Why is it impossible to defend a sunderer?

Cool, you need to muster all that teamwork just for prevent randoms from rushing and touching the sunder, that's awesome. Pointless still, if you aren't with a zerg that sundy will eventually die to C4 or AT mines, all it takes is a single mistake and sundy gone.

The answer is simply; "Poor design"

The first reply to your post was "This is a team game bla bla bla", which is right. This is a team game.

So, why is it then, in a team game, that a single person can destroy a Sunderer?

If the attacking force has to set up a defensive net of one or two squads all around a Sunderer just in order to stop one a-hole with a Jetpack and some C4 from blowing it up, then there is a severe balance problem. Not only are those attackers not actually attacking, they're not attacking in order to stop one single individual from destroying the entire basis for the faction's capability to attack in the first place.

That's insane.

And the problem is that the more people that are trying to kill that Sunderer, the exponentially more difficult it gets to defend it. One person is already extremely difficult. 3 or 4? Nearly impossible. A whole squad dropping from a Galaxy? That's a dead Sunderer unless there's an entire squad of Burster MAX suits accompanied by another squad or two of infantry sitting there ready to defend. And a Squad Beacon + synchronized drop pods? You simply can't defend against that. Take this from someone who, in my outfit, was regularly a member of a squad that specialized in Sunderer Disposal. They're way, way too easy to kill. Always have been.

And I personally think it's great that a single squad can take out things like Sunderers, but the problem is that I don't need a single squad to take out a Sundie, they're just there for a kill secure. 2 or 3 people that are determined enough can tie up ten times their number while killing a Sunderer, if the attacking force is organized and actually wants their spawn points to not get blown up. That's a problem.

Sunderers are the life blood of a battle. A single person should not be capable of destroying one under any sort of conditions. This was why AMS Cloaks were so important in PS1, and it gave solo players a role in that they would find where the AMS was hidden.

A coordinated squad should be, with some difficulty, able to find and destroy an enemy Sunderer. But due to a combination of base designs and lack of defensive capability, this simply isn't the case. With the new AMS shields on the Roadmap, hopefully they fill the same role AMS Cloaks did in PS1 and make it so some suicide bomber can't simply kill a fight single-handedly.

That's the main problem right there - with blockade armour and even the smallest of planning and organisation, a side can keep their Sunderer safe.

Best tactic for keeping it alive is to actively defend it. I've known squads purposely draw enemies into the base's point just so the Sundie is unguarded, blowing it up, the falling back in to mop up the troops on the point who now don't have a respawn point. Works - unfortunately - very very well.

You can't defend sunderers because they're giant lighthouses, and a single person can destroy them with ease. It doesn't matter how many people are on your sunderer. Due to no enemy collision, one enemy guy can run through hundreds of yours at little risk to himself.

The solution? I'm sure we all know by now.



No need to defend what they can't see. If they can see it, then your position was bad to begin with.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...-successful-sunderer-defense-strategy.187663/

It takes a lot of certs, some teamwork, and great defensive positioning, but its possible.

Its impossible cuz people dont park it in a good spot. We dont have any defenses to build/deploy or anything...then to boot there is always the dreaded Liberator who shows up outta nowhere and nukes you back to w.e hole you crawled out.

If any semi-creative player wants a Sunderer dead and knows where it is, it cannot be defended. It is impossible. I can't tell you why, the only real solution is to pull more Sunderers and constantly keep people pulling them to any fight you want to win.

Works against pointless randoms and organized groups. Like anything else, strategy multiplies the force.

If there's too much of a zerg, you're screwed. Strategies help dissuade smaller number divisions from giving up, and help concentrate forces in a more effective way.

Pessimism, or optimism. .-.

This man speaks the truth! No matter what no matter how people like me will think outside the box and I have this isn't just a response for fun I literally have gone out of my way to destroy sunders! why? Well that's because you jack wagons couldn't defend mine.

I've done things that make it a point that you know I'm going to get that sundy and eventually I will by any means.

