Pop-A-Lock, Planetstyle

[Airlift]

Here's what we know about continent locks:

1. Continental Lock is achieved by capturing all the bases on a continent.
2. The only way to break into a locked continent is via HART drop.
3. You must capture a base on the continent to break the lock.

Now we can make a few inferrences from this:
1. If you want vehicles once you get into a locked continent, you are going to have to hack them.
2. The lock isn't broken when a tower is taken.
3. The lock isn't automatically broken when a base reverts to neutral on attrition.

And now for some things that are still way up in the air:
1. Can you lock a continent that adjoins a sanctuary?
2. Can you capture a depleted enemy base by refueling it, does it stay neutral after refueled, or revert back to its last ownership?
3. If 2 is the first or second option, is the lock released immediately after being hacked over?

Now then, how would you put together a task force to pop a lock. For the purposes of discussion, let's try to use a 30 man platoon or smaller group. Obviously you are going to rely heavily on Maxes and hackers, but what beyond that?

[TeamR]

meh..

bump

[Navaron]

I agree with your statements and inferrences.

1- I would say so, otherwise every faction has pretty much 2 sanctuaries.

2- I'd say it stays nuetral till capped.

3- I'd say as soon as you cap it, it drops.

You'd certainly want medics and machinists. You'd also want some scouts with the run boost, to bring the schmucks to you. I'd set the snipers up in the cover, send the scouts in the front door, just spam the place with nades as they haul ass back out, anyone who follows gets eaten up by the maxes. As soon as they catch on to what is going on the maxes just rush the gate, and by then hopefully the stealth haxxors will have gone in the back or around and are already starting havoc. I'd bring about 6-10 stealth guys, and half half start hacking every base function everywhere, and the other half just fucking with defenders.

That's just me.

[Toimu]

SJ said when a locked continent is being attacked, everyone of that faction goes to that spot.

I'd want...

10 Cloaker Hacker/Engineer/Advanced Medics
8 AI MAX's
4 AV MAX's
2 AA MAX's
6 Heavy Armor Repair/Advanced Medics

Then I would send 10 Cloakers, (5 groups of 2), to 5 bases that are far apart. Then have the 2 attack squads drop pod in and hit the lightest deffended base. Probable from 2 sides. The other 4 Cloaker pairs would just keep messing with the few people at their base. Trying to keep it in the T-15 minutes and counting stage.

I chose the Heavy Armors to be medics and repair because of their inventory. Also they would be carrying 2 rifles with them. (Remember, if a faction has a continent locked, ~50+% of that faction will probably show up to stop you. You'll need all the fire power you can get.). With only being able to use 30 people, this is the best I can come up with without playing the game.

---

Another way would be....

4 Cloaker Hacker/Engineers
5 Heavy Armor Advanced Medical/Repair poeple
15 AI MAX's
6 AV MAS's

Take all the Towers around the base you want. If more than 1 tower, I'd split up my platoon to take then all at once. Then everyone hits the base.

[Hamma]

The continental locks are indeed interesting, I'd imagine any continent is fair game for a lock.

[Yogi]

Continental locks, IMO, are a great idea. It adds a sense of realism. Gotta drop in if you want to open the doors up.

[Fire_Monkey]

Hmm well first of all I would definately not use AV MAXes, they cant lock air, AA MAXes lock air and can attack ground. But yes of course cloaked hackers is the way to go, but if they have darklight vis you might wanna protect the hackers with a max or 2.
I especially like Navaron's strat... very nice, very nice!

[Navaron]

Well thank you. Who knows, someday I may just send you headlong into the hornets nest. :D

[SandTrout]

my setup for breaking lock:

5-stealthers to find a base with a low silo and/or undefended.
15-assorted mediums.
5-AA MAX
5-Agile hacker pilots to fetch us some fire support.

[Duritz]

I think that a force consisting of:

Squad Alpha
2 Stealth Hackers
2 Stealth Engineers/Havocs
4 AI MAXes
2 AA MAXes

Squad Beta
6 Stealth Hackers/Repairs
2 Stealth Engineers/Havocs
2 Stealth Medic/Repairs

Squad Gamma
6 AI MAXes
2 AA MAXes
2 AV MAXes

will do the job quite nicely.

