or inadvertently drives over a pile of 5x remote explosives meant to take out a Sagaris.

in which world would 5 remote explosive take out a sagaris tank? should you manage run past the enemy, setup 5 explosive and manage to blow them up then the properly sagaris tank will eat all of them and still have 30% shields left.

There is also another issue that Logistics LAVs need to account for.

Terrain

Dropships

During the initial phase of the attack, those capable of operating dropships must carry enough troops to bring them to the hard-to-reach places held by the swarm launcher troops so as to clear the way for the leader and the logistics team. We must also remind the troops that they can jump out of the dropships from a very high altitude and activate their inertia cancellers to break the fall at the end. Remember, CCP didn't call these vehicles "DROP"ships for nothing.

Not familiar with inertia cancelers. Are these a default feature in every dropsuit? Or must we have the appropriate module? Finally, how are they activated?

I'm working towards the LLV, but yeah, it's been improved. It's alot like the swarm lock now.

It works, believe me it works. And it's a lot less complicated than it sounds, you keep a repper on 1 fellow Logi, and then you handle repair calls as they come in.

Theory is busted by two AV heavies wielding Forge Guns. Instant-death to any LAV. You can not repair through this. Sure you're keeping that Sargaris alive, but at what cost? Better yet, a sniper can shoot you OUT OF YOUR COCKPIT.

SpiderTanking is legitimate in EVE because there isn't any way to circumvent the tactic outside of a large concentrated volume of fire from "far left field." There's plenty of counters to this strategy in DUST and therefore is not really a viable tactic.

It is a viable tactic. Your forge gunner if being forced to focus fire on the Logistics LAV rather than the commander who is driving the Surya. This means that the LAVs are doing their job by simply forcing the forge gunner to fire at them instead. As long as the commander is in the field and is fitted with squad-boosting modules (which CCP will add later on), the team will have a higher likelihood of coming out as the victors.

In Eve Online, it's a same thing. Commanders from opposing fleets will always order their ships to attack the Logistics ship first in order to break down their ability to tank the damage. Same thing when dealing with e-war ships.

The same will apply to DUST.

In other words, Logistics pilots and drivers are willful cannon fodder who know that their ship/vehicle will be the first to die. It's part of their job to ensure that the commander stays alive.

In the prior build, I operated the Limbus in a skirmish battle in the Communications map while protecting a Sagaris. Guess who was the first one to die: me. The enemy was unable to destroy the tank because I was repairing it so their troops focused fire on me instead. I may have died and lost a great deal of ISK in the process, but I did my job and we won the map. The cost was worth it.

I'll go through your points one by one so that it becomes very easy to respond piece by piece.

In EVE it is not the same thing. In EVE you will always know if someone is within range of you. You will know if you're being targeted. You know who is targeting you. You can predict when and where your burst damage will take place. This is not a luxury you have on the DUST battlefield. Engagements in EVE are handled in cycles... Engagements in DUST happen in real-time. Player reaction speed determines engagement moreso here than optimal configurations and well planned strategy. I don't understand why you haven't considered this ahead of time before you presented your argument.

I still see cycles with the modules the same way I see with Eve. You are right about the distance though. It gets more complicated if I'm targeting more than one.

Squad-Leader modules, if implemented one way, will be implemented the other direction. If you have greater defensive skills from your SL, what makes you think the heavy crew won't have some kind of augmentation as well? Again, a point that you could have easily considered before you presented your argument.

If you're talking about the forge gunner or swarm launcher guys, I see what you mean. But they still have to get rid of the logistics LAVs before they focus on the main target. Again, Logis would still do their job by sacrificing themselves for their leader.

The assumption that you make in your statement that logistics pilots are willful cannon fodder assumes that the amount of time they buy the offensive units they are supporting can be used to actually do something effective or kill the unit / ship which is ripping your team apart. We're about to see why this is not the case.

