Game should be tanks supported by infantry not infantry steamrolled by tanks.

And tanks would be boring as hell to drive because they can't dodge or rush, only slowly shuffle forward while shooting constantly.

 

IF you could get a much broader range of speeds between tanks then you could still have the fast small afvs/lts buzzing around supported by slower mediums and the slower but much heavier heavy tanks. If you want your speedy dodging tank late game then get a LT/AFV MKII otherwise pick the tradeoff between speed and armourment that you want.

 

Ok, so now only heavy tanks are boring as hell to use.

I brought this up before but I'll do it again.

In order to make slow heavy tanks feasible you have to give them shitloads of armor, otherwise they will be outlclassed by light, fast tanks which can dodge.

However if you give them lots of armor they become ridiculously easy to use, as the driver doesn't need to move or do anything really other than sit there and get shot at while shooting back (which he can do more easily because he isn't moving).

This therefore makes heavy tanks extremely overpowered against anything other than other heavy tanks, and heavy vs heavy combat will become nothing more than 'drive into range, park up, hold mouse1, hope you don't die before the other guy' because you can't dodge or do anything which requires the ability to move fast.

Let's also not forget that the whole point of this is to make infantry able to kill tanks, and I really don't see how any infantry are going to get near the mega doom heavy tank which is sitting still spraying cannon shells at everything, or what they'll be able to do to it if they did.

 

That's not true. You're viewing all fights as 1v1... but the whole point of making that variation in tanks speeds would be to encourage people to support each other a bit more (there really, really isn't enough of that in tank combat at the moment.)

There's nothing wrong with light, fast tanks that can dodge outclassing heavy tanks in 1v1 combat as long as heavy tanks still have an essential role as a building-smasher and base-cracker. They don't need the absurd amount of armor necessary to win against a highly-skilled LT; they just need enough to soak up some hits while their own LTs and infantry harass the enemy.

They would be more like capital ships in your typical space combat game -- optimally, they'd become the center of combat around which infantry and other vehicles would take a supporting role, rather than just making earlier tanks and infantry redundant.

It should be fairly hard to crack a really well-fortified base without a heavy; they should also be the best option for killing other heavies. They should not be the best option for killing lights; they should move and turn slowly enough that they can die like a beached whale (though slowly) if left totally undefended against enemy LTs. Infantry and friendly LTs are therefore needed to protect them from the enemy LTs; when the infantry or friendly tanks distract the enemy, the heavy can easily land a killing blow (and the infantry would do enough damage that they can be a distraction to the enemy tanks.)

They shouldn't just be an upgrade. They should be a completely different class of weapon, used for totally different things.

 

This should stop heavy tanks going off on their own, they should be accompanied by a grenadier or another tank who can deal with the light tank. That said I have no problem with increasing the amount of armour a heavy tank can carry.

If the tank is not moving then it is a sitting duck for any grenadiers or other vehicles who want to engage the tank. There is only so much beating that a tank can take and the light can always run off to get repairs, while the heavy will have to chose between repairs on the spot and mine immunity. The light tanks role is to soften up the heavy tank rather than kill it, while the medium MKIIs could be fitted to destroy these lone heavy tanks.

The heavies will be there to take hits and deal damage while the mediums and lights can use hit and run tactics to an extent in order to attack where the heavies are weakly armoured or to drive past them and kill the people who repair and rearm them. Without support the heavy tanks will get worn down and killed, with focussing fire and team support contributing to the victory rather than individual duels between heavy tanks.

Well if you have grenadiers fighting heavy tanks with no tank support or rpg upgrades then you lost this match a long time ago. Otherwise grenadiers will be able to support the destruction of tanks with their rpgs, mines and mortars. They will need a small buff for their RPGs to be quick enough to fight light tanks but they should be more about driving away heavier tanks than killing them outright. Also if the heavy is sitting still then it is making a great artillery/mortar target, and grens can pop in and out of hiding to shoot at it.

