[Suggestion] Battle Tank Changes

(Sorry previous thread was posted by mistake, this is complete post)

I wish to discuss about a complete revamp of the gameplay for tanks in the game. This is based on my personnal real life experience with vehicule weapons and my knowlegde as I'm an armor designer, so far for aircraft and light armorer vehicules (less than 30T).
I will also consider that planetside 2 universe is supposed to have a far more advanced technology.

1- Muzzle velocity

Muzzles velocities are very very low in this game (250-275 m/s )
120mm real HEAT ammunition, depending on the weapon has about 1100 m/s volocity and a 2500-3000 m effective range.
BUT as planetside 2 is a game, involving fighting distance of 500m or less instead of 3000m. 1100 x 500 / 2500 = 220 m/s. So the scale is good.

This was just to be clear. Muzzle velocities are scaled on in-game distances. So it's fine.

2- Ammunitions

HEAT rounds seems to be balanced. They are Anti TANK (AP) rounds using an explosive to create a jet. For example a 70mm RPG pierce arround 400mm of armor steel. The side effect is that the ammunition have a blast effect so it is right that HEAT rounds can be used against tank and infantry.

AP rounds. As I said, a HEAT round is an AP round (main purpose). So, I think AP round are actually APFSDS rounds. Basically a 1m long metal darts travelling at 1500m/s.
I suggest a change on AP rounds, in order to fit the real behavior of an APFSDS round:

- increase muzzle velocity by +25m/s and no blast effects.

HE rounds are supposed to be fuzed rounds. I suggest to:

- make it work as AA flaks. Explosion center at 1m from target and so, no direct damages, only blast damages.

- I also recommend to make HE rounds, cannister rounds: HE rounds filled with metallic balls or cubes (nasty ones). The main effect is that HE round should be able to do blast damages on light vehicules such as offensers and slight damages on top armor off heavy armored vehicules. (and no damages on front and side armor)

The aim here is to make ammuntions more realistic.

3 - Guns.

Ammuntion loading, specially if you have advanced nano tech is really not an issue. However heat is still a technical issue.

- So i suggest to change reloading system by heat management system. Every level of cert line should make heat management better.

(secondary suggestion: after a shot, maximum heat is reached but you are still able to shoot. However, you have a large chance to see the ammunition explode into the barrel and blow your own tank!)

A gun is not made to be ammunition specific. All guns on battle tanks can handle most of ammunitions (same caliber).
I suggest to:

- change HEAT - AP - HE barrels for a cert line that unlock AP or HE rounds.

- AP round increase damages and muzzle velocity but at cost of a lower rate of fire. Largely increase CoF.

- HE round change damages to blast only damages at a cost of lower muzzle velocity but slightly increased rate of fire.

Here again, the aim is to make the game more realistic, considering that every ammunitions has its own properties (AP rounds have an increased chamber pressure for example)

4- Ammunition pool

Modern tanks are equiped with autoloading systems. An autoloader can carry 12 large caliber ammuntion in a light vehicule to 24-30 ammuntions in heavy armored vehicules. Ammuntion slot are numbered so you can carry for example 6 HEAT rounds, 4 HE and 2 APFSDS. Then you can select which ammo you want to load into the gun.

- Choice should be given to the player to carry only one or several kind of ammunitions.

Exemple:

- I can carry 20 HEAT rounds or 20 AP or 20 HE. (need AP and HE to be unlocked)

- HEAT and AP unlocked: i can choose between carrying 16 HEAT + 4 AP or 16 AP + 4 HEAT

- HEAT+AP+HE unlocked: I can carry 12 + 4 + 4 rounds.

- Changing loaded ammo type trigger x2 reload time.

This point should have more effect on the game balance. If you find yourself in front of an AP tank and you only have HE round in store, actually, you are dead. The aim here is to give you a small chance to fight back a little (considering the ammunition change time, ennemy still have the upper hand).

5- AIM system

Every mounted weapon is equiped with a ballistic calculator that make the calculation to shoot with a pin point accuracy (actually a MBT can shoot a 120mm round in a 1m circle at 3km).
I suggest to:

- introduce a 3 second lock-on like system on vehicules: ballistic calculation. The system will not make the round follow the locked target. It will decrease the CoF of the weapon to 0, after 3 sec. The more you wait, the more accurate will the gun be. On a fully locked vehicule, the system will predict vehicule mouvement giving you 100% hit chance.

-new cert line to reduce the calculation time. same slot as the reload speed improvement.

- you still can shoot without ballistic calculation but at cost of a cone of fire.

