Now hear me out, I know people are going to say "Well why do we need that?" or "That sounds stupid" but please read before you create an opinion. Late game, a mass of Heavy Tanks that devolves into one team running out of resources and really no true skill as the teams bash their tanks against each other. How do you counter this to make this more skill based and team work based? The answer is simple: A new Chassis. A tank that specializes in taking out the Heavy Tank spam that is late game, a game changer that turns the escalation of Heavy Tanks over on its head. A tank destroyer would allow for late game to turn into more team based combat rather than into the constant heavy tank spam that, when one team runs out of resources, leads to the end of a game. How it works: The Tank Destroyer would be unique in a chassis, found either in the Upgraded Chassis or Advanced Chassis (depending upon balancing), allowing for more teamwork within the team and squads to guard these potent units. It would be upgraded with its own Chassis and then be equipped with it's own four slot cannon, meant to deal with enemy tanks. This tank would be limited in it's turrets aiming, such as it would only be able to have the main gun angle a certain direction a certain amount before the entire tank would have to turn. On top of this, it would be slower and need protection to make it a potent force used to counter enemy tanks. Armor This tank would be extremely armored in the front (A lot of plates, maybe 6-8), and then very weak on the sides as traditional tank destroyers are. This allows for Infantry to "hunker down" a tank destroyer, walling up it's sides to deal with approaching tanks, or it allows for tanks in a squad to guard the one member who rolled a tank destroyer to help with armored combat. This fundamentally is a counter to the heavy spam at the end by adding a counter to the game. This creates a more skill based ending rather than a "who can pump out the most heavies" type ending. Weapon The weapon on the Tank Destroyer would be it's own, unique type weapon with a very unique 4 slot cannon. This cannon, unique to all other weapons, would deal true hull damage, rather than damage to armor so even in a massive tank battle tank destroyers would continually have to strike their target designated target rather than simply helping their allies blast off armor plates. The weapon would deal a designated amount of TRUE DAMAGE to the CHASSIS of the tank, slight damage to armor, in order to make this a TRUE tank destroyer. This weapon would not be rendered OP however, as the average light and medium tank could easily out manuever the Tank Destroyer's main gun and the turning rate of the tank. On top of this, to make the Tank Destroyer more potent and allow it to actually be useful, it would use a railgun type cannon that hit's as soon as it is fired to allow it to actually represent a real railgun. Cost vs. Effectiveness This tank destroyer should cost less than a heavy tank, even though it can tank out heavy tanks rather easily, simply due to the fact that it would be easily countered by any tank that has manueverability or any infantry who can sneak up on it (As the tank would have NO counter for Infantry). This makes it a specialized role to take out enemy tanks, and under certain conditions such as being hulled down and fighting along side friendly tanks under guard. Under no circumstance would it be able to engage another tank on it's own unless from a distance, it would lead to a cheaper overall tank. However, it WOULD be cost effective for taking out takes at range or fortifying a position where missle turrets simply wont cut it. Infantry Revival Again, this tank would revive Infantry combat in the late game by making it a potent force accompanied with Infantry. The Tank destroyer could easily try to target the enemy tanks trying to engage the infantry, and the infantry can guard it from incoming infantry. Infantry would, once again, have a use adding to a whole new type of late game combat rather than the late game spam of heavies. Why would I use this? If you have ever been in a com's position to find your team is idiotic, a team that can hardly hold down anything and throwing away tanks right and left, a tank destroyer would be easy to use by noobs and vets alike (With Vets having a slight advantage). It would allow for team's to hold back a swarm of heavies, and force the use of either artillery to take them out, or force the enemy to rethink their tactics and work together more to take on this new foe. Balancing Obviously this needs balancing to learn how strong it needs to be compared to how well it will accomplish these goals, but I honestly think it will change the gameplay a bit and make players take a more tactical approach to winning the game, and it will take the saddness away from players who lose simply because their team had more noobs who wasted heavy tanks. Overall Outcome of it's Addition Not only would warfare in late game become less stagnate because of noobs wasting heavies, it would also allow for infantry to be potent forces pushing up with Tank Destroyers. Along with this, Tank Destroyers that would be "hunkered down" could easily be taken out with Artillery, allowing for artillery to become an ACTUALLY useful game mechanic. This addition increases the viability of another tank that is almost never used and once again would decrease the overall heavy tank spam of late game. Thanks for reading, please consider and any feedback is appreciated. NOTE: This COULD BE FOR BRENODIA ONLY and then NF get's its own UNIQUE type of weapon such as an anti infantry tank. The Reason Brenodia need's a Tank destroyer is because NF has locking missle launchers which are essentially anti tank in themselves.
