Spitfires - Page 5

Dinocool · 2012-10-11, 02:49 AM

I hate auto turrets in game, and it breaks the rule that everything in the game is player fueled

Figment · 2012-10-11, 07:31 AM

Btw, one of my favourite tactics to take out enemy tanks was seeing where an enemy tank entered the battle. Then going there and lay mines. Why? The tank already passed, right? What possible use would there to be to lay mines there?

Well. The tank is likely to leave the battle through the same route it entered it, knowing there were no mines there before. However, since a battlefield is large, one mine, two mines or three mines simply aren't enough to cover the variety of options. As such, you knew approximately where a tank might return, but not exactly and thus needed to cover an area of around 20meters in width with mines. Just to take out ONE tank. Handing out one to three mines per player is therefore utterly stupid: they'll never be able to lay a proper minefield. The only reason a minefield works is because you have a high density of explosives in an area of which you don't know where exactly an enemy will move in. Mines (and turrets) being "Dumb Fire", can only work because of quantity over quality. No quantity? Don't even bother. Do you see people bother with mines right now?

Currently, there isn't even enough to close off a quarter to half a valley width in PS2, let alone enough to stop a tank brigade advancing or even slow them down.

ringring · 2012-10-11, 07:50 AM

Yea, CE in PS1 was great and people did put thought into it's placement.

We'd also use it as early warning or doorbells.

Early warning .... you'd CE up a strategically important base on another continent you own ... and if you see a hotspot appear you know it has been infiltrated so you go check it out.

Doorbells ..... you're guarding a hack on a base, there aren't enough of you to guard everywhere, so you want to know when and at which entrance an enemy is coming from, so you place CE there, at least 1 mine but also spitfires if you have the cert. Now you can hear and see on the map which door the threat is at and go deal with it.

Just another thought. From long experience of doing ant runs and coming across minefields that thinking engineers had laid, I learnt to drive over the 'obvious' places was a recipe for 'death by mine' as a result you' rarely find me driving tanks on a road, unless I was absolutely sure (ie I'd see another tank do it moments before) that it was mine-free.

Figment · 2012-10-11, 07:59 AM

Originally Posted by ringring

Just another thought. From long experience of doing ant runs and coming across minefields that thinking engineers had laid, I learnt to drive over the 'obvious' places was a recipe for 'death by mine' as a result you' rarely find me driving tanks on a road, unless I was absolutely sure (ie I'd see another tank do it moments before) that it was mine-free.

Indeed, which is why I often used reverse-reverse psychology and shortest-route-psychology to determine where to place the mines. Often based on observation of what the (ANT-)driver did when he left the base: did he use roads, a direct route or did he take a "safe" route (like driving right next to roads, weaving through trees, etc). I'd avoid those spots that are first checked for mines (base CY entrances) and would mine other areas such as choke points along the route instead. In some cases, chokepoints are tread with extra care since they're so obvious to mine, that you place them JUST beyond the chokepoint, just at the spot where they sped up because they thought they passed the potential CE area.

These are also the types of units I've often destroyed with the CE funnels: they're so inclined on not taking damage from CE, that they'll avoid it at all cost and drive straight into your carefuly layed minefield.

The involved skill in placing CE is virtually all psychology and behavioural observation. It's not as if randomly placing a mine or spit kills enemies or draws them in like a moth to flame. It requires thorough pre-knowledge to be effective with them and not squander resources. Likewise, the victims should be aware of this threat as if they pay attention, they can easily deal with it. You never hear people blame anyone but themselves if they drove into a minefield, though I have gotten compliments on smart minefield placement, especially when I used myself as bait.

Example: placed 5 mines underneath a tree. Sat on minefield with Fury: BFR came down the road, I fired at it, got its attention, then back up straight away: it starts to run directly in your direction as you're no threat and a quick kill. BOOM. Dead BFR (got a nice conversation with compliments afterwards). Another time, I decloaked to wave after tossing an EMP grenade at a Lightning, then ran around the corner. The Lightning of course sped up to give chase, knowing the EMP effect would wear off soon, but thinking he could run me over in the meantime before I'd disappear completely. 20m along he was dead, since I placed a minefield 30m wide just around the corner of the base in between all passages between rocks.

Again, the mine did not outsmart the enemy player, it was me using aggro-psychology and path prediction to spring a trap on an enemy who was outplayed due to falling for bait or sticking to their own habbits.

ringring · 2012-10-11, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Indeed, which is why I often used reverse-reverse psychology and shortest-route-psychology to determine where to place the mines. Often based on observation of what the (ANT-)driver did when he left the base: did he use roads, a direct route or did he take a "safe" route (like driving right next to roads, weaving through trees, etc). I'd avoid those spots that are first checked for mines (base CY entrances) and would mine other areas such as choke points along the route instead. In some cases, chokepoints are tread with extra care since they're so obvious to mine, that you place them JUST beyond the chokepoint, just at the spot where they sped up because they thought they passed the potential CE area.

