A Discussion on the Potential Role of Walkers in PS2

...Damm!

The primary issue with your post and your proposition is that you ask that we ignore that you propose this to be a mech - you want that to be a fact, just because. I can only assume the reason this can't be a tracked, low-hulled tank with a SAM battery on top is because cool-factor.

I disagree with mechs on principle. Anything a mech can do a tracked vehicle can do more cheaply, in a smaller frame, a faster base operating speed, less complicated design and frankly, given the setting, do it in a more believable manner.

The whole debate about having a single-purpose large-scale AA vehicle is completely separated from the argument about if it should be a mech or not, and at that point this whole tread has a massively misleading title. You want "A Discussion on the Potential Role of Walkers in PS2" but you don't actaully want to discuss that. I disagree.

Frankly this would be a better idea:

Introduce 3 new vehicles, each unique to their faction.

VS get a hovering medium-sized tank with some kind of plasma-based weapon on it, say, some kind of plasma flak artillery, shooting huge spheres of the stuff into the air that explodes when in proximity to aircraft for damage. Or something. It's endowned with medium speed, but side-to-side movement options.

NC get a far slower, medium-sized tracked vehicle that is bulky but much more durable, with laser-guided missiles on top. Same as with the VS these explode into shrapnel when close to enemy aircraft, but these trade the slowest ROF and the slowest flight-speed for it's guided ability, meaning that it's easier to hit a target, and they do the most damage because ::NC:: and the magazine is low and has a slow reload.

TR get a medium-sized vehicle with 4 wheels on each side, it is the least armored but fastest vehicle and mounts, say, a quad AA chaingun of some sorts that require manual aiming and does low damage, but the magazine is huge, reload is fast and the individual bullet damage... is laughable. This would be a massively spammy weapon, highest ROF and projectile speed of all, but require direct hits. It compensates for this with a massive volume of fire.

All of these would require two players to operate, a driver and a gunner, just like a Harasser, all would cost the same as an MBT and have the same pull-requirements as an MBT, ergo warp-gate or Tech-plant, so you have to chose what you want, and none of them could be able to aim lower than a specific degree to make it hard to use these against ground targets. This might also be used by pilots who can fly low towards the ground on approaches, accepting more risk from other AA options and crashes, trading this risk for making it hard for a dedicated AA battery from hitting them very easily.

Obviously these are suggestions I came up with on the fly just now, but honestly not only would something, anything, like this be more in-line with the current PS2 setting flavor (slightly more realism than PS1, whom was a soft sci-fi setting with mechs) but it would introduce more faction-specific vehicles. These 3 could be balanced towards each other to have comparable effectiveness at their jobs while being very different weapon systems.

I am still unconvinced. And looking over your original post again, im even less so now. First, any vehicle, including a dedicated AA vehicle, is going to be pretty easy prey for literally anything in range if its sitting ontop of a mounttain with no cover. Unless this walker has some seriously tough armor, libs and even ESF's will rip it apart. Ignoring the lib though, sitting on top of hill when running a skyguard is often suicide as you attract fire from ground vehicles like MBTs. And speaking of faction teamwork, one of the most common targets for tankers is skyguards to help out their friendly pilots in the air. Sitting on a mountain makes their job much easier. I never sit on top of hills, im usually using cover of some sort for exactly these reason, and this would make the "walking" aspect worthless. Infact, this is one thing that makes burster MAX's almost as capable as the skyguard, because its very easy to hide inside buildings where the aircraft cannot get at you.

Second, you have designed the missles to be much more effective against libs and gals. Fine, but what makes you think good AA gunners wont be able to take out ESF's as well? MBT gunners can already defend themselves pretty well against ESF's with their main gun, which lacks any sort of lock on mechanic or even proper amount of elevation. I forsee the weapon system itself becoming massively OP against air.

TBH ive alway wanted just something like a purpose-built skyguard. Better top armor, worse front armor, air detecting radar, other certs geared toward AA duty (many of the lightning's upgrades are not exactly suitable), andadaquate anti-infantry capability but less AV defense. I doubt Daybreak will give us what either of us wants though.

Maybe Empire-specific AA main guns for MBT? >_>

Walkers for Artillery, with anti infantry and aircraft attachment weapons!

no, NC calls


And


Hell, while you're at it replace the vanguard with this:

The only conceivable role for a mech in this game would be climbing steeper hills, which a Turbo Harasser already does Better, and Faster while requiring 2 ppl to crew it which also sidestepped the problematic PS1 reality of BFR's. And technically we already had BFR's but we just call it a MAX instead....

Personally I love Mechs but they have to have a game-world built around them for them to work because they're too Impractical on their own.

NC call this


and TR call this

I'm not going to lie, walkers sound cool. You're also very much right, OP. Mechs have been a long-time discussion, and a lot of people are hesitant or downright against them because of the BFR fiasco with Planetside 1.
A few others like to complain about how unrealistic and impractical a walker could be as well, which is a dumb argument. Planetside has always been a sci-fi game, and no amount of hover-tanks or rails placed on Vanu laser weapons will ever convince me that the game is meant to be grounded and realistic. Besides that, bi-pedal machines are perfectly practical. A walking machine that can traverse difficult terrain, walk over things that'd block tanks, and engage from multiple directions with its elevated viewpoint? Sounds perfectly practical to me, though I doubt DBG would ever add something like mechs into the game. That'd require modeling, coding, and effort to make a whole new type of vehicle.

If you want walkers in the game though, discuss walkers. Not AA that just so happens to be in a non-tracked quadruped form. I think it's possible, personally. The issue in PS1 was a bit more than the fact they were overpowered, it was that they gave all that power to a single player depending on the model. Back in the original game, almost every vehicle was meant for more than one person. Vanguards? Prowlers? Magriders? They had a driver and a gunner. The Lightning was a lightly-armored one man tank that was best used as an escort or in large groups, it couldn't pose a huge problem by its lonesome. Basically, teamwork was key. A BFR on the other-hand? They were one to two-man walking monstrosities with built-in shields. The one-man variant could even fly for a short period of time. You can't give someone that kind of power and expect it to be balanced.

My personal favorite kind of walker were the Battle Walkers in Battlefield 2142. They weren't massively overpowered, they were effective at engaging infantry and aircraft, though other vehicles like tanks still presented a very real threat.



If you want to add a mech in the game, make it like those things. Offensive vehicles that are somewhere between a Lightning and a MBT in stats.

give me a jumping spider walker tank with shotguns where the fangs would be the special ability would be its leap much like a magburner this would be a squishy tank maby more expensive than a harasser but just as squshy but can get to many places and if i need too jump my happy *** into low flying aircraft why? because **** them thats why