As always when I make these threads, even when they discuss balance, they are not about ballance. They are about adding fun and interesting options, preferably faction specific options at that. Anyway without further adieu Frosty's MBT update Short Ranged AV secondary NC: Wolfhound:`The wolfhound is essentially an oversized AP version of the bulldog, it has little to no splash, it has a 4 round magazine. Slow projectile speed and heavy drop will limit the range of the weapon. VS: Syzygy: The syzygy is a convergence cannon, visually it has a set of beams that converge a set distance from the weapon, combining into a single beam, more powerful than the sum of its parts, which continues on for some distance before dissipating. Mechanically instead of having damage fall off, damage will increase with range until the point of convergence, after which it will start falling off as normal, though the fall of will be more gradual than the increase. This weapon will have a hard range limit after which the beam will disappear. This is a short ranged AV weapon though, so I estimate convergence around 35m and max range around 80 or 90m. Another thought is instead of having a set convergence range allow the gunner to alter the range via the special ability button (or maybe the move forward/backwards buttons), though that variation would have a more distinct damage spike at and very near to convergence with lower damage at non convergence areas. Long Ranged AV secondary TR: Judicator: The judicator is a burst fire rocket system with a 16 round magazine. It fires small high speed rockets in bursts of 4, with a short pause between bursts. The cone of fire for each rocket within a burst is determined by its order in the burst. IE the first rocket will always have no cone of fire, the second very small cof, the third a bit more, and fourth a bit more than the third, and then it’s all reset for the next burst. I don’t know enough about CoF numbers to give a numerical estimate, but the cone should be fairly tight, lose enough to make sniping infantry less practical, but tight enough to almost never cause a rocket miss against a MBT sized target. Notes: there have been distinct issues in trying to balance the vulcan against the saron and enforcer, the reason of course being they operate at different ranges. These weapons circumvent that issue by filling out the factions rosters, the Vulcan would be measured against the wolfhound and the Syzygy, and the Judicator would be measured alongside the enforcer and saron. The saron would likely need another balance pass afterwards though, as its ability to rapidly mag dump at the cost of accuracy makes it a short ranged high dps weapon as well as a long ranged weapon. Canon specific utility certs NC: Heavy Coils: Advanced magnetic coils increase projectile velocity 25m/s TR: Auto-Loaders: Increases reload speed to 3 from 2.5, each cannon now reloads independently (this maintains max dps whith normal fire, though increases dps with anchor). VS: Advanced Plasma Containment: reduces the gravity effect, at max rank 0 gravity (aka no drop). Each rank can be selected independently after unlocking like zoom optics. Notes: fairly self explanatory, these are alternates to the reload speed cert line on the cannons themselves. Comparatively cert cheap with NC and TR having one pseudo expensive rank (~300 or 400 cert) and the VS having several cheaper ranks whose cost sums to the same as the TRs and NCs. They are designed as things that do not increase damage, but instead increase ease of use, though due to having a larger amount of the fire cycle of the p-120 be reload as opposed to refire the auto-loaders will increase dps when used with lockdown. Additional MBT abilities NC: Pavises System: This projects a large force shield wall in front of the Vanguard, friendly shots may pass through it, enemy shots damage it. Same health and lifespan as the personal tank shield. Each rank increases duration and reduces cooldown. Its more team oriented and less personal, you can protect the guy next to you, but you leave your sides and rear (and top) vulnerable. VS: Mag Pulse: Launches the Mag strait up, allowing it get on top of small buildings, over shorter walls, get unstuck from the few places mags can get stuck. Will also level out the tank (so if you are falling at a poor angle it will let you land flat and survive what would otherwise be a fatal fall. Each rank reduces cooldown, and increases max jump height. Easier to get to unexpected places than it is with mag burn, but less able to be used as an escape or chase mechanic. TR: Fusillade: The prowler starts an longer reload cycle (lets say 4.5 seonds) during which it loads up 6 shots, as soon as they are loaded all 6 shots are fired in succession, once started it cannot be stopped (shots will be loaded and fired). Each rank reduces the