Either buff Sunderers or give us more spawn options

I used to love this game, but I noticed since some time that the battles tend to get shorter and shorter. Maybe it's because more and more people unlock C4 and other explosives, or because of the ESF and Lib upgrades, or maybe because everyone knows by now that in order to win, you have to destroy the sundy.

Anyways, battles should not end that abruptly. In recent time I often find myself logging in, hotdropping somewhere, fighting for 3 minutes and then having no more place to spawn. This is boring as hell and makes me quit mere minutes after I logged in. I have a decent Sundy, but that does not help a lot against all the threats that await you on the way to the next outpost, since you're pretty damn defenseless. 75% of the time, even if you pull a Sundy yourself, it won't live to see its destination by miles, and even when it does it will still explode to a bunch of heavys within minutes. This in accordance to a huge cooldown and ressource cost.

SOE, this vehicle makes your game happen in the first place. Without it, there are no battles at all, not to mention big ones. So either make it more viable, defensely, or give us more options to spawn people on outposts, and by that I don't mean only your own squad. Because right now, the only two things that make this game even playable are a big "shoot me" truck and a whimsy "I'm here" beacon. Hell you even nerfed the medic's revive. Do something or this game will develop into either a waiting simulation or a "this zerg is so big, we don't even need a spawn"-simulation since the enemy won't leave their spawnroom anyways.

End of rant.

Worse rant ever, then you need more sundy. Just join a squad/platoon, stop lone wolf and you'll get a spawn point. That time when LA can destroy sundy with 2 C4....

Well, at the very least you have the option of joining up with a platoon and spawning a gal. If you can keep it at or near the ceiling and it is defended with auto repair and decent turrets, you can just keep spawning in them and drop podding to the battle below.

It's not a great alternative at times, but it is at least one.

What I think would be kinda fun is if you had deployables like launch pads that you could adjust their angles and power (with a set limit being 50 meters) to allow people to get inside a base in a different, rather unique way.

But besides sundies and Gals, you can't do anything but defend them with a bunch of people and having 1-2 backup sundies nearby with Proxy repair and ammo...

Cue Tuco in 5...4...3...2...1...

Not even going to bother reading this, because I know the rant from since this game started. Sunderers are fine. What isn't fine is poorly placed and unprotected Sunderers. Unfortunately this has become a lost art since the devs have pandered to noobs.

Get your own sundee, put it in a great location, spawn there a bunch.

Quit being lazy, OP, and stop expecting others to provide a spawn for you.

PS1 AMS
PS1 mi.....oh bugger

or you know... protect your sundy?

This is one half of a problem with combat around bases - Sunderers are too easy for a lone player to destroy. The other half is the flow of battles is dictated too heavily by invulnerable spawn buildings.

And I don't think anyone likes those no-deploy areas.

As a professional Sunderer Tank-Miner, I say you should probably just stay in one of the Sundy's guns if it's an important one. That or equip Mine Guard.

C4 won't instakill a Sunderer anymore, it just sets it on fire. If it's just a spawn bus, put Mine Guard on it to prevent insta-death.

You actually have to defend your sundy. It doesn't come equipped with the club.

I've played the game a lot and I've always thought Sundys were a little too squishy. The changes to the droppod helped a ton though because it was no longer so easy to droppod on a Sundy and c4 or mine it. However I'm sympathetic to the OP because I think they do die a little too easy. Not sure why all the posts so negative against it. I think it's a reasonable point to bring up.

-Teneth

I agree and disagree with the OP. I know exactly what its like to take off and not make it to the next base BECAUSE..... a plane with rocket pods or lib gets me before i can get there. Its always the same... you can wait around but most players could care less about protecting the Sundy, they just want one to spawn out of one. They are ignorant of the fact that unless 2 guys man the guns the Sundy wont make it and then they wont have a spawn point, but...appearantly they dont care, as they will just redeploy or move on. I have tried jumping in the gunners chair and what do you know, i almost killed the ESF by myself with a Bassy and that was standing still making an easy to hit target, NOT like having one party driving and making it harder to hit and 2 guys shooting at the plane. This game works so much better with team work and sucks so much worse if you cant get a hand. Like taking out a Max suit and the rest of the zerglings could care less your needing repair or down and need reviving, doesn't matter that you have shot down 2 planes thus making their life easier, they dont care. I dont know what the answer is, but i do know without team support, you might as well not play cause your position of having fun enjoying the battle will be short lived. I just pulled a Sundy and becuase they wont let me deploy near another or too close to the base, i swing around on the opposite side of the zerg and get hit a cople times on the way over. Deploy, get Engi start healing up my 1/2 dead Sundy and before i can get it healed and jump in the gunners chair an ENGI comes over and lays out tank mines. I jump out when i see him and shoot him after he sets the mines and my Sundy goes up in smoke. Seems like one of my own team decided to shoot the mines to get rid of them as i dont get what happened but i have seen teamates shoot my proxy mines to get rid of them. You got to love the unique qualities people have, it makes it interesting.

