The Ultimate Thread Dedicated To Making The New Power Carrying Vehicles EPIC!

But if it isn't a mini fortress how will it divert the spread of a large battle or be something that is very likely to see action?

it isnt supposed to see action or a large battle its supposed to have a couple friends ward off enemy opposition that are scouting for it

That's not what the description said, and that's what I based my mini-fortress idea off of to make it work though.

"The power-fetching aspect is intended to be focused around large battles to spread them out."

"This isn't intended to be a boring tedious thing so much as a sort of capture-the-flag style gameplay where the power carrier is highly likely to see action."

i disagree with just about every notion you have regarding the new "ANT" but here is why

the instagibbing is dumb, because this will lead to this being used as an offensive vehicle when not loaded with energy , much like galaxy crashes are currently.

i like the idea of a ram but having it destroy the vehicles would be abused far too much as one of these plowing in to a tank column would net more xp than anything else in the game.

that said the idea of it being able to run a blockade and push through is a good one, you just took it too far.

suggestion: add a forward shield that blocks weapons fire similar to a vanguard shield

give the vehicle a very high Mass, low acceleration and climbing ability, but a high top speed to let it punch through the sort of blockades you would see around a sieged base the down side these will need yet another base layout redesign to accommodate a dock or place for them to go to repower a base

multiple seats are not the be all end all of encouraging team play, making this capable of defending its self would mean it would be a weapon of great power and have far to much influence in a fight, on the other hand making it nearly defenceless would force drivers to run in convoys with other vehicles supporting them. having the protection be separate vehicles means those would be able to move ahead of the ANT or break off from a convoy to slow down enemies attempting to go after the ANT

having it cost a ton of resources to pull will mean it isnt able to be pulled when needed and some one would be stuck sitting in one on the sidelines to guarantee they had it when it was needed (not fun). meanwhile having a low combat value means the resource cost could remain low and it could be pulled when it was needed in an emergency to attempt a power run[/quote]

this is pretty much the same as #1 its strength should be forward facing with a weak rear, high top speed and handling/climbing that limits it mostly to the roads. this gives the enemy a reasonable idea of where to expect them to come roaring through and would give them a good location to attempt ambushes.

its certs/slots should be focused on toughness and resisting these types of blockades (mineguard, front/side/top armours, nanite repair, stealth, forward facing radar (ie. 180 forward) smoke, maybe wraith cloak?)

the ants job is to get resources to a base through a blockade, not to single handedly destroy a blockade. weapons if any should be extremely limited and be more of a deterrent than of any serious threat (AI to ward of C4, AA to chase off lone ESF, etc)

we want this

not this

although id love one of those too!!!!

I am pretty sure ANT's are not spawnable by players, they are spawned based on what bases need what resources. I think it was mentioned it would create a sort of capture the flag dynamic.

The whole Instagibbing thing was if and only if the vehicle got infront of an ANT going at full speed likely going on Flat Terrain or going down hill. Sunderers can already almost Instagib a MBT if it rams one head one at full speed and will definitely instagib it with the MBT is against a wall or rock, the Ant will be even heavier so I figured it would make sense. Also you could only blame yourself as you have plenty of time to get out of the way of such a vehicle with slow acceleration and handling. My concern is people will purposely try to block this thing with a vehicle they don't care to lose. If this vehicle is going at full speed nothing but a Sunderer should be spared by its full speed wrath.

The Multiple seats are to encourage teamwork with friends, Multi crewed vehicles are awesome, and what better way to make a slow vehicle exciting. It still won't be able to protect itself very well against MBT's or Liberators which is my intent. I think such an important vehicle should be able to fight off infantry and ESF's trying to hoverspam it though. The ANT will be able to break through a Block Cade but not destroy the Blockade itself, so if it tried to take on a Blockade it could push through it but would get destroyed in the process in the process of trying to continue on if that makes sense.

