Why is it that a single infantry can 'solo' a MBT in this game?

C4 is love, C4 is life
http://gfycat.com/BackShockingFairyfly
P.S. I was spamming this while we had Amerish+Esamir ownership. 2xC4+Flash for 100 Nanites, such a Christmas sale^^

This is why third-person view and proximity radar exist. Learn some situational awareness.

Oh, you mean that buggy LMG only works on stationary targets? If you're C4'd in a field, move a little from time to time. If you're C4'd near a base, look up once in a while.

The problem with C4 fairies is rooted in the vehicle drivers and a bit in the team-mates of the tank driver.

Actively there is a lot against LA's. Tanks have a top speed much higher than infantry, even backwards. The escape velocity is reached within a second. Escaping any detected LA is easy enough. You have a gun that fires to render range, has a high velocity, minimal drop, a high amount in reserve, doesn't cost any resource except ammo and has impact detonation. The gun is strong enough to kill any infantry in one body hit. This means that you can fire in quite a large area around you to kill an LA. As an LA has little manoeuvring options when in the air and has problems with splash damage on the ground, it is an easy target as soon as it is in the turret elevation.
The LA in contrast has a weapon that has few in reserve, can be thrown to a maximum of 10m, requiring a small horizontal distance, must be detonated at a later time (which often isn't detrimental to the tactic but still has some downsides), costs nanites and has many hit detection issues even when stuck on a tank (tank moving at speed has a good chance of not getting hit by the C4). As the C4 is thrown by the LA, it is used from a slow moving platform that has little health and can be hit by nearly every weapon in the game. The only redeeming factor for the LA is it's ability for unsustained flight.
The tank can be outfitted with sensors to detect the LA and if you stay in the proximity of team mates you have a good chance of detection. If you still want to camp, the spitfire is an incredibly effective weapon to the slow moving and unprotected LA if they try to fly to you. Even if the LA gets out of your turret elevation, you can still get out of the tank and surprise the LA with your carbine, killing him before he can set off 2 C4. All nice active ways to avoid LA.

Passive there is a lot too! If a tank moves over the battlefield a lot, the risk to fail the attempt is multiplied so much that they, in most cases, aren't viable targets for a C4 fairy. Often moving tanks, even for short distances, is tactically better. Advancing or retreating is often better for flanking or preventing flanks, which is often not noted by the majority of tank drivers. Doing so can protect you from some LA attacks and give you an edge in tank combat. Positioning is also key against LA's. I've seen people parking their tanks against a wall to destroy any tanks that would come out of a base. On the other side of the wall is a spawn room. Worst place to park your tank. Generally it is quite easy. Just ask yourself the question "could an LA approach me from a more or less concealed angle?". This means all large tubing, buildings, mountains, walls, hills, towers and other obstacles should be analysed in approach angles of highly mobile (albeit slow) LA. Mash that together with the amount of friendlies that can intercept or identify LA, and you'll know whether the spot is LA safe.

On rare occasions LA can find ways to drop in from so high you could never detect them. As the C4 needs a long time to decent and has many detonation problems if activated too early, you need to stay still for incredible amounts of time to be a viable target. So again, you can passively negate the C4 fairy by moving.

It sounds a lot, but is incredibly easy. As I've killed my fair share of enemies with the LA, I can tell you that the whole strategy is based on the tank driver and it's team mates. The skill of the LA, however exceptional, can be negated easily by the options available for the tank driver. In my tank battles I hardly ever get a C4 and hardly give up any advantage, if any, in combat. All due to my knowledge of how most LA's can approach me. Try it yourself, get 10 vkills in a variety of situations and you'll suddenly know what you have been doing wrong all along.

For those who think that FOV helps protect the LA, let's have a look:

We'll assume a Vanguard with 30 degrees turret elevation (couldn't find exact numbers but I saw that the Halberd had an elevation of 30 degrees)

We'll assume the LA is flying at above 50m height to avoid proxy-radar and the elevation, say 60m height. This means that in 90% of the cases the tank is being attacked by the Drifter jets, which aren't used very often. They are attacked by drifter jets because most tanks do not park close enough to a 60m+ high vantage for normal Jumpjets to work. With normal Jumpjets it has been my experience that you need to use the cover normal infantry have to approach, the only advantage an LA has is that he can cut through cover by passing over rather than always having to go around. So if a tank is parked almost against a 60+m high object, he probably had it comming, as the only way to safely approach and climb such an object is if it completely shields the LA.

