What I imagined with regards to tunnels and spawnrooms and generators...

[GeoGnome]

Okay, I support that idea then (The PS1 type gens)

I'd really love to see them in every base on the map myself, but that is me.

+1

And thank you everyone for explaining it.

[Shogun]

but a damaged generator drained more ntu than a totally destroyed one, because when it was destroyed, all base self repairing stopped, except the gen itself. with a damaged gen, all selfrepairing of terminals and turrets would drain additional ntu.

for the unsuspecting: ntu was the energylevel of the base. every base had a battery which had to be manually loaded by someone with a special vehicle, who had to fill the vehicles battery at a warpgate and return it to the base silo, to transfer the energy (ntu). draining all ntu from a base would also shut down the whole base including spawns and terminals, and switch the base to neutral immediately, rendering it vulnerable to a hack (capture) no matter if it had a lattice link.
this was another way of breaking a stalemate. the defenders would have to do a massive organised move to refill the silo during a battle, facing camping enemies in vehicles and minefields around the silo.

this was taken out in ps2 because the devs thought having to fill up empty bases where no battle is going on would be too boring. but considering that people seem to enjoy doing boring backyard destroying of gens and turrets all the time, thislegit way to earn xp would be welcome.

and to say at least something on the topic:
Yes, we desperately need something like that! i really hope the devs consider to really redo the baselayouts and don´t make the same mistakes again on hossin and other new continents.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Shogun

but a damaged generator drained more ntu than a totally destroyed one, because when it was destroyed, all base self repairing stopped, except the gen itself. with a damaged gen, all selfrepairing of terminals and turrets would drain additional ntu.

Didn't stop, but slowed down.


Anyway, back to the layout please. Thoughts?

[Carbon Copied]

Part of the reason I don't think places like Amp stations are defended on the walls in such large numbers (personal experience) is harking back to that leakiness they have; there doesn't feel a massive tactical upper hand you can take by being up there. Simply boiling down to "numbers win" as LA's move up them with relative ease like a climbing frame - coupled with the fact you can steam train vehicles through the back door gaps which should at least have similar vehicle shields over tied to respective gens. Whilst it'd be easy to say "bring back the alpha walls" I don't think they're needed in their fullest form of encasing the base; more so segments to just remove the options of ways in.

As to underground I think ramps would be foremost the less visual/performance intensive option and corridors having to be 3.5 MAX width (if not more) with rooms being scaled accordingly. As to navigation sometimes keeping it simple is the best way like on Reddit (no credit taken by me I just really liked this simple but effective navigation in base solution) http://dk.reddit.com/r/Planetside/co...visual_revamp/

[Shogun]

ok, after closely looking at your layout, i would really like to give it a try!

looks like you thought of everything, and the flow could really change basebattles for the better.

the only thing i would point out: stairs are much better gameplay than magical elevators and jump pads or teleporters. stairs can be fought on dynamicly. all other options turn to camping points. so i would like to see as many stairs as possible and less of the other options. especially the entrances to baselevel need to be stairs instead of teleporters.

edit: or ramps of course, if stairs are too much of a performance killer! just something you can navigate with a group of soldiers and you don´t have to go through one by one.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Carbon Copied

Part of the reason I don't think places like Amp stations are defended on the walls in such large numbers (personal experience) is harking back to that leakiness they have; there doesn't feel a massive tactical upper hand you can take by being up there. Simply boiling down to "numbers win" as LA's move up them with relative ease like a climbing frame - coupled with the fact you can steam train vehicles through the back door gaps which should at least have similar vehicle shields over tied to respective gens. Whilst it'd be easy to say "bring back the alpha walls" I don't think they're needed in their fullest form of encasing the base; more so segments to just remove the options of ways in.

