Vehicle Overwatch Mode

I’d assume it to be acceptably logical that the Vehicle (operator) could go into Overwatch mode just as any normal soldier would when only having used 50% of it’s action points. I felt this mode was missing while playing.

3 Likes

From a “realism” perspective, vehicle turrets are noticeably clunkier than human hands, arms, feet, eyes, etc, and thus would not be so great at the sort of snap-response firing entailed by Overwatch.

From a gameplay perspective, the Armadillo is incredibly powerful as it is. I like the power - it feels appropiate for an armoured vehicle - but there is a risk of rendering the infantry irrelevant in what is supposed to be an infantry-focused game.

Any vehicles that do have weapons of its own, should have overwatch. As long as these weapons arent super powerful (like current combat turret really ins`t). It will not be a game changer.

It would be however super duper (but might change the balance) if transported soldiers would not be a passive meat, but e.g. some of them could shoot or at least over-watch from their hover/transport.

Why? It makes sense to me that armoured vehicles should be more powerful, but less flexible/agile, than infantry. From both a realism and balance perspective.

2 Likes

To be fair, Overwatch is simply the act of targeting that which moved. There’s nothing unrealistic about a minigun mounted on a vehicle to be able to target something that moves. Hell, it’s even more realistic considering it’s probably digitally operated.

To keep things more balanced, you could say that the reaction speed of such a heavy gun should be lowered and to put that in gaming terms- the chance to hit should be lowered on vehicle weapon overwatch, especially when the vehicle moved.

I’d suggest no penalty on vehicle gun overwatch when the vehicle remained stationary.

3 Likes

Totally agree with this. A modern todays tank turret can esily aim at a running man and hit it. It all depends on distance and stats and sadly in a simple rng based system these are missing. While a turret should be able to react on movements from small units on a medium to high distance it should only be able to react on large enemies on close distance. This could be easily implemented but not in a rnd100 kind of system

2 Likes

The biggest problem is one of game balance.

IRL, the presence of armored fighting vehicles like tanks and IFVs, despite their weaknesses like a lack of visibility, remain such a transformative effect on any battlefield that they are pretty much dominant on almost every battlefield, with urban environments largely giving infantry forces equivalency rather than an advantage - and only if they can overcome the shock factor, firepower advantage, and armor that an AFV possesses, which requires real skill and knowledge of the terrain. On plains and basically anywhere with limited or no cover, where the range and mobility of a vehicle can be exploited to maximum effect, AFVs are undeniably dominant over infantry. Which, bringing the topic back to the game, is not great for a game centered around raising and deploying elite teams of infantry to fight crabmen and pick over battlefields for equipment and scientific knowledge.

Phoenix Point is going to be focused on infantry at the end of the day. When the focus is on your infantry, it is bad sense to marginalise them. As much as I like the Armadillo, introducing IFVs to the formula is a pretty big shift in the power dynamic as it is.

Hence, I’m entirely okay with PP AFVs being limited in ways such as not giving them overwatch, whether or not it is true to life.

With all do respect; your argument regarding balance issues, even after my very logical argument for a lowered to hit chance, still makes no sense. Overwatch, just like shooting, uses up 1 ammo bar, so whether I’m shooting or overwatching, my ammo will eventually be depleted. And that being said, at the moment, Overwatch even triggers on targets technically too far away for a reasonable chance to land a killing hit, so there’s an equally good chance you’re wasting your precious Vehicle Machine Gun ammo.