How to Stop 4th Empire/Spying/Sabotage?

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Canaris

here's a great NC one

More like careless squark!



(sorry, ill leave now...)

[Hmr85]

Pretty much everything above. Just don't get caught though or you'll end up getting TK'd on site from a pissed off faction. Lol

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by megamold

that would be the work of a scout

a spies job isnt really to find out where the enemy is right now, or in 5 minutes time.
his job is to find out where the enemy will try to be in an hour or 2.
or where that specials ops team is being sent before it gets sent out, and why they want them there.

infiltration, social engineering, abuse of trust
being a spy is awesome, to bad im not cut out to be one

In EVE that's certainly true. In PlanetSide I could look at the map and tell you where the enemy will be with a pretty good idea where they will go next. Didn't need a spy for that.

Outfit spies are the kind that could potentially do damage, but even then it's just one outfit, not all the others on the empire. The scope of the spy is very small. In a game where the spy could help bring down the outfit permanently it would be a different story. But things change so quickly in PlanetSide that the most warning you might get from a Spy is a few minutes, and even then only one outfit. Having a spy in CR5 chat might have been useful in PS1 if they were planning raids and what not, but that was easy enough to counter by having only a select few CR5's calling the target and not revealing that target until the last possible moment.

EVE and Planetside are very different, and I know spying is powerful and potentially extremely damaging in EVE, but it wasn't in Planetside. Scouting really is the most useful thing a spy can do, especially without a CR5 chat. Apart from that, infiltrating a large alliance of outfits might be profitable. But if that's the case there's nothing SOE can do about it because at that point it's a social engineering problem and an opsec problem.

I still think the pacing of PlanetSide is such that the value of spying is quite low. Low enough that it isn't worth the effort unless you want to see how well defended an area is or scope out a potential target without drawing suspicion. That's about it.

[megamold]

yeah, in eve the role of the spy is a very long one, but with potentially huge rewards and impact.
i'm geussing in ps2 the role of the spy will be a more short term one.
and its true that he doesnt have as much impact as a spy in eve,but i can see how having a good spy could still give you an edge in the war.
albeit a small edge

and just because the value is lower, doesnt mean there wont be spies. simple because some people just love to be spies

[Nasher]

Should be mentioned that you can't just TK people as you like in planetside. If they use the same system as the first game (which is likely) you will get weapon locks and won't be allowed to use vehicles. As it's F2P I expect it to be harsher

It doesn't take much either. One explosive in the wrong place, you kill a bunch of team-mates and your locked out of doing pretty much anything on all your characters. It includes friendly structures and deployables as well.

TBH they should have a way of tracking people over multiple accounts as well. Either with IP, some kind of client key, or payment information which you have to provide before hand.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by megamold

yeah, in eve the role of the spy is a very long one, but with potentially huge rewards and impact.
i'm geussing in ps2 the role of the spy will be a more short term one.
and its true that he doesnt have as much impact as a spy in eve,but i can see how having a good spy could still give you an edge in the war.
albeit a small edge

Unless it's a spy that's being dual-boxed for scouting I think the cost may be higher than the reward. If you have a spy that's a full time spy that's one less player you have in your squads contributing. If it's a dual-boxed alt then the spy probably isn't doing much other than scouting and keeping another pair of eyes on things.

And in PlanetSide having a spy is a bit more difficult since there are two opposing empires. You'd have to infiltrate significant organizations on both of them, and that's a lot of work and it may not pay off all that much between those organizations only being small pieces of the pie and the damage may be limiting. Having two scouting alts though, that's easy. But if scouting's all your doing it might be more beneficial to have a good infiltrator capable of doing that anytime against any target and not move alts around.

Manpower cost matters. More more rifle, one more tank, or one more aircraft is a clear advantage all the time. A chance at a small intel advantage...could just as easily have that man with you and do scouting and a lot more.

[Marsgrim]

Originally Posted by FuzzyandBlue

Also vehicles are spawned from a private resource pool not a faction wide one. So said "spys" would need to spend time with their character to troll themselves. As far as the faction hoppers go with an acct for each, well they'll be terrible players most likely and help ensure the constant ebb and flow of the war.

For example, TR is winning, trashing the NC and VS, all the good TR players log off and are replaced by the dead weight in the other two factions. NC and VS, with their now superior players, regain lost ground and then some. I don't know how likely this is but I can see it happening.

I am sure vehicles are spawned from Empire resource pools as a way to balance the number of vehicles, hence the need to control resource generating facilities?

