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

I must disagree. One of the most teamplay oriented vehicles in the game right now is the lighting skyguard. You'd basically never spawn that if you want to run alone, and its support benefits to the team are great. If an ANT is important to getting/keeping objectives, and its unarmed.. THAT encourages teamplay.

I'm going to have to agree that it will need to change from the PS1 concept. It does need to be heavily armored and able to defend itself marginally. Maybe make it like a sunderer--or better yet, just make it a sunderer add-on. (replace AMS slot).

Reason it needs to be able to defend itself is because of the lack of logistic options for the ANT in PS2. GALs used to be able to carry them to their destination in a pinch. Since it will be solely a ground unit, it needs more armor and weapons, but not so much it can solo a blockade. The sunderer just seems like the right analog for this type of vehicle, it already has all the right things going for it.

this will either be a pita or irrelevant.

actually really like the rumble seat idea, having 2 or 3 rumble seats per side wouldnt be too bad. the people there would die super easy to either tank or rocket rounds hitting the sides of it or could bail out and attempt to slow down the things chasing it (rumble seats would need to not have access to rocket launchers though)

model wise it should look like a long wheel base space 18-wheeler (prob tracks instead) this would give you room to spread out rumble seats and make it a unique silhouette, while also limiting it to smoother terrain like the roads

This may sound rather insane but how about we make it a BFR
Less armour than a tank with high firepower (which can only be fitted for one role at a time AI or AA or AV)
The thing is huge and is already a target
OR
Make it a heavily armoured vehicle with rumble seats and the ability to cloak

This may sound rather insane but how about we make it a BFR
Less armour than a tank with high firepower (which can only be fitted for one role at a time AI or AA or AV)
The thing is huge and is already a target
OR
Make it a heavily armoured vehicle with rumble seats and the ability to cloak
Insane? Maybe
I just really like cloaked vehicles

Considering how devastatingly powerful Infantry AV weapons are in the game this vehicle either needs to be a pain in the butt to take down or it will die fast and not even be fun in the first place. People who will complain about not being able to solo this vehicle by themselves or having to work as a team to take it down have no place/importance in this discussion.

Where did I say I wanted Sarons or Enforcers or Vulcans? Are you putting up your own ideas to knock them down yourself? I'm saying they should have AI/AA weapons so that Tanks will be the primary counters to them thus giving an important role to the MBT which it sorely needs. This is going to be a slow moving vehicle, meaning you are bringing the attack to it and deciding how to attack it, not the other way around. From the description it seems to give us a hint that this won't be a spammable vehicle, in addition they are trying to completely get rid of vehicle spam so this is a safe assumption to make.

If it is rare that means it will be targeted by A LOT due to its importance and value.

If its location will be broadcasted then it will be attacked A LOT.

If it is slow it means that it will not have a proper means of escape from things like Lancers, AV Turrets, C4 LA's and things like that.

I'm asking for a very strong defensive vehicle, but one with the ability to have 3-4 AA/AI seats on it to counter simply being infantry rushed with C4 or trolled by ESF's hoverspamming it. According to the developers this vehicle is going to see lots of action and be running through the midst of big battles to get important resources to where it needs to be. Anybody who has piloted a MBT or Sunderer in a big battle knows how easy it is to be destroyed even with other allied tanks and infantry present. Do you not see where I'm coming from?

Fair point about limiting rocket launchers, but why? I would think that the benefit of having a rocket launcher would be counter-balanced by the vulnerability of the rumble seat and limited firing arc. You could clear several rumble-seats at once with a couple HEAT or HE rounds, or even some good small-arms fire. For the rumble seats to be worthwhile, they can't be any worse than if you were just following the ANT on foot.

After all, would several rocket launchers in predictable spots on the ANT itself really be much worse than a swarm of HA's keeping a perimeter?

(I haven't read through the entire thread yet, but a lot of posts are talking about having weapons as being bad and I get where the OP is coming from, wanting to have people actively doing things to help the convoy along, so I leave you with my suggestion/idea below)

How about the ANT will have shield generators that deploy a shield of some sort around the ANT. Enemies will try to take out the shield gens on the ANT(shield gens are on the exterior or unshielded parts of the ANT?). Then friendlies will have to guard/repair any gens. I feel that this would keep the main role of it being 'tanky' and about it being defensive over being offensive, it will also mean that players will have to help keep the ANT alive if they want the power supply to reach it's destination.

Anyway, this is just an idea I thought up on the spot that might please more people, and I think it'd be a fun sort of mini-game(meta anyone?) that might make things more interesting for everyone.

I know all you guys want new and fancy looks and gun platforms for your ANTS but in my day this was good enough for everyone.



















Darn whippersnappers.

Love your threads - Best regards FU! Just tone down the weapon systems and let it transport some infantry to protect it. It should have a large amount of health when deployed so its easier to defend -While mobile it should be more vulnerable.

The teamplay aspect will come when a platoon or less needs to protect it with harrassers and armor.

There are two ways how this will turn out, there is a hard to achieve thin third line in between.

One side of the argument wants space trucks ... unarmed, spam-able, soft, medium fast trucks that haul resources around. Which, given the task at hand, to haul stuff around might sound good. And most likely if this comes to past the entire mechanic will be completely ignored.

