[Suggestion] Mechs for Planetside 2 (Pics Included)

I think the biggest problem is that people have drastically different ideas of what a mech should be like.

In one corner you have the people who want mechs, who generally have the idea of a big bad stompy robot. Gundem, Mech Warrior, or what have you. Their idea is that mechs will somehow have significant advantages over something else, which is why they want such things.

In the other corner you have people who think mechs are kinda dumb from a practical standpoint. A mech will never have as much armor as a tank, nor will it have as many or as heavy weaponry. Mechs will never travel more quickly than a wheeled vehicle (all other factors constant) or as fast as a flying vehicle. There simply are no practical advantages to a bipedal mech.

And in the third corner (it was a triangular room I guess) you have people who think mechs will be terrible to balance in the game. You have something that will be a bigger target than a tank that will be harder to hide. If it's easier to find and hit, then it will either need to be stronger than a tank or have greater firepower than a tank. Either way, you outclass tanks.

Making Person #1 happy by introducing a massive killer mech will infuriate Persons #2 and #3. Making Persons #2 and #3 happy by introducing a weak, vulnerable mech will anger Person #1, who was really the only one who wanted a mech in the first place.

It's just not a very easy conundrum to solve.

Make 'em 750, capable of crouching to Sunderer height, same armor as a Harrasser, let the VS be fast, the TR lockdown, & give the NC range.

That VS suit reminds me alot of the Warhammer 40K Eldar Wraithlord

How can i get this mech out of a big base when the gate is smaller than the mech? If they get more mobility than tanks i can see them climbing in to enemy bases and we have an instant gameover for the defenders.

Except here's the thing: In places like Amerish and Hossin, small obstacles like rocks and brambles would be no trouble for a walker-type. And it doesn't need to be a big badass thing. That would be very bad for the game. I had a discussion with someone about them today, ideal placement would be something that sits roughly between Lightnings and MBTs in power, but have the ability to become far, far more specialised or more versatile. Size-wise, not much wider than a Harasser and roughly the height of the Liberator's top cockpit, maybe a little less. It shouldn't be a big vehicle, nor should it be hugely powerful. Like I said, there need to be limitations to prevent it from being too awesome while retaining some unique features that give it advantages over regular ground vehicles. What would you say to a mech that can crouch?

So... why should I ever take a Lightning if I can take something that is better than a Lightning and more specialized or versatile than a Lightning (which really with just one weapon to chose from is pretty darn specialized as it is)?

The problem from a gameplay standpoint with a mech is that there isn't really space in the game for one, unless you start to rebalance other units with the sole purpose of making space for a mech. The gap between an MBT and Lightning isn't that big to begin with... about 1,000 HP and 100 nanites. Sure you could throw in a mech that costs 400 nanites and has 500 more HP than a Lightning... but I bet people are probably just going to skip the Lightning if it's a 50 nanite difference that grants them a much better vehicle.

I just don't see what the point of having a mech in the game would be apart from simply having a mech. There's no tactical role that I've seen that needs a mech to fill it. Whatever you envision a mech doing, a Lightning can pretty much already do.

If you (or anyone else who wants a mech) can answer the following questions then you'd have a much better case for adding mechs:

1) What unique and unfilled role does the mech fill?
2) Will this role overlap with any other role held by any other unit in the game?
3) How does the mech's form fit this unique and unfilled role?
4) Why can't we just mount another turret on a Lightning or MBT and call it a day?

They are the same ones that hated the BFRs in the first place, yes they were originally OP, but they were balanced over time, but by that time a lot of players were really annoyed with them, SOE started to slow up on releasing content after that , perhaps in fear of annoying subbed customers.

IMO the BFR was the turning point for PS1 development, it had lots of players up in arms that just refused to adapt, as if thier whole game was ruined.

Personally I loved the design of all three BFRs, and always thought that more vehicle variants in the game was always going to be more interesting than less. Well SOE listened, and released PS2 with less vehicles, so I guess the BFR haters got their way and one reason we have a watered down version of the first game.

Connect the Continents together and bring back the BFRs, loadstars Resorces and ant runs and all that Jazz that's missing from PS1, peeps will argue all day about whats OP, but don't let us have less things in planetside as a result.

HOLY CRAP YES!

Keep thread alive until devs take action to implement! hopefully..

Good points but I have to disagree with these people if that's the case

1 I don't think anyone is asking for a gundam or a huge mech like the Atlats. Yes a gundam would be very OP but nobody is asking for this or anything like it. If anything we are looking at a light or medium size and powered mech.

