My #ick Hard!

After testing numerous fits and numerous ways to use both Dropships, LAV's, and HAV's I have come to a conclusion.

Dropships: Can't actually sustain enough damage to be worth using in Public matches however in PC's they are working but that's about it. My rationale for this is because the amount of AV in pubs completely overwhelms you and in PC any one you'll be fighting is a vet with most likely the FG or Swarms. But it still seems that swarms follow you for well over 300+ meters

LAV's: Are currently working extremely well. During my time testing LAV's I was able to destroy multiple tanks (ranging from MLT to PRO) with a couple different fits. However I have not yet convinced my FC to let me test it in a PC so I'm not sure how it works in PC.

HAV's: Madrugar's are currently out performing the Gunlogi, in the department of sustainability which is to be expected. However the Madrugar is performing extremely well in Pubs far better than it used to maybe even to well. But the Gunlogi seems to outperform the Madrugar in a PC environment.


Vehicle's as a whole: In my opinion should be altered in a way to make it so every vehicle is not 100% reliant on Hardener's this would keep more vehicle pilots out of the redline and keep infantry/AV happier and not wine about redline Tanks, or Dropships just flying straight up or LAV's hiding behind buildings.

However AV seems to still be the choice to take out other vehicles rather than how it used to be which was vehicle(s) vs. vehicle(s) which would make the game much more enjoyable.

AV: Seems to be a bit too strong from my experiences. The complaints I've been seeing about OP tanks in General Discussion as well as here in features all revolve around the same topic: "Me and this guy shoot this proto tank and he no die. WHY he no die?" and I don't think AV realizes how much vehicles put on the line when bring out anything. Even my LAV's cost more than one of your proto suits. So based off the risk vs reward system shouldn't it be much harder to kill me than your average suit?

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Changes: Bring back active Repair modules take out passive's or reduce passives. Passive hardeners should be brought back. Add the turret variants back in.

Add a skill bonus to vehicles for skilling up into them as well as split up the HAV skil tree into the Gal/Cal HAV operation skill.

Gal HAV operation skill. +2% Armor resistance to missile weapons and rail weapons.

Cal HAV operation skill. +2% Shield resistance to Plasma/Blaster weapons

LAV operation skill +5% to Active Module cool down rate.

Large Turret operation skill -2% to PG/CPU usage per level

Large Blaster Turret operation skill -3% dispersion

Large Missile Turret operation skill +2% Blast Radius

Large Railgun Turret operation skill -2% to heat build up

Small turret operation skill -2% to PG/CPU usage per level

Small Blaster Turret operation skill -5% dispersion

Small Missile Turret operation skill +2% to Blast Radius

Small Railgun Turret operation skill -2% to heat build up
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Other Changes.

Increase the % of damage that damage modules grant to 30% at PRO 20% at ADV 10% at ADV 5% at MLT

Reduce the PG/CPU cost of heavy boosters by putting them in line with the Heavy shield extender

Reduce the PG/CPU cost of Dispersion Modules by putting them in line with damage mods and heat sinks

Reduce how far swarms travel after launch by 50-100 meters

Reduce FG max range by 50 meters to give vehicles just a little breathing room from FG's stationary on top of buildings.
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I have spent a long time to come up with all of this as well as a lot of ISK testing all possible fits for all vehicles. Please respond with any and all constructive criticism as well as changes to stats or even just reactions o7

Also I can make a spreadsheet if requested with all of the Stat/Bonus changes..

After testing numerous fits and numerous ways to use both Dropships, LAV's, and HAV's I have come to a conclusion.

Dropships: Can't actually sustain enough damage to be worth using in Public matches however in PC's they are working but that's about it. My rationale for this is because the amount of AV in pubs completely overwhelms you and in PC any one you'll be fighting is a vet with most likely the FG or Swarms. But it still seems that swarms follow you for well over 300+ meters

LAV's: Are currently working extremely well. During my time testing LAV's I was able to destroy multiple tanks (ranging from MLT to PRO) with a couple different fits. However I have not yet convinced my FC to let me test it in a PC so I'm not sure how it works in PC.

HAV's: Madrugar's are currently out performing the Gunlogi, in the department of sustainability which is to be expected. However the Madrugar is performing extremely well in Pubs far better than it used to maybe even to well. But the Gunlogi seems to outperform the Madrugar in a PC environment.


