I know that vehicles aren't a big part of Destiny, but it only just recently hit me that all vehicles that are made for war are non-human. That got my thinking, have I seen a human made vehicle that has guns on it?

The only thing that came close was the guardian's ships might have guns on them. But every other human vehicle seems like it's made purely for transportation. I wonder why this is? I mean every other race has had guns on all of their ships/vehicles. So why is it that humans who are actively fighting the darkness doesn't have a single vehicle with a gun on it?

On a side note, the Awoken, which I only consider to be half human seem like they have space fighters, but that is the one exception I can think of.

too much work to fit vehicles with guns in them is my guess. like they ran out of time.

too much work to fit vehicles with guns in them is my guess. like they ran out of time.

But what I'm saying is, apart from even game play, there is no human war vehicles. I would expect to see at least an old rusted tank in Russia.

too much work to fit vehicles with guns in them is my guess. like they ran out of time.

But what I'm saying is, apart from even game play, there is no human war vehicles. I would expect to see at least an old rusted tank in Russia.

Uhhhhhhh there are rusted out tanks EVERYWHERE in old Russia.

One of the bounties there has you hunting for a depleted shell for Banshee (and by hunting I mean go "go there, stand here, press x")

too much work to fit vehicles with guns in them is my guess. like they ran out of time.

But what I'm saying is, apart from even game play, there is no human war vehicles. I would expect to see at least an old rusted tank in Russia.

Uhhhhhhh there are rusted out tanks EVERYWHERE in old Russia.

One of the bounties there has you hunting for a depleted shell for Banshee (and by hunting I mean go "go there, stand here, press x")

Am I blind? Oh wait... I think it's coming back to me...

Anyway, I think my argument stills stands that there should be far more military hardware than there is. Or am I just grasping for a war that never happened?

A rusted tank is literally the first thing you see when you exit the wall on the first mission. You can see it in patrol as well. Like Rev said, there is a patrol mission to scan it.

As far as why no vehicles, I remember Bungie saying they wanted to focus on small arms combat in Destiny. There's probably not much in even scenery vehicles because they weren't a priority.

A rusted tank is literally the first thing you see when you exit the wall on the first mission. You can see it in patrol as well. Like Rev said, there is a patrol mission to scan it.

As far as why no vehicles, I remember Bungie saying they wanted to focus on small arms combat in Destiny. There's probably not much in even scenery vehicles because they weren't a priority.

That saddens me... I guess it goes along with the fact that not much in-game story was invested. I just feel like there should be history plain to see on Earth. Like Humans put up a fight.

Except they didn't. Remember the "something hit us" line? Seems to me that the premise has always been that it was a sudden, unexpected thing. In which case it makes perfect sense that there wasn't a huge military buildup.

Human made, modern howitzers. Right there for all to see.

Human made, modern howitzers. Right there for all to see.

True, I wasn't thinking about PvP maps. And I guess that once the traveler came, we could have just started scrapping and re-purposing all of that kind of weaponry

Yeah, they're fun with friends doing warthog jousting on Blood Gulch or Dark Helmeting up on one of the towers in Halo, but, in my opinion, they take away from the fun part of the game. The normal gameplay, to me, is more fun. I don't get on the pikes. I don't get on those weird Mars vehicles. I skip the gauss hog in Metropolis. Vehicles, to me, are more fun when they are just vehicles.

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If you're looking for modern vehicles with guns, then yeah... there probably should be more. We can see the big guns on the back of the Tower through the windows of the Vanguard meeting room, and the missiles hanging in the Hanger area, and the guns or missiles on Jumpships... but that's about it.

If you're looking for pre-collapse weaponry then I think Destiny has it right, as is. What we know about the war is that Humanity itself had things like powerful orbital defense satellites, Light based weaponry, antimatter bombs, and the aid of an object or creature powerful enough to terraform the solar system and reverse death. Our enemies, too, seem to have similar weaponry and some of them seem to either travel between or exist in multiple dimensions. Plus they too were aided by a force who's true power we can only blindly guess at.

Once your weaponry moves into the realm of scifi it tends to not leave much standing when you win a battle... and we (very nearly) lost! Our losing in an extinction scenario would seem to have seen most of our military hardware destroyed. What little would have been left could easily have been picked apart or just simply disgarded by the various races who have taken over our solar system. The Fallen would probably salvage everything of value, for instance.

