Niche vs customizable vehicle roles.

[Xyntech]

Highly visible differences between different turret types would be very good. Make the Lightnings Skyguard turret be big and bulbous, or have some unnecessary fins or something.

I'm sure that adding a few additions to some of the ES fighters shape depending on their role would be equally possible.

I'm definitely a fan of the customizable frame concept, but there's no need to just needlessly accept the bad along with the good either. I have no doubt that there is a nice middle ground where roles are distinguishable, while still keeping development time/costs down and having the flexible cert branches of the current design.

[Haro]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Highly visible differences between different turret types would be very good. Make the Lightnings Skyguard turret be big and bulbous, or have some unnecessary fins or something.

I'm sure that adding a few additions to some of the ES fighters shape depending on their role would be equally possible.

I'm definitely a fan of the customizable frame concept, but there's no need to just needlessly accept the bad along with the good either. I have no doubt that there is a nice middle ground where roles are distinguishable, while still keeping development time/costs down and having the flexible cert branches of the current design.

I was thinking along the lines of radar dishes and antennae, but the bulbous features could really work as well. Another thing could be to completely change the nature of the weapon: rather than having tank AA weapons as standard cannons, make them flak batteries or missile launchers. I'm a bit less concerned about air assets, as their high speed and ability to fly at high altitudes could make identification difficult in any situation, and their roles tend to vary less.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Haro

I was thinking along the lines of radar dishes and antennae, but the bulbous features could really work as well. Another thing could be to completely change the nature of the weapon: rather than having tank AA weapons as standard cannons, make them flak batteries or missile launchers. I'm a bit less concerned about air assets, as their high speed and ability to fly at high altitudes could make identification difficult in any situation, and their roles tend to vary less.

How do aircraft roles vary less? Air-to-Ground is very different from Air-to-Air. That's an entirely different role that will have significantly different strengths.

Doesn't really matter how they make the turret different, so long as it is different enough to be easily identifiable. Same thing goes for role differences on anything else.

An important part of a game is understanding that when you see a target that you can recognize what it is and have a chance at understanding what it is capable of doing to you. When it can be everything under the sun and they all look the same, that's a poor game design. They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Malorn

They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

Is that true?

For aircraft, my understanding is that the underwing munitions are visually distinct in both shape and quantity. In the case of the Lightning, I don't think we've seen any of the other setups. For the other vehicles, I wouldn't expect main gun sidegrades to have much of a visual signature, any more than I'd be able to tell the difference between the M68 and the M256 on an Abrams at range.

Put another way, do we even know enough to have legitimate concerns about this yet?

[Xyntech]

Just another thing to talk about until we see for ourselves in beta.

There are legitimate concerns, but overall I'm pretty happy with what vehicles we currently have.

We just found out last night that buggies are already modeled and just need to be properly balanced before being put in. That still probably won't happen until after launch, but I highly doubt that we are going to see vehicle production come to a screeching halt after launch. Planetside launched with a lot less vehicles than it currently has, and it did alright. Was that Reaver pilot skilled enough to take down your Mosquito with his 20mm, or was he just a rocket spamming noob? Knowing what a vehicle is capable of is important, but it's not the end all be all of vehicle design.

As long as I don't need to worry about a tank suddenly taking to the sky, or a Lightning having a squad of troops pop out of it, I think we'll be okay. I definitely support further improvements to making roles be identifiable, but the system isn't completely FUBAR'd at the moment either.

[maradine]

Fair enough. Issue everyone binoculars and I think I'm satisfied, for the record.

[Haro]

Originally Posted by Malorn

How do aircraft roles vary less? Air-to-Ground is very different from Air-to-Air. That's an entirely different role that will have significantly different strengths.

Doesn't really matter how they make the turret different, so long as it is different enough to be easily identifiable. Same thing goes for role differences on anything else.

An important part of a game is understanding that when you see a target that you can recognize what it is and have a chance at understanding what it is capable of doing to you. When it can be everything under the sun and they all look the same, that's a poor game design. They do a pretty good job at infantry being visually distinct in their role and capabilities, but vehicles are rather poor in that respect.

