Why I'm asking this is because the Vanguard looks like a more practical design than the Prowler. The vanguard has traditional tank design, low profile, I assume the turret is unmanned because it's too small and is controlled by the crew members located inside the hull of the tank, turret has an auto loader, the crew members are protected by an extra shield protection, it just looks advanced. Simply said the Terran Republic has been described as an empire and the New Conglomerate a rebellion. So shouldn't the TR get the newest, more advanced and practical weaponry? Because the Prowler tank just looks like a silly design compared to the Vanguard. As an example I'll just mention some tank from WW2 times - the T29 Heavy tank. (not an expert) So this tank was developed at the end of the war. And after that it apparently was rejected to be put into service....Now there could have been many reasons to this. Maybe because it was outdated, maybe it was too big, too heavy, some inside compartments had trouble functioning with its weight, maybe it's size and cannon was unnecessary, it required too many people to man the tank. This is the type of tank the NC should have in my opinion, an unwanted or outdated tank that they found useful and adopted it. (I'm not saying they should get the worst, the T29 tank looks decent) And the prowler looks like the unwanted vehicle, its profile is high, it has 2 cannons which fire separately, crew doesn't look well protected, it looks like a failed design of an MBT but could be useful in some situations. And also with the Prowler I believe the secondary TR weapons should be switched with NC. Same story, the mini-gun, the rocket launcher that shoots all rockets at the same time seems unnecessary, compared to the single firing AT missile launcher (Enforcer) or the automatic grenade launcher (Boombox). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know the main trait of TR is to shoot fast, and NC hit hard, etc....but it doesn't have to strictly follow these rules. Like TR shoot fast! NC shoot slow! ... it sounds lame. I believe those unique traits should mainly apply to infantry, the most important branch of the army and slightly to the other weaponry, and vehicles. What do you think?
I don't think so. According to the lore the NC are largely backed by powerful corporations who would have the ability to provide the soldiers with professionally designed modern armour. As for the tanks themselves, the Vanguard is slow and heavy just like the NC's guns, while the Prowler is faster and better has an unmatched volume of fire for a MBT, which is more akin to their other weapons. At the very least factions should have consistency in their traits I think rather than the opposite for armour and infantry.
Yeah, but my point was that the armor was provided to NC because it was rejected to used by the TR, instead of scraping the tank it was sold to NC. I do not think the rebellion should have a more practical MBT than the empire. The Prowler doesn't even look like an MBT lol. The TR should get a real tank.
Sorry just wanted to add in that in my opinion the best tank in the game is the Vanguard, and the Lightening (price is too low). Especially this Lightening...It's so low to the ground and is very tough, it's fast...this should not be a 350 cost vehicle.
The Vanguard was NC’s prime tank since the first Planetside...... The tradition carried over into Planetside 2, but they nerfed the Prowler tank severly when they changed the anchoring for a more subpar utility called the barrage and the Prowler is pure garbage now. The develeopers are spending way to much on balance, instead of giving us more tank variants. There definitey is a shortage of tank choices, one lightning, one main battle tank, boring!
As has been pointed out, the NC are a mix of freedom fighting rebels and professionally-trained mercenaries. That and the fact that the Planetside war has been happening since 2845 (and long before that were living independently in underground cities) to at least 2859 means that there has been quite some time for the NC to produce their own industries. So lore-wise the NC could very well have better tanks than the TR (private corporations competitively bidding for contracts generally produce better designs than authoritarian regimes). In terms of aesthetics, the concept art for the Vanguard for PS2 was here: Part of the design is from the PS1 Vanguard, but as noted in the design documents there is a bit of a Soviet aesthetic to it. It's actually fairly similar to a T-14, for example. Comparisons to the M1 series of American tanks is also evident. In either case, the NC have a much more military aesthetic. The Prowler, on the other hand, was intended to be this: An overall sleeker design, with smoother edges and such. It ditched the twin guns of the PS1 Prowler for a faster-firing single autocannon. More emphasis on stealth than the Vanguard's toughness and survivability. Has a rear hatch (and possibly passenger capacity) like the Israeli Merkava tank and the stealth look of the (not real) Polish PL-01. However in the Prowler's case they decided not to go with the obviously better new design and instead used the older two-gunned model. In either case, you can see how magnificent PS2 tanks were supposed to be (anti-personnel close-in systems, point defense systems, automatic artillery fire) compared to the garbage that both tanks ended up being in the game. Agree with you completely...
Old Anchor: relatively little used. Niche ability for ranged sniping not useful in many scenario's. Like MAX Anchor it was likened to a suïcide button. Barrage: used by everyone and almost in every life of a Prowler tank. Useable in more situations. Easier to use. How is this a nerf to the Prowler? Aside from a few veterans the Prowler has become more lethal and capable for the average player in many more situations.
