PoE2 1.7 Vehicles Preview

[FBmantis]

PoE2 1.7 Vehicles Preview

Aircraft

.:UKR SU27 Flanker

SU 27 Fighter Variant
The SU 27 has an incredible roar as it taxis out of the hangar. Once it is up in the air, it has a cruising speed of just over 1000 mph and 1250 with full afterburners. The SU 27 Fighter is a strong anti-air platform with it's GSH-20 machine guns and 6 R271T1 Long Range AA Missiles. You'll find the Su27 to be a monster in the air and definitely an equal to the F22 and F18 combination.

Su 27 Bomber Variant
The SU 27 is definitely a jet that ground forces will fear. The KAB 250 bombs will impact large areas around the drop site, however it does have a long reload time to prevent spamming of bombs and they have broken the 6 bomb payload into 2 groups. In between bomb runs, it can use it's mean GSH-20-2 machine guns to strafe flags or even chase air targets with it's collection of R60 Short Range AA Missiles. The bomber makes it's appearance over the skies of Berezan, Odessa and under certain circumstances on Guardian.

.:US - F22 Raptor

F22 Fighter Variant
The F22 Fighter will have an immediate impact in the skies over Berezan Island and Assault on Odessa. With it's collection of 6 AIM-120 Long Range Missiles and M61A2 the Raptor is a terror in the air. As this has the long range missles, it will be an all out air killer. It cruises at roughly 1000 mph in normal cruise with up to about 1250 with full afterburners.

F22 Bomber Variant
The F22 Bomber is found currently in the Assault on Odessa map. Armed with the M61A2 and the Short Range Sidewinder missles it also carries a collection of Maverick guided bombs. These auto-lock to the enemy ground targets but are subject to being defeated by smoke countermeasures. If you are driving at a slow enough speed, you can just change the lock over to another vehicle by pitching your nose in the second vehicle's direction prior to the missle launch. Of the two, I prefer the F22 bomber as it allows you a lot more control over the action on the ground even though it has the weaker A2A missles.

.:US - F18 Hornet

- The FA-18 is extremely manueverable compared to the enemy SU's and is currently brought into play over Berezan Island. The FA-18 is a 2 seater that gives the M61A2 Machine gun and Sidewinder Short Range AA Missile control over to the pilot, while the second person has control over 8 laser guided bombs. As the bombs do not require a lock on, these bombs will hit regardless of an enemies countermeasures. The advantage that the FA-18 has is that it does not have to fly slow to get a lock-on. The disadvantage is that it requires solid communication between the pilot and naviagator over where the targets are at.

.: Changes to 1.15 Aircraft

- The most noticable changes to the existing jets will be the mirroring of the AA missiles from either side. The Frogfoot's bomb splash has been diminshed as well as it's bombs are now dropped in groups of 2's. Expect long delays between bomb uses, but how frogfoot pilots use the guns and missles between drops will separate the good pilots from the bad. The Tornado and the Eurofighter did receive tweaks to their speed and manueverability and the foxbat now has a reverse, but I expect to hear a lot more feedback around the previously mentioned changes to the Ukraine air.



Choppers

.:US - AH-6 Little Bird

- The Littlebird is known for it's agility and speed. It comes with twin miniguns, a small amount of rockets and a grenade launcher for the gunner to defend itself and help take out light targets. One if its main functions will be to assist the Cobra in it's attack capabilities...in particular the AH-6 will prove to be a menace to the UKR helicopters as it tears them up with its twin miniguns. Be carefull though, it may be very easy to fly but it's also extremely vulnerable to enemy fire. Also take note that the littlebird does not come with flares.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu96RgZAcbc

.:US - AH-1Z Super Cobra

- This upgraded version of the Cobra is the main attack helicopter for the USMC. As one would expect in PoE2 you will find a chopper that feels different from the other attack choppers...a Eurotiger clone this is not. The flight dynamics will yield a helicopter that will feel like a middle ground between the two other choppers. The cobra can climb quickly and has good speed. However turning is a tad stiff and climbing out of dives is much more risky... try to fly this beast like its the Eurotiger and you will run into problems.

