Gameplay: PS1 style bomber

[MrMak]

Disclaimer: I have never played the original Planetside only read some stuff and saw a set of videos showcasing all the vehicles. So I would really appreciate the opinion of actual PS1 vets. I do know enough not to suggest BFR's though :P

Simply put I would like an aircraft that is optimized for hit n run attack on ground targets but weak against ESFs. I was thinking about various Combat Air Support jets similar to the A-10 but then I took a look at PS1 vehicles. The old liberator would be perfect with just a few minor tweaks.

Obviously changing the current liberator is out of the question. It is a Gunship meant primarily to tough it out and fire at targets over a longer period of time instead of doing bombing runs (though it can be used that way to an extent) however there is still the Vulture. From what I gather it was/is a modified variant of the Liberator and the basic principles were all the same, hell the thing looked identical. So what I propose is to reintroduce the vulture as a strike bomber that would be somewhere in between an ESF and Liberator when it comes to cost, flight characteristics, and durability. In terms of appearance it would be much closer to the original liberator than the current one.

Specifics:

This would be a 2 seater. The tail gun would be removed to make it more vunerable to enemy aircraft than the Liberator.

The Pilot would gat a nose gun with the same options as the Liberator, Vektor by default with the option to swap to a Tankbuster.

The other player would operate the bomb bay. He would have some limited ability to aim where to launch the bombs but nowhere near the freedom a Lib gunner has. Wether or not he can drop the bombs would be determined by several factors.

Angle: Much like in PS1 the pilot would get an indicator showing him wether or not the bombadier can drop bombs and how much he has to adjust the angle.

Height: There would be a minmal height at which bombs can bedeployed, although this would be determined by distance from the ground rather than the nomal height indicator. Just imagine there is a range finder on the underside of the bomber aimed directly down. Another limiting factor related to height would be bombs loosing acuracy over distance. So if you would drop them from the flight celing or edge of vehicle render distance they woudl be unlikely to fall exactly where you want them.

Speed: To prevent Vultures from simply hanging above the target and droping its entire payload on one target repetadly the craft would have to move at a minimal speed below which the bomb bay deactivates "for safety reasons".


Now on to flight characteristics. The Vulture would be similarly slow as the Liberator but would have better acceleration. It would be also more manuverable but nowhere near as manuverable as an ESF. Especialy in hover mode. Unlike the lib it would have an afterburner but it would be significantly weaker and shorter than the ESF variant unless certs are invested into an advanced afterburner utility. Not entirely sure but perhaps the Vulture should not be allowed to drop bombs when using the afterburner. Armor would be in between an ESF and a Liberator. While immune to small arms and able to take a few hits it would not have the staying power of a liberator, forcing it fall back for repairs frequently.



Now finaly on to the bombs themselves. By default the Vulture would only be able to carry 2 or 3 full palyloads (again forcing it to frequently fall back). All bomb types would have a verry long relaoad (again forcing the "hit n run" tactic)

The default bombs would be a payload of 10 small HEAT bombs. The blast radious of each bomb would be similar to a 100mm Python HEAT with the damage being a bit lower. Direct hits on vehicles would do full damage but splash would also damage them, albeit to a lesser degree (much like the Dalton). This would be the "jack of all trades, master of none" option. It would be useful to carpet bomb an area and deal damage to both vehicles and infantry but would excel at neither.

Anti infantry bombs would come in 3 bomb payloads that would be droped slower but each of the bombs would be comparable to say an HE shell from a prowler, maybe slightly weaker with a slighlty larger blast radious. These however would deal minimal damage to vehicles, and i dont mean Zepher kind "minimnal" i mean 3 underslung grenades minimal.


Anti tank bombs or "Melters" (I riped off Warhammer 40k sue me ) would be similar to the anti infantry bombs in the size of the paylod and "rate of droping" but in terms of functionality they would be the polar oposite. They would have little to none blast radious but would deal massive damage to vehicles. A singe hit on an MBT's top armor would result in it loosing 50% of it's "health". However, reinforced top armor on MBT's and Lightnings would be said to be designed specificaly to counter "melters". It wold reduce damage coming from them specificaly by at least 50% or more, causing an MBT loose only a quarter of it's "health" from a hit and a lighting only about half. This would hopefully make top armor more worthwhile to cert in to.


Additional bombs types:

Here are a few other types of bombs i thought about that would require carefull balancing though.

Napalm/Plama bombs: This would be a purely anti ninfantry supression weapon. The payload would only carry one of these per relaoad. This would do minimal damage by itself but it would cover an area in fire/plasma for several seconds, causing damage over time to infantry. This would be less effective against shields and MAX suits would be able to mostly shrug it off. but once the shields are down, the infantry needs to get out of the area quickly. The main purpose of this would be to force the enamy to leave a position or prevent them from taking it, rather than outright kill them.
TR and NC would use Napalm while Vanu would use Plasma deeming Napalm too primitve. Th difereance owuld be mostly cosmetic, parhaps make plasma Do slightly more damage over a slightly smaller area.


EMP bombs: This is for team players. Like the Napalm/plasma bombs it owuld be only 1 bomb per relaod. The Bombs would have a very large blast radious but only cause an EMP effect. The outer radius would fuction the same as EMP grenades while the inner radious would temporarely shut down vehicles and cause a prolonged effect on infantry. Any kills made on enemies under the effect would give assists to the gunenr and pilot (btw the infiltrator's EMP grenades should do that too). This could be used to prepare the ground for a push by ground forces or when apiring up with another Vulture. The first one would drop an EMP bomb whiel the second one would follow upwith Napalm/Plasma or High Exploive bomb.



