[Suggestion] Killing two birds with one stone: Liberators and tank zergs.

A thought occurred to me about two of major gameplay complaints that you get on here (apart from the render distance, cert grind, lack of meta etc.), namely Liberators and mass armour zerg. I did wonder if there was some way to (partially at least) fix both problems side-by-side, while also hopefully giving infantry more of a role in combined operations.

The Liberator right now as pretty much capable of taking on anything if there's no effective AA or enemy air umbrella. However, the easiest way for a Lib crew to rack up the certs is by farm infantry like it's going out of fashion. I've lost count of the times when a small-scale but fierce firefight around a small base is effectively ended at a stroke by the intervention of a Liberator appearing with Zepher blazing. Even if it's a friendly Lib, it still ruins what was otherwise a great infantry battle. The same thing happens once either sides armour rolls over yonder hill, causing pretty much everything that isn't nailed down to go sideways in pretty rapid order.

My idea is to alter the Zepher and Dalton to fire AP Sabot rounds only. No blast radius. Direct hit only. Render those as tank killer units.

To elaborate on this:

1) The Dalton loses any blast radius entirely. But stay otherwise unchanged. If you're a good pilot/gunner team you shouldn't have any issue hitting tanks.

2) Zepher again loses blast radius, but I also think that a slight nerf of fire rate would help. One of the strengths of the weapon is being able to fire a rapid burst of rounds. Instead of that, replace the six round magazine capacity with being single shot but with a fast reload compared to the Dalton.

3) In order to not penalise Sunderers who are actively trying to move infantry forwards, increase the top armour of Sundies significantly to make up for the fact that they are now prime targets of the newly re-armed and re-tasked Liberators. Things that increase infantry mobility and combat should be encouraged, not reduced.

4) Change the Shredder to become a more effective anti-infantry weapon but add in a balance to make it risky to use and allow infantry to counter it. What I had in mind was something that requires the Lib to stay low to the ground to stay effective. Either a short effective range on the Shredder, or a wide COF to force closer range engagements (think something vaguely along the lines of the the Phalanx Anti-personnel turrets). That way Libs have to brave coming closer to grounds units, and stuff like AA MAXs and (hopefully buffed) G2A rockets.

Hopefully, this means that Liberators now have a specific target (tanks), and are now far less of a threat to infantry. It also means that massive tank zergs now have a genuine targeted counter, as Lib crew will have to do their jobs by stopping enemy armour units rolling through their territory. rather than just looking for profitable infantry battles to farm to the detriment of everyone.

Liberators are less powerful, and tank zergs should now have something on their mind other than just rolling infantry.

I now humbly submit to all the venom and scorn you can heap on me for being utterly wrong

No.

Liberators are fine in the task they are kitted for as is.

The real culprit is base design is atrocious. Currently, it requires more defenders than attacks to have a defense hold, even if we are talking straight up infantry vs infantry, and that is *** backwards. What did they think would happen with the way they have designed the Shacks o'Doom? Only one kind of place's spawn is capable at the moment in maybe mounting a defense at all and even that is still a situation where if you don't have more infantry defending than those attacking, you still get hosed: The Biodomes.

Take a good look at a Biodome, what makes it so special that vehicles don't camp the spawn? A fracking roof over the heads of infantry as they exit the five possible doorways of the spawn, which even if camped by infantry, can be broken out of by coordinated combined arms defenders. This should probably be a huge hint to the developers, as it bloody well the last place people have big fights of any significance these days.

Want to kill even more than two bloody birds with one stone? Fix base design.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...pawn-design-based-on-existing-building.65475/

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/entrenchment-options.76355/

Fixing base design would be cool, but making the liberator require some skill and risk is a good idea too. Not that RL matters, but the AC130 (the closest thing to a liberator) only flies at night because a slow circle at low altitude is suicidal.

Wait, so let me get this straight: you want to make Liberators tank killers only and tanks tank killers only? Why would you even play a Liberator or a tank then? Like ever. Sunderers are much easier to kill as infantry (C4/rockets/mines) anyway. So what would be the point of that?

Just as a Lib only flies when protected because a single ESF can destroy it pretty easily.

The lib is fine. It requires teamwork and smart flying to operate properly. It is one of the largest targets in the game and is easy prey to any sort of combined effort.

People complaining about tanks and air are playing the wrong game.

While i think base design is the single most impacting issue the game has at the moment, i like the OP ideas in general, simply making the zepher 1 round would go a long way to solve the problem for the most part. They also need to be vulnerable to small arms fire, their armor is way to thick for a flying craft.

The Liberator rounds should be impact only for tanks. The Zepher can keep its splash on infantry, seeing as it acts as HEAT. However, it should not be splashing tanks. Direct hits or bust.

And this does not address tank zergs. We already use Liberators to combat tank zergs. I used my own to great effect yesterday, decimating an NC armored column by half before we were taken out of the sky by a friendly Mosquito.

Negative!

Infantry are the bread and butter of combined arms games, they should be first priority, if planetside was vehicle only it would fail in heart beat, it is not a good flight sim by any means, and a horrible tank sim as well. Remove infantry and you have a crapy tank/flight sim.

How wrong are you? Liberators can literally hover over a base and spam, enduring the damage of 3 burster maxes long enough to kill those maxes. There are skillful pilots, and they are awesome. They are the exception rather than the rule.

Quoted For Truth

No they cannot; the players in this case are TERRIBLE, sorry if you include yourself amongst them. Suck it up and learn to play, chief, or quit because you can't take the heat, but stop whining for nerfs because YOU suck.

No, they really can, chief. Apparently the massively OP lib isn't easy mode enough for you?

Nope. I will point to GusTheBus on one server, who routinely flies a Liberator without a gunner, and zephyr spams ground units by himself. Even a liberator dropping in height, some pilots will get away with more than what they get in return.

my kills are all in a tank, but I dont go whining to the forums whenever something kills me, unlike some people

youre seriously unbelievable...shouldnt you be playing Call of Doody?

ac130's dont only fly at night. my dad was in the airforce for 20 years, 15 of those being a targetting gunner onboard ac130's in various battlefields. they flew day missions CONSTANTLY

AC-130s are much less vulnerable at night. They don't lose anything as they have enhanced optics, and the enemy can't see them until it's arguably too late.

Mother****er I have called fire from an AC130. They might have flown during the day a long time ago, but they haven't since 03.

Since Spirit 03 went down in '91 from a Strela, I don't think they'll ever fly daylight again, unless its over some terribad country without even G2A weapons.

If a Liberator is hovering over a base spamming, it is because that base has already been lost, but the zerglings, being zerglings continue to spawn and rush into a losing situation over and over and over, and expect some magical result other then death. Then when that doesn't occur, they come in here and cry about how over powered liberators & tanks are...

Grunts have been ******** for years to let AC130's run daytime fire support OP's but with so many MANPAD's out there they won't risk daytime OP's anymore.