The Ant need to be the Ant if implemented

Sorry but it wont be a heavily arms combat machine it is a defenseless vehicules that need to be sneakky or defended by a escorts this is the way it as been play in ps1 and its the way it should be in ps2 since they are adding the same kind of systhem , as much as iam not a copy and paste guys , this as to work this way to make it fun and chalenging as well

I hear what your saying, but I was hoping to try and combine the Raider and the Ant to make it a more exciting and team oriented vehicle. Also considering they said it was going to centered around large battles and highly likely to see action makes me think it won't be the same ANT and could use a Kobalt or something to encourage teamwork gameplay ya know Stew? That being said I wouldn't mind if they made the ANT copy and paste, but it would be awesome if we could make it more cool than the old one.

the ant encorage Team play since its a defenseless vehicules , if you put weapons on that thing its not a ressources transport vehicules anymore , it become a atack vehicules and could be use as much as a atack vehicules as a dual fury sunderer can be use at it ...

So No thanks for me , the Ant as to remain the Ant Like i said If implemented , but it is most likely and i hope it will remain a defenseless vehicule

The ant been defenseless its the whole trill of it and also create some cool escorte or infiltration senarios

While I wholly support the idea of adding more fun to the gameplay (and thus gave a thumbs-up to the OP), I feel that concerns raised by the posters above are quite valid.

Making the thing a slow-moving, high-cost purchase is just gonna be plain unfun. The borderline low for its speed is Vanguard's speed. No less! (Probably should be no less than a sunderer though, given that no amount of armour is gonna survive the crossfire it is gonna be subjected at, say, prime-time Zurvan fight).

Vehicle physics will need to be adjusted. With the amount of heat this mission-critical asset is gonna attract, we really don't need the thing getting stuck as a ditch-bridge ala Lightning. And, while drifting around in heavy tanks can be fun, we really don't need it to slide around as if on grease either.

Weapon mounts will need to be limited too - this thing is a non-combat vehicle, so giving it MBT weaponry will be a bad decision, IMHO.

Huh, the result looks like a Sundy

I am all for daring experiments (like resource partially underground monorail network across Amerish, for example) in interests of SCI..., erhm, gameplay, but Sundy variant seems like the most sensible candidate for trying it out for the first time.

Just give Galaxies the option to airlift them to spice things up and see how it plays out.

Edit: oh, and big kudos for the Aliens' APC picture, I seriously hope the end result looks something like that.

My only worry is that if you make it too heavily armed and armored, it's going to replace tanks, or other armor vehicles. Imo it should have a TON of health, but not necessarily tons of firepower. I would say a lot more health than a sunderer, but only one sundy hard point. Make it as slow or slower than a vanguard, and make it require an escort. Escorting it should be the team work, not cram a whole team into one vehicle.

The harasser replaced the lightning, we don't need this replacing the MBT. SOE is also rumored to be working on ES buggies too, so we gotta find room for all of these vehicles to fit.

The fun and excitement of it for the driver should be that he's in a panic under fire the whole time, while his squad mates are trying to defend him by following along in MBTs or aircraft.

At least that's my interpretation of it. There's a lot of different directions this could go to make it cool.

The to my mind, critical thing people are missing.

Make these things too armored.

1) They won't need escorting.
2) Like sundies now, bring enough of them you can run any blockade.

The exact constitution of these vehicles matters a lot to how you'll be able to attack and ambush them.

I'd like to suggest making the TR, NC and VS variants of the vehicle SIGNIFICANTLY different, such that fighting or driving each is a different experience. For example (And this is just example), perhaps the VS one has less armor but is much faster and has some cloaking/stealth, the TR one is slower but far more heavily armored, and the NC one can carry more resources so that if you lose 1/3 the transports you still have enough resources as if one of the other teams got all 3 in. Either way, let's not have another 'harasser' where they add one vehicle to all sides and nothing changes.

IMO, even if it's more armored than a max blockade sundy, it'll still need an escort. Because it's going to be a high priority target. Sundys pop pretty quick when there's concentrated fire, and these won't be necessary for small skirmishes. And really, any vehicle in large enough numbers can rune a blockade. Especially considering how oblivious most ps2 players are, you can pretty much run 2 sundys right through any armor column and one of them will live if you come up from behind them.