Assuming CCP doesn't change any of the targeting mechanics for the remote repair modules, then your point would be valid. With the current mechanics, the best logi setup is two logis repping a third logi that is repping a tank that holds the leader. The chain is simple but will be weak.

The charge time on a Forge Gun fired by an AV heavy is 2.1 seconds. If you have 5 Logistics LAVs and one Tank then you're looking at about half a minute of mobile infantry picking off your support with relative ease, probably from cover and no-sight, with virtually no risk. The cost of this infantryman's fit is roughly 23,000 ISK. After about 30 seconds of shooting out the LAVs, this two man team will have inflicted approximately 150-250K damages on you and will then proceed to destroy your 100-150K fit Sargaris in about 20 seconds.

Valid point. But one can fit more than one remote repair and stagger the activation of the modules to mitigate the wait time between cool downs. The logis will still be destroyed regardless, but the time might increase just enough for the leader to get to safety or perhaps see back up arrive. Every little bit helps.

To recap: Two soldiers (46,000 ISK) + Decent Tactics + 1 minute = 250-400K ISK damage and taking the position you thought you had well defended. Not worth it. At best you were a nuisance to the Forge Guns. At worst you killed one and he waited for his ally to respawn from the Drop Uplink.

So? If being a nuisance bought time for my leader, what do I care?

Finally: You were playing Skirmish on Communications? How. The only gametype available on Comms was Ambush. Either you're full of **** or you're mis-remembering. In Ambush games (which it is very likely you were playing) you're less likely to run into anti-vehicular strategy because the emphasis is on "killing clones," and the most common train of thought to do this is with anti-infantry weaponry. In addition, most people who play the Ambush gametype are Lone Wolves. The fact that you beat that instinct to team-up is what gave you the advantage... not the fact that you had a solid strategy.

I highlighted my old quote for you. "...prior build..." I wasn't BSing.

Any player worth his salt has Amarr Heavy Dropsuit to 1 and Forge Gun Opperations to 3 specifically to combat tanks in the current build. As the Skill Point multiplier is removed, you'll see less of this... but you'll see fewer vehicles as well. Compensation will take place in both directions.

Please understand that I'm not disagreeing with you on a personal level, just on the facts that have been presented. If I have attacked your delivery (which I have) it's only to try and receive a more thoroughly reasoned response.

I eagerly await your reply. This discussion will help solidify or bust Spider Tanking.

I trained up for the Saga, and decided it wasn't really worth it to spec further to get in Logistics. It definitely sounds like the locking interface, and range, are the major concerns for this issue.

I think LAV's should be able to maintain their lock even when out of range, so that they can maintain their high maneuverability.

Actually, I want to see a range limit. Otherwise, the Logis LAVs would be slightly overpowered in terms of assistance due to their range.

EDIT: Oh you're talking about just the lock! I thought you meant the repping effect.

I like to also mention that we are assuming that the tank and LAVs will be in motion. No self-respecting fleet commander would sit still while his enemies attack him. Also, once corporations form later on, we can expect to see backup arrive to deal with the AV heavies or replace the Logistics vehicles that were lost.

I doubt the commander would want to stand still for a whole minute waiting for his doom. People will take cover or ask for backup if they are in danger. I'm saying this under condition of a corp-vs-corp battle, not a random-vs.-random battle like we have now.

With remote repairs tools finally back in I like getting this down with dropsuits then work our way up.

Judging by the lack of response I take it that the targeting mechanism for Logistics LAVs hasn't changed.

My brother and I were thinking about what would be the best way to improve the targeting mechanism for the remote armor/shield repair modules.

As of right now, the targeting mechanism is based on limited line of sight and therefore one has to maintain a constant stare at the target so as to not break the lock.

Our recommendation is that it should be a look-lock-n-forget mechanism with a range limitation so that the Logistics LAV driver can stay focused on driving in formation or other duties assigned to him by his commander. I don't mind the obstructions (ie: large other vehicles, hills or installations) breaking the lock so that the enemy has a way of breaking the repair chain if they are unable to destroy the Logistics LAVs directly.