I think you have something there. It will be interesting to see the way the outpost walls play out that are currently on the PST Esamir.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Shogun

the only thing i would point out: stairs are much better gameplay than magical elevators and jump pads or teleporters. stairs can be fought on dynamicly. all other options turn to camping points. so i would like to see as many stairs as possible and less of the other options. especially the entrances to baselevel need to be stairs instead of teleporters.

No teleporters or elevators are in this design.

They're just a *orange* shaft to schematically show connectivity between areas.


I personally would go with stairs and winding ramps and little in between flat areas where corridors match up.

[bpostal]

I'm a fan of the bridges, they extend the fight for the walls which provides some very fun engagements. They also add to the layering (not to mention the layering of the base itself) making the base seem larger without making it sprawling. The use of choke points as you assault the base as well is, in my mind, a good thing. Smaller groups can effectively defend portions of the base, but not all of it.
This layout also effectively eliminates spawn camping by the use of nearby SCUs. In the event the spawns are camped the SCUs can be blown and end the majority of the fight while still allowing for a short term defense of the relatively remote CC.
The sense that I'm getting from your description of tunnels is promising, what with the cover and all. Kind of reminds me of a Counter Strike de_ map that I've since forgotten the name of.
As far as downsides go, I'm not seeing much that looks like it would be conducive to CY fights, which is a shame. Of course, that could just be a lack of cover that I see on the design. It appears that the assaulting force would be going right into the tunnels once they've taken the walls. Again, that may be due to the design's scale.
All in all, the layered layout, use of increasing choke points and (what I hope would be) improved flow of battle makes this a damn sexy looking Amp station in my eyes.

TLDR: I'd fuck it.

[Carbon Copied]

Not to hijack your thread Figment - but moving away from the Amp stations (seeing as there's another thread on here with the moving spawns underground etc.) I don't think that the outposts need to get overly complex (after all I believe the underground should reflect the complexity / size of the base it's networked to). Simple tiered designs around simple shapes might be the answer to that side of the equation.

[Figment]

@ Carbon: I presume that is a schematic to indicate splits in exits from spawns?

It is a bit hard to read, tbh.

Anyway, if you don't mind, I would like to keep this topic for flows of the bigger, more complex facilities opposed to outposts.

[Figment]

@Bpostal: I have been pondering on creating ES shields to block some entrances on ground level which infils could hack open from the inside or perhaps by hacking the CC. That would force the enemy to not immediately enter the tunnels.

[Qwan]

I really like the look This would be perfect, but it all falls to the devs

[Calista]

Good stuff and appreciate the time you put into it Figment but it might be better if you ventured off into the single gen design aspect. Where would you put such a thing in current base layout to give some sort of equal access to defenders and attackers? I would guess skew the design to the defenders benefit but don't push it too far in that direction.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Figment

@Bpostal: I have been pondering on creating ES shields to block some entrances on ground level which infils could hack open from the inside or perhaps by hacking the CC. That would force the enemy to not immediately enter the tunnels.

i would go with hackable shields that almost work like the doors in ps1.

but only infils can hack them open and they would only stay open for a very short time, so without having cloakers around, you can´t get heavies and maxes in there.

[CraazyCanuck]

I like the idea of hackable shield doors as well.

Could also have the opposite available as well for defending infiltrators in stonewalling enemy infiltrators, with counter hacks. Infiltrators defending a base can hack their own equipment and introduce their own anti-virus to increase the time it takes for an enemy hack to process. The virus could also alert them of a hack in progress, and it would have an indicator on the minimap.

With the duration of the hack increased, and the radar notification of the hack, the friendly infiltrator would have a small window to get to the hack location and nullify the threat.

Would introduce a new sub tier to the hacking tree. I would also like infiltrators to have the ability to hack enemy sundys and or vehicles in general. If not outright taking it over, then their hack would nullify the spawning ability of the sundy until a friendly infiltrator was able to remove the virus. Other enemy vehicles, when hacked, would deny entry into the vehicle until the virus was removed if outright possession wasn't deemed ok by the dev team.