Alright, so plasma is very rarely used because it deals no damage but excels at shutting down enemy tanks. So i dug for more info and saw a statement that an APC with plasma plus a damagedealer (med tank?) would be a evil combination. Now what I see very rarely is that people actually use APCs as sources of cheap ammo in the turret seat. I found it quite nice as a grenadier to sit on top and spam mortars all day long at everything I could see. How effective would be a plasma APC with a grenadier on top, mortaring the living crap out of a disabled tank? For me it seems like a pretty effective early and cheap combination. Also, APC plus tank needs more coordination than a triggerhappy gren inside the APC.
Too slow, and it would require two people, making your team less effective per person. Not to mention mortar and rocket launcher aren't fast enough to damage a tank efficiently inside an APC. Now maybe if it was a rifleman with sticky grenades..
But stickies have abysmal throwing range and the gren would be able to fire from long distance. Granted since you can disable someone completely with the plasma, range would not be a problem. How fast could a rifleman with stickies destroy a barracks from the top of an APC? As for requiring 2 people, I still think it's a better choice than requiring 2 tanks.
The last time someone calculated how many stickies it was to kill a barracks, it was during 2.22, and that was 8 Stickies, but since then HP has been increased for the barracks, so it shouldn't be 8. In the end though, if I had to be honest, using Plasma is a lose-lose situation if you attempt to take another vehicle down alone. Simply because you would be overheated as well, which is why it's typically used as a support weapon. Now, the plasma cannon on the other hand does damage and overheats, but if you miss with it's death. In the end plasma is just too risky for the reward.
The main problem of Plasma MG is that you receive to mush heat on your own vehicle. Heat to your own vehicle: 4 Heat to enemy vehicle: 5 And because of the bad accuracy, you will miss many shots. If you want to overheat an enemy there must be many APC shooting at the same target. But then weapons, which actually do damage would be much more effective. I heard, that they will remove plasma for the next version. The problem is if you make plasma to good, it will result in many not operational tanks. Such gameplay will suck. And with the current parameters nobody uses it. There was also one suggestion that overheat should be changed from 0% shooting and moving speed to e.g. 50% shooting and moving speed. In my opinion this could help to make plasma usefull and balanced.
With that skill and coolant engine it can make a difference. I think Plasma APCs and Mediums with coolant and engineers with the heat skill will win versus HE/ER Tanks with Gas Turbine/Fission... So plasma may be a great way to counter BE.
Doesn't matter. Because of the bad accuracy you will only have 25% - 50% hits. And it's hard to drive closer, because the APC is just to weak to fight near enemy tanks. Maybe if heat to your own vehicle will be under 2 plasma will work as supporting weapon.
I wasn't talking just about Plasma MG, but also the Plasma Cannon. Plasma Tanks(With Plasma Cannon) go forward, and shoot the tanks, while the APCs try to overheat the tanks(altough this may be hard, it's possible with coolant, heat upgrade and on medium range) It's like DU(Inaccurate), And Bio weapons(weak). You need a team that works together. APCs are great support weapons.
I only once had the luck to try the plasma MG on an APC and I was able to shut down an enemy light tank for about 80 seconds or so until I got killed, because I was also overheated a lot, but managed to keep him totally stunned. Sadly, noone came over and killed that guy (and yes, he was too stupid to eject, just kept spinning his turret around) So I thought, a Grenadier on top of the APC would have been really sweet, also because the grenadier is totally unaffected by heat, and he always knows what I am shooting, so I guess he would attack accordingly. Engi with cooling skill and a gren in the APC with the armor detection skill. Want.
Shouldn't you take the heat of the enemy weapons into that too? Cause I doubt they won't shoot against zeh enemy.
This works. A plasma MG APC should follow a group of tanks and heat up their targets, you shouldn't be plasma APC rushing unless you need to stop the enemy comm in his tracks.
You have to take into account which faction you play as. If you are BE, your APC can take an extra gunner in the second seat. But your commander has probably gotten the fission or gas turbine engine, because physics is OP for BE and you had to go into it to get plasma anyway. NF, on the other hand, has no second gunner in an APC, but is more likely to have coolant or biodiesel since they would be focused on missiles. ( dont ask how plasma got worked into that research path)
Depends. In 1on1, if they can shoot at all, your plasma APC is essentially worthless because you do almost no damage. The best you could hope for is to slowly kill them with a grenade launcher, but the heat of that AND the PMG could put you behind. In group combat, you can essentially neutralize an enemy vehicle without having to go to the trouble of actually killing him, or reduce the effectiveness of several at a time.
Anyone with any experience with plasma can tell you that if your team is willing to work together, plasma is pretty overpowered. A 400 res apc manned by an engineer w/ vehicle cooling can disable a 1400 res heavy tank, and from there it only takes someone stickying or rpging the tank to kill it. Heat is so disabling that it's really hard to balance - if plasma mg did more heat to the target than to the person firing it would be broken. The main drawback to plasma is that both the MG and the cannon are very specialized weapons, and they suck against buildings and infantry (in fact, the MG is totally worthless in these regards).
Of course, the problem with these plasma tactics is that they require there to be a disparity in the number of people in a particular battle. Unless there are enough APCs to overheat the tanks AND enough people to go gren/rifle and destroy the tanks while they're overheated, the tanks will eventually win (even if it's one cannon shot at a time), especially if they have bio diesel.
Therefore, I wouldn't choose Plasma as a primary weapon... The problem is that you need coolant and engineers with heat skill to make plasma work propperly. Wich adds to fact that plasma weaponry is rather risky. According to vehicle_weapons script: Plasma MG: Weight: 70 Cost: 100 Damage: 1(Heavy DU does 10) Heat: 4 Heat to Target: 5 Plasma Cannon: Weight: 70 Cost: 120 Damage: 90(HE and Ranged do 95) Heat: 26 Heat to Target: 17 Explossion Radius: 100 Seem like a flaw with the Plasma Cannon. As I said, it only works if you work together, it may even be better to just skip Plasma Cannon and go for Ranged or HE instead. Therefore, use the MG and not the Cannon.
plasma is either your primary weapon or you don't use it. You can't have a successful tank config that uses plasma as a secondary and some other type of weapon to damage, unless you use the dot capabilities of bio mg or ml.
Maybe they should just fix Plasma... On other hand - HE/ER/UML + Plasma MG + Coolant + Reflective/Abosrbant(up to your team) May be nice weapons for a medium tank. Removes the need for weak APCs, and you can mass them too. It might be a problem for BE, with Plasma I do not reccomend Fission. And for NF this means they would have to research Physics specifically for Plasma. Engines according to vehicle_engines script(medium engines): ___________________________ Fission: Heat min: 1 Heat Max: 4 Heat Dissipation: 8 Weight: 15 Coolant: Heat Min: 1 Heat Max: 3 Heat Dissipation: 10 Weight: 30 Gas Turbine: Heat Min: 1 Heat Max: 3 Heat Dissipation: 8 Weight: 30 ___________________________ It may also not be the fastest research path, as with fission being shit when using Plasma you will also need chemistry, ofcourse you could skip that and instead go for gas turbine, after that you could also choose composite armor(if you have the resources).
