[Suggestion] Deployed sunderer's and tank mines

I'm not whining about them ... I think I'm 200 or so kills away from the medal. I think the kills are divided between tanks and sunderers though (and a few unlucky flashes).

You can check them in game. 200 away from Auraxium means you've got at least a good 200 Sundy kills.

I agree with this suggestion. Currently, mines are way more useful than C4 which needs to be triggered. I would be ok with someone having to shoot the mines they drop to explode them, at least that would make C4 be almost on par with mines. Though even 2 C4 won't fully destroy a sundy at full health compared to one mine doing that very thing. Not too mention just logic of a mine exploding a vehicle that isn't even moving.

Only if we're talking about WW1 mines. Even WW2 had some mines with proximity fuses. Not to mention that soldiers were trained to throw mines at vehicles.

C4 is more versatile. Mines can only be used effectively vs ground based vehicles, since air based ones trigger them but apparently are resistant to them.

Imagine the uproar if a general purpose explosive (C4) would be more effective against vehicles compared to a specialised one (AT mines). Since we are not given enough mines to create minefields (with the explosive pouch each engineer can place 2 stacks of mines), the current implementation is the best compromise, imo.

Are you sure the game tracks kills by type? I'll check it this evening, but I think it only track (or shows) amount of kills, accuracy etc. Not the amount of detail you're implying.

Get Mineguard, or ****. Useless troll post.

It doesn't list them as kills at all, but it will still take a kill required for the medal off of it. I'm just saying that 200 is something I am sitting at and this takes a lot of time to do. I'd be really surprised if someone else really had that many kills with AT mines as well.

IIRC it take THREE c4 to blow a sundie. 2 C4 will leave it heavily damaged, but not outright destroyed.

Part of it is that everything else that could replace AMS is pretty situational, so a lot of people are deploying without the proper setup for it. Shield Defuser is practically a gimmick strat and requires decent coordination and teamwork for it to do anything of value (I know a few people that used it to get inside the shield at the bottom of Bio Labs for lawlz - how pointless doing that actually is should say something about Shield Defuser overall). Fire Suppression could be useful if you're a battle sunderer driving around with two gunners actively engaging targets. The Sunderer has enough health/is so tanky that the fire suppression heal can actually be noticeable. Smoke appears to basically be a worse version of what tanks get on an even longer cooldown.

So 90% of Sunderers are probably running AMS, leading to people that are deployed with half a spec.

Vehicle ammo may give you nice supply exp, but it doesn't do squat to increase your AMS effectiveness and an ammo sundy shouldn't be the frontline spawn Sunderer anyway as friendly vehicles will withdraw to repair, which is about where you'd want ammo resupply to be at. It's an okay backup Sunderer so your push isn't completely stopped if the front Sunderer is destroyed, but vehicle ammo shouldn't be on the primary spawn Sunderer. Vehicle repair sunderers are even more niche and also shouldn't be close to the action if deployed (and should probably using something else besides AMS as they're more likely to need to be following moving vehicles to repair on the go).

Stealth is of limited use to a deployed Sunderer, mainly in smaller group situations (easier for infantry to get close with C4/mines/rockets as well, though) and is practically worthless in a high traffic environment where the stream of spawning infantry is giving away the general location anyway.

Blockade armor is basically the top/side/front armor of a tank combined into one slot, with a rear armor boost thrown in because hey, why not? Tanks would love to have their armor options all rolled into one cert line, but instead get three options and no way to shore up their rear armor weakness. Their armor does nothing to mines as well, because there needs to be some weakness to the "take less damage" option. With no blockade armor, 2 C4 will not kill a Sunderer from full and give time to repair it. With or without max blockade armor, 3 C4 will kill a Sunderer from full to dead. If the deployed Sunderer is unattended (already asking for it to be killed), you'll have a better chance of making a lone HA run out of rockets... but I've had one run out without killing my Sunderer with no ranks of blockade. If there's an Engineer (or a few) repairing the Sunderer, they can outheal a lot of damage anyway. If it's taking enough sustained damage for the reduction of blockade to really matter, the Sunderer is either way too far forward or the rest of your forces are failing to protect and keep enemies away from it. Adding another Engineer to repair will do more for the Sunderer's survival than Blockade armor will generally do.

Blockade is much better if you're actively driving around with gunners fighting stuff, as the extra shots absorbed from vehicles/HA/etc before you can get to safety and repair can make the difference, though you still have to be wary of mines like anyone else without mine guard (IR on one or both guns can help spot them, to an extent). Synergizes well with Fire Suppression for that role, too. Make one of the gunners an AA MAX for added fun if ESFs harass you. You might even be able to be cheeky and jump out and repair while your gunners shoot at vehicles. I've noticed that I get out of my ESF at the same location each time and imagine vehicles are similar but haven't tested yet - if so you can park in a way that you will exit on the far side with your Sunderer between you and the enemy vehicle and then repair your wall you can be even tankier while your gunners do damage.

