[Suggestion] Sunderer-based Artillery

I think the bulldog is the best artillery we will ever get.
Also, post this on reddit or it will never see the light of a developer's day.

I think this would have to be balanced in order to make it fair. I'm thinking in addition to that cost, you would have to have an infantry unit lase the target for a very long time in order to fire the nuke. The enemy would also receive notification that a nuclear missile was launched, giving them time to hunt down the infantry who was lasing the target. Really, not unlike the Ghost's nuke from Starcraft, and everyone knows that was a pretty balanced game!

If it makes you happy, here's some actual new content!



There you go... thread is brand new and shiny!

I'll add some additional new content; MY WORDS! Even though they seem fairly good at killing a thread... so either way, both camps are satisfied.

However, the developers have said that artillery won't work for two major reasons;

Reason 1) Render range means artillery will be as close as tanks to kill infantry. Better known as rendering artillery more or less useless.

Reason 2) They don't want more causes of unknown instant death. Better known as bad new player experience.

These two reasons are lazy, and easily circumvented.

Workaround to Reason 1)
In Planetside 1, artillery could either fire on its own - or infantry could run around with a spotting tool that added artillery waypoints for their squad/platoon. This mechanic can be brought back in a fashion for Planetside 2 to overcome the render limitations without having to make big changes to the threat system.

Firing on their own, the driver is limited to traditional render range. This means they are gaining extreme firepower, but in exchange, are extremely vulnerable.

However, you can have it so a "forward observer" retrieves a marker of some sort from the vehicle. While this marker is equipped the observer is considered a crew of the vehicle (so kills are shared to the schmuck out back loading and firing shells), but the shell is "owned" by the person with the observer tool. The observer now trades combat effectiveness, for the safety of the firing platform, and the shell can do damage to targets functionally on the other side of the map (anything rendered to the observer).

This also introduces counterplay for those being shelled (besides just find and kill the artillery); find and kill the "forward observer".

Workaround to Reason 2)
Engineers and Infiltrators can gain counter-artillery tools.

The Engineer gains a C-RAM like deploy-able that takes the place of their turret. For those not hip with the real world military, C-RAM means Counter; Rocket, Artillery, Missile and is just a big machine gun with expensive radar. The engineers deployed C-RAM would have limited ammunition (and would self destruct when ammunition is depleted - so the engineer knows) to allow overwhelming counter-play; like the Spitfire, it would be resupplied only at a terminal. The C-RAM would then basically be a Spitfire (hopefully cooler looking) that detects and engages artillery class projectiles before they hit their target and explode. Protection radius per C-RAM would be determined based on balancing factors, but should reasonably be roughly one point building.

The Infiltrator then gains a deploy-able shell radar, similar to that used by NATO Artillery crews so they can do effective counter-battery operations, that marks on the HUD and Minimap where a shell is going to land, along with a countdown to the shells arrival and the direction it is coming from. This deployable would take the place of their motion spotter or dart gun, and be placed in a similar fashion - and show on the radar to enemies under the same circumstance. It would "detect" in a similar area to the C-RAM. It is assumed a C-RAM has one of these, but it does not provide information to the unit. However, unlike the C-RAM, it would be resupply-able at ammunition packs.

Both counters encourage teamwork, and foster counter-play on both sides of the engagement.

As a bonus, we have now also created a potential and meaningful use for the Interlink facility. Owning an interlink facility could grant the Infiltrator Shell Radar and Engineer C-RAM ability to bases connected to it via the lattice. The Shell Radar would be extended to the hex borders (wow, also brought back a reason for the hex on the map besides showing us the color of who owns what), and the C-RAM functionality would take control of unmanned AA turrets.

This goes even further, if the current "Minigame" PTS lattice/hex hybrid goes live as the main "gamemode". Now, bases linked to the Interlink via Lattice get the benefit, but only Hexes connected to the interlink by friendly hexes gain the benefit. They do not gain it from being adjacent to hexs/bases connected to the interlink only via lattice. You have now created meaningful impact to cutting off territories.

