Planetside 2 Catch-All

How does the HEAT cannon perform? If they ever put the vehicle starter bundle up for sale again I'm going to snag it. That will get me the HE version. But that doesn't seem to be of much use against vehicles. On the flipside the AP version does comparable damage to the MBT HEAT cannons but lacks splash which is kind of crippling.

I've been getting along fine with the HEAT. I don't think any of the specialised variants are ever meant to be "This think cuts through armor like a hot knife through butter", but just slightly pushing your effectiveness towards a certain role. It still has some splash and it still kills infantry.

The HEAT seems to be a middle of the road step up from the Viper cannon. It's not going to be as good at killing tanks as the AP rounds and it won't be as good at killing infantry as the HE rounds, but it certainly does better at both than the Viper. Next I need to decide what armor upgrade to get - I'm leaning toward either the frontal armor or the side armor, but the repair system might also be a good way to go.

Xeknos wrote:

The HEAT seems to be a middle of the road step up from the Viper cannon. It's not going to be as good at killing tanks as the AP rounds and it won't be as good at killing infantry as the HE rounds, but it certainly does better at both than the Viper. Next I need to decide what armor upgrade to get - I'm leaning toward either the frontal armor or the side armor, but the repair system might also be a good way to go.

I have the basic repair system for a magrider and it just seems too slow honestly. If there was anything better I'd get it, but the other abilities aren't that great either. I didn't get armor for my magrider but got the turbo instead, but that's because the magrider only gets a 5% boost. Lightning gets a 10% which is probable worth it.

I finally killed a MAX with C4! Trying to maintain a point in a biolab, I see him, run away to the point, throw it down, he follows, ka-boom!
The rest of the ones behind him killed me though.
Btw, HS/NV scopes see through smoke!

I went on late last night and expected a ghost town, but everybody was concentrated around the southwest on Indar and it was amazing! There were actual armor column fights, lots of planes in the sky, mini-zergs.
I think they should make the amount of land available based on the number of people on the server. This game requires a certain density and as a pilot, flying into a furball is much more fun than multiple 1v1 skirmishes.
Ghost towns (low density) are obviously bad, but even when heavily populated, most everyone is at a meat grinder (high density). Sometimes those are fun, sometimes they are not. Medium density is juuusst right.

plavonica wrote:
RolandofGilead wrote:

Ghost towns (low density) are obviously bad, but even when heavily populated, most everyone is at a meat grinder (high density). Sometimes those are fun, sometimes they are not. Medium density is juuusst right.

I agree, sometimes there are just far too many people on and it makes things crazy. I usually run as infantry and watching people warp about and flickering in/out of existence can be frustrating.

I've been seeing a lot more flickering people when I enter the Warp gates when first getting into the game. Seldom encountered this last week and prior to that.

Finally got some more certs and put points into cloaking for my infiltrator and picked up the Solstice SF for my engineer and light assault. Really digging the options now with going Eidolon for med/long range battles. When I have more time, I will trial shotguns for those close battles as well.

Was just in a big battle on Esamir, fighting as an anti-aircraft max. We had maybe twenty people on a tower, running both AA turrets and with probably six or eight maxes, five or six heavies with AA missiles, and supporting engineers. We were eventually overrun ... from the air. I was killed twice by a Liberator before I gave up in disgust.

After this fight, I got to thinking - since even such a concentrated AA force has trouble killing aircraft, is playing AA a net loss in terms of certs for your team? I mean, ,most of the time even concentrated fire only damages an aircraft, for which we get no points. However, since the aircraft flies away and repairs, they get the points for the repairs. Rinse, repeat - AA only gets points for a kill, while aircraft get repair points after every engagement unless they are shot down. Since the AA kill rate is so low, by playing AA you're giving the other team a cert bonus.

Aetius wrote:

Was just in a big battle on Esamir, fighting as an anti-aircraft max. We had maybe twenty people on a tower, running both AA turrets and with probably six or eight maxes, five or six heavies with AA missiles, and supporting engineers. We were eventually overrun ... from the air. I was killed twice by a Liberator before I gave up in disgust.

After this fight, I got to thinking - since even such a concentrated AA force has trouble killing aircraft, is playing AA a net loss in terms of certs for your team? I mean, ,most of the time even concentrated fire only damages an aircraft, for which we get no points. However, since the aircraft flies away and repairs, they get the points for the repairs. Rinse, repeat - AA only gets points for a kill, while aircraft get repair points after every engagement unless they are shot down. Since the AA kill rate is so low, by playing AA you're giving the other team a cert bonus.

