The Black Jackal wrote:Controversial, I know.
I'll go into how this proposal works.
Firstly, making HAVs stronger defensively. But doing so in such a way that they still have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by specific mechanics.
Heavier Armour / Shield
- Making the Armour itself highly resistant to Weapons fire on its front, sides, rear, and back so that anything not designated as an Anti-Vehicle Weapon does 1-5% of it's Damage. And even AV weapons do less damage. Better to facilitate the 'Heavy Survival' of HAVs.
Weak Points / Disability
- To balance out their survivability, they will have weak points. these consist of the underside where armour is weaker (thus AV Mines and such will have more impact) and tracks, and gyroscope for the Main Gun.
- These points can be heavily damaged via AV weapons, or disabled. For example, a Direct Forge Gun hit to the Right Rear track will damage it and make it work less effectively, a second shot, would destroy the track, and immobilize the HAV. Similar with the turret Gyroscope, with a precision strike to the right point slowing the turret tracking even further, and a second one immobilizing it.
Secondly, now we repurpose then to be less effective against Infantry when run solo.
Main Guns
- Rail Guns. Though traditionally this would be the only gun on any tank, making it the sole weapon for a HAV in DUST would go against the entire ideal that CCP is implementing. So, let's break it back a bit. Slow down the tracking speed of Large Blaster turrets, make then more useful against Vehicles at Close Range. But not as effective against infantry.
- Limited Ammunition in 'Clip' and in Tank. The idea here is that you moderate Rate of Fire against 'Reload' for all guns, but especially Main Guns. You have a 'magazine' in the gun that holds a certain amount of rounds. Then you must 'reload' that gun. Taking time (with skills to improve said reload time based on the GUNNER, not the Driver). Railguns would have a Magazine of 2-3 Shots, with 10 reloads. (Total of 20-30 shots before needing to resupply). Blasters could have Magazines of 20-30 shots, with similar reloads of 10. 200-300 shots before resupply. This would replace the 'Overheat' on these weapons. And can be applied to all turrets.
- Large Missile Turrets should be Lock-On Weapons reminiscent in the design of the Swarm Launcher. Used as SAM Batteries, or LR AV weapons. Thus removing any chance they'll be abused against Infantry. Small Missile Pods should be reconstructed to more akin to rocket pods, firing an Area of Effect dispersion of small, less damaging rockets in succession. 1-6 fire 0.2 Seconds apart etc. With variants firing more precise with less rockets, or more rockets with less precision. They should also need to reload each shot (as they do now) and have limited reloads (bringing their possible shots to around the level a Railgun would have under this system.
So in essence, the HAV will become a specialised platform for dealing with Vehicles when solo, able to actually have slugfests with other armor, rather than the current glass cannon mentality of whoever fires first wins.