Proceeding with the assymetrical balance that this game was intended to continue to achieve NF would have a specialty Chassis as well, 7 Screaming Diz-Busters mentioned this, and is the concept I would like to submit as the Nf specialty chassis.
I'd rather have 3slot explosive cannon and upgradable heavies. There are a lot of chassis that could be added. I like tanks but at this state it just complicates things so it's pointless. Tank destroyers are no longer in use either :/ Main battle tanks is the way. Doesn't matter in Empires though, just saying.
I remember Spike already did this, I think he just put the arty cannon barrel on a be med and gave it a 4 slot weapon just like you said but it looked just how you wanted it. Can't remember if it was something he intended to implement or just an idea he was fooling around with.
I know Tank Destroyers are no longer in use in real life (except the nordic countries), but in this game I think it could be revived to take on tanks as a specialized role. The addition of a tank destroyer however, would add a great versatility to the game and add a more competitive and teamwork oriented function to the game, along with stopping the simple tank spam that the game always devolves into. Infantry would become useful, tanks would be useful, artillery would become more useful (To take out boxed in Tank Destroyers), allowing for more functions to the game to be expressed.
I agree with the need for more 3 slot weaponry, as the current 3 slots are barely used. Perhaps upgraded HE and Ranged cannons... But I would also like to see the addition of speciality chassis, and I definitely think tank destroyers would be a great addition, but if BE have a 4 slot anti-tank cannon... What do NF get? A 4 slot Mega Missile launcher? It'd need to serve the same purpose for tank destroying, so couldn't be re-purposed to wreck infantry... But I think it's definitely worth considering. And on the topic of different vehicles, did anything ever happen with the proposed MK2 tanks?
Mk2s happened years ago. They were so good people didn't get meds. I don't know what the plan was to reintroduce them though.
So, currently, the thought that I had was that the NF dual ML heavies with homing/guided are basically NF's current anti tank destroyer (maybe buff those missles a tad?) then the NF missle launcher would be the anti infantry that the BE heavy currently takes the role of (Dual HE is REALLY good Anti Infantry). Sgt. Security did hint at accepting this idea/testing it should we find a model for it.
I believe both be and nf meds should have a 3 slot cannon. not a 3slotcannon for be and 3slot for nf, absolutely not. First of all, i often end up having 70-80weight to spare on a fully equipped tank, so i think it's a waste. Secondly it would give an advantage over mk2 and would be more challenging for heavies, possibly, depending on weapons... Meds are the mainbattle tanks so i dont see why they shouldnt be allowed to carry heavier weaponry.
AP damage. Tanks use two kinds of shells: High-Explosive and Armor-Penetrating. Empires is a tank game after all, and still tank mechanics are blasting plates off from a vehicle. Some cannons do it better than others. Empires needs diversity in tank gameplay and direct damage to the hull would change the whole game. There are weapons for AP damage (Ranged and Plasma) and HE damage. There are different armours for countering AP (Reflective) and HE (Absorbant) damage and maybe something in between (Compo). If different kinds of damage would be implemented, there will be significant choices for commander to make and counters for different strategies. For now, all outdated research becomes obsolete. When HTs are researched, MTs are used only when resources are few, as their damage output and survivability is too low. Mobile HE Mediums would serve as infantry and building killers and TDs and HTs would counter tanks.
but you never know what armor the enemy has. you can guess from what weapons he uses, but its only a guess. and you will only be able to guess once the enemy fields mediums, since before that time he cannot use upgraded weaponry, and by that time changing resarch will put you several minutes behind, because of something you could not have known in advance. (completely ignoring the resources the first fail tanks did cost) its like rolling dice - do you want to roll dice?
Yes, rolling dice adds variability back into the gameplay and makes it non linear as now the com and the team have to coordinate better.
its a FPS, you dont roll dice in FPS, thats more the RPG genere. and even if rolling dice would be acceptable in FPS, there would only 2 players (comms) be rolling dice, everyone else would have to cope with their shit uninformed decisions. and it wouldnt be their fault, they cannot make informed decisions for above reasons. if you play an RTS 1on1 and you fuck up by picking air counters against their infantry, well its your fault and your fault alone and you deserve to lose and get ridiculed for it. but if someone else would have picked for you (like in empires), you wouldnt enjoy the game much and blame your undeserved loss on him. empires is no pure FPS true, but it is for most players. also empires only has RTS concepts woven into the FPS envorioment, but in the end its completely different from the RTS genre and most concepts cannot be translated 1:1, that just doesnt work out. no matter how much you wish for it.