What!? Defend sundy is this really allowed. Huh? actually pull out AA for the purpose? It must be an exploit.
Id get worried if i didnt know that people simply dont have that much dedication for the cause.

Whos expressing these dangerous ideas? You are getting close to a point where you hint that individual players should do something to the benefit of other players. They might God forbid watch your back or even give you ammo every once in a while.

Now im sure we are all best of going about it as usual, let smg infils and LA flank your allies let enemy airplanes have their way with you, and whatever you do, do not spot actual threats. We should just let enemy tanks kill us so we can rant how nobody has rockets anymore, and dont forget obvious perks of the situation forums full of nerf MAX posts.

Admit it were so much better being selfish farmers.

Well there is what should happen and there is what does happen. I admit guarding sundys does increase their life span but it's a fairly boring activity. You have to sit around and do nothing until the random LA or engineer attacks. In organized squads this might be easier, though to be honest I rarely hear this called out even in organized squads. Even so, this game has to cater a little bit to the casual player and in the casual base attack you're not gunna have a lot of sunderer defenders.

SOE should buff the players instead. Like, give them an ability to look around and detect incoming threats to their sundies. Like eyes, or something.




Oh wait a minute...

Yea, sorry if it offends the delicate sensibilities to hear opinions and observations that dont accord with the narrow world view of a few self-styled 'elitists'-tough, deal with it, sundies are bullet magnets. Vehicles cant camouflage themselves in any way, only inf. can, and yes, there are few spots that do offer somewhat sufficient cover for a sundy, but they are few and far between. So good position, bad position, they always get you sooner or later, and more often sooner than not. Why not reduce the ridiculously large exclusion zone around deployed sundies by 1/2..or 3/4 even. Even when there is a pile of sundies-and the one blocking the other 3 or 4 don't deploy because the driver took off and got bored waiting. Or possibly allow the the specialized sundies to buy into armor upgrades, along with the specialized abilities, so they can at least take a hit or two before dieing, something, anything. Between invincible libs hunting you down and hovering ESFs doing more or less the same thing, its tough being a bus driver. I like the idea above of shrinking the no-deploy zones. Not a lot, even a little might help. In this game, as soon as you see the file of attacking infantry coming at you-you KNOW where the sundy is located. You also know, that because of the massive exclusion zone around each one-that there wont be another nearby. This certainly helps make defence pretty easy.

That said, I also agree it would help if people deployed to defend sundies. What often happens is, in my observation, engies will jump to the task and youll have 3 or more even healing the sundy-which only works for a time often, but of course, hardly anyone is left over to man the guns or drive off the attackers. In my estimation, you pretty much need the following to offer a credible defence for a *single* sundy

-Driver(quick get away)
-both Guns manned.
-A MBT on guard duty(the best defence against a tank is another tank after all)
-Optional -an HA to help deal with aircraft or assist with tanks.

Iow, you need a sizeable force to protect that asset, no wonder its a tough sell. Tanks prefer exposing themselves to AT fire until they are destroyed by something they can't even see and most infantry just want to charge headlong into battle. Sentry duty, not very popular. Its not as if people won't protect the sundies, they often DO, just often times too late to do much about it.


However, I will freely admit Gal Dropping, if done properly(and its not hard to do), is an alternative to sundies, albeit in a more limited way.

"OS keeps destroying AMS."

"Well keep spawning more, geez, the OS is on a 3 hour timer, the AMS is on a 15 minute timer, do the math, I mean come on, are you guys lazy or something?"

The PS1 players joked around till there were 9 subscribers left: Carol, Mike, Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby, Cindy ,and Alice.

Its a fine line. Sunderers tend to have gangs of engineers repairing it if its in danger..... that makes them almost impossible to take down without an insane amount of alpha damage. Using normal methods, it would take 3-4 tanks, or 4 Heavies firing at the same time, hitting within a window of 1-2 seconds, to destroy it..... ANY failure to take it out in one strike means the Engineers will simply outpace the damage. I believe the repair stack limit is 5, and can fully repair a critical sundy in around 3-4 seconds. From there on out, your only chance of destroying it is being able to take out the engineers.


Thats the main reason C4 and tank mines are allowed to deal so much damage to it..... because any less meant that they wouldn't be in any real danger. In fact, 2 C4 blocks (which is the limit for LAs) bringing it down to critical only has a 20% chance of something/someone being able to finish it off before the engineers have it back at full health.


There would be less resistance to the changing AMS durability if they weren't so difficult to reach using normal AV weapons, and so easy to roll replacements.

....which is why you only see sunderers deployed in the center of mass of a zerg.....infantry don't flank.....infantry are easily flanked by vehicles/air.....flanking bad.