Current vehicle AI weapons aren't unique or multifunctional enough. The HE weapons aren't that much better than the AP weapons and the AI secondary weapons can only kill infantry but leave you extremely weak to enemy vehicles. For main canons, which currently have HE weapons, autocanons could be a solid solution. Having a small magazine and firing several high-velocity shots with small shell drop and small AOE allows the player to better hit and kill infantry. If the DPS against vehicles is kept similar, these weapons could fulfill a long-range role against vehicles as well since they are more likely to get a consistent DPS at range. Last but not least, both HE and these autocannons could get an elevation upgrade so they can aim and hit infantry above the vehicle more easily, making these weapons more effective against AV nests on towers or C4 fairies. The secondary weapons are pretty solid against infantry but lack an AV role. This ensures that players will take an AV secondary since it can deal with infantry while simultaneously capable of shifting the fight in your favor during vehicle combat. The solution is to give AI weapons more AV capability. Examples, each separately equipable (most of these can be used against any vehicle or even infantry, but would be best saved for other vehicles): An AI weapon (Kobalt, Canister, PPA, Marauder etc) gets acooldown ability to project a shield forwards and partially protect the vehicle from damage. A concentrated EMP, disrupting all HUD elements and locking up all abilities, so say bye bye to that Vanguard shield, or a Prowler gets stuck in anchor, or a Magrider/Harasser has his turbo leeched. A concentrated concussion effect, slightly disrupting vision, slowing down movement, maneuverability and turret turn ratio's. It wouldn't be as powerful as a full concussion of course. A concentrated Flash effect, disrupting vision. A launchable smoke grenade to obscure enemy vision
A Demigan thread. Shoulda known. Yoouuuu.... should probably lube up and brace yourself. This is gonna get rough when the others get here. HE is for people farming infantry. Don't make it effective against vehicles. Don't make it more effective against infantry. A single HE round can wreck an entire room.
Non-Lethal Off-Spec secondary functions for Gunner Seat weapons aren't a bad idea; though it would need to be mirrored on either side. So AV weapons would get something similar that affects Infantry, and AI would get something similar that affects Vehicles. Could also be used as justification for reigning in AV weapons AI capability.
That hasn't been true for years, and even when it could it only worked on the smallest of rooms such as an amp station's generator shacks. Current HE rounds have a smaller blast radius, lower damage, and a smaller kill zone than hand grenades. People sometimes complain about the AP cannon being used on infantry, but that's because both the HE and HEAT cannons practically need direct hits to kill anyway. The benefit of the splash has been reduced to the point that it's not worth the loss of AV power. Even if it doesn't get a larger overall blast, HE needs a bigger kill zone and some tolerance for low levels of flak armor. For example, if the inner splash damage were raised to 1500 but all other characteristics were kept the same, flak 5 would still survive anything short of a direct hit. Lower levels of flak would allow you to survive closer hits, and without flak the kill zone would be extended slightly.
Most AV weapons it's only possible to get a kill with a direct hit. I don't care if it's an AV weapon, getting hit by a shell designed to kill a tank is going to kill a person.
in real life.. YES in this game... never has and never will unless infantry are standing tightly packed together in a single spot after the "phase 1" nerfs, HE doesn't really offer any benefits compared to HEAT/AP these days HE requires direct hits to kill infantry due to its low splash radius/damage which isn't that deadly and in that light HEAT/AP makes more sense sine they are more useful against vehicles/aircrafts
I suppose that's true. I've run HEAT on my Lightning for years. HE may need a splash update (watch how quick those nerf threads appear), but we don't need to give AI vehicles the ability to fight AV vehicles. Otherwise you just have people lonewolfing it, and ignoring the whole point of being in a faction.
well the point of HE rounds is to be an annoyance to vehicles and deadly to infantry but right now its a weak AI option where you can't justify giving up the damage against vehicles which the HEAT/AP offers and Demigan seems to want the pre-nerf Viper back.... I can understand that as I miss the OHK it had
Curious, what is it like in other combined arms 1st/3rd person games? I have a feeling that most players and devs want hand grenades to be the ceiling of ranged explosive weapons. Just like assault rifle is the ceiling of bullet hoses. They might want things that look like tank shells and autocannons but they want them to perform like infantry weapons.
