Scale of Map compared

[Synapse]

Originally Posted by Bags

And 2x prettier.

You must be looking at the vanu one.

[Sabot]

I say it doesn't matter how you spin it, theorize or math-up... 2% is 2%, and there's no telling what pople will do on the maps in game... 'cause fact is, most of the map IS playable area... it's not "out of bounds" territory, there are no invisible walls. So if you want to zerg in the middle and not utlize the whole map, that's up to you... but the winner will use all of the map to their advatage. Rush to the middle for a cluster askdjfh, must be the dumbest tactic a faction acn go with imo....

[AlManiak]

it's not "out of bounds" territory

Is it not? I do remember there being some [WARNING! Get back to the battlefield soldier!] stuff implemented. So you always have to stay near contestable area's.

I remember one of the team members saying they'd prefer you have to sneak through populated areas instead of doing the old "evade in a big circle around all the combat" tactic. I'm not 100% sure on this tho.

[ThermalReaper]

Originally Posted by Synapse

You must be looking at the vanu one.

Every empire has it's own style of warp gates?

[Coreldan]

Been actually wondering about the map for a while.. why exactly is there that fairly large areas on the outskirts that at least have no hexes? Can you still enter them or does the out of bounds hit as soon as u cross the last hex?

Would be cool to at least be able to see the sea.

[SurgeonX]

Originally Posted by T-Ray

The new warp gates are about 2x bigger than the old ones

Good stuff.
That means they should be big enough to act as massive staging areas, and we'll still get spectacles like this...

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Haro

I think, regardless of actual map size, we need to take a few things into consideration: things like army flow, population density, and ground usage.

For example, Malorn points out that there are some zones that are not realistic combat areas (the edges, for example.) the specifics of that argument are up to debate (I think that's totally valid for fast aircraft or stealth forces.) But compare that to an old planetside map, where most of your population was likely to be fighting between, or more likely in and around 3, maybe 4 bases at most on a map. There are large expanses of land that are nowhere near bases, nor do they have any strategic incentive. Therefore, the vast majority of players could be found in only a few areas, and the majority of the map went unused.

Compare this to the map of Indar from PS2. The majority of the map is comprised of contestable hexes that encourage combat. A more fair comparison of size across maps from the original and PS2 would be to compare all the hexes from current Indar and the immediate areas around bases in PS1 maps.

Which brings up my next thought on how people perceive density, and how that affects how the empires may accrue territory. First, let me tangent into a little story of my own.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a rather large paintball game. How large? Around 1,500 people, actually, playing on one field that was around 1-2 square kilometers. Granted, we weren't all in tanks and dropships (did have a couple modified trucks) but we still managed to fit lots of people in, and move around. All 1500 at once, maybe not, but certainly a LOT.

If we were to divide the continent into (very) rough thirds, each empire would have roughly 6km of border with the other two empires, and distribution of forces along these lines will probably be anything but uniform. If a lightning tank is, say 5m long, then it would take 1200 tanks, end to end, to take up one of those borders. Similarly, if you took a max, and let's say he's 2m tall (6 foot 5, approximately) and lay them end to end, foot to toe, then you'd need 3000 of them to completely fill up one border. Both of these are absurd scenarios, but they go to show the difficulty of maintaining a frontline. It's a very large amount of space, and it is likely to be very permeable.

We also cannot underestimate the importance of many more territories of varying size and value. In Planetside, bases were the only real estate that mattered. You only capped towers to get to bases, and therefore territorial gain only came across a few, easily visible routes. Not to mention, the process was gated by cap timers. With smaller zones likely capping faster, if not instantaneously, I could easily see empires "leaking" into enemy territory via smaller outposts and territories. From their, maybe they flank or even encircle bases, or proceed ahead to other, small areas.

If the population density of the demo is anything to go by (around 100 people for every 1-2 square km) I think that's going to create a very enjoyable and pretty fluid environment. No way to tell until beta, though, SO LET US IN HIGBY!

Do you agree with Higby's 64 sq km? If so, your estimate for the continent would range between 3200-6400 players per continent if I'm understanding you correctly.

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by SurgeonX

Good stuff.
That means they should be big enough to act as massive staging areas, and we'll still get spectacles like this...

ps galaxy raid nc - YouTube

By the way; this group of galaxies would not be able to fly un-attacked to that first waypoint like they did in the video...When the flies spot them, I have no idea how a group of galaxies would get past a front line unless they were flying at a high flight ceiling with partial invisibility; otherwise they will just get swarmed until they're all dead...I really don't get how Gals will be able to go anywhere unnoticed, with visibility ranges what they are, and the amount of aircraft that will be in the air above the front line...?

