Vanguard HE should have a larger radius.

The problem is though there are federal laws and international laws and they can conflict. the only real difference is you are ether prosecuted by your own nation or by multiple nations that wish to apply laws that you and possibly your own nation do not recognize as valid.

Someone asked what the best IRL tank was and made a comment that as a war survivor they had their life threatened by a tank.

Someone pointed out that you shouldn't blame the tank but rather blame the crew inside the tank.

Someone contended that you shouldn't blame the crew inside the tank but rather blame the higher authorities who ordered the war in the first place.

Someone proposed that you could blame both the crew inside the tank as well as the higher authorities.

Tada!

Sure. But being prosecuted doesn't mean you did anything wrong, and by "wrong" I refer to a sense of justice that transcends whatever ephemeral laws human beings have tried to pen down.

In that sense it is better to be prosecuted for a crime that you did not commit instead of committing a crime and not getting prosecuted for it. As soldiers are warriors who understand the concept of justice and sacrifice, I expect them to make the right choice in that situation. Anything less, and they should not be entrusted to the battlefield.

Politics have no place in the forums of a game just because somone decides to anyways and it disagrees with your point of view doesn't mean it requires a response it should probably just end with agree to disagree and get on with what is and or isnt wrong with HE in planetside 2

That's a beautiful opinion.

And now of course we are discussing what should or should not be part of a gaming forum, which somehow is even more off topic than discussing the culpability of using HE shells against civilian populations.

Anyhow... here's what a modern 120mm HE tank shell does:




By "squad" they mean something closer to a platoon as we would know it.

Also a comparison of two 120mm MBTs:

Interesting stuff i would guess the RL version is far too powerfull for a game and therefor they made one that was much more well gimped because something this damaging would be impossible to fight against for infantry.

But it shouldn't be possible for your typical rifleman to fight against a MBT or attack aircraft. That's why we use those things in battle. If it were so easy that 4/5 infantry on the battlefield could easily take on a tank by themselves, we wouldn't have tanks (and the reason why in serious competition the use of tanks in PS2 is completely absent).

Infantry shouldn't have the starring role in any war game. The only good thing about infantry is that they are small and cheap... that's about it. They have inferior weapons, armor, speed, optics, etc. You use infantry to plug holes, guard more important assets, or act as scouts.

Instead the main pushers of any assault would be artillery, air support, and armored vehicles (tanks or IFVs). Infantry would tag along, but really only to fix the enemy position. The destruction of the enemy position would usually come from much heavier vehicle-mounted weapons. Then infantry might play a role in consolidating a position as the vehicles and other infantry move on.

That's why PS2 is such an amazingly backwards game... instead of vehicles leading the charge usually you have unlimited numbers of infantry flooding out to try and kill each other with small arms of all things.

I disagree on Infantries general uselessness in modern combat. While vehicles are the penultimate in casualty generation, as many Generals will say, boots are what take and hold the ground.

Perhaps one day we will have Iron Man / Robocop "human" sized, thinking, responsive, drones - but that day is not today.

It very well could be argued that the boots ability to take and hold ground is a direct consequence of their numbers and relative cost, but ultimately only a boot can walk through a house without demolishing it, or look under a rock, and since we are thinking, feeling, people - only they can have a real "presence".

That said, I will always support any initiative to introduce more tactical and strategic depth or complexity into Planetside 2. Though I may not side as much with Real Life as a basis. If your Real Life battlefield is "balanced" you are doing it wrong; but Planetside 2 is a videogame - balance is required. However don't get me wrong; I will argue all day that Real Life is the best place to start since it is the definitive representation of our understanding of our world - to which everything in our digital world will be weighed against.

With that out there;
HE should wreck infantry, and do pitiful damage to tanks.
AP should wreck tanks, and do pitiful damage to infantry.
HEAT should form the middle ground, from which "wreck" is defined.

I think I will agree with the "hold" part of that, but to actually take the ground in conventional (not irregular/COIN) warfare most modern militaries rely on vehicles. Infantry may be tasked with cleaning up an area after the enemy is combat ineffective, but to say that infantry have the leading role in taking ground is an antiquated concept.

