[Suggestion] Sunderer-based Artillery

The last of the "normal" artillery Sunderer designs...



The Type 4 Mortar Motor Carriage, or the Arigato. The Arigato is a bit different than other artillery, and fits in more as an "assault gun" than a long-range artillery piece. It is meant to move in with an infantry assault, targeting hard points or clustered enemies to scatter them to make the infantry assault easier.

The 300mm mortar it carries is High Explosive only, optimized for dealing with infantry in cover. Unlike rocket and gun artillery, the mortar fires at a very high arc, allowing it to hit behind buildings and cover. Additionally there is a 0 minimum range (and yes, this does mean that it can blow itself up, and yes, the NS Field Testing division is going to be underfunded and understaffed this quarter). The downside to this is that it has a very limited maximum range, maybe hitting 100m on a good day if it's firing into the wind.

Weight is also a problem for the Arigato, meaning that it only moves slightly faster than an infantryperson can sprint. But given how the Arigato was designed to operate alongside infantry, this is not so much a problem (except if trying to get away from tanks or aircraft).

For that reason, it is also unique to the artillery vehicles that it has a mounted Kobalt that can fire in a limited frontal arc. This is because the Arigato is expected to be in the direct line of fire of enemy infantry. Some field testing has also shown that it can provide limited rolling cover for infantry as well.

Since usually the Arigato operator will have a direct line-of-sight on the target, the Arigato tends not to rely so much on spotters for it to work properly. Though making intelligent use of the heavy mortar is critical to a successful infantry assault.

The Arigato is based off of the WWII Japanese Type 4 Ha-To mortar carrier, using the same 300mm mortar. The nickname is Japanese for "thank you", because at the incredibly close range that the Arigato shoots at you're pretty much in shouting distance from the enemy.

These all sound amazing, and I think artillery would add to the game since back line units are not invulnerable after all with flanking and air attack.
My favorite would be the Anstasiya. I can imagine...

I watched the first 50 seconds of that video... and then I had to mute it because of those constant, never-ending rocket sounds. Is the entire 9 minute duration of that video filled with that?

Man, that would give the VS's shiuming PPA and the NC's screaming Phoenix a run for the money.

Of course, the impact of artillery has as much to do with its psychological effects as it does with its killing power. Heck, maybe allowing "screaming" shells for artillery at a cost to damage (gotta remove some of the explosive charge to install a siren) would even be okay, the point being to drive enemies out of the area so friendly forces can occupy it.

Even more awesome would be the ability to fire "dud" rounds which would scream but not explode. The point of such shells would be to scare out the enemy infantry, but allow friendly infantry to move forward without fear of friendly fire.

Ah, the terrifying possibilities with artillery is just so fun!

I think that SOE should make a new vehicle dedicated to artillery instead of using the sundy.

Just make it weak like the harrasser, and require a spotter (give LA a laser-beam like weapon) that needs to link to artillery and spot targets with, this would display a targetting reticule on the artillery gunner's HUD.

I think something like the UT2004 artillery would be nice.



Make it a three person vehicle, main gunner, driver, and secondary gunner that is able to equip a kobalt, baslisk, walker, ranger, fury and bulldog (like the sunderer).

Make the secondary turret only be able to fire in a 180° arc in front of the vehicle leaving it defenseless on the back. This vehicle should also be slow like a sunderer.

While I agree that artillery units should be weaker in terms of armor and HP than frontline combat units, putting an artillery piece on a light buggy like the Harasser (or the vehicle you linked) also has certain problems as well.

Namely that any gun artillery piece attached in such a way would flip over the vehicle with every shot. You just can't put a large cannon on a small, lightweight vehicle and expect it to realistically function. Sure they put light AT weapons on jeeps and even the Vespa scooter, but these were recoilless guns with very limited ranges (and are obsolete even by modern standards).

Rocket artillery would work on a lighter vehicle like the Harasser because they have lower recoil, so that's a possibility. Something like this...



So I think that idea might work out with rockets instead of guns. Someone else can tackle that idea though, because until SOE makes a model of that vehicle to play with I got nothing.

Oh.. I forgot to mention that the vehicle I link has to deploy before it shoots.

