Greetings, PlanetSide 2 Community, and welcome! Being a tank enthusiast both in real life and in-game, I feel that there just isn't enough variation in tanks and their playing styles, other than brawling and close-to-mid range combat; tank sniping in PlanetSide 2 is quite a rarity, and I feel that there isn't enough diversity in the utilisations of the tank in PlanetSide 2. So, I had an idea. What if DBG implemented an air-dropped light tank or light tank destroyer, that could snipe from a distance, or get behind enemy lines and provide some means of infantry support to those attacking facilities? Up until enemies are forced into their facilities, tanks are useful because they can provide suppressing fire onto enemy forces attempting to push you back, and can defend other vehicles such as Sunderers also. However, once enemy defensive forces are pushed within the boundaries of their own facilities, tanks are often rendered useless. They must sit behind the facility's gate shields and wait for the shield generators to be knocked out, by which time the defensive enemy force has been driven back to their spawn room, where the tank cannot do anything useful. Then, once the facility is captured, the whole process repeats itself in the instance of the next siege of the upcoming facility. From my own experience, it is quite dull sitting in a tank and waiting for the shield generators to be taken down, to then wait for the entire facility to be captured so that you can do something more productive than being a magnet for rockets. Tanks have a limited use in PlanetSide 2 at present, which is why I propose the addition of a universal new class of tank - the light tank, (or light tank destroyer, depending on Community preference). Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, allow me to present to you... The Nanite Systems Air-Dropped Light Tank...The PeregrineA Concept for a New Universal Vehicle My idea is that Galaxies can choose to lose their belly armament and some passenger seats, as well as some speed and mobility, to carry a lightly armoured, lightly armed, though fast little tank in an extra compartment attached to its belly. This universal tank, the one-man Nanite Systems Peregrine, (feel free to give it a better name: this designation was something I put limited thought into), is a small vehicle of the approximate size of slightly larger than the Harasser, (though looking more like a tank, of course), has a light weapon, (which can be altered depending on whether you feel that air-dropping a tank destroyer or light tank would be better - tank destroyers tend to have bigger guns), is very lightly armoured - having slightly more vehicle health than a Harasser, though is fast. The Peregrine can mount accurate guns to snipe from afar, and either armour piercing round firing main guns for anti-tank purposes, or a high explosive round for dealing with infantry. So How Does it Work?Galaxies would hover above the location they wish to drop the Peregrine; the Peregrine would choose to deploy, (the Galaxy must be close to stationary and must be relatively close to the ground), and the belly compartment would be dropped. The compartment would land and open, and the Peregrine would drive out, (the drop-pod compartment would then disappear - Galaxies can only drop one Peregrine per life). The Peregrine then rolls out to wherever its heart desires - it's really that simple!The Peregrine would resemble the air-dropped M22 Locust of the Second World War, only brought to the time of PlanetSide a little...The M22 Locust - an air-dropped American light tank of the Second World War. This tank would be stored in the nose of a glider, and would drive out when it landed. The tank was very small, had a weak gun, though was relatively fast.Where Could a Peregrine Go?Just about anywhere a Galaxy could drop it! Peregrines could be dropped onto otherwise unreachable plateaus to snipe, or down and past gate shields to provide infantry support in taking out shield generators for heavier tanks. A Peregrine is the ideal infantry support vehicle due to it being able to get past gate shield and assist infantry units in taking out generators and capturing points. Likewise, it can be used as a support vehicle - sniping from afar where it is quite hard to hit. Peregrines are much more flexible than other tanks and other vehicles. They can be dropped where the situation requires them to be dropped. Likewise, because of their small size and mobility, they could get out of trouble and sticky situations, or from high places too.How Would a Peregrine be Balanced?It's simple really. Give it decent speed and mobility, a small size, a small though punchy little gun, (that's also accurate) in exchange for being very frail - the Peregrine would not be able to take many hits at all. One brick of C4 would be enough to destroy it, or a few rockets too. Peregrine drivers need to be clever and self-aware of the situation. They need to be strategic, and once they get into a facility, be able to stick themselves where they're protected, safe from enemy fire, and can still cover important areas before the shields go down and the cavalry can waltz in. Peregrines are ultimately balanced by the situational awareness they require. Get it wrong, and you won't survive, Get it right, and you will play a crucial part in taking a facility.---TL;DR: There is no TL;DR, so read my post!So, what do you think? Could this work in the game? Are there any alterations to this idea that you'd make? Many thanks in advance.Cynicismic
Yeah no, airdropping tanks into infantry only areas sounds dumb and intrusive. You've been watching too much Military history channel haven't you?