I think I did make something that might work for this. Originally made to protect SAM batteries against incoming A2G weapons, but it would probably work in an anti-artillery role as well. Of course back then there wasn't artillery in the game... so it didn't occur to me to make it anti-artillery.

Something this could do also is shoot at droppods and falling infantry from a specific hight(You could still safely drop from a Valkyrie or a galaxy if you were dropped low but you couldn't be falling for too much of a distance)
Something similar was in a game called section:8 were you re-spawned by dropping from space in your super soldier armour

Here's a good example of the game I'm talking about Spawn system:

And here's what happens if you try to spawn in a area protected by enemy AA


As you can see AA turret's in that game control were you can and can't spawn, It shouldn't be that severe in PS2 but it would be cool to have more way's to affect the battlefield.

No. The whole point of artillery is to shoot from a safe position / distance, so the enemy cannot respond to it in any way other than by using own artillery. This will just create frustrating gameplay, when you keep getting barraged by an enemy you can't even fight back against. Libs, lolpods, PPA - ring a bell?

Snipers and tanks can already kill at long range, and the majority will say they don't like fighting against them on unequal terms. So why do we need artillery if it will make the game less fun for everybody?

I'm not saying this because I'm allegedly biased to infantryside. Even if artillery was dedicated strictly to anti vehicle duty with next to none splash damage, it wouldn't change anything. Still frustrating, just for the smaller part of the playerbase.

I understand that artillery has a strong place in real modern combat, but thank god this is a game and we don't have to mindlessly copy the most frustrating elements of reality.

But you can indeed fight back against those targets (well most of them anyhow) if you simply pull the associated vehicle to counter those things. ESFs with rocketpods die to Skyguards and A2A ESFs. PPA means that the Magrider lacks an AV secondary or the Harasser is helpless to armored vehicles. Liberators might be the only example that you have a point with, but that's simply because as the game currently exists the only counter to a Liberator is another Liberator. That's more of a problem with Liberator balance than anything else.

Players who refuse to pull vehicles that are designed to counter other vehicles are similar to a player who tries to use a shotgun for everything and then complains that everything else is too strong.

Actually artillery would make the game more fun, and here's why.

Artillery, by its nature, is good against targets of particular characteristics. First, artillery is effective against known targets. Because artillery doesn't attack often with LoS, they need other intelligence on where to fire. Second, artillery is effective against static targets. Because of shell travel time from indirect fire, artillery is not as effective against moving targets unless it can predict target travel. Third, artillery is effective against long-term targets. By its nature artillery is imprecise (as opposed to direct fire) and so the first shots are unlikely to hit. But over time with aiming correction and just sheer probability, artillery is bound to hit something.

So we have a weapon that is good against known (unstealthy), static, and long-term targets. Sure.

On the other hand the worst fights to be in (even as infantry) are those fights that are unstealthy, static, and long-term. You know, the Biolab meatgrinders. Or Subterranean Nanite Analysis. Or any other number of fights that devolve into who can cram the most infantry into one arbitrary building.

So if artillery kills these sorts of terrible fights, who cares? No one would shed a tear.

And instead artillery transforms these fights (and all fights) into mobile, combined arms combat that PS2 probably should have been in the first place. No longer is camping the capture point buildings a feasible path to victory, because sooner or later artillery will amass to completely destroy the static defenders. Instead artillery forces the defenders to constantly aggressively attack, to seek out and destroy the enemy. Control of the air and the surrounding ground is paramount to victory; instead in PS2 you can pretty much ignore all that.

So that's why artillery would make PS2 a better game. It would force infantry units to reach out from inside a base and engage in fights outside the base to prevent artillery from getting in range. That means that both infantry and vehicles are necessary for victory and for securing a base... relying on infantry alone will spell certain defeat (of a long-range explosive kind).

Essentially we turn PS2 from this:



Into this:



All with the addition of a way to punish people for staying in one spot too long.

