The NC is still not Balanced out after 9 years!!!

Thank you for this. Im glad there is some way to argue this with a stat to some degree. I have always felt like if you have played vanu for a diehard amount of time a pretty glaring thing you'll notice is that in a general big VS zerg you will see many many lightnings pulled by people and far fewer magriders pulled. I've always felt like this has been the case but never had anyway to actual quantify it as hard evidence in any regard. The magrider is not fun to use if you don't understand the armor metagame and I think alot of new vanu plays get turned off from it in favor of a far more..'normal' type of tank in the lightning and very few will actually bother ever returning to the maggy as a result of its..unique design. Hell its taken me years to start dipping my toes into using it again as i just felt it so frustrating to handle and navigate with back in the day. Those that do bother putting the time in to become maggy aces's tend to be absolutely hardcore bastards though, once you can wrap your head around how that tank is meant to be used it does become a nightmare to deal with.

Cherrypicking alert!
1: the old data shows that per 100 players, each faction pulls more or less the same amount of MBT's. The thing is that there are simply more players on some factions. This point also deals with the idea that there would be more casual tankers.
2: with more uniques it would mean more Vanguards on the field at any one time, meaning more guns facing the enemy and easier kills. Even so the Vanguard does not outperform the other MBT's. That would mean the Vanguard is even worse.

The problem with your ideas is that it can only really happen in two ways:
1: only fight when your enemy isn't near cover, which means playing ultra defensively and is something your enemy can do just as much if not more due to the slowness of the Vanguard. Additionally it means popping up behind cover. Cover by its nature is inbetween you and the enemy, so unless its one of the rare hills you can use as cover you cannot drive out with your frontal armor towards them. That means your large side-armor is exposed. Turning to face them with frontal armor means giving up the chance to get back into cover if the fight goes badly due to how slow the Vanguard is.
2: outmaneuver your opponent, which requires you to outmaneuver an MBT that has a higher maximum velocity, higher acceleration and higher turn rates and an MBT with a boost, easier handling&shooting on rough terrain that the Vanguard cannot even dream off and strafing abilities. The only way to accomplish this with any solid chance of success is to attack lower skilled players who don't use maneuvering that well.
Its like asking the Lightning to outmaneuver the Harasser. Its possible but unlikely, and when you succeed the opposition has a far greater chance of turning the tables than you do if they outmaneuver you.

You are basically argueing "but the shield exists!". Yes it does! I could start arguing about how the Prowler has a Barrage ability that boosts his DPS. But in a vacuum that is meaningless.
You are also arguing that the slowest, easiest to outmaneuver tank should be equally as vulnerable as the two better maneuverable tanks. The shield is compensation for all the drawbacks the vanilla chassis has, proven by how the Vanguard can't outperform the other two MBT's.
Also the Prowler and Lightning have a much easier time turning their front towards enemies and turning back again. Its an advantage and yet the users rarely do this. The simple reason: its too hard for most players to simultaneously watch your health, return fire and keep track of the chassis direction to safely return to cover when necessary. The Vanguard is even slower and longer, making it even harder to do this.

All I see is the excuses of someone who dies to the Vanguard, the worst performing MBT.

Your inexperience shows.
When the shield was a straight up health boost players waited with using it until it was necessary to either end a fight or get into cover in time. but now that the shield is a % damage reduction you HAVE to use it early on. If you don't you risk not having enough health anyway. This means constantly being aware of the option of your enemy simply waiting your shield out, but also being aware that without the shield you are driving an inferior MBT so you basically have to use it at some point unless you can force some sort of straight up slugmatch where no maneuvering is done and no one tries to escape.

Where? In dreamland? Against newbies that don't use any of the advantages of their one MBT's? If its so easy, why does the Vanguard's primary guns have the worst VKPU? A statistic which includes the murder of any ground vehicle?

When does this EVER happen? Rushing the enemy is a death sentence for any vehicle. Most combat isn't a 1v1, you would just expose yourself to many more guns firing at you. Even if you do that, the time it takes to rush over means the shield is just about gone. In that time only a fool would just sit there and sling shots at the Vanguard. You just back up into cover, repair up a bit and then assault the worst MBT chassis now without its shield. An MBT that couldn't repair up in the meantime to boot.

No one simply rushes unless you know you have a clear advantage on your enemy. The shield is not that clear advantage. This idea that players just rush with the shield on is a myth thats been going on since launch. Players might try it once, then notice how this fails miserably and stop doing it.

