Deployable Multipurpouse weapon platform.

[MrMak]

The basic idea is a common pool vehicle that in of itself is simply an armored truck with the ability to mount diferent types of weapons on the back.

It would function in a manner similar to the Flail in PS1. A single player drives the vehicle and deploys it to be able to use the weapon. The deploy and undeploy time would be significant and the vehicle, while more resiliant than a Harasser, would still be rather fragile when compared to a Sunderer or even lightning. I would also require reasonably level terrain to deploy on (so no angling on a hill to shoot aircraft with na anti tank weapon)

What would make it usefull would be a lower resource cost (same a slightning with the current prices and cap, in between a lightning and Harasser if things were to be "spaced out" in the future), and its weapon selection.

Weapon ideas i got so far are:


Obliterator 200mm AP cannon:

An extreamly efective Anti tank weapon mounted on a fully rotatable turret. Each shot would do the same or even slightly higher damage as a Vanguard's 150mm Titan AP but it would have significantly a faster refire rate (comparable to a phalanx AV turret) and a faster priojectile speed. However it's upwards travers would be limited so it can not be used too effectivaly against aircraft.

When deployed properly thesecould be very dangerous to enemy vehicles but also very vunerable to infantry and aircraft.


Skylance:

For thoe who dont know, the skylance is the name of those large guns that ae used as props inside Tech Plants. The weapon looks like a futuristic Flak 88 and so it should function like that (minus the obliterating enemy tanks part of course). It would fire powerfull non arcing and fast projectiles highly effective against aircraft. It's turret traverse and acuracy would prevent it from being effective against ESFs (unless very lucky, skilled or the pilot was just asking for truble ) but would be highly effective against Liberators and Galaxies.

The weapon would be highly ineffective against armored ground vehicles (reduced damage against heavy armor) and infantry (will kill in one hit but the slight inacuracy combined with fireing rate makes it so it doesnt realy matter) it would leave a noticable tracer similar to the Lancer and Vortex and the vehicle itself would of course be pretty vunerable.



Artilery:

The next 3 weapns are going to be empire specific artilery pieces. They would have indirect fire capabilaty (projectiles would always be fired at a very high arc). They would NOT be targeted like the BF 3 artilery where you just lcock on the map, instead the gun's elevation would be set with the movement keys (with the crosshairs dispalying the aproxiamte distance the shell will travel). The camera would not be fixed with the barrel to avoid having the weapons used for direct fire against aircraft. Infiltrators would be issued tools to mark targets that owuld put down markers with aproximate distance. Both the infiltrators and gunners owuld have an option to swich betwen giving/recieving margets t/from everyone or only members of the same platoon to avoid unecessary confusion in organised play. All Artielry weapons would not be able to shoot further than the maximum vehicle render distance and would leave very visbilbe trails.

Atlas 300mm Howitzer (NC Specific):

A powerfull but extramly slow artilery weapon. It's range would not excede about 400m on level ground but it could potantialy go further if deployed on high ground. It's bonus would be the ability for indirect fire above obsticles so it does not need line of sight and firepower

A direct hit on an MBT would take out 50% of it's health if it didnt have top armor (due to the angle at which the projectiles fall they should perhaps be hard coded to always apply damage to top resistance). It's total blast radious would be only slightly larger than a Titan 150mm HE round but it would have a larger inner blast radious. While targets within the outer radious would take damage similar to a regular HE shell any footsoldier that is not a MAX with ta least level 2 Flak armor would be instantly dead. Vehicles cought within the inner blast would also take damge (thoughn owhere near as significant as on a direct hit).

Now this sounds incredibly OP but it would also have significant downsides apart form the platform's inherit vunerablilty. The weapon would have an incredibly long reload speed (at least 10 secnds with no certs to spead it up) the projectile would be rather slow (combined with the arc it would travel it owuld make shooting moving targets so very difficult) and it would be rather inacurate.


Meteor 40mm Rocket Launcher (TR Specific):

A Katyusha style rocket artielry piece.
Reference:
It would fire a large nmber of inaccurate rockets that would not be any stronger than a lightning's Python HEAT round effectivaly giving it a larger area of effect and perhaps total damage potential per salvo than the Atlas but it owuld not be able to focus that power on one target as well. Its range, arc, projectile speed and realod speed owuld be similar to the Atlas.



Solar Flare Plasma Howitzer (VS Specific):

Im gonna probably get flamed (plasmad?) by some vanu players but the only sensible and Vanuesqe option i could come up with is a charge up weapon. The weapon would have a 10 shot clip. Each uncharged shot would be jsut as inacurate as the NC's Atlas but only slightly more powerfull than individual rockets from the Meteor. The weapon would have 10 charge up levels (one per one shot in the clip) and with each level the projectile would become more powerfull (a bit more than 2 of the previous level) faster and more acurate. At level 10 (which would take a few seconds of charging) the projectiel would be very fast, pinpoint acurate and just as powerfull as a shot from an the Atlas (though with a smaller blast radious)





I was thinking about direct fire anti infantry weapons and a heavy skyguard esque flak cannon but i figured infantry and ESFs should always be ably to ocunter the platform.

[Hyncharas]

Originally this is what I expected the Personal Infantry Turret to be when the beta was finished, until I discovered the AV turret was a separate item sold in the store...

I would prefer the two turret configurations were merged; with AV or AA capabilities existing as expansions to it in a similar manner as a vehicle or weapon chassis. This would then allow you to pay in CPs/SCs greater ammo capacity, an extended array of shields or even a series of viewfinders at different magnifications, as on weapon extensions.

[Gringles]

I agree with Hyncharas. This is one of the kinds of platforms that I thought would be in game. I really like your idea of a mobile artillery support vehicle, and the faction specific weapons are well thought out (IMHO). If it were implemented into the game as is, I would think it is already well balanced, or nearly so. Maybe a couple more all-faction-use weapons could be thought up? You have my support for this idea, its great!

[Hyncharas]

@MrMak
I'm not opposed to deployable artillery per se... thinking about it for a while, I instead came up with specs for faction-specific Super Heavy Tanks, designed for S2S or S2A assault roles.

Let me know what you think:

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TR Predator
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= Sacrifices speed for armor
= Secondary Fixed-Forward AI/AV Sponson (Gunner)
= Main Barrel "P3-120" Turret Variants (Driver)
- Able to fit Mosquito's "Hellfire Rocket Pods" for artillery, or "Tomcat S2AM Pods" for AA
= Tertiary AI/AV/MAX Cupola Turret (Gunner)

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NC Messenger
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= Sacrifices armor for speed
= Fixed-Forward AI/AV Main Barrel (Driver)
= Secondary Barrel Turret (Gunner)
- Can equip same AI/AV weapon as Fixed-Forward Main Barrel, Reaver's "Breaker Rocket Pods" for artillery, or "Tomcat S2AM Pods" for AA
= Tertiary AI/AV/MAX Cupola (Gunner)

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VS Harbinger - Pincer chassis based on Scythe Aircraft
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= Speed and armor balanced
= "Nanite Systems" and Magrider-gunner weaponry incompatible
= AV/AI/AA Main Barrel Turret (Driver)
- Can equip the Scythe's "Dual Photon Pods" for artillery, or "Photon S2A Missile Pods" for AA
= Port AV/AI 60. Z-axis, 15. X-axis Side Barrel Turret (Gunner)
= Starboard AV/AI 60. Z-axis, 15. X-axis Side Barrel Turret (Gunner)