[Suggestion] Remove C4 from LA or buff tank HP

After getting repeatedly instakilled by 3 VS LA's in a TR/NC battle on Eastern Amerish, I am the saltiest I've ever been. Three people pretty much shut down an entire armor fight just to be sh*tters. The mountains on Amerish + cloaked sundy + a small squad = no armor fights get to happen.

It is absurd that a LIGHT assault can instakill a MAIN BATTLE TANK. Don't give me the "don't sit in one place" bit either. There was enough TR/NC action that they just drifted off the mountain and there was a guaranteed vehicle wherever they landed. I am not an inexperienced tanker, but C4 is ridiculous.

The obvious choice for me would be to buff MBT's to at least survive, if just barely, two C4 bricks. Though, honestly, a guy with a jetpack shouldn't be able to drop cheap explosives that are 4x more powerful than ARMOR PIERCING shells. I don't care if they give LA's another tool to actually be usefull, but right now, their only tool is just something to enable them to **** all over good armor fights. This is the most absurd, cheesey mechanic in the game right now.

People wonder why tanks often resort to sitting at a distance and HE shelling bases.

btw, that's not a chick.

I think.

The obvious choice would be to buff the tanks capability of dealing with infantry, not buffing their health so they can tank 2 C4. Tanks already dictate most of the fight, with their speed and range there is little infantry can influence except what cover they use to stay safe or get close to the tanks.
The idea is old as PS2 and was actually being build at one time: Co-ax canons, although rather than the basilisk I would keep the co-ax canons exclusively AI oriented. I would add another option in another top-mounted turret that works similar as the co-ax only it's light AA oriented, with as a secondary role the ability to take out C4 fairies much more easily.
At the same time, every infantry needs at least one non-lethal way to deal with tanks and aircraft. This can be slowing down turret rotation to make aiming harder, sapping ability energy (best against aircraft but also good against vehicles), slowing down the chassis turn ratio and maximum speed, disabling gun sights and reducing vision, placing cover such as shield generators etc. These are great for infantry to make it harder for tanks to kill them while at the same time giving Heavies and friendly tanks more power when they engage them.

This creates a better meta between infantry and tanks. Rather than making sure infantry will avoid tanks and there is even less combined arms or class-choice you can improve it. Tanks with situational awareness can kill C4 fairies even easier than they do now, and with a top-mounted gun that has a perfect elevation you can easily check the sky above you to find and kill them.


Edit: There are other options ofcourse and I've not been the only one to suggest it: A separate AV C4 brick. Doesn't matter if you call it a shaped charge or thermite charge or whatever. Doesn't even matter if it creates a sepsration between AI C4 and AV C4. The point is that these explosives are meant to give tanks a chance to fight back.
Example: LA don't have access to current C4 anymore (or it's split into an AI and AV type that they have to choose between). The LA has chosen the AV explosive and jumps on a vehicle. He drops two bricks and let's them go off.
Rather than instant death, the bricks start dealing a lot of damage over time with a light-show on it's location, something around 3500 health each brick so that the Vanguard can't save itself with a lazy shield activation. The tankers have enough time to get out, kill the LA and then repair their vehicle to prevent it from blowing up. You can also choose to shoot the AV explosive and destroy it to prevent it doing more damage, but you have to find it and first and hope you can reach it with your weapon in time.
This creates a much better dynamic. C4 fairying always was a suicide run, but now it takes a bit more before you secure the kill. Placement means you have to place it directly on the vehicle or you'll deal appalling damage. After placement the engineers will get out to save their tank, which gives the LA a chance to kill them or keep them busy long enough that the tank dies anyway, but it gives the engineers a chance to save their vehicle as well.

Yeah, let me be constantly checking the sky while engaging armor so I can avoid some sh*tter whose sole goal is to instakill my tank with C4.

Maybe I'll just move to full-time farming infantry, because engaging enemy armor or sundies isn't really worth it when I could just pull an LA and make it even easier.

Please, everyone, save the situational awareness argument. It's not like I don't know what Im doing in a tank. I've also tried the LA game and it is ridiculously easy to kill distracted tanks. It is the cheesiest nonsense you could possibly do. I was bored and did it to Krodin the other day. There is no way I (I'm not that good) should be able to kill Krodin in his Magrider as an LA.

The problem is map design and not LA's with C4.

I think it's annoying, but how else are infantry players going to kill a tank instead of deter it.

Tank mines, another tank, RL's in a group, PULLING VEHICLES, AV turrets.

Jesus, it's like infantryside thinks infantry should be able to 1v1 a 450 nanite MBT, which is absurd. Surely everyone sees that, right?

Ah so you get tactically outplayed. They made use of your distraction to swoop down destroy all of you. I applaud them.

