[Xyntech]

I'm not the biggest fan of artillery, but as long as it supports team play and not killwhoring spam from a safe distance, I'm all for it. It sounds like a lot of the ideas in this thread share some common interest and I think they are on the right track for the most part.

Details, such as whether it's a vehicle that's deployed, are some sort of advanced engineering construction like I've mentioned in a past thread, are pretty irrelevant to the core concept.

I think the main key is that artillery be most useful when being assisted by someone who the targeted enemy can potentially see. The Flail wasn't this way at all, and there are a lot of good ideas here on how to redesign it.

I can't say I am agreeing with the thought that someone must be in the artillery piece for it to fire. By its very nature, it would seem best used if it were held in reserve, not firing, until just the right moment. That would mean someone sitting in a deployed artillery piece with nothing to do. I'd like to see it more like a deployed AMS, where you can set it up and then focus on other stuff, like setting up CE defences.

On the flip side, I'd still enjoy seeing it being able to be directly controlled and fired by a gunner, so long as it was less accurate when there was no target painted.

In the past I have thought of an entirely remote operated artillery that could either automatically fire at a painted target, or inaccurately spam fire at a designated are of the nearby continent map. Perhaps the idea could be amended, that only a gunner could make it fire at unpainted targets, while keeping that accurate fire required lazing.

Regardless of how artillery is implemented, it should still be easy to follow the trail of the shots back to where the artillery originated from, so I don't think it would be that bad to allow the option of deploying some artillery out in the field and then leaving it unattended. If nobody is there to defend it, it won't be long before some enemy aircraft or infiltrator comes over and makes short work of it. I'd rather see a lone defender set up some CE or be in a MAX suit, instead of just sitting around doing nothing inside the artillery, waiting for someone to paint some targets.