The whole design concept is that AI tanks get shredded by other vehicles, so your team needs to keep them defended. I don't see any reason to undermine that, especially since the Zerg meta keeps most of those farm tanks very, very safe. If you want a loadout that's good against infantry but also usable against vehicles, the Halberd (high skill, high reward) and Basilisk (low skill, low reward) are perfectly adequate. The one thing I would change would be to give most secondaries better elevation angles. If you're in a tank by yourself, it's far too easy for an aircraft to just hover in your deadzone while bombarding you with rockets/missiles/bombs. The tank should have the possibility of shooting back, even if the weapon isn't suited for the job.
... Where did I propose that the autocannon would OHK infantry? How come I always make a thread, and people instantly add terrible game-breaking features to it and then say "oh dear that would be game-breaking" even though those features are definitely not required? Just as an example how my proposal should have been read: Vanguard Auto-cannon: 6 shots per magazine, 3 direct hits for a kill. The shells have benefit of the higher velocity compared to other tank shells, low drop and it's size (0,5m shell size is pretty standard I think for most shells). Again, just to be clear, those are example numbers. They can be altered. If you have a better idea, say so. If you think the idea of autocannons itself can't be balanced, give reasons why it would be. Don't say "well they are going to OHK and therefore be OP". Here's what you can do: Imagine an autocannon with 2 shots, 1 damage per shot and the MBT regular reload. Then up the damage and amount of shots until you have something that's to your liking and isn't OP or UP. Also notice how I specifically say things like "small AOE", the Viper's AOE isn't exactly small, AP shell AOE is small, so it would be closer to AP than HEAT or HE, otherwise it would instantly replace HEAT and HE, which wasn't the intention of the thread. All I'm trying to do is make AI variants actually useful, I'm not trying to make AI variants completely independent. An AV tank currently can deal with tanks and infantry, the AI tank can basically only be used against infantry and is worse than a wet tissue against tanks. So my goal is to make sure that AI and AV tanks are used in unison, rather than 90% AV tank and 10% farm vehicle. Do you think the HE canon is a viable weapon against tanks in normal combat? The autocannon would sport HE DPS, as I already mentioned. I just named the long-range combat capabilities because that's one of the consequences. The AI variants would still get their butt kicked by AP variants, the AI secondary would simply have more punch against vehicles instead of "none at all" and the primary canon would become more unique and usable over AP, WTSherman explained how AP beast HEAT and HE well enough already. You could add a damage falloff to prevent the autocannon becoming relatively good at long-range vehicular combat if you really think that's necessary. This falloff could start around 100m distance or something, within 100m distance an AP tank wouldn't have that much trouble retaliating. So you do agree that the AI variants should be capable of better dealing with aircraft, but not with tanks... Ok. Consider that the AI secondary abilities I named are mainly debuffs, rather than straight-up damage. These debuffs allow the AI tank to either engage and hope for the best, or try to escape. The debuffs would also be a primary reason to get multiple loadouts, rather than AP all the way.
I think rather than adding a new weapon, I'd rather see HE adjusted to some kind of happy medium. Maybe a strong splash damage with low radius, to encourage tankers to hit infantry (or at least very close to them), but w/o being able to nuke whole areas and create frustration.
Assuming that your ideas for new infantry AV options got introduced at the same time or shortly after I don't see why not.
HE has huge explosive radius while AP explosive radius is about the size of a pea, HE is much better at AI and HEAT is alright too but AP is king vs vehicles. I can kill infantry with AP too though, just requires some accurate aiming.
