Vehicle Hacking Potentially a Go ( In the future )

I wish. The sad thing, PS1 was even oficially published and localized in Russia, and in a way that people could play on EU servers with Russian client. Maybe I would even play it, but I simply didn't know about this game. No advertisement whatsoever.

your a russian?!

They are cheapskates that seem to forget that they have to spend money to attract players, word of mouth only works when a product is good or great.

to be fair though starting out in PS2 is fairly rough and many aren't used to that they are used to jumping in an arena shooter and having a better time starting out.

I'm a citizen of Russia, yeah.

I apologize for now replying to this sooner but I didn't even notice the query at first.

I tend to be verbose so I'll cut a simple answer.

This is a game where we fight against each other in interactions called counterplay or, occasionally, "being outplayed." Both sides must find enjoyment in these interactions, though they will certainly end in a virtual death for one party, or we have trouble calling the game fun. Sometimes it means a mechanic change; sometimes it means a mere perspective change; sometimes we really don't have to do anything. All the same, we can't afford whatever the game asks us to do not being fun at some level.

Whatever we have to do to play the game, can we find some measure of fun in doing it? That is the establishment of a good system in my eyes.

i know i shouldn't be surprised but right now i feel like a total jerk.

This is sound reasoning.
Let's try this out: We have two scenario's, one where the developers do exactly what you wanted above. You can only hack unoccupied vehicles, and there is not much of a problem with hacking vehicles for you.
The second scenario is when people can hack occupied vehicles, how would you solve that?
I think a good solution for you would be the following: When hacking an occupied vehicle you need to hack it twice. The first time you hack it you kick the players out and prevent them from entering the vehicle for X seconds. The second time you capture the vehicle. This gives the kicked players more than enough time to fight back without losing their vehicle, although it's still a mightily dangerous thing to have happen to you since you won't be in your vehicle after a hack and anything can destroy it. Although theoretically anyone who wasn't in the vehicle can instantly enter it and save it for you if you don't have it locked.

I don't think we'll be able to convince each other on this subject. There's enough accidental teamwork from what I can see, and with the masses of HA that have always dominated the infantry game there's more than enough AV available to deal with tanks, it's just that the way tanks vs infantry AV currently works the infantry AV is simply not powerful and accurate enough unless it's a CQC weapon.

....
What?
Adding non-lethal weapons would be the textbook case of combined arms! These non-lethal weapons cannot functionally destroy tanks without a teammate that makes use of the non-lethal weapon's capabilities and uses lethal AV against the tank. At worst if no lethal weapons are used the non-lethal weapons will reduce the chance the tanks will hit people, which is also a combined-arms effort if you do it right.
You are too set in trying to paint changes into an arena shooter, even though arena shooters rarely have any non-lethal weapons anyway! Everything is lethal! Just check UT or Quake for instance, try to find a non-lethal weapon in there. Even the damn teleport guns are lethal there!

Why would there be no chance of escape? You are imagining nerf weapons that instantly take 90% of the function away don't you? Try to imagine something more fair, like a 10% reduction per hit, with a maximum of 40% reduction. Also, how on earth is the HUD removal weapon going to be a "BS AV nerf tool you die to"? It reduces your radar coverage and aiming capabilities, but that's about it.

Infantry do need an AV buff, they do have teamwork (Ever seen a chokepoint?), and damn have you ever seen what AV nests are made off? If you say "just RL's" you are sorely mistaken. There's a reason why the VS has AV nests with Lancers and the NC with Ravens, but not much else.

Ah, I think I answered this already. The challenge and capability to rise to a challenge regardless of what class or unit type you have is key here. The moment you can feel powerless to defend yourself against something you will see complaints, and just fully so. This is why you see so many complaints against aircraft despite there relatively low kill count: The counter is usually not present, the counter is heavily dependent on teamwork while the ESF especially is the epitome of a lone-wolf vehicle, and the counter sacrifices all AV and AI power to deal with aircraft even though the AV weapons at least are multi-functional. It is simply a ridiculous way to have a game: Either the aircraft can operate freely and kill anything they want, or when they are countered they can't really operate at all.
So, every unit and class needs to be able to pick a loadout that makes them feel effective against their supposed target, with proper disadvantages that go with it. This means that aircraft need ways to properly attack aircraft, infantry and tanks (and they can, often with one loadout), tanks need better borders between their AV and AI weapons, since the AV weapons are much better overall as the platform they are mounted on can avoid infantry if necessary but not tanks, and it needs better AA weapons as well. And infantry classes all need an AI loadout, an AV loadout and an AA loadout. Depending on the power it has, it will take a different slot. High powered loadouts are more likely to either replace the primary weapon slot or be a resource-costing utility slot. Low powered loadouts are more likely to be based on suit, tool and ability slots.