If you think about it, how does your lowly grunt even get to the fight? Probably not walking.

And even when infantry are tasked with holding a position, they are still not expected to hold it in the face of a determined combined arms enemy attack without vehicle support. If infantry who were tasked with holding an area encounter heavy armor or air attack, they are usually poorly equipped to handle that. A rifle platoon might only have light AT weapons and no AA weapons and at the company level there's only one heavy weapons platoon for three light platoons. Instead, infantry will call back for heavy vehicle support if available; otherwise they would need to leave the area under stealth.

There are different ideas of "balance" however.

Some people believe that PS2 is "balanced" if all three factions are equal. That is to say, so long as all three factions have access to roughly the same equipment that is roughly equally effective, you have balance.

Other people feel that PS2 is "balanced" if all players are equal. In this way they feel that all infantry classes should be about equally useful to eachother, that all vehicles should be equally effective, and most importantly that an infantryperson should be as effective as a vehicle.

If you go with the first idea of "balance", then you have a combined arms game that is fair between the teams but not necessarily for particular players. Each side has an equal chance of winning the war (assuming that they can coordinate and work together), but there might be situations where individual players might find themselves in difficult situations (Infiltrators against tanks, for example).

If you go with the second idea of "balance", then you have a FPS game that is fair between the players but that will destroy the concept of combined arms. Every player has a chance of winning that one-on-one fight, but it really breaks down to the point where you're not really fighting anything that resembles a remotely realistic war anymore.

In my view PS2 leans far too much towards the second idea of balance, as seen by the repeated nerf to vehicles. When playing infantry, I can't recall the last time when we actually had to coordinate outside our platoon to call for backup against vehicles. We just switch to our favorite AV class/MAX and deal with it ourselves. We never quake in fear at enemy HE tanks or bombing aircraft (and nevermind artillery which doesn't even exist). We just take 'em out. Or avoid them.

If you let tanks carry all three at the same time and switch on a whim, why not?

Most MBTs get to run around with some combination of AP and HEAT shells, with HE and Canister thrown in for giggles.

Oh, and coax LMGs/HMGs. Need those.

Ditch your HE MBTs and get a lighting, default cannon. Its nimble enough to dodge rockets, fast enough to outrun other vehicles, and deadly enough to kill any infantry with its 6-shot volley of pain.

I mean I'm primary a Lightning operator (only very rarely driving a MBT), but I'm not sure that you've answered the question of why the Lightning is the superior AI tank instead of a MBT that is purposefully kitted out for AI work.

Why is the default Lightning weapon superior to a dedicated AI weapon that you actually have to pay certs for? Why is the default Lightning weapon, which really should be more like HEAT than HE, better than the MBT HE cannon?

For arguments sake, combat between two organized standing forces has essentially been the same since the latter half of World War One.

Infantry occupies position
Attacker bombards position with heavy weapons...

Then one of several things happens;

The Defender gets tired of being bombarded and retreats, and Attacker moves Infantry in to occupy.
The Defender gets tired of being bombarded and counter attacks.
The Defender gets rescued by a mobile force performing a counter attack.
The bombardment renders the Defending force combat ineffective, and Attacker moves Infantry in to occupy.
Attacker gets tired of bombarding and sends Infantry in on a direct assault to occupy.

Then one of two things happens;
The Defenders Win
The Attackers Win

In Defender Win scenario, they then continue to occupy the position or they then in-turn attack the previous attackers position.
In Attackers Win scenario, they then occupy the attacked area and either hold or attack the next sequential position.

Stalemates occur when the Attackers lack sufficient firepower to overcome Defenders defenses, and Defenders lack sufficient capability to launch a counter attack.

Regardless, these scenarios only play out in a world where Human Life holds some value; as the entire purpose of heavy armor and bombardment is to reduce the risk to your Humans. This is not the case on Auraxis. Why would I hesitate to send 1000 men into a meat grinder if I know those 1000 men will pop out of a tube in a few seconds if they fail to meet their objective? For that matter; why would I bother stopping the artillery barrage during the infantry assault? Why WOULDN'T I expect a force of 100 men that is never diminished to remain in position, even as said positions are literally on fire from napalm?