 

i generally disagree with chris and agree with melarion

heavy tanks should be used as a different class not an upgrade

 

I've just got an idea on how to improve infantry-tank cooperation.

Somehow, someway, we gotta make it so that people cannot repair or rearm their own tanks so easily. It solves a fucking large number of problems, such as "The Return of the Rampaging Light Tank that you Managed to Wear Down to No Plating on the Left Side But Now is Fully Intact and Rearmed".

Or the case of "The Tank Slug Fest that Never Seems To End because Some Wag keeps going off and Repairing His Tank Far Far Away in Safety."

 

Reduce engineer repair speed and boost repair bay speeds.

 

TF2's heal system works thusly: you heal 24hp/second normally. if you havn't taken damage for 5 seconds, it goes up to 48hp/second. if you havn't taken damage for 10 seconds, it goes up to 72hp/second.

obviously the timescales in empires are larger... could be "12 then 25" seconds before you get the current repair speed.

but that would mean that you can repair an APC you come across without having to wait for ages, without the repair disrupting combat.

 

Then what exactly is the point in them?

Stay with lights and get arty tanks, or just use lights to get map control, and then throw yourself at the enemy base because they have no res and will lose the ability to fight back, especially because their weapons of last recourse, grenadiers, work better on heavies than they do lights.

You can't have heavies as being the best choice against other heavies while simultaneously being vulnerable to a single light tank. You could buy three lights for the price of that heavy and own an entire flotilla of heavies.

 

Delivering heavy fire power to the locations where it is necessary.

I suggested that grenadier rockets were made faster to combat light tanks, and their light armour will be rather badly hurt by RPGs. Mediums will pack more firepower and armour than light tanks yet still be manoeuvrable enough to fight of light tanks. Medium tanks are for fending off light tanks and assaulting lightly defended bases, staying with lights will not work as well because they will ultimately lack the firepower to assault the base or to reliably destroy the enemy lights before they reach your artillery. If you decide to fortify your artillery then you have created an artillery target for the enemies's artillery.

The light tank will damage the heavy and retreat back for repairs if the encounter each other, otherwise the lights should avoid the heavies in a 1v1 situation. If you give the heavies a high top speed but poor acceleration then you can end up with lights causing heavies to slow down making them easier for other tanks to kill. Also if repairing your own vehicle is nerfed then there is the chance that several hit and run lights can destroy a heavy tank with no support.

Perhaps you could give a repair bonus if someone is in the first seat while the vehicle is being repaired, the only problem would be making it intuitive enough for new people to understand it.

 

Ok then, so using your balance the best strategy is to rush heavies, because heavies can kill bases and all other tanks, they are also more resistant to grenadiers than other tanks, thus making them the ultimate tank, and what with being slow and heavily armored, they are also easy to use. Infantry cannot support them however because all the constant shelling around the heavies will be lethal to infantry.

The balance simply does not work.

 

Firstly if the heavy tank is going to have such an important role in the game it has to be easy to use, the problem with inexperienced commanders shows us that having a vital position overcomplicated is not conducive to good game play.
Secondly if you are going to rush heavies then your team is going to have a large gap while you wait for them to be researched, during which time I will be able to get mediums\medium MKIIs, which with their increased armour and weapon allowances will be able to push away your light tanks and assault your defences.
Thirdly heavy tanks are going to be supported primarily by other tanks and APCs, as without the APCs infantry are going to have a long journey to the front lines on foot. Unless ther are healing the heavy tank the infantry should not be near the tank at all, but instead using the large amount of firepower that the tanks and APCs are putting out to move up to the walls. Some riflemen with hmgs or high accuracy weapons may hang back to try and keep the enemy hiding behind their walls.

 

There's easy to use and then there's easy to the point of stupidity, a slow heavily armed and armored heavy is going to be nothing but a 'hold mouse1 to kill everything' vehicle. It would turn the game into a duck shoot, except instead of a rifle you have a machinegun.