in the case of being able to kick out drivers combat favors the infiltrator more or less depending on the driver, if the driver is complacent the infiltrator can lay mines for an instant win after hacking(assuming no flak armor) or no shields. infiltrators already prey on drivers with SMGs when they hop out and repair kicking people out of vehicles without any warning would be bad gameplay.

it is powerful enough, you say there is more then enough AV to deal with tanks and yet they are not brought to bear on tanks? the issue isn't the weapons it's the people carrying them, HAs working together can destroy a tank and yet few do. that's a player issue not a balance issue

pull lethal weapons they will be much more effective in the same number of people, crippling vehicles with debuffs is a bad idea to make up for lack of competence by infantry players to counter tanks.

Av nests are effective because AV weapons are pulled (free or not) and the people using them are working as a group, teamwork is what makes them effective combined with the current power of AV weapons.

If you work together as a group even with -just- rocket launchers you can destroy tanks, if you want to be more effective individually or as a group you can pull maxes or other nanite AV options which hit harder or have higher DPS.

Anyone who doesn't pay attention can be killed without warning. Engineers should wear flak armor anyway, and if you only allow hacking of vehicles through a utility item they can't carry AI mines.
Besides that it's a massive step towards your direction I would think. Rather than people being to hack occupied vehicles and drive away the moment of success, you need to hack it twice. Since it takes 10 seconds to hack the tank each time you are busy for at least 20 seconds at minimum, add that you need to approach it while visible (or the de-cloak tips them off) and the fight against the driver/gunners and this is a herculean task that few will ever pull off a successful occupied vehicle hijacking.

Prove it. Prove that it's the people carrying them. Show me a few video's of people failing to use teamwork to destroy a tank or something, because right now I have all my experience telling me that infantry simply does not have the required AV power to fight with vehicles in every scenario but the AV heightened AV nests with specific weapons.

You aren't making sense. "pulling non-lethal weapons that are only effective in teamwork makes up for the lack of competence of infantry to counter tanks (and this counter is based on "Teamwork with AV"). While it actually takes more skill for infantry to use non-lethal weapons and have friendlies make use of the temporary nerf. Sure it reduces the skill required to hit the tank in the first place... But your argument was that infantry's only problem was a lack of teamwork, not a lack of power because the accuracy mechanics make hitting tanks hard reducing the infantry AV power, which is actually something that I have been using to say that infantry AV should have a more consistent DPS by improving their accuracy with no-drop rockets for instance.

So you need to explain with some bullet points or something what you are actually advocating, because right now you seem to contradict yourself, besides that you are trying to make a textbook teamwork ability look like a solo ability that only patches up infantry incompetence.

Yeah... No.
Just ask yourself, where do AV nests appear? They appear in high places such as tower airpads and mountain ranges. They don't appear on equal ground to vehicles, or when vehicles are on higher ground. Why not? Well the answer is obvious, because the moment vehicles have an equal or superior position, the infantry is too easy to kill to properly get an AV nest going. Besides that, AV nests are usually one specific weapon, mainly the high accuracy weapons of AV turrets, Ravens or Lancers. There might be some lock-on nests but I doubt they work very well as I've never really seen one in all my time playing PS2, and it's beyond ridiculous that any dumbfire AV nests exist.
This isn't "working together as a group", this is "these weapons and this position work well, nothing else does".

Or, or, we can add those non-lethal weapons that promote the heck out of teamwork and offer some nice options to all!