Ok so lets see how well the Vanguard actually does with those advantages in relation to the other tanks. No theorycraft, but numbers. I just did a quick check and the old numbers seem reasonably validated: the Vanguard is still the worst performing MBT.
That means that the total package of ability, health, damage, muzzle velocity, speed, acceleration, turn ratio's, unique features etc matters more for the other two MBT's than it does for the Vanguard.

Because you suck and want to keep murdering the worst performing MBT to feel good about yourself while maintaining this ridiculous idea that the Vanguard is the exacr opposite of what it really is?

The rest has actually learned that your bull$hit is bull$hit. But hey, show us some un-cherrypicked gameplay of you rushing enemies over and over again in a Vanguard and how much success you have with it.
Not that it would matter, since the performance statistics wont change.

You will be suprised to learn that if you look further that this is much more nuanced.

On a per population basis there are an equal number of MBT's pulled across all 3 factions. The VS pull more lightnings on a per population basis though. So its not less Magriders pulled but more Lightnings pulled instead. There is no magical more teamwork when pulling a Magrider, there is no higher skill per player on the Magrider. There is just the same amount of players with the same amount of motivation to use an MBT and pull one as on the other two factions.
This makes a lot of sense. The Vanguard and Prowler take up the same spaces on the battlefield as the Lightning. The Magrider on the other hand uses cover differently, is on different terrain a lot and when they do fight together they can simply pass over/under eachother most of the time rather than block each other.

BLU's main tank is just garbage. This is either a stupid taxi between hexes, or a crowd incapable of basic maneuvers. A crowd of TR tanks drives across the entire map, knocking out all living things, leaving in raids of 5 hexes. However, Vanu knows how to maneuver and play. Vanguard is a big lightning bolt without a motor. What's the difference how much HP is there? The super tank has a lot of health and a lot of weapons, but a random ant can kill him with ant anti-aircraft gun at close range - he will simply circle around the tower or in the dead zone.

Worth noting that he is basing it solely on the raw defensive value. But like you say, this is in a vacuum. Fights don't happen in a vacuum. Tank fights aren't always 1v1, aren't always front vs front, and certain stats like movement speed begin to matter in a player vs player situation.

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Additionally, the shield REDUCES damage, it doesn't increase health. Lets do some math - Armour from the front is increased from 0% to 67%, and it lasts 8 seconds. MBTs take 50% more damage from tank shells. The P2-120 AP (the Prowler AP gun) does 600 per shot, has 2 shots, and can fire both shots in one second (120rpm = 2rps). Maxed reload speed takes 3s to reload. This means that at optimal level, the Prowler will unload two salvos totalling 2400 damage over the 8s lifespan of the Forward Vanguard Shield. In contrast, during that time, the TItan 150-AP does 850 damage per shot and has a max reload speed of 3.25s, meaning it can only fire two shots over the lifetime of the shield, totalling 1700 damage.

Disregarding the 50% damage as I dont know how it applies to damage formulas, a 67% resistance would reduce the overall damage to 33% of its original value. Which results in the Prowler only inflicting 792 damage. You effectively only inflict a little over one of your four shots. Which is pretty good... on the front armour, assuming everything lines up perfectly, and assuming youre only plinking away at each others front armour. After this salvo, from full health, the Vanguard has 5208 health and the Prowler has 3300. At this point, the Prowler has 4.5 salvos needed to win, requiring 18 seconds to do so, assuming the ideal scenario above where the gun is fully reloaded as soon as the vanguard shield falls. The Vanguard requires 4 shots to secure the kill, which occurs in 13 seconds, adding 1.75 seconds it takes to complete a reload according to those optimal conditions for using the shield.

So, under these incredibly specific circumstances, the vanguard wins. But what about the Prowler? Does it gets its ability? Lets factor in barrage. Assuming the player is smart enough to wait until after the vanguard shield falls to pop it, and assuming they do so the moment the shields falls. This reduces the reload to 2.1s, and said effect lasts 15 seconds at all ranks, meaning each salvo takes 3.1s. So the time it takes to bring down the 5028 health is... 13.95s. Which means the Prowler can win this straight up one on one, front armour vs front armour fight with no misses and identical starts to firing at each other, if the Vanguard pops first and the Prowler pops after the shield drops.

Its also worth noting the Prowler could also run fire repair. That would take the prowler from 750 health after Vanguard shot 3 to 1000 health, and at a rate of 3% per second, by the time the vanguard fires a second shot the Prowler would be at 1487.5 health, which is enough to live the next shot, adding 3.25s to the Vanguards ttk, putting it from 14.75 to 18s, identical to the Prowlers, thus making them even.