I think it depends. AA can be very powerful and deny airspace quite well, but like you said they tend to be better at chasing off air craft then killing them. Ground AA is a support function in any straight fight. You need friendly aircraft to finish them off. I'm willing to bet if half you allies were in scythes instead you probable win.

No as for points. This means fair fight you'll earn assists mostly. You will make decent points where you have the advantage though. That being said it seems like when it comes to earning points aircraft are the way to go. A good liberator run or tricked out pilot can rake up a nice score.

Interesting to think about, but I sometimes hate the freemium nature of the game. It's annoying to catch myself thinking what earns me the most points, as opposed to what is the best way to win/conquer.

Edit: Speaking of anti air I noticed there's a bundle for it. It comes with a hades rocket launcher (which is anti vehicle no air), burster for a max, and a walker anti air turret for the galaxy and magrider. Any enable disable? I have some points lying around and the first two weapons sound nice.

master0 wrote:

Interesting to think about, but I sometimes hate the freemium nature of the game. It's annoying to catch myself thinking what earns me the most points, as opposed to what is the best way to win/conquer.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. We do things not for fun, not for tactical advantage, not for satisfying strategic gameplay, but for the all important max-XP-per-minute. It drives me nuts in an otherwise amazing game. I try to ignore that part as best I can, but it's tough.

I don't have a problem with air power being strong. However, I am annoyed that air power is currently the fastest way to gain XP in the game. In contrast, anti-air gives you negligible XP (for the occasional assist against a crappy pilot who doesn't know when to escape).

Archangel wrote:

We do things not for fun, not for tactical advantage, not for satisfying strategic gameplay, but for the all important max-XP-per-minute. It drives me nuts in an otherwise amazing game. I try to ignore that part as best I can, but it's tough.

I do strategically unsound things for fun's sake, sometimes tactically unsound. I mean, if I have to choose back-hacking vs meat grinder, I'd choose meat grinder for fun. Earlier today, Tumas Tech Plant was completely surrounded and eventually all the other hexes surrounding it had fallen to TR as well-to the point that it looked like staying there would cost VS a continent lock, but I stayed a long time just because it was a large, active fight and performed many roles: fighter pilot, tank driver, lightning, heavy, light, sniper-oh goodness that one was delicious, I was firing right into a mob of heavy assaults ducking for cover while reloading their rocket launchers and they never saw me. I really hate literally firing into a crowd of targets and not hitting a thing (wasn't lag, just me sucking). I also hate it when I destroy a liberator and then crash into it, killing myself.
I was on the Northeast? road from the outpost to the plant itself, I was on the left side, they were on the right. Giant armor battle happening on the road itself, TR armor never got between me and mob.

And yes, isn't Solstice SF the best? Slightly worse performance, but first to shoot usually wins regardless (Heavys tend to suck close up seemingly), but I just love having a grenade launcher, and I was able to resupply myself today, but I only ever tried after firing only one grenade.

Itsatrap wrote:

I don't have a problem with air power being strong. However, I am annoyed that air power is currently the fastest way to gain XP in the game. In contrast, anti-air gives you negligible XP (for the occasional assist against a crappy pilot who doesn't know when to escape).

Yeah pretty much I agree with this. The game is balanced, but how you gain xp is not balanced. Certain roles just make less. It's annoying but it's the price for free sadly.

RolandofGilead wrote:
Archangel wrote:

We do things not for fun, not for tactical advantage, not for satisfying strategic gameplay, but for the all important max-XP-per-minute. It drives me nuts in an otherwise amazing game. I try to ignore that part as best I can, but it's tough.

I do strategically unsound things for fun's sake, sometimes tactically unsound. I mean, if I have to choose back-hacking vs meat grinder, I'd choose meat grinder for fun. Earlier today, Tumas Tech Plant was completely surrounded and eventually all the other hexes surrounding it had fallen to TR as well-to the point that it looked like staying there would cost VS a continent lock, but I stayed a long time just because it was a large, active fight and performed many roles: fighter pilot, tank driver, lightning, heavy, light, sniper-oh goodness that one was delicious, I was firing right into a mob of heavy assaults ducking for cover while reloading their rocket launchers and they never saw me. I really hate literally firing into a crowd of targets and not hitting a thing (wasn't lag, just me sucking). I also hate it when I destroy a liberator and then crash into it, killing myself.
I was on the Northeast? road from the outpost to the plant itself, I was on the left side, they were on the right. Giant armor battle happening on the road itself, TR armor never got between me and mob.