#2. It'd be nice if deployed Sunderers were not immune, but greatly increased the hack time (even up to a full minute). If it's unattended and undefended for a full minute, seems fair that it should be lost to anyone who can stay on it that long, after all a Medic could C-4 it, run back to resupply, and C-4 it again in less time for most bases. But shielded Sunderers or stealthed Sunderers would be immune until the shield or stealth was deactivated either by undeploying or by taking damage.

#3. The paint job might actually be nice if it wasn't easily noticeable. That's kind of the payoff of stealing a vehicle.

#4. Not sure this should be available to non-infiltrators. The infiltrator class needs more reasons to get close and expose themselves to more risk, plus if classes that were especially dangerous in CQC or to vehicles could do this it'd make it pretty annoying to the engineers who have to fight them off. Ex. a Heavy who could start hacking a tank when the Engineer hops out to repair, forcing the Engineer to choose between a shielded shotgun/LMG to the face or a rocket/C-4 in the tailpipe. At least with an Infiltrator, the worst you have to deal with is an SMG with 100 fewer hitpoints, or just re-entering the vehicle.

I would say, for balance purposes, that your #1 (only hacking unattended vehicles) is important, or at least that the time to hack is so long that you could never hack even a slowly moving vehicle and one camping a hill would have plenty of time to notice and respond by either driving away or hopping out and dealing with the infiltrator directly.

Sunderers are far too important to be destroyed by a hack. Using C4 is also much easier to defend against. An infiltrator has all the tools to get to a Sunderer unseen, a Medic does not. Also, the C4 explosion tips people off, the damaged Sunderer tips people off, and the Medic is much more vulnerable while traveling to the Sundy and back to the base to refil his C4.
So even with a minute hacking time, no dice.

It might, but I think it will be a better experience overall if the paint job is simply clear.

Weird weird logic.
A HA with a hacking tool would sacrifice C4 or medkits. In case of C4, you can much easier and reliably kill the tank. Also, a HA stealing your vehicle when you exit? If you let him get close enough for that he could mow you down anyway, why would he first start hacking your tank, then when discovered either kill you or shoot you in the back? It's a nonsense argument, as the HA would be able to do worse things anyway than hack it regardless if he just, you know, shoots you first.

Also, all classes have a tougher time approaching vehicles, with maybe an exception for an LA if he does it right. So I don't see no reason why other classes shouldn't get it.

essentially it's like hacking people out of turrets the difference is they used good nanites for the advantages of a vehicle, it's not hard to kill someone after you've hacked them out of a turret. it's just another annoyance piled on tankers because infantry hate tanks (even though they farm themselves far more) hacking a vehicle that is being repaired by the driver is fair game, the driver put themselves in danger so that is acceptable.

you said it yourself there are plenty of rocketlaunchers around not being used on vehicles, if some of them worked together as a group they could take out vehicles, but they don't it's the same situation for AA and look how much people hate air. my experience tells me that too many players ignore anything that isn't a direct immediate concern for them.

e.g DEPLOYED sundie taking vehicle fire at close range? many spawn, few defend 'after all it can be replaced'. tanks firing on the base? if people aren't getting hit they don't honestly care (in other words they are using cover or not being targeted)

If a base is getting hit by Air it's the same thing if they are not a victim of air they don't care.

failure to use combined arms on infantryside is the issue, notice the combined part? that doesn't work when there aren't enough people willing to work together even by coincidence, you don't have to know someone else has pulled AA to try and counter air, you may not be effective solo but you can affect how air attacks and the duration of their attack runs.

rockets are free it's no wonder the devs have left the decimator's drop as it is decimator gets more damage for reduced effective range over other luanchers, if you have to use ranged AV RLs then use lockons/striker, phonexies or lancers as a group. having others to cripple a tank's stats because you can't land hits is a bad argument next someone will ask for the same for AA weapons or anything that kills them.

non-lethal weapons will not promote teamwork, not even lethal weapons will promote teamwork. people will ether use teamwork or they won't any nerf weapons will only empower those that already use teamwork in coordinated AV. infantry have to use terrain against vehicles, it can be higher ground or cover as long as the tank is taking enough fire they can't just charge to nullify your cover and have to play carefully.

really? you think it would even be remotely balanced letting any class hack vehicles really? as for a HA depending on the situation you can laugh off his rocket attacks on your tank if you don't kill him quick enough you can just drive off the only chance a solo HA has against a tanker that will retreat from a solo HA is to sneak up on them them with the AV nade and decimator combo.