Cluster bombs: Now im not sure thse are realy necessary myslef but i fiugred ill put em up aswell. There would be 2 per reload in the bomb bay. Each bomb would detonate in the air, at certain distance from the ground and saturate the area with small explosive charges that deal no damage to armored vehicles (ESFs and Flashes would still take some damage). The general idea would be overal less damage than the high explosive bombs but spread around a wider area.

[DeltaWidow]

Like the ideas! Pretty much agree with everything here apart from tailgun, I personally would like to see it on the vulture. As for the Anti infantry bombs, I think that the cluster bombs would work - im seein alot of complaints about the damage a prowler HE does. Cluster bombs were the second option for PS1 bombers and think they would work. Minor explosions spread across an area will hopefully deter friendlies hiding behind rocks all bunched up

EDIT: If there was to be no tail gun on the vulture - I think it would have to be a fast vehicle (as it was meant to be a fast, low-striking unit once you unlocked it in PS1) but have very poor turning - Could work out as the faster it got, the turning power got worse - if it was stationary in the air it would have be at its easiest and quickest to turn - if you get what I mean

[Noxxia]

I've thought about this sort of thing in my head myself, but every time I do I like the idea of just giving the ESFs the ability to drop 1 or 2 bombs of about the same magnitude that you mention. You could involve various things such as painting a target with a laser via the ground and using laser guided bombs, so as to still involve two people and/or give the infiltrator a tracker they could stick onto a vehicle. This would then light up the vehicle on the HUD of any player with bombs that would signal that player when to drop them as they fly over the target similar to things like in the good ol F/A-18 Hornet flight simulators of the 90s! I would say this tracker would need to be placed on a target similar to c4, in order to balance it out, forcing the infiltrator to take some risk which could keep it from being too OP. Or players could dumbfire drop them, so that if people on the ground aren't helping them out they're not SOL.

I like your idea of having to remain moving. that was also the dilemma in my head. Just requiring a minimum speed is simple and good. Don't know why i didn't think of that when going over these thoughts in my head :P

[ChipMHazard]

Personally I would prefer for the Liberator to become a bomber... But that's not going to happen sadly.
While I like your idea/concept, well except taking away the tail gun as it's already vulnerable enough by simply being a bomber, I don't think it has a place in PS2 alongside the Liberator, in its current state.
I think that between the rocket pods and the Liberator they have every role covered.

To be more specific about your concept. I like your idea of requiring the Vulture to be on the move in order to bomb targets. I also like your idea about making it somewhat easier to escape with than the Liberator, seeing as the Vulture wouldn't be able to defend itself anywhere near as well as a Liberator.

I agree that a very limited payload would be essential, wouldn't want it to go all Liberator on us.

I don't really think that non-guided melta bombs would be a good idea as I simply don't see how they could reliably hit anything on the move. Would be better to have them be guided bombs.

Instead of the napalm bomb, which I don't know if would even be possible ingame, how about a thermobaric weapon? Either way these special bombs should be even more limited when it comes to ammo capacity.

[MrMak]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Personally I would prefer for the Liberator to become a bomber... But that's not going to happen sadly.
While I like your idea/concept, well except taking away the tail gun as it's already vulnerable enough by simply being a bomber, I don't think it has a place in PS2 alongside the Liberator, in its current state.
I think that between the rocket pods and the Liberator they have every role covered.

To be more specific about your concept. I like your idea of requiring the Vulture to be on the move in order to bomb targets. I also like your idea about making it somewhat easier to escape with than the Liberator, seeing as the Vulture wouldn't be able to defend itself anywhere near as well as a Liberator.

I agree that a very limited payload would be essential, wouldn't want it to go all Liberator on us.

I don't really think that non-guided melta bombs would be a good idea as I simply don't see how they could reliably hit anything on the move. Would be better to have them be guided bombs.

Instead of the napalm bomb, which I don't know if would even be possible ingame, how about a thermobaric weapon? Either way these special bombs should be even more limited when it comes to ammo capacity.

The melter bombs would be sort of a high skil lreqirement considering their power but if done right a cordinated and skileld pilot/bombadieer duet should perhaps be ably to get the right angle and speed to drop 2 bombs on a single target, especialy if its moving ( if the taget is moving forward and the bomber comes up from behind it it should be possible to lead it properly for 2 hits). The default bombs wuld be more suited for less skilled/coordinated pairs.

Another weapon i thought of later wouldbe a TV guided missile for the bombadieer. There would be only one per payload and it would have a slightly weaker version of the "melter bomb" warhead as in it would be similarly affected by reinforced top armor. It would be droped directly down and would steer pretty much like a drop pod so it would stil lrequire some proper positioning from the pilot and timing from the Bombadier. You would be able to launch it fro mhigh altitude and reliably hit stationary targets, but for moving targets you would stil lrequire precision form the pilot.


As for its role, i see it as 2 things.

1: Simply offering a diferent playstyle. I dont see anything wrong with having tools that achieve the same basic goals (in this case, blowing crap up from the air.) but by diferent methods.

2: The Liberator is good for persistent air support, but if it is being dtered by AA it cant realy get anything done, it simply requires you to be in the area and exposed for a while before it deals a signinficant ammount of damage.

The Vulture would on the other hand be ment to go in quickly deal damage and get out. Good ESF pilots already do this to a certain degree (while bad ones get shot down).

In simple MMO terms the Liberator would be the go to vehicle for DPS while the Vulture would be for burst damage. which is more usefull would be dependant on the terain and the situation.



As for the tail gun......Im not realy sure. On one hand it might be a bit too vunerable ESFs, on the other If it were to have one it coul poentialy be too effective against ESFs seeing as it wuld be faster and more manuverable than thel lib.