Additionally the above scenarios are limited by Real World factors incredibly difficult to emulate in video games; beyond loss of life we also have logistics and politics weighing on every movement. On Auraxis politics has boiled down to three spoiled toddlers put into a playpen with only one toy, and logistics is meaningless because of nanites. Equipment has no meaningful cost. Theoretically there is a limit to the number of nanites, which would explain why we have nanite stipends to dictate what force multipliers we can apply, but since no nanites are ever lost (they all just return to the "pool" in a green haze nad cool brubruup sound), logistics are meaningless.

This is all largely off topic however.

My idea of balance, particularly in terms of Planetside, boils down to one basic concept; in return for something in excess of the most reasonable equivalent, something must be given up.

Basically, if you get power in one thing; you lose power in another.

To me this basic concept applies to all aspects of the game, and though it is a very basic concept, it can be implemented in incredibly complicated ways.

For example, I wholeheartedly believe we need more Empire Specific equipment (beyond just more equipment in general). I believe this Empire Specific equipment should be different, and applicable in different situations, than its equivalent on the other factions even in serving the same roles. I believe this can easily be achieved on the basic principle of give to get.

Armor is a very simple example because it conforms to the triangle. You have Mobility, Firepower, and Protection. Traditionally gains in Mobility would mean sacrifices in Firepower or Protection (or both). This dictates how things are engineered in real life, and easily dictates how things can be balanced in game. For example, the Vanguard. Design wise we want the NC to be heavy hitting, with lots of staying power. So we drive Protection and Firepower way up. In turn, this must mean we give up an equivalent amount of Mobility.

The points on the triangle can be further divided, for example, Firepower becomes Alpha Damage or Sustained damage, and so on and so on - but that is a discussion for a different time. In our Vanguard example, the Alpha damage "bar" would be full where the sustained damage (fire rate) "bar" would be almost empty.

This is why I feel it is incredibly important in Planetside that we have NS and ES versions of all equipment. The NS equipment is used to define the middle ground, and it provides equipment to use in situations where your faction traits don't have good synergy with a platform or specific situation. NS equipment should be incredibly bread and butter; their trait should be they aren't exceptionally good or bad at anything. In our triangle example, if we have 100 total "points" they are 33.333 into everything.

Then from there, our ES variants can shuffle those "points" around to gain their faction flavor, but are still working with the same grand total of points.

To me this is the quickest, and easiest, way to develop a game like Planetside where factions can have different equipment, that is flavorful and useful, while maintaining balance. Certainly, the TR version of a weapon might be the "best" in that particular showdown because it has good synergy with the situation and the platform, but since everything is giving something up in every scenario, the NC and VS will equally have things that have good synergy in other situations. And in every situation, if your version has poor synergy you can either adapt your tactics to exploit your advantages while downplaying your weaknesses - or you can use the NS version.

To your particular point; should a vehicle be equal to an infantryman? No. Should an infantryman be powerless against a vehicle? No. Using your real life example of a rifle platoon with light AT weapons facing an MBT; the rifle platoon can still gain victory against the MBT by using their numbers, mobility, and flexibility, to apply their light AT weapons in the most beneficial scenario.

In Real Life, this would likely result in a "Mission Kill" rather than a "Hard Kill" (I am not going to explain these, because I have read enough of your posts to know you should know the difference) - but the effect is the same. The MBT is no longer part of the battle.

In Planetside 2, we only have Hard Kills. The closest thing we have to "Mission Kill" is to "deter" attack. To me, however, this is plenty and where our resource system comes into play. To boil my opinion down to its simplest, free "limitless" platforms should "deter". Paid, "limited", platforms should Hard Kill. Obviously, since we use health bars in Planetside, you can "deter" a target to death - but I am fine with that. In terms of gameplay, that means you bit off far more than you could chew; and if we are comparing it to real life - if you had an infinite number of light AT weapons you could eventually destroy any target you could ever face. You would just spend alot more time doing it.