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Now, this is all in a vacuum, assuming front armour only, very specific scenarios and disregarding the -50% resistance MBTs have to tank shell damage types because I haven't the first clue how to calculate that. But regardless, the Vanguard wins if the enemy has already used their ability. If they havent and wait for the right moment, the Prowler can either win or draw. Its all very subjective to player experience and what side the attacks come from, and the Vanguards non-existent maneuverability makes front armour engagements hard to specifically get into without careful effort and deliberate engagement - an option you don't always have, and one that is immediately foiled once other combatants or flankers come into play, to say nothing of missed shots.

Why is old data better than new data?
If you ask me, sure that fits what I see when I play. Magriders are not dime a dozen like Vanguards or Prowlers and recently I have been playing my NSO character so I dont really see how any bias would be involved, I fight less Magriders than either Prowlers or Vanguards.

1: Why would you fight when the enemy is near cover and you are not in a position to remove it? All you do is give away your position as there is little to no chance of you killing them.
2: For whatever reason a lot of people likes to find cover and sit still with their tanks, outmaneuvering a stationary target is not exactly hard, even if its slowly sliding around the place it is currently camping on.

Magrider Racer: 69-70kph forward, 71kph strafeboost and 21kph strafing
Magrider Combat: 59kph forward, 62kph strafeboost and 26kph strafing

Vanguard Racer: 72kph forward and 27kph reverse ~30-40kph forward "strafing"
Vanguard Combat: 61kph forward and 30-31kph reverse ~20-40kph forward "strafing"

Very slow Vanguard but yeah a Magrider can go places Vanguards cant and it does have a speed boost for a full second so it would probably win a race but its not comparing a racing car with a bus.

Now you are just making things up, I am arguing that the Vanguard is the Bestguard because of the shield, nowhere am I talking about making the Vanguard as vulnerable as the other MBTs. Also a bit of a double standard going on here as you dont expect people to be competent when using anything but a Magrider, because all those are apparently capable of just sliding up to any Vanguard or Prowler and taking their rear with no chance of them doing anything about it or automagically being able to dodge more than 67% of all shots taken at them by one, two or perhaps three Vanguards/Prowlers to outperform what the shield can do.

And here we go, from making things up that I did not say to trying to discredit anything I have to say, good old Demi. Always a joy talking with you.

Why do you HAVE to use the shield early on just because its a % reduction? Your current health does not affect how much the damage reduction is, it is always 67% on the front. All you need to do for maximum efficiency is to use it before you either run out of health for the damage reduction to not matter for the duration of the fight or the target/s are dead leaving you with wasted shield time. A single MBT will only get a few volleys off for the duration of the shield, when you use the shield is up to you, same thing with 2, 3 or 4 MBTs, more enemies, less wiggle room.

Like I said if you always use it early like a panic button, you will often run into the problem of not having the shield when you really need it. If there is a single MBT shooting at you, you can rush it and use the shield late to keep the enemy MBT from avoiding you when you pop the shield because if you use it early they are more likely to not want to shoot at you and instead avoid you. Then its a 'even' fight up close without your shield when you could instead have had 30-40% health and the shield in CQC and it would be a easy kill for you.

This happens dozens of times when I play, sounds like you are a zergling if all you see is massive tank vs tank battles and yep I will then agree with you that rushing into a zergling fight from the front and alone will only get you killed. If you insist on fighting in massive tank vs tank battles you can still use it, just dont go from the front lines and pick a fight on the edges with 1-2 MBTs. If you have a gunner you can easily take two as long as the 2nd doesnt join the fight right away. Just as you like to bring up that most people are not that skilled, it works because most people are not above average tankers and usually have little to no situational awareness, dont give them a reason to look at you and you are basically invisible.

Yep, dont rush the enemy unless you know you have a advantage pretty sure I went over this already though. The shield is the perfect advantage you can use so why not? The only problem with the tactic is that you want to be close to them, if you think that is impossible to work around, cool.

So what about those unique user stats?
How can there be fewer Magrider users but similar number of Magriders being pulled? Is it impossible that fewer people are using the Magrider but using it more often?
How would you then explain the stats?

Making up more stuff and trying to invalidate anything I have to say, good talk. Perhaps one day your puberty will end and you wont be such a angry little teen?