Well, the only aircraft that really makes a large shift in its primary role from air-to-air to air-to-ground are the empire specific fighters. As far as I know, and maybe I'm wrong, but the Liberator will likely stay in an bomber/gunship role, so there's not a lot to adjust there, and I feel like the Galaxy's weapons primarily are primarily defensive, and therefore (not counting the gunship, which is likely a ways off.) It's not to say that there shouldn't be distinguishing characteristics for them, there should be, I just don't think it's as high of a priority as it is for tanks.

That said... I think the fighters could use large missiles instead of rocket pods for air-to-air, to differentiate. Maybe experiment with different shaped wings or fins or... whatever the scythe or whatever it's called has.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by maradine

Is that true?

For aircraft, my understanding is that the underwing munitions are visually distinct in both shape and quantity. In the case of the Lightning, I don't think we've seen any of the other setups. For the other vehicles, I wouldn't expect main gun sidegrades to have much of a visual signature, any more than I'd be able to tell the difference between the M68 and the M256 on an Abrams at range.

Put another way, do we even know enough to have legitimate concerns about this yet?

Yes the underwing guns are distinct on the aircraft, but relatively speaking that is a small part of the aircraft. Watch the stream and look at aircraft flying around, they move way too fast and turn to distinguish whether it has missiles or rocket pods. It's particularly bad at night when shape is all you have to go on.

It needs to be more obvious and weapon pods on the underside of the aircraft is not distinct enough. There's no name tags to tell us what something is, all we have to go on right now are the small differences in armament that are not obvious.

And yes, I watched the streams and had no idea which types of aircraft were A2A and A2G unless we were looking at a kill cam. The Lightning skyguard turret was disabled for the demo so we can't say on that one, but the galaxy guns and secondary guns on tanks were very difficult to distinguish as well.

Originally Posted by Haro

Well, the only aircraft that really makes a large shift in its primary role from air-to-air to air-to-ground are the empire specific fighters. As far as I know, and maybe I'm wrong, but the Liberator will likely stay in an bomber/gunship role, so there's not a lot to adjust there, and I feel like the Galaxy's weapons primarily are primarily defensive, and therefore (not counting the gunship, which is likely a ways off.) It's not to say that there shouldn't be distinguishing characteristics for them, there should be, I just don't think it's as high of a priority as it is for tanks.

That said... I think the fighters could use large missiles instead of rocket pods for air-to-air, to differentiate. Maybe experiment with different shaped wings or fins or... whatever the scythe or whatever it's called has.

Obviously there's different priority for vehicles. If it's a resource concern they could focus on the vehicles that need it the most first and defer the others to post-launch.

Lightning, ES Aircraft, and ES tanks are the high priority ones to have easily differentiable as they all have hard counters available as customization options. When facing these vehicles its important to be able to immediately identify what that vehicle is capable of doing, especially if it's a difference between an easy-kill and getting insta-gibbed. When both possibilities exist for the same vehicle that's bad unless we can clearly distinguish which is which.

[maradine]

Personally, I prefer a little uncertainty. For my money, I don't think perfect knowledge is a desirable design goal in this context.

As for night time, well. It's night. I'd prefer it be more than cosmetic.

[Remzsz]

I would prefer to have most of the vehicles to have a specific role instead of every vehicle being able to be AV, AI, AA. I also want customization, but the customization should be sidegrades to a vehicles role, for example an AA aircraft by default will have some type of lock on missile to take down aircraft or you can replace the missile system to a flak cannon, they would feel and behave differently, but most importantly they fit the same purpose.

And the vision identification is a big deal also, I think you should be able to know what type of vehicle you are going up against at a glance.

Overall I'm just worried that each vehicle will feel less unique. But I'll hold final judgement until I get some playtime with the current method of vehicle customization.

[infected]

Originally Posted by Remzsz

I would prefer to have most of the vehicles to have a specific role instead of every vehicle being able to be AV, AI, AA. I also want customization, but the customization should be sidegrades to a vehicles role, for example an AA aircraft by default will have some type of lock on missile to take down aircraft or you can replace the missile system to a flak cannon, they would feel and behave differently, but most importantly they fit the same purpose.

that's probably a bad example of a side grade. rockets vs flak. in practice, one would prove overall more effective and most people would gravitate toward using it over the other. same purpose? yes. side grade? nearly impossible to balance stuff like that across the board.