Just thought I would put in a couple of my thoughts on vehicles. Quick disclaimer, I am pro Infantry!

• Any AV grenade (including militia, not that I use them) should blow up the free LAV's. If you want it to last pay for it!
• They HAVE to fix the Nanite Injector for when you are ran down by an LAV. How many times have you lost your expensive suit to being ran down and had multiple medics trying to needle you to no avail?
• Heck, they need to fix the whole being ran down by an LAV mechanics, lets get some kind of damage dealt relation to speed traveling factors in here. If an LAV taps you then you should not be dead. Overall you should not die from being hit by an LAV unless it's traveling at a decent clip.
• Swarm launchers have some of the stupidest targeting mechanics I've ever seen. Ever watched someone drive away from your missiles? Or watched the missiles turn into a wall just because the HAV backed up 3 meters?
• In my opinion, 2 Infantry working together with AV builds should be able to destroy an HAV (unless he kills them first).
• The seek on AV grenades is broken at times, especially with fast moving LAV's. I've literally thrown an AV grenade directly at an oncoming LAV and heard a 'clink' as I watched it bounce off the vehicle... needless to say some harsh words followed on my part.
• Stop the stealth Vehicles! LAV's and HAV's should ALWAYS show up on your mini map regardless of the direction your facing. We've all been looking right at that mini-map and not seen the LAV or HAV drive up right behind us to murder us. I would go further and say that there should be two ranges for scanning, one for Infantry and one for Vehicles.

I think addressing the instant kill by LAV tap and fixing it so the needle works when you are ran down by an LAV would make the infantry side much much happier.

I must say that this got me to chuckle....OH AND THIS IS SO FEEDBACK> move it that way...

Failed to see where 'webifiers' fit into you jumble, you know so vehicles can't speed away, failed to see the kill feed ruled by proximity mine kills even though there are 5 lav's rolling about, no complaining about them I see... as you probably have never been killed by them.

Case in point, my La Dai's are only meta level 8 or 9, I forget right now.... where are the 10's or don't they have them? I have them on a skinweave heavy with a militia forge gun, so I can soften up the tank before the primary kicks in, I'm holding off on going full racial heavy because I learned my lesson when CCP burned me by forcing me to get basic to level 5 before changing it.

It must be nice to know exactly how much damage your tank can do, as my AV grenades don't tell me that basic fact.

You choose to go into vehicles, while sacrificing the basic name of the game, infantry combat, if you are useless without your vehicle and expect to use the same one multiple matches without running into something that can wipe the floor with you, how is that any different than the I just want to win button. Is it a useful tool, sure is but if you don't hack the necessary points and are hiding so far behind the redline that swarms can't even hit while still popping the random enemy that appears in your narrow field of attack I don't want you on my team.

In This corner the challenger;
I only get three AV/ Flux grenades, and a primary weapon with maybe 20 shots or so that can hit you before I need to resupply, which means - die or get lucky and hope one of these supposed logi's has a nano-hive, limited stamina. 1 shot kill victim to core flaylock, forge gun, lav hit, and loss of the ability to aim when hit by mass driver rounds.

-vs-

In the other corner the champion;
Unlimited stamina, ie it can go full speed all the time. Unlimited ammo, for possibly 3 turrets, and the ability to get 3 players more wp's than 1 man can do for destroying it, even if all three members of one squad were close enough to each other to get a killing shot on you. With enough enemies shooting you it may seem like you got OHK, but has that ever happend - I seriously doubt it.

Oh, I do plan on going into vehicles one day again, but not until I have a reason to.

I think you should have a skill / chance to salvage your own vehicles too... if your tank has been destroyed, it should have some quantity of hitpoints that would allow you to recall it, or automatically salvage it if your side is victorious. If the killers are able to finish off the tank, with a couple more AV shots, then your tank has been permakilled...but otherwise your isk losses might be mitigated.

Not to mention the whole argument about teamwork how it only takes 1 HAV driver to annoy a whole team yet the same HAV driver is asking for AV to use teamwork to kill his HAV

Like i said we dont even know the damage values of AV nades to begin with

Packed AV does what 1200 or so, what the hell does proto do?

I put down 25-50% as a really rough estimate but until we get exact damage numbers then we cant really say but they are not legitimate AV, they are ther a deterent for infantry to carry and also to help out as they defend ther AV guys from infantry

They can kill a LAV fine and put some hurt and maybe even get to kill the MAVs we get but to outright kill a HAV with just AV nades? only if the pilot stays there for too long with nothing running, shouldnt be 3nades and less than half health but once again can be proto AV nades against our basic vehicles so we need our advanced/proto vehicles or temp remove proto AV

The first person to tell someone else that they are whining...releases a massive thread and qq's about AV being powerful lol

Thread is too long to read every single line but what I gathered is that this is another AV is too powerful and needs to be nerfed thread. From what I've skimmed through....I got that vehicles need to either stay where they are or get buffed. Even the LAVs ared fine according to this thread.

