Buggies - Page 3

Firefly · 2011-02-24, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

As it stands we hardly ever see buggies anyway, and if we go with making buggies AI focused then it will require nerfing the Van and Prowlers main gun to being as weak as the Mag against infantry which is pathetic. Then there is also severe overlap with the Deli variants which are AI machines already.

Buggies aren't AI-focussed. True, you can do incredibly wicked things to infantry and MAX units, but - at least for the Marauder - they're good against tanks if you play smart, or attack in swarms. I don't know about the Thresher because I lol at them and never drove one. I drove an Enforcer once, gunned it. I can't recall what I did with it but it wasn't that impressive, obviously.

And no, you don't have to nerf any tank's main guns against infantry. Leave it the way it is.

Bags · 2011-02-24, 12:07 PM

Enforcer is decent but it has issue with firing angles.

BorisBlade · 2011-02-24, 12:10 PM

The problem with balancing buggies is you cant really do it with the current tech without gimping everything else. The thing is the net code limits how fast vehicles can go before you get into probs with warping and other issues with the estimation system they use in PS. If the buggies moved very fast, and with great acceleration and had some resistance to mines, they could be very useful.

They need to be fast (and prob half damage or less taken from mines too.) And have solid ability to take out infantry and they would be fine. Maybe even give em some other bonus, maybe they have less tech and so are immune to jammers or maybe they have that nifty jammer thingy the sunderers have or whatever, just somethin to give em a nice little niche.

We always ran lots and lots of deliverers way back when no one else did (maybe 6-12 months after release after one of the vehicle patches). Nobody used em, we got laughed at by those in our alliance. That is until one of the alliance events i was running, i called for some deliverer squads. Those things when used right are beast. Reavers and skeeters stand no chance at all, tanks are dead as well if you just stay mobile and stay back. (yes mags are harder with their sniper shells but they also have less armor) Those 20mm guns are meant to tear up armor and they do it well and do it well from a distance while the nice armor and speed of the vehicle keep you alive. Not to mention it can cross water making it killer on continents like cyssor. To this day the deli is one of my fave vehicles, as it is for many other of my friends who have spent any time with us on our many runs.

Giving a vehicle its niche is what makes a vehicle good. It needs to fit in with other vehicles and do somethin that others cant, somthin that keeps it unique. It has its strenghts and weaknesses, thats what you want. The buggies just need to fill that with the top speed of any ground vehicles, that includes acceleration. Great ai damage and ok av damage. They shouldnt be meant for takin out tanks but can do ok in a quick hit and run scenario. They dont have the extra passenger slots, the higher armor or the water crossing (except for the vs) that other vehicles have so the other bonuses i mentioned before would help to give them that niche they need.

Also, i havent checked lately, but if they still require tech plants, that needs to go.

Warborn · 2011-02-24, 12:35 PM

I was really hoping with PSN they'd totally rework vehicles. We've seen four vehicles so far which are just remakes of existing ones, but I hope it doesn't go too far. Talking about for example deliverer variants... why do we anticipate those to be in the game? The fact is that a lot of the vehicles and variants were added with no real point in mind. Why is there a deliverer variant? The deliverer itself really has no significant function, putting slightly more firepower onto it doesn't change that. It's still eclipsed by other vehicles, and being able to travel across water doesn't change that.

I would say most of the vehicles in PS don't have any real function. They were just dreamed up and added in and forgotten by players within a month of their release, because they were totally redundant. So I wouldn't expect all the variants and so on to be in the game. The new developers are hopefully not going to be as keen on wasting their time developing stuff nobody uses as the old developers.

As for vehicle customization, being able to significantly change the armament of vehicles isn't a good idea, for the same reason that not giving vehicles specific niches isn't a good idea. If every vehicle can swap between AI/AV and maybe even AA loadouts, clearly superior vehicle/weapon mixes will be found and they will instantly eclipse other variants and make them superfluous. It will be a balance nightmare. Although, as Firefly said, if they want to just make the game consist of three ground vehicles or something and simply give them different weapons instead of making a wide range of vehicles with static weapons that might be a possible alternative.

