Oh the woe since 1.1.0

[yurch]

14mm barely has enough penetration to kill a dropship at respectable ranges. The things are suprisingly armored.

Originally posted by Dark_au:

but at long range its pretty imune to KE and it swats HEAT and HE out of the air. Any round which passes above its sensors is toasted.

The hermes will not fire at any target going over 1000. 120mm HEAT and 120mm AP fire at speed 1500 and 3000 respectively. The only one of those hermes is going to fire at in a regular basis is a harmless lowered-velocity AP round deflecting off the top. Hermes is very vulnerable to HEAT - a shot that doesn't kill it can often knock out it's jammer. This is my preferred way of attacking them and I can say with confidence the point defense gun does not shoot those rounds down at standard ranges.

The artillery analogy is a bit flawed. Modern warfare is very much hide-and-seek. That's kinda hard to do when you know the exact objective and even the exact location the enemy is trying to get to at all times, intelligence not availible in reality. The options against "artillery" is to pretty much ball up under the hermes (a tactical blunder in itself) or depend on movement and armor.

I think mortars are fun too, but let's face it, you'll never lead a hurricane or a shrike with a paladin mortar.

You've been in games with me using the Hurricane... I'm I just pointing and clicking?.

This is an unfair way to put it.

Do you think I'm pointing and clicking trying to lead a hurricane going 90 through the smoke of a turret fire, from the most intelligent fighting position I can find in short notice? Why then, am I supposed to be screwed? Because someone labeled the hurricane as "artillery"? What makes that thing artillery if it's being used like a tank? It's just a low-pressure HE shell of indeterminate caliber. I don't think it's artillery at all.

Seriously, we should leave the 'skill' arguments out. They go nowhere.

Hitting a moving item with that is extremely hard and takes an understanding of the lead required.

This could be MUCH harder. We don't have any inertia transferred to our shots.

[ July 28, 2006, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[adzling]

ok maybe im the only one out here who has no problem with the hermes at all.

I know dark angelus likes to whine about aad (ooh last night you should have heard him but i simply don't find it a big deal.

if there's a laser tower on the map it becomes my prime objective to take first.

usually only takes a few minutes work.

it was quite entertaing to hear dark au yelling at my mate last night to "come out from behind the laser tower and have a fair fight" while he tooled around on the flats below in his hurricane.

now my mate likes that laser tower and spends a lot of time hanging out there shooting the crap out of the enemy, making good use of the battlefield.

dark au may not like that in that particular instance he can't use his trusty hurricane to kill him but me i just grab a hermes, drop out of sight and sneak up on the bugger and shoot him in the back at p.b. range while he's in scope.

Works almost every time.

in fact some of the best coop tactical play i have been involved with has revolved around me + 1 or two other players working together to take a well-defended laser tower.

It's hard to do but if you roll-up things in order it works almost every time.

First you roll in with a hermes and command track (nice and cloaked) or an inf sqaud and shoot up all the turrets/ sensor jammers around the laser tower.

Then while the defender is reacting to your destruction of his turrets one of extracts and drops with a 120mm for close range killing.

Use this to knock his afv and then when he try's to re-drop in the same area you'r pal driving the hermes around prevents him from landing.

meanwhile your 120mm extracts and you start droppping sensor jammers followed up with anti-air turrets.

once you got those placed you drop back in with an engineer and go take the tower while your pal extracts and drops back in with a 120mm (in case the erstwhile defender drives back in from a distant landing seeking revenge).

Once you've captured the tower you've turned the tables on the defender.

this kind of complicated, multiperson coop play really evolves into a fun tactical ballet that is very gratifying and intense.

now perhaps dark au would rather remove all aad from the game so he can tool around at distance and shoot people with his hurricane because he likes the satisfaction of direct-fire kills with his main-gun while on the move.

but imho the variety in strategy required to deal with laser tower, hermes and the like is an integral part of the game

as far as the hermes goes the only change i would make is have it stop shooting down the faster moving rounds (like 20mm, heat, etc) and ADD anti-jump jet inf targeting.

this would restrict it to relatively slower moving, higher parabola targets while enabling it to be knocked out fairly easily by 20mm, 76mm 120mm ap/heat etc.

while dark angelus isn't too happy with his arty being disabled by the hermes (or anything else) i'm not too happy with an indrect mortar shot from across the map raining death on a squad of bots....doesn't take any skill and the poor bots haven't a clue what to do their just sitting ducks.....the hermes is a nice counter to this.