Well, at least parallels in the story to other known stories.

Guardians are an army in the same way Jedi are an army. In all the stories of Guardians long gone, there have been few times when more than 3-4 Guardians hunted together. At one point hundreds of guardians fought at once, and it was an epic disaster.

The theme appears to be that for everything the Tower* wants to do, a single guardian is enough to get it done. Stealth and quick strikes are the key, not heavy equipment that the enemy can see coming, thus no emphasis on building up equipment. We don't have tanks, because in general the feeling is if an enemy tank shoots at us we've already screwed up the mission.

*Tower: A note here. It is implied by more than one other entity that we represent the pansies of the solar system. Our no-time-to-explain friend has a large ship, and presumably guns on that ship. The Awoken also have an armed armada that is enough to keep the other races from bothering with them. The last safe city has defensive guns, but isn't bothering with offense. And in fact, the story makes it pretty clear that our character is taking some of the most offensive action that the tower has seen in a long time. Perhaps if this offensive attitude keeps up, earth may start building offensive weapons. But since the last safe city was in fact the last safe city, there appears to have been no reason or desire to build or use offensive things.

It's a good thought and not a situation I had recognized. It's only in you bringing it up that I thought through what little I knew and formed that answer.

Yeah, they're fun with friends doing warthog jousting on Blood Gulch or Dark Helmeting up on one of the towers in Halo, but, in my opinion, they take away from the fun part of the game. The normal gameplay, to me, is more fun. I don't get on the pikes. I don't get on those weird Mars vehicles. I skip the gauss hog in Metropolis. Vehicles, to me, are more fun when they are just vehicles.

How do you feel about anti-vehicular combat? Note that besides the few Pikes that we see with Dregs on them, at no point in the game do we get an anti-vehicle portion (besides the slow Valus tank that you fight from a long distance or with a vehicle, but that hardly counts since the tactics are boring point, shoot, avoid occasional shot).

What if we had to fight an Interceptor on foot? What if we had to avoid Pikes while fighting our way uphill?

Battlefield is amazing for the variety of ways you can bring down enemy vehicles, and I'd say that it's my favorite thing to do in the series. Wish Destiny had more anti-vehicular combat; even implementing the turrets would kick it up a notch in the fun factor (dodge a central turret as you push up).

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Human made, modern howitzers. Right there for all to see.

True, I wasn't thinking about PvP maps. And I guess that once the traveler came, we could have just started scrapping and re-purposing all of that kind of weaponry

Perhaps this might be nitpicking, but you can see those guns outside of PvP. They're mounted on the Tower proper, underneath that giant window in the Vanguards war room.

Human made, modern howitzers. Right there for all to see.

True, I wasn't thinking about PvP maps. And I guess that once the traveler came, we could have just started scrapping and re-purposing all of that kind of weaponry

Perhaps this might be nitpicking, but you can see those guns outside of PvP. They're mounted on the Tower proper, underneath that giant window in the Vanguards war room.

I mean if you want to be really nitpicky those guns are all post-collapse and we started out talking pre-collapse, but that's awfully pedantic so let's just not go there ;p

How do you feel about anti-vehicular combat? Note that besides the few Pikes that we see with Dregs on them, at no point in the game do we get an anti-vehicle portion (besides the slow Valus tank that you fight from a long distance or with a vehicle, but that hardly counts since the tactics are boring point, shoot, avoid occasional shot).

I thought you PS4 guys knew how to have fun... Go all three of you on foot with shotguns. Guaranteed fun.

I don't get on the pikes. I don't get on those weird Mars vehicles. I skip the gauss hog in Metropolis. Vehicles, to me, are more fun when they are just vehicles.

Our opinions differ here. I really do enjoy Destiny's (and Halo's) vanilla gameplay, but vehicles are (usually) a fun diversion. I really missed the lack of vehicular gameplay in Destiny's PvE. Personally I really enjoy the Pikes, the Interceptors can be fun in PvP, but I do typically skip them in PvE due to their low-yield weapons and abysmal fire rate.

If there were segments of game in which enemies drove vehicles I think I'd be more tempted to pilot them myself.