So, 30 degrees elevation and 60m height.
Tan(30)=height/distance
Tan(30)=60/distance
Distance=60/tan(30)
Distance=103,92m distance. So an LA is safe at 60m height from the turrets gun if he is within 103,92m distance.

But he's safe from being hit, not from being seen. Now I'm not too good at FOV settings, but it seems that Planetside 2 uses a 55 field of view, and from what I read that '55' meant '55 degrees' field of view.
That FOV extends both ways, to the bottom and to the top. So we have 27,5 degrees extra for looking up above the maximum height of the barrel.

Distance=60/Tan(57,5)
Distance=38,22m distance. So any LA that avoids the proxy radar by flying at 60m height will only be unseen if he is within 38,22m distance of the tank. That is 4 Sunderer lengths while flying at 5 Sunderer lengths height. A normal Jumpjet cannot reach 40m distance.
I just tried it out in the VR room. the tower there is 71m high (place waypoint on top and stand in the middle at vehicle height).
Then I went up and jumped as far as I could with the normal Jumpjets. If I want to land safely I can reach a maximum of... 30m distance, and I'll have left the 60m safe zone quickly and entered below 50m and into proxy-radar distance before I'm even halfway there.

Oh, and if we want to go for crappy little details. Your FOV and elevation are already mounted on a tank, which is about 1,5 infantry high. one infantry player is 1m high (your FOV starts somewhere on the chest or head, and standing on top of your waypoint gives you 1m distance). So you need to add 1,5m height to everything to avoid detection.

And there you have it folks! It's not the FOV or elevation that sucks. If drifters were overly used you would have a point, but currently I'm having trouble even finding people who use it. I've advocated it's incredible power multiple times since it's update, and was mostly laughed away. Which actually goes far into telling how many people think it has any use at all.

Also for the people who advocate that slingshotting is the key. Sure Slingshotting is incredibly powerful, but aside from biolab jumppads there are very few pads that launch you higher than a freaking tower, so you will always be in proxy-radar distance and/or visible for a tanker. Especially when slingshotting even, as you'll be coming from more than 100m distance and can be in full-view and hittable by the turret.

Whatever anyone says, the fact of the matter is that one light assault with the ability to carry two bricks of C4 can destroy a MBT instantly with no warning whatsoever. It is that fact that makes C4 overpowered. The same could be said with anti-tank mines, but unlike C4, anti-tank mines are used as a static defensive weapon that can be easily avoided due to its predictable placement such as on the roads of where large fights take place. C4 on the other hand is unpredictable; it is constantly moving waiting to be deployed and detonated at a moments notice by the player. In arcade tank gameplay, there should not be a weapon that can instantly destroy a tank in one go; it is a simply broken mechanic that does not fit arcade style of Planetside 2.

It also raises some questions regarding the lore of the game. For example, since C4 is so powerful, why is it not in the cavities of AP ammo so that when it penetrates a tank, it completely obliterate it with its C4. Why aren't rocket pods filled with C4 since it's so powerful? Besides, even if it increases the price a bit more, it would make tanks and planes a much more efficient killing machine. What would an army rather have, a couple of tanks of high quality, or a bunch of cheap tanks of low quality that can't do anything?

Yes ONE LA can destroy ONE MBT if he gets both bricks on one tank. And one engineer in a tank has the ability to instant kill well over 30 infantry 30 ATVs 30 ESFs WITH OUT WARNING WHAT SO EVER! If injured he can jump out of his tank and return it to max HP without reloading or returning to base or terminal. Then...he can drive over or park next to a giant tower that just instantly gives him ammo with out the use of a menu....and he can just continually fire...forever. Well this is happening he can continue to gather more nanites that let him replace his tank on the off chance it does die.

[sarcasm]...yes yes...I see your point now. C4 is obviously the problem here. [/sarcasm]

That said...I have zero problem with tanks as they are and their relationship with c4 is balanced.

NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY....(Unless it's scientific fact, starting your rant with that statement lets everyone know you are close minded and bias.)

Long ago in the misty past, one C4 brick would kill a liberator if placed on the correct location (central structure near the engines in the wings) but two would fail to kill it if you placed it on the tailfins etc. This was nerfed down to two at any location did not reduce a liberator to a burning state unless it was already damaged.

Two C4 lodged under the wing arms of a galaxy would do more damage than ones placed directly on top or below, taking 3/4 health rather than half.

