Source
r/Planetside•
Painwalker

Dumb idea, but might bring interesting discussion: Battle Drop-pods

Don't think it's really that feasible at all, but I'm only one person, so I'm tossing this out there. At the very least it might spawn better ideas for something else, so there's value in that.

Also did you know that kills via drop-pod is a stat? I only recently found out, and thought it was weird that there was no way to specialize in it at all, even if it would be silly.

Anyways, if we can customize everything else, why not drop-pods? Space battles in the future might be a thing, so who knows how it would play out. Drop-podding in might be more common with owned space stations or something, so why not have some customization and functionality?

Faster drops, or slower drops with more control, or drop-pods that, when landing on the ground, deploy into simple, temporary cover like a vehicle (replacing any vehicle ownership you did have). Maybe portable shield type of drops. Maybe you can call in ammo drops with limited supply and have it fill up grenades and mines, but costs resources and it easy to explode. Maybe even any of these things that you can call in without having to be inside them, but remotely control them much like you already do but with your body on the ground looking at a screen or something.

Any thoughts? Discuss.

Posted Jan 15, 2013, 11:27 PM UTC

3239
5baserush•

Drop pods that deliver and deploy into small cover for a fire team or squad would be really cool. This would really add to the epic feel of the game and open up some cool tactical possibilities.

26
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Considering the terrain issue, it would have to be handled carefully. Even if we allowed the players to put them where they wanted, it wouldn't be fun if the expensive ammo-center/temporary-cover exploded because it hit a pebble in the terrain.

But yeah, we need more field support options, and it would be nice to have an extra use for the spawn beacons besides the one-time jump for the next couple of hours or whatever.

10
Arsine•

This would be a great feature for the mobile app. I'd love to drop my brothers some crap while at work.

7
KazumaKatConnery, all•

^ THIS SO VERY MUCH SOE! You can have a multi-platform experience for Planetside 2, allowing those on the go to participate in the battle in a meaningful way.

Outfit calls for ammo/repair/heal pod, a member in the outfit is out, sees the notice on his app, pulls the app and map up, keys it in, helping his outfit.

You can even extend this to a outfit/friendslist management app, with abilities like keying in a multi-pod drop for a squad's worth, etc.

EDIT: Why not drop a drop-pod that is a medium-duration turret once on the ground? That would be a highly meaningful contribution to the fight.

5
DJSlambertTechAlpha[Sons Of Liberty](Waterson)•

It would have to be very carefully balanced. Either a very long cooldown, or, hell, I'd even be willing to pay 50sc each time, or some other nominal fee

0
Mofptownhelios VAST VictorianDelorean •

Like reapply drops in tribes ascend I loved those things

5
larkeithGenudine•

*supply drops

4
Mofptownhelios VAST VictorianDelorean •

I meant re-supply but yeah your right thanks

2
larkeithGenudine•

Actually, spawn beacons have a maximum cooldown of three minutes, and this can be decreased by certing into it.

2
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Sure, but after everyone spawns in, it would be nice to be able to have some use out of it for the people who are still alive in that time lol

1
mightysnufflesTEST•

Yea! This would be great! This should be implemented immediately. You drop your pod down and deploy cover so you have something safe to fire from. The battle is intense, but you've managed to pick off a couple of kills in relative safety, and then you hear that distict sound that means your imminent death approaches. "NO, Magrider! This is for cover, not for sweet mag boost jumps putting you in even more awkward places than before."

1
Ennkey[GOLF]Ennkay - Mattherson•

How about drop pods that drop an entire squad?

13
smashybashy•

And contain a little automated turret?

3
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Well maybe not an automated turret...a manned one would probably do, though.

1
[deleted]•

Don't they call those Galaxies? ;)

2
Ennkey[GOLF]Ennkay - Mattherson•

Think of space marines, it's totally bad assed

1
jkidd08•

keep everyone in an individual droppod, but hold the first one "on orbit" until they're all ready to go and release them all simultaneously very closely together, with a empty unit with ammo/support for the squad to establish a foothold at the landing zone before they move on to their objective.

1
ArctornHelios•

I'd love cosmetics for my pod too, along with cert trees for cool abilities like those described. Party lights, fancy camo, streamers; it'd be a nice way to spice up an entrance.

Extra armor and duration, higher damage on impact or an explosion on impact, short-duration bubble shields, etc., the possibilities are endless and can incorporate some other neat ideas like deploy-able inventory stations.

12
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

I can imagine that drop pods coming in with dragon-fire-like trails and bright red/blue/purple colours would be a sight to see at night, certainly. Also a lot more intimidating.

7
[deleted]•

I'd like to see pods that can act as various turrets, similar to phalanx turrets on a tower. You could call them down with a marker flare that you place on the ground and when it drops, it is accessible to one user who can then begin firing it in a 360* rotation.

And perhaps even a cluster-pod, that randomly scatters landmines in a small 50m area to act as ground control against infantry.

8
moldyredditor[ZV] miracleman (Soltech)•

these are really good ideas, and wouldn't break the game... I imagine an infiltrator getting behind enemy lines, putting up a drop beacon for landmines, and getting tons of kills from it though... even 10 bouncing betties appearing suddenly ontop of the crown would be... jarring to the defenders, to say the least.

the interesting thing with this drop-pod mechanic though, is that you can't use them indoors... which is where this would become entirely too overpowered.

2
The_Word_JTRENTNCSO•

I can totally see this not being okay at all. Knowing how our outfit does coordinated mass drops onto bases or in specific areas near a base, I can imagine all the game-breaking hell this could cause.

Mass drop of pods with turrets onto the landing pads of a tower (even a base's outter edges)... suddenly that base is screwed in 10 seconds because everyone is firing towards the center, completely wiping all units.

