A thought about the hover-copter, and how the back seat could be better.

[Aetrion]

So, the new hover-copter design is pretty cool, but it does have one fundamental issue in my opinion, and that's the awful rear gunners position.

Having played a lot of Planetside 2 as a Liberator pilot and gunner my experience has pretty consistently been that flying in the rear gunner's position in a video game is just not fun at all. You're basically stuck in a seat that is only useful if the pilot has already completely screwed up. There is nothing the pilot can deliberately do to give you an opportunity to attack that doesn't put the aircraft in a much worse position than it would be in if it had done its best to keep all enemies on one side of it. Sitting around waiting for your pilot to make a horrible mistake is not enjoyable.

However, I think there is a good solution to it. Since the spider tank has two modes of movement and firing we already know that vehicles will include the functionality to transform, and that means the rear gun could be mounted so that it swings down in flight to change its position from back to front facing. The Jigabachi Helicopter from Ghost in the Shell does this with this huge rotary cannon mounted on its tail section.

So essentially you'd have this:

Doing this:

I think this even works really well with the existing twin boom design, because the turret could be pulled up in between the two tails of the hover-copter, and then lowered down when the gun is needed to provide extra firepower up front.

I think this would really substantially improve the aircraft, because it will make the rear gunners position actually fun to use, and not the kind of thing where, yes, you're useful in an emergency, but there is really no fun in having nothing to do unless things have already gone horribly wrong.

 

[Pandagnome]

This is new to me looks very cool, i like this idea of the rear pilot to be able to support the pilot better it could carry a risk too being underneath as you would have less cover and exposed than the rear and that could be a calculated risk to provide more firepower or be more useful to your team.



What if the rear gunner can be more mobile as it actually disengages off the craft but tethered using some electric or magnetic connection. So the rear pilot looks much more mobile of its pod like unit.

Being so mobile carries the risk of:

- Being the main target than the craft itself
- Breaking tethered connection
- Shield strength reduced for higher mobility and rapid fire

Just a thought.

 

[zdoofop]

or just make it a smaller, single-pilot craft.

 

[Wyntyr]

What if...the rear turret placement was removed from it's directly rear position and was replaced by being able to adjust between a top-rearish to a bottom rearish position by the turret operator?

Basically the player in that position gets to choose between top or bottom firing positions and can switch between them if need be. I.E. For flying enemies above the craft the player can pick the top position and when enemies above taken care of can switch to the bottom position to fire upon Tsi-Hu/Kaiju below the craft.

 

[Aetrion]

The main issue is whether or not the pilot can create a situation where both gunners can attack the same target, because if that isn't the case one of the seats will always be damned to be boring to ride in unless your pilot screws up.

It's sort of like trying to play a healer in a game where all enemy attacks can be avoided. It just isn't fun, because you're basically just training wheels. At a really high level of play your presence holds the group back, because people don't need the heals, but you're not providing them with extra damage either. You need to make a game where healing is predictably and inevitably needed for a healer to actually be useful. But in order to make a rear gunner predictably and inevitably useful you have to basically create enemies that always swarm you, no matter what, and that takes away the pilot's ability to do a good job.

 

[Pandagnome]

This is an issue when flying the rail jack in warframe, the side guns where not as good and the front gun where the pilot is usually nice, and there is another Cannon that needs good aiming so if the pilot moves ofsets the gunners aim and there goes a missed high energy shot oops.

Have the option to move into different as mentioned

- Below the craft good for taking out ground units and anything underneath the craft
downside is flying too low can cause damage to that area perhaps.

- Above the craft good for taking out units above and around easier target for flying enemies

I'd think having it either above or below the craft could give the gunner better view from a range of angles.
Since it can still fire from the front, back and sides and below and for the top position the same but except below.

Otherwise Instead of the gunner changing position could just be inside the craft and the guns position could be changed and also conceal itself inside the craft when not in use.

To have the different gun camera views with the option of choosing between them with a toggle button to switch from above, below and rear craft.

 

[Wyntyr]

I love the turret on this vehicle. I think it looks Kool.

 

[Pandagnome]

Ah and i like these one's too just the way the weapons can be concealed and at a press of a button appear.

Same could be said for lights they look cool too