Why are vehicles so durable?

I kind of get that a tank from the front should be a tough nut; that makes sense to me. There are a few places where vehicles just seem too tough, though, which leads to vehicle spam.

For example:
Why do open-topped dune buggies take so many anti-tank-strength missiles to knock out?
Why do 4-wheeler ATVs take more than one missile to destroy?
Why can fighters absorb so many surface to air missiles?

It makes sense to me that BIG ground vehicles be hard to kill. It even makes sense, considering how much damage something like a B-17 could absorb, that something the size of a Galaxy should be able to take some punishment. But the tiny vehicles? I don't understand it.

Is there some gameplay benefit to making them all so hard to kill? Because the only effect it seems to have it making infantry almost irrelevant against groups of enemy vehicles, which is why we see so much vehicle spam. If anyone can explain a reason the game is designed this way it would be interesting to know what it is.

It depends a bit on which missiles you're using. From your example of the ESFs, I'm going to assume you're using lockons. Those do less damage than the dumbfire variants, largely because insta-killing an ESF with a G2A lock-on would be so, so satisfying - but bad for gameplay.

If damage is your goal, your best bet is to continue practicing with the dumbfires. Lock-ons only do more damage if you find yourself unable to hit your target. Again, for ESFs it's almost a 3-1 ratio (i.e. you'd need to hit with 3 lock-ons to match the damage of 1 dumbfire hit).

I agree with your point generally, but I'd also like to pose a similar question: why are infantry so durable?

After all in unarmored parts of the body infantry can take multiple shots from other infantry small arms (even after shield depletion). And apparently they can also take a 20mm shot to the center of mass without missing a step. Or multiple 12.7mm rounds. And that's not to mention that they can survive 150mm HE explosions or other explosives. The newer 120mm HE rounds that we have today can wipe out 25% of infantry within a 50x85m area per shot. 150mm HE should be devastating to infantry over a wide area.

So why are infantry so durable? Because it's not fun getting instakilled by all sorts of things.

So why are light vehicles so durable? Because it's not fun getting instakilled by all sorts of things!

It's SOE's prefered TTK and balance methods. Flash requires 1 missile to destroy.

PS2 isn't a combat simulator. It was never the goal to make the weapons, vehicles, or soldiers behave like the real things, nor has there been any attempt to make the factions apply basic logic in their weapon/vehicle/class design. Why wouldn't an infiltrator carry a shotgun and 2 bricks of c4? Is it against the Space-Geneva convention or something? Why can't a medic point his heal tool at himself? Why wouldn't an engineer just repair the tank from inside? Why not just duct tape five repair tools to the back of the tank and activate them remotely? Why are all the vehicles battered and weather-beaten when they were created ex nihilo literally 10 second ago? Don't the Vanu get hot wearing all that spandex on Indar?

1-man tank driving, zerglings too dumb to form AV squads, use cover, pull their own vehicles, Higby's KDR going down, etc. Also, the RL military devs don't have to get money out of Mohammed and Pals so they're free to make tanks and planes OP as hell..

All "why" questions concerning Planetside 2 can be sufficiently answered with: Nanites.

The vehicles are not strong, it is the anti-vehicle weapons that are weak.

The last examples of vehicle toughness I had expected were the flash, harasser, and ESF.

Balance... The ESF's don't go at mach 5, so they can't just avoid rockets all day long. Making G2A lock ons a OHK would be simply OP and extremely frustrating to fly against. And you complaining about flash durability actually pissed me off quite a bit. One rocket does take out a flash, and usually that's not even necesarry, because the flash will just kill itself by flipping cuz PS2 physics are OP

Vehicles should be made less durable and more agile, in order to promote tactics over vehicle ability and reliance on overpowered repairs. Nerf repairs and make MBTs and lightnings more agile; that way their choice is not between fleeing to repair or firing, but between firing while standing still or moving quickly to avoid fire. More skill, less repairing.

