[Vehicle] AP should be default for Lightning. An entry level vehicle that isn't a cert pinata.

Lightning is ideal - it's reasonably fast, reasonably low resource cost(could be lower as someone suggested in another topic), and it only needs to be 1 manned.

It's a simple point and shoot at vehicles situation. You won't win against decent 2/2 MBTs or anything, but you can actually participate in a vehicle fight and feel useful. Hang back with your buddies and point and shoot the enemy vehicles, dealing decent damage.

I've been saving up the ~800 certs to grab AP for my Prowler on this TR alt here and it's been really annoying having nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs or redeploy whenever there's a vehicle heavy fight. I pulled Viper lightning a few times, but it's pretty bad vs. vehicles and I just end up farming infantry.

There's also HEAT MBT, but you are a cert pinata with that. Yeah, a stock HEAT Prowler might do okay but I really can't justify 450 resources on such a lackluster unit. It's almost an on principle thing for me, same reason I won't play HA until I replace the CARV(maybe I'm not TR enough to understand it or smth).


Anyway, I'm rambling - short story is that AP for lightning would give new players a decent option for contributing to vehicle combat.

It did make much more sense back when HE/HEAT were actual viable options. Then you could say, "hey we'll start you off with a generalist weapon that is equally effective against infantry and armor but stellar at neither and you can pick from there".

But after the HE/HEAT nerfs almost everyone plays AP anyhow. Consider the Vanguard weapon usage breakdown:
AP- 409.3 hours
HEAT- 237.7 hours
HE- 28.8 hours

Out of all three cannons, AP makes up 60.6% of usage. When only considering non-default "specialist" weapons, AP makes up 93.4% of MBT usage.

HEAT is generally viewed as a "you pretty much have to hit them" type of weapon, and in that case you might as well use the AP cannon which has a higher muzzle velocity (along with being better at AV duties).

HE can only kill infantry within a 1m radius (which is tiny, considering that Frag Grenades are lethal out to 2.2m and Claymores can OHK up to 4m). Again, if you're that accurate that you can nail infantry within 1m, you might as well hit them directly with AP.

So they really ought to buff HE/HEAT back up to pre-August 4 levels (and doing so to differentiate between cannons is just one of many reasons to do so). Fixing that would mean that each cannon might actually be useful instead of just a downgrade of AP.

For Lightnings, I think Lightnings should have started with HEAT as well and then the Viper ought to have been the HE variant.

But yeah... there's a reason why the vast majority of tankers run AP in almost all situations... because HE/HEAT are terrible.

You can see from historical data that prior to August 4 people actually used HEAT more than AP... but after August 4 AP became the real winner:

AP should not be the default for any tank. AP is specialized, requires more skill, and more certs, because , once learned, is the most powerful weapon.. thus is should be the most expensive one. It has to be earned.
Giving it away from the start just diminishes it.

As for viper, it can be a great addition to other armor. don't use it as the rambo I can kill all 'ya all.. be a support vehicle.
You get plenty of vehicle kills with it, the ones that your other team mates have damaged, brought to smoking etc..

Lightning is a support vehicle.. use it as such.

The other shells can be great, even HE.. if used properly. HEAT can be very powerful in support roles, even chasing down Harassers and Sunderers.. not all of them have a full crew..

giving any tank the AP rounds as a starting weapon negates the cost / value proposition for their damage output.

You can see a lot of players making viper / heat etc. work extremely well.. watch the videos on Youtube.. plenty of them out there.

That's what new players should be doing anyways....

AP is strong for fighting vehicles, but new players are better off killing inf.

HEAT is garbage since you may as well use a better velocity gun if you need to direct hit infantry to OHK them anyway, plus it's the strongest vs. armor.

AP is the all-rounder option now. It is good against infantry and tanks. HE is the specialized option, while Viper and HEAT are kinda pointless.

HE & HEAT need buffs.

Taking viper away would really hurt new players. I don't understand the rational here. Lightnings aren't primarily anti-tank platforms. Using AP on a lightning takes a lot of work, and new players will not enjoy it at all.

