Originally Posted by Crator
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Hah, cool.
Originally Posted by Degrifter
Hate to break it to you... but I think the devs went with the Sundy as a AMS
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Oh I know, I'm not satisfied yet, but I'd rather have the Sundy than the Gal. I'm however still convinced a pure AMS is better. I talked to Higby about this at Gamescom Cologne and he said then that they were first going to try a Sunderer built, because creating a whole new AMS would take too long for beta. If they decide they need one, it's going to be post-launch before they start working on it. They first wanted to know what combat difference between a ground and airborne AMS would arrise and how the playerbase felt about it.
What's nice though is that the AMS role as I predicted created a whole different dynamic on the battlefield, one that (without the tank spam) leads to much more interesting infantry fights. Unfortunately virtually everyone discovered the solo-MBT's power against infantry in the process when you bring mass tank groups. (Which is one of the main arguments behind driver =/= gunner debate: tone down the numbers to leave other unit choices and options viable. Once rocket pods are back those numbers might tone down, but we'll see).
As stated, it is a lot easier to place near the frontline, for defense and for field battles. It makes hectic fights possible for both zerg and small teams, without being completely invincible.
It does have several of the issues (like distinction between Sunderers) like I predicted though. For instance the resource price tag for an empty, vanilla Sunderer, is 450, same as one with an AMS. Who's going to use that as a throw-away transport vehicle now?
Currently the only thing you can recognise it by is the small terminal at the rear. If they're going this way, they'll need to have more advanced skins and distinctions on the Sundy. But on that note, I also don't quite understand why they went with a MK.1 equip term location anyway. My guess is they did that, because they still needed somewhere on both sides to hop in and out of the vehicle as they didn't strip it from the transport role while AMS: it's therefore a typical compromise vehicle where neither role is very clearly defined visually or optimised functionaly.
It also doesn't have a binding option yet, an interference radius, nor does it have a lot of AA defense capacity. It's going to take quite a bit more work.
We're also going to have to wait and see how they stand up against rocket pods as they are easier to find and spam than a cloaked AMS. Of course, they can be much better hidden from sight than Galaxies at the cost of hitpoints, which is a good thing.
2012-09-24, 04:18 AM
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