Trying to escort such a Vehicle will be useless, it will just get focused in mere seconds, hell blockade Sundys already die in mere seconds of focus fire, Tanks to ... Galaxies to ... so ....

It will be a tedious task for the defender to spam 10+ of those, one will reach the base anyway, run them to that base past the attacking forces with the "strength in many spread out health pools" on their side. Making draining completely unattractive as an option to actually do this at all. Just look at Sunderer spam ... Or look at WW2, the allies spamed the crap out of liberty ships full with supplies ...

ANTs in PS1 could be airlifted by Loadstars and Galaxies, which made the entire escort thing 2 parted, you had the ground forces securing the silo and the base, while the air guys escorted the Gal. That's how you did a proper blockade run in PS1. None of this is possible in PS2 ... and will never be since SOE really seems to hate the concept of airlifting Vehicles ...

Other reasons why the ANT worked in PS1 was the balance between Tanks/Infantry/Air. Bases were sieged by Vehicles by nature, leaving Infantry confined in the inside were it was a pure Infantry battle and Tanks kept the area outside secure because they had nothing else to do other than pointing big guns at doors.

So to make this hard to achieve middle line work .. is to tie other aspects into it ... deep into it.

Now for the other side of the argument that wants slow moving, beefy armored blockade runners that are highly limited in numbers by certain mechanics ... the job might just be to transport resources, but it's resources at a contested base through enemy fire. You do not use mere trucks for this ...

What would be needed in this case is something that counters the power of current Infantry based AV weapons within PS2, otherwise you will never get it through if it is limited in numbers. How this is done, could be resistance modifiers, shielding/countermeasures against long range Infantry AVs, weapons centered around fending off Infantry, combinations of all of these.

Right now it's Mass Infantry>Air>Armor>Lone Infantry. And since the aim of the concept was to gather attention by being important to everybody and actually form squad/platoon/outfit-based side objective around the large base fights. So it will attract quite some heat coming it's way.

It should give Tanks, which currently hold little important value, something to be better at than the other 2 Arms. Giving outfits to actually have an Armor division ... most large outfits with names on them do not really focus on Armor or Air, it's all Infantry ... most keep a small Armor/Air division, you never know when it might get useful to have one trained up ...

Armored play is in desperate need of something to actually have a reason of existence. Removing all Tanks over night, 90% of the playerbase would probably not even notice that, I mean look at what happened when TR/NC had the Tanks only fire blanks bug ... only the dedicated players were calling that out.

TL:TR

The ANT Space trucks worked in PS1 because of several reasons that tie into Infantry/Air/Armor Balance, base design and such. Things missing in PS2, calling for an entirely different ANT to work or other changes to make it work.

A worry of mine is that the times on a server when there is no or next to little faction-wide organisation then places that need resources wont be able to function? PS2 requires that there be a lot of players for the game to be any sort of fun, I don't know if you're tried playing at 2-5AM on your local server time but it's usually not very fun and it can be a challenge trying to find a fight with any enemies or friendlies there.

/offtopic Everytime I see your sig now, I keep thinking that it's my post x_x

A server's off time really can't be helped without pushing people that aren't in the same region together. This goes for everyhing they add to the game ever.

This mechanic won't be terribly important at low pop times either, since they won't stress the resources that much as per the dev's explanation. It's mostly for prime time when people can mass 20+ tanks from one base and zerg rush or for people who constantly stock up 40 C4 and constantly use it in any conceivable strategy.

sorry eskimo, but you're way wrong on this one.

the ANT should have 0 resource cost, 0 timer, 0 weapons, low speed, medium-high armor, 1 seat.

the ant is basically a space dumptruck. the LAST thing we need is harasser v2.

they need to bring back the deliverer and its variants true, but not like this

It's all good man,

I have a feeling that since this ANT will be capture the flag style and will be broadcasting its location will mean its number are limited and thus it will be strong. I also believe that it would bring a cool new type of playstyle to the game to have a slower super beefy transport vehicle with some AI/AA turrets someone could operate. I mean people can definitely disagree, and I actually like having different opinions and views, but it would be cool to have a non-squishy vehicle in PS2.

In my opinion this game doesn't have enough cool manned/teamwork centered vehicles as it is, and I mean look at the Harasser and how fun that is to be 3/3 working as a team. Imagine driving a giant metal beast through the middle of a epic battle field with 2 Kobalts trying to gun down infantry, 2 Walkers trying to fend off air, and all while MBT's try to protect the ANT from other Tanks and infantry. That would be my ideal scenario for the ANT, and while not everyone agrees and I respect their opinion I think it would be pretty dang cool.

I'm for that style of vehicule :

With some guns and more armored like this one (but without main gun) :

And front armor is needed to push ennemy vehicules from his road !

because a mobile striker squad is scary (also mobile lancer/pheonix) its mostly the ES rockets all of them would be an issue if they were mobile, most are equivalent to tank guns in their dps which would be just as bad or worse than giving it AT weapon turrets

this mother ****** right here!!!!!!

scrap that tank turret and turn those little ones in to rumble seats and imho we have a winner

Personally I wanted something closer to this, because this vehicle looks like it could defend an important container or package in a PlatoonsVPlatoons battle on Planetside2.