I don't really see how rushing heavies is an invalid strategy, I get armor and one weapon, then I go for heavies, I pick up mark 2s and gas turbine along the way and my base tanks are already getting the benefits of the upgraded gear when I hit heavies. As heavies are the ultimate tank all I have to do is build one or two of them and unless the enemy can field a lot of smaller tanks or heavies of their own I will have the advantage. The game becomes nothing more than 'who can buy the most boring to use heavy tanks the fastest'.

Why exactly do infantry need to follow the tanks? Why would you bother wasting money on APCs or APC spawns or other tanks when you can spend the money on more heavy tanks. It's clear they're the best thing in the game, infantry can't get near them, grens don't hurt them, other tanks are inferior to them, they're the easiest tank to use in the game, what's the point in anything else?

Riflemen with HMGs aren't needed to keep the enemy penned in, the heavy tanks can do that with their masses of weaponry and near invulnerability to most weapons. Although they won't be able to do it well enough to keep the enemy from shooting any infantry which try to sprint across the distance, and neither will the riflemen, so that's that idea out the window.

Infantry don't need to get close to the walls because the heavies can blast through them, at least they can if they're supposed to be capable of destroying bases. Even if they can't they can just keep shooting until one or two of your arties show up, by the time you're at the point where you're blasting enemy walls you've already won the game, the enemy is forced back to their base or bases and have very limited res income.

The balance does nothing to improve infantry and tank mechanics but it does make heavies a hell of a lot more boring and overpowered.

 

What actually is the difference from now, bedside heavys are fast...?
Theirs nothing that can stop a heavy exept another one on commander maps.
Most over the top heavy is the NUKE/BIOml NF Heavy, almost unstopable.

 

Well heavy vs heavy combat is more fun than it would be if they had lots more armor and moved no faster than infantry. Also mediums are a valid strategy especially for BE because they're cheaper and mass very nicely and also work on bases.

If heavies are the only effective way to destroy bases then everything else is pretty useless. In the current game you can blow bases up with lights. I see more lights and mediums in the game than I do heavies.

The main point is that for a suggestion which is supposed to improve infantry and tank cooperation it really doen't do anything of the sort.

 

On money, i killed heavies with sticky nades. 2 nades on the same side, and the heavy went down. Not too much of a big fat invulnerable Deus Ex Machina thing. The heavies are alright, when supported by something else. Otherwise, they can be easily killed by riflemen, grenadiers, engineers wall them in, anything.

Heavies are base-crackers, same as artillery. Don't tell me that a heavy should survive on open terrain against a few lights or mediums.

Let us get back on topic instead. How do we make Infantry better VS Tanks? Better MINES, RPGs and Turrets that fire MISSILES that can actually chase down tanks, whatever the engine they've got? More grenadier ammo capacity for RPG, since 3 shots can hardly do anything, to any vehicle.
Lessen splash damage from tank missiles and shells. Force tanks into chosing either full anti-infantry role, or a full anti-tank or anti-building role. This way a tank rush will either be very vulnerable to one type of attack (infantry, vehicles, buildings?) or be built to counter anything, but not be especially good at everything. Can't we have that?

 

A heavy with a none idiot driver (buyer) should survive 3-4 stickys.
2 stickys means the guy bought a plain armor or 2-3 plate armor Tank.

I want you to show me how any number of infantry wins against a
dual HE BE-Heavy or a BIOml/Nuke NF-Heavy. Show me.

 

You can't make infantry better against tanks on their own terrain without making tanks pointless, you can only alter the terrain to make tanks more vulnerable to infantry, but that precludes the occurence of the current tank combat.

As I said at the beginning, you can either have all maps be like escort (or money, they're both constricted maps) or you can have them like classic maps, but not both at the same time.

 

Grenadiers should work against tanks like the Pyro can kill heavys in tf2