fewer would be willing to waste an OS just for extra kills. If the bases are designed better this time, things like v-pads should be either in enclosed areas (ex. tech plant facilities) or have at least partial overhead coverage and be well-defended by the installations own AA defenses. At the minimum that would make actually camping a v-pad a much greater challenge entailing a high degree of risk and some serious planning (ex. think a fail gunner/ spotter team who are good enough to consistently put a fail round down the vehicle tunnel of a tech plant).

Another part of that problem is how Planetside handled large-scale communications. One of the big "checks" if you will on modern artillery (and the reason why more and more of it is self-propelled) is that when the artillery shoots it gives away it's location. And once the location of a hostile battery is known it has a short life expectancy due to the enemy directing counter-battery fire from it's own artillery as well as air strikes, special operations units, and other forces towards that area to destroy it. Key to that is for someone who notices the artillery or can figure it's flight path (and thus it's point of origin) being able to relay that information to the people in charge so they in turn can allocate assets to the enemy batteries destruction and direct those assets to the enemy artillery's location. It is at that communications part that Planetside failed.

As someone who used the Mosquito as a scout I would often find enemy flails (sometimes with AA MAXes or Skyguards escorting them) who were shelling bases and inform the people commanding our troops on the continent of their location through CR1-2 chat (in the hope of it being /sitrep'ed up the chain) or via a tell. The problem was that 9 out of 10 times, the information was either lost in the deluge of combat, or the CRs couldn't figure out the location beyond the grid reference. The few times they did get the information and knew where to direct forces, getting that information to the right forces was nearly impossible. If a CR would call for a reaver squad to dislodge the flails at so and so, they would either get none or two reavers who would be destroyed by the escorting AA (as the rest assumed someone else was on it) or every single reaver in the fight would go there (leaving the base without any air cover). What would have made it easier would have been if a "continental commander" could receive reports of sighted enemy units, see which units under him had the equipment to fulfill his request, send the "mission" to those units along with the needed information, then receive a confirmation of mission acceptance/ completion.

I really think a LOT of the problems people have with large-scale combat assets such as artillery is that FPS's are still trying to use the command tools of Counterstrike; tools intended to relay information between a handful of people break down when you've gotten 100+ people on a side all trying to pass and making requests for information and there is no way to effectively get that information to those that need it in a timely manner. Hopefully, now that command will be a full-time role not something chased for extra toys, the developers will make sure to include more ways to share information between all levels without the need for the players to resort to third-party voice applications.

Treerat · 2011-07-19, 04:05 PM

Different type of rounds (and different types of artillery... MLRS) would be a good twist too.

Even now there are precision-guided rounds (Excalibur), FASCAM (field artillery scatterable mines), and cluster rounds for artillery. Plus multiple types of artillery (the guns & howitzers people think about when thinking artillery, rocket artillery, and mortars).

If artillery could only carry so many types of rounds and each was highly effective against a particular type of target but relatively weak against others, it would cut down on some of the "just spam and pray" tactics (like what tanks do to doors today) without making it something that no one wants to use. Combine that with better communication tools so that artillery can be found and killed in a reasonable amount of time and I doubt artillery would be any less disruptive to players than snipers and OS's were and I don't remember hearing any of the people complaining about artillery whining about those.

Rbstr · 2011-07-19, 05:16 PM

I feel like we should have two sets of arty.

One that's a conquerable, so it's at a base or near one and you can fight over it...that would be fairly powerful to control...but you've still gotta have a dude (or a few so it's got more than a single target) in it. Like a wall turret but bigger.

Two some self propelled deal, mostly an anti-infantry thing - perhaps cluster munitions, sitting duck to air/tanks/close infantry.

Both require a signal of some kind to fire...like a beacon that can be thrown like a nade or something.

Aractain · 2011-07-19, 05:32 PM

My view of arty is pretty simple.