My favorite MBT is probably going to be the Prowler because you get close to 100% out of it solo which means I can put a AA turret on it and not rip my hair out if a single ESF spots me driving around.
My 2nd favorite MBT is the new Chimera because it actually has the only G2A weapon in the game that is not a wet noodle, killing ESF with 2 salvos of auto locking missiles? yes please! The Satyr gun also seem to be amazing, better version of the Viper, DPS monster.
My 3rd favorite MBT is the Vanguard. It would be easy #1 or at least shared #1 but having a gunner or not is fairly important, much fewer good targets to go for without one but its still decent.
My least favorite MBT is the Magrider because its garbage without a gunner and I would and have been using a Lightning most of the time whenever I play VS.

I play PS2 randomly so I try not to 'make friends' in the game because there can be months and months between me being interested in playing and it doesnt feel right to join a outfit for the same reason. Random gunners are random and as the years go its been harder and harder to actually get anyone to be a gunner for anything but short runs so I value a MBTs ability to work with just its driver since I cant expect to run a 2/2 tank nearly as often as I would like. Similarly 'new' ESF AV weapons are so effective that its almost mandatory for the 2ndary to be AA if you move away from the group to flank so the ability against ground targets without its 2ndary is also very important and why the Prowler has its spot, the majority of damage comes from the main gun.

The moment you show me some un-cherrypicked gameplay of you using the Magrider and killing a bunch of MBTs in CQC.

I have to say that its weird how selective your understanding of statistics is, here you show that you understand that my individual contribution to the stats dont mean that much because there are a lot of other people diluting it but the concept of having fewer individuals playing with the Magrider, meaning that individuals matter more is somehow beyond you. Its even fairly likely that the fewer users is because they were bad with it and unlike the other tanks, not worth spending certs on or even using anymore = less people randomly pulling it because they dont like the tank and they have nearly enough certs pumped into it to make it workable = higher % of Magriders being pulled are highly upgraded and used by 'above average' users. Both the Prowler and Vanguard has things it offers a player over a Lightning even if the MBT is not fully certed, like a high damage gun, shield or Barrage that only really need 1 level in to get a lot out of it.

Using the same link someone posted on page 1 and just switching to Uniques instead of KPU the trend is kinda:
Titan AP: 794
P2 AP: 784
FPC: 532
very close to 33% fewer Magrider users compared to Vanguards and 32% fewer than Prowlers.

Same day(1 May 2021) but HEAT.

Titan HEAT: 370
P2 HEAT: 342
PC: 280
24% fewer Magrider users compared to Vanguards and 18% fewer than Prowlers.

Same day(1 May 2021) but HESH.

Titan HESH: 171
P2 HESH: 214
VPC: 141
17% fewer Magrider users compared to Vanguards and 34% fewer than Prowlers.

Its not a small % of less unique users and it will affect the stats on the weapons though im sure if I get a response it will just be attempted ridicule and name calling as your last post devolved into but thanks to that I have to show everyone else that im not bull$hit and actually back up what im saying, unlike some that are calling on "old stats" that shall not be specified but apparently fits what you are saying perfectly and are somehow still relevant today even when new current stats show a ~30% difference in unique users.

It is a situation you can in many scenarios force though, not sure why its hard to see how a ability that lets you kill any other MBT in CQC without even dropping 50% of your own health is somehow not a super strong ability to have or why you would not want to play around it and try to get that scenario as often as possible?

Except that the Prowler starts with 2 shots without having to reload and the 120 RPM being 2 RPS means there is a 0.5 second delay between shots, yes? thus, every reload and 2 shots comes with a 0.5 second addition since the first shot you make does not have a 0.5 second delay before its fired, only the 2nd shot takes 0.5 seconds before it can be fired.

This puts the Prowlers AP theoretical damage during 8 seconds to:
1 shot, 0.5 delay, 2nd shot
3 sec reload
1 shot, 0.5 delay, 2nd shot
3 sec reload
1 shot, 0.5 delay, 2nd shot
And now it does not have time to reload a 3rd time but it has fired a total of 6 shots in 7.5 seconds = 3600 damage before any modifiers.

Damage seems to be calculated like this:
Damage type +/- Target type(MBT/ESF etc) = X
X +/- Damage resistance = Y

So a Vanguard being hit by a Halberd to the front, with shield up:
600 +20% = 720
720 -67% = 237.6 = 238 because its rounded up.