Traditional tanks are way different from what you make them out to be. They are cavalry, their main purpose is to assault a line of enemies, create a gap and while they hold that gap open the actual army rolls through in Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV's) and Armed Fighting Vehicles (AFV's). This because tanks are too expensive to buy, fuel, repair, arm and maintain compared to other vehicles. This is one of the reasons why America has more than 3x the IFV's+AFV's than it has tanks and that is exceptional as most countries will have dozens of times more IFV's+AFV's than it has tanks. And if you look at the amount of active vs reserve this difference only grows. But you never ask for actual combined arms in the form of IFV's, you only ask for tanks to insta-murder anything without really requiring any aim. Don't get me wrong, those two tanks look awesome and should be added (not replace!) immediately, but with reasonable stats. So no shells that can OHK half a building floor. No AI-controlled guns. Use that weapon stats we have currently, but with the weapons we see in the picture. Mortars, remote control machine guns for the driver, an ability to activate that active point defense for a short moment (especially cool as a gunner-controlled option), manual-airburst of the Vanguards V2 projectiles, concealable weapon systems on the Prowler V2 with ECM stuff to make it harder to detect etc. Don't forget that we need a Magrider V2 as well. This should come at a price: Current Vanguard, Prowler and Magrider also get some of these upgrades so they don't fall behind, and each of these tanks would be geared to a more specific role so you can get the choice between for example a speedy utility version and a heavy duty damage dealer. And let's not forget that we need more focus on IFV's to get that combined arms going and allow infantry to easily keep up and support tanks, or tanks to support infantry. Which supports the other constantly switches out in real life, so why should tanks become behemoths of ultra-destruction that don't need infantry right? But there's another price: Infantry needs to get stronger capabilities against vehicles. From just being able to obscure themselves and harder to hit to weapons that cost resources and can deal with tanks at any range. This should be balanced out that vehicles don't have ranges where they can safely sit and murder stuff with little consequences and have an easy time just driving out of effective range of infantry AV, but in turn all the bases would have their segregation walls removed so that vehicles can fight better alongside and against infantry without sitting outside and shelling.
Ah Chingles tank man, it has been a long time since you last posted here. Strange that the vanguard is described as having soviet design. It looks very much NATO style. If it could aim it's gun that high the gun breech would make a nice dent in the floor every time it fired. Prowler is described as having a burst fire 15cm gun, I wonder how they could fit the gun breech inside that turret. Modern ships with all their space can only fire 10 rounds per minute of the same caliber. Overall the tanks described in the concept art sounds more powerful than what we have in the game, which is the last thing players want.
By the power of nanites! The only way an ESF can carry multiple reloads for its rocketpods/hornets/main gun is in the form of nanites. They reform into ammo after the gun has emptied. This makes for a perfect method of loading ammo while requiring very little if no space (as proven with how rocketpods dont need any visiblw reloading equipment). The gun sizes would eaaily be adaptable, but we already know they are almost meaningless. In real life the Vanguard would be nigh invulnerable to the (current) Prowler and Magrider while being able to total the other vehicles in one or two hits. The Magrider would be ideal for bouncing shells but its plasma gun is going to be closer to a short-ranged HE shell no matter what version you pick as it'll lose its heat and cohesion and upon contact it would immediately explode. A smarter plasma shell would use a pressurised container, heat it up just before launch, have the shell impact and this impact causes a rupture which functions similar to a shaped charge penetrating a hull. Anyway, a 15cm gun wouldnt automatically be superior, and they could easily adapt it to be smaller. I would love to see the Prowler V2 design for an IFV model. It provides a quick mode of travel, the gun, mortars etc provide fire support and the stealth options can help it get around the battlefield unnoticed.
Wish they had made the Prowler look as in that concept art instead of the ugly short and wide thing we got in game.
Like I said, it does bear quite a few similarities to the newer T-14. I agree that it doesn't look much like a T-72 or T-90, largely due to the lack of a domed turret. But for starters the blocks of ERA on the front hull of the tank are much more Eastern bloc (Western tanks until recently have relied more on composite rather than reactive armour). Additionally the front of the tank turret has two "eyes", which are reminiscent of the Russian Shtora jamming system and are not usually found on Western tanks. Finally the integrated dozer blade is a feature found on T-72s and T-90s, and is not generally attached to most Western MBTs. So I'd say that it incorporates many more Eastern bloc features that until recently have not been found on many Western MBTs. Unless of course it's a low-pressure cannon like the 155mm ones on self-propelled guns. They really don't extend that far into the turret. And given the absolutely abysmal shell velocities in PS2, you probably aren't working with high-pressure rounds. Now if we assume that the breech is indeed longer, then a solution would be to only allow artillery mode in a fixed, non-rotating position. Perhaps there is a cutout deeper into the hull that would allow the tank to fire at a steeper angle. Or maybe it's one of those new fancy unmanned turrets that the Russians are testing out which would probably allow for a bit more space for the breech. The 155mm Archer artillery system is capable of firing 3 shells in 15 seconds. The older 155mm Bandkanon 1 could get 15 shells in 45 seconds. For some reason the Swedes really like fast-firing artillery (as it allows one vehicle to act as gun and rocket artillery). The trick is that all the shells were very close to the canon and already oriented in the same direction. On most naval ships, the ammunition was stored a bit away from the turret or under it and required an elevator to bring up ammunition. This was because of the fear that a detonation would wipe out the entire ship, whereas in a self-propelled gun the loss would be much less. So conceivably the new Prowler design could use a similar system, with three rounds ready to go and fired in rapid succession. Maybe even using a revolver system like the AMXs or M1 FASTDRAW. So who knows?
I'd love to see some combined arms fight! But how? That would need a big game redesign. My simple idea is to make all weapons (and maybe abilities) cost resources and make resources squad shared, expensive items will need to be approved by leader, give infantry long range powerful AT weapons, merge 3 territories into one to increase size of the battle and possibilities (remove some walls), remove Sunderer and Galaxy direct spawn. So the squad will have to prepare their weapons at their base and then after that they will head to battle with some transport vehicle, they purchased. If the squad loses tragically, they will lose a lot of power temporarily. In my opinion this will allow a tone of possibilities, like ambushing a convoy, flanking, etc. Instead of the boring redeploying/deploying we have currently and fighting constant waves. Like a lot more would need to be changed but this is just a simple plan.
