I was watching some of the youtube videos from the training ground on tanks and come up with a few points, that have probably been made before; but I felt like I had to make to CCP.

Even though I am not a tanker, I donGÇÖt believe they are OP; what I do believe, is that there are certain areas that could be tweaked, in order to make the game better balanced.

I think that like the soldiers on the battlefield, vehicles should get limited ammo and have to resupply at the supply depot. I was watching the training ground video, and the tank went the whole game without dying; which isnGÇÖt the problem. However, what was an issue IMO, was that the tank was blanket firing the whole area; meaning there was not much the troopers could do, apart from hide behind cover. How many rounds were expended in the 15 mins that I saw, 10000 at least?

Do you ever see a trooper, blanket firing on an area for the whole game? I mostly use a logistics; but it has happened on more than one occasion, where I have run out of ammo and have had a desperate charge to the supply depot or nanohive, in order to get some ammo (which coincidentally has lead to my whopping 3 melee kills in the game). This kind of thing should be applicable to a tank.

This would also help solve an issue, that I have where tanks blow up supply depots; itGÇÖs a good thing for them to do, as it means no swapping of suits for an AV fit. But if they were to need the supply depots as much as the troops do, then it would be a fair solution. Tanks would have to defend the supply depots to get their ammo, and troopers would need the supply depots to change their suits.

Another area, which I believe is lacking in the fight against vehicles GÇô is that of explosives. The last time I checked the market, there were no statistics for remote explosives or proximity mines, on how much damage they done. This is unlike the rest of the game. I feel that REs and proximity mines should be a viable solution to deal with tanks; let us know how much damage a proximity mine would do, so we feel more compelled to equip them against tanks.

A side issue with the REs is that, they should be able to stick on the tank or surface (whether all of them, or just the better ones); this way, like the introductory video of Dust that I saw at some point, you could stick them on the tank and blow them.

I also feel that the treads on a tank should be more vulnerable, and that the more damage they sustain, the slower the tank gets; until a point is reached where the tank cannot move anymore. This way when targeting a tank, there would be more than one way of stopping it.

Upon reviewing the Video mentioned there is some confusion I suspect from what appears to be happening versus what is actually happening.

First the NewB Turret Gunner (the commentator) fires a lot. At nothing. Mostly when he is out of range and cannot do damage. He over heats his blaster and that is the actual limiting solution for all non-Misslie Turrets*.

The pip on NewB Gunner's sight is rarely Orange. That is like any other scoped weapon where white indicates a target that cannot be hit or hit effectively from the current range.

The Large Blaster fires like a Vet yet even he over heats his from time to time. The Large Blaster has a longer range as well as better splash damage yet it will rarely kill any uninjured infantry with a single round nor even a single burst. Previously injured? That sucker is gonna die. Large Rail Gun, well I am pretty good with shooting infantry but a miss is very costly.

Checking the Skills for the various Turrets and the Turret Upgrade Modules reveal that a significant number deal with cooling. That is for a reason. The Blaster and Rail Gun Turrets over heat a lot. The Rail Guns can only fire five rounds before over heat causes a forced cool down. Blasters can fire longer but do significantly less damage. Their time out is still quite lengthy.

Several conclusions might be made based on the numbers at the end of the video. Driver 44/0 and Gunner 7/0 which obviously means the HAV nor their Drop Suits were not lost. But note how little actually was accomplished by the Gunner. They get a lot of Assists and when the Squad Leader supports the tank or is the tank driver it can all add up. However, the most important function for the Gunner was not shown, which is watching out for the safety of the HAV. Scanning 360, keeping infantry off their backsides, announcing incoming swarms and so forth.

The other item I noticed from the game play and verified on the results table. The opposition was almost all from NPC Corps and none accumulated more than 800 WP. Popping a full HAV is worth 300 WP by itself if done by a single person, a rarity, and 450 total when done by two. Vets would have taken them out or at least had a much more concentrated effort at doing it. A single actual Squad would have made the match significantly more dangerous.

A Squad of four only need to average 625 WP to get an Orbital Strike and that Shield HAV would never have survived one.

Now, back to the OP:

Adding Ammo requirements to vehicles might help balance the game play. Squads will balance it faster with no change to the code. That was the actual problem in the video. I never spawn at a Letter when a HAV is next to it. At least of third of the Kills did just that. Nothing but experience will break that habit.

Personally, the two biggest solutions to game play balance issues in DUST are tied to the two biggest problems. Squads and Squads with mics solve 90% of what currently ails DUST game play. Yet, I have no solution for it.



* Missile Turrets are limited by damage, number of missiles and firing times.