However, since you are "buying power" with your Nanites, I feel you should be giving something up. If you are buying incredible AT effectiveness, your effectiveness against other targets should be equally reduced. Conveniently, we have three possible targets so this goes back to the triangle. AA, AI or AV. Something like a Basilisk could be 33.33/33.33/33.33 on the Triangle, where a Kobalt would be 33.33/66.66/00.00 .

I feel I partially addressed this above, but I have a few points specific to these thoughts. And the thought is this; Short answer, No. Long answer, Yes Absolutely.

Confused? Good.

As mentioned above I feel like you should give something up to get something when you are "buying" power (in our case, spending nanites). However, at the base of it, I see absolutely no reason why we don't have "Vehicle Equipment Terminals" where an already paid for tank can switch equipment. Right now, it is really a "principle of the matter" thing since resources are so abundant - but in the future when we (hopefully) have a robust and meaningful resource system, it could define the difference between an engaging and fun system and one where the winning faction just wins harder.

Switching rounds like firemodes however? I am not opposed to the idea fundamentally, however, I feel the way Planetside handles resupply of ammunition would render the idea of this moot and not make it an actual sacrifice. In real life, a vehicle defines its mission based on the ammunition it carries. If a tank rolls off base with a magazine full of HE and only a few AP rounds, it is basically saying "I am going to slaughter some squishies today; sure hope I don't run into any enemy tanks". Obviously this is actually dictated by the operational environment and given requirements, but you get the point.

In Planetside, I could just take 1 HE round, 1 HEAT round, and 99 AP rounds, and just have an ammunition Sunderer park next to me. I can now fight all the tanks I want, or shell all the buildings I want, with no consequence. I am effective against all targets at all times.

This may sound like "Nerf Teamwork", because obviously somebody has to think to bring an ammunition Sunderer, but I just feel it is too low hanging of a fruit and easily "exploitable" to allow a meaningful implementation of select-able shell types. Perhaps if there was an overhaul of how vehicles got resupplied, it could fly, but as Planetside 2 exists today - I just don't see it working with the whole "give to get" idea.

Co-axials however? Its stupid they aren't in game. 3 out of 4 tanks had them in Planetside 1; and the Prowler didn't have one because it got an extra gunner instead with some sweet gatling guns. The model for the Vanguard in Planetside 2 even has the spot where the Planetside 1 Vanguard had its coaxials - modeled out for coaxials.

I imagine lead paint and spoons were involved with the decision to leave them out.

Why would it be? It's not a MBT. The lightning master race cares not for the folly of the MBT default gun. We really don't care about anything. Heck, they even nerfed the viper down quite a bit and we still don't care.

This is planetside. Get a lightning or ****

Well there's probably more to it than that - the Magrider is the weakest overall in MBT vs MBT fights so some just go the HE route and keep out of the way of enemy tanks (which they would struggle to beat with AP).

With Rival 3, you can't reverse at 50kph - you can barely go 50 forwards ! But you can make low 40's.

Both the Vanguard and Prowler can also look down (not as much - but both can look higher).

But whatever - it's true to say that there are more HE Magriders and fewer AP Magriders compared to Prowler and Vanguard - just that I think there are many reasons for this phenomenon...

Also true to say that AP MBTs outnumber HE MBTs massively (all factions) - vehicle hunting is just so much more rewarding.

Just keep it going dear forumsiders. Pls make devs buff the Mag.

It could be worse... Lets look at a Tank still used in the 31st Century, the Demolisher. Its 80 tons, has similar weapons as a Prowler... but.. well I'll show the stats:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Demolisher

Role: Main Battle Tank, Close Urban Combat
Year: 2823
Primary Weapon: 2x 185 mm ChemJet Gun Class 20 Autocannons
Muzzle Velocity: 650m/s*
HE explosive area: 2m**
Optics: Sensor Package***
Effective Range: 270m
Rate of Fire: 6 RPM†

