PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2
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Old 2012-03-13, 09:32 PM   [Ignore Me] #608
Mackenz
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Re: Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2


Originally Posted by Figment View Post
Alright, let's say Gun 1 (driver) does damage (D1) and Gun 2 (gunner) does damage (D2). Now, I'm not going to bother with firing modes. Tank has a total of armour (Arm) that provides endurance. Alright? For the sake of argument, I'm going to equate Arm to endurance directly (depends in reality on gun firing at it, normally the attrition would determine just how fast it dies, but that's irrelevant right now since I'm only going to adress the same tanks being used against eachother).

So, damage dealt by one tank is Arm * (D1*rof + D2*rof). So let's assume D1 and D2 put out equal damage over time. Then total damage potential is 2Arm*D1*rof, for one tank with two gunners of "equal" strength.

Now, if we bring two tanks, things are different. And then I'm not even talking about bonus to damage dealing time by outmaneuvring an enemy (getting behind their turrets, rotation speed and angles).

Just looking at endurance and firepower, two tanks have 2Arm * 2(D1*rof), not counting any gunners that might jump in along the way by accident. So, we got 4Arm*D1*rof, which is twice as much firepower-endurance.

That means that with one opponent, with two crew in both situations, you only need to wear down ONE lifespan worth of armour when facing a tank with two people in it. On the other hand, two tanks are two lifespans and you can only kill one in the time they need to kill you since both the single tank and two tanks have equal firepower.

So although it'll be equally fast at killing one single tank (2D1*rof), it will not win as its guns are mere equals (or less) between the crews. Simply because it has to deal twice as much damage in the same time. One of your opponents will not have taken damage at all in the time it took for you to kill the other, it will get another full lifetime to hit on you, so in total you are basically fighting "three lifetimes" worth of tank. You can't possibly win that with equal guns.

So to compensate, you need a much, MUCH stronger secondary weapon to bring down the total TTK to a half of the original in the case of AV. Hence it needs to be at least twice as strong as the main gun seeing as you are fighting three lifespans of tanks vs your one.

In any case, by the time it kills one tank, it itself is already dead or limping. I don't understand why this isn't obvious

Having the ability to fire at different angles like mortars will only make it harder to hit, IMO, that'd be a weakness over two straight or almost straight firing weapons. Mortars are after all very situational weapons. In fact, given the experience we had with the Aurora, I'd say it's a severe weakness, more so at range.
If indirect fire in PS2 is as useless (and direct fire only ever worthwhile) as you are making it out to be, even just indirect AI fire, then it will be a very linear and two-dimensional game. That makes me a sad panda.

On the other hand, jet packs are already in to provide the extra dimension, so I have hope indirect fire will be important, situational and key to good leadership.
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