Basically, you send Squad Alpha to a base quite distant from anywhere, but realistic to capture. Alpha hacks the base and lures all of the people on the continent to that spot. Of course, this group is probably crushed, but when the first attackers are arriving, Beta blows the generator and subsequently hacks another base across the continent. At this point, Gamma rushes in to destroy the defenses of the base. This way you have to deal with a smaller chance of reinforcements, due to the defenders losing respawn and being across the continent, and the ones that do arrive will be late and hopefully without correct resources to beat the very nice combo of 10 MAXes and 7 people left to repair them, that is with one hacking the base.

This strategy seems quite effective to me, but will definitely have big holes if you have bad luck with too many enemies nearby. Hopefullly, the huge number of MAXes should be able to handle most any force. Another thing that might be a problem with some strategies is that reinforced armor is nearly useless for this. because they can be spotted and do not move fast enough to strike like this situation requires. I chose MAXes and stealths because they can either go undetected or run in quickly.

[Ludio]

I would go with a strategy similar to Toimu's.

First start off with 20 stealth hackers/combat engineers and 10 MAX's (4 AI, 3 AV, 3 AA)

The stealth hacker would break up into 8 groups of 2, and 4 individual groups.

7 of the pairs would hack a vehicle terminal to get wraiths and then go to the other bases besides the one you want to take and prepare for the order to hack the main console by hacking inventory stations and other critical systems, preparing to destroy the generator and mining the shit out of the base(assuming that hacking invo stations doesnt set off any alarms).

The last pair would prepare to take the base you actually want to keep and then get 2 AMS (by hacking vehicle terminal) set up near/in the base.

The four individual stealth hackers would go out to nearby towers and start to take them over (travelling by wraith again).

The MAX's would stay at the base they want to keep.

As soon as everyone was ready the hackers would start hacking the main console on the base they want to keep, hack the main console/blow the generators on the other bases, and start taking the towers.

At this point a high level commander would be nice (rank 4/5), they could put out an empire wide call for reinforcements that could come in on drop pods and have towers/AMS set up for respawning. If this goes outside the bounds of the scenario that you set up Airlift, then it isnt neccessary, just usefull.

The hackers in the other bases cause hell to anyone for as long as they can, the towers belong to you and can be used as respawn/defence (gun towers) and the main base you are trying to take will blend in with all the others so that it wont get any special attention, but it has two AMS set up in it and 10 MAX's guarding it.

Imagine the look on the enemy commanders faces when all of the bases on a continent get hacked at the same time. They wont know which one is real (and they could all be for all they know), and so they have to have equal forces go to each one. And with the generators down they will have a really hard time taking the decoy bases. The 10 MAX's with respawn take care of the people trying to take the main base.

I think this plan or some variation of it would work, but I still imagine that popping the lock on continents would be more of an effort for multiple platoons. Just because there are going to be so many people coming at you at once to keep their bases. You could easily get a platoon or more coming to re-take a single base, that could get really nasty really quick. That is why I think that the first platoon would primarily be for setting up respawn points for reinforcements that dont even have to know about the plan.

[Toimu]

ooOOo, what about...

30 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers
Originally posted by Ludio

The hackers in the other bases cause hell to anyone for as long as they can, the towers belong to you and can be used as respawn/defence (gun towers)

doh, I forgot about getting the towers ASAP for repawn reasons.

[Ludio]

More havoc, but not so much defensive capability. Would only work with reinforcements after the bases started to get hacked.

[MooKoo]

lol ya 30 cloaked people all with knifes behind someone hacking at him haha that would be great

[Toimu]

Originally posted by Ludio
More havoc, but not so much defensive capability. Would only work with reinforcements after the bases started to get hacked.

But you might be able to hack all the Towers, AND bases at the same time :D All those spit fire turrets. hehe

Currect continents have ~15 Towers, and 10-17 bases, I think. So lets say this is a small continent with 10 bases, and 10 towers.

30 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers

Ok, so the platoon splits up into 10 groups. Each groups hits a Tower, binds, then hits their base. hehe

Might as well ask for 1,000 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers! Now that would be something! But if you can get that many together, the other team can too. No matte what, I still like my 1st strat the best.