Hai =3

Isn't it interesting that people will demand that 450 nanites, due to it being an investment of 450 nanites and special due to the 450 pricetag, should buy them a defense more valid than a throwaway offensive investment of 500-550 nanites?

Hay, Hay, Haaaay...

what'd I tell 'yall 'bout drivin' near by biolab??~~


...to offer a somewhat more serious contribution, what is probably a hot topic point is that many of the people that complain for C4 to be nerfed offer little in ideas for how to effectively balance them while keeping them a useful tool, and instead adopt a modus operandi akin to "smash everything I don't like with a bat" - I see suggestions to make C4 take 10 seconds to plant on the back of a vehicle that can mow over infantry and use third person (one of those suggestions is in this thread I think) much more than a 51% damage value; or people will demand protection based on nanite investment, which vanishes once nanite investment is a counterpoint (500 nanites for C4+ESF, compared to 450 tank).

I've found that often with extreme points of view on many ends of a spectrum, balance is usually in the middle. Back when ps2 was still in beta I felt tanks seemed more like armored cars and that ways to disable / neutralize them were needed and wanted things from BF2142. I disliked that you could not hop on a friendly tank and hitch a ride to a near base, and offer assistance protecting it in return for the ride for example (of course the instant it moved a little you clipped in and died so that wasn't going to happen without the introduction of a grapple / grab onto vehicle mechanic).

Things like haywire grenades to temporarily stun a tank or disable its firing capability and hacking ability from infiltrators, damage to its treads or engine from rockets, toss a grenade down the hatch to kill the crew. Landing a grenade in such a specific location requires more skill, but allows for lower resource investment to eliminate the vehicle threat (50 nanites for a frag last I checked).

One of my favored solutions is that C4 on the frontal armor plates do less damage and 2 C4 won't kill it, whereas one on the rear engine block or in the hatch will do substantially more damage + cause a larger, more difficult to put out fire or kill the crew respectively.

A tank is a tank. It should function like a tank. In my perspective, this means it should be vulnerable to things a tank is vulnerable to, not granted magic immunity because "its a tank" as a catchphrase or buzzword - and vice versa, should have protections a tank should have. Thicker frontal armor, heat plate options for sides to defend against rocket strikes, turret slot utility options akin to an active point laser defense system / trophy system / coaxial gun. In return for being substantially more difficult to pound down out in the open (hence the word "TANK"), there's more options to cause harm or disability to it and the potential to use more skill to disable or destroy it with lower resource cost.

That seems a lot more fair to me than this paradigm of "C4 must be super OP or must be nerfed into the dirt, no room for middle ground" - Planetside 2 is advertised as a competitive game. That means you get no entitlement shield, and skill options should be encouraged. You get no magic entitlement bubble because you spent 450 resources on a vehicle and if an infantryman tosses a grenade down the hatch, you die - but you do get a vehicle fit for its purpose, which is my main issue with tank balance in that I feel they're not correctly designed on that point.

No warning? You mean that having the right situational awareness to warn yourself isn't a warning? You mean that Proxy radar and placing a Spitfire near your vehicle aren't warnings? You mean that just driving around a bit doesn't protect you from C4 fairies? Because it totally does, the Proxy radar and spitfire can help you if you prefer stationary farm-fights.

How about this for a comparison: if an infiltrator sits still sniping with a motion sensor next to him, but still gets mauled by a Carbine. Do we call that 'can be killed without warning'? Yes, but only because the sniper didn't do enough to make sure he wasn't surprised by it. He could have looked around, used his motion spotter, checked his radar, kept an eye on approach routes etc.

You can place it on 'obvious' placements, but if I place them I rarely do it on the obvious spots. I guage where people will go. I'll see where people decide to go off-road, of which there's dozens of places, and place them there. Everyone expects mines on the road, but they don't right besides it where they try to cut off. Works like a charm.
You can also use it as an offensive defense. Place mines and lure an enemy to their death, or place them somewhere where a tank rush is likely, they can choose to waste ammo on the mines, stop and fire on you so they don't drive over or suicide themselves on your mines.
Also, C4 is predictable as hell. You need to know 3 things:
1: where does my enemy spawn?
2: where are my teammates at? C4 fairies avoid your teammates as they have less weaponry and abilities to properly deal with multiple.
3: Where is cover within X distance of me? If there's cover that offers a nice safe attack route towards me, I'll avoid it like the plague, and you should too. Setting yourself up for a C4 strike is like driving backwards to your enemy tank column 'so you can escape at high speed'. The idea might have it's merit, but it's execution just screams 'Kill me!'