preloading time (min 3 seconds) and reduces cooldown between uses (I figure a 60 second cooldown, -5 per level, cooldown starts after the last shot is fired). Like anchor this allows a lot of shots in rapid succession, though while anchor allows a constant stream this is a single burst, but it allows for full motion to be maintained. The preload time can make this tricky as you need to think ahead a bit. NC: Palisade: This shield immobilizes the vanguard and shuts down its weapons, however it rapidly heals the vanguard while the shield is up, 4% per second, it starts at a 8 second shield and ends at a 12 second shield with a longer cool down than the other shield versions. If the vanguard is at full health you may cancel the shield by hitting the ability button again. If the shield is broken early then via incoming damage then the healing is similarly halted. VS: Maglock: The maglock it an ability that operates via duration, with a fairly long duration (40 seconds, certable to 60) and recharges 4 seconds of uptime for every 1 second of down time. When the ability is active the magriders max speed is reduced signifigantly, however the mag will not move at all without player input, and only in the direction of that impute, in addition the angle of climbable hills increases some as well. The magrider is also pulled toward any surface its bottom is facing. So though you wouldn’t be able to use it to climb up a 90 degree incline, you could use it to go from the top of a platue to down a 90 degree incline, and then stop and stick half way, with complete control of your horizontal movement, and being able to control your decent. If you can manage to get upside down somewhere (likely by following the side curvature of a bridge), you could stick there as well (though you would be kind of screwed once your duration ran out and you land upside down). TR: Incendiary Cannon Enhancement: When the ICE ability is used, the next time each weapon is reloaded (both primary and secondary) it loads special incendiary rounds, which apply a damage of time effect to targets hit directly. In addition they create short lived area damage over time pain fields (visually a patch of burning ground). DoT damage is based on the damage of the hit. The painfield damage is based on the splash damage and its size is based on the area of the base weapon (so weapons without any splash won’t create a painfield). That way the ability can scale apropriatly for any weapon combination, I am thinking something like 10% damage per second for 4 seconds on direct hits and 5% for 6 seconds for painfields with 75% the splash area., though of the abilities this one would likely need the most testing/tweaking to get right. Note: yes, I did just name the ability that lets you kill it with fire "ICE," Magrider Chassis Frictionless Chassis: The frictionless chassis is exactly what it says on the tin, the magrider becomes very slippy, it will not slow down when you take your fingers off the movement keys and can rotate completely independent of its current vector, it unfortunately will reduce their ability to go up hills normally (unless using mag-lock ability from above), but allows them to maintain their speed boost from going down hills, so you could pick up speed down a hill and use that speed boost to go up a different hill. essentially they will never decelerate unless they are going up a hill, or are applying thrust in an different direction. So you could reach full speed on a level field and then rotate around to essentially be going full speed in reverse, or only turn partial to be going full speed sideways. You could magburn on level ground and maintain that speed forever, as long as you dont hit anything, run into a hill, or try and change direction. It should be noted that your standard acelerations can not increase your speed beyond your normal max speed, only outside forces (primarily namely going down hills or using magburner) can do so. not for everyone as it will is generaly harder to control, but i look forward to seeing what can be done by the type of folks who it will be for. Heavy Cannons Heavy cannons are extra large powerful turrets for the mbt. All heavy cannons share the following characteristics. They change the mbt from being x/2 to being x/3, with a driver, a heavy cannon gunner, and a secondary gunner. They also each have their own special ability tied to the gunners f key. A cert line to improve the special ability replaces the reload speed utility cert line. The heavy cannons have ~25% more dps than their AP counterparts, though as they don’t have access to a reload utility it ends at ~13% more dps compared to a max upgraded AP counterpart. Due to complex systems the cannons require human oversight, as such Heavy cannons have a short (3 to 4 seconds) boot up when a player enters them before they can fire, and will not