Deploying anchors it to the ground with some supports, so the vehicle can fire without falling apart.

To make them balanced their defences should be bad and they should feel bad.

That does make more sense... but it still looks a bit spindly-looking to me. At least it doesn't pass the "would I trust that thing not to explode if I was standing next to it while it fired" test for me.

Another option is to have a towed artillery piece, that can be dragged along behind a Harasser. In that way the Harasser frame doesn't have to worry about absorbing recoil from a heavy howitzer, because there's nothing more solid than the Earth (or Auraxis) itself.

Before I go on to introduce the last two artillery pieces, I'd like to talk about the concept of a crew served weapon.

What's that? A weapons or vehicle that needs a crew of more than one person? You're so silly! We already have that, in terms of Liberators and MBTs and...

No, that's not what a crew served weapon is, strictly speaking. I'm talking about something more like...



Apart from jokes about how many Marines it takes to screw in a lightbulb, the fact is that in many weapon systems you need multiple people working in tandem to operate one weapon. In the above video, there were 8 soldiers working in a well-trained crew to fire that one 155mm howitzer.



This is a diagram of an old school pack howitzer, with the positions of the crew labeled. These are:
(G)- Gunner, who aims the artillery
(1)- Assistant Gunner, who opens and closes the breech (where you load the shell) and who pulls the trigger
(2)- Loader, who loads shells into the breech
(3)- Fuse Setter, who sets the fuses for the shells
(4)- General Assistant, who helps out (1), (3), and (5)
(5)- General Assistant, who pulls shells out of crates and who helps move the artillery

Now you could have one guy hopping around doing all those jobs, but obviously this would lead to a much more tired crew and a much slower firing rate. With a good crew it could fire 5 rounds per minute and with a bad crew (or just one guy)... well...

Okay, so thanks for the history lesson. What's it got to do with Planetside 2?

Good question. The point is that if you want really powerful artillery-

What?!? Powerful artillery? That'd be so OP! Ragerageragerage...

Hold on there. That's why if you have a powerful artillery piece, it should be a crew served weapon. I mean would you rather have 1 artillery gun shooting at you... or 6 Heavy Assaults in your face?

Touche. Carry on.

Thank you. So making a weapon crew-served is about balance. Essentially so long as the artillery piece that requires a crew of 6 isn't more powerful than 6 Heavy Assaults shooting you at once, we can say it's probably still a balanced weapon.

On the other hand, making a crew-served weapon can be fun actually.

Wait a sec... how does carrying an artillery shell from the Sunderer and walking it over to the cannon seem fun? It makes bagging groceries look like an adventure.

If you think about it that way, almost nothing is fun. Why is soccer (or football to the rest of you uncivilized lot) fun? You're just moving the ball this way... then that way... then back this way... it really is a boring experience if you think about it. But we think it's fun because there's a challenge in it. To precisely kick. To quickly run. To sneakily bite people on the shoulder and convincingly pretend you hurt your mouth.

In the same way, working as a tight-knit crew is about being a precisely oiled machine to bump up your RoF as high as it can go. When you can turn around and the guy in your squad who was supposed to load the next shell is already at work, you grow tighter as a group. That's true teamwork, not the "oh let's both shoot at the same target" teamwork that Liberators and MBTs claim to use.

And did I mention that experience is gained equally by all the crew (and spotter)? Not shared, not split, gained.

Okay, fine. I'm not saying I like the idea of powerful crew served artillery, but at least I'll permit you to go ahead and post it. Where is it?

Errr... well... still working on it.

You suck.

Touche.

So....
1) Put personal waypoint on enemy spawn
2) Set up 200m away
3) Spam Über-HE shells. The small version has a 20m saturation fire, so I'm guessing it will do heavy damage or kill anything within 20m. I don't even want to know what the large one will be. 30m? 40? That's almost the size of a small base.

Has anyone considered that maybe SOE didn't add artillery in the game for a reason? There is already enough HE spam in this game, we don't need more.

Also just saw your Anastasiya idea. So..... a lengthy reload is supposed to offset a land based missile system that one clips tanks, and even LOCKS ON when within 10m.

And in your slight bought of schizophrenia, you failed to hit a key point, which I will address with analogies.

