Vehicle Wreckage is Ridiculous Now

They nerfed the drop pods because players were complaining about their vehicles being podded. So SOE changed vehicle destruction in such a way that now it does the same damage that getting hit by a falling pod used to do, actually even worse in most situations.

Well played SOE......well played.

I'm surprised we haven't seen more kamikaze runs. Once the word gets out though....

Vehicle debris has always been bad. All the way back to beta I can remember times of frustration caused by big hunks of broken things, but lately it has seemed to be getting worse. The effects are a lot more random now and harder to counter.
Through a lot of wreckage deaths I learned how to avoid it in certain situations, and for the most part I have. The last few weeks though, debris physics have been turned on their head, sometimes literally. Here's a quick example.

A couple nights ago, during a squad drop from my galaxy I found a reaver repairing on the ground. Easy points I thought. I've had plenty of experience in this exact same situation, so my squad mates laugh and tell me crush it. I swoop down, angle the gal for a quick rebound off the poor shmucks plane and BANG!. we all go down in a giant explosion. The cause?. When I hit the reaver it blew up quick, but the wreckage grabbed my gal and stopped it dead. From 160kph to 0 in an instant. The wreckage then proceeded to blow us up. The pilot must have been laughing his *** off. there he sits capping a point when lo and behold he kills 12 people.
This is only one example. I have a lot more unfortunately , and frankly , they really are taking a lot of fun out of the game.
It doesn't just affect one type of play, it hits all of them. You like goofing around and crushing things, well, Debris. You like going for high killstreaks, using cunning and skill to fight tank after tank, well, debris hates you and your kill streak. You like playing for the team, and are the first to rush in to rocket/c4/mine that enemy sundy. That sundy has a hidden perk called debris that is going to get you and your little dog to.
I really hope they ratchet back debris damage, or at least give it somewhat plausible physics thresholds. We've only been asking since beta, how long can it take..right?..

I find it funny, most of the time, when vehicle wreckage exacts revenge on it's killer, (even when I'm on the receiving end most of the time...) but it has seemed to be getting worse lately.

A couple nights ago on Waterson I engaged in a one-on-one dogfight with a Scythe in my Reaver, we duked it out for a bit and long story short, I was the better pilot (for once). Turns out, however, that he was harboring a secret weapon aboard his Scythe, one that activated immediately upon his demise.

As his Scythe's wreckage blew in all directions, I put all thrusters full ahead, and then something terrifying happened. His wreckage warped back from the four corners of Auraxis and grabbed onto my Reaver like some malevolent claw, stopping it dead in the air and sapping it of it's remaining 85% health within 3 seconds (probably offered it up as a sacrifice to Papa Vanu...), and reduced my flying brick to little more than hunks of molten metal falling to the earth. How unfortunate, for the Mosquito passing by below...

They need to actually add some "depth" to their Collision physics here because currently all pieces of Debris seem to be using some hardcoded damage values. WHY? The actual Vehicles themselves don't use that. When you hit a Lib with a drop pod, the pod breaks first now (and so do you). When an ESF crashes straight into a Sunderer, the Sundie barely takes any damage at all. Harrasser VS. Lightning still needs some some major tweaks but generally Vehicle VS. Vehicle is okay and heavily influenced by "grazed angles" or vector velocity. . Debris meanwhile desperately needs to have its damage scaled by Poly-Size/Count & Velocity.


Debris VS. Infantry is a bit trickier. I'm sure MOST of us have been hit by an exploded sunderer TIRE at some point and asked ourselves "Would this thing actually kill me IRL??". It's a damn good question that I think only Myth Busters would really be prepared to answer. Especially when its owner bought all those "extras" like a lift-kit, special Rims and bigger Spikey Tires.

I see them all the time - at first I thought it was ****** piloting until I saw the kill-feed. An uncerted ESF can get 3-4 kills like that during a big battle.

Kinda derpy IMO, although being killed along with 7-8 other AA heavies by a suicidal Galaxy was ******* HILARIOUS lol xD

I was killed after getting hit in the face by a flaming sunderer tire bouncing down a hill. That's going to remain one of my most entertaining memories of this game.

The homing debris seems to me to be a recent issue also. If a sundy is running from me at full speed and I shoot it in the back with a cannon, what is it that makes the debris fly back toward me? If anything it should fly away from me.

I agree debris has always been dangerous, but I thought that was fun. Until recently when I noticed now it is nearly impossible to ever survive any amount of debris that is in any location.

I've also noticed that other players seem to understand this because now when I am in a vanguard, which is supposed to be the most dangerous at close range due to the shield, instead of other vehicles trying to keep away, run, or fight from a distance, about 90% of them just charge up and stay as close to me as possible. I presume they are just hoping for a wreckage kill because it's suicide for them.

A few days ago I was running down a small hill on Indar. A skyguard destroyed a lib above my head. The debris landed all around me, leaving me nothing to do but stand there and accept my fate. A piece of flaming wreckage slid as gently as possible into my face, killing me instantly. This once and for all proves that libs are op.

Moving flaming Sunderer Tires are always cool to watch, luckily they don't have super gravity attached to them so if you're in a tank you should be safe *At least to my knowledge*

On a side note it would be cool if Vehicle Debris didn't fly up into the air and home in on the nearest vehicle next to it.

really? i thought they lowered the damage wreckage does, and the last time i played vehicle debris did not hurt my tank at all.

Welcome to Planetside! <woot woot>

My approach to debris in this game follows closely the rules of a SM relationship - a mixture of awe, worship, fear and utter paranoia.
Destructive, capricious, unforgiving and ultimately alluring. The sound of a Galaxy exploding overhead - like the crack of the whip, with debris gracefully falling to the ground, toppling tanks, forcing itself upon helpless infantry in a fiery wave of insatiable desire...



Anyway - yeah, wreckage wrecks lives.

oh ive seen it Cuban.

enemy sunderer you want gone? know what's faster than getting a shredder or Dalton lib? landing a mossie on it.

Just sit there, some ******* will blow u up and kill their sunderer...

XD The hilarity I didn't notice this at all. Only thing that happened to that was similar to this was when i was driving a haraser and got ramed by a friendly sunderer.

Well they did lowered its damage from "instagib" you to "be stuck for 2s without a chance and gib you"
Plus some really cool tracking features so they can attach to your vehicles in certain ranges and **** up.

WTF SOE fix this! Its obviously a problem and a STUPID one. Noclip for wrecks will fix the issue of being murdered by a no physics wreck.

Friendlies repairing my sunderer resulted in me teamkilling them when it blew up