Ghost Kaisar
Fatal Absolution
General Tso's Alliance
3015
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Posted - 2014.02.18 00:00:00 -
[1] - Quote
This is how I want tanks. Sorry for the monster post.
First things first. Terminology.
Threatening: Deals enough damage to threaten the vehicle. Not enough to kill outright, but you will be dead or severely damaged if you stick around for too long.
Deadly: Deals significant damage. Activate your hardeners or leaving are your only two options. (Once hardened, damage drops to Threatening Levels)
Lethal: You messed up big time. Barring user error, you WILL lose your Vehicle.
Okay, now that we have that out of the way, onto my Idea of vehicle balance.
Swarm Launchers
Swarm launchers need to have more range. They are Light AV weapons, made to take down light vehicles from a distance, and to deal enough damage to HAV's to make them think twice about engaging you.
Damage Level: Against LAV's, it should be Deadly. Missiles need to have better tracking/speed to make this a reality. LAV's should be forced to harden or retreat when faced with Swarms.
Against HAV's: Threatening. A hardened tank will be able to survive the onslaught easily, but unhardened tanks will be threatened by Swarms. Two or Three swarms against an unhardened tank is Lethal, two or three against a hardened tank will be deadly.
AV Grenades
I personally want these things to have the ability to bypass a certain percentage of Hardening.
Damage Levels:
Against LAV's: Lethal. You get too close, you will die. One will seriously wound you, two will kill you. Hardened LAV's will take three to kill.
Against: HAV's: Threatening. One is a nuisance. Two would get your attention. Three would have you activating hardeners or deciding to go elsewhere. If you get hit by Six (two ground guys spamming grenades at you), Unhardened tanks are dead, Hardened ones are GTFO'ing.
Forge Guns
Damage Levels:
Against LAV's: Lethal. Goodnight Gracie. One shot's Unhardened. Two shots Hardened. GTFO with those light vehicles, I've brought the thunder.
Against HAV's: Deadly. This is a Heavy Anti-Vehicle weapon. It's made to take down Tanks, at the cost of mobility and Infantry Protection. Getting hit by a forge should have tankers going "UH OH" and Hardening or GTFO'ing. Hardened Tanks can withstand the onslaught (especially with good passive rep), but they will be FORCED to leave once Hardeners are done. Unhardened tanks pop like candy against this thing.
Shield Tanks:
These are supposed to be "Burst Tanks". Made to maneuver around the battlefield and fight at a distance, the main goal of these tanks is to safely eliminate installations and Vehicles (for rails) and to suppress infantry from a distance (for Missles).
eHP is much lower for these tanks, and they can't survive repeated abuse. Against AV, retreat is the best option, even when hardened.
Shield Hardeners:1 Hardener per tank. Their active time needs to be reduced, but their recharge time would also be lowered. (I'm thinking about a 30 second active, and a 1 minute cooldown). This is to encourage the "Burst" style gameplay. Resist, Suppress, retreat.
Passive shield modules should greatly reduce recovery time. A good Passive shield module tank will be able to tank some damage and then fall back and quickly regen.
Armor Tanks
These are your "Bunker Busters". Made to roll up to hot fire zones and lay down some heavy aggro, they are the ultimate infantry support vehicle. Their Blasters might not be great at taking down other Tanks, but their blasters will make infantry think twice about engaging them. They are much tougher than Shield tanks, but suffer from long regen times.
Armor hardeners are fine where they are, but they need to have Longer active times, and Longer Recharge times (in suit with the above, they will have a 45 second long active time, but a 1m 30s cooldown (this is a 50% increase to both).)
This will work well, because a good tank will have enough eHP to be active in the fight until AV comes out, and then be able to tank a few hits, activate hardeners, and then buy itself some more time to push the other team out. 1m 30s cooldown will mean that after being unhardened, you will have 1 minute and 30 seconds to destroy the tank. This is more than enough time if you have the infantry ready to do it. Couple this with slow passive repair, and you will have "Waves" of tank attacks, that can be fended off with enough AV on the field (Even though this puts a disadvantage on the infantry in regards to anti-infantry capabilities)
Passive Module armor tankers are supposed to be tougher, yet more "Present" tankers. They can't take as much raw damage as a hardened tanker, but they aren't limited to their window's of opportunity. A smart tanker will be able to fall back once the heat comes down, and to push into a different objective. They regen slowly (compared to shield tanks), but much faster when compared to hardened armor tanks.
Once again, 1 HARDENER PER TANK.
Now, for vehicle quota's.
It's simple. (This is per side)
Ambush: 2 HAV. 3 LAV's. 1 Dropship. That is it. If you have 2 LAV's out, you can't call in another, but you can call in a tank.
Skirmish: 3 HAV's. 3 LAV's. 3 Dropships.
Domination: 3 HAV's. 3 LAV's. 3 Dropships.
This is done to encourage diversity, yet also to prevent spamming.
This means that Tanks are limited to 3 per team in skirmish, and two in ambush. 3 good tanks are more than enough for a team, and I see no reason to have more than that.
I honestly wanted ambush to only have 1 tank per team, but that would be death to the tanker with my changes. 2 Tanks should be able to survive in ambush (due to split aggro), and still have enough presence to support infantry. No more is needed.
Okay, feel free to offer feedback on this.
Please tell me if you like my ideas, or feel free to elaborate on how deluded I am. Either one works for me.
Nothing says "F**K YOU!" like a direct Flaylock to the face.
Minmatar. In Rust we trust.
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