Would you rather have 2 Heavy Assaults or a HE / Proton PPA Magrider in your face.
Would you rather have 3 Heavies or a fully manned Zephyr / Bulldog Liberator attacking you.
Would you rather have 5 Heavies or a Battle Galaxy farming you.

Just because its a crewed vehicle does not mean it will be less powerful than having an equal number of infantry.

Okay, so you do raise some legitimate points about artillery, which aren't new to this forum of course. But let's talk about them.

"Saturation fire" simply means that the shells will land in a 20sqm area... not that each shell has an explosive radius of 20sqm (because yes, that would be overpowered). Artillery by its nature is pretty inaccurate, and so even if you "aimed" at a known building or location, hitting that building would fall to the natural inaccuracy of the weapon and random luck.

If you want to imagine what each shell/rocket would feel like in terms of radius, the 300mm rocket would be about the size of a C4 explosion, the 150mm rocket would would be the equivalent of a Vanguard's HEAT cannon, and the 105mm shell would be about the size of a Lightning's HEAT shell. So not very much or very threatening at all (at least no more than things already in the game).

Yes, that's true. And at this point the official SOE line is that there isn't going to be artillery in the game. So lighten up. Practically speaking even I don't expect any of my conjured vehicles to make it into the game, it's more of a "wouldn't it be cool if" sorta thing.

Well, that's essentially what the Coyote is (minus the one clip part). And of course if those tanks are just sitting in one spot and shelling a base, then yes the Anastasiya will wreck havoc on them. Against moving tanks though? Not so much, considering that the Anastasiya is pretty incapable of direct fire.

I mean you said you thought there was enough HE shelling already. Imagine if there was a way to destroy those parked HE tanks that were sitting on a ridge just pounding those poor infantry to bits... well that would be the Anastasiya. See, you do like it after all!

Well of course not. After all, you have to pay resources for vehicles, and the Sunderer is the second most expensive vehicle in the game. Whereas an equivalent number of Heavy Assaults are free and infinite.

Blow up that Magrider? It's at least gone for a few minutes. Kill those two Heavy Assaults? They'll be back in seconds.

ninja'd

So you know those things in the Tech Plants and Tumas Skylance Battery? You know... these things?



Well gentlemen, we have managed to fit one on a Sunderer. Wasn't doing anything useful being cooped up in a Tech Plant or Tumas anyhow.



The NS L/42 Howitzer, or the Abundant Alice (Alice for short) is the first crew served weapon created by NS. And it is also the largest, heaviest-hitting piece of ordnance that currently exists on Auraxis. With a 200m minimum range and a 600m maximum range, the Alice is optimized for long-range fire support missions. The 420mm Nanjet-assisted, high precision shell can strike within 5m of a designated target, though of course with a 420mm shell missing the mark by 5m is nothing. Two direct hits can take out a heavy vehicle like a MBT or Sunderer, and a single shell can disrupt infantry formations. Survivors of a hit suffer from temporary concussion effects... and those are the lucky ones.

Naturally NS has taken safety precautions with this amount of firepower, and after an unfortunate accident where the Accounting building was hit during field testing (coincidentally the Field Testing division just had its budget cut last quarter), the cannon cannot fire without a positive laser designation. Each Alice is linked up to a particular laser designator, which in turn is carried by a spotter. The laser designator fires a visible laser with a range of 100m, and after a spot is lased for 5 seconds the coordinates are transmitted to the Sunderer. From there it is entered into the Alice itself, and the on-board computer takes it from there. While this does make the spotter a weak link in the chain, new safety protocols are part of the non-negotiable licensing for all Alice units.

The Alice was designed in mind to be operated by a crew of 4 (5 with the spotter). Although in theory everything (except spotting) can be done by a single person, this would result in a very slow firing process.



From the time the Sunderer parks, it would take one person about 1 and a half minutes to fire off the first shell and clear the breech for a new shell. Realistically this would probably hit over 2 minutes as they'd have to make quite a few trips between the Sunderer and the firing site.

But with a crew of 4, this time falls to just 21 seconds (practically maybe 30-40 seconds with moving around), assuming that everyone is doing their job. This is because some jobs can be done simultaneously, to drastically cut down on refire time.

