[Suggestion] Tank Destroyer Gun Truck?

Well, I was just prodding the idea of something like a flatbed Sundy with a spear turret mounted in the back of it. Like, wouldn't that be fun to have? Basically just a regular Sunderer with a limited-ammunition turret mounted in the back that can't be used unless you're deployed. You can only have two people in the truck at any time(since it's a flatbed) and it has an average firerate.

Granted this would be clutter among the myriad of vehicles already in the game, having an armored turret to deploy where you can't normally get these types of defensive assets seems like a fair idea. And considering how tank spam is already worse than anything else in the game I don't really see this being something you could abuse, as it can't be fired on the move and is run from a slow truck.

This or an artillery truck, somehow. Like a BM-23.

i actually like this idea , though instead of a flat bed i want the gun to fold out of the roof like the leviathans ion cannon from Unreal tournament , of course i nexchange for the top mounted turrets , maybe im asking for too much

Well, we can see Nanite Systems sure like to make a profit off of war.

i really like the idea of a self-propelled artillery gun/truck. however the devs have already stated that they wont add artillery because according to them it "makes for a poor gameplay experience if you dont know where you are killed from"

I'm not saying an artillery unit is really what I'm aiming for, but a mobile turret.

Sturmtiger! Shoots fat*** rockets from it's turret-less cannon. Rockets had short range so it had to get close, therefore it had very thick frontal armor.


Jagdpanzer


Elephant

Field guns doesn't have to imply indirect fire which is what everyone is worrying about. Just a vehicle that lacks the turret and versatility of a tank in exchange for exceptionally big gun and usually weaker armor.

I already knew about those. Ich bin ein bisshcen Deustch.

But I mean just something more along the lines of this:

Oh, so we're removing Infiltrators and long-range AV weapons from the game now?

Not a rocket, but a short-ranged mortar.

Though not meant for direct-fire... unless you park on a hillside!

Well, I was thinking more of a flatbed with a spear turret welded in the back. Alas, I don't have modeling skills to visualize more than what I posted earlier with that halftrack.

Hmmm... why not?

Maybe like this?



Practically speaking though, Sunderers don't make good heavy weapon mounts because the vehicles are already too quick and too sturdy. They already have a huge HP pool and decent armour, meaning that they can deal tremendous damage to MBTs and Lightnings. The only thing holding them back so far is a lack of heavy weapons, so giving Sunderers access to such things might be a bad idea.

You'd have to heavily nerf Sunderer HP/armour first.

Give me a Sundy with no roof, 11 heavies and 12 pairs of sun glasses.

If, however, this was a Sunderer variant that had little to no transport capabilities, and could only fire after taking several seconds to deploy...

Basically that thing, yeah. No transport ability, but a gun truck. Like, even remove the spawn deployment ability.

If that thing has access to the deployment shield its about equivalent to an anchored Vanguard.

The idea as such certainly has merit, and I think I proposed deployable antitank cannons in a different thread, but the Sunderer simply is too ******edly sturdy.
It's bad enough that I have to watch out for 200 nanites 3/12 blockade armor sundies with dual furies if I'm in a 450 nanite CQC MBT (which means I'm gunning because someone asked, I don't waste nanites on those metal boxes anymore). If those goddamned bricks get long-ranged weaponry too we might just as well simply remove tanks from the game, since the only thing the Sunderer doesn't do better is longrange AV.

But then using in-game logic, heavily armored vehicles get a >1.00 multiplier to C4 damage so each and every LA would counter this instantly.

If it was a Sundy chassis, and not a Vanguard.........

The standard gun on a Vanguard is a 150 mm. Going 10 mm more is not going to increase the HE filler significantly.

That thing should be a 203 (8 inch) mortar, with the firepower of an HE shell when the game released (they could nearly literally clear whole rooms instantly when tossed into windows), an 8 second reload and the velocity of a Bulldog so people could run to safety after the shell is on the way.

RE: Tank destroyer....
The AP Lightning is sort of an M18 Hellcat, so there's that.
The Harasser with a Halberd is sort of a HMMV with a TOW launcher.

As for a Sundy gun truck...
If it, being a heavy wheeled vehicle, had survivability of a Lightning - a light tank, and stuff like Vanguards or Magriders came with resistance to C4 of Sundies to do the tanky duties, the configuration would work just nice.

Artillery as in rapid, direct fire weapons on ground vehicles?
Sundy chassis + the never, ever used Duster twin barrel HE thrower.
Or dual Bulldogs which are very capable of indirect fire (above hills and buildings), if there is a forward observer and some secret Redneck Hillbilly knowledge on rangefinding.

As for a tank destroyer with a hull mounted gun - I'd nominate the Lightning chassis and stick a Dalton on it.

It'd still be a major problem.

First, nanites. The Sunderer is one of the least expensive vehicles in the game. 200 nanites, versus 350 nanites for a Lightning or 450 nanites for a MBT. So even if a MBT could take on 2 of these AV Sunderers, it would still be a net loss in terms of resources. The problem stems from the fact that Sunderers were never supposed to be combat vehicles... they were meant to be cheap infantry transports and spawn points. Making them inexpensive was important because in PS2 infantry are tactically incompetent and can't be relied on to properly guard anything.

Second, HP/armour/resistance. Sunderers have 4,000 HP, which is more than a Lightning (3,000 HP) and the same as MBTs. Sunderers also resist 45% from all directions, which is more armour than what tanks have at the rear (30-32%). Finally, while Lightnings and MBTs are extra vulnerable to AP weapons (-20% and -13-15% respectively), Sunderers for some inexplicable reason have a 28% resistance to AP shells.

So what do all these numbers mean?

Say an AP Lightning comes across a Sunderer. From the front, the Lightning's 1,600 damage AP shell is reduced to 880 from Sunderer armour and then to 633.6 from resistance. So to kill a 4,000 HP Sunderer, the Lightning requires 7 hits to kill. Since a Lightning fires a shot every 3 seconds, this means that an AP Lightning would require 18 seconds to kill that Sunderer.

What happens if the Sunderer now has a Spear Phalanx turret and can shoot back?

The Spear does 1,550 damage, which is reduced to 542.5 damage from the Lightning's frontal armour but then increased to 651 damage due to the Lightning's weakness to AP. Note that this is already more damage per shot than the Sunderer takes! So to kill a 3,000 HP Lightning, the Spear needs 5 hits to the front, which can be done in 8 seconds.

So the Lightning needs 18 seconds to kill the Sunderer. The Sunderer needs 8 seconds to kill the Lightning. Anything less than a 10 second deploy would mean that the Sunderer would easily win, and even if the Sunderer lost you would still have a 200 nanite vehicle almost destroying a 350 nanite one.

That's why while putting a gun on a Sunderer seems cool, overall it would not be a balanced vehicle. That's not the fault of your idea, but the problem is that the Sunderer was poorly designed in the first place as something tankier than tanks.

IRL it's balanced because anything a tank could shoot would go straight through a half-track. This makes the original AT half-track balanced because it truly is a glass cannon. But a Sunderer, as it exists in the game, is not a half-track. It's a tank who happens to move really quickly around on wheels. That's why taking real-world vehicles and throwing into the game will create problems unless those vehicles truly have the same drawbacks that IRL equivalents do.

I'm not saying just take any given Sundy and slap a cannon on it. I mean a totally new vehicle. Also one that needs to deploy in order to use its gun, rather than be on the move and fire. Essentially a mobile turret.