Bring back the Skyguard Assault buggy

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by OneShadowWarrior, Oct 26, 2020.

  1. OneShadowWarrior

    Get rid of the lightning as skyguard and bring back the original skyguard assault buggy from the original Planetside please.

    It had flak and a alternating fire 12mm gun and it was light and fast and had some guts. Lightning as AA for skyguard pure trash, you have better chances hitting with AP or HEAT rounds in a tank.
    • Up x 3
  2. ican'taim

    For those who don't know what it looks like, here's a video:


    Skip to 1:50
  3. ican'taim

  4. Liewec123

    i'll take anything over the current skyguard.
    currently a walker ant is so much better and also way cheaper.
    • Up x 1
  5. Exileant

    :confused: I do not know why you all feel this way? The Skyguard on the Lightning is amazing with a CAPITAL A. I mean maxed it can shred anything sky worthy. o_O The buggy seems redundant especially since you can place a ranger on just about everything. It DID look neat though. Now a repeater or a Basilisk on a Lightning, SURE, that would be fun, but you do not need all of that on a car. You would singlehandedly make everything else redundant. :D And I would abuse that.... WILDLY.
  6. Demigan

    Rather than delete the Skyguard we should simply add stuff. Why not add a Skyguard buggy? We kinda have one already in the Ranger Harasser.
    Or we could change the root of the problem: AA is deliberately designed to be crap. The literal reasoning behind it at launch was that if players couldnt properly defend themselves with G2A weapons they would invest themselves in aircraft to protect themselves and their allies. This has horribly failed as the A2A mechanics are badly balanced making it hard for 90% of the players to enjoy or get into and the Devs have seen fit to add anti-newb mechanics and weapons into the game to discourage joining the air even more. Not to mention how G2A weapons are unrewarding to use, become obsolete the moment aircraft go away without the option to know when or even if another aircraft might be along and if enough G2A is available its not even a fun obstacle for the aircraft to try to overcome as there's only two ways to avoid G2A fire: dont be seen or fly away in a straight line.

    We need to entirely reshape G2A weapons, the minimum of their capabilities needs to be:

    - multi-role weapon. Once aircraft are gone a G2A weapon needs to be able to do something to ground forces. It could be an AI weapon, an AV weapon with specific targets (like Harassers) or a support weapon that for example deals low damage but creates a light concussion-grenade effect on vehicles to help their allies.

    - two types of ammunition/firing mechanics need to be available. One is for engaging light and small aircraft, one is for larger airceaft. Each ammo type should give the aircraft some way of avoiding the shots (unless they are very close range).
    Best option would be to allow an AA gun to swap between these two settings at will so you arent useless when a different aircraft shows up.

    - stop having ultra-easy hits at the cost of overall DPS. Flak detection range should not be 8m (its AOE can still be 8+m). Lock-ons shouldnt be fire-and-forget. This way you can up the damage and reward G2A for hits, but aircraft have also the option of escaping an G2A barrage entirely unscathed... or be a burning wreck.
    Basic rule of thumb: the harder it is to hit the aircraft at any range, the more damage it'll do. The easier it is the less damsge it'll do.


    And thats about it. There's plenty of ways to do this, for example by changing flak shells into airburst shells that spray shrapnel forwards when the flak detects an aircraft nearby (check 1:30, it shows an anti-infantry airburst but modern AA uses similar concepts):


    Such a flak shell would reward accuracy: closer to the center more shrapnel hits, closer to the edge and eventually no shrapnel hits.

    Such a concept could already be applied to a lot of weapons. An airburst flak shell, rocket, laser-guided missile like the AV turret and even an A2A weapon system on for example the Valkyrie.

    Normal flak could still be used, but with a massively decreased detection range. If the flak detection range is anywhere between 0.5 and 2m it would make this type of flak a support in hitting a target. Currently flak has a whopping 8m detonation range. If an aircraft was a 0.1m dot then you would still have a sphere of 16m across to hit it! That's one-and-a-half Sunderer lengths on top of the size of the aircraft! Small wonder flak damage and accuracy is made so debilitating.

    You can also add ammo with a light Coyote-style locking mechanism, but with less agile missiles. It would increase accuracy but wouldnt mean an automatic hit just because the shot got close to the target.

    Oher concepts could be an auto-canon similar to the Saron, Enforcer and/or Viper. Something that shoots several shots full-auto and can have accuracy problems with sustained fire.

    You can also introduce modified aircraft noseguns. No one would complain if the Lightning and Harasser for example could use a nosegun against aircraft right?

    And there's also abilities you can introduce. A weapon designed to create a Light concussion effect on aircraft could prevent easy escapes, assuming you can hit the target. Long-duration protective shields that dont stop bullets, but prevent airceaft from looking down and spotting where the target is, creating decoys and mirror-images and other deceptive or defensive measures.

    Mix-and mash these concepts together and you've got several dozen different weapons available. An auto-canon that fires lightly guided missiles with a flak warhead? A dumbfire flak rocketlauncher mounted on a tank? A Viper-style canon with an airburst flak warhead? An Saron-style weapon that needs direct hits? All with a fast and nimble feature for their ammo to deal with mainly ESF and a slow and unagile feature for their ammo to deal with larger aircraft.
    • Up x 2
  7. Haquim

    You're talking too much sense I think.

    I don't really see the need for additional tools though, its just that those that we have don't work in a way that makes the game satisfying.

    ESFs for example should be hardhitting glasscannons relying on maneuverability to survive in my opinion
    Instead we got those annoying pests that take 3 rockets to destroy while actually not being that dangerous.
    They should have the ability to wipe out a squad in 5 seconds, while being evaporated by skyguards in one - or one G2A rocket hit.

    And the skyguard simply needs a secondary fire mode that enables it to shred light to medium armored ground units - infantry, flashes, sunderers and harassers. Especially harassers.

    The vehicle play is generally effed up imo.
    I originally loved the game for the combined arms aspect it had.
    Today I only see vehicles serve 3 purposes:
    1. Destroy sunderers or protect them from vehicles that try to.
    2. Be a sunderer.
    3. Be part of a zerg that shells every door the underpopped faction might use.

    I can't even remember when I've last seen an AI(HE) tank.
  8. T.A.94

    I would suggest to run a Walker harasser/ANT instead of the Skyguard.

    Also off topic: There is apparently a A7 lightning weapon, called L20 Anaconda in the works. Someone discovered it while datamining and the quirk of this weapon is you get a heavy mashine gun + tank shells applying damage and the havoc debuff.
    • Up x 1