Bags · 2011-02-24, 01:23 PM

Er, I don't know what you're smoking but the thunderer is amazing. It fills the role of kicking ass and taking names.

I SandRock · 2011-02-24, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by Bags

No offense but it's just as easy to hit a buggy with a lancer as it is to hit with a striker. Buggies aren't that agile.

I already love driving buggies so I'd love even more incentive to do so.

Sure sure mr TR

Bags · 2011-02-24, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by I SandRock

Sure sure mr TR

Er, I actually have the enforcer certed on my NC and not my TR (mainly because I don't have anyone to gun my maruader any more)

It's amazing that when people on this forum have no way to rebut my posts they just point out that I play TR or some other inane bullshit. Class acts all around.

I SandRock · 2011-02-24, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Bags

Er, I actually have the enforcer certed on my NC and not my TR (mainly because I don't have anyone to gun my maruader any more)

It's amazing that when people on this forum have no way to rebut my posts they just point out that I play TR or some other inane bullshit. Class acts all around.

I wasn't talking about your buggy cert but so far in every thread you've been saying TR is underpowered and needs love when they're the easy-mode empire by a long shot

Warborn · 2011-02-24, 11:50 PM

Originally Posted by Bags

Er, I don't know what you're smoking but the thunderer is amazing. It fills the role of kicking ass and taking names.

Some of them were okay. Not worth three people, or especially 5 people in the case of the TR one, but fun to screw around with.

Bags · 2011-02-24, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Warborn

Some of them were okay. Not worth three people, or especially 5 people in the case of the TR one, but fun to screw around with.

The thunderer is worth three people. It instagibs softies and does serious AV damage. The aurora and raider are not.

CutterJohn · 2011-02-25, 03:56 AM

Originally Posted by TRex

Thats why I agreed with (ThePeacemaker? ) on the AGN podcast when someone mentioned allowing the likes of vanguards to interchange their weapon loadouts to be AI /AV/AA , and he quite rightly pointed out all that would do is make the Vanguard the only vehicle you would need.

Quite rightly, if, and only if, it was a straight up conversion from base PS to the modular weapon system with NO other balance considerations to make other chassis viable choices. If you design the vehicles with certain weapons in mind, then switch the weapons without further consideration to the vehicles, of course it will fail.

Originally Posted by Firefly

Tanks are the king of the battlefield, particularly modern Abrams-pattern tanks. They're virtually unkillable. Sure you can probably give one a flesh-wound, but they're incredibly powerful. A tank is a show of force. A tank shows up to a gunfight, and people start getting really scared. Or stupid, like the guy that stands in front of an Israeli tank and throws a rock at it. A tank is primarily a tank-killer. That's what it does. It doesn't shoot down jets or helicopters. It has a few machine guns for dealing with any infantry that are stupid enough or brave enough to get close. They're usually used to deal with light targets, though. You don't see a tank firing a shell at a random grunt. Not unless they're desperate or need to vape his position.

A big part of the reason tanks don't go after infantry with the big gun is because of the huge limitation on ammo they have. But they can and will be used to take out hardened infantry positions.. machine gun nests and bunkers. This is one of their primary purposes, along with hunting other tanks.

So perhaps a big chunk of the problem may not that they are too effective at killing infantry, but that they store waaaaaaaaay too much ammo to do the job with. An M1 stores 34 rounds of ammo in it. It has to be very, very selective about what it shoots at. Its not going to waste a bullet on a single grunt. And it won't even have 34 rounds of HE.. Much of the ammo will be AP, depending on expected opposition.

If we cut back severely on tank ammo for the big gun, sure, they can still rape infantry. But not very many, nor for very long. If they overload on explosive rounds and neglect the AP, they're going to be hurting if they run into a tank.