[Lexington_Steele]

You have to have serious Faction wide commander cooperation.

You have one platoon bum rush a base. Since the continent is already locked, enemy forces should be lower than normal. Once you take one base you need to have other platoons drop in there and bind to that base. Taking a single base on the continent shouldn't be too tough, keeping that base and moving onward will be.

Being able to get reinforcements there and binded quickly will be of paramount importance. This will require commanders being ready to drop their squads in, once a SOI has been gained on the continent.

You can be sure that the faction, that owns the continent, will focus on relocking their continent. So, if no reinforcements come, the captured base will get gobbled up quickly.

The key is going to be having the highest level commanders, of your faction, communicating with each other, being coordinated, and having concrete immediate goals in mind.

If possible, the bumrush assault should be timed so that it begins around the time when other forces will be close to finishing a battle.

[Ludio]

Toimu, actually the continents have 7-12 bases.

[glsauron]

Taking dif ideas from here:

With 1 Platoon (3 Squads of 10) you'd need to hit multiple sites at the same time yet also be prepared to drop on only 1 for the main attack.

Send 10 seperate stealthers to dif spots. If they get in and hack, great, if not, they respawn and try THE SAME BASE again. Since each continent has 10 bases, all are being constantly attempted to be hacked.

When you have 3-4 successfully hacked, have the squad leader (of the stealthers) report which base is least defended. Thats the one you send 14 MAXes, 4 Meds, and 3 Lts against. Since you cant use vehicles no need to worry about Lights to pilot. 10 AI, 4 AA.

The AIs spread out and try to take out the defnders. THe Meds provide support, repair, etc. Hopefully you have a tower with a view of the base gate, both your Lts are in the tower with Snipes and Darklight Implant. (I dont know if you can snipe with the DL active but if you can...) and snipe. Should only take 2 shots from each to take down a Med and that should be about 4-8 seconds. (EDIT: The Meds are also responsable for setting up terrets the moment the base switches over.)

Meanwhile the stealth guys have all been killed, and respawned at the sanctuary. Resuit as MAXs and are dropping in as additional support (6). 3 (+1 the one who successfully hacked this base) have remained as Stealth and are carrying pistols and walking around the corridors, hacking doors, panels, and taking out the in-base respawn tubes.

I doubt if the defenders will be able to stand that for long. Once the single base switches over you have another platoon set up to move over (through the closest gate to the base already hacked) in Galaxies and vehicles. Set up a couple AMS to provide spawn points and keep getting people over.

You should hack at least 3 more bases to consider the continent secure and unlikely to be locked out again.

[Duritz]

glsauron......thats seems like it would take waaaaay too long.

If you take too long reinforcements WILL arrive. Like dave said: "communication is easy." People will show up and thwart you, first by taking your unguarded tower and all of your spawn ability. Plus you need some way to transport your mediums. It would take even longer for them to walk.

[NapalmEnima]

From a high-level point of view, I'd want to saturate the area with some pretty heavy-duty squads... leaning more towards MAX. The enemy will have vehicles, you won't.

Unless you can get a vehicle pad hacked, then I'd start spawning the heavy stuff as fast as I could (reavers and heavy tanks). Maybe a couple AMSes if possible. You may not be able to spawn "advanced vehicles" at this point.

Ideally, the first base you took would be close to a warp gate... and on the other side of that gate would be a pretty hefty force of vehicles, ready to pour in and support you. If that first base isn't near a gate, then the initial vehicles better be air... Reavers, with the occasional Skeeter for radar support. Get that support to your first base in a hurry. The downside of this: The enemy could have a scout hanging out inside the warp bubble, invulnerable, able to see the force you're puting together and radio headquarters about it.

Diversionary tactics might help here too. Drop a significant force (a platoon or two) on one end of the continent, give the enemy a couple minutes to react to it, then drop the real force at the other end.

For your first base, I'd think you would want either an AMP station, for the auto-turrets, or a tech plant, for the advanced vehicles.

This would probably take a couple hundred people to pull off successfully, at peak hours. A rank 4 or 5 commander with a couple large outfits could pull this sort of thing off... plus all the usual riff-raff that would drift in when they heard about the mayhem.