[megamold]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Unless it's a spy that's being dual-boxed for scouting I think the cost may be higher than the reward. If you have a spy that's a full time spy that's one less player you have in your squads contributing. If it's a dual-boxed alt then the spy probably isn't doing much other than scouting and keeping another pair of eyes on things.

And in PlanetSide having a spy is a bit more difficult since there are two opposing empires. You'd have to infiltrate significant organizations on both of them, and that's a lot of work and it may not pay off all that much between those organizations only being small pieces of the pie and the damage may be limiting. Having two scouting alts though, that's easy. But if scouting's all your doing it might be more beneficial to have a good infiltrator capable of doing that anytime against any target and not move alts around.

Manpower cost matters. More more rifle, one more tank, or one more aircraft is a clear advantage all the time. A chance at a small intel advantage...could just as easily have that man with you and do scouting and a lot more.

that is true, we will just have to see how it plays out.
i hope they can play some role to make it worth playing as one.

Originally Posted by Nasher

Should be mentioned that you can't just TK people as you like in planetside. If they use the same system as the first game (which is likely) you will get weapon locks and won't be allowed to use vehicles. As it's F2P I expect it to be harsher

It doesn't take much either. One explosive in the wrong place, you kill a bunch of team-mates and your locked out of doing pretty much anything on all your characters. It includes friendly structures and deployables as well.

TBH they should have a way of tracking people over multiple accounts as well. Either with IP, some kind of client key, or payment information which you have to provide before hand.

killing 1 guy isnt going to get you grief locked, cause then everyone would be grief locked all the time
i really watch out, trying not to hit friendly's. yet i still do.
like you said : it doesnt take much

edit : and i could be wrong but i think i heard higby talking about a player API like eve has.

[RoninAfro]

I'm not sure how the process actually works, but would it be possible to see the IP address that an account logged on from and if they try to log on to a separate account, the servers sees that IP address logged on to a different account and locks that IP address to the first account for 5 minutes? e.g., IP w.x.y.z is on their primary account, logs off to spy with a different account but the server sees that IP w.x.y.z logged on to their first account and keeps them from logging on to their second account until 5 minutes has passed from them logging out from their original account. That way it wouldn't prohibit people from legitimately server swapping, but would also keep any info they bring from being potentially useful.

[Ghoest9]

I dont really see this becoming a problem.

Most operational organization comes from with in companies(or sometimes 2 or 3 companies working together) rather than the whole server.

Companies can handle their own intel security and there is no security needed with the zerg.

[lolroflroflcake]

There is nothing wrong with spying in a game, if your whining about it you have only proven that you completely missed the point. Besides a spy cannot actively keep you from having fun or sabotage without being labelled as a griefer and being punished as such, they just help their team win through information and that is a legitimate tactic in Planetside.

The fourth empire is the only real problem, but if they want to make a totally different account for each empire on a server then that's up to them. Cause I am almost entirely certain that there will be measures in place to keep people on one empire per server for one given account.

[Zebasiz]

I also Don't see spying as being THAT big of a deal,
But if it is, why has no one brought up counterspys?
Someone in the enemy faction and organizations specifically trying to find out the info the enemy spy is handing over, then relaying that to your sides leaders quietly, so they can change plans at the last minute.

[Marsgrim]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

I dont really see this becoming a problem.

Most operational organization comes from with in companies(or sometimes 2 or 3 companies working together) rather than the whole server.

Companies can handle their own intel security and there is no security needed with the zerg.

The problem is for the people working to take a base who then get their effort and fun ruined by someone dual boxing to grief the attempt and sabotage it.

Even with grief lock, it's still feasible for a friendly tank to ruin the attempts of a large number of players. With the F2P model, all you need to create an account is an email address at this stage, as far as we know, which makes it easier to abuse the system.

You may wish to say it won't make an impact on the overall fight although I disagree, but it certianly makes an impact on a local fight where hours of play could be sabotaged. It's fun to fight, it's not fun to be deliberately TK'd repeatedly to prevent you achieving what you want to.

[megamold]

Originally Posted by Zebasiz

I also Don't see spying as being THAT big of a deal,
But if it is, why has no one brought up counterspys?
Someone in the enemy faction and organizations specifically trying to find out the info the enemy spy is handing over, then relaying that to your sides leaders quietly, so they can change plans at the last minute.

now thats some advanced spying right there

[Nemises]

mmmmm....sweet sweet meta-game