[Suggestion] What about....Long Ranged Artillery?

Looking at this the one issue I haven't seen brought up in the cons section is the ease with which artillery hits friendly forces. It would be really annoying to do a bombardment on the enemy only to take out 10+ friendly players (not in your platoon) that are moving up.

Due to that and that artillery is used either as support or as siege engines and siege engines being pretty useless in this game it would be solely a support weapons system. So I think instead of High Explosive Rounds it should only be able to fire things like a barrage of smoke rounds or EMP rounds that would disrupt HUDs and/or reduce a vehicle's abilities like maybe lower it's armor or increase reload time. Other shell ideas would be some thing that disrupts cloaking and acts as a flare or a shell with an AOE heal/repair function like a nanite bomb or something.

Artillery is made to shoot from where it is not seen so it is made for the fire beyond render distance problem but how do we fix that it's simple the targeting isn't a tank like cross-hairs its a marker on a map. When the gunner gets in he moves a cursor around a map showing the arty's range. Then once he has the location set he can fire repeatedly at the same area (accuracy of the gun determines spread between shots) firing shell after shell.

Now that only covers one side of the render problem and on the other side well that's what arty is suppose to do hit from where it can't be hit so that makes the use of coordinated air strikes and tank patrols more necessary. Tanks need to be mobile not just sit on one side of a base lobbing shells down the road at the other side or into the spawn.

Now what happens if you get 20 artys on a hill hitting one base? The sells falling would cause lag like crazy. For this I think it has to have 2 fire modes, first a single shot with a moderate to long reload time and the second would be like a 5-10 shot barrage but the cooldown/reload time would be much much longer. Or the barrage could be larger and longer but be locked out until a target "beacon" from a squad or platoon leader is put down first. This way you could do pot shots as needed and then barrage when the squads really need it. Also make those ammo sundys even more needed.

Also I think some on screen indicators of where the shells will land would be required for friendly players. Maybe just a small colored ring or shape on the map(s) or maybe put a colored overlay on the ground. Of course enemy wouldn't see those markers but it would give allies a heads up not to stand there.

Finally I could see giving PL or even SL a leader ability to designate a single area just for the artillery to strike like just outside the tanks spawn, or to make a creeping barrage of smoke for an infantry advance. If the designation was given to snipers it would be nice but I can see that getting abused compared to just 1 to 4 leaders in a squad or platoon being able to use it. If it was given to sniper I think they would have to have something like a laser designator and it should only work within a squad or platoon.


All in all it would make the game more dynamic but seeing as the game focuses on fast paced give and take battles and artillery is more for protracted fights I doubt it will be added.

If u like big open plain battlefield why add Arty on it ,because tank must get cover form those Arty and stay in base.
So no one will fight on big open place.

I was thinking if they ever mounted artillery on anything it should be a LoS weapon and be mounted on a Lightning.

Hear me out ok. The Lightning is a really weak tank compared to MBTs, while not being able to position as well as harassers, or be as tanky as sunderers. For artillery, this would make it a perfect platform because it would have to rely on friendlies to protect it (no secondary weapons on the lightning), would be weak when enemies do get to it (its weaker than every MBT, even the magrider), and would make more sense than a rocket buggy.

Artillery would need to meet some criteria for balance to be close to reasonable. It would have to have a dead zone where either the rounds won't activate or it is gimbal locked. Although it could be able to quickly unload a lot of rounds at once (lots of delicious raw DPS), it should have really lengthy reloads to make moving up a possibility when it is reloading. I am thinking that maybe artillery should have to lockdown in order to fire at full effectiveness, making a no deploy zone also a possibility to power down the weapon's effectiveness in groups.

For weapon types, I think we could go with something similar to the katyusha (saturation), another similar to a howitzer (precision and damage), and a final one that would fire a (really) fast moving projectile with normal-ish tank round damage (also would cycle the fastest of the 3).