A Vanguard with Halberd can kill any other MBT in less time than the shield has duration so... if a Prowler is only doing 297 damage per AP shot and its Halberd is only doing 238 damage, even if the Prowler lived for the full 8 seconds it could still only do 1782 damage with the main gun and fire 3 shots with the Halberd but since the reload time is kinda close lets give it 4 shots for 952 damage which brings the total up to 2734 damage. Not even enough to put the Vanguard on 50% health... but again a Vanguard can kill the Prowler in less than 8 seconds if it also has a gunner.

Its not that incredibly specific, all you need is to bring your Vanguard up to a Prowler and still have the shield and at least 3000 health left and you are done, more health is obviously preferred to not make it a gamble but driving up to someone is not that hard unless you were shooting at them from afar first and you have to go over a big open field to get them.

Why would a Prowler wait to use the ability? With 15 seconds you either win or you lose before it runs out.
Due to the above error each salvo would be 2.1 + 0.5 = 2.6 seconds since it does not take a full second between the first and second shot(would be 1RPS instead of 2RPS). I dont really see the point of your example since it means the Vanguard had 8 seconds to kill the Prowler and the Prowler is then dead, not able to deal any more damage... because a Vanguard can kill a Prowler within 8 seconds if they hit their shots.

Would be fairly pointless since it would still die within or shortly after the shield expires and the Prowler wont be doing some 4k damage in that short time it has to live no matter how good Barrage is. Not sure where you get your Fire Suppression from but it repairs 15% health, on a Prowler that is 750 health and thats it. 3 Titan AP shots would put a Prowler on 1175 health, popping FS would bring that up to 1925 which means its a total of 5 Titan AP shots to kill a Prowler that has FS meaning it takes a Vanguard 13 seconds to kill that Prowler using only its Titan AP gun. You only need to reload the gun 4 times to fire 5 shots as you come with 1 loaded.

Either way the Vanguard can fire the Titan AP 3 times in just 6.5 seconds, the Halberd can fire 3 times in 5.5 seconds, the combined damage of those: 5985 which is actually more than the 5750 health that a Prowler with FS has available. Then the Vanguard has aprox 1.5 seconds of shielding left to do whatever with since the prowler is already dead.

As you can see, its actually not so much up to player experience if the Prowler has or has not used its ability as that is the scenario I used above, that it still has them, and the Prowler is in a huge disadvantage in a scenario where both hit with their shots and cant disengage.

Rotating your front towards the enemy is not a high skill ability due to how the game decides what is front/side/rear hits. Obviously a Vanguard is in a bad spot if it gets flanked by multiple enemies, thats not a weakness of the tank though because every single tank dies to that.

Because I have no wish to do another exhaustive search into the data and prove people wrong. Only for those same people to repeat "but that is not what happens in my biased experience!".
The sentiment of "oh noes too little Magriders!" Was present then too and disproven by that data. You are just repeating it, using your flawed experience as guideline. Prove it, prove that the Magrider has less pulls per player online than the TR and NC.

1: because 99% of the battles in the game happen this way. With a few exceptions like North Indar most of the game does not have so much range that players can spot enemy vehicles without properly engaging them. So to spot and engage players you have to round cover at some point to reveal yourself and your enemy. This is such basic information that you have got to be trolling at this point.
2: yep, trolling. This is EXACTLY what I am talking about when I say that most combat happens from cover to cover. So you quite literally ask me why players would fight near cover and then immediately turn around and say that most players like to stick to cover. Even if what you said was true it would still mean the Prowler and Magrider have an easier time flanking effectively.


I could go down your post but its not worth it is it? You are just bull$hitting here.

Doesnt having a lower total kills and Uniques show that there are less of them? Or do you mean that the Magrider has both a higher KPU than the Vanguard meaning each Magrider kills more than the Vanguard but still somehow kills less in total? Without there being fewer Magriders around?

What I am saying is that there being cover around doesnt mean you have to put yourself between the cover and the enemy when you start a fight. People like to use cover towards the direction they think the enemy is, dont be there and the cover is not a problem, nor is getting close to them. People call it flanking I think, a new never before heard of concept.

Its about population as well.
Lets say there's 100 Vanguards pulled and 66 Magriders. 33% less.
There were 1000 players playing on the NC and 666 players on the VS in the same timeframe. Also 33% less.

Per 100 players, the VS pulled the same amount of MBT's as the NC did. There were simply more NC players present. Do you understand that?