This is entirely an opinion, not a fact. It all depends on the type of gameplay we have offered. And seeing that every other option besides C4 and Tank Mines needs tons of people and/or the stupidity/arrogance of the driver to get a kill, having some form of tank killing option is necessary. And a limited range, costly, high-risk high-reward and time-consuming way to do it is exactly what the game needs.

Because you don't pay 75 nanites per AP shot, and possibly the C4 we are using in PS2 is unable to survive being fired.

Eh, economic warfare is a great thing. Ever heard of the Blitzkrieg? Arm a large group of cheap tanks with big enough guns to destroy the heavier, more expensive enemy tanks, then just swarm over them Zerg style. Even if they do destroy one of your tanks, you destroyed their more expensive tank.

Let me explain what I meant by "no warning", in which I meant to describe the fact the an infantry unit can run to a tank place two blocks of C4 without the tank driver even knowing for whatever reason it my be, whether it be the tank engaging greater threat or its horrible situational awareness. That is absolutely no sound or warning signal for the tank driver when that C4 is being planted.

This is where your hypothetical situation falls apart.

When the infiltrator does get mauled by a carbine, there is a warning in multiple different methods that comes directly from the carbine. The sound and muzzle flash of the carbine is a signal of the attack in which the infiltrator could have reacted. The infiltrator can react because the carbine does not kill in one shot, or rather the carbine is unable to fire 10 shots simultaneously to instantly kill the infiltrator. I stress this point because even though C4 can be deployed one at a time, it can be detonated simultaneously giving no player time to react unless if that player was no where near the lethal area of the blast site.

Yes, C4 is predictable as hell, since no one really knows what goes on down there specifically. Regarding your three points:
1. Spawn locations can be quite unpredictable even more so due to the advent of motorized cloaked Sunderers.
2. "Where are my teammates at?" They're usually in battle where C4 is not only used as an anti-tank device but also anti-infantry weapon. They're quite useful as make shift grenades.
3. What is this? Plot twist, cover is not your friend?!

But C4 should not be the way to do it in this arcade game, especially when it take only two C4 to destroy at tank. It should take four C4 to take down a MBT. It's message should be a warning for the tank crew to get the heck out of that compromised position rather than slap them in the face and say play a different game where tanks are respected as weapon of war.

Look at this game, it is so heavily emphasized on infantry combat that I am beginning to doubt its legitimacy as a combined arms game. It's the infantry that captures the objectives and bases, it's the infantry that composes most of the army, it's the infantry that keeps the tanks and aircraft at bay with their AA launchers and AV-turrets. The list just goes on and on.

The high-cost, high-risk, high-reward should be the tank itself. The main enemy to the tank should be another tank as it is the basic concept of warfare in reality, which should be translated into this game based on warfare.

You do realize high explosive in armor piercing shells were widely used in many wars such as World War II. There is a fuse on the shell so that when the shell penetrates the armor, it explodes to create shrapnel from what used to be the shell to damage modules and kill whoever was inside that armor. The Russians filled their shells with TNT during WWII, which is more unstable than C4. Russian T-34's used shells called the BR-350B in case if anyone wanted to look it up. I would have no doubt that a shell filled with C4 would survive being fired.

For the record, I would love the pay 75 nanites for every shell I fired if it meant that I could two shot tanks. It is only a two minute wait time for three shells.

Even though this has nothing to do with the topic, I cannot help but to correct you.

Blitzkrieg is not an economic warfare tactic; it is simply a military tactic made famous by the Germans in World War II. Economic warfare has to do with one country attempting to weaken the economy of another country. Blitzkrieg, on the other hand, is a tactic where the attacking force breaks through the opposing force's defensive line in an area rapidly to complete a key objective. Its main advantages where that it often caused disarray to the defending force due to the speed at which the attacking force broke through. The disadvantage to this tactic was the supply lines were often over-stretched, making them prone to counter-attack from the defending force.

To summarize the blitzkrieg tactic, which has nothing to do with zerging, the attacking force breaks through at a specific area fast, hard, and deep to cause massive psychological, not necessarily physical damage to the defending force.


Demigan, who has no knowledge regarding tactics or tanks, who probably never have experienced in tank gameplay whether in arcade or simulator games, should you even be posting your ignorant ideas regarding tank gameplay and interaction in Planetside 2? Demigan, if you have done your research through online reading and playing various types of games regarding tanks and tanks in combined arms, maybe you will understand why tank gameplay in Planetside 2 is horrible and why C4 is one of the main problems.

