Road Map: Sky Lance / Air Carrier

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 10:34 AM

Everytime I see the Sky Lance collecting cob webs in the techplants I wish it had a use.

I know its probably three years down the road but an air carrier would be the perfect combo to go with the Sky Lance add on.

In my mind it would take 4 people to spawn each paying full sky reaources (750?).
And be about the size of 4 galaxies in a square

It would have:
Spawn Room
ESF (only) spawn console (sticking with Aircraft carrier theme)
Drop Pod spawn console (for assaults or just to get off the thing safely!?)
2 cannon turrets on bottom
4 anti-air turrets (2 below / 2 above)
Ammo reload runway for ESF/Gals/Libs
And some sort of engineer station to repair damage? (Like a reactor core to use tool on?)

Then the Sky Lance would have a valid target!
And would be devastating to the air carrier
(Oh I would also add a sky lance terminal deep in the tech plant so infils could hack it to take to offline. That way you could safely move the air carrier over the plant.

Other Suggestions? If we could get this near the top on the forums/Reddit and on AGN maybe we could bump it closer down the "road" to reality?

Canaris · 2013-04-25, 10:42 AM

who'd want one of those when the TR has already produced

heh I always thought they should put the skylance on auto-defense of close prox to warp gates, you get to close and zap, back to spawn room for you!

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-25, 10:56 AM

I dont think the air carrier should have any guns on the bottom. What i eould like to see is the pilot able to tilt the ship over and give the ground (another flying carrier?) a nice broadside. I see the air carrier being almost worthless against ground targets but fairly strong against other air units.

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 10:58 AM

Hey that would work for the TR one...

(The NC one would have "Danger Zone" playing in a loop of course.)

I dont think they need to be Inter-Continental semi-space craft.

Trying to add that would open up a whole new nightmare of programming to get them moving between continents.

Lets just get them in the sky first! "Space-Side" can come later.

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

I dont think the air carrier should have any guns on the bottom. What i eould like to see is the pilot able to tilt the ship over and give the ground (another flying carrier?) a nice broadside. I see the air carrier being almost worthless against ground targets but fairly strong against other air units.

I see your point Sledge and I think a broadside cannon set would be a better match than ground cannons.
I think the carrier should always remain level though. (Just move up down, right left, forward backward)

You would have to keep all the troops piloting/shooting/repairing inside the carrier since they probably wouldnt be able to run around on the deck....(ever try to stand on a moving lightning/sunderer?)
But like being in a Sunderer/Galaxy I'm sure you could do all the jobs I'm proposing from "seats" (F1-F12)

Something like this?:
F1: Driver
F2: Engineer (Repair)
F3-F6: AA Turrets
F7/F8: Port/Starboard Broadsides
F9: Holding seat for spawning into
F10: Holding seat for spawning into (does nothing like being in seat 4-12 of sundy)
F11: Immediatly drops you to surface in a drop pod
F12: Opens a menu for launching ESFs

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-25, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Staticelf

I see your point Sledge and I think a broadside cannon set would be a better match than ground cannons.
I think the carrier should always remain level though. (Just move up down, right left, forward backward)

You would have to keep all the troops piloting/shooting/repairing inside the carrier since they probably wouldnt be able to run around on the deck....(ever try to stand on a moving lightning/sunderer?)

I would love for the air carrier to be able to list. Say you take out one the giant engines on the starboard side the vessel should list that direction. Being able to tilt would give some nice gameplay to the air carriers pilot as well. I see epic duels between two or more fully manned air carriers. Like old frigates working to gain an advantageous position before the big guns start to roar.

This vehicle by itself will bring people to the game if its done correctly.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-25, 11:21 AM

I see the jobs being doone from stations, much like capture points in a base. If the crew is able to move about the ship while in flight then i think this would give rise to boarding actions between air carriers. Also these stations woukd be capturable/hackable/sabotaged to either capture the great ship or to send it crashing into the ground.

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 11:24 AM

Uncontrolled list would be cool. Kind of how it gets hard to fly your scythe/lib when its on fire and almost dead!

The broadsides shouldnt have much movement so that gunners have to coordinate with driver so he can line them up to get a shot.

(I expanded my post above to cover how people would board the carrier.)