The thing is that flanking isn't as automatic as that. The average area will have a high chance of the flanker being spotted in advance or will be so narrow that there simply isn't much space to flank from. The "best" way is to circle around the long way if possible, but you are likely to find the few potential flankers of your enemy there.
The traits that help flanking would be speed, acceleration, turn speed, alternative movement capabilities like boost and strafe and having a short chassis. The Vanguard is worst in all except for maximum speed which is ranks second in (ignoring the max speed of Magrider boost since its short). That makes it the worst vehicle at flanking. So suggesting the Vanguard needs to flank to beat the others is odd at the very least.

Also this game is an MMO, when flanking I can't just engage everything because there are almost always others nearby, and as flanker you are almost guaranteed outnumbered. Any fight needs to be decisive and not be about me trying to steamroll enemies with a shield (or barrage or boost when I play those factions). They cannot be given the chance to get behind cover and alert enemies before I can either finish the fight or damage them so severely that I can make my escape. Considering again that the Vanguard has the slowest maneuverability of the MBT's+Lightning that means again that the Vanguard has the worst chance of pulling this off successfully. The only time this doesn'r apply is if I'm so close to the frontline that anyone retaliating against me must pass through my allies fire, at which point its just a broader frontline where players fight from cover to cover.

Worth noting is I made that post with a very situational scenario in mind. It is a scenario you can force, but I declared it was situational for a reason - I didn't take into account gunners, armour other than the front, assuming practically perfect triggering of abilities... Vanguards Shield is strong, but it doesn't improve your own lethality, it just makes you more... well, tanky. For 8 seconds. And that doesn't work from behind, which flankers will try to aim for because of the Rear Armour damage bonus, and from the side is a lot less tanky. Both my scenario and your comment are assuming nobody misses, that it's a 1v1, that there's no flanking or hitting anything except front armour. It also assumes the enemy doesn't attempt a retreat or have the gunner go for a repair or repair grenade rather than waste time plinking away for little gain. The Vanguard, by raw stats, is the worst tank at retreating, and thus is least likely to escape a bad situation unless you have the Shield off cooldown.

Tank duels are a lot more flexible than the static idea you seem to have. It depends on chosen guns, engagement ranges, whether you have a gunner or not, even chassis determining whether you can keep front armour forward while the enemy tries to get around you. And now we have another tank, with an even better total damage gun, and no knowledge of its unique ability.

A Prowler is a lot more likely to win a fight if it lurks at a distance, locked down, with barrage ready. A Vanguard is more likely to win a straight up slugfest, front vs front, with everything being relatively identical between the two combatants. A Magrider is a lot more likely to win a fight where it can leverage its profile and boost to evade shots and hit back. A Chimera is a lot more likely to win a fight where it can use its height as an advantage, possibly have rumble passengers, and can abuse its solid mobility. All tanks have their benefits: It's just the Vanguards benefits are usually seen as inferior to others in a lot of situations - the shield is only 8 seconds, demands you point your front armour at the enemy, is less than useless if the enemy can hit your rear armour, and at best has a 32 second downtime, worse than Barrage and Magburners 20s (not even counting Recharge or Multi-Directional Exhaust for the Magrider).

Sure, being able to effectively deny damage is a strong trait, and certainly one any good Vanguard driver who uses the Shield will leverage to their advantage where they can. But you cannot deny, based on raw stats and feel, that the Vanguard is the least effective at both flanking and countering a flank.

...Fair enough. I assumed that the weapon required that extra 0.5s to reset before reloading. But this literally only helps the math I was making. But whatever, taking from here: https://planetside.fandom.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance

P2-120AP - 600 damage. 3600 (your corrected max damage over shield lifetime) * Armour decimal (0.33, for the Shields +67%) * Resistance decimal (1.5, for 50% vulnerability to tank shells) = 1782, so identical to the number you gave, alright.

I'll acquiesce on this one - Vanguard can kill any other MBT in the shields duration, assuming front armour only, AP+Halberd. I now understand the damage calc. However, assuming side armour, the Vanguard now takes 4374 damage, a significant boost (the armour decimal becomes 0.81, because side armour goes from -15% to +19% rather than the hefty 0% to 67%), and Halberd does 729 direct damage per shot, so against side armour the Vanguard can die before the shield does. That doesn't account for turning, flanking, enemy abilities - it's horribly easy to be picky and subjective when doing damage calcs in this game. Think Pokemon - where only a few stats matter in damage calculation, but then you can account for enemy abilities that affect damage, accuracy, evasiveness, and then add Planetsides positionals and projectile velocity on top. Its easy to be subjective here, and we can argue specifics all day. For instance:

What if the Prowler retreats? What if the gunner sees you and they get off the first attack while you're attenpting to flank? What if whatever brought you to 3000 health comes back for revenge? What if the Prowler charges you, attempting to flank and bring you down? Why are you at 3000 HP, didn't you stop to repair? It is incredibly easy to nitpick, which is why you and Demigan can argue with each other all day on the Vanguards viability. I'm just going to say it - Statistically, without the Shield, the Vanguard is probably inferior to the other MBTs. BUT. That doesn't necessarily inhibit their ability to do their job in the field. Anybody can do well in an MBT if they know what they're doing and have enough skill.