* As of the latest MechWarrior game. Has been slower or faster in the past.
** As of the Strike Zone mechanic in A Time of War: BattleTech RPG, 20 damage weapons have a foot print of 2m, (20dmg / 10 = Footprint in meters or fraction thereof). However if using later era rounds in an AC/20 you can achieve a wider area using Flechette rounds which have a radius of 4m in the RPG (20 dmg * 2 vs infantry)
*** In BattleTech combat vehicles use a very sophisticated sensor package that combines, Visual, IR, Magscan, Seismec, and other detection means. It combines all of this into a display that a human can make quick sense of.
† Rate of fire is determined by a BattleTech turn which is 10 seconds. Or a AToW turn which is 5 seconds (and vehicles size weapons fire once every other turn).

But I think here you precisely highlight why PS2 is so broken... that there is no fear of death from either a personal or logistical point of view. Kills are largely irrelevant to the outcome of a battle, which instead focuses on the ridiculous goal of keeping the enemy out of one arbitrary room.

Can you imagine an IRL battle where one side has destroyed 90% of the enemy force, has the remaining enemy surrounded, has absolute superiority in terms of equipment, has complete control of the air, and calls that a loss?

And by the same token, the other side is pretty much combat-ineffective, is completely cut off from reinforcements, is made of nothing but infantry, has lost all control of the air and the surrounding area, yet still can claim victory simply because they happen to hold a single room?

It seems utterly stupid in the real world, yet we are supposed to accept that as a logical outcome in PS2? I would argue that such poor handling of death and logistics is what makes PS2 feel so empty and meaningless. Taking bases means nothing. Killing enemy infantry means nothing.

In short, you end up with anyone who values strategy or tactics leaving the game, and all the remains are people who want to "shoot face". Which explains the state of PS2 today.

Yet when we are talking about massive nerfs to vehicle AI effectiveness, what exactly is infantry giving up in return? By your logic, when vehicles like HE tanks were nerfed against infantry, shouldn't infantry have been equally nerfed against vehicles? Or HE tanks should have been made more effective against vehicles... or something.

The point of this thread is that many vehicles have been treated unfairly in the AI department whereas infantry have been given every advantage at every opportunity. PS2 is a game where a single LA can destroy a MBT without support. Where a HA hiding behind a flimsy wall can hold off a Lightning. Where one person in an armored suit can knock out highly advanced aircraft.

So would you then agree with me that you are in support of 1) either reverting all AI nerfs back to their pre-nerf states, 2) giving infantry some sort of equivalent AV disadvantage, or 3) giving vehicle AI an advantage in another area?

How is this any different than a HA who can stand next to an ammunition box and toss out an unlimited number of AV rockets or AI LMG rounds?

And if it is fair for infantry to have a "one-size-fits-all" solution, why not vehicles?

Well, if we were to take the pragmatic approach, clearly the best way to improve the performance of our HE shells is to hollow them out and fill them with as many hand grenades as they can hold. The shell can break apart on impact and scatter the hand grenades everywhere.

How many 40mm grenades do you think we can fit in a 150mm tank shell? Do we have any estimate for how long the shell is?

Forget 40mm grenades...

Take a few blocks of LA C4.

Remove wrapping.

Mold C4 to fill cavity of HE shell. Current 120mm HE shells have 3.2kg of explosive in them. M112 C4 blocks weigh about 0.6kg each. So you could fit about 5 and a half blocks of C4 into a single HE shell (by weight).

Throw in some random scraps lying around for shrap. Preferably little bits of indestructible tree material. Or just use your shell casing.

And voila... if explosive radius and damage are linear...

I certainly can. History is full of small, out numbered and under equipped forces holding out against foes who for all intents and purposes should have them dead to rights. Your 'Lost Battalion' style stories. They even crop up from time to time in modern warfare.

This is what the resource and territory systems were supposed to address. While Planetside 1 wasn't perfect; having bases run on nanites that had to be re-fueled, by a slow unarmed logistics vehicle no less [ANT], created a pretty meaningful logistics system in an infinite war with a relatively simple system.