Mine guard not only prevents you from dying to random mines in the road (perhaps denying those juicy 12/12 Sundy kills Engineers crave), it stops one of the most common (and deadly) methods of taking out a deployed Sunderer - and it stops it cold for a fraction of the cert cost. If your Sunderer is pulled from a vehicle terminal with the intention of primarily being a spawn point/infantry transport between bases, Mine Guard is a very strong pick. Unless you run away and leave your Sunderer's lifespan up to fate and the whims of teammates' ability to notice damage and repair it, you should be able to react to most other damage sources quickly enough outside of taking overwhelming firepower (which will kill the Sunderer no matter what it has equipped).


People should be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of loadouts and use their Sunderer accordingly. If they're not specializing, they shouldn't be shocked if someone takes advantage of weaknesses.



If the devs wanted to stop mines from being used on stationary Sunderers, they'd basically have to make it impossible to deploy them within a certain radius of enemy vehicles. It's very easy to put three bullets into them to detonate them if they don't automatically blow up. I did it once on a Sunderer in a weird spot. C4 directly on it wouldn't detonate/damage it and the Mines didn't explode, so I eventually shot the mines (died and made my way back to it over multiple lives) to kill the Sunderer.

As people have said, the current deploy limit is so low it's hard actually use mines in the way people conventionally think of them. Engineers have to invest an enormous amount of certs past the initial investment just to be a threat to two vehicles instead of one. It's also impractical to run out after the enemy has arrived at most bases to replace mines without it being considered a *****. Having the deploy limit being a multiple of the number of mines that can be carried (so with the default 2 mines carry limit, being able to deploy 4 or 6 mines as an example) could be interesting. It would still require a resupply (or several) to actually place the extras, but would allow more "mine" usage. Would make deployed mines more common thus making Mine Guard an even stronger choice and slow down vehicle movement in general. Whether that pacing change is desirable or not is another discussion completely.

157 more AT mine kills for auraxium medal, curtsy of our not so friendly TR and their prowler death traps

Two C4 will put it on fire (explodes after 15 seconds) unless you combine it with another explosion, like strap them on a flash and blow them all up together.

Said it before, and I'll probably say it again.

The only problem with tank mines and/or C4 right now is that the Mineguard is in the wrong slot on the vehicles. It should be under performance, not under defense. Mines and C4 slapped on the sides/top of an armored vehicle don't accomplish a whole lot due to this thing called reactive armor. They have to hit from below to really do much. Undercarriage armor reduces a vehicle's speed and maneuverability considerably, but it doesn't in any way require removing frontal/side/top/rear armor from the vehicle in question.

This is one of the *very* few cases in Planetside 2 where real life should be the guide.

Change C4 against vehicles to be affected by Mineguard, move Mineguard to the Performance slot, reduce Mineguard's mitigation by about half and make it impose a 20% speed/turning rate penalty.

I realize a lot of people think that it's perfectly fine as is, but as cert creep keeps on mounting, Mineguard is more and more becoming the required mod for the defense slot. Anything that gets to a point of essentially mandating a given mod to avoid instagibbing is a balance issue.

Before you flame, read what I proposed again, and realize that this is actually a pretty solid tradeoff. Losing maneuverability is a pretty nasty disadvantage for most of the vehicles.

Losing maneuverability for a stationary vehicle is not much of a loss.

Planting it stationary and deploying it somewhere actually useful are already pretty serious drawbacks to the vehicle's survivability. It'd still make getting the Sunderer to said useful point a fair bit riskier.

Get mineguard. Next.

In 90% of the cases deployed sunderers have no problem getting where they want to be deployed. It's when the enemy realises where they are that the problem start.

If allied tanks are in the region your minefield is likely gone anyway. Minefields need to be in an area where there is no fighting or else poorly aimed shots and grenades wipe them out long before anyone runs them over.

I'd trade performance for a mineguard in a heartbeat and be no worse off for it. I'm quite sure many others would as well.

Yeah, but this only applies if tank mines and C4 can actually damage stuff. If they can't then there's literally 0 drawbacks because a tank can almost never approach a busy Sunderer due to its size. The only thing which could really do something against it would be Liberators.

Yeah, and I would trade the camo slot for a mobile spawn point on my body as well. That's a terrible idea.

Currently, proximity mines (Bouncing Betties, Claymores, Proximity Mines) explode almost immediately when placed near an enemy infantry unit. There is not enough time to place a second proximity mine, much less, clear the blast radius before it detonates.

What Ausk is saying, is that, if Tank Mines were TRUELY behaving like proximity mines, the engineer planting said tank mine would be almost immediately killed in the blast from his first mine.

Having this happen would be a good solution to the problem. If I could use proximity mines (e.g.; anti-infantry mines) in the same manner that tank mines can be used (as in not suicidal to place them near enemies), they'd be pretty broken.

As it stands, tank mines cost fewer resource per mine, they can be placed multiple times under a stationary vehicle with little risk of being caught in the blast radius, and tank mines have much more lucrative XP gain per kill:
1) Proximity Mine: rarely more than one infantry killed
2) Tank Mine: vehicle kill and usually at least one infantry killed

Tank mines do use proximity as the detonator (this is fine, and makes sense). The current issue, is that their delay for exploding when within proximity of a vehicle is entirely too long.

Nevermind, i didnt understand at first... but i think its the detonate time for the bouncing betties that is too short, it makes sense an engineer is given the chance to survive his mission.