reload without a player in the gunner seat. (its realy just to make it difficult to try and solo a heavy canon MBT). Note the VS version would be a turret, not the integrated cannon of current x/2 mags. NC: Kronos 200: A large rail cannon that fires a massive AP shell, dealing 3250 damage with a 5.0 second reload, and a projectile velocity between the titan 150 AP and titan 150 HEAT rounds. The special ability, capacitor discharge, causes the cannon to fire a shell with improved damage (4250) and velocity after a 1 second delay. The ability has a 60 second cooldown (certable to 45). TR: P-100R: The P-100R boasts 4 barrels in a rotary configuration, with advanced loading mechanisms that allow each barrel to fire twice before requiring a magazine reload and cooldown period. It has a 8 round magazine and fires AP shells for 675 damage a shot with a 0.25 refire time and 4 second reload. The special ability, advanced gyros, gives 6 seconds of perfect stability, no recoil, no cof (though I doubt there would be any cof anyway), just smooth fire. 6 seconds the same as the fire cycle so no mater were you are in your mag its enouph to fire 8 shots, even if you need ro reload in the middle. Cooldown is 20 seconds (certable to 15) but only cools down when not active) VS: GPC: The GPC, or Guided plasma cannon, fires shots with the same damage as the FPC, but with no projectile drop and a faster fire rate, taking only 3 seconds to reload instead of 3.75. The ability causes the projectile to be temporarily laser guided, akin to that or ravens or AV mana turrets. This ability is not on a cooldown or recharge system but can be activated at any time for as long or as short a time as you desire, however while in use the projectile in the airs damage is reduced, and the longer you guide the more damage is lost down to some minimum (likely half damage) as the projectile expends energy to correct its flight path. Ideally you would want to fire accurately in the first place, only correcting would be misses, and doing so as quickly as possible to preserve as much of your damage as you can. Upgrading the ability would reduce the rate damage is lost while being guided, though the minimum would remain unchanged. Notes: I like the math, the VS version is exactly 25% higher dps, the NC is 25.3%, and the TR is 26%, of course the TR has a very high base dps, so the p-120 AP will still out damage the NC or VS heavy cannons, but that’s part of how the tanks are a designed to start with. I am a bit concerned that with the AP bonus the P-100R will one mag enemy tanks to the rear, could be solved by making it 3 barrels with 6 rounds and a 3 second reload, but I like the concept of 8 rounds, we can save the 6 round adjustment if the 8 round burst is found to be OP. Alas the issues with the TR cannon aren’t quite over, as its interaction with the MBT abilities of anchor mode and fusillade. Fusillade just plane wont work, it was desighned for the 2 round P-120, throwing 24 rounds in rapid sucesion would be all sorts of overkill and very difficult to control (or would be, advanced gyros for the win), and would be awkward to coordinate as it’s the driver who activates the MBT ability, but it would cause the heavy cannon to fire. The ability (fusillade) would either need to be completely reworked, or given a new effect that does not directly effect the canon when coupled with a heavy canon, such as firing a barrage of missiles from the side of the tank. Anchor: While anchor mode will obviously effect the heavy cannon as the “primary” and the damage increase for an anchored P-100R (47%) are very close to that of the P-120 (52%), there is a different consideration that makes this difficult. The driver. What would the driver be doing when anchored? Either a whole lot of nothing, or hoping over to the secondary, so either one player might as well go AFK or the three man tank has been reduced to a two man tank, removing the primary balancing lever against the stronger cannon. One thought is to add a weak AI gun for the driver to control on all heavy cannon MBTs, like a slow firing kobolt with less ammo, NC and TR version would be on a turret with 120 degree front arch, and VS would be mounted like the current plasma cannon is. Then as part of the transformation to anchor mode the turret would change positions so it could have a 360 degree arch. It could work, but I realy want the drivers to focus on driving, and adding a gun, even a low end AI only gun will distract from that. It’s a conundrum to say the least. Maybe give the driver some sort of super optics so they can spot targets for the gunners? Edit: oh yeah, Im guna start letting yall vote for what my next class/vehicle update thread will be. As is I just sort of day dream about all of em, and when one gets enouph stuff i type it up and post it. A little direction could help focus some.
