Tank (TD-110 Bastion) underpowered?

#1

Going on how rarely I’ve seen one in use, perhaps the Tank is underpowered or too limited. It seems like the only people who bring it along are the newest players, and after a few tries, they never touch it again.

I saw some thread somewhere where someone was suggesting a Main Battle Tank. I think they were trying to address the frustrations with the current Tank.

I’m not exactly sure what could be done about it, so I’ll just think out loud here.

  1. I like the controls, even though they are frustrating, because they are an accurate representation of driving many models of real tank.

  2. Speed and rotational speed seem okay. Real tanks are pretty slow, especially compared to wheeled vehicles. But why then do the Cyborg tanks go so fast compared to our tank?!

  3. Main gun is fine in terms of power. Maybe make it more powerful by having it pierce through multiple targets for a short distances (two Behemoths in a row?)

Okay. So, maybe what it could benefit from are:

  • stronger armor such that it is much harder to destroy than the HAV or APC. This could be done like on a real tank where the frontal armor is much stronger than the sides and the sides are much stronger than the rear.

  • Make it so that it is rendered inoperable by a HellPod dropping on it but the explosion does not kill the passengers. They are thrown clear, still alive and merely have to get up with minor injuries. In other words, it is the one thing that allows a player to have a HellPod dropped on him.

  • The person suggesting a Main Battle Tank wanted a rotating turret. I think this would be a good idea, but it would probably make the MBT too powerful. I suppose the turret could be limited by making its rotation speed very slow (slower than the HAV) OR making the main gun not hit anything at close range (can only hit targets far away enough or tall enough) OR making the controls for turning the turret less easy than simply pointing the right analog stick. At the very least, maybe increase the rotational angle.

  • Make it the ONE vehicle that can carry the suitcase objective. (Presumably there is no room in the APC or HAV for a large suitcase.) The suitcase would be strapped onto or hung on the outside of the tank.

Comments are welcome!

#2

2: They’re about twice as big as the Bastion, to be fair.
3: Penetrating rounds for the Bastion would be perfect, actually. You’re a genius

The safety ejector seats sound pretty good too.

#3

Just ran a planet last night with the Bastion. It had been a while, so the rust definitely showed, but it was successful, once we overcame mistakes.
The real problem with the Bastion is that it is anything but easy to find another competent player to crew it. Fire the main gun too close, and you can kill your own vehicle. Hang it up on an obstacle, and the mighty aliens will quickly drain it’s health.
This is the one vehicle that absolutely screams for a REP 80, and on higher levels, preferably a pair.
The other issue with the Bastion is that it is a poor performer on retaliatory strike missions. The restricted playing space means that shots will be close, and that main gun becomes a suicide device. Unless you have a player willing to continually heal your vehicle, it will routinely perish before the ammunition capacity is exhausted, which usually takes place long before the shuttle arrives.
I can live with everything else on the Bastion but this splash damage. It really is my primary reason for choosing it so seldom.
I really think the Bastion needs an upgrade for stronger frontal armor. If everyone is too terrified of OP to completely remove the suicidal tendency, then there should be the option to significantly reduce it. Fine, charge 4 research points, charge 8, but without it, the Bastion remains a niche vehicle that for most is a quickly abandoned curiosity.

#4

Hey @dxlc0,

I agree, Bastion is used very rarely, probably because of the speed and 2 players required.
Though, I see vets more often using it as a nice “jump” from the Rumblers, Commandos or another gameplay experience. I tend to use it on RS and it works very well.

I really like your ideas, though, Bastion has been already very strong and durable as well, the only problem it has is rotating and speed.

#5

We could probably solve the splash damage easily by simply increasing the frontal armor as you suggest. If it were up to me, I would make it the one vehicle that cannot be damaged by splash damage.

It always seemed lame to me how easy it was to damage the Bastion relative to the other vehicles. Shouldn’t a tank be a bullet sponge?

Ah! One way to improve it is to make it impervious to infantry melee attacks. So your Bastion can’t get clawed to death by a group of Grotesques.

#6

It might be okay to increase the speed of the Bastion’s treads so that it goes faster and turns faster.

I don’t think this would affect the game balance much. Right now, I would argue that the game is imbalanced, otherwise the Bastion would be used as often as the other vehicles.

We could do this to tweak the balance between the vehicles.

  1. Slightly increase the Bastion’s speed on all terrain.
  2. Decrease the other vehicles’ speed through all terrain that treads would be designed for.

For instance, motorcycles probably shouldn’t be able to go very fast through swamp muck. Yes, the motorcycle has tank treads, but not on the front wheel, which would get gummed up with mud. (In real life, they probably couldn’t move at all.)

#7

Yea, the Bastion always did seem flimsy for a tank. A buff in the frontal armor to put it on par with the HAV or better would make it a little more desirable as an IFV buster compared to the HAV, too. If not, a HP boost would make the Bastion a true tank in the vehicle department.

#8

Two more ideas:

Decrease the reloading time so that the rate of fire of the Bastion is much higher than the HAV. Presumably the reason there isn’t room for 4 players inside the Bastion is because of the space needed for the automatic reloading mechanism and shell storage.

This is a big one.

Allow the Bastion gunner to select from different types of shells, just like a real tank. The Triangle button would be used to select the round type. Changing the type of round takes longer than reloading the same type of round.

a) High-velocity sabot rounds = unstoppable through two or three large targets, NO SPLASH BACK. Cannot destroy groups, as it only destroys what it hits in a straight line. Essentially the rail gun on a tank.

b) smoke rounds

c) High-explosive rounds = DOES have splash back, even with stronger frontal armor. Good for wiping out groups of small enemies.

