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Oh wow....

An OP by a tanker that I actually agree with....

Clearly the end in nigh.

I don't agree with the title incidentally.

Before we try to do aaanything else tanks need a ROLE. They need a reason to be on the battlefield other than being better than everything else.

The only role I've been able to think of so far is anti-vehicle.
This requires vehicles to kill though.
So we need dropships and LAVs (plus any other vehicles when they're ready) to be more prevalent so that people pull out their tanks.
Since DS and LAVs are primarily transports we need larger maps and/or less spawn points so people feel the need for speed more.

Apparently LAVs make decent anti-infantry at the moment with rail turrets although unlike the tank it takes two to achieve this.


As a medium/short term solution I propose the following:
-Fix vehicle/vehicle balance (railguns, hardeners, cost, etc).
-Fix vehicle/infantry(AV) balance (a bit more damage and range, maybe slower tanks or stasis weapons)
-Make the blaster primarily AV (reduce clip size, accuracy, rof...?)
-Introduce an assault LAV with a pilot controlled turret.
-Maybe buff small turrets a little (mainly the blaster).
-Make skirmish spawn like domination.

Once we're in a situation where players really want a DS or LAV pilot in their squad to transport around the map then we can give tanks a good role. I think tanks should probably be better at AV than infantry if and only if tanks are not good at killing infantry.

I personally don't like just giving tank weapons poor effectiveness against infantry. I prefer more elegant solutions like making them unwieldy against infantry like the railgun or a low accuracy blaster. You get hit with a round from a tank and it should hurt.

This is not necessarily the best solution. Just the only one I've been able to come up with.

I like everything you said EXCEPT:

"-Introduce an assault LAV with a pilot controlled turret."

I'm not a fan of that suggestion at all. I strongly feel that ALL vehicles should require a pilot PLUS a gunner (if weapon equipped).

I don't disagree with you.

But that kind of LAV is probably easier for the Dust community to swallow than tanks that require an extra person to use the main gun and getting rid of assault dropships.

The main aim is to get a light vehicle that is useful against infantry and will give something for the, now AV, tanks to shoot at.

Understood. But don't they already have that? I mean a pilot can shoot whenever they want to, they just have to stop and change seats first. Given the speed and HP advantage vehicles have, I think that is a fair trade off.

Understood. But don't they already have that? I mean a pilot can shoot whenever they want to, they just have to stop and change seats first. Given the speed and HP advantage vehicles have, I think that is a fair trade off.

Yes. Rail is AV. Blaster is AI. Rail has significant AI capability, esp. at range. It's also exceptionally useful for eliminating heavies for your squad.
Blaster has significant AV capability. It takes placement, judgement, patience and skill, but you can best any tank. It can be as straight-forward as burning nitrous and accelerating/reversing too rapidly for the railgun to track. Then the rail needs to reload, or overheats, or hardeners come off and it flees. Then it dies as you pour rounds into te weak point.

The fact remains that the railgun is far more useful as an AI weapon than the forge gun, thanks to practically zero chance of effective retaliation, owing to massive range, damage and having a zoom function. The HMG is not capable of AV. It is therefore far less versatile than the blaster.

(also why are you using a blaster against a hardened vehicle?)