Title. Hitting things behind cover is hard but fun. It also makes it less of a generic alternative to the other three cannons. which is good for specialization/ adaptation to certain scenarios. It requires some skill to pull off though. I thought it'd work well with the splash damage the weapon already has. Thoughts?
When I first heard of it I just assumed it would be a vehicle version of the Defector Detonator, not sure why they didnt go with that as that would be much more interesting than the current version. Imo all except the NSO Larion are quite boring concepts and I kinda wish they remade them or made new ones with more pronounced specializations and drawbacks.
JGX (to me) feels on par with P120-Kingsnake at CQC, not at all at long range. The problem with it is that the ballistics are plain trash. The ballistics are soo trash, that JGX does not compete with the TR/VS counterparts at long range. People don't complain as much because the maps constantly funnel us into CQC fights, so, rarely do JGX users get railed by the inferior ballistics. It is a really annoying weapon to use because the abnormal projectile gravity makes ranging so wildly different from what you do with Titan 150 HEAT/HESH/AP or Python AP/HESH/HEAT/Viper. Now, you tell me you want to increase the drag? This sounds like making the ballistics even more inferior. I would rather they bump the projectile speed substantially up (300 m/s or 350 m/s) but 1.5x or even 2x the current projectile gravity (i.e., producing notably parabolic projectile paths). Alternatively, keep the current ballistics but add some slight projectile guidance (a la Masamune style).
I may have misunderstood what drag means inside terms of Planetside 2. I thought that increasing drag would imply a increased steep-ness of the parabolic trajectory (which I am in favour of). I do agree with your latter points. I do think the gravity of the weapon's projectile (as of the moment), is in a uncanny valley. Trying to do two things whilst failing at both. However if you increase the gravity of the projectile you may get comments of people whom are trying to use the weapon the same as HEAT/HESH/AP expecting a similar gravity. It may require some time for those to understand the advantages of increased projectile gravity.
The gun (JGX) was marketed as an "artillery" weapon. That could mean many things: indirect fire, long range, firepower. We certainly got the firepower aspect in the damage-per-shot sense, however, TR's Kingsnake takes it in the damage-per-second (at least with Barrage) sense. We clearly don't have the long-range as evidenced by the lethargic ballistics, rather, VS's Perihelion takes this one. Even the TR Kingsnake is more effective at long range (even without anchoring) than the JGX. With regards to indirect fire, all tank guns except for VS Perihelion, VS Saron HRB, and NSO Larion (i.e., the no-bullet drop guns) technically qualify because it is possible to arch shots over low-enough hills. JGX could perhaps be argued to be slightly better at this for CQC. However, no-one right now (except the Construction griefers who have access to the Flail) are effectuating anything remotely comparable to indirect fire (e.g. shooting over a mountain and hitting something). So, JGX right now is a worse Kingsnake (give or take for the sake of the overall Vanguard vs. Prowler balance). It has two, and only two niche aspects going for itself: The vehicle splash damage, and the higher than usual elevation angle. Make no mistake, in CQC, JGX kicks @$$ (I swear I can kill vehicles more swiftly with it than with the Titan-150-AP). The problem is the quality of life while using it just doesn't exist. My performance with it is inconsistent because the ranging is a pain. Ok, Parabolas! So, there are two ways to make projectile paths more "steep." Either strengthen the gravitational field, or fire at an increased elevation angle. The game devs had the right idea by giving JGX both, however, there is no good reason for the lethargic 225 m/s. If we want the gun to remain unguided, it definitely needs a faster traveling projectile. So, ramp up both the projectile speed and gravity field by factors "x" and "y" respectively, where "y" >> "x". Why? We want this projectile to quickly stop climbing and rapidly dive into the ground ("over an obstacle fire"), however, we want overall time to reach the target to be much faster than what we have now. Alternative, I reiterate that ballistics could be kept the same, but adding something like Masamune or Phoenix-style guidance would be nice.
