[Idea]Heavy Tanks

[Subterfuge]

Originally Posted by Mognoc

I would rather have a mute button for you. This is PlanetSide, there are no real guns here.

Obviously this guy is taking concept from REAL weapons, so basically, What If I was reasoning a concept for an A-10? Exactly. Damn, wheres the stupid police when you need 'em.

[Incompetent]

It's called a Liberator, and they're probably about to show up at your front door.

[Krinsath]

The characteristics of the heavy tank:

1) Devastating firepower. In PS terms - 200mm

2) Hideously slow. PS - 25-35kph.

3) Huge and unwieldy. A tank so large that the concept of going off-road anywhere but flat ground is more or less unfeasible. Can't go into wooded areas that well at all simply due to it's massive size.

4) Heavily armored. PS - 12,000-15,000

Crew of 4 or 5:

1) Driver

2) Main cannon (200mm + 20mm co-axial)

3) Left side gun (75mm)

4) Right side gun (75mm)

Possibly add 12mms to the side guns as well. No gun has the ability to aim high enough to be a threat to anything outside of idiot low flying air.

Heavy tanks are supposed to be these massive, rolling fortresses. They're supposed to swat aside lesser tanks and infantry (note, that's AND infantry...the originally posted vehicle idea was, as indicated by Incompetent, a Tank HUNTER...which is generally mounted on a lighter, faster chassis).

Their liabilities are their speed and inability to go overland easily. This leaves them incredibly vulnerable to air, artillery and OSes. They should be insanely hard to get rid of, and be devastating when they get to an enemy facility. The trick is getting them to the enemy's facility. Allow them to get to their target, and they'll be well-nigh unstoppable. Given the difficulty in getting them from point A to point B, it's a trade-off. They're too big for Lodestars, they stick out like sore thumbs and they're giant targets for Liberators. Let them roll up on a base, and they'll destroy anything outside.

Problem is that bases account for 5% of the terrain and situations, so they're highly specialized. The downside to all heavy tanks, they're great in the end battles, but are highly vulnerable until then.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Krinsath

Heavy tanks are supposed to be these massive, rolling fortresses. They're supposed to swat aside lesser tanks and infantry [...]

Their liabilities are their speed and inability to go overland easily. This leaves them incredibly vulnerable to air, artillery and OSes. They should be insanely hard to get rid of, and be devastating when they get to an enemy facility. The trick is getting them to the enemy's facility. Allow them to get to their target, and they'll be well-nigh unstoppable. Given the difficulty in getting them from point A to point B, it's a trade-off. They're too big for Lodestars, they stick out like sore thumbs and they're giant targets for Liberators. Let them roll up on a base, and they'll destroy anything outside.

This might work in a game where really powerful, virtually unkillable things cost vast amounts of resources to produce, or something, but Planetside has nothing like that. How do you take a base from an enemy which happens to have a few people certed in such a vehicle? They have no weakness, in that case, because what you're proposing them leaves them somewhat weak en route. Spawning them at the hotspot would make taking a base incredibly difficult for even an enemy with superior numbers.

In general, stuff in PS shouldn't be placed into a "really good at a lot of stuff most of the time" role. That's how you run into problems like with HA weapons being the top dog indoors, bar none, and tanks being kings of the land, with other vehicles in general just being a "well if I can't get a tank I'll get this" thing, with a couple exceptions. Although the developers failed to have every vehicle with its own, very useful niche on the battlefield, I would hope that future vehicles would get such a job.

As such, I think the idea of making a tank similar to existing tanks, but better in every regard except for speed, is an extremely bad idea. It will only aggravate the current situation, where of the 6 or 7 armed land vehicles in the game, only 3 of them are really present on the battlefield often at all, and actually make an impact when they are there. Were heavy tanks to be done like you describe above, I don't think there would be any purpose in having regular tanks anymore. Even 25 speed is enough to move out of the way of a Liberator if you see it coming, and it's rare enough to run into problems with aircraft on the way to a target, a problem totally negated by going with an escort. Existing tanks would be out of business if that kind of heavy tank were added.

[ChewyLSB]

Well when I was thinking about this, they should simply make it so that the tank shells do crap damage to infantry... I mean like 25 armor damage and that's it. Or make it so the shells don't explode, so they are more like AV Shells.