That's only doable after the threat presented itself, which is often only after you die, and the threat may not exist anymore when you get around to pulling the counter.

We both perfectly know that all targets are known in PS2. Bases don't move anywhere, and there's no reason for people to be somewhere else. And not much place either.

Often there's no choice but to stay in one spot. You think people like sitting in one place twiddling their thumbs? They sit behind cover because going outside gets you killed. So you have a choice, sit in cover and die to artillery or go outside and die to everything else.

You know what kind of artillery I wouldn't mind? The strategic, static kind.

Imagine a type of base, say, Fire Control Facility. It has several satellite dishes and several big *** cannons, think Big Bertha. When the base is captured, it can be used to choose a certain hex. It gives a warning to everyone in that hex: "Artillery strike imminent! Initiate strategic withdrawal!", and after one minute, the bombardment starts and everything in the hex is destroyed. The bombardment lasts for several minutes, then goes on a long cooldown.

So in this case the artillery serves as fire curtain, forcing the enemy to retreat for a few minutes.

The best part is that most of the props are already in game. Orbital bombardment FX, big cannon from the Tech Plants and the cancelled interlock facility (or whatever it was called).

I think this is the best solution for all parties involved: uses created props, so the work on them is not wasted. Adds artillery in the game so people will finally shut up about it. Gives value to at least one base, increases the depth, which is also often requested. Owning this base during an alert will give a considerable strategic advantage.

Sure, but we're not asking you to fight a war all by yourself. While your infantry platoon is mucking around inside the base, shouldn't there be an equivalent armored platoon cleaning up the outside and an air squadron providing cover? That's true combined arms teamwork. We don't expect everyone to be everything all the time (because if you pull armor then you're not defending the base as infantry), but that armor, air, and infantry need each other to be successful.

So if you're being bombarded with artillery, let your SL know. Your SL will then transmit that information to your PL. If you have an attached armor or air element as part of your platoon, your PL will direct your armor or air to target the artillery. Or if you are a pure infantry platoon, your PL will request that an armor or air squad/platoon do the work instead.

But if you aren't playing as a combined arms team, well then really there should not be any other option than to lose. Because your enemy was using combined arms.

Unless you (or someone else on your team) kills that thing that would have killed you. It's pretty simple.

It doesn't take master's degree in physics to sit on a hill and bombard a base from 5 kilometers. It does take effort to play in a squad, so not everyone does. PS2 can't be an open world MMO if it REQUIRES a platoon to play. Then you might as well default to instanced matches. When did this casual shooter became a real war?

You want real combined arms, with people actually working together in an organized manner and try their best to WIN? Then it's not artillery what you need, what you need is a REASON to try to win. Currently there's none, so you see people fighting for fun or farming directives / certs.

Artillery would just be another way to farm. And even if it worked like you wanted, it would still be carrot in the back. A negative incentive to do something. Press X to not die. When it should be carrot in the front, do X and you'll be rewarded. So even if it worked adding the reason to fight first would be more important.

This is exactly what I call frustrating gameplay. Just because the enemy bothered to do something, shouldn't mean you need to drop everything, and do something that takes you away from what you're doing now, or you'll lose without chance. Not unless everyone is playing to win, which they don't.

I could see a Sundy-based heavy mortar as being a thing. Massive AOE damage for large concentrations of units, but with not a particularly large range, and high firing visibility. The Sundy would have to be deployed, and having the artillery onboard would make the no-deploy-area around it even bigger. It would need someone in it, to operate the mortar. It would have to have a large cooldown between salvos.

Sure... except most of the artillery that I've suggested is only effective within 300m. Plus with PS2 rendering, infantry targets don't have to worry about anything more than 300m out (unless you're a sniper/AV MAX under the new render rules). Vehicles don't have to worry for ~800m or so. These distances are perfectly fine for a counterattack.

