Vehicle surfing

[Kriemhild Gretchen]

During one match in walls, I was playing as Nod and doing pretty good. It was a fun game overall, though neither team had succeeded in knocking down buildings. Then an Orca with at least six people on top of it flew in and landed on our power plant. It was soon knocked down as there really wasn't much we could do against it.

I'd like a statement from the devs on whether or not this is intended, and if not, when it will be patched. I'm not angry about it, it's pretty clever, but it's pretty unbalanced and difficult to effectively counter without a warning beforehand. I don't really think it's a problem with ground vehicles, though. After all, soldiers do ride on tanks to get from place to place, though not in a battle as tanks are rocket magnets. But on aircraft, far past the intended capacity, there's a problem.

[Truxa]

I'm a fan of banning this behaviour, but as I understand it, it's unintended but accepted as an "advanced tactic" by the server owners.

BTW, it's easily countered when you are a raveshaw or sakura, 5 ramjetshots kill an orca. It just means, there wasnt anyone actively defending with 1k characters when you lost your powerplant.

[Goku]

On my server I dont have a major problem with the surfing in general but when they repair from the top of the Orca to make it invincible I take issue with that.

Edit: Typo

Edited August 19, 2014 by Guest

[MajorLunaC]

I feel stupid for not thinking of trying those things! It IS excessive. Imagine 6 techs on an apache. I would say make only vehicles do team damage, but it seems there are only drunk drivers everywhere (don't want to be the tech repairing the back of your tank). The only current limit is a weight limit, as described in another post: You can carry only small vehicles with a single aircraft, while larger ones are too heavy and you need to use 2 at once. Maybe make humans weigh a ton (although I say you change the models too then ... Sumo Sakura, Beer-Gut Havoc, HotcakesWire, etc.).

Another way might be to make the tops super-slippery, like ice.

[DKrumpp]

I feel stupid for not thinking of trying those things! It IS excessive. Imagine 6 techs on an apache. I would say make only vehicles do team damage, but it seems there are only drunk drivers everywhere (don't want to be the tech repairing the back of your tank). The only current limit is a weight limit, as described in another post: You can carry only small vehicles with a single aircraft, while larger ones are too heavy and you need to use 2 at once. Maybe make humans weigh a ton (although I say you change the models too then ... Sumo Sakura, Beer-Gut Havoc, HotcakesWire, etc.).

Another way might be to make the tops super-slippery, like ice.

There's too little space for an outrageous number like six people on an apache. Three or two is more in the right ballpark. Besides, the amount of punishment that said engies/techs/hotwires can take is... much less that required to gut the orca/apache itself. Splash damage alone from homing rockets (rocket troopers, stank, MRLS...) can kill surfers rather easily.

I know this from vehicle surfing myself of course, as most pilots seem to forget a surfer is, IN FACT, outside of the armored shell!

[cncforever]

This is fun, it does not need to be patched out of existance, it just needs to be balanced.

I think that all unusual tactics should be encouraged as long as there is a way to counter it. The 6 Hotties made the Orca invincible so of course, not much could be done but if only a few Hotties could surf then they would need to be more careful, duck, move around to avoid gun fire and some would have been taken down by snipers or Marksmen. This was clearly not intended but I think it adds more potential to the game once it has been balanced.