- ballistic calculation can only be made on ground vehicules

The point here is also realism but it would have a huge effect on gameplay. Should I take time to give proper aim but exposing me for several seconds to ennemy fire?
The point here is to keep a nervous gameplay at short range, considering the CoF of each ammunitions, and have a more exposing gameplay at long range. (to land a long range shot I have to use the ballistic calculator but i reveal myself)
If you choose to use vehicule stealth, it will give you time to come closer to the ennemy tank that is trying to get you from the top of nearby hill and fight back. Or maybe you will use the IR smoke to escape this situation but you will be exposed to HA's rpgs.
Tank crew is supposed to be a 2-3 man crew, with a driver, gunner and officer (in 3 man crew). Even with advanced technology it is more unlikely that the same person can shoot accurately and drive the tank.

6- light tanks

I dont see the point of having larger caliber (100mm) mounted on light tanks especially with no effect on the vehicule speed.
I suggest to:

- Change L100 Python guns for a 30-40mm automatic gun

- This new weapon shoot 5 AP ammo burst.

- Gun damages should be close to liberator's shredder characteristics.

this is a very well thought out comparison between science fiction, and reality.

that said i agree with 1, and 2.

I hope they get to notice this. Where are the smoke rounds and flair rounds. You make me miss again planetside1 inventory system.

Good ideas overall, but the problem is your lack of consideration to the VS's MBT, the Magrider.

Higher velocity negates the Magriders passive ability, strafing.

Assisted aim also negates the Magrider's strafe.

Wait, what is Magburn?

I view strafing as a side benefit of running a Magrider. No other tank has a turbo boost, you ought to keep that in mind.

That's the point of: choose between accurate shot but being exposed and deal with CoF. As Magrider get better mobility, it should come closer to ennemy tanks and burst them.

I said Passive m8, not active.

Prowler gets higher speed and absurd DPS as it's passive. Vanguard gets highest velocity and higher armor as it's passive. Magrider gets strafing as it's passive.

Active for the Prowler is Lockdown, NC is WINShield, Magrider gets turbo(Not that useful when compared to the other two. What other tank actually gets to choose "hm, do I go FS or Shield..."?).

So at close range, the CoF is made irrelevant and the Magrider looses due to inferior DPS/utility/armor.

At long range, the other tanks can nullify the Magrider's strafe and still win with superior DPS/utility/armor.

I guess we ought to put this up next for our wishlist, Maggy's been due for another visit from the Nerfhammer for some time.

As Vanu use plasma weapons, it does not seems strange to make VS weapons damages depending on distance, and so give VS a better damage at close range.

I should have talk about empire technology as well. A plasma is just a hot gaz state. Throwing plama balls is likely to suffer great lose of effect with distance. (as heat is transmitted to the air)

NC is supposed to use electromagnetic propulsion as weapons. The actual muzzle velocity of a gauss gun (it does exist now) is about 10km/s and 10-12km effective range . In game scaled muzzle velocity, vanguard ammo should have 500m/s MV at least to fit the science behind hit (based on our actual science, not the nano-advance-tech they are supposed to have !).
However a gauss gun can use only canon balls as ammunitions. (well as the energy of impact is related to velocity², it doesnt need explosive to get the same effect on impact)

So, to be precise on the science point of view, VS should have short range very effective weapons that melt armor is seconds.
NC should have very long range weapons with very high muzzle velocity but slow fire rate and limited to one kind of ammo: canon balls...

Yeah, I think I wrote that before I was through with my coffee.

I suppose it comes from me always looking at the harasser turbo as being its "passive" ability.

Though for being aggressive, magburner is hard to beat. So many people act as if they have to buy the nanites before using them, and hoard their tanks like Smaug.

What do you mean? The Magrider would still be able to strafe.

the science point of view. theres a reason you cant put a true to life railgun on a tank.


you need a train sized tank to house the power planet, and even if you put one on a vanguard it would rip the tank apart on the first shot

i see what you mean tho, and this is ofcourse a video game, but this is why it doesnt make sense to compare to real life science.

if you could put a true rail gun on anything in PS2, heavy armor would be pointless

I guess that if you manage to build warpgates, insta-build entire galaxies and more important get shields that protect from bullets, you have the power source strong enough to power a rail gun.

