The current sunderer package. A bit too much for too little?

I have a few concerns about the sunderer as it currently is in the game, some concerns that I personally feel should be discussed.

What is a Sunderer?
Sunderer is an armed APC, Armored Personnel Carrier. A vehicle designed to provide a safer and faster alternative to moving on foot. It comes with a multitude of weapon systems that allow it to defend itself against assailants and provide additional firepower when on-site.
One of it's most notable features is the S-AMS (Sunderer Advanced Mobile Spawn) unit that also lets the vehicle provide the service of a respawn location. And an innate ability to let squadmembers spawn in on it when manned.

There are two numbers that interrest us with this vehicle. It costs 200 nanites to spawn this vehicle. And it costs 50 certification points to activate the S-AMS.

What this tells me. Is that the sunderer is either way too cheap for the perks it has. Or has too many perks. Not only can it be spammed more readily then a harasser, it in fact can act as a limitless supply of respawns. It has the armor and resistances surpassing those of a main battle tank. Add to that blockade armor or the new AMS shield and it becomes very difficult to destroy one of these and have a meaningful impact on the battle at hand when there's many more lined up or just 300m away in the next base.

Now the argument has been made that a Sunderer should not be something a single infantryman could easily destroy. To support this it has been noted that an AMS (an unlock that has become the sole purpose that the vehicle exists) is the "only thing that keeps an attack alive". So for an attack to progress an AMS must always be present.

I would be a proponent of this argument if not for the 200 resource price and 50 cert unlock. It is too cheap for too much. A sunderer as a transport vehicle alone, for 200 resource sounds reasonable. The armaments can be used offensively but there are more effective ways. But add to it the AMS and we get to the "nope" land.
Either the Sunderer as a whole needs to be jacked up in price so it corresponds to it's importance in the field or the S-AMS unlock refunded and reimplemented as a higher price unlock. I'd even go as far as to say that 500 certification points is too low a price and go as far as 1000. There are things with considerably less effect on the gameplay for that price in the game.

A more exotic idea is to put the AMS unlock back into the Utility slot and make it give the sunderer a negative effect. Like no weapons and limited transport space or increased price. So you can buy your cheap mobile spawn but it can barely carry anyone and needs protection. Much like the AMS vehicle in the original game. Or in the later case, increase the price of the sunderer from 200 to 450-600 when this utility is attached.
Additionally the No Deploy zone should be much less forgiving as to friendly sunderers AND base no-deploy zones should also apply to friendly sunderers to force the defenders to actually maintain the integrity of the entire base, not just the alphabet points.
The attackers should not be given this easy of a leeway when assaulting a base either. Half the battle should be actually GETTING to the base you want to attack. And once you get there, the defenders should have some form of a home advantage, but not that of being able to deploy a sunderer right next to the capture point.
An additional option is to remove the sunderer from all vehicle terminals and instead make it availbale only in facilities and some select larger bases to further emphasize their importance in a battle. Creating a tactical meta for a group to maintain a security detail at the sunderer. And leaving a heavier impact when it is destroyed.

Additionally, nothing makes me question the role and purpose of a sunderer more then the new AMS shield. In the original game (that I have not played beyond trying all the vehicles in VR) AMS was a weak, unarmed vehicle whose ONLY self contained defense mechanism was a cloaking field. Is this more balanced? Doubtful given the current PS2 engine and how it should be rendered (completely invisible is too powerful, and "predator glass" would make it a bit too easy to find actively used sunderers. And without protection it would shortly be ended.
The current sunderer however is not only armed rather heavily. But it is more armored then a tank (without Blockade and without any directional bias) and now also SHIELDED. All that in less than half the price of an MBT.

So end point: Current sunderer package should be looked over. With the prices of both the AMS and sunderer raised to lessen the current swarm of them. Or the attachments themselves tweaked to further specialize the vehicle for the various tasks it is supposed to take on.

I'd still like a vehicle cost system based on what attachments you're using. ESPECIALLY since the sunderer can and will be used to fit multiple roles (defensive roles, offensive roles, mixes of AI/AV/AA...at the same time, spawning roles, and the eventual ANT role). There's no way that this vehicle should cost the same resources for all of those roles.

I've made a pretty big thread about this a few months ago and not only do I still think it should be implemented but it needs to be implemented now more than ever.

Considering that the entire ability to keep fights going, you know, the entire reason we all play this game, is dependent upon having AMS's in field/.....

NO. The cert and nanite cost is NOT too low.

They go down quickly to AV specced armor.

I suggested slot based vehicle costs a long time ago and was told it would be too complicated for new players. (I wanted Flashes to be made cheaper unless Wraith or something. Not an issue for Flashes anymore )

I dunno, I don't think Sunderer's are all that bad TBH. BattleBus use is a bit cheap for the effectiveness, but that's about it. AMS needs to be cheap IMO.

