Gameplay: Artillery In Planetside 2

PoisonTaco · 2012-11-17, 10:22 PM

I think that Planetside 2 is a game that could benefit from long range artillery strikes. Now how to implement artillery would be difficult because you need to balance the artillery and you need to make it fun for the player operating the gun. So we have two requirements:

Using an artillery gun needs to be fun. You need to get some sort of feedback and see the people you are killing. If you're just sitting there hitting a button and getting xp every few seconds that is not fun.
Artillery needs to be balanced in such a way that it's not spammable and so that it's possible to fight against.

Looking back at an old classic: Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 1942 is an old game which has a fun way of having artillery vehicles. It works by allowing artillery vehicles (including battleships) to indirectly fire across distances without a direct line of sight. This is accomplished with teamwork and coordination from scouts on the team. In 1942, Scouts are equipped with binoculars which can be used to call artillery strikes.

I got together with Jobotoo in my outfit and made this video showing how it works:

Snipers mark a territory with the binoculars. The person operating the artillery then gets to see what the sniper sees. This view lasts for I believe 180 seconds. If there are multiple snipers calling in strikes at the same time, the gunner can switch between views with the mouse wheel. When a strike is called, the sniper is free to move on as they please.

Artillery in Planetside 2

Now this may not work exactly the same way as it does in Planetside 2, but it's a start.

Introduce a new vehicle that is armed with a large cannon made for indirect fire. It's big and powerful enough to fire across large distances. Big drawback would be lack of armor and a minimum range making it extremely weak against MBT's, infantry and enemy aircraft.
Include a placable item to call in artillery strikes. A camera on a tripod or something. When placed, the artillery gunner sees what the camera sees and can adjust their shots that land on the battlefield.
When in artillery mode, the vehicle is deployed and cannot move. The gunner sees what the camera sees so they have no situational awareness.
Artillery would be powerful and to reduce spam it could have a deployment radius so that others can't set up artillery around it, much like the sunderers.
Defending against artillery would require removing the deployable camera or by taking out the vehicle itself. Defenders can either stop it on the front line or send a strike team behind the enemy and take it out.
Using artillery would require teamwork and provide support for both attackers and defenders.

Long range artillery would add another layer of depth to Planetside 2 and would take it one step closer to feeling like a huge war raging across the world. With this method artillery turns into something that players can actively be involved in while providing support to their empire. There's risk involved in deploying artillery and it requires teamwork on the front lines to pull it off. It would also add more strategic elements to attacking or defending a base. One empire could set up artillery at key locations on hills that can prevent armor from moving in through a valuable choke. It could be used to bomb an enemy base when AA is too heavy for liberators.

For customization you could equip the artillery with different cannons with different shell types. One that is good against armor, one that explodes before hitting releasing shrapnel on infantry. Perhaps different types for each empire. There's lots of room for creativity here.