Viper DS

[yllamana]

So last night we were playing around with the Viper. Pretty interesting craft, and it turns out that with a Hurricane attached it makes for an effective aerial bombardment platform:

Is this intentional? It's very hilarious, either way. Maybe you want to disable the weapons systems of vehicles attached to the Viper. The bots, the ATGM vehicles in particular, are capable of shooting down the Viper while attached to it (the ATGM's initial vertical trajectory makes it ideal for shooting down your own dropship).

So, thoughts on the Viper.

First, it really needs chaff/flares. Up in the sky it attracts every single ATGM on the entire map. They have some difficulty hitting it, but with the magic insta-turn missiles they can get there eventually.

Second, the flight system is really interesting. However, I think it's buggy. Very frequently the Viper will not attempt to turn towards the mouse pointer, making it very difficult to steer. Also, I think the main difficulty in flying the Viper is how slowly it does turn. It feels very cumbersome even when not loaded, not at all like a futuristic craft.

I like the flight system very much, but it needs to turn towards the mouse quicker.

The other problem seems to be the reward ratio of it. Realistically, what can you do with the Viper? I suppose you could drop a Hermes in an area with strong AA cover and no other defenders, but you could just deploy outside the area an drive it in, or kill the turrets with an ion vehicle.

You can pick up the flag carrier and fly away - I did a daring high-speed grab of a Shrike with the flag (he subsequently shot me down with the ATGM launcher, leading to his grisly demise) and that has some reward, or you could just support him with a real unit instead.

You could relocate a unit across the battlefield, but he could just do that on his own by extracting and redeploying, which would not require a player to be in the Viper and would likely be quicker.

Also, the way the Viper deploys - it appears high in the air, then descends agonisingly slowly while being blasted to pieces by long-range bot fire. It's reasonably rare to deploy a Viper anywhere near an enemy bot (I'm talking further away than you can effectively drop a normal unit, here) without sustaining damage. I think it should just give the pilot immediate control so that it isn't so vulnerable.

On top of that, is it necessary for the Viper to be so limited in quantity? You seem to get about 6 of them per map. I don't see any harm in doubling or even tripling the number of Vipers available (heck they seem to have enough of them to waste on drop and extract missions). I say this because they seem like a very fun addition to the game, but they're limited in so many ways that it seems like they might as well not be there at all.

There's still a bug in the game where the Viper starts behaving erratically while holding a hover vehicle (we obviously were using the Hurricane) except when you're pressing the stabilise/brake key. We had effects ranging from a slight wobbling to full-blown out of control spinning (think 5+ revolutions per second).

The Viper also has, I think, too strong a tendency to go head over heels when it touches the ground, even at low speeds. Maybe that's just me but it seems to flip very, very easily.

Anyway, I thought it'd be good to have a discussion of this very fun but ultimately apparently nearly useless vehicle.

[RiflemanIII]

Well, the viper can be used to independantly capture the flag, as shown by yurch. Clay was also able to pick up the flag carrier and tow him back to our own in one game as well, though he'd know better what kind of resistance was on the ground during that run.

[Bastables]

Viper is very multi pourpose.

It can do independent flag grab, grab the flag carrier. Grab the enemy's vehs and drop them from great hights. Adding chaff/flares to the thing would make it monstrous on a ctf map.

From watching yurch the past 48 hours with the thing i don't think making it more survible or easier to fly would "balance" things at all.

Also realisticly if aircraft were more survivable in this "world" what would be the point of all these ground vehs? The Air should be utterlly lethal and attacking on objective maps vurses a compatant comader show this.

on a balance thing im not sure doubling to 12 vipers is so sexy a idea. Just thinking in relation to it's common player driven killer the atgm carriers they'd be one for one. (iirc 6 shrike and 6 paladin atgm veh).

Vipers from what I've seen fall prey to AAA towers ion and missle and atgm pilot error and the auto gun of the hermes. The aaa turrents cant rotate fast enough when vipers are moving at top speeds.

[ April 11, 2006, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Bastables ]

[yurch]

I've gotten somewhat decent with the thing, but I find very little use for it other than comedy option #1: flinging enemy units about. In capture the flag you can capture the flag directly with it (land on it) or provide evacuation for a flag carrier, but that's about it.

And yes, (for those who don't know) while carrying a hermes, you are safe inside the jam radius, so you can drop the hermes in extreeeeme enemy AA territory for the team to have a jammer to drop safely under. If no enemies are nearby you can basically drop the cutter right on a tower. Good luck getting away once you leave the radius, though, if it's by an ATGM or ion tower. I do this for the big hill on the green map if it's one of those days where defenders feel like bottling up the entire region.

If you're really feeling bad-ass, you can drop players into hot areas covered with the deployed turrets. Those turrets aren't very good at hitting constantly manuvering targets, so there's more chance of getting the player in than if he just tried to conventially drop in. Bad news is that you'll usually be in a hurry, so he often ends up on his turret or permanently attached to your corpse.

On the cable, it has some problems. First is that if viper dies, the cable stays attached. This is annoying for the guy attached, and especially annoying in the rare occurance a dead viper lands on top of you and you get connected somehow. When the viper fades away your engine remains locked, even if you aren't attached anymore. That's probably a bug.

The cable could use a bit of play, too, if possible. It acts like a stick now, and that sickening jump that occurs if you connect to a craft while the tip of the cable is in the ground can sometimes get you killed, and at the very least looks kind of dumb.