--------next topic-----------

infantry are somewhat effective as is.......it's a lot of fun jumping into close combat and nadeing tank clusters at close range, very disruptive

--------moving on-----------

atgm's are fine as they are imho, some expendable chaff dispensers for each vehicle would be nice effective solution to them and hermes is a good counter

[yllamana]

Re: ATGMs, what if the minimum time to lock on was increased to something like 5 seconds? As it stands it seems *extremely* random (too much so I think). Sometimes you get a lock as soon as you take aim at them, and other times you're still there 10 seconds later trying to get it. And add some kind of ATGM lock-on warning to the target so they know to get out of the way.

[yurch]

But then we would need a way to turn off the warning, either for manual guidance or observation purposes.

Top attack mode is for geriatrics and little girls! Real men lean out the window and throw thier ATGMs!

[ClaytoniousRex]

Just finished some more testing and confirmed that the Hermes has not accidentally gained super powers:

</font>

• It CANNOT and never does shoot down 120mm HEAT or AP rounds. You can kill the Hermes at any range with 120 HEAT without any worries about its AAD. You can do a lot of good with 120 AP, too.</font>
• It is able to shoot down a limited number of lower velocity rounds such as 20mm but is never able to shoot down an entire burst. SOME of your rounds will ALWAYS make it through to the target.</font>

[dan/california]

Their is some confusion happening here because the laser tower does shoot down some 120 mm. I specifically recall watching it do so. Therefore a laser tower on a hill becomes the perfect place to camp with an ion thor. Which then can only be removed by another ion or close assault. This may be due in part to the uphill shot reducing the 120 mm velocity. I have not sorted it that deeply.

[yurch]

The laser tower isn't a hermes.

[yllamana]

The laser tower and the Galaxy shoot down regular shells. It's just that the Hermes hasn't gained super powers - the laser tower and Galaxy have always had them.

[dan/california]

I was referring to Adzling's post regarding assaulting a laser tower above. As is often the case this should probably be two threads.

[CrimsonDestiny]

Originally posted by yurch:

14mm barely has enough penetration to kill a dropship at respectable ranges. The things are suprisingly armored.

I see. But would slapping four of them on there and turning the hermes into something from the past negate the 14mm's weaknesses?

[aittam]

so warning for ATGM painting?

[Dark_au]

Adzling... I wasn't in a hurricane... didn't use one in that whole game. If you remember I had a go because your mate was crowing about getting revenge on me cos he killed my Thor. I'd stopped even trying to shoot at hit cos its pointless.

Hurricane is artillery, its assualt Artillery ( think Sturmgeschutz)

Yurch you are wrong about the intel on the modern battlefield. What about systems like JSTAR. What about internal tank systems like IVIS, CVIS.

Clay I'd retest that Hermes, I had one bat at least one HEAT away yesterday at about 6-7000m while I was shooting at Dirtana from the top of the hill in Haven.

I notice that no one comments on the fact that this invisible vehicle is able to detect the round anyway. If its invisible then it can't be broadcasting a signal capable of detecting these rounds ( or you'd just put a simple sensor on and all its EW is gone)

Maybe thats the easy sollution have the Hermes so that it has 2 modes, EW mode and AAD mode and make the 2 exclusive.

[yurch]

Originally posted by Dark_au:

Yurch you are wrong about the intel on the modern battlefield. What about systems like JSTAR. What about internal tank systems like IVIS, CVIS.

What? I don't see what that has to do with the fact we're fighting in a box cut off from the rest of the world. It is extremely easy to find where the enemy is, and extremely hard to complete any objectives without being seen - you do have to practically sit on them.

This is through simple LOS observation.

With gigantic artillery pieces relocating themselves around the map by dropship at will, how is anyone going to get anything done?

[Dark_au]

By using cohesive tactics. That was why I suggested the FO mode for Infantry.

Infantry scout out enemy artillery, Friendly artillery engages it. forcing it to withdraw or or be anihilated. This is the whole point of using tactical recon. The idea isn't to remain hidden but to choose where you get seen and why. Feint and counter feint. Get inside the enemies descision cycle and once they have lost the initiative you keep pushing until they collapse. This is the basis of all warfare.