Artillery - do you want it?

[DviddLeff]

The devs have mentioned in the past that they are not intending on having long range indirect fire in the game. I think it adds massively to the tactics that can be used, and would be a fantastic addition if implemented correctly.

In the original all we had was the flail, which had a shallow angle of fire and was only available when a vehicle mod/cave lock was on. It also had various problems where it was deployed on slopes and could then fire directly on enemies.

Now dedicated artillery vehicles and fortification, and infantry crewed mortars could be great for providing support fire and suppress enemies as forces advance, especially when used with spotters

So, what do you think?

[Redshift]

being splattered by the flail was frustrating, and i've very rarly seen it actually being useful.

I don't really like weapons that destroy you without any real chance to fight back

[DviddLeff]

Yeah the anti artillery reasoning can be:

• Not very fun to sit back and just click a button in the hopes that you may hit something useful
• Not fun getting hit by something you cant see

[basti]

Artillery can be fun, but it needs to be done right. The flail was flawed in several ways.
You never really had a chance to predict the shots or evade them. You saw them when they still had a few secs of way to go, and suddenly you died by it, seeing the shot warping. That needs to be gone.
The damage was way to high, even with the long range version (dont even mention the previos version where even short range damage was high). The AOE effect needs to be much smaller, and the damage as well. Artillery should be more like an low damage area bombardment.


Anyway, i want artierlly, because i like that kind of stuff. Adds a lot of possibilitys.

[I SandRock]

No. I don't like indirect combat. I'd almost go as far as to say no weapons that can kill you without LoS. Almost

[SKYeXile]

Oh yea it adds heaps of tactics to the game...anyway BBL...going AFK with my fire button taped down pointed at a doorway, cya in 100 kills.

[Captain B]

Depends how it's implemented. We know there will be mortar upgrades for tanks as secondary guns. How effective it will be is unclear at the moment. Will it be AV or AI or both? Will it have limited storage for its special ammunition, limiting how often it can fire before having to drive back to base to refill?

I think indirect fire can be useful, but the flail was pretty ridiculous, and rather powerful.

[basti]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

Oh yea it adds heaps of tactics to the game...anyway BBL...going AFK with my fire button taped down pointed at a doorway, cya in 100 kills.

Aye, thats a problem. Pinpoint the location of something that the enemy will have to run into (Veh bay anyone), open autofire, win. Recoil would fix that, or force artillery to have a target locked by a additional guy (cloaker with lazer beam), or you just cant fire precicly at all, means without the lazer beam your shots would go all over the place.

[waldizzo]

I'd be okay with artillery if it required more than one person to operate. For example, the gun would not fire unless someone else has painted the target area. Also it would have to deploy on somewhat level ground, no slopes.

[Aractain]

The problem is the kill focused systems of games make indirect or support weaponary either terrible or too powerful.

Adding in a 'suppresion' like system and tieing in XP systems etc to that allows you do add in artillery that works properly. Actively helping your friendly troops on the ground by interfering with the enemy - not random instant kills.

[FIREk]

I'm all for artillery, because it adds another layer of depth and complexity to combat.

However, it would have to be gimped to shit in terms of accuracy (as in: not pinpoint), and usage/spawning limitations. I'm thinking really crazy stuff like only being able to spawn one every hour.

The idea is that artillery support should be a luxury, not the norm, therefore it shouldn't be an expendable remote kill generator that can be easily replaced.

If my base is being shelled by a gun way behind enemy lines, it will take a lot of effort on my faction's end to get past the shorter-range attackers, and finally eliminate the artillery. I imagine this wouldn't be an easy task, therefore it would simply be unfair if the enemy could just roll out a new artillery piece in minutes.

Artillery should be a rare and precious commodity, and require at least some protection in order to operate efficiently.

[Senyu]

Making a morter like weapon for infantry I think wouldn't be the bad. Signifigantly reduced ranged compared to the flail but still farther potentially than standard assualt weapons. And the area of effect should smaller than flail but can still hit 3-5 people if they are clustered. They would have to be guessed at for aiming but still can receive the laser pointer boost to help guide to your target. I can imagine this would be incrediably usefull for say trying to morter enemys on walls behind cover. Having an infil sneak in and laser point the spot allowing you to hit those couple guys hiding in cover.


For vehicles, well they would have to remain still long enough but damage should be around AV weapon damage and slightly more/or less depending on feedback. Is it easy to get kills with this thing? No. Can it help tactically in some situations? Yes. Implemented correctly it should be in the game. And you should be able to die easy while using since your just a sitting target

[Mirror]

No for me as it promotes boring game play.

[Draep]

Originally Posted by Mirror

No for me as it promotes boring game play.

Nobody would force you to use it. To fix the problems of artillery being unaccessible, they could simply shorten the range and allow for a much higher angle of fire, making it harder to aim but making the piece make more sense.

Artillery would give ground infantry the ability to saturate an area with shellfire before moving to attack, if they restricted who could see the painted area to squad/platoon/outfit members, it would limit uncontrollable spam.

Artillery yes please

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Draep

they could simply shorten the range and allow for a much higher angle of fire

In fact that is how arty SHOULD work. In PS flail was just a long range lightning.