And the idea of making PS2 into a "casual shooter" is precisely what is wrong with the game. Spurred on by some imaginary idea of "appealing to the masses", PS2 has been dumbed down to the point where it really is a game better suited to hyperactive caffeinated twitch shooters rather than anything that remotely uses tactics or strategy. Just think about all the past Dev comments... not wanting to throw in infantry prone positions because it would "slow down" the game. Or taking away any advantage of force multipliers.

This is why PS2 is a failure. In an ill-advised effort to appeal to the masses, PS2 has lost its core constituency that clamored for a PS1 remake with modern shiny graphics. But there are simply better-evolved twitch shooters out there, so the "common" players that they do attract rarely stay for long. This is demonstrated by PS2's rapid decline of players, despite all the catering that is done to the masses (vehicle AI nerfs, etc). From the Oracle of Death data, the old August 5, 2014 vehicle AI nerfs didn't exactly bring an explosion in population or anything... in fact populations declined until mid-November.

Isn't there a reason to win? I've been in plenty of fights where the point was to win the base. Where victory is judged by the binary decision of if the base is taken or not. I play PS2 to take bases.

I mean... I'm not totally clear on any other metric by which to measure victory in the game. Maybe alert victories or locking down a continent... but that's about it.

I strongly disagree with this statement, because plenty of the game already works like this. It's simply the basic counter system that is built into all facets of combat... including infantry combat. Shotguns versus sniper rifles for example.

Artillery is simply another counter system, no different from what we have now. Artillery is the counter to campers, and in turn is countered by attackers. It's pretty basic and it's been how artillery has worked in many other RTS and FPS games.

Plus of course artillery certainly wouldn't be worse than what infantry currently do to each other by spamming C4 and grenades.

I guess you can think of artillery as falling into one of two camps.

First there's the type of artillery that hits hard and somewhat accurately, but shoots rather slowly. "Burst" DPS types of artillery. This is useful for hitting particular targets closely coordinated with ground attack.

Second there's artillery which is designed for a constant barrage over an area. This is meant to slowly kill off an enemy who refuses to leave or do anything reasonable to counter the artillery. Suppression on a mass scale.

Both types of artillery have possible roles in the game, being rather distinct. You would use the first type tactically, say to soften up one defensive tower just before friendly infantry engage it. The second type however would be more useful for denying the enemy the ability to freely move about in their base, to get reinforcements, or to scout effectively. That's more of a strategic role really.

In the end though, the more artillery, the better!

Be that as it may, reversing vehicle AI nerfs (or making vehicle AI more powerful, by adding other options like artillery) won't bring players back either.

And that's exactly the problem with the game, THERE IS NO metric to measure victory. Taking the base accomplishes nothing, since the base itself isn't worth anything, and you're not gonna notice if you lose it five minutes later. It's the process that counts, not the end result. The success in the end is just a brief moment of exhilaration, and respite before you go the next fight.

Maybe you fight for bases, good for you. Most people fight for directives, stats, medals, just to have fun with a new shiny weapon. Anything, but not bases. People fight to fight, taking the base is just a collateral that happens for the side that fights better. When was the last time you've seen a thread titled "how to capture the X base?"

I don't think I've ever even seen one. Weapons, vehicles, how they get kills and balance thereof, that's all that people talk about.

Playing for the objective is something that does come naturally, at least a bit. If you're kicking a ball on a football field, you're gonna score a goal eventually. But when you have a large amount of fields to choose from, and victory or loss at a particular field does not affect anything even in short term, the game centers on the individual player, and not on winning. And everyone has his own personal win criteria.

And as long as there is no single goal that unifies all players, you can't expect anything from players, and don't have the right to force them to play "your way", with combined arms and setting taking the base as a goal.

Alerts are a step in a right direction, but not nearly enough, since, again, the victory in alert is unrewarding.

In something like League of Legends, with 5v5 matchmaking, you have the right to demand teamwork from your allies, as you are unified in the goal to win the match. In PS2 every player is just doing his own thing, as his right in an open world game.