I dont use SLs but I use proto AV nades...and for a well fitted Madrugar or Gunnlogi, it takes about 6 Lai Dais to destroy it. Who knows what it will take to destroy a proto tank. With damage mods and passive dmg bonuses to SLs and Forges...they may do incredible damage and it is much easier to solo a tank with those weapons. But you dont get those bonuses with AV nades...they truly are a deterrent unless a tank decides to stand right in front of infantry. Because you can not solo a well-fitted tank without reloading. And if you need a team...then it's working as intended.

This is another issue that we can agree and disagree at the same time however, realize that CCP wants everyone on a balanced pay. You can't have someone getting say...18 kills and have only 200k isk compared to someone destroying 2 enforcers, made 3 kills(including the HAVs) and have 750k isk in their pockets that basicly just putting focus on AV tactics and not focusing on Infantry. Another thing to point out people who losses their enforcers or any expensive vehicle, and get small payout, basicly it's on them. They decide to bring out their vehicles on their cold hard isk. They should know what to expect from the other team. someone is going to fight back and when they do, that person should have a back up plan or to make themselves more safe go in a squad, communicate with them and let them know to back you up. Going in blind with an HAV Enforcer doesn't make you hard to kill unless you know whats going on in the field.

you know if I got a large sum of isk for blowing up that tank, it might actually be worth the 5 deaths I took getting ganked by infantry just trying to get in range of that one tank trolling my blue dots.

Continuing with the dropsuit VS vehicle thing,
i would like to point out that when dropsuits go from the basic frames to the

logistics assault scout or sentinel, these suits are all cheaper then the basic frames of the same level,

where vehicles are AGAIN the exact opposite and are much more expensive
when you enter assault logistics scout and enforcer,
mainly the enforcer which costs 1.2m just for the frame
and that's the BASIC frame so im terrified of how much the advanced/proto will cost

hopefully they reduce the price of the current enforcer and make the current price the cost of the advanced/proto enforcer

AV is alright the way it is.

The biggest problem is you have people using their Proto AV gear on advanced level tanks.

Once they release the Proto tanks, it should feel more balanced.

Likes and bump for summing up for the most part what is wrong with vehicle / av balance in uprising.

One thing that I'd like to see that would probably be the best equalizer for death taxis is that the amount of armor that a merc has left is transferred as incoming damage to the lav.

No

My Madrugar, which probably weighs more than an M1A1 Abrams, stops dead when I run someone over if I'm not on an incline. Why should a vehicle potentially 80 or more tons stop moving at all, or take damage when hitting something that's probably less than a ton?

For LAVs, well... you have physics to put up with.

IMO... If I can flip an overturned LAV so easily, then I should be able to shoulder block it in my heavy suit. LOL

I think the FG has better damage than the rail turret for the simple reason that the FG is carried by a merc that will be OHK by any rail turret, while the tank/installation, will take, on the average, 3 hits to kill. Breach FG, with the longest charge time, also renders the wielder immobile while it's charging/charged making them an easy target.

Reducing the FG damage by 50% will result in the FG getting few to no kills as by the time the FG wielder fires 4 shots and reloads, the tank is usually out of range for the 5th shot. BTW... FG range is 300.

Disregarding militia vehicles, there is no AV weapon that can OHK a HAV except, maybe, an officer breach if there is one. However, a direct hit by a rail turret always results in a OHK against any infantry, even heavies.

Base charge times for forge guns, between each shot, are...

Assault: 2.5sec
Standard: 3.5sec
Breach: 6sec

Large rail turret base times are...

Regulated/Standard: .3sec charge with a 1sec fire interval. Regulated has better tracking.
Compressed: .3sec charge with a 2.2sec fire interval.

So let's compare how many shots the large rail turret fires based on optimal base charge and fire of one shot from a FG if the two pulled the trigger at the same time.

Regulated/Standard Rail vs Assault FG: 3 shots.
Regulated/Standard Rail vs Standard FG: 4 shots.
Compressed Rail vs Breach FG: 3 shots.

The dynamic changes a bit if you go with the average of 3 forge shots to kill an HAV. I'll try to take into account managing heat on the rail turret.

Regulated/Standard Rail vs Assault FG: 6 shots.
Regulated/Standard Rail vs Standard FG: 8 shots.
Compressed Rail vs Breach FG: 8 shots.

So, when it comes to damage output over time, large rail tanks are way above FG not to mention that large rail turrets have twice the range of a FG.

CCP have really messed up the balancing by generally hitting everything or one side with a nerf bat while buffing the other side but also it doesnt help when one side has advanced/proto and the otherside has basic.

This has lead to massive imbalance between the 2 sides and whats even worse is that the balance between the 2 types of tanking (shield/armor) is just as unbalanced and vehicle users feel that they are forced to go into armor tanking whether they like it or not while pilots are completely screwed with each patch and build and are effectively flying a coffin.

Not to mention the whole argument about teamwork how it only takes 1 HAV driver to annoy a whole team yet the same HAV driver is asking for AV to use teamwork to kill his HAV instead of a solo monkey which whacks his 1.5mil HAV in 3shots while he sunk 10mil into vehicle skills and the AV guy barely did a quarter of it. You can see why the HAV guy gets pissed off and i don't blame him but also the AV guy is like 'well i should be able to if he's stupid enough' which is valid for stupid pilots anyways and then add in the real world argument that a RPG can disable and destroy a mulit million dollar tank/helicopter.