Eh no, because you do get a warning if you have proxy radar, or a Spitfire near you. Or just looking around. Just by looking around you every now and then, just by having the awareness of how players will walk around your teammates, where they spawn and gauging where they will be coming from will help you defend against 95% of the LA out there.
Basically you just said: 'there isn't a sound to warn you, even though there is this minimap that can telegraph you an enemy position and a spitfire that can warn you through sound the very sound that I just said there is no warning off!'

And what is a greater threat? A tank up the road somewhere, or an LA with C4? If you don't look for the LA he's the biggest threat, the moment you start looking for him... he becomes almost absolete.

The TTK of a Carbine is so low, that due to the latency the Infiltrator can be dead before he gets the first hitmarker.
Also, let's change the Carbine to something closer to the C4: a shotgun. Now you have the exact same warning signals a tank can have: your own eyes and ears (it's possible to hear LA flying about) and your tracking devices. Do you blame the LA or do you blame the infiltrator if he still gets blown away?

Aaand we've got proof that you really are holding on to straws. Seriously this is your defense?
1: As anyone will tell you, Cloaked Sunderers are found quickly. I might be one of a handful of players who actually places it on 'bad' locations so nobody but flankers spawn there, then go and C4 and flank stuff. Even if you don't know the exact spawnpoint, you will know within a minute what direction your enemy has his spawnpoint. Then looking at how and where your allies spawn you can gauge where enemy LA need to move to get around them safely, and a likelyhood of them going there. Even the LA players will want to get to the target within a certain amount of time, and this is their downfall. The quickest and safest routes are the one's they use for C4 fairying, and you can easily spot and kill them.
2: So... your teammates are in a battle and tanking C4? So the chance of LA C4ring you when there's teammates around goes down even further? I thought you were trying to attack my argument, not help defend it!
3: What is this? You really think that all cover is friendly? You think that cover that protects an enemy tank is friendly? When I say that cover can protect an LA, I don't necessarily mean that it's cover for you as well. If it allows an LA to approach you unseen and get in close enough for a C4 strike, it's bad cover and needs to be avoided. It's like trying to use an enemy spawnroom as cover.

No it should destroy the tank, completely and utterly. You have options to warn you of your compromised position, and you should also know you are in a compromised position. You have all the tools for it. If you decide to put yourself in a compromised position, or lack the awareness to keep yourself safe making a good position 'compromised' because you refuse to try and defend yourself, that's your problem. Tanks are powerful, tanks can handle themselves, but if you really think their worst punishment for blatant stupidity should be a good portion of damage, you should get to another game.

And you totally ignore the tank Zergs or the aircraft groups that lock down entire bases. Sure the game emphasizes on infantry combat, and they should change that. But removing or nerfing a single thing into the ground is not the way to do it.
Also do you even know why infantry is much more abundant than tanks? Just think about that for a moment, I'm not going to tell you just to see what kind of reasons you come up with. Hopefully you can redeem yourself a bit.

In tank vs tank combat there is a lot of high-risk high-reward tactics and styles. Also even if you count C4 and tank mines, other vehicles are the largest cause of vehicle deaths.
In tank vs infantry fights, the fight is actually laughable. You have a vehicle which determines the range and engagement from beginning to end. The tank makes a choice how close he gets, and how vulnerable he is. Tanks have been farm-machines since the beginning of the game, and killed millions of infantry by now. There's a reason the minimum MBT main canon KPU is 4,82, almost 5 kills per weapon.

You still think that they are using actual C4 in the game? (also, it's a game). It's way more likely that our 'C4' is filled with deconstructing nanites. These nanites are relatively fragile (you know, molecule-sized robots tend to have little in the way of impact zone). and are likely not capable of surviving the acceleration of a shell. Which is why we need to throw them in bricks rather than shoot them.
And this is just theorizing about how certain game weapons work. What we should be looking at is how balanced it is, and if you have any situational awareness or even move a little every now and then, this C4 you speak off is barely a threat at all.

Yeah! But you can't! And that's because the game has some form of balance!
Also, I would hate it if you could pay 75 nanites for 2-shotting another tank (3 to 4 shotting as Prowler). As it would completely mess with balance and fairness of the game.

And how did the Germans achieve this...?

If you looked at my stats, you would see I'm a great tanker. I have been in just about every game. So rather than slander me, could you just come up with a good argument for a change?

