Why is it impossible to defend a sunderer?

Seriously, is there a gameplay reason for this?

Even if you sit in the turret and wait for someone to sneak up on your sunderer, chances are they'll manage to sneak up to it anyway. Or at least just sprint to it so you can't even use the turrets to defend it. Then it takes about 2 seconds, and it blows up. Either from C4 or anti tank mines.

"Just get mineguard." you say. Doesn't stop C4 heavies from instagibbing it. "Just get blockade armor." you say. Well, then an engineer will show up with a couple of AT mines. Instagib.

Before you say "You have to stop the enemy from getting to it!", I'd like to inform you that there is no way to stop infantry from getting somewhere. They are virtually invisible if they know what they are doing, and that's when you ignore light assault, which can fly accross half the map if they feel like it. (Completely silently I might add.)

If we ignore all of this, the fact remains that babysitting a sunderer is simply not fun.

Looking at the issue from the other side, if I want your sunderer, there is literally nothing you can do to stop me. If I know where it is (which is higly likely, seeing as it's huge, noisy and shows up on the map if it's anywhere near you.), it's dead within 2 minutes. I mean, even if it's in the middle of a goddamn zerg I can always just suicide run it.

I'm not mentioning tanks and aircraft, as they are supposed to counter it. (Although the liberator's tank buster eats sunderers for breakfast.)

I've been watching the battlefield dynamic for a long time now, and it seems to me that almost everything counters sunderers, and they often die right after they are deployed. Or rather, as soon as someone sees them.

What gives?

This is a team game, you can't expect to solo defend a sunderer. Even if you did use the main turrets that had AI weapons, place up AI mines, and use recon dart to track any incoming infantry.

The Sunderer is the only vehicle I use and yes I do lose them quickly after a spawn sometimes, when I run into a random group of enemies that I didn't see coming.

But Sunderers have excellent survivability with Blockade, I have a Bulldog and Walker mounted on mine which I can always use myself and have anyone else jump in and use it.

Friendly vehicles and aircraft often help protect a well-placed Sundy.

But the best way to ensure survivability is probably to deploy it somewhere all of your allies in the hex will want to spawn.

When infantry are spawning at your vehicle every few seconds, that's a lot of backup and protection.

This usually goes the same for attacking a sunderer... The reason you are being over run at the sunderer is usually because 2 or 3 people are going at it at the same time.

With teamwork, one of them will get through.


The reason sunderers are vulnerable isn't because C4 or Mines are so powerful.... Its because the sunderer is stationary and high value. Once found, 4 guys can usually press it for 2-3 minutes and get through.

So either defend your sunderer when it's found by the enemy or move it.

Except noone on the team seems interested in keeping a sunderer safe.

My only option is to be in a large platoon, in which case anything becomes easy. Too easy, actually. Which again, is not fun.

Basically yeah. If a single guy is targeting the sunndy, then it is easy enough to defend. But if 10 guys are all coming after the same objective. You will have the same outcome as trying to solo defend a capture point or any other objective against those 10 guys. 1 vs 1 it all comes down to skill. But when there is multiple enemies on either side of the scenario, it comes down to who has more numbers to over power the resistance or who is more coordinated. This goes for both attacking and defending the sunndy or any objective in this game.

Except, it doesn't take teamwork to destroy the sunderer. I can do that perfectly fine on my own. I can only imagine how infuriating it must be for the owner of that sunderer...

as long as i find decent cover for it i have never had a major issue protecting my sunderer and if plenty of people are spawning on it then they will also help to keep it safe.

Sunderers need better AI wepons. Like the faction specific ones. But when deployed it should alter the damage curve to do +40% damage withing 25 meters, and -60% past 100. Even manning the guns most guns are either slow to fire or difficult to hit precisely in the range you need.

They seem to be having a deployed sundy oriented defence slot item in the tube, check the roadmap. I assume it's to stop the sundy from being so easily dispatched by a few people who don't feel like farming.

Your hyperbole in describing the situation really doesn't support your argument however. If there's a problem there's a problem, you don't need to dress it up.

... you're missing the point.. it doesn't matter who got the kill.. The reason one person even got close enough is because the defence was distracted by the other 2 guys going at the sunderer.

It's not C4 or Landmines fault that people aren't interested in defending the sunderer..

It's also not C4 or Landmines fault that people have tunnel vision until they get inside the base.

The sunderer is stationary, once found, it is communicated over region chat and the entire faction is after that sunderer. 2 Guys in Tanks can rush the sunderer to the same result... are we gonna nerf tanks next?

Only a VS would say that, lol.

If you dress it up with a PSA tag, then probably yes.

Maybe could take a page from our playbook, but whenever we pull a sundee there is always two people on guard. One stays eng, the other goes inf. That way we have a constant stream of information if anyone were to get too close. Maxed out motion spotter is a sundee's best friend!

As you said, turrets are useless when infantry get too close.
Then again I witness a lot of sundees simply parked two feet from where any infantry could simply jump down and on top. That's the major issue I see with blueberry AMS on any given day.

I'm not sure what exactly you see as a hyperbole in my post. It is literally the easiest thing in the game to destroy a sunderer. (Ignoring circumstances for the sake of simplicity.)

Excuse me for replying a lot here, but I feel I should address people's points.

If we're discussing sundy placement, you usually have a choice between being vulnerable to infantry that jumps down on you, or being enough in the open to be a target for long range weapons and/or aircraft. (Which you can't fight back against.)

The only thing that tends to keep a sunderer alive is being lucky enough not to be spotted by someone experienced, which is silly imo.

The problem here is that most people don't know how to deploy a sunderer in a defensible place. Or even what a defensible position looks like.

Right up against a building or behind a hill next to the spawn room is not a defensible position.

True but there are a couple key notes.
Most bases have some sort of full/half Cover from air, while still being out of LoS from the main base.
Takes some time to find em all but like you said, experinced players will know these spots.
But based on +75% of placements I've seen - People don't understand the value of cover + camo. They just want the easy couple certs by rushing the AMS as close as possible, only to ***** when it goes down 20 seconds later.

No.

I, personally, on my own, with no communication with anyone will ALWAYS kill your sunderer within 2 minutes of seeing it. During the last two months, I have NEVER failed in this.

And it's not like it's hard to find a sunderer. It is extremely visible, and even if it is behind something, you can just follow the stream of infantry.

Maybe SOE should bring back the AMS from PS1, Enjoy 2 inches of ground clearence, getting stuck on pebbles, shrubs and tops of hills..if you can make it up the hill, the AMS in PS2 is so superior to PS1, i see no issues with it. You should always have more than one at a base attack anyway. ...Oh the days of the ams router combos...

wut?

dedicated HA here.

sunderers take the most abuse out of any ground vehicle (name ANYTHING else on the ground that can take 2 full C4 charges and live), sunderers spawn TROOPS in potentially unlimited numbers, which tend to carry weapons of whatever flavor is most detrimental to your health, sunderers have 2 weapons that can either be specialized for AA (machineguns, flak) work or AI (grenade launchers) work AND do respectable damage to ground vehicles in most cases, sunderers can reload or repair nearby vehicles making them the only player controlled option in the game for rearming tanks or other vehicles, and last but not least BATTLEBUS is an actively used term.