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

I see the jobs being doone from stations, much like capture points in a base. If the crew is able to move about the ship while in flight then i think this would give rise to boarding actions between air carriers. Also these stations woukd be capturable/hackable/sabotaged to either capture the great ship or to send it crashing into the ground.

I agree the stations would make for cool combat on the carrier (enemy dropping in from galaxies, drop pods from space/enemy carriers it starts getting really exciting!)

I just dont know how much programing it would take to get troops to "stick" to the carrier? (Like my example of standing on a Sundy...doenst currently work no matter how much I want to relive my Teen Wolf days.)

I think it would probably have to be vehicle like in how people ride in/on? it.

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 11:44 AM

IF it were possible to get troops to stick to the thing...

Then another way to implement it could be as an indestructible "air-base" that could be taken by any empire and moved around by whoever was in control of it currently. (One per continent) You couldn't take it into warpgate areas and had to keep it at least 100ft above the ground (cant park it somewhere completely out of reach of others)

Sky Lance could still be used to disable its systems and/or stop its movement for a period of time?

Phantomdestiny · 2013-04-25, 12:02 PM

the main problem is not really the programming of the "sticking" but the programming of having that structure hold together while being a "moving/dynamic mesh" . But the biggest problem will be on the design side , our resource system just wouldn't work it with it right now. for me the only way to make it work would be to have an industry system in the game .

E.g : let's say you need 1 million outfit/empire points to make it ; which are either taken out of donation made by players or outfits then the money goes to a factory (in the sanctuary , which will be in-game no doubts if it wasn't gone be SOE wouldn't of mentioned it on the roadmap with continent locking )
where it is combined with resources which are harvested on a series of different continents (we'll see after the resource revamp) .

That leads to a start in production which takes let's say 1 week (real time) that allows other empires to prepare a counter measure against it .

Now the Carrier could be a mobile foothold for the empire to assault a continent however it can be destroyed .

method 1 : infantry would overload 2 gens (hack/hold) on the ship for 5 minutes. the gens would be bellow deck which means that the spec ops squad would need to infiltrate the interior of the carrier like a base and there is potential to defend it .

method 2: sky lances on the continent are captured and fire at the carrier . the sky lances need a preparation time to fire . This drains HP from the carrier but the carrier can be repaired by a repair vehicle "repair gal/lodestar" or equivalent but only to a small extent eg: can only repair if bellow 1/4 health not bring it higher than 1/4 HP. To fully repair it , the carrier needs to go back to sanctuary (in a repair dock this would take 1 hour to repair )

method 3 : ESF's and other planes with special weapons (missiles which do little damage to "normal vehicles") can attack weak point of the structure of the carrier for example engines , observation deck , drop pods launchers , weapons, ESF catapult/run way ). Which would make for each part of the vessel useless for example if the launchers are destroyed you can no longer drop. This would be the longest taking method .

TLDR: design

Falcon_br · 2013-04-25, 12:10 PM

Ok guys, lets go play BF 2142!
I really fail to see the difference from it to the Titan on BF 2142, and we are asking for Titan on the game since day 1 of beta!
Where is the road map link to it?

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 12:11 PM

Ok then lets go back to the path that 4 players can create these by combining resources 750x4 =3000....I dont think this thing should be massive...more like an upgunned larger galaxy (but carrier shaped) that can spawn troops, spawn drop pods, spawn ESF's, and repair itself in air.

Staticelf · 2013-04-25, 12:13 PM

I loved BF 2142 and found it very odd when I started playing planetside 2 that there weren't mechs striding across the surface of Auraxis. Seems a perfect fit!?

Phantomdestiny · 2013-04-25, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Staticelf

Ok then lets go back to the path that 4 players can create these by combining resources 750x4 =3000....I dont think this thing should be massive...more like an upgunned larger galaxy (but carrier shaped) that can spawn troops, spawn ESF's, and repair itself in air.

but we don't want a bigger gal WE want a freaking FLYING FORTRESS . and smedley clearly said that he wanted ps2 to become a sandbox much like his beloved EVE (but to an smaller and less overwhelming extent which still allows new players) .

And another thing the mechanics for using resources are about to change and i can bet that the just spent 300 resource to spawn vehicle x will not exist any more.

We want vehicles which fills new roles not bigger galaxies. the point of this would be a goal to go towards aka a vehicle which would be unique and would take time to achieve meaning it is strategically vital not a player but to the empire