A rail gun is just a very efficient way to give a projectile massive kinetic energy. Impact above 1500-2000m/s is hydrodynamic, at this level of energy material behave like fluids.
A HEAT round produce a metal (mostly copper) jet at 10 km/s and a 120mm HEAT round can easily penetrate nearly 1m of steel. Depth of penetration is linked to the mass and density of the projectile (so bigger the stronger) in a 120mm HEAT round the jet is only a few kg of copper, if you have a rail gun that throw a 150mm diameter projectile, assuming is a steel ball, weight 76 kg.
As kinetic energy KE =1/2 x M x V², a 76kg ball at 10km/s is 3.8 GJ. So the ennemy receive 3.8GJ in a 150mm diameter. 3.8J joule is like a weight of 380 000 tons....

I'm telling you, even with nano tech it will be hard to defeat that threat.

be that as it may this is a video game, not some combat simulator... what fun could you have if everything killed everything in one shot.

thats what youre suggesting.

I like the idea of 4 and hope they see that

That's not my point. PS2 is still a game and have to be fun. maybe nano tech manage to protect such a huge power weapon.
NC already have weapon with better damage and slower fire rate.

In tank vs. tank battles, it would be nullified though, so it's the same as it not existing in the first place.

It would be like if the other tanks had enough armor to equalize TTK, but the other tanks still had their advantages(Which already happens, but just not as badly).

I'm going to respond in parts... because it's a massive post.

I would agree with this if all other weapons were reduced in velocity in the same proportion as tank cannons.

But they are not.

Let's take the Prowler's 120mm AP round. It's probably pretty similar to the 120mm M829A3 round that we currently use.
Prowler AP- 250m/s
M829A3 AP- 1,555m/s

So that represents a 83.9% reduction in AP velocities. Ok, whatever. Range compression.

How are infantry weapons "range compressed"?

Consider the KSR-35's 7x65 cartridge when compared to the 7mm Remington Magnum (7x64).
KSR-35- 500m/s
7mm Remmy Mag- 950m/s

Which is a 47.4% velocity reduction.

So why is it, that in the same range-compressed environment tank weapons receive a 84% reduction while infantry weapons only get a 47% reduction?

If things were "fair", then you would either see Prowler AP shells going ~820m/s (if tanks were treated like infantry) or the KSR-35 shooting a ~155m/s bullet (if infantry were treated like tanks).

I mean the craziest thing is that infantry rifle rounds are somehow faster than tank rounds. That's absurd. Everyone knows that tank projectiles generally travel much more quickly than the small arms an infantryman can carry.

So for starters, buff tank velocities such that they are proportionally range compressed to infantry.

HEAT should have a more significant blast effect than what it has now. Currently 120mm Prowler HEAT has a 5m maximum blast radius, and even if it lands right next to infantry it won't kill them.

This is what 120mm HEAT does:



The M830A1 can do fairly well against infantry. It's also fused to take down helicopters. Makes more sense to use HEAT than HE for this.

As explained above, a +570m/s increase for AP is more reasonable.

HEAT plays the AA role, not HE.

Modern HE includes tungsten balls for air burst dispersal, allowing HE to do lethal damage to infantry over a wide area. Real 120mm HE can kill 80% of infantry in a 4,250 sqm area in just two shots.



Again, range compression means that you could reduce this to a 2,000 sqm area to be fair. For a circle, that means a OHK radius of about 25m, which presents a great increase over the current Prowler HE cannon (which as it is can't indirectly OHK infantry at any range).

Guns are at a point where you can introduce real customization in tanks.

First, guns should be tied to nanite cost. Want to take an undergunned 105mm Prowler out there? Well it's going to be cheaper! Want to upgun your Prowler with a 140mm monster? It's going to take all your nanites, but maybe it's worth it!

And yes, they did make a prototype M1 tank with a 140mm gun.



Second, even with the same calibre of tank guns, you can still have variation. Take the 120mm NATO standard. The British use a rifled gun, which isn't so great with most HEAT but can specialize in HE. This might tie into the changes you have suggested. You also have the American L/44 and the German L/55, a longer version of the L/44. The German one achieves better velocity and really has no downsides, but for "balancing" maybe we give it stronger recoil or something.

Last, ammunition is still a part of most of PS2 except for the VS and oddly enough some NS weapon systems. From a gameplay advantage, ammunition also can dictate the flow of a battle and rewards teams that brought along Sunderer logistical support. Maybe the VS Magrider could have a heat-based model instead of using ammunition.

While I pretty much agree with this one, I think the longer TTKs for tanks will create a problem.

IRL if you are caught with a canister shell and you are ambushed by an AP/HEAT tank, you're in trouble. This is because you will probably be dead/disabled before you can change out your ammunition.

But in PS2 tanks can take quite a few hits from even AP. This means that being caught unprepared isn't as bad (it's still bad).

So I'd think this was a good idea, just might need fine-tuning.