It clear that we won't agree. kicking drivers out is bad game play even more so if any infantryman can do it underlining the point of classes where some have tools for specialist uses that no other class possesses.

Can there be a certification that doesn't change the colors? with FOB's being a reality in the future getting into an enemy FOB with a stolen nc sundy would be awesome!
"ok take your sundy over at bay 3 for repairs"
"......"
"huh, thats strange, his mic must be deactivated."
(sundy drives into the compound)
Jack: "so how was the game last night?"
Dave: it was alright, the reds won, again."
Jack: yea well, oh ok just over here!"
(sundy doors open and streams of tr troops)
Jack: WTF?!

You used the same argument for being hacked straight away, I add 10 more seconds and the ability for the driver/gunners to fight back and it's still not good?
I don't care about your nanites, nanites are no guarantee for anything. Throw a grenade? You don't get a guaranteed kill. Throw 4 grenades? Still no guarantee. Throw C4? Also no guarantee on a kill. Throw down mines? Pull an aircraft or a tank? It doesn't matter what kind of nanites you pull, it's how you use them that counts.
And if you fail to notice an infiltrator that needs to approach you visibly on foot (or you fail to notice the decloak sound), then fail to check around you within 10 seconds, then fail to defend yourself (and possible gunners) from the infiltrator while the infiltrator manages to remain hidden from any allies in the neighbourhood, then the infiltrator manages to hack the tank in 10 seconds more without being noticed, then the infiltrator deserved to hack it!

I also mentioned why rocketlaunchers weren't being used on vehicles: They don't have the accuracy or speed to properly engage tanks. Tanks have too much chance to instakill a player that takes too much time to aim his dumbfire which means a lot of shots will miss due to shortened aim time and no way to check if your aim was good, and if you are using a lock-on you need an extended period popped up anyway exposing you to all kinds of fire, including of your target. So again: It's not the teamwork that's lacking, it's the weapons available.

People do care, but trying to defeat a tank in the short time it needs to take down a Sunderer is tough, and will likely take you several lives if you are "lucky" enough to have him fire at you. There's also the problem that a lot of infantry is just as alert as tankers: They will miss a burning Sunderer and a tank 10 feet away simply because they, just like the tankers, are focused on one thing.

Hmm, either take the least rewarding weapon in the game that is the least likely to have a good effect and hampers all your power in other area's and makes you a target for everything including the thing you are hunting, or save your score and keep attacking other stuff, the choices the choices...
AA isn't rewarding, has never been rewarding. Either you fail and don't get any points and kills, or you are successful, have to share the points and kills, and aircraft do not come in your area anymore. You are actually pointing out something that tankers do just as much as infantry, if not more!

Failure to have the right equipment to actually use combined arms is the issue, as I've explained before. Also you are pointing at just Heavies working together, that's not combined arms thats spamming one unit type.

Rockets are free, but that does not mean they should have their current mechanics. You are actually trying to use the exact reason why the current infantry AV game is bad to prove your point? Having others cripple a tanks stats so that this could be remedied is the perfect solution.

You are losing all credibility, seriously non-lethal weapons are simply the highest form of teamwork you can imagine as the only way they can be really effective is to have a teammate help out.

You are assuming the infantry will just walk up to the tank and magically capture it. You aren't seeing the effort that would be required. An infiltrator has the advantage of being able to get into a position unnoticed, then visibly approach from a direction the tanker doesn't expect.
Just think about this: How many times have you been C4red by a HA, or a medic? or an Engineer? Rarely? Never? How on earth will other classes be able to hack you if it takes 10 seconds of close proximity?

It is the people using it though.
The Lancer is the PERFECT example of this. If more VS used this launcher, fighting VS with vehicles would become a nightmare. They don't use it though, because they want to be able to kill the 1 MAX that killed them the 1 time or 1 shot infantry. Or they just don't have it unlocked.