And yes, isn't Solstice SF the best? Slightly worse performance, but first to shoot usually wins regardless (Heavys tend to suck close up seemingly), but I just love having a grenade launcher, and I was able to resupply myself today, but I only ever tried after firing only one grenade.

Yes the Solstice SF is the best light assault weapon. Resupplying is still buggy and it has a tendency not to work at very short ranges, but even with all that it's awesome. It makes a great panic weapon. If anyone get the drop on you, switch to the grenade launcher and pray it hits. It gives you slightly better odds then shooting back normally.

Is anyone else highly confused as to why the "Anti Air" bundle contains the lockon anti-tank rocket launcher instead of the one that shoots aircraft?

Also I think I may have found a bug. When the game first came out I would always see three different item bundles on sale in the store. But for the past couple weeks I have only seen one bundle. If I go into the store and search for the word "bundle" it shows a list of all current and previous bundles. And it says that three of them are on sale, the Anti Air bundle, the Gear Starter and the Infantry starter bundles. But on the actual store page it only shows the new one.

Does this happen to you guys too? I really want to get the vehicle bundle but I won't be able to at this rate, even if it comes around on rotation again.

master0 wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

I don't have a problem with air power being strong. However, I am annoyed that air power is currently the fastest way to gain XP in the game. In contrast, anti-air gives you negligible XP (for the occasional assist against a crappy pilot who doesn't know when to escape).

Yeah pretty much I agree with this. The game is balanced, but how you gain xp is not balanced. Certain roles just make less. It's annoying but it's the price for free sadly.

If it was just imbalanced xp gain, I would be okay with it. At this point, though, anti-air is not only making very little xp, but is actively benefiting the other team in terms of xp - while getting beaten down and overrun by the very thing they are specifically optimized to fight because their weapons are so ineffective. And this is all happening while the AA max is standing next to an engineer who is getting 3-5x his xp for repairing and supplying him with ammo (which I've done as well, it's boring and hammers your K/D but is ridiculously lucrative, especially in a squad).

Aetius wrote:
master0 wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

I don't have a problem with air power being strong. However, I am annoyed that air power is currently the fastest way to gain XP in the game. In contrast, anti-air gives you negligible XP (for the occasional assist against a crappy pilot who doesn't know when to escape).

Yeah pretty much I agree with this. The game is balanced, but how you gain xp is not balanced. Certain roles just make less. It's annoying but it's the price for free sadly.

If it was just imbalanced xp gain, I would be okay with it. At this point, though, anti-air is not only making very little xp, but is actively benefiting the other team in terms of xp - while getting beaten down and overrun by the very thing they are specifically optimized to fight because their weapons are so ineffective. And this is all happening while the AA max is standing next to an engineer who is getting 3-5x his xp for repairing and supplying him with ammo (which I've done as well, it's boring and hammers your K/D but is ridiculously lucrative, especially in a squad).

Well most of the stuff you do gives support xp. People are fixing ground vehicles and MAXs. They are healing and reviving players. They are dropping ammo to replenish bullets fired at you. I just would not worry about that aspect of it.

karmajay wrote:
Aetius wrote:
master0 wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

I don't have a problem with air power being strong. However, I am annoyed that air power is currently the fastest way to gain XP in the game. In contrast, anti-air gives you negligible XP (for the occasional assist against a crappy pilot who doesn't know when to escape).

Yeah pretty much I agree with this. The game is balanced, but how you gain xp is not balanced. Certain roles just make less. It's annoying but it's the price for free sadly.

If it was just imbalanced xp gain, I would be okay with it. At this point, though, anti-air is not only making very little xp, but is actively benefiting the other team in terms of xp - while getting beaten down and overrun by the very thing they are specifically optimized to fight because their weapons are so ineffective. And this is all happening while the AA max is standing next to an engineer who is getting 3-5x his xp for repairing and supplying him with ammo (which I've done as well, it's boring and hammers your K/D but is ridiculously lucrative, especially in a squad).

Well most of the stuff you do gives support xp. People are fixing ground vehicles and MAXs. They are healing and reviving players. They are dropping ammo to replenish bullets fired at you. I just would not worry about that aspect of it.

Yeah don't sweat how fast other people are making xp, hell it's better not to think how fast you are.

Tamren wrote:

Is anyone else highly confused as to why the "Anti Air" bundle contains the lockon anti-tank rocket launcher instead of the one that shoots aircraft?

