Sunderer lifespan/role

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by acosmo

so you're saying that by denying the sundy ams features, they are making the sundy into a proper transport?

No, what I am saying is that if they gave the sunderer AMS capabilities, then they must already have balanced it around that idea and nerfed other aspects of the vehicle.

I am not trying to waste the idea of having AMS in PS2. I am pushing for good transport vehicles because there were no proper group transport vehicles in PS except for the galaxy (and this is an air vehicle).

Of course, you could count the harassers and quads as good transport vehicles because they had speed but I see them more as personal ground transport vehicle.

Now if a group ground transport vehicle does not fit in the game, then we don't need one implemented either.

Find me someone who commonly used PS1 sundies and delis as transport vehicles and truly believed that it was the best option to move a group of people around.

[DayOne]

I like the idea of an AMS becoming just a spawn point. Then some new transport vehicle being used as a equipment terminal. A few defences and some sort of deployable barrier and you have yourself a little command post. Would put more emphasis on team work, even if it's just one guy yelling "Get a AMS and [new support vehicle] down here NOW!" Could make for some interesting gameplay.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Find me someone who commonly used PS1 sundies and delis as transport vehicles and truly believed that it was the best option to move a group of people around.

There won't be one, and there would never be. Moving people was not a very important task in PS1, and when people needed to be moved, Gals were far superior. Faster, able to bypass all ground defenses, able to put troops on top of the base/tower. It was uncommon for AA to be thick enough to prevent a drop from occurring.

And considering everyone will have access to vehicles due to the train everything system, faster access to HART drops, etc, I can't see arranging to move bodies being that difficult. Balancing a vehicle to be solely a ground transport vehicle would be a bad idea, since ground transport is just not that powerful of an ability. Giving the sunderer AMS capabilities as well would be an excellent choice.

[sylphaen]

Hopefully, it won't be labelled as a "ground transport" vehicle as that would be misleading.

No point either in saying there is no AMS if a new or old vehicle acts like one.

I'm really curious to see the intended gameplay of PS2 because as of now, putting together thoughts from different threads, I am thoroughly confused about the kind of game they are making.

However if it's successfully done and fun to play, it won't matter in the end.


All speculation until beta !

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

I'm really curious to see the intended gameplay of PS2 because as of now, putting together thoughts from different threads, I am thoroughly confused about the kind of game they are making.

i think anyone who has a clue, has no clue. amen

[Figment]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Find me someone who commonly used PS1 sundies and delis as transport vehicles and truly believed that it was the best option to move a group of people around.

*raises hand* Our outfit was completely based on GT as primary means of combat and getting around unless speed was of more essence (then by air). Here's a way old topic of mine, from before the forum switch even about how to use GT: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/po...c_id=600014021

It did a hell of a lot better job at transporting people at a low profile to a backdoor or front door than a Galaxy ever would. A Galaxy drop is announced to people in base almost a minute in advance as it can be seen and heard coming from long distance. Galaxies loading up in another base are also scouted easier as they stick out like a soor thumb and people thus can prepare more easily for them. Bases like Hvar, Qumu and Bomazi are much easier to take with a double or triple Sunderer assault (first sunds are driver only and act as CY minesweepers/decoy/protective wall to unload behind) than with a Galaxy.

As for Deliverers and variants... Situationally they can definitely be better than a Galaxy for a drop as well and of course are extremely suited for raiding modules and LLUs.

Hapi, Caer, Orisha, Tore, Nzame, Mukuru, Voltan, Naum and I could name a number of other bases which are best attacked by water. Best to attack those over water and sneak up from out of sight behind the hills, then to play Wagner and attempt a Galaxy drop which everyone sees coming from miles away and wants a piece of. We once pulled of a 25 men, 5 deli assault on Hapi, we didn't encounter opposition in this frontline interlink base until we reached spawns: everyone was watching the skies and making their way to the vpad even as we came down through the BD. If we had come in a Galaxy, we'd have had many aircav waiting at the dropzone.

Problem is many people like you believe it foolish and thus don't ever even try to do drops by ground out of fear it may fail. Especially based on experiences with the old Sunderer and the overall incompetent drivers that do not take a proper approach route that is obscured by hills.

And if all else fails, just use a Lodestar and put the Sunderer inside for maximum armoured protection and least chance of getting OSed.

Then again, a Gal drop was never so obvious that some CR5s who "never saw it coming" already have three OSes ready waiting minutes in advance on one of the possible drop targets, now was it?

[sylphaen]

Well I'm glad to have found a group of players using the ground transport cert effectively then ! Congratulations of convincing people to use it like that.(and I am not being sarcastic... I have the ground transport cert and abused the aurora in all ways imaginable)

Now trying to explain to random users that they should bail before the vehicle blows up was another thing.