It could be balanced, but I would keep it as a LoS weapon and make it a sparse find in normal combat, also would have lots of downtime as well. Also would require the "I must only be killed by x for the game to be fun" crowd to kinda ignore this weapon for awhile.

i wish some form of artillery was in this game. i am not talking about current tanks, i am talking about extreme-longrange indirect-fire support. something like:

Portable Mortar (for Engineer or Heavy) - fires AI shells every 5 seconds, small splash, range up to 150m

Self-propelled Field Gun (Lightning module as primary weapon) - fires AI/AT shells every 7 seconds, large splash, range up to 250m

Heavy Howitzer Add-on (Sunderer module that replaces both boardguns and transport seats) - fires AI/AT shells every 10 seconds, massive splash, range up to 350m

Empire-specific Artillery vehicles - TR with highest firerate, NC with largest splash, VS with longest range

The Flail in PS1 was pretty good except for its amazing accuracy without support, and it's ability to fire extreme distances. I suggest implementing them but giving them a roughly one-hex range, and making the cannon's COF to be insane without a few-second cool-down between shots. You could fire quickly, or you could fire accurately. Further, give the infiltrators a laze-pointer to make the shots much more accurate.

With laze and cool-down: 5-10 m accuracy
Without laze and cool-down: 20-30 m accuracy
No cool-down: 50+m accuracy

Off board artillery in a MMOFPS. Wow how interesting. I thought the whole point of MMOFPS was to remove all the off board stuff and put it on board.

It's nice to take a break from all the running and gunning and do something relaxing whether it's putting down CE or increasing your grief points with the flail.

Just for fun here are a few more ideas for arty shells.

AI Shells "Fire Storms": more or less this would be like a napalm AOE that does massive damage to infantry and flashes but minimal to tanks, with medium AOE/splash range.

AV/AI Shells "Seeders": These are like cluster bombs but with mines. Think something similar to WWII Butterfly Bombs. These could also be a mix of AV and AI mines (or just one type) spread over an area (mines spread out just enough to prevent an explosion chaining from one and taking all of them out).

AV/AI Shells "Area Denial": Chemical or Energy based AOE that damages any thing that passes through it, think like a pool of toxic goo for the imagery.

AV/AI Shells "Shrapnel": Think of like shotgun blasts from the sky (think of something similar to the M30 Mustang AH but in a larger volume of pellets), does minor damage to vehicles but can be deadly to infantry.

Also I thinking an artillery weapon in this game might make a better base defense than as vehicle as that would fix the number of them in any one area. However when I thought that I realized it would give only the defender side a real advantage even if it was hacked it wouldn't really help attackers much.

So my solution would be to make the artillery a "build-able" structure that the engineers can set up from like the back of a deployed sundy with a Utility Slot that let's it set up a big gun or the Utility Slot replaces the 2 gun mountings on top with a single one making the sundy look more like this pic. If the sundy undeploys the gun loses it's ability to fire. It could also give infantry some type of small arms cover like the sandbags and barrels in this pic of an old AA gun pic but replace the gun with the sundy/arty or maybe an energy shield.

On the topic of LOS or not LOS I feel like if it's not using indirect fire what you want is more something like a sniper light tank, something that can do pot shots from far away. Most artillery can not see the things they are shooting at and have to rely or forward observers to radio back spotting information. So having a LOS with an artillery weapons seems more than a little odd. If you had to raise the barrel to aim farther you lose sight of what you are trying to hit. So that's why I think there would have to be some amount reliance on other players to aim your shots as an artillery weapon.

This has made me wonder if vehicles could have a position that opens only when deployed. That could provide some interesting gameplay additions.

Actually, you could aim with the laser pointer using a spotter.

I would go a step further. Why not let it be "outside render range". Its artillery.

Heres how it plays out. They cant fire on the move/must be deployed. They get no targeting mark beyond one of those altitude bars currently on snipers and mortars (bulldogs? I dont play gunner that often). They have a massive maximum range. When they fire, even if out of render range, they appear on the minimap edge (giving their direction but not distance) of anyone nearby the target area. Their use is for constant area denial (like the lasher). They have quite a large spread. They can use special shells from time to time (like an f ability) to lob smoke, or even large scale radar probes. They should be glass cannons. For a much slower fire rate or damage, concussive shells should be available, just like the stun grenades. They should be weak to air. Very, very weak to air.

I am thinking the sort of spread so that "aiming" at a tower could put the round anywhere NEAR the tower. Low rate of fire, high area of effect for each round, low damage. HE shells should be probably quarter damaging infantry, AP rounds should be 8th damaging lets say MBTs with AP having a much quicker drop off in damage.