Now as far as what armament the Cobra brings to the battlefield. This is another area in which it differs from the previous two choppers. You will not find AA missiles on the Cobra. A scary thought but its really not that big a deal...especially when you read about the AA changes in the "Changes to 1.15 choppers" section below. However you will find that the pilot gets an extra set of Hellfire heat seeking AT missiles compared to the other choppers. For the gunner they will only get the main chaingun to play with but rest assured it is extremely deadly and will tear up infantry and light vehicles in the blink of an eye.

.:UKR - W-3W Sokol

- This Polish multi-purpose helicopter is the latest addition to the Ukrainian air force. It's a transport helicopter but with plenty of firepower to defend itself. What it lacks in armor compared to the hind it makes up for in agility. For armament the current loadout gives the pilot both a GSH-30-2 cannon and 32 ARS 57 rockets. Yes the current version is indeed a monster. Expect to fly or have to fend off this new UKR transport chopper in both new and old maps.

.:US - UH-60 Blackhawk

- In 1.7 the Blackhawk is being called up for temporary duty. As always the vehicle has been given PoE2 specific coding to alter its flight dynamics and countermeasure system. Defensive capabilities come in the form of two miniguns in the gunner positions.

.: Changes to 1.15 Choppers

As far as the 1.15 choppers what has changed? Several things:

- The most important change in this testers opinion is the reduction in the amount of AA missiles both attack choppers carry. AA has been reduced to one set of four for both the Hind and the Eurotiger. This will allow both choppers to defend themselves still but no longer will chopper battles be solely won and lost by who spams AA the best. Both choppers should now be able to utilize their strengths after the AA has been used. Hind can fall back on its power and speed while the Eurocopter can leverage its agility and gunner cannon. Perhaps some pilots will choose to run away for repairs because the option is there now...no longer will one of the choppers be dead 5 secs after encountering the other. Another aspect of this change is now infantry will have more chances to take down enemy choppers...this will be a nice satisfaction bump for the infantry game.

- The Hind flight physics have changed a tad. Users should find it a bit easier to fly now. Its still the same beast ...just much more forgiving.

- There is now a second variant of the Hind that does not allow passengers. It will be up to the mapmakers on which version you will see on the various maps.

- Did I mention the Hind no longer teamkills everyone that jumps out of the passenger positions? Yep that has been fixed.



Armor

.:US - M1A2 Abrams

- This tank has some of the meanest audio attached to any vehicle with it's imposing growl. The Abrams comes stacked with 39 heap and 39 sabot rounds making it an absolute menace on the ground. Couple that with 2 gunner positions, one a 50 cal machine gun, the second an M240 machine gun and this will be a very strong battle platform for the US. With the recent changes to how vehicles repair one another, expect to see 2 engineers operating those guns. With teamwork, an Abrams will outlast any other tank on the battlefield.

.:US - LAV-25

- The US LAV is a placeholder from Vanilla, however it has been converted to POE with some very cool changes. First, it's been given a climbing gear which you can use to get around hills that the Ukraine APC's just can't reach. Along with that climbing gear you have a cool audio sound of air escaping everytime the apc changes gears. Secondly, the missile control has been converted to the person in the 2nd seat. The last piece is that the US LAV lacks a mini-gun of any sort from the driver but its cannons fire far quicker then the Ukraine's. The other passengers do however retain their miniguns that they use to shoot like traditional APC's.

.:US - AAVP7A1

- The AAVP makes a strong entrance for the US appearing in all US maps. It is extremely quick and agile in the water although the driver does suffer from an obstructed view. The enclosed gunner does get some toys that other light APC's lack in that it does including a very powerful MK19 grenade launcher and the M-2HB machine gun that will be nasty for any ground forces it runs into. These advantages turn this into the strongest vehicle in the class. This strength comes with the disadvantage that any other passengers cannot shoot out and the driver view is limited unless you use the exterior camera view.

.: Changes to 1.15 APC + Tanks

- The most noticable change will be that all tank shells now create a large crater decal that will last for up to 30 seconds. There can be a ton of these on the battlefield at times (see photo for an example). Secondly, the smoke countermeasures will be significantly more effective as D-Fast put a lot of work into increasing the smoke without impacting FPS. Quite a bit of work was placed into fixing hits that were not registering for all MBT's. A lot of effort went into updating the sounds generated from cannons and mini guns throughout the vehicle classes. Lastly, to the Heavy APC class is that the missile gunner has a zoom that they can use to bring their target in a little closer.