I don't like flying hurricanes(I have NO problem with flinging one a few thousand meters, though) both because of the twisting bug and because the hurricane shell likes to explode in mid-barrel every once in a while. Perhaps the velocity gets high enough for the craft to hit the shell, I'm not sure. Most players don't seem accurate enough to hit with the conventional weaponry at high enough velocities to avoid fire (bots sometimes can, though), so the viper really isn't that great a platform for firing. Haven't had a chance to try myself, there aren't many people willing to fly me. (edit #685: letting us carry turrets for this purpose?)

It does make an excellent scout. You can easily 'paint' the majority of the map, and if you have a commander he can relay this information and drop support accordingly. Clay, this is why the swear filter shouldn't censor "mass".

ATGM's may be dangerous but ground fire from ions will end the viper's existance very quickly. I try to stay out of the way if I'm idling about in the thing, and don't generally fly really high unless I'm moving quickly or trying to avoid some other type of fire. Hermes completly erases the viper for obvious reasons.

I'd rather not have that high an availibilty to it, it's a little annoying to have the sky saturated with bouncing vipers all trying to grab anything on the ground.

But, I'm feeling the same way as yllamana. There's very little reward for the team for using it (other than offensive tank-flinging), especially when a standard drop is quicker and usually safer as there's no pilot error. I'd love for a flyable galaxy style point defense, I can see 'aerial shield' being an interesting role. But then, you've got a vehicle immune to ATGM running around that will bust enemy dropships left and right - too much potential for abuse if you consider the layout of the ice map. Adding a jammer to it would make it too easy to snatch enemy tanks, and none of the AA (including hermes) would function against it.

Edit: I usally think in terms of the objective gametype. In CTF the viper really should be part of any strategy, as it shaves 5 minutes off a flag run.

[ April 11, 2006, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[poesel]

Does anyone remember the game 'virus' for the archimedes and later the amiga?

That thing was hard to fly: it had one thruster downwards but you could tilt it in every direction up to 180 degrees.

Combine that with the physic of 'thrust' with the ball attached (another game you probably remember and you have a viper thats a lot of fun but not too good to dominate the game.

[inktomi19d]

I really don't think the Viper ought to be able to carry enemy vehicles. No real reason, there's just very little most vehicles can do about it. It's about as fun as getting 1-shotted by a Hurricane, except there's less defense against it and you're out of the fight longer.

I'm not very keen on it working on flag-carriers either. Much of the fun in CTF is the chase. Having to dodge a whole team dropping on you with one of your wheels shot out is fun. Getting carried from one end of the field to the other isn't.

I can't really give a reason why those two things shouldn't be the way they are, except that both of them limit the participation of other players. The Viper really functions in a whole different space from everything else.

[poesel]

I have tried the Viper another time but accomplished nothing more than flinging myself to the ground.

So if yurch doesn't make a Howto-fly-the-Viper thats it for me. I'd rather have a WWI style plane with a fix-fitted 20mm or ion than that unwieldly hulk.

[yurch]

Well, it's flown kinda like a helicopter. The crosshair location controls pitch and yaw. This means if you point the crosshair down and to the left, the craft will tip forward and try to turn left. You want to keep the mouse mostly level with the horizon if you can, and by 'mostly level' it's your best guess - there's no indicator. The craft seems to have about 3 or 4 levels of forward 'tip' it likes to default to despite where you have the mouse. If you want to go faster, you may have to put the cursor a little further down than expected.

This cursor tipping means you will not be able to look around for any extended periods of time. Move the camera as far away from the craft in 3rd person (g key) as you can, and use numpad to glance around if you have to.

If you type or check the map, the craft tends to lurch, (northwards?) so do those FAST. It also may lurch if you leave the crosshair without input in one location too long.

wasd controls elevation and left and right tilt. If you're just starting out, don't use a and d for anything other than keeping the craft from tipping too much in turns or for slight corrections in a pickup attempt.

In this craft you have to think ahead, every tilt you make on the controls is going to have an effect on your movement for at least the next couple seconds. Do everything in moderation, wild movements is just going to cause you to miss that pickup or flip the craft. Forward momentum carries very far unless you tip against it.

b extends/cuts the pickup cable.

The brake keys (x or L for lock) have a function too, which I just only recently found out about. They attempt to bring the craft to a stop by countertipping it against momentum and locking it's rotation. If you find yourself in trouble, gain some altitude and apply the brake - this is probably the most useful feature of the craft and I wish I found out about it earlier.

The brake is also good for slowing the craft on the way into a pickup approach. Just make sure that mouse is level when you release it. Sideways correctional motion can be made by mere taps of a and d on the way in, but don't overdo it or you'll be swinging back and forth. High speed snatches are usually unsucessful, you'll have more luck snapping up even enemy craft(most can't shoot high enough anyway) if you take you time.

I don't recommend trying to physically land the craft at any time. It's balanced funny and it's default non-input behavior tends to make it wander off at ground level. The next best thing is to lock the brake and control altitude very carefully.

Ion towers kill the viper almost immediately, so you have to be careful not to wander in the range of those or the ATGM tower. You have to spot hermes manually, but seeing large clusters of enemies without radar signature is a good hint. The placable turrets aren't much threat unless you're moving low in a straight line or moving slowly. The hermes is by far the best thing to fly around as it removes your radar signature and any threat of automated AA. Many players are happy to fly around with you once or twice provided you aren't plowing them into walls or dropping them on thier turret. Bots in thors are easy to pickup as they move predictably, so you can practice on those if you don't want to bother players.