Vehicle's as a whole: In my opinion should be altered in a way to make it so every vehicle is not 100% reliant on Hardener's this would keep more vehicle pilots out of the redline and keep infantry/AV happier and not wine about redline Tanks, or Dropships just flying straight up or LAV's hiding behind buildings.

However AV seems to still be the choice to take out other vehicles rather than how it used to be which was vehicle(s) vs. vehicle(s) which would make the game much more enjoyable.

AV: Seems to be a bit too strong from my experiences. The complaints I've been seeing about OP tanks in General Discussion as well as here in features all revolve around the same topic: "Me and this guy shoot this proto tank and he no die. WHY he no die?" and I don't think AV realizes how much vehicles put on the line when bring out anything. Even my LAV's cost more than one of your proto suits. So based off the risk vs reward system shouldn't it be much harder to kill me than your average suit?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Changes: Bring back active Repair modules take out passive's or reduce passives. Passive hardeners should be brought back. Add the turret variants back in.

Add a skill bonus to vehicles for skilling up into them as well as split up the HAV skil tree into the Gal/Cal HAV operation skill.

Gal HAV operation skill. +2% Armor resistance to missile weapons and rail weapons.

Cal HAV operation skill. +2% Shield resistance to Plasma/Blaster weapons

LAV operation skill +5% to Active Module cool down rate.

Large Turret operation skill -2% to PG/CPU usage per level

Large Blaster Turret operation skill -3% dispersion

Large Missile Turret operation skill +2% Blast Radius

Large Railgun Turret operation skill -2% to heat build up

Small turret operation skill -2% to PG/CPU usage per level

Small Blaster Turret operation skill -5% dispersion

Small Missile Turret operation skill +2% to Blast Radius

Small Railgun Turret operation skill -2% to heat build up
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Other Changes.

Increase the % of damage that damage modules grant to 30% at PRO 20% at ADV 10% at ADV 5% at MLT

Reduce the PG/CPU cost of heavy boosters by putting them in line with the Heavy shield extender

Reduce the PG/CPU cost of Dispersion Modules by putting them in line with damage mods and heat sinks

Reduce how far swarms travel after launch by 50-100 meters

Reduce FG max range by 50 meters to give vehicles just a little breathing room from FG's stationary on top of buildings.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

I have spent a long time to come up with all of this as well as a lot of ISK testing all possible fits for all vehicles. Please respond with any and all constructive criticism as well as changes to stats or even just reactions o7

Also I can make a spreadsheet if requested with all of the Stat/Bonus changes..

Agree with the OP here, and aggrohim, if you read the part where he's actually changing the way tanks are fitted by making tanks less reliant on active hardeners, you can see how a tanker can actually stay on the battlefield and out of the redline.

The current meta Tank vs. AV isn't unbalanced because of dmg output. It's unbalanced because of application.

Currently armor tankers and shield tankers both basically can't engage without hardeners?! No hardeners, no push. Armor and shield both mean f*ck all without hardeners. So tankers engage hardeners going everytime. This forces AV troops to have to have half the team go AV to try to stop him because hardeners currently give 30 secs of sheer invincibility.

This is why tanks redline. Because survivability is on a 0 to 100 scale. Either you're hardened or you're hiding?! Not many other options as far as tanks go, and dropships aren't far behind this.

With the changes tread is proposing AV could actually keep their ranges, and dropships and tanks would have more viable options for survival besides hardeners or death?!

What we need to avoid is nerfing AV while at the same time buffing vehicles, and vice versa. This bs never works! You're essentially double nerfing one side of the equation which just leads to more imbalance.

Leave AV as it stands while trying to fix these issues. If dropships had more survivability options swarms wouldn't feel so hard counter. The same goes for tanks v forger on roof.

This games meta on the battlefield is far too dependent on hard counter for everything. So one dimensional?!

As it stands tanks and dropships depend on hardeners for everything far too much! I like what tread is proposing as it puts in more variety of options for tanking. Tank v tank all you're doing is fighting until someone's hardeners go down, and chasing each other around the map while AV shoots at the both of you?! Everyone has the same 2 or 3 viable fits, and the rest of the fits are bs experiments that really don't work?!

Dropship v dropship it's easier just to ram the other guy with your hardener on?! This is dumb. With dropships being so complicated for new pilots to learn to fly, you'll see even less of them than you will tankers as AV forces them off the field instantly. Even vet pilots have to start leaving to the redline or ceiling at the first sign of swarms?!