Please elaborate on this. If balanced appropriately with sufficiently poor vehicle health, in the event that only a few rockets would be needed to take one out, is there any issue with tanks being able to reach certain areas? For example, when attacking towers and large outposts of such design, is there really any issue with dropping a Peregrine on one of the aircraft landing pads? It has nowhere to go, and cannot fight back against the enemies in the upper tower firing rockets at it. Likewise, let's take Howling Pass Checkpoint on Indar as an example. The Peregrine could be dropped on the upper platform to which the spawn room leads to - where the primary assault and suppression of enemy forces takes place. Certainly, a Peregrine could choose to place itself there. Though it won't last long. The key to playing the Peregrine, provided it be implemented, would be strategic positioning. Of course, you can simply drop yourself right outside the enemy spawn room - likewise, infantry-only areas, and the tops of buildings too. Though where is your cover? How will you be able to deal with the multitude of enemies firing rockets at you? Strategically dropping yourself, for instance, right next to the gate shield generator to protect and hold off enemies coming to defend it would be better. Moreover, placing yourself somewhere where cover is easily accessed and you can defend yourself easier. Furthermore, if a Peregrine placed itself on a plateau, it would still have the issue of aircraft coming to hunt it down - the same as if it places itself on top of Bio Labs, Tech Plants or Amp Stations. They would be frighteningly easy to destroy. Poor placement of your Peregrine, or choosing a poor place to drop the compartment, could potentially result in utter disaster.
I'd like to point out that most air-droppable TDs were usually casemate jobs. Reason being the turret rings on these small tanks were too small to accommodate the large breaches needed on the guns needed to combat Medium or even Heavy tanks. Unless of course you gave it an oscillating turret, but you'd run into the problem of having a significantly weaker turret. These days they're managing to fit 120mm/125mm guns into light tanks, Strykers manage a 105mm though it can't be airdropped. The Sprut-SD mounts a 125mm gun and is air-droppable, but it's being held back by the fact that it uses the same ammunition as the T-90 which can't have longer casings because the autoloader does not have enough room. I think it would be an interesting addition to the game. I personally wouldn't use it but I can understand the point. Although, It does seem to encroach on the AP Lightning's role.
I know it isn't very civil of me, but I did not really read your whole post. The moment I see "NS", I stop. We need more faction diversity, not more everybody gets this stuff.
Excuse my prior mild rudeness, but this little idea is just giving players another reason to go heavy, in a game where everyone will be hotdropping tanks into bases, its going to look like an amusing bumper cars attraction.
The ELC AMX/AMX ELC Bis was a prototype French design in the 1950s. It mounted a 90mm gun, though was remarkably short - around the height of a usual car. It was designed to be air-dropped, had a crew of two, though the turret could not rotate fully. Both crew members were forced to constantly be sitting down due to its small size. The turret was rear-mounted, had a fairly small breech in comparison to those of others, though the tank itself was again very fast. Yet it had borderline no armour. This is a good example of what the Peregrine could resemble - not having a fully rotating turret, being quite short and stout, and having next-to-no armour. This could please the reality aspect of it in the sense that the turret rings could not accommodate large gun breeches, hence, the main armament of the tank was smaller. Though bear in mind that in its current design, the tank would be dropped in a separate compartment, which would mean that the tank could be bigger depending on how big the separate compartment actually is. Even then, having an oscillating turret would prove somewhat useful in the sense that logically they are ideal for housing auto-loaders, such as the French AMX-13 series, (AMX-13-75/AMX-13-90, which both had powerful main guns mounted in oscillating turrets which could house shell auto-loaders). Plus, armour would be irrelevant because in order to balance something like this, you'd need to give it low-ish vehicle health. Moreover, it'd also give the tank a fairly limited gun elevation arc too, making it vulnerable to C4 Fairy attacks from above. Regarding the argument that this tank would invade the role of the Lightning's AP round, yes, that is always a possibility. However, the Peregrine could use an APCR round instead, which would provide higher muzzle velocity in exchange for less damage per hit, (realistically, APCR rounds had less shell splintering upon a penetrating impact than Armour Piercing rounds, which meant that the odds of a splinter or bit of spall hitting something important were lesser, though their shape made them more aerodynamic, as well as more likely to fundamentally penetrate). Alternatively, the Peregrine could fire a standard HE round as it would be dealing with more infantry than enemy tanks due to the lesser armour and weaker main gun. Plus, provided that the calibre of the Peregrine's main gun was low enough, the splash damage from the HE round could be greatly lesser than that of bigger tanks, and henceforth, careful aiming is still a necessity. Of course, the Peregrine could just mount smaller, less capable versions of each gun already in the game, though that seems a little unimaginative, at best. Thanks for the feedback. Agreed. This idea could become specialised to each Empire, like Empire-specific MBTs, there could also be Empire-specific light tanks too. I just slapped an NS sticker on it because it's simpler and I really wanted to see what people thought of the concept rather than actually going one step further and making Empire-specific variants of the Peregrine. From my experience playing games where new content was released or gifts were given to all players, (for instance, gift tanks in World of Tanks), for the first few weeks, everyone is eager to try out the new content. That is an inevitability. Though as the novelty wears off, people will soon begin to return to their usual selves instead of frantically playing new content constantly and unrelentingly. Just give it a few weeks following its release, and the novelty will eventually wear off. Moreover, if the Peregrine had an oscillating turret, which would ultimately result in it having poor gun elevation, attacking it from above by dropping mines or C4 onto it could also be a good way to taking one down. Plus, MAXes with strong anti-vehicle weapons would also be good at destroying them. Besides, even if more players are encouraged to play Heavy Assault Classes because of it, then I don't see any real harm. Just more Certification farming for the Combat Medics, I suppose, (and that's coming from a player who mainly plays as a Combat Medic, so don't take my word for it). There are many ways to kill a vehicle. Playing heavy assault is just one of them. --- Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I genuinely had no idea that there was actually something called the Peregrine. I just chose it because it can be air-dropped, and besides, Peregrine Falcons are cool. I genuinely, truly had no idea...