This is an interesting idea. If you wanted to test it, load all the expense of artillery into the weapon rather than the chassis, create a new anti-tank shell, and then try out your new tank destroyer. You might need to lower the turret angle on arty a bit, but it's not strictly necessary. Alternatively, you could give Tier 1 tanks - AFV's and LT's the option to equip this tank-destroying shell later game. Have it be something in the mechanics tree next to meds maybe. Apply an arty-type bracket to the afv/lt tank that only takes that shell, and there you go. Tier 1's have much better use late game, their mobility and fragility make them balanced, and they'd remain fairly cheap, easy to use, and we wouldn't have to remodel anything.
It should be mentioned that in all the RTS that have counters (for example of Age of Empires 2) you have the ability to scout to gain information on what your adversary is doing, the kind of building he constructs and the resources he gathers should give you a clear idea of the path he's taking if you're experienced enough. Counters make scouting your opponent's base very important and adds a whole new gameplay mechanism. So before we even consider going for counters in Empires we would need to implement a way to determine what the other team is researching. Until then counters are out of the question, nobody wants to roll the dice and have half of the games ruined because of some arbitrary randomness.
Still would rather keep research options less counterish and more just how you use it kinda thing, like regen. @Ikalx: Giving these weapons to lights sounds like a bad idea to me, that just sounds like mk 2s again. Putting cost of arty on its weapons sounds good at first though, but arty doesn't aim low enough to actually hit a tank which is good because it's weapons deal some of the highest damage in the game, like that small arty cannon does twice the damage of ranged for example, it could kill a a light in 2 shots. Then again, considering arty is ass in defense and mobility arty would fit what Donald wants but in a slightly different form. I'd prefer weapons with some sort of armor piercing mechanic, though I think empires could use a ground up rebuild of its tanks in general, but I wouldn't do something like that now, it'd be too drastic a change to empires. It's something for Empires 2.
If you give the weapons a fairly high weight, they wouldn't end up like mkII's. Though it depends how effective you're thinking them to be. If they're less effective, they'd make the chassis more useful. Too effective and it'd be overpowered. Though I remember the days when you *could* take out a heavy with a light if you were very good. I don't think I've seen anyone even attempt to do that these days. In theory, that's what I'd like to see with this. If someone can get 10 hits on you without dying in a 3-hit tank, they deserve to beat you. Of course you could always restrict the engine to standard, which would make them less whizzy. But that would be kinda complicated. *shrugs*
You can still take out dual ranged heavies with light tanks (provided you have enough room to move around), I don't think it's any harder than it used to be, it's just the average skill level isn't what it used to be so you don't see much happening nowadays.
HERE, HERE! only like 2 weeks back - but well, yes, you didnt see it - i still love me my LT, bestest tank there is ... also it was a nub, so no big archievement, but the nostalgia was priceless - its nothing to what superlights were though, but maybe thats just blurred memory.
I was thinking it be more effective then a normal light. Or rather, if the weapon can pierce armor then that would mean the number of plates are meaningless to an extent. That would kinda put a light and a heavy on equal footing, because if the heavy does have to get through all those tasty plates and a light doesn't have to at all it would mean they roughly have to do similar amounts of damage to kill each other. Well a heavy might have to do more because it can't always hit the same side, but you get the idea. Considering lights are like 20-30% the cost of a heavy that just sounds off. There's also the issue of commander vehicle, it would be easier to take down with a swarm of lights. Even though std engine is kinda poop it's still faster then the cv, 45 vs 35.(this is also faster then a heavy with 3phase, which has 40) Thankfully this can all be averted thanks to the glorious resist system, give that weapon a unused damage type and just have that cv resist the shit out of it. Anyways, I dunno maybe it could work out especially because lights simply can't do the raw damage needed to take down bases so you would still need meds or heavies. I just think people need to consider what some things really mean or how it works, because general ideas leave a lot of room to interpretation, and eventually abuse by some bored, or in it to win it, vet. Also, I should say I'm not against this tank destroyer idea, I'm mostly indifferent about it. I just think getting a better balance between the current tiers is a better idea without throwing in another variable in it, especially with no way to restrict chassis types or researched items. With this being the hot new thing I can just see teams losing because everyone gets it instead of just a couple of people to help bolster defense/offense.
