New In Concept - Page 6

Veteran · 2004-01-07, 01:10 AM

What this says to me is that Core Combat was a poorly thought out essay on the subject of boosting the odds for base defenders.

I think removing the tower spawn points is a great idea.

sPooT · 2004-01-07, 08:58 AM

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

The best way to incorperate this into the game would be to make it turn on only when 25+ enemys are around the base. That way we can still have small squads hack a base.

The problem is one of the reasons of the devs is to prevent exactly this, check out the topic in the official forums. They want to make "ghost-hacking" a thing of the past. Just so you know

I think this can be much fun for the greater battles, like huge clashes of heavy tanks when the shield finally falls. On the other hand, blowing the gens of a (backward) base to remove the facility benefits was a valid tactic IMO, I just wished it took more than one guy to do it. It should be more of a squad effort instead of a single hacker. But oh well, I always welcome new stuff. We'll see how it turns out.

@BadAsh: That is great idea man, did you post this on the offcial boards? They're still gathering input to complete this feature. The ghost-gen-blower syndrome still remains though, you'll need to think about that

FireWolf22 · 2004-01-07, 09:57 AM

Just one thing. You all are talking about a force wall or something like that. Something that makes it so that only a gal can drop into a base. Well We have one of those. It's called the Shield Mod. Okay so now every base has a shield, one more reason for CC to have been a waste. Also the thing about the front line only getting the force fields. Have you all not looked at how many front lines there are now. You have the links to the base, you have them links from warpgates that have not been locked and you have links from the caves. I know that you were able, and haven't seen it corrected yet, to hack from the link from the caves even the inactive ones. So now you have at least 6 to 7 force field covers bases on any cont at one time. At least three warpgates, two cavern links, and the 1 to 2 links from the other bases on the cont. I can't give an accurate count on all conts, but oshur solsar and ceryshen would have 2 unshielded bases.

I do know there are other major, but easy, ways for base defence to be better. There was this idea about the bunkers being kicked around. I wonder what happened to that; make them with the one way transporters in them, move them to cover the base. I have seen them on Hossin where they are stuck out in the middle of the swamp. You can see the road but your not even near the base. Move them to cover the gates, a tactical intersection a little away, and the back doors. Give the bunkers one or two 12 or 20mm fixed gun emplacesments. Add some ammo terms so troops can restock, but with ammo and support equip only; no armor. I have run out of ammo before. Also make it where the mag mower can't mow you when they drive past the outside of the bunker. Make the wall turrets on a base a little bit more versatile. I mean damn taking a 12 or 20mm rotary chain gun up again a few prowlers is useless, oh and god for bid the reavor get above your fire arc and unload it's missles on you. We need some tracking aa turrets set up inside the bases, not on the walls and maybe change out like one of the turrets at a gate to a grenade turrent of av turrent. Or make the wall turrets have two fire modes, i.e. shooting bullets for troops and then av for vehicles. That would make peeps want to jump in the turrents more often in a defense operation. Leave the auto fire of a turrent as is where they fire ony bullets at vehicles and maxes.

These small adds would greatly help the defense against a zerg. The thing about ghost hacks. That is spec ops, you can't make them go away. Here SOE goes conforming our tactics again. I thought that was the reason for them making an infiltrator suit to begin with. Also the game is about tactics, I have heard that in the reviews and from the devs themselves. If you want us to have tactics let us come up with them and use them. Don't hold my hand and make me use the tactics you want me to. There are not tactics then. They are text book operations then.

Don't get me wrong the devs have done a good job. I really think they have. I wonder one thing. How many of them are ex-military. They may want to get at least a few ex-military on the planning and design team for ideas and layouts. That would greatly help out. I thought also that the last endevor of the devs was to get away from zergs. Now they want them. They make for good battles and zerging is the way things are won. I don't know why they wanted them to stop to begin with. Standard Military tactic; out number your enemy at least two to 1, Unless you have tech on them. In PS we can't get more technologically adv than another empire. We are all trying to be balanced to keep the game fun. So only one thing to do zerg the enemy and be tactical. Most peeps can tell a ghost hack or a ghoster taking down a gen, if it's a squad then you pull a few peeps stomp their asses and fix what needs to be fixed. Then head back to the real fight.

Sorry to be so long winded.
Wolf

EarlyDawn · 2004-01-07, 01:00 PM

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the tower changes are approperate. Just give them all a pen where you can deploy an AMS and give it a shield whenever there's an AMS there. Kinda like a plug-in slot for it. Lets the tower remain functional as a staging point if the defenders are wise enough to bring an AMS, but still has all the other useful stuff if not.

Lithpope · 2004-01-07, 01:54 PM

I like and don't like the idea. I do like what someone said about having 25+ enemy in the SOI to activate it, but, in general I think it is a bad idea. What they ought to do is get more creative with CE and give us support guys a little more flexibily in base defense.

Some suggestions:

1) Make CE resistant to EMP in a base, not invulnerable, just resistant. Maybe it makes a check and survives EMP 50% of the time. I hate nothing more than carefully placing my mines, spits, and motions sensors throughout a base ( process that can take 5-10 minutes if I am carefully placing them and boom a CR 3+ comes in with EMP and destroys a large chunk of it in seconds.)

2) Beef up CE some, maybe give them 25 to 30 mines per SOI.