Lol. As far as air-dropped tanks go, there was the M551 Sheridan. The Sheridan "solved" the problem by having a short but large 152mm cannon, using HEAT instead of AP. Still though of dubious use against a MBT... but they showed how theoretically a small gun might engage a heavy tank. The other option was the Shillelagh ATGM. Allowing light tanks the ability to shoot missiles meant that they could engage enemy MBTs at longer range. The downside of missiles was that you get relatively few of them and that they are a bit slower to fire. Really any "modern" light AT vehicle would probably be a dedicated ATGM carrier and forgo the cannon altogether. Essentially an AV MANA turret on a vehicle. Or you could just make all Lightnings air-droppable. Lightnings already have hooks on their rear that look as if they are meant to be dropped, secured, or towed in some way.
I was thinking about vehicles that fired missiles, but at that point you might as well get an AV MANA turret rather than design an entire vehicle just to fire it.
The lightning is a tank killing beast as it is, if played properly. Also, why do we need more tank killers? as it is now engis kill tanks, LAs kill tanks, Heavies kill tanks, Lightnings kill tanks, Harrasers kill tanks, Libs kill tanks, ESFs kill tanks, and... MBTs kill other tanks. the whole thing makes no sense, because in the end the only reason to pull a tank is to get hunted by everyone else, tanks don't fill any role whatsoever. they cant kill infantry, cant kill air and can only kill other tanks, whose only purpose on the field is to kill other tanks... so whats the point of pulling tanks to begin with? sometimes i feel like im taking crazy pills.
Dude i have over 20 days driving tanks, you don't have to tell me that, my point still is this: given that vehicles cant affect the game play of other players in a meaningful way, why do they need more answers?
People seem to forget that in PS1, at least in the early days, a Galaxy could carry and drop a lightning. Of course the lightning back then was a bit more versatile than now with the selectable guns (main or MG). The Gal could also carry and drop ANTs and buggies. Later on they added the heavy lift aircraft that could drop an MBT or a sundy. There are quite a few PS1 features that would translate well in PS2; resources being the primary (well and rocket rifles and thumpers!). Air lifting vehicles would be a logical add.
I find the Lightning to be more of a generalist rather than having a specialised role. For example, the range of guns the Lightning can mount means that it can switch between becoming a tank destroyer, (when firing an AP round), to then assuming the role of an infantry tank when firing a HE round. I use the HEAT gun on the Lightning because of its versatility, and how it may not be specialised in either class when the situation changes I can adapt to it. Besides, any sane Lightning driver wouldn't try to take on an MBT alone, unless the MBT was distracted already and was on low health. In the instance of the Peregrine, however, we can potentially give it two of these roles - an infantry support tank, considering that it will be air-dropped behind gate shields and assist infantry units in knocking out the generator to let everyone else in, or a tank destroyer role with a small, punchy little gun, (such as tanks including the Valentine AT, or the Universal Carrier when mounted with the old British 2-pdr.). I feel that there isn't enough specialisation in tank roles for individual vehicles, and this could potentially give way to some very interesting additions to the game. This. --- Once again, everyone, thanks for the feedback.
Olny idea sort of like is droping things with galaxy or similar ship, even then why have some new NS light tank, that is lightly armored and high mobility, that defines the lightning. Why not have a galaxy that can just drop lightings and harrasars,?