Anyway, gonna answer the other quotes now. Bear with.

Again, I was using a very specific scenario, not taking into account gunners, and based on those long TTKs I assumed the Prowler would want to wait to unload. With proper damage calcs, I can now see the Vanguard wins these. But then again, this assumes none of the randomness of real combat kicks in. Retreat, cover, fire support, missed shots... it's all horribly subjective.

From the Wiki on Fire Suppression: "When activated, the Fire Suppression System will, if applicable, immediately set the vehicle's health to slightly above the fire threshold (20% of maximum health), and then repair the vehicle for a fixed amount over 5 seconds." Fire Suppression puts a Prowler at 1000 health, then regens at a rate of 3% per second for 5 seconds (the 15% repairs it espouses in the tooltip). According to the (now erroneous) damage calc I made, the 3rd Vanguard shot after the Shield fell put the Prowler at 750 health, so fire suppression put it at 1000 (20%) and then the repair put it high enough to live one AP round. Based on my new understanding of the damage calcs, a Vanguard head on shot does 1275 damage to a Prowler, so yes it would die before fire suppression could do much more than allow it to live one more shot. Again, this is super specific and Fire Suppression is often used to enable escape and prevent death by fire damage. I was messing with calcs and trying to prove the Vanguard is absolutely garbage in the one role the Shield absolutely dominates in. My fault, and I accept that.

Yeah, I get it now. I understand the damage values better. But this is still a very specific scenario. No disengaging, no fire support, no missed shots, no flanking. You have to know it isn't like that in actual combat. Sure, you can force these head on brawls, but the enemy can force disadvantageous situations back.

This I do take a little issue with though. The Vanguard does not move with any speed. It rotates and reverses the slowest out of the MBTs (except the Chimera, which outright can't rotate on a dime). Like I said, the Vanguards strengths lend itself to good tanking, but render it worse at flanking, retreating, and guarding its rear armour from a statistical standpoint compared to the other MBTs. Discussing these stats is all well and good, but they won't always translate into gameplay.

P.S. I do also have to note I've seen less Magriders compared to Vanguards or Prowlers, specifically in larger zergs. All sides pull plenty of Lightnings, but less MBTs on the VS side, and I can see why - The Chassis mounted main gun, lowest damage of an MBT, unique hover mechanics and the side-to-side handling that results, learning to handle the Magburner... There's definitely more of a learning curve to using the Magrider, certainly more than pressing F to deny all damage from the front or boosting reload speed while locking down to snipe with a tank.

Didn't read the whole thing but this is correct.

1 shot, 0,5 second delay, 2nd shot, 0,5 second delay, reload. This is testable by recording it in-game and then checking the total time of a cycle, or simply going frame-by-frame and finding out that it takes 0.5 seconds before the Prowler starts to reload. This is how I found out, so unless they stealth-buffed it at some point it does take 1 second to unload both shots and 3 seconds to reload.

Ofc I understand that but are you seriously saying VS has ~30% less players than NC and TR?
The other alternative is that VS has less players pulling MBTs which was my point from the start, not as many people pulling the Maggie because its equally a PITA to fight as it is to learn how to be successful with and expensive as hell to cert it out to be able to be successful with it which is not something I see going over well with "Random player wants to drive a tank for a while".

Even though you dont believe it, im quite a good tanker(tho a bit too crazy in what fights I take) and I really dont like the Magrider, its too specific and reliant on being crewed and I have and probably will continue to pick a Lightning over it 19/20 times when I play VS. You even need to change your mouse sensitivity when using the damn thing or it will turn a few degrees per full mousepad span of moving your mouse, which obviously means any other tank is unplayable unless you switch settings again so it would not at all surprise me if im right that people who dont have a fully certed Magrider and dont intent to live in one rarely pulls one either, resulting in less unique Magrider users than any other MBT while also pushing Magrider weapon stats up a bit since the % of higher skilled/experienced users is equally higher as they are the most likely to enjoy the tank and use it.