Problem is many people like you believe it foolish and thus don't ever even try to do drops by ground out of fear it may fail.

You are assuming things, here.


I am the guy around here asking for faster ground transport with decent firepower and decent armor... Why ? Because the sunderer was under-utilized and it was sad.

And if they did not have an OSes ready for sunderers, I'd venture in saying that the top reason is that 1 time out of 50, it's a waste of an OS unless the Sundy is full. The second reason is that it happened once every full-moon but the effect of surprise would have worn off fast had the sundy been used more.

Overall, the issue remains that the ground transport cert was under-utilized and even more so as max BR increased. Sundies were not an attractive alternative for transport and as such, I consider that it failed. That's why you see me lobby for good transport vehicles and not sacrificial slow behemoths made to break into a CY.

[acosmo]

well figment, you seem to be very knowledgeable about GT. what would you hope to see in the PS2 sunderer?
customization options, abilities, weapons, secondary systems?

[Figment]

Originally Posted by acosmo

well figment, you seem to be very knowledgeable about GT. what would you hope to see in the PS2 sunderer?
customization options, abilities, weapons, secondary systems?

That depends really on a lot of things.

First of, it depends on how individual players will play. Unfortunately the role of transportation was swiftly reduced in PlanetSide when people got the chance to play solo vehicles en mass. As such, when I started playing, Sunderers were always full as battle ranks were limited to 20 and a lot of players chose to focus on just one or two vehicles and the remainder in medic, combat engineering and weaponry.

After a half year, they were half empty if not empty as people figured out Mosquitos and Reavers were way more effective and most people could afford the certpoints. On top of that, there wasn't a whole lot of reasons to do drops on.

So far, I've seen way too many incentives for anyone to ever want to fire from the limited sideview of a bus: Lightnings, main battle tanks, aircraft, each and everyone of those vehicles has its own hitpoints and a gun for the pilot or driver.

In the current scenario as I see PS2 unfold, the only reason to use a transport vehicle is to force people to stay together as a group to reach a particular target. As the Galaxy doubles as spawnpoint and thus will be around a lot and can reach different entrypoints in bases more easily (especially as the size of bases has increased, I presume it becomes harder to OS the dropzone), they'll most likely be used most.

The Sunderer therefore requires not just a transport, but also a combattive role.

The question is how customizable you'd want it to be and how customizable it can be. You can't really add AA to it, because then you have a super strong armoured AA vehicle for two people, instead of say the Lightning's light armour AA vehicle. Why use the Lightning then? Besides, it'd reduce the need for escorting service by other units (yet again) and that IMO reduces teamwork need.

So I'd personally prefer more well-defined, specialized vehicle roles and less customization that infringes on the niches of other units. So, I wouldn't mind if it had say a fixed dual 75mm and dual 20mm for rate of fire (like the current Vindicator), but where you could tweak angles, rate of fire and power of the guns by say... 20% (10% deviation from standard)? Perhaps you could change one AV weapon (75mm) for another (Gauss gun), as long as it has the same role.

The EMP blast in PS1 was a nice feature, but IMO it infringed heavily on the CUD EMP blast through its implementation. I mean one blast every 30 seconds, or one blast every 15 minutes? Not quite fair, is it? I'd say two blasts per vehicle would have sufficed. With the EMP blast alone, I've disrupted so many vehicles and we killed quite a few tanks because of it.

The extended Dark Light range for the Sunderer side ball joint was just ridiculous. Who uses a side aimed 80meters distance Dark Light? Besides, how is this DL range fair to an infil? So I'd remove that.


But some ideas?

I wouldn't mind the option of an anti-mine shovel on front at the cost of speed, but improved ramming and moving of other vehicle carcasses.

I wouldn't mind a temporary or perma-AMS-like cloak bubble (come to full stop, deploy: say 30 second cloak shield) to evade detection or try to lose people in pursuit. This would also help in protecting players who are getting out of the vehicle at the drop off point (especially if you have an animation for it). On a capacitator, of course.

Deploy in field to obtain a limited radar installation (detects vehicles in line of sight with radar only), or as a sensor disruptor.

EMP Blast could remain an option, but limited in number.

Amphibious undercarriage at the cost of speed and agility.

Some options for the wheels and engine could be nice. Acceleration tuning with a bigger engine, wider wheels for more grip, that sort of thing.



But if we're looking at multi-role vehicles and removing the need for many different vehicle models, which is what the PS2 dev team seems to want, there is some other options which I wouldn't always advice. You could then look at being able to remove the entire or parts of the backside and use it as a truck with transport capacity.