It is a playstyle rather than a 'weapon'. Support orientated which means a larger focus on putting pressure on enemys rather than killing noobs.

Camera shells to aim and view effect on target but you usually fire lots of smaller rounds and there is no way to hit even a large vehicle reliably.

PsychoXR-20 · 2011-07-19, 07:19 PM

I wouldn't mind seeing mortar strikes, as long as said mortars are a capturable object that ones empire must control to use.

How you would go about calling in the strike I have no idea, obviously everyone and their mother shouldn't be able to call in a mortal strike at will, and commanders will still have access to orbital strikes, so giving them the only access to mortars seems a bit unfair/overkill/redundant.

Perhaps the mortars could require multiple gunners, who then take in requests from the field, but must all agree on the target before firing can commence.

Perhaps everyone can choose where they would like a mortar strike to be called in, then when an area has a certain amount of "votes", that's where it happens.

Or maybe it's completely automated and randomly fires on the heaviest concentration of enemies within it's range.

Add in a long delay between each strike, as well as a initial delay when the mortars are captured and I don't think it would be too overpowered (key word is 'too').

Kietharr · 2011-07-19, 07:42 PM

I think the Flail shouldn't even be in this game tbh, I hope none of that core combat alien crap comes back, instead make a few faction artillery vehicles

NC: Self propelled Howitzer, primary fire shoots HE-Anti Armor shells, secondary fire shoots frag shells.

TR: MLRS style 6 rocket mobile rocket launcher, fires both AV rockets and cluster rockets for AI purposes

VS: Something kinda like the flail, but with a secondary fire that shoots cluster flux pods. Also more VS, less Alien style.

All would need to deploy like the flail to fire.

As for mortars, no. Infantry shouldn't have artillery/tank level power because they're so much more mobile, all it took was a reaver or two to go hunting to clean up a few flails but you'd need a good deal more to clean up infantry mortars hiding in forests and whatnot.

BronzeElemental · 2011-07-19, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by Kietharr

As for mortars, no. Infantry shouldn't have artillery/tank level power because they're so much more mobile, all it took was a reaver or two to go hunting to clean up a few flails but you'd need a good deal more to clean up infantry mortars hiding in forests and whatnot.

Just like real life then.

Firefly · 2011-07-19, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Volw

First of all, I don't like being killed by something I can't see. In fact, most of people don't, that's why all-bar-flail vehicles in PS require line of sight.

The biggest issue with artillery can be seen on Flail example.

If it's powerful, then it *will* be spammed and therefore made OP.

If it's sub-par, to balance out 'spammability' of it, then no-one will bother using them.

Yes. Because Flail spam is a huge game-breaker right now. In fact, last night I was playing and my Reaver got shot down by a Flail round. And then when our Galaxy was taking off, it got capped by a Flail round. And when I was on Searhus down at Iva, they had a billion Flails parked up on the rim of the volcano hurling magical artillery down into the base. And the other day, and the day before that, and a week ago, when I was playing the game lagged out because of all the Flail Trails in the sky.

People don't seem to understand the difference in weapons system. Tanks are OP compared to a pistol or a rifle. A rifle is OP compared to a knife. A Liberator bomb (correctly applied on-target) is OP compared to a tank round. Hey here's an idea, let's just make all weapons in the game REGARDLESS of their prime function do exactly two points of damage. That way everyone is equal, and we can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and talk about our feelings!

Artillery is a weapon of warfare. It has its uses, and yes it's supposed to be OP under specific circumstances. And right along with that, it has incredible vulnerabilities. Without even talking about real life, let's just look at the Flail. Hmm, where to begin. Well, if I happen to spot outbound Flail fire in my Reaver or Mossie, I will immediately track it back and open fire. He's locked into a set-up position, so that's a few seconds of free kill. Then he's got to run away, and I'm pretty sure I can plod along right behind him and take him out because his massive cannon o' doom is useless in a straight-up fight.