This is quite a sad statement. Although there is a lot of emphasis on infantry, it isn't so much as you project. A tank is a great force multiplier. They do well in both support as pushing back lines between bases. Last time I checked, tank guns still had the majority of tank kills, especially if you include the second gunner. So the greatest threat to a tank is another tank. The greatest threat against air is other air. So infantry doesn't have much to say in tank or air combat.
But the game has more ties with reality than you know. Especially in urban combat, tanks don't just move blindly on. They must at all times be heavily supported to prevent destruction or being disabled. In modern combat this support is emphasised even more in all situations due to modern rocket launchers that can be fired by infantry. 2 stage rockets that first explode in a piercing way to gain access to the less protected parts of the tank, where the second more general explosion takes place to rip the tank apart. Against it they now have reactive armour, but the rockets still heavily damages or disables the tank.
If you base the game on older WWII warfare or the likes, you still are going to have a bad time. Nearly all RPGs will destroy or incapacitate a tank on a direct hit. So the lesson is that if you let infantry outflank you, you are going to be mauled to death by short ranged explosives. Either position yourself so your team will protect your soft sides or don't venture into infantry central thinking you should be immortal.

You both should stop with intentionally misreading each other. The essence is clear right? DeltaUMi thinks that being able to circumvent a tanks situational awareness, whether it is because he didn't look at the radar or just plain didn't look around, and then blowing up a tank is a problem. Demigan thinks it is not. I agree with Demigan's point, but this back and forth is getting you two nowhere.
What Demigan meant with economic warfare is that the Germans used cheap tanks a plenty to do much greater damage against the expensive tanks of the enemy than they received. It isn't the typical economic warfare but the meaning is clear right? Don't keep nitpicking on how they worded it.

Also DeltaUMi, don't do personal attacks. It is a low tactic that does not serve a purpose in a discussion.

I cannot believe I actually have to spell out the situation to you that I was referring to. It is the situation where it happens enough that it brings players like me out of the game, to other games, and to this forum. It the the situation that commonly happens when a tank in the midst of the chaos of battle gets destroyed by C4.

Rather the question we should be asking from your analogy is what hurts more economically for the player, losing a tank or merely losing a life in Planetside 2?

Whilst some players can be predictable, a significant amount of other players are not and will use a variety of tactics that will be impossible to keep track of. All it takes is one infantryman with C4 to not take the "quickest and safest routes" for the defending tank to be destroyed.

I did not deny that cover is friendly, but I do confirm that cover is neutral. By your definition of "bad cover", in it "needs to be avoided", you eliminated all cover except those that provide a roof above your head.

Massive tank armies and air platoons can lock down bases, but they can never capture them thus making the tanks and air platoons completely useless. Because of this, often times the tank zergs transition into infantry zergs in order to capture bases. This is a reason why infantry is significantly more abundant than tanks, because tanks are relatively useless since infantry can fill significantly more roles than tanks.

Have you ever heard of a map called Hossin? Of course that is a bit extreme, but you understand that tanks do not always have the luxury of determining the range of the engagement.

You know what also kills millions of infantry? Infantry, and yet no one ever complains about that.

If C4 is filled with deconstructing nanites that are so fragile that they cannot be the filler for tanks shells, why do they explode? I am quite sure that the C4 in game is a high explosive that would work brilliantly in tank shells.

Did you know that dropping a stick of TNT can cause it to explode, yet the Russians used in their tank shells. That is because the TNT is covered in metal in the shell and thus protected by the initial explosion that would propel it out of the cannon.

But according to you, everything is fine if you have a little bit of situational awareness. Tanks are certainly much easier to spot than a lone infantryman.

I never once mentioned anything about your skill. Based on your ignorance regarding tanks, you clearly have never played War Thunder, World of Tanks, Heroes and Generals, and Arma III; all of which have substantially better tank gameplay mechanics, in which the last two games on the list are legitimate combined arms games.

Infantryside is out in full force on this thread, I see.

I just want to correct you on a few things.

German tanks during WWII were the most expensive tanks. American Shermans and Russian T-34's were significantly cheaper.
Also in WWII, RPG's do not always destroy a tank on a direct hit. Sometimes they will fail to penetrate the armor of a tank. Even if they do penetrate, the tiny stream of jet of molten metal from the shaped charge must hit an important module in order to incapacitate the tank or at least scare the crew into bailing. Even so, they were danger to tanks as you said.

For example, at the tank portion of the Battle of Kursk, the Russians attempted to attack the German line. The German had a bunch of their famous Tigers along with generally superior mechanized forces. The Russians were stuck with the T-34/76s... but the Russians had a lot of them.