Making armor and shield, without hardeners, more viable would keep both sets of vehicles out of the redline more. As I stated armor/shield currently is pointless without hardeners. A type of passive reactive hardener that responds to severe dmg would make more sense than "hardeners on bro kill the one tank, then we retreat?!"

Hardeners currently for AV make vehicles unkillable, but for vehicles as soon as the hardeners are gone you better be as well?! This is no way to play?!

+1 tread those ideas make sense, but I would leave AV as until we can see what these changes possibly do. o7

Ok, so I'm here speaking as a foot slogger so that's where my perspective is coming from.
I agree with some of this, but a few suggestions have me concerned:
1) nerfing the swarms again. I get it homing missles kinda suck for you guys, but really they are the only reliable way to down a dropships that isn't being a dumb bully (if you will) and hovering launching missles and thinking they are safe.
2) making gardeners passive. Right now as gardeners stand they make tanks nigh unkillable, I'm not necessarily against gardeners becoming passive but if they do they have got to be merged pretty hard to allow infantry av(other than the forgegun) to present a credible threat. Perhaps increasing stacking penalties for them, or arbitrarily limiting the number like they did with the myos would work. Taking a direct hit from a plc should not take a measly 1/16 of a health bar unless an active module is being used.
3)I agree that tanks(vehicles in general) need a skill but I'm not sure that free hardening is the way to go...just some alternate ideas: dropships should get an increase to lock on time against swarms (if possible) tanks should perhaps get an acceleration buff, and lavs a hardening against collision.
4) tanks need to have their mobility cut. They are stupid quick on acceleration right now.
Also I hate the isk should = immortality argument. It's bunk. If that were true then we shouldn't have normalized suit tiers because in doing so we made non proto suits more survivable and effective and able to compete with proto, also it ignores all the bonuses vehicles DO get 360 scans, the afformentioned nigh invulnerability(you become a threat that often needs 2+ players in suits to take down. That's a huge tacticle advantage) bigger guns, much higher mobility, troop transport capability...its much more than just who's a better killer

Your dropship analysis is way off. STD dropships can do very well in pubs with a good gunner and pilot. ADSs also do very well in the right hands. Sure, if their whole team uses AV you won't be doing much but that's to be expected.

That's not to say I wish things were different. Swarms could use a functionality change, but honestly they're not as bad as they have been in the past (and yes, they travel 400m).

You are getting close to just saying this one sentence

'Put vehicles back to Chromosome'

That would basically cover what you would be saying mostly, things like active reps, skills which provide somekind of useful bonuses and vehicles being used to take out other vehicles etc.

Early uprising ADS/HAV and even the LLAV were useful in PC matches and because they were strong in PC they were also strong to a point in pubs, this was more apperent in Chromosome but DUST never had decent matchmaking so a PC tanker could wipe the floor with the entire enemy team espc if they were militia etc.

Now vehicles have no variety, AV has more variety and is the go to choice when taking out vehicles since half the weapons do damage and against HAV weakspots now are everywhere on the hull. This doesn't include the amount of modules and skills pilots have lost aswell as never having a pilot suit which would be just for piloting and enhancing there role just like a commando does for swarms.

After 2 failed vehicle reworks your ideas in this thread will go into the depths anyways, CCP will ignore it as they do and they will stick to tweaking/breaking vehicles further.

i agree ...really what they should do is flash vehicles back to chromosome and say there u go

i agree ...really what they should do is flash vehicles back to chromosome and say there u go

and then apologize for ruining a perfectly fine thing lol

i was forced to delete all my rep tanking maddy fits.. now all i have is a freaking mlt soma tank.

some of the matches i was in today during skirm and dom.. this is literally what i did. i hacked a freaking blaster installation.

and killed a bunch of vehicles that came near me. drop ships.. marduks... lavs.. lots of infantry roaming across my line of sight.

and at the same time. i had 1-2 mlt newberries near me protecting my ass and when one of them died. i left the turret to mow them down with an hmg.

seriously.. that immobile turret is more effective than the freaking vehicles now.

the only match that ended in some difficulty was when a decent missile turret tanker was wrecking every turret i had hacked on the map.

however this guy had hardeners on and was trying to keep his distance away from pretty much everything.

CHILL @OP.

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I know it's long overdue but... My pilot suit idea kinda stems off the skill bonuses... Mind if I steal them from you? I'll give credit where it's due :D