Also I think I may have found a bug. When the game first came out I would always see three different item bundles on sale in the store. But for the past couple weeks I have only seen one bundle. If I go into the store and search for the word "bundle" it shows a list of all current and previous bundles. And it says that three of them are on sale, the Anti Air bundle, the Gear Starter and the Infantry starter bundles. But on the actual store page it only shows the new one.

Does this happen to you guys too? I really want to get the vehicle bundle but I won't be able to at this rate, even if it comes around on rotation again.

I noticed that about the rocket launcher. Very strange. Also I also only see one bundle, I'll have to look at the other bundles as well. I'm still torn on the anti air bundle. I want the burster and the launcher, but the other two items look meh.

Aetius wrote:

If it was just imbalanced xp gain, I would be okay with it. At this point, though, anti-air is not only making very little xp, but is actively benefiting the other team in terms of xp - while getting beaten down and overrun by the very thing they are specifically optimized to fight because their weapons are so ineffective.

I think you are exaggerating a little. MAXs are not supposed to be the be-all and end all of air defence. Phalanx turrets aren't either. The main benefit is that they are cheap/free and you can find them everywhere. They can chase off aircraft, but not usually kill them. This is a problem with liberators because they just repair and come back until you are all dead. If you want to be safe against air attack you need air superiority.

master0 wrote:

Yeah don't sweat how fast other people are making xp, hell it's better not to think how fast you are.

I fly a scythe because it's fun. I don't worry too much xp a minute. Same when I snipe with my bolt action. It doesn't give much xp and doesn't even benefit my team all that much, but it's fun!

RolandofGilead wrote:

Yes the Solstice SF is the best light assault weapon. Resupplying is still buggy and it has a tendency not to work at very short ranges, but even with all that it's awesome. It makes a great panic weapon. If anyone get the drop on you, switch to the grenade launcher and pray it hits. It gives you slightly better odds then shooting back normally.

I'd rather have my serpent than the SF. It's a stone cold killer at close/medium range.

Tamren wrote:

MAXs are not supposed to be the be-all and end all of air defence. Phalanx turrets aren't either. The main benefit is that they are cheap/free and you can find them everywhere. They can chase off aircraft, but not usually kill them.

As was demonstrated to me yesterday: no, they can't. Not even in 2-3x numbers with turret support. The only aircraft who get killed are fighters who are inexperienced enough to fly straight into the AA. The run that wiped out the air defense was four Liberators who attacked in two pairs, one right after the other. We shot down one, and in the time it took to do that they swept the tower top clear of defenders. The lopsidedness of several Liberators versus ... well, anything on the ground was painfully clear.

This is a problem with liberators because they just repair and come back until you are all dead. If you want to be safe against air attack you need air superiority.

That's the exactly the point - playing AA is low reward, frustrating, and tactically/strategically useless (and, I think now, counter-productive). I'm now flying a Scythe - at least there I have a gun that can actually hurt a Liberator when I unload all my ammo into it.

master0 wrote:

Yeah don't sweat how fast other people are making xp, hell it's better not to think how fast you are.

I fly a scythe because it's fun. I don't worry too much xp a minute. Same when I snipe with my bolt action. It doesn't give much xp and doesn't even benefit my team all that much, but it's fun!

I wanted to play AA - I enjoyed it in Planetside, and also in BF3 (not BF2 - another air dominant game). The problem is, playing AA in PS2 is not fun. It's just frustrating, as well as being very low reward. You fire so much you get hand cramps from holding down the fire buttons, but you hardly ever kill anything, especially if you're only in a small group.

If you find yourself surrounded by AA and too many libs, then someone is gonna have to be brave and mic up, call out and prioritize targets. Also, if they are directly above you, it's too late, regroup. It's very similar to when one is overrun by a bunch of tanks, you can't damage them fast enough. Position is everything because one projects force over distance.

Aetius wrote:

The lopsidedness of several Liberators versus ...

They're pretty deadly in the air as a group as well, so long as they are fully manned. I've gotten several kills from tail-gunning.
The truth is that I think people are going to start/have started coordinating their air efforts. The rules for the ground apply to air as well, don't go by yourself. It's a numbers game (he with the numbers wins); coordination is supposed to be the edge. Which may suck, but can you imagine this game if a typical infantryman could mow down half a squad who was aware of who was shooting them? f*ck if I'd play that.
The only thing rule-wise I can think of is to reduce the problem is limiting the number of libs, or a cost increase might be more prudent. Libs are somewhat hard to kill.