The entire purpose of the game, the "winning condition" is to hold territory. And there has to be a defensive victory condition. Right now, it is much easier and to attack a base then it is to defend it (bio labs being one of the few always exceptions and there are few select bases with more defender friendly layouts).

As I said, half the fight should be fought BETWEEN the bases. That also includes maintaining the supply lines to keep the fight going. That means making sure you have AMS up and running to "feed the fight". I think someone would consider that to be part of a much desired "meta game"

+1
Exactly
The between-base-fights are better than fighting at the actual bases most of the time anyways! (Especially on Amerish & Hossin)

Uhm, how does cheaper access to AMS which make extended field fighting more possible work against this??

I disagree, but let's say I concede that point. Have you taken into account the fights where 20 are brought? If your thought process is dependent on one or two being brought at a time, then some adjustment is required to account for the fact not only do fights bring 20, but they only cost 200, and I have literally sometimes been spawning them and suicidally driving them into quick deaths (for various tactical reasons) and I can't even deplete my resources doing this.

That's enough Nanites for 8 Liberators.

I'll let you take a guess as to which side wins that fight.

That's nonsense, it's much easier to defend most bases.

It's a case of indestructible spawn vs destructable spawns, which is also the reason sundy's have to be cheap.

The real problem is this glorified transport taking out tanks 1v1.

Agreed on every single point.

Does a 2-man sundy actually kill a 2-man MBT? A 1-man sundy definitely doesn't. A 3-man sundy might, with some tricky driving, but that's not especially overpowered (especially given that it becomes completely vulnerable against air -- even more than a tank.

The AMS should be its own vehicle with no weapons with a lighter chassis, which has less armor, but allows it to move quicker. Options like more armor could be added to it with a cost of slowing it down. Due to the loss of the weapons it absolutely must be able to cloak when deployed...

AMS Mk.3 design (for when it does get into PS2)

Honestly, nanite cost scaling based on equipment is something that would probably be helpful on all vehicles and probably MAXes too.

I think it would actually make the resource system more forgiving to new players, because they don't have much heavily certed equipment to drive their cost up anyway. It wouldn't be hard to learn so long as the cost of each component AND your current total cost are clearly displayed where you can see them.

Liberators would win against any ground force, except 20 skyguards maybe. The answer to every imbalance can't be "pull libs".

Not when Sunderers can spit out AA MAXs. The Sunderer essentialy a truck, and when trucks are taking out tanks, then that's a problem. That's just a symptom of laziness. No one wants to actually escort a Sunderer, so SOE was forced to buff the heck out of it until It could hold its own.

A 3/12 Battle Bus with dual Bulldogs is ridiculously powerful against any ground vehicle, even 2/2 AV MBTs. If they get the drop on you they outgun and and outlast you for sure.

A good tactic is to charge into a small tank column, deploy (acivates the shield) and let a few engi buddys jump out and repair behind the Sunderer. That way the Sunderer is able to get insane amounts of HP coupled with very fast repair. If you focus your fire on specific tanks one MBT will be killed in less then a minute, that way those Sundis can move in, kill a few tanks and escape.

Together with the low cost (200 nanites) you can pull those things nearly constantly, effectively giving you a 3/12 melee AV vehicle, which is way over the top for a military transport IMHO. Galaxies fall into the same category, but they have much higher costs. I really dont know who had the glorious idea to make such a versatile and powerful vehicle so cheap.

Blockade armor is way better than the shield for a battle bus, since you don't have to deploy for it.

Put blockade armor in your defense and Fire Suppression in your utility. Approach enemies with your rear facing them, because with max blockade your rear armor value is 70% (ie higher than the front of a Vanguard). This combined with the fact that the Sunderer has better resistance values against most weapons (there are a few that are the same, notably AV secondaries) means you'll have a very high total mitigation.

Once you've taken a few hits, pop Fire Suppression and bug out to repair.

Speaking of which, it seems the resistance table has been updated. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance

One thing that is particularly hilarious is that the Sunderer actually has a higher resistance to AP than to HEAT. The difference in base values is enough that an AP shell still does more damage, but not by much. (1472 for Vanguard AP and 1320 for HEAT for example, multiply by 0.55 for stock sunderer and 0.3 for max rear blockade)

Edit: Also, based on that table the best weapons to use against a Sunderer (ie the ones that will hurt the Sunderer as much as an MBT instead of being less effective) are lock-ons, ESAV primaries (except the Vulcan, but that one can probably brute-force it with sheer damage-per-mag), the Basilisk, and the Lancer.

Also, based on that table I would expect a max-blockade dual-walker Sundy to be extremely effective against Dalton libs.

It undermines the ecosystem in terms of logistics.