The Sunderer I see as a Bradley. It's an infantry fighting vehicle with support guns. Roll it up to the front door, unload the squad of crunchies, give 'em some gunfire cover but don't hit the friendlies.

I'd love to see the sunderer as more of a bradley type vehicle, instead of the 4 turret monstrosity it is.

If there are 3 man or more vehicles in the game, like the deli and sunderer, they should be more like the prowler or liberator.. works great with two, but is all the sweeter with 3. Tbh, I would love it if that 3rd man was optional. 2 men in a prowler, 1 controls both turrets, switching between them. 3? You can use both at once. And never saw a reason the bombardier couldn't pull double duty as a tail gunner.. Just balance it as a two man vehicle.

Originally Posted by Warborn

Although, as Firefly said, if they want to just make the game consist of three ground vehicles or something and simply give them different weapons instead of making a wide range of vehicles with static weapons that might be a possible alternative.

Original PS ground vehicles.

Ant
AMS
Wraith
Basilisk
Buggies
Lightning
Deliverer
Sunderer
Tanks

9 different chassis classes. Of them, over half have a specialized role that means people will use them anyway, regardless.

That leaves 4 classes of combat vehicle chassis.

ATVs
Buggies
Lightnings
Tanks

People will still use ATVs and Lightnings, since they are solo vehicles, and they most definitely have different quirks and uses.

Which means that exactly 2 classes of vehicle chassis would have clashed in general use. Buggies, and tanks. Pretty sure I could think up enough differences and costs that people would like to choose buggies over tanks. The rest will still be chosen regularly anyway, since they have unique roles not associated with guns, or use differing numbers of people.

Warborn · 2011-02-25, 08:41 AM

Yeah, your assessment of the original vehicles is pretty off I think. ATVs were totally pointless when aircav was far better for traveling around, had incredible utility in the form of hot dropping, and was actually pretty effective in combat (mosquito aside initially, it was pretty mediocre until they totally eliminated its dispersion).

All of the ground transports were gimmicks. Taking a vehicle around the twisty, winding paths of most PS continents was stupid when you could just get a galaxy and actually fly to the place and then drop on the target. Realistically, most people had some aircav cert anyway, so if you wanted to get somewhere fast you could usually get people to pull their own air transports.

Buggies were stupid and pointless as they weren't as good at killing anything as tanks, and their speed didn't change their lifespan much.

So realistically, all of the land transports were at odds with all aircraft because land transit is always less practical than air transport, and any ground vehicle that had a gun was eclipsed by tanks. Suggesting people "regularly" used ATVs, harassers, assault buggies, and deliverer/sunderers is a pretty incorrect statement. People used aircav en masse and used tanks whenever they were able to. The rest were gimmick vehicles that people used because using the same couple vehicles repeatedly got boring.

As a caveat, sunderer wasn't so bad if you parked it somewhere good and just shelled the crap out of an area the enemy was. It also wasn't so uncommon for people to pull an enforcer solo, park it near an infantry swarm, and one-shot a few guys before someone blew them up with a deci.

CutterJohn · 2011-02-25, 11:21 AM

Wasn't assessing the relative value of the vehicles. I was merely pointing out that there were indeed only 4 primary combat vehicles in the game at the time of release(as in, having no value other than shooting things), two of which were single player, and two of which were multiplayer. As such, it would have been simplicity to balance changeable weapons between those two sets of two vehicles so as not to make one the obvious choice over the other for all things.

He said what purpose would there be to take anything besides vanguard? Think of something, since all there was besides the vanguard to fit the role of 2 man combat vehicle was a buggy.

Obviously the original PS went a different way with vehicles, and added more dedicated vehicles. But they could have easily updated and gone with a modular vehicle system instead, and balanced for that.

Sadly, I've participated in my own derailment. Oh well. Modular vehicles or no, I still think buggies can use some buffs, tanks a few nerfs.

Tbh, so long as my thresher handles like the Battlezone2 tanks, and less like a vehicle with invisible wheels with no suspension, all will be swell.