3) Make base specific CE items, like a beefed up spitfire ( more hp and maybe more damage) or perhaps an anti-vehicle mine only that can only be depolyed within a base SOI yet still does standard mine damage to a grunt). Maybe small AA spits that can be place on the tops of bases or in the CY that have a limited shot ceiling of say 100 meters.

4) CE portable shields that allow people to pass through but not weapons fire, the shields would have a finite number of hp before being destroyed (e.g. a deci shot could take them out).

All in all I think that the idea is a bad one and they could be more creative with CE to beef up base defense and give us support guys more tools to fill the gaps.

Madcow · 2004-01-07, 01:56 PM

There are a few problems I see with removing towers as spawn points (although I do like the idea of making the support certs more valuable).

1. MAXs. Maybe that's the idea, but MAXs would become something that defenders have but not those assaulting a base. That's rough. It would make the Pounder more valuable again, but it would suck to have to run from your closest base (assuming you even have one on the cont) to the base being assaulted in MAX armor every time. I think most people would just discard their MAXs and we'd see a lot more grunts around. I'm not sure I like that part.

2. There would be very little reason to capture the towers. For the most part, you may as well remove them. While saying to put medical terms in them is nice, let's face it. Those are rarely used anyhow. Repair/rearm would also be nice, but would it be worth blowing any element of surprise to get that in advance? It seems to me attacking forces would be better off ignoring the towers and immediately going after the base, as taking a tower will alert every enemy on the continent to which area you're focusing on. That gives them a chance to get into position to defend, which puts attackers at a disadvantage. As an attacking force, it would be more beneficial to try and make it into the base and get the hack and survive long enough for the hack to go through as the enemy spread out over the continent may not know where you're planning on attacking until you've begun your hack. I'm afraid towers would become second thoughts.

3. AMSs are damn near impossible to defend for any length of time. Let's say you're trying to get a foothold on a continent, you have no bases yet and there is an enemy presence. You get a platoon together and bring 5 AMSs to the outside of a base, all hidden in different places. You start to attack the base, knowing you have those 5 spawn points to use. How long are those 5 AMSs going to last if the enemy concentrates at all on rebuffing your attack? Spawn tubes not in buildings seem slightly susceptible to Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler shots. Even a well-coordinated assault on a base could be destroyed quickly and fairly easily. There aren't enough combat engineers in the game to keep AMSs alive once people know the general area that they're in.

EarlyDawn · 2004-01-07, 06:01 PM

UPDATE: This just in from the official forum...

Originally posted by Smokejumper
...thanks for the comments. I think you'll like the new Force Dome doc (you'll see it Thursday) that talks allows not only the ANTs to drain the Dome as "sappers", but also allows the Flails to bombard the shield from a distance (these would be the "catapults" to go along with the "sappers" if you want to think in terms of medieval warfare). You have to have the sappers to keep the shield from regenerating, but the Flails can bring it down much faster if that's the case.

Excomm: You're going to like the Generator Shield section of the new design. It's very similar to what you're suggesting for Generator protection.

Willski...Defensive Force Domes are likely to only be on sub-capitols to start with...and then available as an OBO upgrade later. Definitely *not* on all facilities.

Shini...check Thursday's version of the doc. We've made the dome a lot more interesting for saboteurs, I think. Certainly there are opportunities for them, at the least.

You heard it here first. They're listening to feedback.

Seer · 2004-01-07, 08:41 PM

The main thing about a zerg versus a large organized attacking force is their inability to use combined arms. The vehicles and weapons that a zerg brings to bear are not used efficiently. I think bases could offer more diverse 'battle stations' for defenders. Things that would make it fatal for a zerg that wasn't using combined arms, but could be defeated by an intelligent force that knew how to hold them down.

I've devastated wave after wave of enemies using wall turrets before, only to be brought low by an infantryman with an emp grenade. He had the right equipment, the right plan, and he gave the local prowlers a chance to take me out. Whether or not that was intentional I'll never know, but it's the epitomy of combined arms, and its the kind of warfare that zergs just can't practice. They can bring to bear a lot of deadly firepower, but they can't do things like that consistently.

So make it deadly for an attacking force that doesn't plan. Bases could have flak cannons/sam sites, mortars, blast doors, and personally I think it'd be pretty sweet to have a Tribes esque command console where high rank CRs could access a number of base features that would give their team an edge, like surveilance cameras, SOI-wide waypoints, and a special broadcast channel. I say this because not only do defenders not have a significant firepower advantage, they also don't have a real information advantage. CEs with motion sensors are not enough--I destroy those three seconds after I come into contact with them and hardly anyone notices, at least not when there is a battle raging.

As it stands, bases are just empty places to fight in--a series of walls and tunnels, but I don't see why they can't be an organic part of combat. I think it would spice things up for both defender and attacker if they were met with a challenge, but I don't think that implementing an automatic force field is going to really going to give anyone what they want--a good, tough fight.

KIAsan · 2004-01-08, 12:17 AM

Seer,
Excellent points. I would make the surveilance cameras a CE deployable, then let them be accessed by anyone from the war room (you need the defenders to work as a team also, so no CE = no surveilance). That way, you could plant the cameras anywhere in the SOI and get great intel. Broadcast already exists, I wouldn't change that. Even the force dome is not a bad idea. Just make it so troops can drop into it (from a gal) and tie it to it's own generator (that also uses NTUS), that way, it can be blown by special ops, and if you let the ntus drain out (by not repairing the shield gen or filling the silo), you would also lose the shield. Makes eng and ants way more popular.

Ignore Me · 2004-01-08, 09:44 PM

very interesting