Arty Tanks are Confusing: Why using every tank means misusing every tank

During some point in 2.24d there was a script on servers called "tank wars" where exactly that happened and you played a round with unlimited res and all research unlocked. Was sort of amusing.

 

Oh my, I didn't notice this little gem...

It would work if heavy tanks required more than one player:

• A driver
• A "gunner" directing the missile & cannon fire
• A "gunner" utilizing a machine gun, potentially from the hatch
• A few APC/AFV-like "storage" slots to let the crew juggle positions easily

Admittedly, this changes the game a lot, but it elegantly fixes a lot of our core problems:

• Missile tanks don't have to suck because one guy gets to do nothing but aim (guided, guided, & more guided)
  
  • A slow, low-splash, high damage, guided "smart bomb" missile evens the playing field
• The need for a losing team to be able to utilize unpopular "ninjas" is removed
  
  • Two or three players use one heavy tank instead of 2-3 heavy tanks. So the function of "required res cost per player" (i.e. required map control) against "time" (i.e. research progress) is flattened, making it much much harder for one team to snowball the other.
• Teamwork is required to win, but not to play & enjoy
  
  • Just like arty inevitably defeats turtle teams, teamwork-demanding heavy tanks could be used to inevitably defeat teams that don't work as a team.
    
  • However, the first half of any round involves tanks that are easily usable by individuals. So teams that lack teamwork definitely have a chance to play and enjoy a round.

[sub]And because this community is full of autistic fuck-ups, I feel the need to point out that the above changes are flirting with violating the unrecorded design decisions of this game.[/sub]

I kinda like those little novelty matches. They keep things fresh.

 

It's still there. With some script called "jetpacks", haven't used it yet.

 

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here for necroing this thread. I really like the idea of needing more people to commander the larger tanks.

What I would also like to throw in for consideration is to make larger tanks a lot less mobile. Not only in their movement overall.
One of my biggest pet peeves in Empires has always been the tank turrets that rotate with first person player speed.
I'd very much like to see the turret rotation being slowed and decoupled from the view direction of the player. (Pretty much like in World of Tanks, where you can turn in any direction with normal FPS speed and the aim point for the cannon and turret will follow you at it's own speed.)

Heck you could even introduce new research with that, if you want. Something akin to lighter turrets, which have faster turn speed, but give the vehicle less health or have less weapon mounts.