The way it would work is that its going to need someone on the ground near the impact area to aim them. Theres just no way you can both see the target and aim the gun properly. At best, it gives infiltrators another roll (spotter) from a half way point. With the huge issue of TK, they will be more or less limited to outfit play. Coordinated barrages to close up choke points, stall zergs or soften entrenched bases (imagine the defenders of the crown being forced inside. Its not a total instant win because for an attacking force to get close, the artillery needs to stop. You just pray that the defenders dont pop out while you cover the distance.

So you are a defender, what can you do? Well, if you are caught in the open, more or less nothing. You will have to travel with air escorts. As soon as the first shell lands, the minimap edge marker would appear and air can be directed to the direction of fire. This could lead to interesting tactics. One or 2 pieces start firing from direction A, drawing off the air, while battery 2, containing more pieces open up from another front, assuming that some air didnt remain with the zerg. As for entrenched bases, first shell lands and it plays like a war movie. Get those tanks into the garages, infantry take cover inside. Get some air support up here stat.

Yes, getting killed by something you cant see can be annoying, but this isnt going to be a weapon for a solo farmer. With small damage, huge shot spread and difficulty aiming, this is an outfit only weapon by design. And the counter is simple. Its actually quite unlikely that you will get hit by 4 shells in a row from the same vehicle. Its a counter to massed units and/or armour, not individuals. This isnt AV sniping. Again, the chances of it actually taking down a singular tank is small. But the constant damage over an area will force zergs to back off.

Its the lasher principle. Its a weak weapon. 1 on 1 theres not much that doesnt beat it. But it does splash damage and you sure as hell dont want to run through a doorway that has lasher fire inside of it.

It can work. It can work very well. It just needs to be area deny and not infantry farm.

I wouldn't want to be firing completely blind over such long ranges. The current Bulldog/Fury sight is already useless for the Bulldog/Fury because its scale doesn't match their drop, so all you can do is guesstimate off the center of your screen.

I'd rather have a traverse/elevation system like in Project Reality or Forgotten Hope 2. It allowed you to dial in a precise range and direction. The scatter was fairly small, though being half a degree off can make a huge difference at longer ranges.

Arty would need to attack beyond render distance to really count as arty in the first place. The idea of 150m being "long range artillery" is laughable when we have rocket launchers effective to 300 tanks already engaging past 500. This means the shell will have to be server-side, but that's OK because you can't see where it landed anyway.

We'd also need some kind of spotting system so you're not just blindly firing at map locations. At minimum, a way for spotters to place a marker that gives you the range and direction you'd need to hit that spot.

With the amount of spam and zerg i have seen recently this is desperately needed in this game. I was in a battle the other night with 6....SIX sunderers out front of our base all packed together. One was deployed and spewing out infantry. Once that one got C4'd the next one rolled into to take its place. Absolutely ridiculous

Turned into a 96+ battle that went on for hours. There is no risk with zerging out a base, and there should be.

As far as getting killed by what we can't see goes, well that already happens now

1. AV Mana Turrets
2. Ravens
3. Lock On G2A
4. Snipers
5. Claymores (invisible glitch)
6. Tank Mines (clipping through terrain)
7. C4 Fairies

TL;DR: This game needs some form of artillery, we already get killed by things we can't see as is, so this can't be used as a valid argument against this feature

You wrote a lot but forgot one of the basic principles of how this game works. You can't damage what doesn't render to you; in the same way, an independent ally can't calculate damage caused by you happening to someone else. That doesn't mean there may not be ways around it, though. Damage calculations for rendering because it is happening to you is possible; anti-personnel mines work like that. Moreover, you get credit for spotting an enemy that someone else kills, so indirect experience is possible, by extension of which a system of "indirect damage calculation" might be jury-rigged. The spotter would have to temporarily assume ownership of the shots you've fired once they render for him.

None of this, however, changes the "AV MANA turret effect." The "NC Raven MAX effect." Originally, the "sniper Infiltrator effect." That is, being damaged from beyond rendering/engagement range by something that you have no practical chance of defending against or counter-engaging leads to frustration and eventual disillusionment. While this is worse for things that abuse the game's rendering mechanics, something that intentionally works beyond the normal rendering limits would definitely lead to very sour reception.

Don't be silly. It's a very easy argument to make against this feature.
"It sucks and will not lead to fun gameplay."
Glitches notwithstanding, the current rendering complications of any of your listed "features," whether or not they are necessary in some form or other, are regarded the same.