1) Yes*
2) Yes*
3) Yes*

* Instead of giving Vehicle AI capability against other targets to make up for a lack of capability against Infantry, I would rather see their capability against infantry restored. As I mentioned previously, I would also like to see free platforms (Read; Infantry AV) that has 0 cost to deploy (Exclude; Max's) become "Deterrents". Which equates to a reduction in lethality.

I completely agree that infantry currently don't have to make any meaningful choices, or give up any meaningful capability, to become very well rounded platforms. This isn't just an infantry problem, however, and more a problem in the developers approach to player engagement and balance. They have basically fostered a mindset and environment where the player feels entitled to effective response to all targets they may face, without the need for sacrifice. This has resulted in weapons platforms in all areas of the game (Air, Infantry, Ground Vehicles) that are clear "best choices", and make dedicated platforms with meaningful sacrifices (for example; Skyguard) seem like "limp noodle" choices.

Why should I take HEAT or HE as a tank when I can 1 shot TKO infantry with AP without giving up AV effectiveness? Why shouldn't I take an AI Nosegun on my ESF when I can take out other ESFs with it? ... You can see the trend.

Because I am a child about technicality, the ammunition boxes actually expire after dispensing a certain amount of ammunition or after a certain amount of time.

I've gone back and forth multiple times in my head, and deleted a few paragraphs, on how to respond to this. Ultimately however, it isn't different - and it is the same problem. It goes back to what I said before; infantry don't need to make meaningful choices. I DON'T have to choose between a rocket pouch or nanoweave because ammunition is plentiful and inexhaustible. The fact that Infantry carry so much ammunition that, even without an engineer, the average player isn't expected to run out of bullets before a respawn? That is a problem. Which goes back to a lack of meaningful logistics - especially because as soon as you add a single engineer 10,000,000,000,000 troops could be supplied with infinite ammunition because his ammunition box is itself infinite.

Frustratingly, these are things that Planetside 1 had addressed simply and elegantly - that were sacrificed on the altar of "Faster Gameplay" and "Reduced Downtime" to appeal to players from other shooters.

As addressed before, I don't think it is necessarily fair. However, strictly speaking, you have to have a unit that stands as the "Sum 0" of which you gauge where power is being gained. In games like this, this is infantry. So as a tank, you are paying resources and flexibility to have an order of magnitude more health and more firepower than an infantryman.

Honestly? I think our classes should cost resources - if for no other reason than to disrupt the status quo in infantry combat and put a larger strain on our resource system. A new class, "Standard Assault" (to be creative), should be introduced. It should have access to Assault Rifles and the other Non-Class Limited weaponry, have the standard health/shields, a sidearm, and maybe a hand grenade. No tool slot items. No class ability.

Then, all other classes would have a cost to spawn like MAX's. I don't think it should be a dramatic cost, maybe fit Infiltrator, Medic, Engineer and Heavy Assault all between 10 and 100 resources (Medic and Engineer down by 10, as support classes, Infiltrator and Heavy Assault up by 100 as combat classes) - but some sort of cost.

Well, it's pretty obvious already that there is no relationship at all between damage and explosive radius in Auraxian explosives, though we are unable to determine precisely why this is the case. If we were optimizing for blast radius at one time we would have wanted to stuff the shell full of AV grenades, every AV grenade you crammed in there would have had a 10m wound radius. No individual grenade would be able to assure a kill, but I believe a sufficient number of overlapping 10m blasts would still make the shell quite lethal. Following an accident at the primary manufacturing plant though, we've seen AV nade blast radius go down significantly. We suspect a contaminant in the oxidizer may be inhibiting gas expansion, leading to a significantly reduced overpressure area.

Currently, if we wanted to optimize for blast radius we would want to fill the shell with sticky grenades. They have a 3.5m kill zone and a 7m wound zone as of the last evaluation. We should probably put a delay on the fuse after the grenades are dispersed from the shell, that would give them a chance to stick to people who may then carry the grenade further in a panic, improving overall dispersion and maximizing coverage. Do we know if any of the PS2 factions are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions?

A C4 warhead would make an excellent AP round though. 5 blocks would be enough to one-shot anything in the game, while still having a much more respectable blast radius than the current AP round.