Until all players are unified in a single goal, with a lucrative reward standing at the end of the process, you cannot demand organization and combined arms. Without that goal all effort is meaningless, and in effect you're just lobbying for another pain in the *** vehicle, that's gonna ADD to camping, not solve it.

You can equip a sniper rifle to countersnipe. Or you can pick up a Light Assault with mentioned shotgun and flank the sniper. But you cannot pull a platoon out of your pocket and go assault an entrenched artillery position.

Hmm let's seee... C4 throw distance = 10m. 2-4 bricks per soldier. Grenade throw distance = 50m (maybe a bit more), 1-4 grenades per soldier. Artillery shot distance = 300m. At least 20 rounds of payload, infinite amount with an ammo sunderer. Jep, no problem here.

Its worse than that... he necro'd a necro'd post. This discussion was a year old, necro'd in Dec 2014, and then necro'd again this week.

Because its quite possible the person you quoted is no longer around and the discussion is dead. If the discussion wasn't dead it'd still be discussed. Sure you're not allowed to create duplicate posts and redundant threads. But that's for current stuff. You're allowed to bring up a discussion again in a new post after about a month of the original dying off.

Just don't expect it to go anywhere if it died once, it will probably die again. Make a new thread about the subject and I'll comment on it. Not going to do it here.

Planetside 1 had artillery. It didn't really add anything to the game. I don't think it would add anything to Planetside 2 either.

Gimme. Give us the tools and we'll create those epic moments you'll tell your ADD grand children about.

what i find really twisted is that games like Battlefield 3 and 4 indeed offer rocket artillery in their SMALL maps (compared to PS2's continents) and it works out quite well.

in comparison, the only thing close to indirect-fire artillery in PS2 is tank cannons which can only fire a limited distance. i think long-range artillery is really missing in PS2 which would offer a great opportunity for artillery given the huge continents and distances.

for all i care, make artillery have a minimum firing range, force it to get a spotter (infiltrator) for target acquisition, make it very vulnerable to anything on the ground or air, make it cost extremely high resources, make it require two techplants to be built... whatever you do, IMPLEMENT ARTILLERY! WE NEED ARTILLERY!!!!

Let me introduce you to my friend Bob. Bob is a sniping Infiltrator. He always run around with a 12x scope and whatever top-tier bolt-action sniper rifle his faction has.

Lately Bob has been complaining to you, Iridar, that he is upset when LAs with shotguns find him and kill him in close quarters. "It is so unfair," Bob says, "because LAs with shotguns are unbalanced at close range."

Now not to put words in your mouth, but I would assume you would suggest either an equipment modification (to pull a CQB weapon or switch to a sidearm) or a tactical modification (to move or to engage the enemy at range).

But predictably Bob replies, "No, I don't want to have to change my loadout or playstyle. Why should I ever have to do anything other than what I want to do, which is to play as a long-range sniper? Why do other people have to ruin my fun? They should be nerfed!"

So then you might suggest that if Bob wants to keep his loadout or playstyle then he should move with a group. That is to say, he should rely on teamwork to make up for his own shortcomings.

"But I don't want to play as a team. I'm a casual player and I want to lone wolf everything. Why should the game force me to play as part of a team if all I want to do is snipe people all day?"

Okay. So obviously that is a bit silly and Bob is a caricature. But at the same time, I hope you see the parallels between Bob's argument and your own. To recap:
Bob does not want to change his loadout.
Bob does not want to change his playstyle.
Bob does not want to work with a team.

And as to your own position:
Iridar does not want to change his loadout (ie pull a vehicle).
Iridar does not want to change his playstyle (ie pull a vehicle).
Iridar does not want to work with a team (ie have someone else pull a vehicle).

To me, you arguing that you should never be required to pull a vehicle is similar to Bob's argument that he should never be required to be anything else than a long-range sniper. Neither makes very much sense, because in every case the situation could be remedied if the player simply took advantage of all their other options. Closing yourself off to all other infantry classes (as Bob has done) or all other vehicles (as you have done) is a self-imposed handicap that should not be the basis for balancing the entire game. Both Bob and you would definitely have options to counter whatever is bothering you; you both simply choose not to do so for personal reasons.