Excellent roundup of issues there. Its nice to see someone spending the time to do this properly. Good job.

I know you've heard it from me before (several times), but I'll say it again here because I think there's a real chance of someone at CCP reading this thread.



That is a very, very important point.

The balance argument between HAV drivers and infantry will go round and round forever, because the HAV drivers want the balance to be based on ISK and/or SP, whereas the infantry want it to be balanced on number of players. While these are not aligned there can't be balance.

I personally believe that HAV/AV can be balanced, and it should be balanced around teams of three on each side, with equal levels of ISK and SP as the baseline.

That means making the HAV require a crew of 3 to operate effectively (driver gets front gun, main gunner has a narrow field of view, top gunner becomes commander with a good view). It means HAVs get cheaper and AV gets more expensive, so that at each level (basic, advanced, proto) one loaded HAV costs about the same as 3 loaded AV suits, in both ISK and SP.


Once this is done, all your other points become much easier to work with in terms of fine tuning the balance. Without this, I suspect you'll be simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Webifiers dont exist so no mention

Proxy mines no one seems to use, not my fault

As i said we dont have the stats for the AV nade on how much damage they do, i said that in my OP didnt you read it?

I win button yea it nice but proto AV is the I win button against basic vehicles, we could temp remove them until we get advanced/proto vehicles but that aint going to happen at all

So the challenger is afraid of teamwork and wants to solo that vehicle by the sounds of it or you just described a pub match

Yes it can move all the time i hope it should have an engine, unlimited ammo because we do not have a cargohold to store ammo and also we do not have clips for any turrets yet, kill a HAV for example 180 for the vehicle and 50 for each person inside so 330WP but if the tank has been alive for most of the match of course it will have more WP if its doing other things but AV should get WP for damage which i havnt added yet but the reward for AV in PC at least is denying the enemy vehicles parts of the map to support ther team

OHK i have never said, if anything i tend to get 2-3shotted where as in a tank battle between basic vehicles it can be anywhere from 5-10+ depending how good we are and what happens

Wow such a jumble of nonsense right there I don't know if I can counter your obviously flawless logic.

So just to clarify you don't want 1 AV equiped player, able to stand up to a tank, you want to further the tankers I win button-ness by making them stronger vs a team work based attempt to destroy them.... fair and balanced (sarcasm). [The funny is that I read someone saying that 4-5 guys throwing AV at the tank in less than a minute is too much.... yeah I hate when a blob of heavies with proto level repair tool support is destroying me..... nerf them CCP, make it so not more than 1 logi can repair one person] (again sarcasm).

Again, all vehicles I know of, use some things of a limited finite nature called gas and ammo... unless you think the germans lost N.Africa due to bad strategy back during WW II...... but that is RL again intruding on a VG. Imagine if a foot soldier could just strap that nano-hive to his back - why do we have to drop them on the ground again, and be able to chase your tank down without being tethered to 1 spot on the map. Tanks are 150WP and the fact is that you tankers can get out and in them faster than I can chuck grenades at it, so getting some of the other possible 150wp for kills is a luxury moment from players that got caught un-awares. Also I would ask CCP to look into how IF I destroyed 4 tanks and 9 LAV's with help from friends that my WP total was only 850-ish.... maybe with less frequency but it still happens more commonly with the Dropships.

I was inside a building when the orbital got me, how many tankers have lived thru one? Let's explore that dynamic since I forgot to mention it as a OHK... hrmm, why IF I am not in a vehicle don't I get extra points too for getting my SL a strike in the first place.

You are right I didn't bother to read all of it, I stopped reading when you stopped making sense... so I don't know, did you swing that judgemental pendellum the other way... what about basic or militia infantry being forced to fight against adv level tanks and vehicles..... the ultimate I win button.

Tanks were all powerful at times, and it took CCP getting their butts handed to them to realize that what looks good on paper doesn't always translate into good in practice or application.

AV is alright the way it is.

The biggest problem is you have people using their Proto AV gear on advanced level tanks.

Once they release the Proto tanks, it should feel more balanced.

it won't. Like I said-
(considering the fits are decent and not just halfassed)
Militia AV is the same damn thing as standard AV
Standard AV is an even match for Militia vehicles
Advanced AV is an even match for Standard Vehicles
Prototype AV beats everything, because the best vehicles are Standard Tech II

Once advanced vehicles come out, the system will be fine. Prototype vehicles, and AV might need a buff.

I can't wait to see the playercount after the next vehicle buff/AV nerf.

What I'm trying to get at is that probably 98% of all time spent in game across all players is in public matches. There's trouble ahead when the public matches get worse to make PC worthwhile.

Personally I think much could be improved by reducing the speed of HAVs and improving their HP accordingly. That way HAVs will be less annoyed by getting killed in 5 seconds by AV nades and AV users will be less annoyed by HAVs leisurely driving away from any harm while reaping kills on-the-go. I know that Amarr HAVs are still in the pipeline, but I think both current HAVs rely too much on their speed.