Every action is essentially one of those "hold E to do stuff" ones where the circle slowly fills up. So no fancy animations or anything... yet.

The time between when a target is laser designated and when the cannon fires is 11 seconds (assuming a crew of 4 and that the Alice is already loaded). Shell travel time, although fast, still makes this longer. Hence the spotter must lase a static target (like a ridge of tanks) or be able to predict where the target will be in the future (an armor column). Fortunately once a target is lased the Alice can continuously fire on that position until a new target is required.

Needless to say as the crew works outside to operate the Alice, they are incredibly exposed to everything from airstrikes, armor flanks, or even infantry small arms. And since they can't even hop in the Sunderer to escape (for loss prevention reasons the Sunderer is immobile while the Alice is set up as this prevents the crew from forgetting the Alice behind), an Alice crew has to rely on their own infantry weapons or allied forces to deal with threats.

The IRL version of this was the German WWII "Big Bertha" super-howitzer, one of the largest road-mobile artillery pieces ever made.

you can prevent them from zerging by making them deploy before firing, and using a deploy radius like the reinforcement sundie

The sunderer is no Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack.

Do want

Says who?

The last of the artillery models is the...



NS A-2 Rocket, called the Avenger. Based on the advert, it would seem to be the perfect weapon. Long-range, precision guided, high payload. But it can't really be that good, right?

Well the Avenger hides a dirty secret. As the deadline for the A-2 project approached, everything was ready... except for the guidance system. All the regular guidance systems were simply not reliable enough to be paired up with this massive weapon. They all had their faults, and even a 99% success rate would have made the entire project a failure.

So the night before the first field tests, as everyone was heading home for the night with doom on their minds and resumes in their hands, the chief engineer of the project suddenly stood up and announced that he just had a breakthrough idea, and that the next day everything would work out fine.

The next day, the A-2 rocket performed amazing feats. It showed intelligence that far surpassed any NS guidance system to date. It was able to prioritize targets, evade anti-missile fire, intelligently use cover, and a variety of other stunts before it completely destroyed the target site. As a stunned NS CEO announced enormous bonus checks for all involved in the Avenger project, the engineers looked around for the chief engineer to hoist him over their shoulders.

But they couldn't find him. Only a note taped to his monitor that said, "You're welcome "

It was about a week later when the A-2 rocket was entering production that the horror of what had happened was realized. Instead of a guidance system, there was... a chair.

Yes, in order for the Avenger to fire, it needs a human guidance system. Once the unfortunate pilot is in place, launch preparations can commence. At that point the pilot hatch is permanently sealed, in case there is an occurrence of cold feet. Fueling the missile takes about 45 seconds, and afterwards the missile, which is really a one-way aircraft, takes off to find its target. The pilot must stay in the missile until the target is destroyed... or the missile is.

Obviously this missile requires at least two people... one person to sit in the missile and another to refuel it. Experience gained is shared between the two, with the pilot gaining 100% and the ground crew getting 50%.

The missile itself is vulnerable to all sorts of ground and air weapons, and for all intents and purposes has the health and armor of an ESF. The missile can also be upgraded with Afterburner, Stealth, or Composite Armors much like an ESF. In terms of maneuverability and speed though it is much closer to the clumsy Galaxy.

If the missile is "shot down", it will not immediately detonate due to its bulk. Instead it will lose all momentum and plummet straight down, where it will explode as normal once it hits the ground. If the enemy is smart, this can be timed to deal massive damage to the opposing side that launched the missile.

The missile is also very vulnerable on the ground while it is still attached to the Sunderer. If the missile is destroyed while on the ground, it will destroy the Sunderer with it (and anything else in the explosive radius).

Finally the missile does have limited fuel, about 600m depending on the route it takes. If the missile runs out of fuel, it will lose all momentum and plummet to the ground, where it will detonate.

The A-2 Avenger was based on the IRL WWII German V-2 rocket. The "V" stood for "Vengeance weapon", which is where the A-2's nickname comes from.

That's crazy. That's so dayum crazy. Launching just two of those at once would be devastating and circumvent almost all defenses.