Couple thoughts on MAX's and Air Vehicles...

**Malorn** · 2011-07-23, 12:21 AM

Just because they are making flight physics more realistic doesn't mean there isn't VTOL. Just look at BF2142. The VTOL aircraft in 2142 were a lot harder to fly than PS and they they fit nicely. I hope the PS aircraft are more like that. I had fun flying the transport ships in that game; they handled quite differently from the gunships and played a lot more like how I hoped a galaxy would be. I thought they should have had lighter air transports for that reason in PS2.

Also, I believe the Vulture was intended to be like an A-10 in Planetside. It didn't really achieve that role very well, but they clearly designed it that way. It has no cluster bombs and was a faster more manueverable Liberator intended to go after mobile vehicles (i.e. tank buster). The nosegun was also designed for that it had a burst of high damage vehiciel-oriented rounds but had a long reload time. It was a precision bomber designed to kill vehicles as opposed to the general-purpose strategic bomber that was the Lib.

I expect the vulture will make a return as an upgrade option for Liberators. I hope this time around it fits better as a tank buster. I think it should probably drop a streak of bombs and be a bit faster so tanks can't easily avoid it.

I also hope Libs are 2-seaters as opposed to 3-seaters. Just allow the bombadier to switch into tail-gun mode. It was never worth the manpower to fill the tailgun spot and always better to have the gailtunner fly a reaver, mosq, or wasp instead to escort.

Sirisian · 2011-07-23, 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

I also hope Libs are 2-seaters as opposed to 3-seaters. Just allow the bombadier to switch into tail-gun mode. It was never worth the manpower to fill the tailgun spot and always better to have the gailtunner fly a reaver, mosq, or wasp instead to escort.

I'm hoping it's a single seater. I found myself more often using the nose gun to shoot vehicles. It would then be a Reaver with bombs instead of rockets which sounds perfect. I prefer bombing more than launching rockets and hated basically assisting in all my kills. I think when they decided not to make the Reaver a two person jet they discovered the same thing. Definitely makes more sense having the pilot fire the rockets/bombs.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-23, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I'm hoping it's a single seater. I found myself more often using the nose gun to shoot vehicles. It would then be a Reaver with bombs instead of rockets which sounds perfect. I prefer bombing more than launching rockets and hated basically assisting in all my kills. I think when they decided not to make the Reaver a two person jet they discovered the same thing. Definitely makes more sense having the pilot fire the rockets/bombs.

It should definitely not be a single seater. Single seaters should be avoided in Planetside with a few exceptions.

Planetside has a 1+1=3 teamwork model where two players in a vehicle coordinating should be significantly more powerful than two single-seaters. This was obvious with the tanks vs lightnings, ATVs vs buggies, etc. Aircraft were generally the exception, but the Liberator was not. For having a 2-3 man aircraft you got a lot of firepower (far more than a reaver) which made the Liberator what it was. If it were a one-seater it would have to be far more fragile and have far less firepower. Were it to be so it would actually overlap with the reaver in role. That's lame. A bomber should be something that makes people go "oh shit, gtfo inc!" It should be able to take out any vehicle in a single pass assuming most/all of the bombs hit their mark. This was true of the Lib in PS1 and there really isn't much to change with it. The concept and implementation was pretty darn good. Just needs a few tweaks.

CutterJohn · 2011-07-23, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

I also hope Libs are 2-seaters as opposed to 3-seaters. Just allow the bombadier to switch into tail-gun mode. It was never worth the manpower to fill the tailgun spot and always better to have the gailtunner fly a reaver, mosq, or wasp instead to escort.

Plus it was just damned boring to be stuck in the bomber spot with nothing to bomb.