2 this point i strongly disagree with. Out of all the games, anime, and movies I've watched mechs can be fast and agile or slow and heavy. Tanks have been shown to be 2nd (in anime ect) compared to mechs in speed or fire power. HOWEVER if we did bring mechs into ps2 we need to make it balanced and give them roles. They would always have to be manned by a crew of 3, no solo mechs unless it was a very lite mech with little armor.

3 mechs don't have to be huge, if you had a lite mech you wouldn't need heavy armor or dps weapons.

So the big point I want to get across is the roles they would play if they were brought in the game. Nothing bigger then a medium mech. Two classes lite and medium. As the game stands now we have two issues that mechs could solve well if implemented correctly.

1 when capturing a base there is always a real threat of flanking from the opposing team. Medium mechs could act as guardians for the rest of the team. Yes medium mechs would need higher armor but would have less dps and more accurate weapons with no splash damage. 3 man crew, gunner, driver, spotter/ lite gun. They are meant to secure an area and move with the convoy rather then take the front lines like tanks. Medium mechs are slightly slower then a vanguard. Also they would take 700 nanites. Lastly since they will mostly likely be bullet sponges they would need a ejection pod. The whole purpose of them in game is to be the defenders of the convoy that's why they need higher armor but with lower dps AP rounds. Good mobility but slower speeds

2 The last role is more for the lite mech. Harassers have high mobility, dps and speed. A lite mech could prove the the perfect counter for them and also act as a forward scout. Give them slightly higher armor then a harasser with slightly lower speed and better mobility. Weapons can only effect light armor and no splash damage. They rely on there mobility to counter harassers but can't engage tanks effectively. No splash damage to spam troops

Because a Lightning is a tank and still retains the benefits (and downsides) of being such, and in an AV role would still be able to engage infantry and air (to some degree). I do agree that the Lightning is pretty specialised to begin with, though, and it does need something to be changed to make it a bit more interesting (especially the Skyguard), but yeah. To give a simple idea of the kind of specialisation I want to see, think Canister. The only thing it can do is what it was designed to do, and no more than that.

I wasn't quite specific enough in my previous post, though I did mention sitting between MBTs and Lightnings in power (and I guess I might be a little short-sighted in using 2/2 MBTs as my reference point, who knows). Cost-wise they'd probably be more than an MBT, as they are something that potentially gives a lot of firepower to just one guy. But again, this game does need a slightly better AA solution. I could and am tempted to make a thread on a potential Skyguard 2.0 that I've been thinking on for a while, which would solve the problem in exactly the same way as this mech and make a third of the mech's arsenal partially redundant.

Firstly, the mech would fill the primary role of an ultra-specialised fighting vehicle. Like I mentioned, an AA vehicle that can actually kill aircraft, and do so effectively, but it would be hopelessly ineffective against everything else in an ultra-specialised configuration. To be specific, it will not be able to kill infantry at all short of stepping on them, nor would it be able to engage vehicles, period.

Secondly, it would and it wouldn't. It would in the sense that it would do quite well at doing what a number of other vehicles can do already, but unlike those vehicles it would be designed specifically to only do that one thing. So while there is overlap, there is some advantage that vehicles with similar roles have in being able to defend themselves against other threats.

Third, I think this has been covered already.

Fourthly, we could, and the Lightning could possibly do with a secondary user-controlled weapon, but that isn't really my department. Slapping a third turret on the MBT would give the vehicle way more versatility and strength than it has any right to have. A Walker, an Enforcer and an AP primary on a Vanguard, what are you explicitly vulnerable to? Nothing. That creates infinitely more problems than it solves. If you slap a couple of different weapons on a mech, you're not exceedingly vulnerable to anything but you're not exactly a walking battlestation either. A setup like this would most likely be used to defend friendly vehicle columns and/or deployed Sunderers, acting as fire support, a distraction or a deterrent against all types of threats. This is without going into detail on additions like medium-range sensor systems.

Note that I'm not lobbying for the addition of mechs to the game, I'm simply doing some long-winded theorycrafting on the possibility.

The NC mech is a battletech ripoff and the VS one is stolen from Warhammer 40k eldar, but where did he get the TR model?