So what is your solution to massive zergs stacking on top of each other unopposed? Currently there is no direct counter to large zergs like PS1 had.

Currently the only thing we as players can do is counter a large zerg with another large zerg. And as has been said many times on these forums. Zergside 2 is boring and something needs to change

Render Distance. Didn't read.

What if the Artillery wasn't mobile/deployable at all but a fixed battlement type tower at each factions Warpgate. To use the Artillery you'd need two players to work in concert:
1) A player must spend resources (450 maybe?) to take position within the weapons control HUD located at the Warpgate.
2) Another player must use a certed into Target Acquisition Designation Sight or Laser Targeting System to acquire the target/location before the weapon is fired.

Obviously due to a lot of players certing into such a system, you could have a situation where there are numerous designated targets across an entire map that the person firing the weapon may be unable to tell what target they are supposed to fire on. To help address this you have a limited number of "Fire control" seats at the Warpgate, maybe 3 seats. So at any given time there could only be 3 responses to all the targets designated by players, doing so would foster a communication to be established between Fire Control and the forward deployed designator/platoon.

Some random thoughts...
The weapon system could be conditional. It only becomes available if a region they own is at a certain population disadvantage (Getting zerged)..

The 3 Fire Control "F.C." seats could be color coded (Red, Blue, Green) or named and the target designator could choose which of the 3 seats they want to work with using mouse scroll as they are ADS/in Scope or predetermined if they are in the same platoon of course "ok platoon I am in F.C. and on Green".

Each shot of the weapon is followed by a reasonably slow reload, 10 seconds maybe? ( that is really slow, just a thought)

Maybe once in the FC seat the weapon only allows for 10 rounds to be fired before the player is booted from the seat? OR- Maybe it is on a timer with X amount of time before the player is booted?

The system is not pinpoint accurate...20 meter variance maybe..?

A new slot for everything....pick your defense: Designation Disruption System or Designation Detection Alarm. The Disruption System is a soft jammer that will skew the accuracy of the incoming rounds. The Detection Alarm gives off an audible warning heard by others around you or your vehicle and also draws an approximate impact reticle allowing assets to move away.

Long flight time for weapons delivery. Once the fire mission has taken place it will take at a minimum of 10 seconds for the rounds to impact ( for areas closest to the warpgate). Shelling across the entire map can mean flight times as high as 20 seconds.

Two types of shells can be used, Air burst and then a traditional single shell that goes boom.

I think it'd be pretty damn cool. The shells are not nuke shells that kill 10 tanks in one shot, but a direct hit on anything is lethal, Splash from the weapon is moderate and affects infantry and armor differently ( like everything else in game )...so if you don't move after the first one then your being dumb.

Ooh I just had a "duh"...Ok so it wouldn't be cool to have the weapon stuffed under the shield dome of a WG. It has to be placed somewhere in the open so it can be damaged. Or maybe the turrets are in the WG but there are 3 large comm dishes outside of the WG that can be blown up, rendering the turrets non-operational.

Yep, Good Discussion Guys.



Again, coming from someone who also doesn't like being killed by something the game prevents you from seeing:

KEY FACTS ABOUT ARTILLERY FOR IT TO WORK:

NOT insta-kill on infantry. Instead, Area Of Much Pain.
Hard to pick up, very difficult to master. Uber Skilled Artillery people shouldn't be common.
Killing air will be an accidental byproduct of the high arc.
Deployable, no weapons on the move (or maybe a Basilisk or AV mount for killing harassers)
2+ seats, pilot doesn't get the artillery control.
Deploy time of 5+ seconds, short undeploy time (think Sunderer).

Anyone have anything to add to this list that doesn't contradict one the items? Or a recommendation to improve a list item?

Because Discussion means More Popcorn

NC - truck mounted Nerbelwerfer. Fires volleys of 6. Highest damage, medium splash, slow rof, long reload. Vehicle is quick but poorly armored, fast deploy/undeploy.
TR - MLRS. fires a volley of 8. Lowest damage, high splash, high rof, medium reload. Vehicle is heavily armored but slow, slow deploy/undeploy time.
VS - Plasma catapult. Medium damage, medium splash, medium rof, short reload. vehicle has medium armor and a medium deploy/undeploy time.

Or something - would be nice to have some faction flavor if artillery were to be added.

Fix the goddamn rendering problems then. It's ridiculous that features have to be excluded because our engine can't do rendering properly.