Why do i never see NC armor colums?

As Vs from Ceres most of the time I see NC zerging on ground or in reavers.
You very rarely see NC fighting battles which are equal numbers, only when its 10-1

Because they're hiding in their biolab.

On many servers NC are the underdogs. Tech Plants go down fast now. So in most cases NC lose the ability to spawn tanks from anywhere but the Warp gate. Ever driven a Vanny with that 1960s 3 speed transmission? Bringing a column up from the Warp gate is a pain and a slow endeavor rife with trouble.

So we go with a few Lightnings, Battle Busses, Reavers, Libs, and a mass of HA instead.

umm. Well i dont know what a hell devs done o NC, but in my opinion playing nc was good only first week, or two after release. Now its gettig worse and worse. Even after joining BIG outfit with centralized command. Vanguards is helpless against howering-fast-moveing Rock-jumper magriders ( i still think mags shoul be nefd in weaponary or speed ). Reaver is just a brick. Two things still saving Nc - snipers and Gaus saw i suppose=) And ofcourse - we a fiew , we are proud and we kick as// to both tr/vs just becouse we are stubborn freedomfigters !!!!

On Connery, NC runs armor a -lot-, especially when making pushes.

This is a very interesting topic because I've indeed seen so little Vanguard columns out there - the only time I've seen a larger NC column was probably less than 3 times, and it was when I was playing NC on Genudine and ADK had something going on probably. I find myself rolling far less as NC with a tank of any sort... yet most of my TR playing time and kills have been from the Prowler and to a lesser extent the Lightning sees its duty share.

Vanguard is just like piloting a lump of brick, before I can get anywhere it will likely already be capped. NC do roll quite a few suicidecycles though... I find even NC Sunderers are less commonplace.

On SolTech I've seen a few Vanguards usually pushing out of their warpgate on Indar, but they can't compare in the least bit to the Magzerger storm that Vanu throws out at TR all the time. Meantime we usually start with a large force of Prowlers in the north, make our way down the NC side, and by the time we get to The Stronghold, the whole zerg is likely to be blown to bits by then. Most TR offensives down the east side of the map ends there.

I've started to fly more - its just much quicker to get to a big juicy base cap for XP.

On our server we never seem to have air superiority, As such you drive out and get blown to bits from either libs or esf. It's not fun.

According to our pilots they nerfed the Reaver somehow. Ever since the GU1 patch it is a pain to get them to fly. Something about it being a 'brick' or something. I do not fly so I cannot comment, but I have noticed that there are very few Reavers in the skies these days. Really that is the only problem to me. Not that there are 20 Libs in the skies from the enemy side.. but rather, a lack of Reavers from our side knocking them out.

Everyone's going Burster Max to combat the air horde. It's a better tactical move considering the skies are always choked with Mosquitos and Scythes.

Rolling a tank in that situation is going to get you instagibbed. You need air superiority to run a good tank column.

Because half the tech plants are placed in relatively disadvantageous locations/have awkward layouts for the NC to hold them effectively for the majority of time?

One of the reasons (not the only one but one of them) is that we barely ever own anything outside of our warpgate on 2 out of 3 continents. Once you lose the first couple of tanks you cant spawn another for over 2 hours, because we're only getting about 18 mech resources every 5 minutes!!....

Our techplants are both right next to enemy territory, and half of the time we don't have acces to it at all.
On Esamir it's even worse.

So yeah, we can't pull Vanguards out of every facility and our tank is horribly slow and can't get up a slight incline without slowing down to a crawl.
So most NC rather just get a lightning or an ESF.

Because one Vanguard is enough.

Air is still too powerful, and unless you've a good combined arms outfit protecting your Empires tanks one or two liberators end the tank column as the Libs can bomb from outside of retaliation distance. Also it's starting to look like less and less peeps playing NC, at least on my servers. Which suits me fine, more target .

There are TONS of NC tanks...unfortunately they're all lost in the canyons outside their warpgate on Indar.

On Jaeger, most Vanguard drivers don't seem to know how to field a tank properly.

I often see Vanguards fall to close-quarters surprises or get shot from behind because people can't figure out that there just maybe might be more to driving a tank then just charging the enemy with it.

They also seem to use the Vanguard as an anti-infantry weapon. I use my Vanguard almost entirely as a vehicle destroyer - I actually AVOID infantry in one because multiple heavy rockets can be unpleasant in such a slow vehicle. I seem to be in the minority in this regard.

Well it's easy to understand when you know that NC are mostly kids that play COD so they aren't used to tanks.

I just met a vanguard on my heavy assault right now, he was alone and he thought "LOL ILL SPAWN CAMP THIS NOOB VS AND KILL EVERYTIME HE RESPAWNS"

So with my superior intellect I went out of the back door as a newly spawned heavy assault as I saw him coming, then went behind him, he still did not see me because NC have a IQ of 1.

Then I fired TWO rockets into his rear engine armour and boom he died.
Then I got called a hacker by him.

NC at their best.

NC are insurgents, Rebels. As others have said it attracts people who aren't looking for organised play (exceptions ofcourse exist). Personally I much prefer harassing with a small ground of Light Assaults behind enemy lines, laying C4 down etc. All that gureilla stuff.

on helios the vanu seem to have taken a liking to our techplant and after the change to the shield generators it is no longer feasible to defend it. so the usual thing going on there is let the vanu take it, and then try to take it back. but at night the vanu have upwards of 40-50% of the servers population.

not to mention driving a vanguard is like trying to tow a shipping container through a desert roped to a forklift.
not to mention the vast quantities of anti tank mines people love to throw all over the canyons.

also, with the average helios NC's mechanized resource holdings it can take around an hour to recoup the amount of resources that it takes to make a vanguard.

id never pull a vanguard against a mag anyways. lightnings are so much more capable of taking one down atleast in my hands.