#9

Haha, I own up, it was me who suggested the MBT (Main Battle Tank)

Now I love the Bastion! And its a great tank in game.
Me and my partner like to use it when we can.

But here is my evaluation of using it (I always keep one on me)
When I try to use it with a random team I find that players WONT drive, and if they do everyone i have seen cant use it :confused: and those who gun either dont use the MG on it, or quickly get out because they dont like relying on the driver.

Going duo with the tank with just 2 players is tough simply because you cannot react as fast as a person on foot, and you get swamped pretty quickly.

My idea behind the MBT was to make a more user friendly tank for random teams and duo players. With the trade off in speed, ammo and rear/side armour for turret control (like you said a turret would be a very very powerful tool to helldivers). The weaker armour would surley compensate for a turret since the tank would be vulnerable to attacks from multiple sides. The Bastion however is a fine war machine with infantry support but can become impractical without efficient team work or a full team to support it.

I like the slow turret idea you threw in, I was pretty much thinking that combined with a slow movement speed.

#10

Gotta give credit where it’s due. Your idea of a Main Battle Tank is awesome.

I agree–there was one recent game where a player kept signaling the other players to get in, but nobody would do it. Eventually, I drove because no one else knew how, but its slow pace and my inexperience held back the entire team. Sad to say, I was glad when the tank got destroyed.

#11

@dxlc0 Awww noooo xD
Thats a shame, I really love the Bastion and the fact its a tank is just cool ;D
It is just such a shame that its a very specialised vehicle, not as user friendly as any of the others.

The only time I can really effectivly use it is when there are 3 of us on, 2 tankers and someone on foot for infantry support (my team has no 4th player on PS4 :frowning: )

Oh yeah, and if I do get a randomer in the tank, you can bet hes killed us with splash damage within the first encounter xD

#12

It’s cool they put it in, and I really like how they animated it - but I agree with the rest, it’s harder to coordinate a frontal arc aim with a driver. As I’m in mostly random match ups this doesn’t work for me in practice.

My preferences?
Drop hav’s side gunners, fit a coax mg
Upgrade for APC- a coaxial rocket tube, hand loaded (slow ROF, turret gunner’s job)

MBTs are cool but heavy and expensive. I don’t think they fit the light, fast, disposable air drop troop model. Future army would have them in another outfit - but maybe retracking a stuck one and driving it to pickup zone is a good objective. Just my opinion.

#13

Maybe the solution to this is to have the small tank (Bastion) be a one-person tank. Dual sticks to operate the treads, R1 and L1 to turn the turret, L1 for machine gun, R2 for main gun.

Basically a slower mech that shoots bigger rounds and has an even slower turning speed.

#14

This is actually a fantastic idea that I think should be put in the new mission ideas thread! I went ahead and put it over there, giving you credit.

Fix the MBT on the field in two steps, then it can be driven around the field and operated using just the ammo that is found in it (random amount close to empty). Some or all of the features could be disabled and unrepairable from battle damage. For instance, if the MBT is a 4-person vehicle, perhaps damage to one side can render one seat unusable.

#15

Thats a fair point, I guess my idea would be like a Light Tank in our days, but it is in the future, so anything is possible from smaller powerplants to lighter and stronger alloys.

That would be alot of firepower for a single player. (Could you imagine 4 bastions on one map)

#16

I don’t think people would actually do that even though they could. Those things would be so hard to steer and aim it would be pure chaos. It would be like having 4 mechs but worse due to the slower turning and more destructive shells.

Keep in mind that if the Bastion were to become a one-person tank, we would not want to upgrade it in any serious way for fear of making it too powerful.

But an experienced squad of tank drivers could replicate a Blitzkrieg!

#17

I figure HAV is in practical terms a light tank already - or a “mobile gun system” as the US Army likes to call them lately. I’m guessing because it’s wheeled, which suggests <20 ton.

#18

That’s pretty much how I treat the HAV, as a light tank (similar to a Panzer IV without treads). That’s why the Bastion is so sad–it should be the light tank of the game due to its similarity to a German Hetzer (Jagdpanzer 38). Or we can upgrade it to make it clearly more armored and bigger-gunned than the wheeled vehicles.

The M5 APC is like a Panzer II without treads.

#19

Agreeing with everything above. What would also be awesome would be making the Bastion FAST, like fully-upgraded-APC fast in a straight line and maybe with a turning speed that accelerates so you still get fine tuned aiming with KB+M, but holding A/D lets you turn faster for when you need to spin around or move around obstacles. The only downside to the Bastion as it stands right now is its mediocre mobility and armor, both of which can be remedied by buffing one or the other (but not both).

#20

These are all good, just remember that Arrowhead presumably didn’t want Bastion to be so “op” that everybody felt they had to have it to succeed (as with exosuits et al). Every time I dream of the things they might’ve added to vehicles and exosuits so I would use them more, I remember, “Oh they don’t want it to be THAT good.”

Bastion definitely requires coordination to be effective. I’ve had real fun with it only a handful of times, and it’s usually been because the other player was really patient and good humored about us struggling to coordinate the tank’s movement with where we wanted the big gun pointing. :slight_smile: The average player seemed happier using the fully upgraded APC vehicle.

I ultimately felt like I just had more fun watching my little Helldivers guy/gal running around, so the vehicles and exosuits ultimately weren’t things I used much at all. I think a lot of veteran players ultimately feel that way.

I thought I would’ve been cool with the tanks if they had “pedestrian ride points” so a couple other players could sit on the fenders so to speak, as on WWII tanks. Probably not doable for technical reasons.