. oh some note on the secondaries, I think the long range secondaries should work in at around 450 to 550 dps, with the short ranges ones in the 600-700 range Hmm getting likes but no comments, come on folks imagine how fun a frictionless mag wouild be
I suggested frictionless mag a while back, love the idea . Allows the mag to be mobile, take advantage of strafing and burning without needing to be good at dodging. now for a more serious critique: heavy cannons: we need more work on the ground meta for them to be worth working on. mag pulse/lock: no. SOE would never do this, They nerfed the magburn for specific reasons that these would be even worse offenders of. "syzyrgy": sounds really cool and all but its a poor fit. I get what you're doing with the whole short range/longe range AV, tbh this would be a better fit for a long range weapon. (convergence makes it worse at killing close range infantry and stuff, and the gun is bad at reaaaally close ranges which feels counter intuitive.) advanced plasma containment: long range attachment for a long range gun that you want to be a short range gun. self explanatory. sorry for the negative feedback.
I would love maglock, but SOE really don't want us mag pilots having any fun with terrain. Indar is good for mags, Esamir is bad for MBTs and Amerish isn't meant for tanks.
The following are my faves. NC: Wolfhound NC: Heavy Coils: VS: Advanced Plasma Containment: NC: Palisade: VS: Maglock: Frictionless Chassis: VS: GPC: The TR ones are OP, tbh. They are too focused on DPS and can easily be exploited to instakill tanks. Fusillade put with the AP prowler would break the game instantly. The ones I like are personally great ideas. Rethink the prowler to prioritize top speed over DPS. Perhaps a motor overdrive add-on that adds a whole lot to the top speed and acceleration of the prowler when in a pinch (at 25% hp)?
sorry for the reply delay honest critique is always good, even when negative. It also lets me defend my position, which is always fun. On the mag pulse/lock, I dont think they would be worse offenders. The issue as I saw it on the old burn was it let mags into places tanks werent suposed to go, like the top of skymesa or that vid of the guy who ramps up a wall and guns a flying esf at point blank while his mag is mid-air. I was sad to see it nerfed, but I understood. I mean yeah you can still gal ride any tank anywhere, but that's not easy. Pulse would need consideration at some facility walls adding more verticle elements between the walkway and the walkways air cover, which would be good for infantry to use for cover and work as a barrier to pulse. Other than that low roofs would be the main place that pulse could get you and burn would not, and i dont think that would be a real offender. And mag lock wont get you up to anywere burn could not, it gives you a slight boost to climb angle, but not enouph to overcompensate the boost mag burn can give. Mag lock is about the controlled decent, and sticking to walls for a minute (revenge of the spider tank), but you need the high ground in the first place. kinda like a drifter jets vs normal jet pack for LA, you need to get your high ground the old fashioned way before you can make use of em. syzygy (its a cool word, and realy fits the vanu naming schemes), the mag is the most able to actively maneuver while in combat, syzygy plays that up. the damage ramp up, while still being short ranged is a (to me anyway) neat mechanic. here is a million hours in paint simple graph. the TR vulcan has to deal with accuracy (spread) and damage fall off, so dispite starting at the highest dps, it loses effective dps the most quickly. The NC wolfhound doesnt have damage fall off, but slow projectile and lots of drop has it losing accuracy with range. The syzygy has its max range, but its very accurate, so its effective dps is mostly changed by its unique mechanics. As for the mechanic not being intuitive, that's part of the reason for the convergence visual, it visualy looks more powerfull at the ranges it is more powerful at I am not sure what you are talking with the advanced plasma containment, thats for the supernova (VPC, PC, and FPC), which are long ranged guns, not for the secondaries or heavy cannons. I dont relay agree, mags are desighned for having fun with terrain, its the whole point of their floatyness. And Amerishes hills suport mag us fairly well. The prowler is designed as a dps machine, and thats part of why its my favorite tank. And I think you are overestimating fusillade, or maybe underestimating the p-120s base stats. The prowler would normaly spit out 6 shots in 7.5 seconds (plus final refire+reload for a 10.5 second cycle), at max level fusillade spits em out in 5.5 seconds (plus final refire+reload for a 8.5 second cycle), an anchor prowler spits out 6 shots in 5.1 seconds (plus final refire and reload for a 6.9 second cycle). combined with the assorted issues of the built in fire delay I am not overly worried about fusillade breaking the game. honestly now that I think about it ICE would likely give you the best ttk to the rear, as it would let you kill the target in 4 ap rounds instead of 5 (actualy, ap prowler might kill in 4 to the rear anyway, lets see 5000 plus 20% ap ordinance bonus bonus, is 6000 and acording to my calculation mbts have 5700 effective hp to the rear. that would but the ttk of an ap prowler to the rear of another tank at 4 seconds. So the thing you are worried about is effectively already in the game. as an activated ability motor overdrive like that would basically be a more powerful magburn with a very annoying requirement, so aside from stepping on the mags toes, you really dont want your tank to be that hurt before you try and get the hell out of dodge so you would rarely get to use it. it could work as a passive that gives a smaller boost based on damage taken, though that would fall into defense slot not utility (ability) slot.
