Originally Posted by Haro
Quite simply, the Galaxy trumped ground transports in every aspect, with more armor, speed, mobility, and could easily assault bases in spite of AA, which I felt never had much usage in PS when I played. So my suggestion was that the only way we can make ground transports more viable is by buffing AA to discourage Galaxies from always dropping troops. Or at least make it harder.
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The basis for your idea seems to be drawn out of the current state of Planetside where it takes a large percentage of a decently sized defending force to maintain a no-fly zone against attackers. It can be frustrating to be one of the only people firing at an incoming full Galaxy but you are putting the cart before the horse if you suggest that we solve that by buffing an entire section of gameplay. The truth is that back when Planetside had good pops, it was possible to maintain a no-fly zone because you had enough people to devote to that task alone, even a Gal with full shields doesn't stand a chance against a focused and deliberate defense strategy. With the pops being planned for Planetside 2 that will definitely translate over, I expect that the sky will be a much more dangerous place than it is these days in Planetside.
Now that I have that out of the way, let's talk turkey. We need to be generating specific ideas so that when Higby lurks around here he can copypasta them into his notes for the next discussion and figure out if/how they can implement them. I am definitely for having more options when it comes to controlling the skies, but I think you are not thinking horizontally enough. For example, instead of buffing AA max weapons, I would sooner have variable MAX weapons that work better in certain situations, AA included. This would be somewhat tough to balance, so maybe instead you can accomplish this through skill tree options like:
- Reducing time to lock on and reload
- Reduce CoF
- Give the ability to remain locked on for a small portion of time after losing LoS, (estimated trajectory is in missile technology these days already!)
- Smarter missiles that can avoid obstacles like trees and structures to a certain extent while locked on
- Different types of missiles that can damage vehicles in different ways (plasma that can degrade the armor, weapons, and stability flaps, buckshot flak that can pierce the hull and lightly damage the pilot/passengers, sonic blasts that can create turbulence and throw a pilot off their main course that they would have to recover from)
Structurally, there should be options for more passive AA as well. If a radar base has its system boosted with resources and some hacking and engineer focused players, there could be an early warning detection system for commanders. Instead of upgrading a turret to just AA or AV, you could let hackers/engineers work together to increase the range, CoF, RoF, upgrading the targeting system (let commanders select specific targets and upload their position, speed, estimated flight path, etc. to a HUD in the turret) and increasing the rotation speed of the turrets for when they are or aren't occupied. All of this would make it so that when you see [Interlink] (Turret) [Enemy] then support experience/assists would be handed out. Balancing this has mostly been accomplished by allowing hackers to turn the turrets on friendly units but you could add requiring reloading (at least on AV/AA ammunition) and having your benefits be susceptible to EMPs from a longer range than the overall functionality of the turret. Put a top-tier hacker, engineer, and pilot all in the same vehicle and you could open up options for blocking some/all types of information from enemies depending on their skill levels.
I like your idea of having new AA vehicles, in order to balance it with the skyguard and MAX units you would have to shift it towards the other end of the Mobility/Firepower/Armor triangle, Skyguards are fast, MAX units require only one person to operate, but both are vulnerable when alone. Most vehicles have some sort of makeshift AA defense like a secondary machine gun so I don't think having a mobile AA tank would be the solution. What you need is low/zero mobility, high firepower, but something that all empires have equal access to that fits their weapons' attributes. The solution: deployable towers have been essentially confirmed already, I suggest giving these towers some customization beyond radar/gun/air. Add SAM (Surface to Air Missile) sites. Make them capturable/destructible by and nonthreatening to infantry and ground vehicles but the mortal enemy of any pilot brave enough to enter its range. These would create small battle sites along the terrain which the domination of would shift/dictate the air situation when attacking or defending. Give engineers and hackers the same abilities to upgrade/enhance them and slowing/preventing enemy virus infections, and give enemies the ability to mess with the system in orders of magnitude associated with the skill tree of the attacking engineer/hacker (still firing at enemies but targeting system makes them detonate too early/late for direct hits -> fires at friendly air with limited accuracy -> fires at friendly air with full strength). To prevent it from being an insta-drop air killer you could start it as a gun tower drop and have the commander who dropped it give qualified friendlies missions to upgrade it in specific ways once it lands.
I swear though, if Planetside 2 is released and we don't have countermeasures, expect the hopeful pilots of Auraxis to riot.
Want to post more ideas, sleep more important. Give me some feedback and I'll change/add stuff when I am more coherent.