I highly doubt we'll see empire specific variants of this vehicle, if it becomes a new vehicle at all. It's very likely that it will be common pool.

Most likely, the next empire specific vehicle we will see will be the ES buggies.

Here's an idea, just make it an armored trailer for the sundy, give it some ungodly resistance to explosives etc, so engies can rep it up real quick, but it takes a lot to destroy.

Tow hitch goes in sundy utility slot obviously.

This encourages teamwork and strat, how many reserve tow sundies do you need? how much of an escort does you sundy need?

Trailer can also be stolen by enemy. Which adds an interesting element to the game. Ownership changes when it is hitched to a tow sundy.

Trailer has no brakes, so if the tow vehicle is destroyed or deliberately unhitches it, it'll roll downhill...

WOW more armore crap !!! that you need 10 rockets to kill it !! and enginier will reapr it in 1 sec !!!!!!

Thats exactly what sundies are now. Even without any equivalent to blockade Armour, its the same situation get enough of them, you can run any blockade as the Armour of each individual vehicle, will require one maybe two at a time to be focused on even with a squad or even two all in AV gear.

and if we have to have platoons chasing these things down, we dillute the battles at the front too much.

Its health, can't be sigificantly more than the ability of a single HA to take it down. whether or not it can defend itself also needs to be open to question.

Ideally I think the balance would be half squads going into enemy territory to set up ambushes and one person dirving the thing, perhaps with 3-4 max running escort.

So if you make them spammable, or too well armoured. You have to draw too much away from the 'front' to do something about logistics.

there has to be an incentive to drive the thing.

True, yet another problem though.

Let imagine its made such that you get 1500xp for each run. Lets also imagine the thing is made like a tank and is fast to boot.

For the 40% of people who play PS2 simply for the CERTZ!!!11, why do anything else but play space road truckers?

I think incentivising it so that dry runs are about as profitable as anything else, will cause problems. A mechanism that incentivising going where needed, but not where not needed (so if the supplies are allmost out you get 1500xp for making it, if the base is allready full 100xp). Might help.

Its a fine balance. Very fine, the actual nature of the logistics system, given blowing up these ANT's will be the main PVP component is going to be relatively simple compared to fleshing out how this vehicle functions.

I'm edging towards making it just a sundy module that reduces its health by 75%, let it keep the guns and giving that a whirl on PTS. Maybe no blockade armour either.


Moreover, I think the two threats to these should be, squads/half squads setting up ambushes (and I think we are there with the AV options) and ESF's and Libs. Libs I think have the dalton, but ESF's as things stand have the jack of all trades rocket pods, which struggle (at least in the NC's case) to take out a sundy. Prehaps it time to introduce a decated anti-vehicle air missile. I've allways (and championed it in part because of) seen a logistic system as revolutionising the air gameplay, as it gives people more to do than just nip at the heels of a zerg.

Hey Esk..I read a lot of your posts and I thought I would add my thoughts in on this one.

First off, according to the list of information about the resources, it states:

This means that it won't be Nanites that are transported, so I'm thinking actual minerals or crates. If that is the case, I would love to see new vehicles added to the game for it. However, I do not believe that they should have more than 2 people, a driver and passenger. It is supposed to be a "resource transport" not a personnel transport. I would love to be able to see an outfit large or small pull a sundie, tanks, harrasers, and even possible aircraft to guard it while it makes its delivery. That would be team work and fun as H-LL in my opinion. However, I do remember reading that it would show up on the global map for everyone to see. I don't like this idea. I hope they meant, or I atleast think they meant, that everyone from the specific empire can see it. Which would be awesome, because they can help defend them.

Here are some ESRT (Empire Specific Resource Transport) vehicles I wouldn't mind seeing:

TR


standard issue military


NC:


back from the mining days, this was used to haul resources from the mines. The cart on the back unhooks and can be hooked up to the mine vehicles and dragged down into the mines.

VS:



I was thinking something like this but a little more sleeker to match the "curvy" design of the VS vehicles. Yes it would hover.

Either way...I think these would make some good additions.