So in the case of artillery, against an equivalent force you could go pull whatever AV vehicle that is handy and destroy that artillery (again, assuming equivalent forces). But you choose not to do so. That's a personal decision but it doesn't reflect on what you could do or what others might do.

And that's why artillery is fundamentally balanced and countered. Even if it doesn't appeal to you to counter it.

Would you stop with personalizations and spreading misinformation about me, please? First, none of the things you said about me are true. Second, we're talking about the game, and what changes can be made to make it better on a global scale. So what I personally do or don't do has nothing to do with our argument, and frankly - none of your damn business. So please set aside your veiled attempts at ad hominem arguments and let's talk sense, or not talk at all.

I'm not fond of the fact that you chose to ignore the most important argument that I made - adding the objective must come before adding means of reaching the objective. Otherwise the means will be perverted and used for something else.

There is a place for artillery in organized war game PlanetSide 2 can be. And I'd enjoy playing that game. But we're not there yet, and until we are - it's unfair to force bigger part of playerbase to choose between losing and switching to organized mode themselves.

Things shouldn't be done with negative incentives. It would feel like they're getting punished for doing nothing wrong, and it's a bad feeling to inflict on players.

You're actually wrong about what I would say to Bob. I would say "It's perfectly normal, Bob. Snipers often end up flanked and killed. Especially snipers good enough to land a headshot on a skilled player, and piss him off enough to come find you. You should seek solace in the amount of kills you got before you were flanked. Since you snipe all day every day, you probably get at least a 20 killstreak each time. Be happy about it."

Not exactly a traditional indirect-fire artillery piece... and not much is left that is recognizable from a Sunderer...



The SPG-155 "Animal Killer" is the ultimate NS experiment in cost-effective anti-tank warfare. The entire vehicle is essentially built around the massive 155mm Cronus cannon (which was originally called "Uranus" after the father of all Titans, but field testing found a 28% decrease in accuracy following orders to "fire Uranus"). Only the Sunderer frame could take the weight of the weapon while maintaining speed, but even then there were necessary weight-saving adjustments made. The cabin and armor of the Sunderer has been replaced, and instead a much smaller space exists for the driver/gunner and the rest is devoted to the engine and ammunition.

In order to fire, the vehicle must deploy to brace the cannon. Additionally there is only a small amount of freedom for "fine aiming" once the vehicle is deployed due to the casement design (instead of a rotating turret). This means that the only real use for the Animal Killer is as an anti-tank ambush vehicle, which must maneuver into position before engaging the enemy. If the Animal Killer itself is ambushed, it is essentially powerless to defend itself as it lacks neither the close-in weapons nor armor for serious fighting.

But the advantage is that its specialized 155mm cannon has an extremely high velocity, flat trajectory, and hair-splitting accuracy. Integrated optics give an 8x magnification for the gunner, and while the FoV is rather narrow this isn't a problem due to the Cronus's flat trajectory.

Interestingly enough, the 155mm Cronus uses HE, not sabot AP shells, as its anti-tank ammunition. Due to the sheer mass of the shell this makes it highly effective against MBTs, but it does have a secondary role as a siege gun as well (though the flat arc means that indirect fire is out of the question).

In history, the name of the SPG-155 comes from the Russian WWII ISU-152, which essentially means "self-propelled gun". The nickname of the SU/ISU-152 was "beast killer" due to its effectiveness in killing German tanks who happened to be named after animals (Panther, Tiger, Elephant, etc). Sadly there aren't too many vehicles named after animals in PS2 (and killing Mosquitoes really doesn't sound as impressive).



The design though is obviously not a tracked and heavily-armored ISU-152, and instead draws from modern SPGs and tank destroyers like the French AMX-10RC. It simply trades the turret for a much heavier cannon.