Cut repair speed by about 40% across all ranks, and make multiple engineers scale worse (ie, 2nd person repairing the same vehicle does only 75% of the first guy, 3rd 50% and all subsequent only 25%). Then, for:
MBTs:
Increase acceleration 5% (across all levels and for all MBTs regardless of empire)
increase top speed by 10 kph (all levels/cert choices and empires)

Lightnings:
Increase acceleration 10% (across all levels/cert choices and empires)
Increase top speed by 15kph (across all levels/cert choices and empires)
Remove rival, and apply its benefits to lightnings at all times (it's atrocious that MBTs with racer can turn better than rival lightnings which are supposed to be agile). Replace it with some other certs to choose, perhaps choose between racer and some sort of traction/hill climbing cert line.

Flashes and harassers would need not benefit from this realignment. Repair speed reduction is for vehicles, but on things like fixed AV and AA turrets could remain the same (although the multi engineer scale-down should still apply).

One tank mine will set a harasser on fire. 2 decimators will also.
One rocket will kill a flash.
2 Lock ones will set an esf on fire. With the respectable range of rocket launchers, then esf's aren't that durable.

Edit: Why do open-topped dune buggies take so many anti-tank-strength missiles to knock out?
Why do 4-wheeler ATVs take more than one missile to destroy? Are you talking about harassers or flashes?

Honestly, it won't make too much of a difference. Unless you have a pheonix or a lancer shooting at you from range, you can usually dodge shots that come at you from 50+ meters. Anything under that, and there is no way that you can dodge it. 5 percent acceleration buff won't do anything.

Well, for me, it's the top speed that makes you able to avoid those phoenixes (lancers may not be balanceable with agility). Dodging them using acceleration from a dead stop wasn't really what I had in mind, it was dodging the 2nd and third shots with top speed.

What are you people talk about? Vehicles are paper thin and cert pinatas for infantry.

What's the scale and coordination of the battles you're fighting in? As far as moving flashes go anyways, odds are you'll take out the driver / passenger before you land direct shot with a dumb fire missile.

What would be the point of using vehicles if it only took 1-2 players to lazily take out a vehicle, except sunderers? We're still seeing people spam vehicles, even if it's only 1-2 hexes away, in a terrible / less than desirable area for vehicle combat only to suppress infantry either at the spawn room, to harass infantry moving from building to building / building to cap point, or ambush enemy vehicle terms.

I don't think I've ever seen a zerg of flashes, that wasn't a race, attempt to wholeheartedly take over a base. Kind of hard to complain about flash zergs, even if they did exist. Harassers on the other hand, ok.

As much as I don't use Rival except on an AI MBT, I still wouldn't want to get rid of it out right.

I don't think this would be a better way to get players, especially those new / less experienced in the game by making it easier to kill off what they're better at playing or what they'd like to fight with. This idea seems a bit heavy handed; the solo players and the smaller outfits probably are only interested in the quick to engage fights looking to maximize action and certs than to think tactically to reduce an enemy forces impact on a given fight.

If this was implemented, all I'd see are vehicles getting destroyed quicker, people spending more time in repairing them, a lot more engineers getting picked off because they're spending so much time repairing. Some players are really touchy about the damage their vehicle gets, and will hop out to repair less than 1/4 damage. I feel this would chip away at the incentive for engineers to come repair vehicles / maxes / turrets.

Why can infantry survive an Anti-Personal tank shell that explodes 2 meters from them?



Also ESFs are NOT durable
Harassers would be useless if they got 1 shotted by missiles

I'm not sure you understood what I meant by get rid of rival - I meant get rid of the cert line, and apply the enhanced turning to all lightnings at all times. Right now, you have a choice : Choose Rival and die due to insufficient speed to avoid anything, or choose racer and die because you get caught on the least little rock or tree. Even putting balance aside, poor turning is NOT fun and is not a way to gain players who like vehicle play.

Today I saw a galaxy being pummeled by 3 guys lockign on it, 4 esf's and me, some skyguard...

...and he was jsut flying around roadkilling esf's and libs.

After 10 minutes he went away, with some smoke signs. Is there any new shield for Gal's that I don't know about?

On the OP thread - Becasue one person can't be direct counter to one person+vehicle. If that would be one shot, there woudl be no point in vehicles, especialy ones carrying multiple people.

My bad, I meant harassers, not Flashes.