Mass drop of pods that scatters landmines spread apart at a strategic distance from each other. A wild gangbang of explosions, mass death, and vehicle wiping occurs.. with almost no chance to do anything about it.

Idk, man. Maybe if you limit how many can be deployed by a squad/platoon in an area, the way a sundy's deploy is limited. Even then, a coordinated outfit can just disband their squad (even if you don't allow lone wolves to do it, then you could have multiple squads of two) and abuse the mechanic/advantage.

Just seems a little unbalanced to me.

1
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Yeah this is largely why it would be better to restrict such things to only be useful to active players. No automated anything, and if you have mines it only replenishes the ones you can place, so that normal limits of what can normally happen apply to keep them from being overpowered.

The only thing I would suggest when it comes to this kind of stuff is to slow down the descent to the ground to allow players a chance to shoot it out of the sky, with less hitpoints than a lib. The maximum number of these you would see would be restricted to the number of players, so you wouldn't end up with more of them than you would ESFs.

The only problem is that yeah, you would have to put some restrictions on where they land to prevent players from being able to easily set up shop behind enemy entrenchment, otherwise you end up with the same problem as when the Galaxy was an AMS.

1
Myswingingdiphthong•

The doors opened in front of me and the air was sucked out of the drop bay, scattering crystals of frozen vapor across my path. I can't describe what it feels like to look directly down at a world, falling continuously as you circle it, with barely fifteen centimeters of armor plate protecting you. When the magnetic locks disengaged on my droid I plunged out of the drop bay towards the battle that waited below.

7
Spazerbeam•

How about drop pods that deploy you with a Flash? Seems like it'd be a fun idea without being overly broken.

5
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Considering the flash already goes pretty much anywhere....

1
DeusCaelum•

I really like the idea of stuff falling out of the sky. It really adds to the scale when we can imagine vessels orbiting the planet and resupplying/assisting our troops. I have a well established fetish for falling out of planes and the idea of being resupplied out of the sky by an unknown agent is delightful. What I'd love to see is the ability to para-drop vehicles out of galaxies. More amazing would be seeing half a dozen MAX units HALO* dropping out of Galaxies.

*High altitude, low opening

Edit: Also: I really appreciate things in game that are very difficult to perfect but very rewarding when perfected. So for things like deploy-able bunkers, they should be very useful but incredibly difficult to properly land where you want them. Like the sequence for instant-action dropping but instead it brings up the map, you pick an area and try like hell to sail it in perfectly. If you suck it lands on a mountain 200m away, perfect it and you have an instant bunker wherever you need it,

4
DeusCaelum•

On a similar note to my edit: for the HALO jumping max units: you can choose to deploy your parachute at whatever altitude you like but if deploy too late you end up as a pancake(but deploying later makes it more accurate(high risk, high reward)) or you can pussy out and deploy parachute at 500m but be forced to land wherever your parachute takes you.

2
shadyhorse•

No Geneva convention. Free parachute dangling certs! :)

2
wooda99We Can Take The Sky From You•

Deploying temporary defenses when you deploy? Maybe these drops cost infantry points?

4
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Absolutely they should, otherwise we'd see a glut of them all the time.

4
Terr_Terr [DPS0] (Helios)•

The problem with drops is terrain geometry etc. Think about how annoying it already can be to place ammo-packs and MANA turrets.

That said, I'd love to be able to call in an ammo-pack by spending some Infantry Resources, especially when behind enemy lines as an infiltrator or light-assault.

Obviously these call-ins should not be able to deal damage like drop-pods can, or it'd be exploitable and frustrating.

3
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

Oh, I totally agree on the damage part. I'm against anything passively doing damage without another player's direct action, or at the very least, a chance to disarm or avoid it (like mines).

Yeah the terrain does suck sometimes when it comes to pods, but so far it isn't too bad with the basic function, so sprucing that up wouldn't be too bad.

2
bishop252Icey252•

I want a sunderer cert that turns it into an APC from BF2142. A short explanation for people who don't know what I'm talking about. APCs from BF2142 have the ability to eject people from the vehicle in drop pods, they essentially shoot you upwards and you guide the drop pod to the ground.

Would make sunderer's tactical siege engines capable of launching people onto upper levels of towers, scaling walls, scaling cliffs, etc. Further upgrades could increase the height launched and distance able to travel.

3
jkidd08•

distance able to travel -> fuel, let players have a learning curve to climb so that experienced players with that function can pull off some crazy maneuvers by learning how to optimize fuel consumption

1
larkeithGenudine•

Howsabout drop pods that cost resources but can act as a low-hp mobile spawn point, similar to the AMS sunderer?

Also, perhaps a cert to add airbrakes, slowing down descent, or to increase fall speed?

Or, increased armor/damage, or better handling? Some sort of parachute that, when activated, causes a slow, controlled, but highly vulnerable descent from that altitude? Hell, even some sort of explosion on landing could be useful.

The possibilities are, in effect, endless.

3
PainwalkerOPAzure Twilight - Emerald (Mattherson)•

I would be concerned about that mostly because when the Galaxy was an AMS spawn in the beta, the zerg endlessly flowed from it and it was nearly impossible to remove while giving ridiculous advantage and removed battle lines, since you could move past enemy entrenchment too easily and set up in a place too close to their targets.

Airbrakes or slow descent, or even increased drop speed would be interesting.

1
Bandit1379[PG] LONG LIVE PLANETSIDE•

This is something I've thought of before and would love to see. Customizable drop pods that act as a mini bunker for a short period of time, just enough to let you get your bearings and maybe kill a person or two.

2