Front Line Artillery support, Far-Range Artillery support, Feild AT guns.

[navygrl]

Close ranged artillery:
http://www.yuma.army.mil/mw/images/01c652.jpg

Obviously, a spotter (Lazer) could possibly, instead of setting a WP to fire at, it will automatically adjust the guns aim that it's lazing for. Obivously, shells will still not be pin point accurate, but it will definately not be a one man killing machine.

Long ranged artillery:
Cant find any good pics, sorry.

As opposed to the Flail, long ranged artillery in this game should have:

A crew of 2-3 to operate, one driver, one shooter, and one spotter, cannot fire until a coordinate has been uploaded
Poor accuracy over great ranges
VERY slow reload/refire time, around 30 seconds
decent sized explosion.

Feild AT gun:
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Cases/images/howitzer.JPG

By obviously just looking, it much be towed ala truck/cargo transport, requires 2 people to operate,
75mm shells, pretty decent armor damage, poor against infantry, limited turn radius, did i mention needs to be towed? :)

[YourBestIsMyWorst]

If this game has artillery, it should definitely not be a spammable one-man killing machine, like the flail, or the artillery strikes in BF2.

Artillery should be used as suppressing fire, not as a way to get direct kills.

In my opinion, artillery should REQUIRE a spotter, and it won't fire unless you have a valid target being spotted by somebody.

I think where PS fell down on artillery and flails is that nobody lazes targets because what's the point? There's no personal reward for it. Make it so artillery requires a spotter, and the spotter(s) get a share of the XP and some kind of assist points (if you're stat tracking). That I think would go a long way toward fitting artillery into its proper role better.

- YourBestIsMyWorst

[NasyVealisanoob]

I agree with yourbest.

As far as actual concepts for arty go, there should be two kinds. Long range and close range.

Being as this is a futuristic game, I dont think howitzers from WW1 are gonna cut it. Some kind of self propelled arty is the way to go for the long range arty.

http://ginklai.net/images/galerija/2341_crusader_howitzer_xm_2001000.jpg

As far as close range indirect fire suport, mortars are best.

Have them deployable by an engi and need a team of two to fire:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/images/m-224-dvic503.jpg

As well as the ability to be fitted to vehicles.

http://www.yuma.army.mil/mw/images/mortar1.jpg

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/images/m224-60mm-mortar.jpg

[GreatMazinkaiser]

Agreed, self-propelled artillery rocks; we'll have none of this limbering/unlimbering bullshit...

I see no reason why artillery should require a spotter, or at least not if a suitable target is at the proper range to be targeted w/out... That and thus far the only artillery design submitted (mine) has limitted ability to aim once deployed (much unlike the flail). A spotter should increase artillery accuracy, especially at long distance.

As to not being instagib machines, also good. Artillery *should* do a lot of damage, especially if it was designed for a specific purpose (AV/AI), but if there's going to be any instagibbing it should require a direct hit (shell actually landing on the target), a difficult feat at that kind of range.

Am I making sense?

[abathur]

On this subject.

Reward should be roughly proportional to: 1. risk, 2. time, 3. difficulty

An ANT run for example, is worth about 4-6 solo kills worth of exp. An ANT run is a lot easier than this, almost always less risky, but takes significantly longer.

Sitting back like a fucking bitch in your vertically oriented gibgun without ever actually looking at your enemies is going to result in 1. low risk, 2. Doesn't actually have to be driven all the way to the fight (thus takes less "time" to see effectiveness, not to mention the ability to fire over hard to navigate terrain (firing over a mountain v. a tank having to take the time to go 'round.) and 3. no real skill to hitting a particular target, just spray and pray luck on a general area. None the less this varies based on how easy the gun is to aim to start hitting that general area.

As such, sitting back like a fucking bitch taking little risk, less time to reach the fight than a tank crew and (likely) not having to work as hard for any kills you get should be reflected _in some stage_ of the system efficiency. This could be at a damage level, a ROF level, an accuracy level, could be reflected in the ease of locating and hitting an area, could be reflected by reduced exp awards, or perhaps the field piece could just blow up every third round to convince said cuntnugget to actually FIGHT SOMEONE in a MULTIPLAYER fps. I'm sure there are boardgames you can play if you really want to fire artillery at things without actually ever having to fight them.

I see no compelling reason as per WHY we need artillery in the game. Traditionally artillery is either for eating troops alive, or for shelling a defensive position, usually a hardpoint position with hard immobile defenses and structures. I don't care to see artillery eating troops alive (doesn't promote fun gameplay) nor do I see us planning to have destructible hardpoint structures. Best I can tell there's no real reason for us to have serious artillery (and I'm still considering but not sure I support mortars either.)

[Cl2v2r]

I like the idea of mortars, I like the idea of multiple people (3+) required for long range powerful arty.

Single man arty are too powerful no matter what shape you put them in.


Only condition I have about arty is that it is vulnerable, to anything nearby.

[Aftiel]

You should have to have a spotter if you have any arty and it should also have ZERO point blank defenses and horrible armour. I'm talking I should be able to go in and fucking open the top hatch and throw a nade in if noone is guarding the damn thing kinda vulnerability. Plus make counter battery fire a more realistic option then it is in PS and you could have some cool shit IMO.