For instance, you could replace sections and have two infantry slots instead of one MAX slot and the other way around. Tailor it to the needs of the drop.

Option for a small vehicle transport bay instead of infantry slots (would have loved one for ANTs, in fact designed amphibious ES Sunderer variants with this option before).

Upgradeable/deployable in field as a mobile bunker for infantry (for instance, can open a side for walking in/out and then allow fire from viewports out the other side). However, I once had an idea for PS1 to create a new engineer cert that would allow the addition of camonets and sandbags around a vehicle, to make it into a field turret/bunker. (Along with the idea of using a modified version of tree top leafs as ground cover for infantry to hide in). In combination with the AMS cert, I gave this engineer the ability to deploy bunkers in the field by means of a new vehicle. Such a feature could also be implemented, where the back of the Sunderer is changed into a construction vehicle for fortifications and other structures or terrain features (small lookout towers, bunkers, U-shaped trenches, walls, tank traps, fast laying of minefields).

Option for equip term on the back with limited nanite supplies at the cost of infantry transportation spots (much like aegis). But then we're basically almost at an AMS and you might as well include an option for that role. Unfortunately that would mean you'd never get an AMS, so I'd rather not see that. Unless it basically gets the same attributes as an AMS, so instead of a transport and combat vehicle, it is converted into a pure AMS.

In the same line of thinking, one could have an option for a small repair silo or vehicle bay on the back with limited nanite supplies for repairs and rearming. Again at the cost of infantry transportation spots. However, this would significantly reduce the role of Lodestars, unless repair capacity is extremely limited in comparison or is only for ground vehicles, whereas Lodestar is for both or only for aircraft. In theory one could even create an aircraft landing pad on the back.

[Figment]

*doublepost*

[PoisonTaco]

I bet you the Sunderer is going to be very versatile. You know how they were saying you can spec the fighter to either be air-to-air, air-to-ground or just super fast recon? That's likely going to be the case for the Sunderer. Options to turn it into the AMS by sacrificing some of its battle capabilities.

Now I never played the original Planetside as I was kind of young when it came out, but aren't the devs saying it will be easier to kill people in Planetside 2? This means people are going to die more often so there needs to be ways to bring people back into the battle. Sure we have squad spawning, but they've said that's going to have limits. In Battlefield games nothing sucks more than running across the map to die, then spawn back at the main base only to run across the map again. Maybe the more patient players could put up with this, but for folks who only have 1-2 hours a night to game that's an issue.

The Sunderer will likely have multiple roles it can fill, but not all at once.

[acosmo]

@poisontaco you're right. the turrets in this pic are the same ones on the es mbts in the top down comparison shot. in particular the sundy has two of the 50cal ish mgs that they put on the magrider turret spot. they have, however, said the sunderer will lack AMS abilities.

@figment given the information we've received, i have a warm fuzzy feeling that they will allow for amphibious sunderers.

otherwise, i think most of the things you said regarding its base role/capabilities are going to be implemented.
+ is shorter to allow for firing upon closer targets
+ has two heavy machine guns instead of cannons (allows for more versatility)
+ will probably be faster than in ps1
+ may have equipment terminals
- will probably not have as much armor as in ps1


P.S. the lodestar is not going to be in PS2 and orbital strikes will be a much, much less frequent occurance. they will most likely be much less effective as well. also consider that emp may no longer detonate mines

[Figment]

We'll probably have to be somewhat vocal in beta about certain things.


What bothers me a bit is that for a remake, we get rather few units to work with. :/ Would much much much rather see a lot of niche vehicles than so many the same vehicles that cover every niche possible, while a lot of specialized and tactical vehicles are removed.

The Lodestar for instance, what's wrong with having transportation units for ground vehicles? That just makes fast response aircraft more important. And it's not like those were unimportant in PS1 already... At the moment next to Skyguard, Flail and Lodestar, I presume the Router and Switchblade won't make it in either. Buggies and ANTs may not make it in, certainly not on beta launch, but if they do, it'll probably be a frame that replaces both the ES buggies and Harasser. AMS isn't in as it is included in one of the most unsuitable units for an infantry assault (Galaxy is a paratrooper assault vehicle, not infantry) and as spawning mechanisms have changed drastically. All fighter aircraft are incorporated in one frame per empire, two tank vehicles per empire have every role possible, the Sunderer may or may not take up the roles of both Sunderer variants AND the Deli variants... That's almost half the vehicles, isn't it?

[acosmo]

ps2 isn't a remake, it's a "re-imagining"

[Figment]

Originally Posted by acosmo

ps2 isn't a remake, it's a "re-imagining"

So it's a remake, otherwise it'd been a sequel. xD