Gameplay: Planetside 2 Anti Vehicle weapons a hypothetical design

[Iconic]

Planetside 1 player from long ago who has come back for the planetside 2 news here, and after listening to the recent weapons webcast I got to thinking about the possible state of anti-vehicle weaponry in ps2. So this post is my thoughts on how it might go and is a combination of wishful thinking and already released data:



First off there may be a need for expansion of AV weapons in this game, between air tank and maxes there is going to be a lot of armor in and around the battle field and in order to keep infantry relevant, especially since the design in some cases is moving towards a more open base configuration, infantry are going to need a lot of AV weaponry to even get from place to place.

I am going to propose several weapons here, most of which will feel familiar from ps1 ( at least as it was before CC), each weapon will have an effectiveness rating against, air, ground and max armor, a skill requirement rating and a short description. Fair warning there are seven.

Effectiveness ratings go
'very good'- which means it is possible to down this class of target on your own with this weapon.
'medium' - which means in groups or against already damaged targets it is possible to destroy this class of target with this weapon.
'very poor'- which means it is near impossible to damage this class of target with this weapon.

VANU

Fission

anti air- very good
anti tank/ground- very poor
anti max- very poor

Skill rating: low

Notes: The fission is essentially the starfires weapon in a shoulder mounted form, it requires a lock on to fire tracking plasma bolts against air targets, the bolts are not very speedy but have excellent persistence and tracking ability. The fission is capable of firing unlocked against ground targets but extremely inaccurate, often sending its bolt out in a wide spiraling pattern and missing maxes and tanks all together. Extremely effective against aircraft this weapon has almost no other use.

Lancer

anti air-medium
anti tank/ground-good
anti max- medium

Skill rating: high

Notes:

A larger version of the ps1 lancer the charge up time has been increased as well as the damage making it effective against tanks and larger targets at a distance. Smaller targets such as air superiority fighters and maxes are very difficult to lead at range requiring high skill but suffer good damage when hit. The lancer is a primarily open field weapon and suffers in tight spaces compared to the other empires anti max abilities.

New Conglomerate

Sparrow

anti air- good
anti tank/ground- poor
anti max- poor

Skill rating: low

Notes: A shoulder mounted lock on missile launcher, the sparrow is an adaptation of the max AA weapon sacrificing damage for increased rate of fire and missile count. The sparrow functions by rapidly emptying a clip of miniature missiles at a locked on air target, the missiles swarm towards the target at a high rate of speed but with only medium accuracy, and while the whole the clip packs a punch a few missiles are sure to miss air born targets moving at speed. The sparrow can be fired unlocked but the spread is even more pronounced producing effectively and extremely short ranged AV shotgun against maxes and tanks.

Pheonix

anti air- medium( close range) poor (long range)
anti tank/ground- very good
anti max- good (close- medium range) medium (long range)

Skill rating: high

Notes: a laser guided missile packing a high yield warhead the phoenix excels as a tank hunter in the open field. In the hands of a skilled operator the missile can be 'juked' around trees to hit even enemies moving at high speed. The phoenix becomes exponentially more difficult to center the farther away a target is from the operator and requires the operator remain relatively still while guiding in order to ensure a hit this makes for a more entrenched AV paradigm and one that is less effective against small air and maxes at range.

Terran Republic

Howler

anti air- good
anti tank/ground- poor
anti max- poor

Skill rating: medium

Notes: The howler looks almost like a shoulder mounted chain gun, but is in fact a high output flak cannon designed to engage air targets. Each bullet from the howler detonates when close to an airborne target radiating flechettes in all directions and producing a small puff of smoke. Singly the bullets are not a threat to anything but the output of the howler is tremendous. Though it suffers from poor accuracy at longer ranges the smart bullets have a wide burst radius allowing for a kind of AOE AA field to be put in place made of smoke and shards. The howler does not require a lock on or provide a lock on warning to pilots although adept pilots will hear the distinctive incoming sound of the Howler rounds which give the weapon its name. Against ground targets the flechettes refuse to detonate due to their FF sense becoming confused and inactive close to the ground, the weapon becomes essentially a low power AV infantry chain gun capable of only damaging lighter armor.



Striker

anti air-medium
anti tank/ground- medium
anti max- medium

Skill rating: low

Notes:

The Striker is a well balanced lock on missile launcher and one that can lock on to air and ground targets, providing a medium level of damage the striker missiles will track their target to the best of their ability before detonating, a threat to all classes of armor though heavier systems may shrug off one or two users, but in large groups they can be very deadly.

Nanite systems

Decimator

anti air- poor
anti tank/ground-good
anti max-very good

Skill rating: medium low

Notes: Packing extreme damage into a large slow dumb-fire missile this simple yet effective weapon system is slow to reload but extremely effective against slow moving targets and close range targets such as in door maxes and grounded galaxies.

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phew...

Feed back welcome as is all discussion of anti vehicle weaponry in planetside 2.

[Warborn]

I've got to be honest, I think the issue isn't going to be as big a deal as you suspect. Weapons being configurable means that they can divide weapons by effectiveness. So even though "a tank" might be nearby, if it doesn't have any anti-infantry weapons then its relative level of threat would be fairly low to infantry.

Similarly, being able to specialize tanks toward anti-vehicle or fighters toward anti-air would suggest to me even less of a need to make infantry AV/AA substantial. If there's an enemy tank or plane rolling around with anti-infantry weapons, sure, infantry need some capacity to fight back to an extent, but the real solution I think should be a similar vehicle specced for anti-vehicle. So the solution to lots of enemy airpower really ought to be fighters with AA weapons. The solution to substantial enemy armor rolling around should be friendly tanks.

Overall I just really dislike the idea of infantry being so focal to everything yet again. I'm a strong advocate of really making combined arms something that isn't just a catchphrase for forum-goers. Infantry should have to rely on vehicles to achieve certain goals, just like how vehicles rely on infantry for other things. Having some infantry AV as a deterrent is okay, but I think keeping infantry AV relatively weak plus vehicle AI being less common sounds like a reasonable solution to me.