So the Russian strategy was to throw waves of tanks at the German lines. The heavier German cannons would be effective at range, but if the T-34/76s could close in then they stood a chance of penetrating.

At the end of the day it was a tactical defeat for the Russians... they were unable to dislodge the Germans from the hill. But at the same time (in a weird way in which wars turn out) it was a strategic victory for the Russians because the German forces were spent while there was plenty of Russian armour left in the reserves. The Germans had to pull out and the Russians got their hill.



The tank battle and subsequent fighting at Kursk was really the turning point of WWII. It was the first major defeat that the Germans suffered, and after Kursk they were put on the strategic defensive. The lowly T-34/76 is what broke the German war machine's back.

That's not to say that the Russians didn't have impressive armour later. Those 152mm assault guns could eat German Tigers for breakfast, and the later IS-2s were more than a match for a Tiger (perhaps not a King Tiger though). But the T-34 series was excellent because it could be very efficiently produced.

While your knowledge of past and current tank tech is impressive, you're forgetting the rules of the game a little here.

In the real world, if I shoot a soldier in the face, he's dead; and still will be for the rest of ever. In PS2 if I shoot a soldier in the face, he's dead; but only for about15 seconds when he magically reappears nearby to fight again, less (and closer) if a medic revives him on the spot.

In the real world, if a tank shoots at a wall I'm standing behind; me, my friend and the next wall in line are going to be in pieces spread all over the place. In PS2 if a tank shoots at a wall I'm standing behind, I hear it, and know there's a tank nearby; but am completely unharmed.

In the real world, generally you win a battle by destroying, disabling or demoralizing enemy troops and armor. In PS2 you win a battle by standing in a room for 4-7 minutes; killing enemies is necessary, but only to stop them from stopping you.

The reality of PS2 has different rules to our real world; pulling in historical and modern situations doesn't necessarily directly correlate to how things will or should work in the game.

Awareness is your friend.

I don't always drive a tank, but when I do, I never die to C4

Allright, so we changed the scenery from normal combat to hectic, all-out combat with tanks, infantry and maybe even aircraft all in one place. You mentioned this a little in passing, but if you really wanted all your arguments to count only for this type of battle scenery (which doesn't happen that often) you should have said so. You might want to start listing which arguments you made were for this type of combat and which for every other combat scenario. So yes, you do have to spell it out as you barely made this clear before.
In this case anyone's situational awareness is impaired. You have to look out for teammates, keep an escape route handy and be hurting hostiles while you are at it. C4 fairies have free reign! Except that at these times you have to rely on your teammates to keep you safe. If you really are in a hectic battle, you are also surrounded by infantry on all sides, otherwise you are more on the fringe where you have enough time to look around. So if you are in the middle you are hedged in by infantry, both hostile and friendly. It sucks if you get killed by a C4 fairy then, but I don't know if you've ever seen the amount of tactics you need to accomplish this? I usually don't C4 fairy in those conditions as you are a piniata if you fly over them and need to fight through the thick of enemies to get there, or circle around so far and attack from the behind, vulnerable for any reinforcements that might accidentally drive by and instagib you.

You only picture it as a 1v1 battle. LA vs tank, and you assume that the LA has won because he C4red it. This ignores all the power a tank has, the power with which it can destroy other tanks and scores of infantry, the power to deal with C4 fairies and be a powerhouse/farmstead supreme.
Also you need to take time into account. While a tank is scoring point after point the LA is taking time to circle around, avoid enemies, maybe die a few times and finally place the C4, then finally get a kill. If the tank doesn't notice him and kill him, flushing several minutes of avoiding, quick fights and travel down the drain. That's also economy: time usage.

While individual tactics vary, the overall gameplay of all players is the same. Show me any video of multiple seconds where the player shows a portion of the area around him and shows the map, and I'll tell you where infantry will be, how they will travel and where, what positions are likely dangerous for you and why. Players in general will not take more than 1 minute to get into the fray. 2 mintues of circling around for the perfect position is exceptional, especially if those 2 minutes can be instantly void because the tank drove off, discovered you or you ran into a random other player that kills you or makes you visible to your target in any way.

