June 3, 2024 - PTS Update (2024)

Feedback:

Deployment

Deployment Dome

Consider making this shield start at 0 hitpoints when the Sunderer deploys and charge to its full strength over time. The current state, where deploying gives full hitpoints instantly, gives the Sunderer too much ambush power. In testing, an ambush with dual trawlers was able to defeat a Kingsnake/Gatekeeper Prowler with Barrage active, and this combination has the highest DPS output among tanks.

Stealth
My main worry about this module is that it could stack with reinforced plating for ambushes, but this is a problem with reinforced plating

Point Defense
I genuinely don't believe this ability can be balanced. The Walker's velocity increases to 2000 m/s, the Bulldog reaches 200 m/s (HESH velocity), and the Fury hits 250 m/s (AP shells). This gives the Sunderer way too much reach and damage output against tanks, aircraft and especially infantry.

Armor

Reinforced plating

This skill is incredibly overtuned. In testing, a Reinforced Armor/Point Defense/Repair tower was able to defeat a shielded JGX/Enforcer/Nimitz Vanguard without dropping below 4000 hitpoints, which is utterly ridiculous. Please consider reducing the damage reduction to 20% instead of 40%.

Additionally, this skill does not seem to correctly reduce the damage taken by tank mines.

Nanite Armor

This was broken and behaving similarly to nanite auto-repair, with a long delay before starting regeneration after taking damage.

See Also

No Man’s Sky (Switch): all the updates (latest: Ver. 4.7x Hotfixes)ARK: Survival Ascended (PS5)Read Break for Home (Innate Wright Book 2) Page 3 online freeThe Stormbreakers - Chapter 10 - Macavity116

That said, I don't think a continuous 175 hp/s heal rate is a good idea. Remember, Sunderers with the proximity repair module repair at 75 hp/s instead of 150 hp/s since dual repair buses were incredibly hard to kill. Further, remember the initial state of the Berserker implant, which created scenarios where MAX players were nearly unstoppable due to constant healing.

Additionally, this skill can stack with engineers and repair towers, giving 492 hp/sec of healing. This is enough healing to repair tank the Dalton, which is a bit excessive.

I strongly suggest reducing the heal rate significantly, or reducing/stopping healing for a period after taking damage.

Reactive Armor

This ability was bugged on PTS. Indirect damage rather than direct damage was breaking the panels.

Conceptually I like this the best out of all the new skills, though it needs quite a bit of tuning. I do like the concept of repairing reactive to regenerate it more quickly- this gives me nice BF3 flashbacks.

I believe reactive armor is far too weak against low damage/high fire rate weapons such as the Mjolnir, Fury, Enforcer, Pelter/ESF rocket pods, the C75 Viper, Kingsnake/Kingsnake L, Satyr, P2-120 HEAT, and even A2A missiles such as Hyenas and Coyotes. The damage elimination is almost irrelevant when the first hit (which might only deal 100 damage) breaks the reactive armor.

I'm not exactly sure how this ability works, but I'd suggest retuning this skill based on total damage blocked rather than weapon damage type.

Cargo

Ammo tower

This is almost completely irrelevant due to the existence of the Ammo Printer implant, the ANT's Deliverer resupply skill, and the Galaxy ammo dispenser.

Proximity Radar
Conceptually this is not a bad idea, since the module can only be placed wherever you can get a Sunderer and it's not very durable. This is a significant improvement over the existing Sunderer Proximity Radar.
The tooltip should be updated to indicate that it uses similar mechanics to the recon detection device, whose tooltip states ``The Recon Detection Device's dart pulses every 3.25 seconds to momentarily detect the location of fast-moving enemies, including cloaked infiltrators, in a 25 meter radius.``

I don't see much use for this, given that the range of the infiltrator's detection devices is equivalent and those devices are far easier to place. I think the solution here is to greatly nerf the ranges of those two infiltrator tools.

Repair Tower

I'm going to be blunt- this is a very bad idea. The whole point of bringing repair buses along with tanks is to have repairs while moving. There are dozens of sources of chip damage that take little skill to use and the terrain itself deals serious damage to vehicles, and the repair bus offsets both. Additionally, vehicle firepower over the years has steadily increased, and the repair buses help small groups survive in an increasingly lethal environment.

The new repair tower encourages players to remain stationary, and passive armor play is already a significant problem on the live servers. It eliminates the ability of vehicles to disengage or reset engagements and allows them to become pinned down.

If you are not able to reduce the number of chip damage sources or reduce the firepower on the battlefield, please return to the classic proximity repair module.

Alternatively, consider reworking the cargo module to provide a high repair rate when deployed and a slower repair rate when mobile.

Shield Disruptor

I like this as a concept, though it needs improvement. The current Gate Shield Diffusor is designed to allow a sunderer to break through both the outer and inner shields at an amp station, but the Shield Disruptor Tower does not easily allow you to do this.

Secondly, what's going to happen to the Harasser/Flash/ANT Gate Shield Diffusor modules?

My co-testers and I believe the Disruptor works by granting the effect for X seconds after entering the tower's radius, and the best approach is probably to increase the duration of the effect. Alternately, please consider increasing the radius in which the effect can be applied.

I do like that the effect remains briefly even if the tower is destroyed, even though it eliminates the possibility of "bagel slicer" strategies.

Other stuff

Performance modules

Vehicle performance has long been a major problem for new players, and I do think combining the effects of both Rival and Racer chassis and building them into the baseline performance is a great idea. That said, the sunderer could use a bit more speed. As it stands, Racer Vanguards are about 2 KPH faster, while Prowlers and Lightnings are about 10 KPH faster. The Sunderer should be able to at least keep pace with the faster tanks for the sake of squad cohesion and a limited ability to escape enemy vehicles.

Please consider increasing the top speed to ~75 kph.

Sounds

The new Basilisk sound is much better than the previous iterations. I think that adding slightly more bass will give it a bit more punch, and in such a state it'll finally sound like an autocannon instead of a crazed drummer.

The Ranger, on the other hand, does not sound very powerful. Please consider adjusting this sound to have less "clack" and more "boom". After all, it's a 40mm cannon and should sound like one.

Final thoughts

Please, take a month and iterate significantly on this update. This is your chance, Toadman, to prove you can take care of the game in the way the previous team could not. An update with proper iteration will buy you quite a bit of time, but another "two weeks on PTS and then shipped to live regardless of feedback" episode similar to what we experienced during the 2020-2023 era is going to burn whatever faith the community has in you.