I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but this was just too silly. In the first point, you declare that you don't want gundams or battlemechs, but immediately in the second point bring up games and anime that portray them as faster and better than tanks. News flash, the mechs in the games and anime that are portrayed as better than tanks ARE the gundams and the battlemechs. It's almost universal in those settings that the mechs are the dominant machines on the battlefield and render all others (tanks, fighter jets, etc) obsolete. In many cases the only reason they're faster is because they zip around on super powerful thrusters that ignore the laws of physics (like the ESFs do, I suppose). Take those away, though, and they have to walk. Guess what? There is a reason the wheel was invented. It is faster and more energy efficient than bipedal locomotion. In addition, while there may be some places that a mech could go that a tank couldn't, there is likely many more that a mech couldn't go. A tank has all of it's weight distributed across it's treads. A bipedal mech has it's weight distributed between just two points of contact. One when it's mid step. That makes it much more likely to sink into the ground and get stuck.

And for the record, no, I'm not just some mech hater. The VF-1 Valkyrie will always hold a special place in my heart. That doesn't mean I'd want to see one in Planetside 2, though.

Gimme gimme gimme!

Again, I fail to see how you can be more specialized than a Lightning. Take the Skyguard for example. It's (supposed to be) effective and specialized against aircraft, and really doesn't stand a chance against ground vehicle or infantry. I mean apart from being Liberator-specific or Galaxy-specific, there just isn't a way to become more specialized than what a Lightning is now.

Those vehicles are already designed specifically to only do that one thing. A Skyguard Lightning is designed specifically to only piss off aircraft. An AP Lightning is designed specifically to only go after vehicles. A HE Lightning is designed specifically to only engage infantry. The only versatile weapon the Lightning gets is the Viper, though most would consider it in the same class as the HE cannon.

No you haven't. What makes a bipedal, slower moving, less armored, and less well-armed mech a better AA platform than a Lightning?

Not strapping an extra weapon onto a tank... taking whatever weapon you would have put on a mech and put it on a tank.

Say for example you would put a powerful SAM system on a mech. Well why not put that SAM system on a tank? What makes the mech so special that only it can mount such a SAM system and no other vehicle would be compatible with it?

If you're talking about giving a mech more than two weapons, that would indeed make it a walking battlestation, at least much more powerful than anything we currently have in the game.

In the end, I don't think you've been able to satisfactorily answer any of my four questions. You're still welcome to try, but the difficulty that you're experiencing is exactly why adding a mech to the game is completely unwarranted; there's simply nothing that they can offer to the game except "super fun stompy good time".

It's probably best just to agree to disagree here, as we're missing a couple of eachother's points. However I will address two small things:

I did answer this, albeit rather vaguely. It is not less well-armed. A single barrage of missiles should theoretically be able to take out an ESF, or bring a Liberator down to less than half. This barrage would be staggered, with all missiles being released over a period of about 4 seconds. A Skyguard can bring a Lib down to the same amount in 8 seconds, though the difference is the Skyguard has a longer range and shorter reload time, and has to land every one of its shots. In the end the actual TTK wouldn't be too different, most likely somewhat in the mech's favour, but the advantage is in serious, rapid punch versus the Skyguard's ponderous plinking.

But this depends entirely on the strength of the weapons you give it. I suggested four because a bank of weak weapons arrayed together is easier to balance and allows for build variation. If you just slap two big guns on it, it turns into a tank.

Good point but forget deep specialization of the guns for a moment. The mech is not mainly about it's guns, it is about the legs. I feel I have in previous posts described this in detail, so here is a condensed version.

The nimble mech is Mobile/Dexterous/agile, generally not fast, not resilient, not powerful. It would only be fast resilient and powerful in the context of it's unique usage environment. Which is on uneven/rough/mountainous terrain. They are: Fast, only because they can go over the mountain instead of around with it's legs ability to climb. Resilient, only because they are hard to hit and chase down, with it's crouching jumping and dogging. Powerful, only because they are so easy to aim in with aim smoothing as the legs compensate while going over or into bumps and recesses. (The walking sway would be small and predictable compared to the large smoothing effects.)

That said remember weapons? Back to weapons. They should be not completely specialized like the lightnings single gun. Rather it's two arm guns should be versatile/adaptable to it's environment like the legs are, yet specific not so much to what it is shooting at but where it is shooting at it. Many people talk about the light/nimble mech as a perimeter defense unit. If the base is surrounded by mountainous terrain I agree. This could be done like said previously by making the default weapons a short/medium range wide shot weapon. Dissipating shots get more deadly the closer they are and so are good for sudden close quarter damage and holding behind cover. There is so much untapped potential for spread shot faction specific guns.

These pictures are mostly for visuals because their visible guns, size and specialty work well with the ideas for the default guns.

For the New Conglomerate I really like the canister shot ideas. One arm is a large anti-heavy-armor canister shot, the other are two smaller anti-light-armor canister shots.