This sums up the problem
"You won't win against decent 2/2 MBTs or anything,"
New players really, really don't want this.

This, the reason stock tanks are garbage is they nerfed the stock weapons into the ground, HE should also get its radius upped to 1.25 on the mag and 1.5 on the VG due to their longer reload times, prowler HE should stay the same for the obvious reasons like it already does more splash damage with both barrels, and lockdown.

do you actually have any idea how POWERFUL the default Viper cannon is? this is a two hour session with 98% Viper kills

the C75 turns the Lightning into the perfect infantry support weapon, almost like an autocannon of an infantry fighting vehicle that provides fire support. and just because it cannot deal with vehicles that well doesnt mean it is useless against them. i finished off a lot of smoking Lightnings and Sunderers with the Viper, you would not believe it.

that being said, the Viper is more than enough for new people. it is straight up superior to Python HE as well as better than MBT HE cannons. also, in my view the Lightning's role isn't necessarily anti-vehicle. as i said in my eyes it is rather an infantry fighting vehicle and therefore its primary role is support for advancing infantry. hence, giving it AP as default cannon would not really emphasize the proper role

I have no issues with the Lightning HEAT on my NC character.. see killboard from my signature for NC.
HEAT works great.. if you use it where best suited.

I could never sacrifice the power of the viper for heat. I mean, its been a while. I guess I should try it out again and give a fair comparison. Maybe I'll even try HE. How bad could it be right?

Right now, when I pull lightning, Its between the viper, AP, and the skyguard.

I pull the viper the most because its OK against sundys, but mostly because Its one of the best AI weapons available to me. Infantry are always a threat to ground vehicles, so this is a safe option for most situations.

The skyguard is a close second. Air too is always a threat to ground vehicles, and again, its one of the best AA options available to me, and its OK against sundys. With stealth active I can often pick off wounded vehicles, taking advantage of 3rd person for a stabilized platform.

The AP I take out occasionally for very specific reasons. Its a poor AI weapon. Its too easy to get killed while focusing on hitting that one heavy over the rocks. It is, however, a great sundy killer, and I'm good enough to fight other vehicles, but its only because I have full stealth, fire suppression and racer. I couldn't imagine trying AP on a stock lightning.

Heat and HE I just can't find a use for. The other 3 fill all the roles I need.

I'll second and say that the Viper does work as a really good infantry support vehicle. I actually pulled a Viper by accident the other day and racked up a lot of infantry kills with it. Was pleasantly surprised how much better it was over HE

Actualy, AP takes the least skill out of the 3.

The Viper isn't even as good as it used to be. I remember thinking of the Viper as this under-utilized cert machine that only I seemed to know about. Rarely did I ever see people running around in Viper Lightnings and I always wondered why? It did decent damage to vehicles, great damage to infantry, and beat out HE and HEAT by a mile.

Then tons of other people caught on to its awesomeness, and the resulting flood of complaints by people getting killed by the the thing caused the devs to nerf it. I don't think I've pulled it more than a handful of times since. AP is still my go-to gun, mostly due to the awfulness of HE/HEAT, and how useful AP is in killing enemy Sunderers, armor, and other bigger, more important targets.

exactly, when i want to pull a lighthing i watch my map, now if i have support around me repair sundie or other tank anything like that, if it's the case i use the HEAT if there is no one arourd you that can support you just take the AP, but you still can go on massive killstreak if you have support aroud you, in fact when i get kill it's most of the time because i make a stupid move like getting to far away from my teamate and end up facing an mbt.

How about, we un-nerf the Viper instead?
Due to overnerf, this "all pupose weapon" isn't viable anymore. Neither against infantery nor against vehicles anymore.
I used to snipe infantery with viper or annihilate them with 6 round volley barrages.
My rival chassis allowed me to outplay other vehicles quite reliable.

But nooo, we had to nerf due to crying infantery.
Guess what, more than once those guys meant to take the same route to the objective they died before, only to get shot down again. But of course the Lighting is at fault, which sniped them thanks to x2 scope.

Ah yes and HE and HEAT are kinda pointless too right now.