Fact is, this is still a combined arms game. An LA is highly vulnerable in it's flight, making a lot of counters possible. Drifter jets go just above running speed, but are limited in manoeuvrability. Left, right, up and breaking are all highly limited during flight. Their only option is to drop if they try to evade things, which limits their tactics and could kill them.
Making use of this information, you can just post a sniper or 2 to spot the threat and shoot them down. If the LAs still get close to targets, you can still spot them to let other people close by take over killing them or warn them to move. In the meantime you can figure the direction of the LAs attack, making future spotting easier and relaying information of the sunderer more probable. The threat is reduced to next to nothing.
Trust me. The moment a sniper or 2 are focussing on LAs that drift in from a distance, the threat reduced to next to nothin
Simple tactics which should have been employed, but weren't. C4 isn't ridiculous, but the fact that you can't stop some LAs is. If people got more tanks the moment they where tactically in disadvantage (as no one was trying to shoot easy targets down), then it is entirely the fault of the whole tank column.

Also, people shelling bases from a distance are the primary targets for a LA. A guy with tunnel vision and the idea he's invulnerable so far from a fight in a tank? C4 target identified. People don't start shelling bases because of LA C4, they do it for easy kills (and sometimes they also think about the tactical applications as suppressing the enemy!).

So be salty against something you can often easily avoid and this time you where tactically outplayed, but that shouldn't have lasted long.

Have you tried proxy radar?

Since I started using it I got killed by c4 a lot less. I don't have to flail my turret around constantly checking. I just keep an eye on my mini map. It's not fool proof, and someone sneaky enough will still get you.

To be honest though OP, what you described sounds like a pretty annoying situation. If they are leaping off a mountain (or Valk) with drifter jets there is not a whole lot you can do. It's a bit lame of the VS to troll a good tank fight like that, if it were one of the factions involved I'd say good strategy.

Nope, every game needs cheese that the trash of the playerbase can main so they don't quit.

To be constructive though, the problem with C4 isn't that LA can have it, or the damage.
It's the placement mechanics. They shouldn't be throwable, by anyone.
Make them placed via green ghosting like the motion spotter and shield regen, but at any angle/surface.
They can be BUFFED in explosion radius.
LA then has the advantage of placing them in spots most difficult to see and avoid explosion damage from.

Equip proxy radar and work on your situational awareness.
Getting C4'd is almost 100% preventable unless LAs are diving off aircraft.

Why are you all answering this thread so seriously...

"tactically outplayed"
"situational awareness"

I don't know what I was expecting from infantryside.

If I understood him correctly the problem were LAs with drifter jets drifting over from a mountain and dropping C4 while in the air.
Thats pretty much the same for your proxy radar - if he shows up at all he is already right on top of you.
Or rather: Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru

Add to that that I had infantery not rendering at 10m in a bigger fight and its rather propably that guy doesn't render at all while he drops his bricks on you....
So yeah, I'm all for getting rid of this stupid.

And regarding dropping from aircraft....
I have once done a "bombing run" with my outfit. With a galaxy.
I think we destroyed a heavily defended position with 4 sundies and an MBT that was sustaining a 96+/96+ fight.
They never saw it coming, eh wait thats not right. They saw us coming from miles away, its just that they couldn't do anything about it.
You don't have to share my opinion, but I don't think 12 people should be able to stop over a hundred dead in their tracks as easily as that. If we came from the flight ceiling they would propably not even have noticed.
Not even at their best times liberators could even dream of being as ******edly powerful as a galaxy basically dropping 22 homing bricks of C4 on an enemy position.

The only reason for C4 to exist this way is that you need a way to stop MAX crashes that is not "have more MAXes".
A tank mine only stops one after all, and isn't as easily deployable.

The problem is tank drivers crying for nerf because they got their kilkstreak interrupted. But they don't even try to put Scout Radar in the defensive slot. You know... that prevents being c4ed in 90% of cases.

Maybe I'll just start abusing the hell out of C4 too. Might as well. Easy kills and all that.

In real life, explosive (like C4) on the surface on battle tank is like attacking it with a medieval sword. A simple blast is really really nothing to tank armor specially as most of battle tanks today has reactive armor plates which are..... C4 + steel plate sandwich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armour

A choice has to be made large explosion blast like C4 is supposed to be effective against infantery but completely useless against heavy vehicule (tanks and ligthenings)
Or change the C4 for shaped charges explosives (like anti vehicule grenade....)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
Shaped charge is really really effective on armor (that's the point of it!!) but is directionnal and compared to standard explosives, blast effects are ridiculous.

(by the way, HEAT rounds are shaped charges)

What, this thread again?

Oh, okay. Go ahead then.

Yeah, go ahead. Seriously. Gonna be a great life lesson.

First few tanks killed you're gonna feel like a god and you're gonna sink deeper in your belief that C4 is OP ez-mode.

A bit later, as you have a couple of failed attempts, you're gonna realize it's not that easy.

A bit later, you will learn that it's easy to C4 only overextended or completely oblivious tanks, preferably without a secondary gunner.

In return, this will teach you not to overextend yourself, don't do stupid things like parking under a bridge with enemy sundy on top of it, and every once in a while to look around and move. This already will make you a much harder C4 target.

Of course, sometimes you're gonna get C4'd anyway. At first you're gonna feel rage, "this OP **** again!", but then you will quickly realize exactly how and when you messed in a way that made you a C4 target.

In general, trying to do "OP things" that piss you off is a great way to learn how to play against them, so they don't feel so OP anymore.