Galaxy gunships and drop pods as well as other side grades.

Timealude · 2012-05-11, 08:07 PM

Well after watching the FPS guru interview today, we have a few things that seem confirmed. Galaxy gunship is back and Galaxy drop pods along with other things. I want to know what my fellow Galaxy Pilots feel about this. Do we think its awesome? do we hate it? Discuss peeps!

Figment · 2012-05-11, 08:15 PM

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

The Kush · 2012-05-11, 08:19 PM

Love the galaxy gunship so much fun

VelRa · 2012-05-11, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

Bit early to be talking balance I think. I'm very excited to see this. There are so few vehicles currently, so it's great to have this kind of diversity coming up in the sidegrades.

WorldOfForms · 2012-05-11, 08:28 PM

GGs were a mixed bag in PS1. Sometimes it was awesome to see one come over a mountain and make you crap your pants.

Other times, it was supremely annoying when they arrived and your empire hadn't quite set up enough AA. At that point, the GG could have a freaking field day on an entire base, easily creaming any AA that tried to poke their heads out.

That type of unit - large, heavily armored, massive firepower, and quite mobile - is extremely difficult to balance. The current devs have created a headache for themselves. But hey, if they get it right, it could be fun.

Figment · 2012-05-11, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by VelRa

Bit early to be talking balance I think. I'm very excited to see this. There are so few vehicles currently, so it's great to have this kind of diversity coming up in the sidegrades.

Balance?

Q: Will a Galaxy Gunship (GG) have more hitpoints than ground vehicles (GV)?
A: Yes, because GG "will have more people inside, maybe".

Q: Will a GG have issues with terrain obstacles, angles, speed differences and threats such as mines?
A: No.

Q: Will a GV have issues with terrain obstacles, angles, speed differences and threats such as mines??
A: Yes.

Q: Will a GG have more firepower than a GV when fighting one on one?
A: Yes, because GG "will have more people inside, maybe".

Q: Will a GG have height advantage?
A: Yes.

Q: Will a GG have downward angle advantage?
A: Probable. Air can pitch, roll and yaw freely, GV cannot and will have to use terrain to get hard angles, which is not continuosly possible.

Q: Will a three dimensionally flying object at hard to define range and without a ground behind it to splash damage on, be harder to hit than a 2D-path moving unit where you can use terrain to funnel and splash damage from?
A: Yes.

Q: Can a GG or a GV use terrain features like hills more quickly create angles the other cannot fire through in order to escape?
A: GG can more easily use terrain to hide as it can ignore terrain and can hover over terrain or higher to recreate angles whereas GV cannot.

Q: With same crew, will the cumulative effect of three GGs be equal to the cumulative effect of three GVs?
A: No, the GG will have far more endurance per player and firepower will therefore last much longer. Hence multiple GGs will have more impact than multiple GVs, while the aforementioned advantages worsen this situation.

Q: Will then a fully crewed GG be equal to the same crew numbers distributed over tanks?
A: Probably not, because when one tank dies, the GG faces less and less resistance.

Q: But can't you use AA units to ward them off?
A: If you bring plenty, yes. Counter question, should and can you at all times be expected to bring loads of people in AA while combatting other types of units a lot more? ie. will it be a "in hindsight you should have brought something else" situation? Yes.

Q: Will it be balanced in low pop situations?
A: Hell no.

That answer your questions about balance? I don't need specifics to know it's going to suck. It'll suck bad or very bad, either way, it will suck.

Naz The Eternal · 2012-05-11, 08:38 PM

Can't wait to see how the drop-pods work, as well as the available armament to the gun ship version.

RSphil · 2012-05-11, 08:53 PM

if a gg come to a combat area and pins down your troop/gv's ou could always as for air support. there will be alot of players in the area and some may not be in the battle you are in. this game looks like it will be huge. and with any war of a good size air support or air superiority is a must. i can see there being some great battles in this game already.
cant wait to give it a try

NCLynx · 2012-05-11, 08:58 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Hate Galaxy Gunships. Overpowered pieces of @$*&@#&@##&$^% that ruin light, medium and heavy ground vehicle play.

Then it's a good you would be playing PS2 and not PS1. I would assume a Galaxy equipped with more guns is one specced to survive as a spawn point longer, whereas one with less will be used as a dropship.

VelRa · 2012-05-11, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Balance?

Firstly, we don't know any actual numbers, so we can't begin to speak about dps. Secondly, we don't know how advanced the certs are for GG. It might be something only for dedicated pilots. Lastly, I have faith in the developers that if something is as gamebreaking as you suggest, it will be fixed. I'm not sure I share your concern about low population encounters, either.

My point was simply that it's hard to theorycraft about balance with so little information.

Timealude · 2012-05-11, 09:05 PM

Im very excited about the drop pods sidegrade, and i know earlier on higby said there was a cloaking side grade for galaxy, im pretty sure it would be OP but I love to run spec ops missions dropping a squad behind enemy lines to sabotage and extracting out as fast a possible.

Mastachief · 2012-05-11, 09:05 PM

Personally I think the GG can work with a well populated server

Figment · 2012-05-11, 09:19 PM

The Galaxy Gunship is like a BFR or mammoth mkii: it works in very limited numbers against large numbers of players.

What most people forget is the severe lack of numerical restrictions in a PlanetSide style MMO. You should always balance a unit such that it can be taken out by two or three players, otherwise you create big leverage issues.

The exact dps is completely irrelevant in relation to the gross balancing. The exact dps is for finetuning a concept that works. GG is fundamentally flawed because it is based on very specific use scenario's, presuming and involving large numbers of players on the enemy side that practically may well not be present at all, in order to justify balance.

JPalmer · 2012-05-11, 09:23 PM

Don't see how a GG could be any more dangerous than 5 aircraft or Libs.

Oh and side grades. Just throw on some AA on your lightning and MBT. Done.

Figment · 2012-05-11, 09:33 PM

You kill small aircraft one by one and reduce their firepower over time while you concentrate your firepower on less targets that fight back less hard over time. A GG though has full firepower till it dies. Meaning that its endurance allows for more total damage over time. Especially if you don't fill them up and bring more to abuse its extreme endurance.

On top of that, it distracts fire and preoccupies anti air for a long time, allowing other aircraft to dominate and take out the AA before dealing with the rest.