However, you know the Anchor of Light and how on one of the early Moon story missions you can pilot a Pike around that area before abandoning it to go on foot to the Temple of Crota? Well, somebody did that the other day, leaving a Pike in the AoL for me to grab while I was running around doing patrol stuff. I tell you what, that was some of the most lop-sided fun I've had in Destiny to date. I basically had a nimble gun platform sporting infinite heavy ammo that I was able to just destroy with. You haven't played Destiny until you've done public events while riding a Pike.

So much fun.

I mean if you want to be really nitpicky those guns are all post-collapse and we started out talking pre-collapse, but that's awfully pedantic so let's just not go there ;p

I'm not saying you're wrong, but where did we learn those guns are post-collapse? Given their architecture and the rundownedness (totally a word) of their surrounding environment I'd thought they were re-purposed from pre-collapse weaponry.

I mean if you want to be really nitpicky those guns are all post-collapse and we started out talking pre-collapse, but that's awfully pedantic so let's just not go there ;p

I'm not saying you're wrong, but where did we learn those guns are post-collapse? Given their architecture and the rundownedness (totally a word) of their surrounding environment I'd thought they were re-purposed from pre-collapse weaponry.

Definitely possible? Were the city's fortifications destroyed at six fronts prior to the twilight gap and rebuilt? Do we know? We might not know :/

Twilight Gap was meant to be an expansion of The City beyond the valley its in. The Fallen's big coordinated attack ended those plans and what was left of The City's expansion was converted to fortifications. That's in the Grimoire somewhere. I suppose the guns could be pre-collapse, but then they would be "centuries" old...

Twilight Gap was meant to be an expansion of The City beyond the valley its in. The Fallen's big coordinated attack ended those plans and what was left of The City's expansion was converted to fortifications. That's in the Grimoire somewhere. I suppose the guns could be pre-collapse, but then they would be "centuries" old...

Do you remember where this is in the Grimoire? I couldn't find it in the Twilight Gap entry.

We might not know :/

I know I don't know.

Heh.

From the economy grimore all of the city's supply of programmable matter comes from catches recovered by guardians. Ships as well. The city may not have the resources then to support a large mechanized force.

Furthermore large mechanized forces have large logistical tails. You need to fuel and arm them. A modern main battle tank gets gallons per mile, not miles per gallon, so you have to preposition large fuel dumps to support a big advance. Now in Destiny you can teleport equipment across space, like your sparrow, so it may be easier but I suspect the city still can't afford much in the way of heavy armor.

Guardians themselves act as special forces, and modern special forces often eschew heavy armor in favor of firepower and speed. Your special forces group is often out manned and out gunned, operating alone with little access to backup. They can't afford large, noisy and obvious heavy tanks and APCs. They need to sneak around, strike hard at soft targets then fade before the enemy can react. SF often call in the artillery and air strikes, but don't tend to pack much of it themselves. So it may not make sense for us to be cruising around the cosmodrome in our own personal T-120 MBTs (or whatever those rusted hulks are).

I suspect the city can afford at best armed frames with white gear (such as seen in the hallway leading to the hangar), with transport via the tower cargo dropships. They can't even really afford to outfit the Guardians with much, and if I were Joe Citizen hell yeah I would eat nutrient paste for a week if it meant that the immortal guy with Dinklebot could gear up and defend me instead of wasting time killing a bunch of hive around the cosmodrome waiting for purples to drop.

As far as pre-collapse goes, I imagine that once it became obvious that the darkness was coming, they mobilized anything and everything they could, even old tanks and projectile guns languishing in national reserves and museums. If it means life or death you do whatever it takes. Heck, the US probably still had tones of conventional firearms in use by hobbyists and affectionados. AI antimatter weapons probably aren't covered by the 1st amendment, but future ballistic guns certainly are. Plus you can't hack that which doesn't have microprocessor control.

Places --> The City --> The City Age:

As the City learned to walk again, it found a world overrun by alien menace. It faced disaster and defeat. Even in recent years, as Guardians begin to venture back to the Moon and the inner planets, the City's territory has withdrawn - outer sections abandoned and converted into fortifications in the wake of the Battle of Twilight Gap.

Various details about the battle are scattered about. How The City's guns exchanged fire with Fallen Walkers, how Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks all did their best to stop the Fallen advance and failed, how it was the House of Kings (I believe) that rallied all the houses together, etc. It's all in there unless I'm badly misremembering something. :)

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I read your post and all I took away from it is that I should be calling in more air support. That's what you were saying, right?