[NasyVealisanoob]

On this subject.

Reward should be roughly proportional to: 1. risk, 2. time, 3. difficulty



The way I see it, mortars should be at high risk to snipers and long range direct fire vehicles since thats about the range they oporate at and have no real protection. The engineer deploys and aims the mortar. The second player places shells in the mortar and fires it. It *must* take at least two people and they are at risk since it needs LOS (or near LOS if you want to estimate and lose accuracy, for fireing behind hills or walls) to aim and has no armor. It could also be limited from spamming by makeing the rounds very large so that the person fireing the mortar could only carry a limited number in their inventory and would have to comunicate directly with the engi on the exact time to fire to maintain effeciency with the ammo (since engi is aiming) Readjusting fire past a few degrees after the mortar is allready deployed would take a fair amout of time.

This would not be a kill whore or a spam weapon because the person with the mortar cert who actualy deploys and aim the mortar gets no kills, just points. The person fireing the mortar could not sustain fire for extended periods of time due to lack of ammo. This would mean that the shooter and engi would need good communication and team work to get the best results out of their mortar. Risk: medium, no armor, sitting target for vehicles/air and snipers. Time: takes time to set up mortar and readjust aim. Difuculty: aiming and fireing will take some experiance (by the engi), especialy when trying to hit things behind walls. Flight time by the projectile must be estimated. Teamwork must be used to be effective.

For long range arty I think the best way to deal with it is having it require a three person team. A spotter, a driver/rough aimer, and someone to fire and finely aim it. The spotter would be required to aim the arty and have to have line of sight with the target, putting them at risk. The driver would be responsible for moving and positioning the party piece. He would also have to initialy line up a shot on the spotted target. Finaly the person fireing the arty would only have a small degree off controll over aim. They would precisly line up the spotted target and actualy fire the gun.

Also I dont think the person shooting should get any kills, only points ( only kill assists like everyone else). One thing that allways bothered me in BF2 was the commander getting kills for useing arty. It gets old seeing someone with a 30-0 k/d at the end of the match who never even left 2d map mode. It kind of cheapens the whole meaning of a "kill" in that game. While arty is great for suporting your team, the person fireing it does not put themself at much risk and does not exibit any skill so should not be even close to the best way of racking up a high kill count. But arty should still be capable of killing alot of people if it is not delt with....so just dont give the arty team any kills.

Arty should be directly trackable by air like the flail is in PS. Shots should show up on the mini map and be easily visable. The arty vehicle should only provide mobility and some protection from light arms fire. All anti vehicle or multi purpose weapons should be a direct threat to the moble arty. The arty should have no other weapons other then the big gun and it should not be able to de-elevate past 30 degrees or so, leaving it helpless to close range targets. It should also have to deploy on a level surface (to prevent deploying on a slope to negate the 30 degree minimum fireing angle). It should have a very very slow rate of fire, encourageing shots to be indivitualy spotted and aimed and reducing spam. Also its movement speed un deployed should be pretty slow. A direct hit should kill anyting on the battle field and it should have medium/large splash. The enemy should be force to destroy the arty or suffer heavy casualties over time.

Also I think a really cool idea would to be allow arty to target other arty without a spotter based on the trajectory of the other arty's shells. Every time you fire from the same position it makes it easier for enemy arty to more precisly target your location. This would encourage arty to move positions after every few shots to aviod being pin pointed as well as have the spotter target enemy arty first. This would mean arty, although out of sight of each other, could have fights/duals.

[OverDose]

A long range artillery gun should definately need more than one guy to fire and it should have multiple warheads per shot fired ergo with about 6 short barrels so that it fires several small explosive devices that hit in a wide area over several seconds... it is after all an artillery *strike*. Then have a long reload time (30 secs or whatever was suggested b4). Its also important that it cannot be deployed on an unsuitable surface: one that is over a 35' angle to combat the hilltop tank method employed in PS... not to mention any names (cough *cogburn*). But an artillery strike should be able to be designated by any squad leader on an island or zone and be visable to any artillery units of the same faction on the island regardless of squad/platoon.

Short ranged artillery, on the other hand, should be man portable and one man fireable. The kind of slow, indirect and not very powerful shots you expect from mortar fire should by all means be able to be fired by one guy. Make it a deployable artillery peice in the same vein as a mountable MG and the user has to carry the ammo. To be EFFECTIVE he would need a buddy for more ammo and cover fire... but if someone wants to take half a dozen pot shots over a wall then let them, they are unlikely to do THAT much damage. In an open field then he has to consider leading the target... again, no biggy. And to cap it off he would have to sacrifice inventory space to lug the bastard around. A smart man could set up a range of six or seven of them, go back for plenty of ammo and then lay it out in front of the mortars for use by passing friendlies... if they do that? more power to em I say. You could even load em up into a vehicle boot (I assume vehicles will have storage).

Then you could link them together as a single "Cert" so that they are just generally nifty with artillery and can use either the mobile or man portable.