Liberators are not hard at all to destroy with ESFs. Two ESFs with rockets will kill the liberator so fast it won't even have time to turn around. If you have ground flak attacking the liberator as well you might be able to destroy it before it gets a shot off.

EDIT: Anti-air bundle has been fixed so that it correctly contains the anti air lockon rocket launcher instead of the anti vehicle one. Get it while it's hot! The two walker vehicle guns are not especially useful but the burster and rocket launcher are.

Tamren wrote:

Liberators are not hard at all to destroy with ESFs. Two ESFs with rockets will kill the liberator so fast it won't even have time to turn around. If you have ground flak attacking the liberator as well you might be able to destroy it before it gets a shot off.

EDIT: Anti-air bundle has been fixed so that it correctly contains the anti air lockon rocket launcher instead of the anti vehicle one. Get it while it's hot! The two walker vehicle guns are not especially useful but the burster and rocket launcher are.

More tempting now, but I almost never play anything else but light assault and engineer. If the other two items weren't so useless (give me the anti air for a lib damn it).

The liberator's upgraded tailgun is only 250 certs. I would just save up for it. It's not especially important as any ESF pilot worth his salt can easily avoid it.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...

Not sure if this has been posted.

I agree with that guy 100% especially when it comes to K/D. The day they put that in PS1 the game changed drastically. When I got into the tech test, I was disappointed, but not surprised to see it front and center.

Nuean wrote:

I agree with that guy 100% especially when it comes to K/D. The day they put that in PS1 the game changed drastically. When I got into the tech test, I was disappointed, but not surprised to see it front and center.

Yeah that needs to be swapped out with cert points per hour or instead. I also agree with pretty much everything except maybe the extending the cap time. The whole a base point value is based on the people fighting over it sounds awesome. That would actually make the crown interesting among other things. Also never new about the sunderer farming, and that just made me sad.

I said this before and and I'll say it again this game is very far from done. Quite a few of the core mechanics need significant work. It is still playable and fun, but it could definitely be much better.

Interesting, I would like to see Zephyr nerf, it's just plain superior to the Dalton in every way imaginable as far as I can tell.
To the guy who says "my KDR of 1.3 is terrible" I say to you, f*ck you, I'm super excited when my KDR is that high. Infantry AA rockets do need to be faster.
I must not fight a lot at Amp stations cause I don't know what towers he's talking about. I think anyone who wants to spend all their time in a vehicle should be able to do so if they're careful. I want Combined Arms, not King Infantry. A couple of seconds of invulnerability at sundy spawn would be nice. HA's are not the only threats to vehicles, they're just the only ones that can attack vehicles, there is a difference. He's flat out wrong about shields regen'ing too slowly, the point is to drive the enemy into cover and then someone can flank or get up close and decimate them. He does have a point re: cost of non-lethal grenades vs lethal grenades, unless the blast radius is significantly larger, they are pointless if the same cost.

Some nice points there. I never really did expect them to get it right on the first pass.

RolandofGilead wrote:

Interesting, I would like to see Zephyr nerf, it's just plain superior to the Dalton in every way imaginable as far as I can tell.
To the guy who says "my KDR of 1.3 is terrible" I say to you, f*ck you, I'm super excited when my KDR is that high. Infantry AA rockets do need to be faster.
I must not fight a lot at Amp stations cause I don't know what towers he's talking about. I think anyone who wants to spend all their time in a vehicle should be able to do so if they're careful. I want Combined Arms, not King Infantry. A couple of seconds of invulnerability at sundy spawn would be nice. HA's are not the only threats to vehicles, they're just the only ones that can attack vehicles, there is a difference. He's flat out wrong about shields regen'ing too slowly, the point is to drive the enemy into cover and then someone can flank or get up close and decimate them. He does have a point re: cost of non-lethal grenades vs lethal grenades, unless the blast radius is significantly larger, they are pointless if the same cost.

Well there are walls with jump pads which tend to make getting around the base easy, enemy included in that. Some came up with the idea of being able to cap the walls/towers, I'd love that and any other more sub-objectives in a base. Your right about the shields though, it's not too fast, and not too slow so I wouldn't touch them. Vehicles are spammed a bit too quickly in my opinion. And I've only ever seen a nonlethal grenade used once, and it was useless.

BadMojo wrote:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...

Not sure if this has been posted.

Buzz would know, he only plays the game like 23.5 hours a day. He's part of the drinking game I play while playing PS2. Killing Buzz nets me two drinks.