It is what you make it, the Vanguard has enough forward speed to take it places and back again which is all you need to flank something(along with the damage to do something with it), the rest is just how to get there and out without being shot to pieces before resetting and doing it again.

The way you automatically go "You drive a Vanguard and attempt a flank, entire enemy line rolls a nat 20 and sees you, rocks fall and you die." is kinda annoying as if its impossible to even attempt and the near godmode the shield provides in such a scenario is not worth attempting either.

I mean do you just sit in your Vanguard for hours on end lobbing shells across the map or get super frustrated if you lose a tank even if you are sitting on 750 nanites?
You just seem so extremely risk averse when you say that almost all fights are the cover to cover ones and you never attempt to flank in those situations either while me being a "I want to get **** done even if I die" type of tanker and dont care if I die as long as I at least took one of them with me. I drive around the map most of the time looking for targets or flanks to take so most of fights I see are not cover to cover ones and if I see one of those I look for a flank because I want to kill people, not trade shells cover to cover until someone gets so bored they lose all focus and die.

I die a lot for sure but thats like 70% due to not having a gunner so I lose fights that otherwise would have been easy and/or driving into a pair+ MBT/Harassers/Lightnings. Then 20% is because im being stupid and driving into the front lines alone or something equally stupid as that and the last 10% is I dont have a AA turret on my Vanguard so im a ESF/Lib magnet, they can smell that vulnerability from a mile.

Wow I went to test it after reading this and you are right, for whatever reason the RPM delay affects how long it takes to start the reload as well, never noticed it, even on stuff like rocket launchers that have a full second between the shot and reload

*Edit*
I always assumed any weird stuff with vehicle reloads was just "weird stuff with vehicle reloads" since I get false reloads and unused shots with all the magazine type weapons at least a few times each session. That is, reload the weapon and it just starts reloading again, shoot twice with the Prowler waiting on the reload.... see I have 1 shot remaining?? take the shot, no hit marker. So any sort of delay I have always just thrown up to latency or something.

I never tested this for single shot weapons, did you test the rocketlauncher? Or a Lightning/other MBT? That would be valuable information as in any theorycraft people never use the refire rate for single-shot weapons to calculate TTK's.

As for the phantom shots, those sometimes happen when an ammo tick hits your vehicle while your magazine isn't full but still has ammo left. Its also visible with the Viper, where you can sometimes fire 2 or 3 more shots than normal, but those are phantom shots.
It is a long standing bug that needs resolving. Until then: assume it can happen when you are standing near an ammo tower, ammo sunderer or if your ammo implant gives gou ammo.

I see demigan is still using that Per player statistic as if it makes more magriders appear out of thin air than there actually are.

It's not the weapons, it's the people.

Its not about more Magriders appearing, but to set the record straight for all the people claiming that Magriders are taken fat less than the other 2 MBT's because they are "the worst" or that Magriders are only taken when skilled players cooperate and agree to pull one together.
Those numbers show that there is an equal want to pull an MBT across all 3 factions, and the only reason for "less" Magriders is simply a lower population. Additionally it shows that the VS players have it the wrong way around about Lightnings: they claim the Magrider is pulled less in favor for the Lightning since "the Magrider isn't a real tank", while in reality the VS pull the same amount of Magriders and simply pull more Lightnings in addition.

Why would you even try to make such statistics insignificant? You are essentially stripping it from all the context as to why I use those numbers and then claiming that it doesn't make more Magriders appear, whatever that is supposed to mean as an argument against me.

So what you say is partially true: its not the weapons, its the people. The people still pull the same amount of Magriders per player as the other factions. However it is also the weapon, since Magriders score very well while no magical superior skill can be found in VS players using NS weapons like the Lightning.

Yep I checked the Decimator, not as carefully as the tanks but its there and when you look at the RPM and reload time it kinda makes sense, Decimator has a 5.7 second reload and the RPM delay is just about 0.3 seconds putting it on total flat 6 seconds reload. Chimera Satyr also gets 0.45ish seconds extra which puts its total damage dump and reload to a amazing ~6.76 seconds or 6.26 seconds with maxed reload.

The phantom shots, yeah now that you say it I remember reading about that quite a long time ago(like when implants were introduced!) crazy its not been fixed yet.

THANK you. This way we learn!
I've always suspected it, but aside from the tests with the Prowler and some tests with Carbines afterwards I never got around to testing it with other vehicles.
I will try to be a bit more respectful to you in the future.