You can still drive a maggie up on top of scarred mesa without using a gal, all you need is magburn (and maybe racer 3, I dunno I always have it on anyway). Absolutely hilarious to do it when they are AV camping it and all of a sudden a magrider flies up from below the cliffs and stares them down with VPC. You don't last long against large numbers though
I'm really digging what you did with the heavy turrets. Extra firepower at the cost of requiring an additional crew member? Consider me sold!
Realy?, I thought they changed the way mag burner works to prevent that ages ago. I will need to give it a go sometime. yeah, there was some heavy speculation about the devs trying to do something similar some 8 or 9 months ago, cus they found models in the game files of a HUGE NC railgun vanguard and a 4 barreled prowler. Though the four barreled prowler was ugly, it was just the normal p-120 but with canon pairs on both sides. I much prefer the rotary concept in my post.
Yer they nerfed it at release I think and then changed the terrain of scarred to make the old way impossible to go up. You can still hit 300kmh up certain inclines though, takes experience to be able to read the terrain to find the places you can do it. Anyway just magburn up the south-eastern cliff, just to the left of where the southern-most jumppad takes you. Looks downright impossible but I have done it more than once, also killed myself trying a few times as well
The reload speed alternatives are interesting, though perhaps the NC one should be % based instead of a flat increase so that it doesn't excessively benefit HE. The directional shield has potential, but it should probably have more health than the current shield and be a toggle like the MAX shield. Because if it's still only 2k HP for 6 seconds, really that will only stop one tank shell. It wouldn't have nearly enough uptime for my team to actually use it, so I'd be better off using the overshield that we already have. I'd say give it about 6k HP and either make it immune to small arms fire or give it a high resist vs small arms, because otherwise one guy with a CARV would drop it in one second. Give it no duration limit, but tie its HP to an energy bar so if you lower the shield and raise it again, it'll still be damaged. Again, like the MAX shield. Fusilade is... odd. Maybe it could just be a synchronized fire mode? So the P-120 would just fire both barrels at once, the P-100 would fire all four barrels at once (so it would fire twice then reload). Palisade is another odd one... if it's tough enough that you can usually get a useful amount of repairs, it'd probably be OP. If it's not, it'd probably be a useless suicide button. Though even the "OP" version would still be easily countered by driving right up to them and dropping C4/tank mines, so they get instagibbed as soon as it drops... which pushes it closer to "useless suicide button". As far as the Magrider ones, I'd be extremely reluctant to let magriders climb Skydock again. The Kronos is interesting but will probably need a 6 second reload for that much damage, at least for stock. 3k/4.5 or 3k/4 just feels like it would have too much DPS after reload upgrades, and I'm saying that as an NC player. I could only imagine the Vanu tears if it was like that. I could see it being 6 with upgrades to 5 though, that would probably work. The low velocity doesn't make sense though, the whole point of a railgun is to have high velocity. If you're still lobbing low-velocity EFPs/HEAT shells, you can do that with a howitzer. So the railgun needs a high velocity, otherwise it has no business being a railgun. (a howitzer would be kind of a cool gun too though)
VS would have an amazing speed advantage if they combine intelligent use of the terrain, Frictionless Chasis, and the Mag Pulse. Fall straight off a cliff, hit +250 kph, Mag Pulse to keep you from blowing up on the landing, let Frictionless Chasis speed you around at terminal velocity...