If continents end up with an enforced maximum population, that could give the attackers a real advantage, providing they can scrape up enough people to hit the cap. Suddenly defenders can only ship in when an attacker dies and is forced to respawn off the continent. So the defenders would have to control their towers AND protect their bases with a relatively small force... they could end up outnumbered 3 to 1. So much for their lock.

[PrivateMonkey]

Regardless of how you cap a base, what will really be key is having as many troops as possible waiting at a warp-gate, ready to use it immediately. More importantly, have vehicles at the gate.

If you do manage to cap a base using only drop-poded troops, chances are it will be taken back very quickly. You will have everyone on the continent attacking the one base, so it won't hold for long. Once it is re-hacked by the occupying empire, you will essentially have 15 minutes before the gate closes again. Hopefully, if there is some cooperation and planning invovled, those 15 minutes will be enough time for the troops coming in to take another base. That base will likely be near the warp-gate, and will thus hold out longer. Also, remember that when the gates open you will have two empires coming in, not just one.

On the other hand, anyone who can't take back a base from a few drop-poded troops in 15 minutes has to pay the price. In my opinion, taking back locked-down continents will be a worthy challenge.


Also, lets not forget that most folks will most likely drop-pod next to a tower. This will give them a spawn-point to work from.

[glsauron]

Ape- Wrong. Its from when all the bases are captured to when one base is capped by opposing team. So holding it for 15 min is whats important. I figure it's gonna be hard to stop from getting hacked, but rehacking it back within 15 will be almost easy.

Napalm- I'm thinking vehicles will be powerful, but not too big of a deal. Thats what the AV MAXs are for, same with Phoenixes...:) Good catch with the scout inside the warp bubble. Id forgotten about that. Keeping a couple of empty galaxies around each of the gates heading to that continent would help offset that. Or at least a force. (Or you can brute force and keep all those guys in one one ready to defend the nearest base). Whered you get info on the bases specialties? Never seen auto-turrets and adv vehicle pad info before.

Duritz- As for my plan taking too long...it's designed to take a while, but it will also work. As for taking Meds too long, how big is a SoI? Small enough to walk through pretty easily Id guess. Shouldn't take too long, and your dropping 20 ppl all at once within about 3 screens hopefully.

All- Gonna take at least 30 HARTs though, for any of these to work, which means lots of bases. Do all bases have hart stations? Some? Only sanctuary(that be bad). Or how many people can a HART hold? I've always imagined one but maybe Im wrong.

[Duritz]

Well, SOIs are pretty large from what I understand. Looking at this (http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/viewer.php?cat_id=28&img_id=8) map, and assuming that cyssor is 8km x 8km like the average continent is, the smallest SOIs are 3/4-1 km in diameter, but if they control all of the bases, then they will all be large, 3/2-2 km in diameter. Therefore you are looking at a 3/4-1 km walk from any direction into a base. That's 5-6 minutes of fast running in real life.

I just thought of this, the warp gates (http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/viewer.php?cat_id=34&img_id=28) are quite large, they are the size of a SMALL SOI. And the large ones are twice THAT. So, personally, I think that it'll take quite a while to walk.

But, what I'm saying is that time is of the essence. If you are taking too long, any commander on the continent can make sure that a higher-up understands what is going on and sends reinforcements. Plus any continent likely to be taken will easily be in range of Galaxies from the enemy sanctuary in several minutes.
Our flight time from the sanctuary to the first base was around 2-4 minutes.Source (http://www.planetside-universe.com/articles.php?articleId=24&page=3)(about inthe middle of the page)
So showing up to thwart your plan, even before you can get a foothold would be a problem if you take too long.

(I think I read your plan wrong. I thought that waiting for the MAXes was critical, and that's why I wondered about time.)

Anyway, how do you plan on capping these bases? You are going to need to hold out for 15 mins. to keep it. I don't care how many people are defending a base, but 1 MAX could walk into a control room and OWN a stealth.

Also, HARTs only leave from the sanctuary and I believe we've been told that they can hold something like 10 people. I doubt that that number has been confirmed, but I distinctly remember dave saying something about it in december. It may have changed.