For Terran Republic, short range tight pattern quick reload anti-light-armor swarm/cluster missiles, mixed with fast anti-heavy-armor dual cannons.

For Vanu Sovereignty, what ever that purple crap is as a wide shot anti-light-armor weapon, and a charged shot anti-heavy-armor weapon, both with no spread and no drop.

Now about common purchasable weaponry. Basically some of the regular tank cannon varieties, plus the faction specific cannons but repackaged to be much lighter since there will be two of them on a smaller frame. Then some of the turret guns repackaged. Not much more needs to be said since so much variety is possible here.

So how would the rock paper scissors work? High flying air, like liberators would be trouble for mechs without anti air. While low air, like Faction Specific Fighters would have trouble with mechs in general, who like to hide behind the hills they use as cover. Tanks would have no trouble with mech on flat land, but tanks would have all kinds of trouble on rough terrain with a mech. A mech in town would be at the mercy of infantry firing small arms from all directions. But a mech on the mountain could significantly harass or ambush an isolated sunder spawn point, especially when it's infantry are vectoring away. As a side note it would also be able to quickly hunt down or force into hiding isolated entrenched infantry, who are camping in the hills, like snipers or maxes. It itself though would generally lack high velocity Dammage Per Second weapons for long range area damage, like a well positioned tank would.

Now the rock paper scissors for heavy/Armored mech, because half of the people seem to think this is what mechs are supposed to be. Hell why not both. First let me describe how heavy/armored mechs are different.

They only spawn from the warp gate like galaxies. If they are not all generic builds by Nano Systems, they all would all at least have one big siege gun and two support guns, top and bottom. meaning they can be all three anti air-anti armor and anti infantry. They are slow but can climb as fast as they slowly walk. Can slowly dodge and hop. They can be only be rammed into tripping while they are running. They do crush damage while landing, bash damage while walking. Most importantly they are immune to small arms, and have armor like a tank. Like the Light/agile mech, it is always best on rough terrain.

In their default configuration against air, they are the same as a tank with an top mounted Anti Air gun, meaning they are not that good against air. Worse than a sunder which has two turrets and infantry support. Against tanks it would be good, since it's main siege cannon could peak over ridges to get a decent shot, and up close it can do crush and or leg bash damage to potentially flip a tank. Against infantry it would be same as a tank with an anti-infantry turret, except the extra attention it would draw. Another note is that with it's long range siege gun and ability to dodge, it would be good against base defenses. (Double tap a direction to doge). So it's weakness is air and light infantry, and it's strength is base defenses and tanks.

Since they only spawn at the warp gate and are slow, they are quickest into combat near the warp gate. So it could be an epic last defense weapon if warp gates were directly capture-able. Capturing a warp gate would kick that faction off the continent. This would provide a motivation to maintain a faction presence on unpopulated contents in case an alert started there after.

These are the ideas I have compiled as I have read this forum. I actually think this configuration of mechs could work well.

You know I made that as a joke, right?

One single shot of that cannon and the mech would either be flipped over or completely destroyed. Big cannons on bipedal mechs simply do not work.

Mechs will add nothing into the game except waste the developer's resources. The roles that a mech would have are already fulfilled by the Main Battle Tank or Empire Specific Fighter. Better vehicle gameplay should come from improving or completely revamping the current, very simple gameplay. Currently, vehicle gameplay is nothing more than a modern version of Tank Hunter from the 1980's. If this really is a combined arms game, then vehicle gameplay should be as in depth as infantry gameplay, but it is not. Instead of asking for mechs, players should be asking for more in depth vehicle gameplay similar to the combined arms games of ARMA, War Thunder, or Heroes and Generals. Besides anyone with a logical mind would realize mechs are simply impractical, absurd machines in reality and would not add anything to Planetside 2 gameplay. This thread should be dead long ago.

Regarding the mechs in anime being superior to tanks, imagine transferring the tech used on the mechs in anime to the tanks used in anime. The result is a tank that is more mobile, better all terrain features, stabler, more armored, and greater ability to load larger more powerful weapons than a mech.

There is a reason mechs are not being used in the military. Mechs are to mechanically complex and offer no tactical advantage over a tank or fighter. Tanks and fighters are a much cheaper, more reliable weapons platform than an unstable mech that stands on two legs. So far, over a century has past since the advent of the first combat ready tanks and fighters, and finally now the first prototype bipedal robots are being introduced; they are not even combat ready yet. It is a huge fallacy to use anime or any movies as a resource and claim that mechs are superior to tanks and fighters.

Why not give tanks the missiles? Tanks would be a better armored, more mobile, much stabler weapons platform than a mech.