Dear players,

after reading through the 71 pages, and going back to study the dropsuit progression, plus factor in the massive tank OP situation that has arisen in the past, I propose that we introduce a tiericided approach to vehicles that has been proposed with dropsuits before. Dropsuits are different in that their relative powerlevel is much much lower, so that approach may not work there. That's for later.

Read the whole list through, before raging, this is a holistic approach.

Phase 1
1) Introduce ADV and PRO HAVs that only progress in PG/CPU, therefore being able to fit higher tiered gear, making fitting optimizations necessary as well. Adding slots to the progression is not an option.

2) This will be contentious, all HAVs will have prefitted turrets as that is their intent as a Main Battle Tank.

3) All PG/CPU calculations will be based on the math of determined PG/CPU per slot, much like was done with Sentinels and Assaults a few months ago. Therefore, the turret PG/CPU will be factored "in" to the HAV capacity.

3a) STD HAV will be ADV/ADV/ADV/STD, ADV HAV will be ADV/ADV/PRO/STD, PRO HAV will be PRO/PRO/PRO/ADV.

3b) This fits Dropsuits as they should be very near fitting all proto, if and only if they have full optimizations, but some fittings will nevertheless not be able to reach full Proto

4) New Skill - Dedicated SHAVs (solo HAVs)- unlocking HAVs with no small turrets, exactly the same as HAVs, except their fitting capacity has also been reduced by the amount that the turrets granted in the above calculations.

Skill Unlocks all Dedicated Tank Skills

5) New skills - Faction UHAV (Ultra Heavy Assault Vehicle) - Highly armored, slow, fewer slots, with damage and bonuses to small turrets

6) New skills - Faction DHAV (Destroyer Heavy Assault Vehicle) - Very fast, lightly armored with bonuses to Missiles and Blasters, turret specialization is essential here, no small turrets.

7) Introduce key active modules, for each race - after studying carefully I believe active heatsinks, active spool ups and active tracking modules would be most tactical and able to provide play counterplay moments

8) Add Anti Infantry Missile Launchers (fragmented)

Phase 2)
Rebalance as needed and introduce "repurposed hulls", same progression but using Gallente Hulls and highly recognizable color schemes to represent Amarr, Caldari for Minmatar.

Phase 3)
More Modules and weapons

I hope to see real discussions about this proposa, please keep lore out of it for now, but feel free to start your own naming threads, I will sticky the best one, we need 2 new names for Caldari and Gallente ADV and PRO HAvs plus all the Amarr/Minmatar names.

See updated on the fly document here: HAV Master Spreadsheet

For the DHAV, would these turret skills benefit its AI capabilities, or its AV capabilities? I'm of the belief that there should be an AI and an AV variant to tanks.

Destroyers are purely AV, Ultras are AI and should be able to withstand quite a lot of infantry AV punishment, especially fitted with dmg boosted small turrets

Gotcha. Well, honestly speaking, if you're trying to make the Ultras AI, dealing more damage is going the wrong direction. I would instead improve features of the turrets themselves.

For instance, the problem with the blasters is their god awful dispersion. Changing the bonus to lower the dispersion of the AI tank will definitely increase its AI capabilities per level, without improving any AV functionality.

adding damage to destroyers is a good concept, except in the case of the blasters. I would recommend making the skill to be something like increased ROF and decreased heat build up to make up for the ROF.

A bit of side note, but since we are talking pre fit turrets, is it possible to get Vehicle locks? I really, really don't want blueberries jumping into my tank, one of the main reasons apart from fitting tankers don't equip small turrets. We don't want to be at the mercy of the Neebs of the world.

I do know that commanders don't want players in their tanks, and that is the olive branch of solo HAvs, unlockable through specialization.

This is probably a stupid question, but:
"all HAVs will have prefitted turrets as that is their intent as a Main Battle Tank."
So, we are unable to change this?

If that is so, can we assume that:

HAV = 1 AV turret (Gunnlogi) and 1AI turret (Madrugar)
DHAV = All AV turrets, but different ones.
UHAV = All AI turrets, but different ones.

Destroyers are purely AV, Ultras are AI and should be able to withstand quite a lot of infantry AV punishment, especially fitted with dmg boosted small turrets

Flagellant (madrugar hull)
Lol, clever name for the Amarr tank Rattati. I wonder if True Adamance will approve of it too.

Solo HAVs should not be as powerful as MBTs though. More players should have that force multiplier effect.

Solo HAVs should not be as powerful as MBTs though. More players should have that force multiplier effect.

Especially when you consider that in this particular case (Dust as a game that is) you are locked to a max of 16 players per side. You can't add a 17th or 18th player to the team no matter how hard you try. So if you are going to invest 3 players into one unit, that is essentially 2 lost players on your team. More players operating as one unit should definitely be more powerful than any one player in theory at least.

Now if players weren't as much of a limited resource, like say in EVE where you can keep calling more and more players into the system, then I could see the validity of counter arguments. But of close that won't happen here (at least not soon or on the PS3).

relevant thoughts

Flagellant (madrugar hull)
Lol, clever name for the Amarr tank Rattati. I wonder if True Adamance will approve of it too.

Not even remotely.

This is not Warhammer 40k.

I know the risks, and all the history. I believe there is a way to make this work. Vehicle players will have to realize that the progression will not be nearly as steep as before, and that there will be a learning period while we balance the content, erring on the safe side.

Without some form of AI threat, there is no reason to use HAVs except to fight other HAVs. There needs to be that first escalation to get the game going. HAVs may end up being even easier to kill at lower levels, I don't have the stats yet. Again, we want everyone to have a way to progress, and feel that they are unlocking and earning something of value.

If 5 tanks are too much, we may restrict them to 3, whatever is necessary.

Who cares what True thinks, wait, is he right behind me?

I have been discussing this with Xel.

One normal HAV with 3 manned turrets - "will" win a solo HAV, just due to extra fire power
One normal HAV with only driver - will have exactly the same fitting power as a solo HAV with only driver - draw

Where does the solo HAV must be worse than an empty HAV come from?

Could we upgrade the Solo HAV so that, with tiers, it could balance out the fittings? This way, we wont have to fight min maxed fittings, but if pro MBT want to fit equavlent small turrets, then the should have the fitting capacity to do so. Other wise, a Proto MBT would have be able to fit weak turrets in order to have a strong defense. there ought to be some sort of tradeoff.

PG/CPU wise:

STD HAV < STD MBT with SD turrets
ADV Solo HAV = ADV MBT with STD small turrets
ADV solo HAV < ADV MBT with ADV small turrets
Proto Solo HAV = Proto MBT with STD / ADV small turrets
Proto solo HAV < Proto MBT with Pro turrets.

As a future weapon I would add artillery turrets.
U can't move while using them, so u are in a siege mode.
It has to be a medium range turret to prevent redliners.
To make it viable in the battlefield it should have the bonus to reduce all ur profile.
Or in a future add something like a kind of stealth tank, to make it more tactical in the battlefield.
To shoot it u have to see the map, like using a strike.
Short periods of fire, long reload time. Anti infantry.

Why would you have to be stationary to fire a standard conventional tank gun?

2) This will be contentious, all HAVs will have prefitted turrets as that is their intent as a Main Battle Tank.