No. A small rock that only just hides your tank in the middle of nowhere is a safe spot. A high rock in the middle of nowhere as well. You need to take into account where people will spawn, how they will move. You can't expect someone to run 300m in a random direction for a tank that will probably not be there when they arrive.
Imagine: you are getting shot at by infantry or tanks and hide behind cover. How to know it's safe? First there's the approach: Where are the LA going to be spawning and traveling from, how far is it to the next cover that an LA would use to avoid you? If it's very short there's a high likelyhood one can get close before you can check around the corner again, and it's bad cover. If there's a large distance you can check often. Also you can rely on teammates: do teammates travel in between a lot? Will LA have to avoid them? If so, how will they avoid them? This will change their path, as fighting through a horde of your friends is a no-go for the LA. A HA is designed for that.

So why are you defending a useless vehicle?
more serious, can a grenade capture a base? Can C4 capture a base? Can a motion spotter capture a base? Or a MAX? No they can't, they are force multipliers to aid you in your tasks. And these tasks can be numerous. Defenders need tanks to hunt down and destroy the Sunderers more easily and ward off the attacks, who in turn need tanks to stop enemy infantry and tanks from pushing them back. The actual flipping of a point might be done by infantry, but tanks are not useless.
That said, tanks and aircraft should get more to do, and actually be able to capture a base by themselves or lend advantages by being able to destroy hitpoint sinks and the like that deactivate defenses of the base or directly affect the timer and make capture easier and faster. But that is a different discussion completely seperate from what we are talking about.
Also, the reason infantry is more significant than tanks is because they are completely free. You always spawn as one, you always have one even if your tank blows up. All vehicles are more limited, you have a limited amount of spawnpoints, and even though they are all right next to the spawn it would take a long time before everyone has bought a tank due to the waiting times between spawning one and the next. But you do get incredible advantages when wielding one. You just have to compete against friendly and enemy tanks, and an AV tank can easily ruin your AI investment.

They don't control everything, but they control most of the engagement. Also have you looked at Hossin? It might look cluttered, but it's actually incredibly spacious. All it's got is some oversized trees, but it has maybe less obstacles and clutter than south-east Indar for instance. There's tons of room for vehicles to move almost anywhere. Even the roads that are 'hedged in' by mountainous area's are wide enough to drive 3 Prowlers abrest at most of it.

It's called volume. You have more volume of infantry who kill other infantry at about a 1 on 1 ratio (pro's kill more, bads die more). Vehicles on the other hand can kill dozens of infantry per life, and be powerful against vehicles as well. There's a reason why in many vehicles people assume you are a farmer. especially when you think C4 is OP.

Dual cores? First the nanites are released and start eating, seeing that they can build an entire tank in a second the eating of part of it shouldn't be a problem, then a concentrated explosive goes off. As I said, we can only speculate, but in the end it's the game's fun factor that counts. Balance can keep it fun for all parties... Now I'm all for trying to improve the game so that both you and me are happy, but so far I've seen only solutions that completely annihilate not just my fun, but screw up the balance such as it is even further and give too much power to vehicles. I would rather weaken infantry by giving tanks Co-axial guns, new AI weapon types and the ability to change your ammo type between normal HE/HEAT/AP ammo and AI variants for each. Add ways for all classes to mess with vehicles, from disabling weapon sights by shooting them to damaging or slowing down functions of the tank by hitting specific weakspots or doing specific tasks near a tank, and both the infantry and tankers have a more lethal and dangerous game to play, where actually instantly killing them isn't necessary the goal for infantry if it's an (almost) free option.

That's because TNT can be absorbed by stuff that is shock-resistant, similar to Dynamite. Dynamite is Nitroglicerin, which is highly explosive and can explode at a mere shock as well, and if you absorb that in cotton it can only explode when ignited by fire, or when you let them get old and the nitroglicering starts to seat out of the stave.

Yes that's right.

And none are arcade tank games, you even said yourself this was a more arcadey tank game! (also I did play World of tanks for a bit, was very interesting). I am not ignorant, I am trying to keep some balance between infantry, tanks and air. And in the current meta and gameplay mechanics, C4 in it's current state is a must.

Anyone who really REALLY hates C4 fairies that much should consider a Kobalt gunner (it can aim STRAIGHT up)

Or maybe even a Walker (can't aim down as far, but it certainly kills any would be fairies and can protect against air too!)

as a tanker, i would not want to see C4 nerfed.

instead, they should rather incentivize counterplay: give Lightnings/MBTs co-axial machineguns (you need to give up zoom/nightvision/thermalvision for it) so they can defend themselves more effectively and make suicide C4 tactics less rewarding.

just like the introduction of the Archer made Max gameplay less effective. dont nerf a strong unit, provide counterplay instead!