.: Changes to 1.15 Mobile AA

- The Gepard no longer can fire missiles and cannons at the same time as they have been separated. This change has allowed the mappers to place multiple Gepards on maps such as Sambir and Guardian. On top of that, new animations were added to missle launches on both the Sam 13 and the Gepard adding for some impressive effects. You will not see a US Mobile AA in the build at this time. The US will be using the Gepard on Assault on Odessa as a placeholder until a US specific model is created.




Other Vehicles

.:BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile

- The Tomahawk provides naval artillery support for the USMC. It's launched on the aircraft carrier and can be guided to it's targets manually. The missile is powerfull but it's speed is substantial making it more difficult to aim. It also has a long reload time(1 min) so know where your target is before you fire. The Tomahawk launchers are located in the center of the carrier command building. Use the stairs to get up and use your use key ( default e ) to get in. Careful where you aim...it will be very easy to rack up teamkills in this vehicle if you do not think about where you are firing. Below is a video of the tomahawk in action:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfMX8Z6uGQU

.:Arty Changes

- For the artillery vehicles 1.7 brings some major changes to the mod that will simplify the arty system to make it more user friendly. While the previous setup was interesting for those players who learned its quirks and used teamwork the majority of players found themselves using the vehicles as super tanks. This was mainly due to the buggy spotting code and reliance on a spotter to give a long range view.

Now in 1.7 all players will be able to operate the vehicle solo without a need to rely on a spotter or deal with the bugs and quirks that came about with the spotting system. Its a pretty simple setup...the vehicle now has two firing modes. The first is for your main explosive heap shells and the second is for smoke shells. Once you select your shell type all ya have to do is fire away and your shells are autotracked in the air so you can see where they hit. Adjust your aim for future shots and fire away. Below is a video that will show the new system in action.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5j_zfJSyoc

.:US and GER stationary AA

- In 1.7 all three armies will now have their own stationary AA guns to strike fear into the enemy air. For the USMC old poe1 players will recognize the M-167 VADS. Even though it has been retired from active service in the US military the dev team wanted to bring it back in “POE” time so that American team has something to play with. You will find two levels of zoom on this gun and you will receive HUD indicators on incoming enemy air threats. As for the Germans...they will get to play with a 20mm Flack gun called the Fk20. The Fk20 is somewhat similar to the UKR Zu23 but you'll find the higher rate of fire will likely help you take down enemy air in even quicker timeframes. You can see images of both AA emplacements below...Fk20 is the first set.

.:US - Humvee

- The preferred method of US transportation is of course the USMC Humvee. For now the Humvee is using a placeholder model. Coding wise like all the other placeholders the vehicle has been given PoE2 specific coding so the vehicle will move faster then its vanilla counterpart. As expected the gunner up top will find a brutal 50 cal to play with.






From your friends over at TacticalGamer,

~ |TG-5th|Luckyshot , |TG-12th|mantis , POE Testers

[Daarken]

Nice Job..
Sticky this

[Santa]

Tomahawks! Oh my god thats awesome. Will tomahawks essentially be the USMC's artillery, or will maps with tomahawks also have standard artillery guns?

[WhiskeySix]

Only one map has it - Berezan Island. And yes, it's the replacement for artillery. There are actually TWO tomahawk launchers, so in theory, if coordinated, you could have a two man squad put some big hurt on priority targets.

The other thing to note is that the gunner in the Super Hornet gets a missle that's "TV guided", similar to (but not the same as) the old TV-Missles in the Vanilla attack helo's.

It's not all bad for ground forces though. There is AA everywhere... Four deadly SA7 pickup kits across the map plus static AA guns. Plus the Su27 and F-22 don't really have any Air-to-Ground capabilities to speak of... just AA Missles and guns.

[Lucky Shot]

One of the two SU's has a rack of 6 bombs. They are mean mean mean.

Lucky Shot

[WhiskeySix]

whoop. ok then.. managed to avoid meeting that guy