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by AlManiak

Is it not? I do remember there being some [WARNING! Get back to the battlefield soldier!] stuff implemented. So you always have to stay near contestable area's.

I remember one of the team members saying they'd prefer you have to sneak through populated areas instead of doing the old "evade in a big circle around all the combat" tactic. I'm not 100% sure on this tho.

I remember TB discussing this with someone, they said the out of bounds warning is only going to be around the continents.

What you're thinking of is when he asked "why so close to the coast?" and the answer was they didn't want people flying far out over the ocean to avoid patrols and whatnot.

It doesn't mean you have to stay near contestable areas, it just means you can't go out to international waters to bet on a monkey knife fight.

[SurgeonX]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

By the way; this group of galaxies would not be able to fly un-attacked to that first waypoint like they did in the video...When the flies spot them, I have no idea how a group of galaxies would get past a front line unless they were flying at a high flight ceiling with partial invisibility; otherwise they will just get swarmed until they're all dead...I really don't get how Gals will be able to go anywhere unnoticed, with visibility ranges what they are, and the amount of aircraft that will be in the air above the front line...?

Yeah, good point.

We'll have to see how things play out in beta, but I do have a bit of a worry myself at how much epic co-ordination will be possible with the new continent/WG structure.

[AlManiak]

Originally Posted by Dagron

I remember TB discussing this with someone, they said the out of bounds warning is only going to be around the continents.

What you're thinking of is when he asked "why so close to the coast?" and the answer was they didn't want people flying far out over the ocean to avoid patrols and whatnot.

It doesn't mean you have to stay near contestable areas, it just means you can't go out to international waters to bet on a monkey knife fight.

That makes sense . Good to know that at least we can have the monkey knife fights in a sleazy bar somewhere way behind our front lines

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by AlManiak

Good to know that at least we can have the monkey knife fights in a sleazy bar somewhere way behind our front lines

qft

[Krishtov]

Originally Posted by T-Ray

The new warp gates are about 2x bigger than the old ones

That is good news... so if I scale the old map's gate appropriately...?

I know this isn't an accurate science guys, I just like doing something until beta.

[basti]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

By the way; this group of galaxies would not be able to fly un-attacked to that first waypoint like they did in the video...When the flies spot them, I have no idea how a group of galaxies would get past a front line unless they were flying at a high flight ceiling with partial invisibility; otherwise they will just get swarmed until they're all dead...I really don't get how Gals will be able to go anywhere unnoticed, with visibility ranges what they are, and the amount of aircraft that will be in the air above the front line...?

Easy: Air Cover

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by T-Ray

The new warp gates are about 2x bigger than the old ones

Wow. Then Indar is actually even bigger than I was guessing.

Here's a new comparison I made based on the 2x bigger warp gate info.

He did say it's "about" 2x bigger, so don't take this scale as definitive either, but considering that this is coming from the mouth of a dev who actually worked on both games, I think we can consider this scale comparison as being as close to accurate as we're going to get unless we see an official comparison released by the devs:



This means that purely on size alone, Indar is more than double the size of Cyssor, with Indar coming in at 64 square kilometers, and Cyssor coming in at approximately 25 square kilometers.

Also, as always, don't forget that there is more contestable land on Indar. Cyssor has a lot of waterways, as well as that big useless mountain in the middle. Indar has a few corners that seem to be unused, but beyond that it's all being hand crafted to be fought over.

Additionally, Indar has more capturable terrain locations than Cyssor. Remember that while you could capture a tower in Planetside, it provided no territory control, as can be seen in the fact that you didn't need to capture all towers to get a continent lock. Cyssor had a total of 17 bases that could be captured. Indar has 70+ hex areas that can be captured. Towers are bigger in PS2, and they can spawn vehicles. Tower fights will probably be a lot more like base fights were in the first game.

So in raw scale, Indar is around 2x larger than Cyssor. In terms of playable game space/contestable territory capture points, Indar is around 4x larger than Cyssor.

Let's average it out and say that the practical scale increase is about 3x more effective playable area than Cyssor.

3x more playable space multiplied by 3 continents = 9 continents worth of space at launch.

Planetside 1 could hold 3600 to 4500 people on 9 continents (4000 to 5000 on all 10 continents), while Planetside 2 will be able to hold 6000 players on 3 continents (assuming they hit their 2000 people per continent goal).

The biggest difference is that instead of 10 separate continents, we have multiple continents slammed up against each other. Instead of getting kicked off a continent, we will get kicked off of a portion of a continent. Kicking one empire off of a continent will still be possible, but it will be the equivalent of kicking them off of one of their home continents. Taking control of an entire continent will be the equivalent of keeping both enemy empires off of a single one of each of their home continents.

So it will be a different dynamic than we are used to from the first Planetside, but not smaller.