It is two things:
1: The people. They rather have a rocketlauncher to OHK other infantry when in a pinch, or be capable of taking down a MAX, rather than have a weapon that can be exclusively used against tanks. So using a Lancer is reserved for those moments when you are going to go all-out against vehicles. This happens... On places where the infantry have the high ground. I've never seen a video or had an in-game experience where the infantry successfully used AV against tanks while they didn't have the high ground.

2: The weapons. There are few weapons capable of being used at more than 50m reliably in groups. Lock-ons suffer from the fact that anything that crosses your path messes up your aim, so getting a whole boatload of infantry to get out of cover and stand still to get enough locks on your enemy is basically painting a huge target on your forehead and saying to every infantry and tank nearby "shoot me", which is why this only works on high positions: You can walk up to the edge while your enemy still have limited vision and capability to shoot you, you can fire your missile and getting back to cover is a matter of walking backwards, and every inch backwards already makes you a harder target. Dumbfires have a massive drop, and hitting any tank reliably without a good aim time is tough, especially for an entire group if they need to pop out of cover and shoot it, risking getting OHK'd every time they do if they aren't on higher ground. The usual modus operandi is to see a large bunch of HA's sitting behind some cover with an engineer supplying them, they pop up, fire, return for a reload, pop up again etc. It doesn't happen often, but during things like an infantry-stamped towards another base you can find a large group of HA sitting behind cover and accomplishing nothing despite their mass and their shots.
Which leaves... Highly specific weapons like the Lancer. There are a few AV weapons in the game that allow a player to better hit a tank with a good DPS and accuracy (as in: Lock ons have too many failed locks to be counted among those). The Lancer and Phoenix are unique in that respect. The Lancer at least can use a more low-tier team mentality with relatively little communication to take out the right vehicle, since the shots can be fired at relatively quick intervals and attacking the vehicle you see several other beams fired at is easy. The Phoenix requires a mighty ton of teamwork and can only really be pulled off with microphone communications. If successful it's powerful, but compared to 7 or 8 minutes waiting and getting a vehicle that forces players to require such immense teamwork it's too high a cost. And the poor TR have nothing of the sort, and are a perfect example as to why infantry AV is lacking. It might not be lacking in the direct DPS department, but it's lacking in it's reliability to score hits and kills (where Lancer squads might have too much reliability to score a hit and kills in groups).
And then there's just the MAX's left, which cost as much as a tank anyway. Ravens need nerfing definitely, they have too much DPS and accuracy combined to be good for the game, but otherwise I would say that MAX's deserve a ton of AV power, but since MAX's already cost just as much resources it would be hypocritical to say "they still need teamwork" (which they do, MAX's are heavily reliant on teamwork to stay alive and be worth it, without support a 450 resource MAX buys you maybe 3 kills).

I think you're missing the point here. All VS have access to the lancer, but they can't or don't want to use it even though it's the best AV launcher in the game. Being able to strike at almost* any vehicle including air units you can see is ludicrously strong. The only area where the Lancer is lacking is CQC maxes & infantry. At least the phoenix is range limited, but the lancer has no such downside.

What is the VS excuse for not using the launcher? The answer is that probably that most infantry don't give a rats about vehicles unless they are being shot at themselves. If the VS opened their eyes and realized how strong this launcher can get, especially when more people use it, it'd have to be nerfed because of how ****** the vehicle game would be against them.

I see it over and and over again, VS defending a base where the lancer is such a monster, but they don't use it. They'd rather fail at shooting dumbfires against them or use lock-ons so they only have to point at the target. Just use the damn lancer and you'll be able to hit these vehicles instead of missing.

What's the solution here? Do you want to go back to when lock-ons would fly around objects for guaranteed damage once they are fired, removing any resemblance of skill from the game? When AV mana turrets had stupid range and could hit vehicles from anywhere? If you make infantry AV too "easy" everyone uses it and completely screws up the vehicle game, just like the Gatekeeper was doing when it was FOTM, just like the OG striker did, just like the OG AV mana turret did.

*The only thing that can't be hit with lancers is render range aircraft.

I didn't miss the point, and I explained exactly why it isn't used as much.