Naw flat number on the increased velocity is fine, though it would need to be bumped down to 15 with the recent tank changes, HE isnt about acuracy, if you wanted to play it acurate, you would be runing HEAT and getting more rounds down range. The Pavises (directional sheild) would still be working under the standard shields rule of using the host tanks armor values, which due to the specific nature of the pavises would generaly be the front armor (cus if you are at the side or rear you should shoot the tank not the sheild) Fusillade is wierd, I realy like it for the standard p-120 but the P-100R doesn't mesh with it unfortunately. As for a synchronized shot, it could work for the 100R as that would be pretty much 8 shots in .25 sec which would be fairly scary (saving you 1.75s off your cycle), but with the p-120, you would just be saving .5 seconds of your cycle, the cooldown would ahve to be increadably short to be usefull for anything but one shoting maxes or ESFs, it would be really underwhelming as a special ability when compared to anchor for example. On the palisade, think of it like a super charged fire supresion, but with the obvious downsides. However dropping c4/tankmines wont be quite as easy as you are thinking, as you the driver can still hop out and shoot them with your gun as they try that, or use your repair tool to get to full more quickly so you can hop back in and cancel the shield before they get there. What would be mroe dangerous is the enemy getting to your rear armor while you are frozen, so you would need to think some about when you pop it, if you are far enough away to not need to worry bout that or if you have support to cover your rear, but its not too likely to save you in short range duel as it gives the enemy time to maneuver. Maglock wouldnt let you climb up skydock, it increases you the angle you can climb, but only to maybe 60, You will never slide down when using it though, so it lets you control any decent perfectly, and acts like instant breaks (which has good synergy with frictionless chasis) you dont need to worry about the Kronos with reload upgrades, recall that the heavy cannons dont get reload certs, they get cannon ability certs instead, though even if they did have reload certs, the AP P-120 (standard prowler AP) would still out dps it. I made the heavy cannons almost exactly 25% more dps than the AP cannons, and the P-120 starts at about 40% more dps than the Titan-150. The point of a railgun is to magneticly accelerate ammo so you dont need a chemical accelerant, just about all NC weapons are already railguns. The point of what I am saying there is that railguns are not strictly high velocity, and the Vanguard cannons are fairly high in velocity anyway (with respect to AV weapons), so its not like its lobing slow balls. Remember, this is an AV weapon, too much velocity and its too easy to tag ESFs with. And of course then there is the cannon ability which IS a very high velocity. Though I did think about using a pasive charge system into the velocity like I did with the Foehammer in my HA thread, but decided against it to help keep the cannon special abilities constantly active abilities instead of passive, and it would likely be disorienting to have a weapon whose velocity keeps changing on you. Hopefuly that assuages your worry Yep and it will be BEAUTIFUL. though remember all that velocity is only in one direction, if you need to turn your are losing speed, and the angles wouldnt be able to convert the full vertical terminal velocity to horizontal without a slope, and mag pulse would actually kill a lot of your downwards speed when it rights you out as well. Mag lock or Mag burn would likely be better choices with a friction-less chassis, to give you an easy starting acceleration or as functional breaks (to mitigate the slidey ness) Edit: seriously what is up with the PS2 forums randomly making have my text down shrink to tiney for no reason
There's still the fact that losing 75% of your coverage is a huge deal, so there's got to be an upside to make that trade. After all, I can already use the Vanguard shield to catch shells for teammates while giving myself 360 degree protection at the same time. More uptime (by removing the duration/cooldown cycle to make the shield purely HP based) is the perfect tradeoff for loss of coverage, and also complements the directional shield's role by making it easier for my allies to utilize it. After all, with a 6 second duration by the time my allies realize the shield is up it might already be going down again. I suppose if they're not close enough to do it then they're just not close enough to do it, but hopping out to shoot them has two problems. 1: they're going to be in a tank until they actually jump out to drop the mines, and 2: they can just drive up to your right side, because bailing always drops you on the left. You will not be able to run around your tank fast enough to stop them from dropping mines/C4, hopping back in their tank, waiting in their tank for the shield to wear off and shooting to detonate. I suppose you could sort of use it like the Prowler's anchor (long range only) to avoid mine/C4 drive-by, but then its utility would heavily depend on the enemy not realizing you activated it and continuing to waste ammo on you.