Maybe on paper and whatever, in reality It doesn't work, because when defending a sunder there's no margin for error, it takes one player that manages to slip and blow it up, there's also wraith flashes, dropping from an ESF, or going with another vehicle. Rushing on foot isn't the only way of soloing a deployed sundered.

ok one major problem with what you just said. there are collisions. you don't collide with FRIENDLIES, but i regularly bump into enemies while i am moving in to destroy sunderers and when i do i die shortly after. also i have detected cloaked infiltrators a few times by bumping into them.

By and large it's inconsistent. Cloaked infiltrators seem to be the only enemies I ever have collision with. I usually have no problem running through enemies when playing as a roof monkey light assault.

I can usually keep my sundie alive against C4 and tank mine bombers as long as I park it in the open, have motion detector out, and stay on my kobalt gunning. What I have issues with:

AV tank
Requires 1-2 engineers on repair and 2 (3-4 against anchore prowler) people in AV tanks to counter.

1 engineer with a mana turret (and a flash to get into position)
Requires 2 engineers repairing and at lest one lightning to counter.

1 long range AV max spawned from a adjecent base
Requires 2 engineers to repair and a vehicle capable of handling a AV max using the power of ledges.

Wraith flash with tripple C4
Blockade armor is the only reliable option, and that will still leave your sundie in a critical state, requires 2 engineers ro quickly repair it up.

Ejection seat + stealth ESF with engineer + tank mines.
Requires full continental air-superiority and at least 3 skilled ESF pilot's with A2A loadouts.

Galaxy with engineer + tank mines
Requires either 5-6 ESFs or 2 libs in the direct vicinity or 3 ESFs/1 Lib camping the enemy warpgate.

To summarize:
To succesfully counter all the mentioned threats that a single person pose to a sunderer you need:
Blockade armor
A cobalt gunner
2 engineers on constant standby
At least one 2/2 AP tank manned and on constant standby
A dedicated air-squad nearby.
All the aforementioned to be highly skilled and not mess up even once nore fall asleep while waiting for something to happen.

That's at least 7-8 people tied down just to make sure the sunderer does not go down to one single person!
In +48/+48 fight this is fine, but anything lower then 30 will have it cripple your offense.
And on most bases, the people on guard duty will spend 90% of their time doing absolutely nothing, yet the can never relax as a single screwup means the sundie goes down.

This is when defending ONE sunderer against ONE person. If you have several sunderers to defend against several kamakazi people (god forbid they are organized) it becomes exponentially harder.

Once again, this is not a problem in larger fights as there is usually a anatural air and tank zerg to cover your back, but it is absolutely killing any small-medium fights.

Because C4/Mines are too strong and SOE refuses to come to the realization that allowing 1 infantry player to destroy any vehicle in the game by himself in seconds is stupid.

Sundy and other vehicles are easy to kill, cause they are too accessible. Since everybody and his dog can bring sundy from any vehicle terminal it would be dumb to make it mobile fortress.

If you are in big fight, just bring more sundies.

Psst Hey sony, sensor disrupters , spitfire Cerberus and shadow turrets.

20 mines instead of 2 for proper minefields. Emp nades that you know emp vech and deployables.

The ability to bind your squad to a base or facility.

Get back to work.

Three guys who happen to be shooting in the same direction or making suicide runs on a Sunderer isn't 'teamwork'. They aren't talking to each other, they aren't coordinating some sort of strike together, it doesn't even take multiple people's C4 to blow it up.

They're all just hoping to reap in that sweet massive XP bonus and all the kills around it and are rushing to get there first.

That's the most banal and pathetic definition of teamwork I've ever heard.

That's why the PS1 AMS had a cloaking bubble and the WWIIONLINE mobile spawn could easily hide in bushes. But we're re-inventing MMOFPS, right?

Then change the motion spotters so they no longer have timers, but you can only deploy two RDDs at a time or one motion sensor.

Because EVERYTHING has to be balanced around SINGLE PLAYER in this game. It's stupid. Every time I open PS2 I hate it a little bit more. Every day I hate SOE a little bit more for what they did to Planetside.