These are also the types of units I've often destroyed with the CE funnels: they're so inclined on not taking damage from CE, that they'll avoid it at all cost and drive straight into your carefuly layed minefield.

The involved skill in placing CE is virtually all psychology and behavioural observation. It's not as if randomly placing a mine or spit kills enemies or draws them in like a moth to flame. It requires thorough pre-knowledge to be effective with them and not squander resources. Likewise, the victims should be aware of this threat as if they pay attention, they can easily deal with it. You never hear people blame anyone but themselves if they drove into a minefield, though I have gotten compliments on smart minefield placement, especially when I used myself as bait.

Example: placed 5 mines underneath a tree. Sat on minefield with Fury: BFR came down the road, I fired at it, got its attention, then back up straight away: it starts to run directly in your direction as you're no threat and a quick kill. BOOM. Dead BFR (got a nice conversation with compliments afterwards). Another time, I decloaked to wave after tossing an EMP grenade at a Lightning, then ran around the corner. The Lightning of course sped up to give chase, knowing the EMP effect would wear off soon, but thinking he could run me over in the meantime before I'd disappear completely. 20m along he was dead, since I placed a minefield 30m wide just around the corner of the base in between all passages between rocks.

Again, the mine did not outsmart the enemy player, it was me using aggro-psychology and path prediction to spring a trap on an enemy who was outplayed due to falling for bait or sticking to their own habbits.

I see your mines and I counter your mines. I see you counter and I counter your counter!

Also the ams trap! Deploy an ams at the backdoor, maybe damage it a bit. Lay mines around it, several boomers and put 1 or 2 spits out in plain sight - then when someone does gal drop they see the spits, realise they have to do an EMP, it's like a mini OS going off.

I used to have a favoured method of mining the BD (prompted by psycho I must admit). A few mines, but importantly 5 shadow turrets on a friendly base of 5 normal spits on an enemy one. Two of the turrets go on the walls themselves looking down - it's a nearly guaranteed kill and impossible to breach without showing something is up.

tbh, it's an example of something great in PS. The devs simply provided a framework and the players the intelligence.

hurikane · 2012-10-11, 12:04 PM

sounds fun

Crator · 2012-10-11, 04:58 PM

This guy just doesn't like spits. Haven't seen this much opposition to them from anyone actually.

Guess we should just agree to disagree?

theknits · 2012-10-11, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

This guy just doesn't like spits. Haven't seen this much opposition to them from anyone actually.

Guess we should just agree to disagree?

lol at this point its tempting Id rather not have to pour over another one of Figments monster posts again but someone has to represent the other side.

Crator · 2012-10-11, 06:25 PM

He does well giving perspective on how it worked in PS1. Most players aren't developers and don't spend uber amounts of time thinking about new things to come up with. They know it worked and liked it in PS1.

Is there really a group of people against the spits? I didn't see hardly anyone oppose to the idea on the beta forums. But we all know how that goes with the massive amounts of threads there, I could have missed it.

Rokii · 2012-10-11, 06:49 PM

Sounds cool

Buggsy · 2012-10-11, 07:15 PM

The thing is the primary reason people would avoid these ce fields is because it's just not very fun to blow them all up.

Actually playing the combat engineer (punisher + emp rocket grenades) was one of the most satisfying things, until everyone got their CR5 EMP pulse. Nothing was more satisfying than lobbing an EMP grenade in the middle of a battle, and watching mines blow up the cloaker that was placing them on the ground.

GLaDOS · 2012-10-11, 07:29 PM

Hot damn, there's even more arguing here than on the official forums. I've missed you guys

I think I saw the idea that CE isn't in PS2 because it doesn't mesh well with the class system, but someone in this thread on the official forums came up with a pretty simple and good solution to that. Also, I guess to add to the pages and pages of arguing, I'll say this.

CE requires skill to use effectively, just like shooting a gun, except it's a different kind of skill, which is already important in PS2. It can be effective if it's used properly, especially when used along with teammates (you might shoot at the people first, while ignoring the little turret that's unloading into your back. Furthermore, it makes base defense easier, which people seem to love to complain about. I'm not really gonna respond to anyone's argument, just sort of lay that out there.

Also, it's probably worth it to mention that, if you're interested, there was a pretty good idea made on how to utilize the ACE in PS2, which I copied and pasted into this thread on those forums.

Raka Maru · 2012-10-18, 03:38 AM

What Figment has been saying +100

Gugabalog · 2012-10-18, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

What Figment has been saying +100

Agreed.

blbeta · 2012-10-19, 06:39 PM

All for spits and CE, there can be a lot of strategy in it. I use to cover towers with boomers that would often kill people who would EMP mines and such on the way down.

I am all for CE.