[Zatrais]

HART leaves from all dropship bases...

theres one on Cyssor ( http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/viewer.php?cat_id=28&img_id=8 )

Annyways, If i where to assault a base i'd try to go for one thats near a friendly warpgate and simply get as manny MAX's and people whit med and repair certs and swarm the base (element of surprise and all)... then once it's disabeled i'd call in more reinforcements if available into or close to the base once the SOI is down..

theres safety in numbers.

[Ludio]

Actually I think that HART's only leave from the sanctuaries, dropship bases are the only places you can get galaxies (except for santuaries of course).

I dont think they have told us a limit on the carrying capacity of the HART. I could be wrong though.

If there is I think that it could be a pain unless there are a constant stream of them coming and going (and the screenshots only show 2). My reasoning for this is becuase there are going to be 1-2 thousand (rough guess) people in each empire. If there is even a small proportion of them wanting to get somewhere in drop pods then it would lead to long wait times. Although this may be prevent mass drops as well.

Does anyone have a link to a dev stating HART capacity?

[Zatrais]

Bleh, got confirmed by Hamma that there is no HARTs at the non sanctuary dropship facilities... well altleast no on Cyssor. I stand corrected.

learn something every day hehe

[glsauron]

Well then, all our plans are F00ked :)

The ability to gather 2+ platoons, co-ordinate their deployment, and set goals for single units, While having a seperate 2+ platoons ready to grab a SECOND base is going to be the limiting factor. If you want to be really good grab a third group of 2+ platoons to really imopress opon others that "We want this continent" :) Then move out and cap all the bases to lock THEM out :)

Your going to need 1-3 Lv 5 commanders doing nothing but co-ordination among the forces if you really want to succeed.

[Lexington_Steele]

Not that tough, once you grab one base your, factions warpgate will open up. You just need players who are ready to rush in as soon as the first base is captured.

[NewmanOnIsland]

That idea of mobilizing a large group waiting at the gate is a great idea.
This tread is making me drool.
NewmanOnIsland

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by NewmanOnIsland
That idea of mobilizing a large group waiting at the gate is a great idea.
This tread is making me drool.
NewmanOnIsland
I can see it now, like 100 people waiting to warp, all getting fired up and putting their game faces on, getting their last second equipment/implant tweaks ready, feeling the excitement of adrenaline leaking into their systems, knowing that they are about to rush into a humongous battle with the fate of an entire continent at stake. :rock: :drools:

[Navaron]

.......then they get the message that their base on the other damn side of the continent has been hacked....

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by {BOHICA}Navaron
.......then they get the message that their base on the other damn side of the continent has been hacked....
As always, Navaron coming in the nick of time to ruin my moment. :(

(j/k)

[Ludio]

If they had a base on the other side then it wouldnt be locked...

I could imagine them getting the message that all their forces on the other side were wiped out and that they had to go do other stuff. That would probably suck.

[Airlift]

Holding for 15 minutes buys you 15 open, so the key is to just maintain a single base, but we all agree that you have to give the enemy other things to worry over. You don't have to hold the first base once the gate is open, but you better have another one hacked before you lose it or your window will close and the invading forces will be cut off.

My plan takes a while to set up, but it would be a fun go with a single platoon of advanced players.

3 squads: A, B, C.

Squad A consists entirely of pathfinders in stealth gear. They drop in pairs to 5 locations and quietly feel out the defenses at each. They are all on foot and evading, so this is the part of the plan that will actually take the most time.

The easiest grab will be our first target. One pathfinder will stay outside the base until the drop starts, the other will go inside and read the interior defenses.

When both pathfinders call the site clear for drop, B and C squads will board the next HART. The 4 remaining pathfinder teams are immediately tasked with capping towers througout the continent and displacing before the enemy responds. The first 4 towers should be hit simultaneously, and they need to be taken before the HART picks up our assault force. The idea is to rattle the entire continent except for the objective, which subsequently receives the drop troops.

B and C are my assault squads. They total out to:
8 AI MAXes
4 AV MAXes
2 AA MAXes
3 Hacker / Engineers
3 Repair / Medics

We will attempt to take the base in tact, securing the terminals that are in a defensable area with the control room. The AA MAXes and one AI MAX will secure the roof, one AI MAX and the all 6 regular infantry will hold the control room, and the 6 remaining AI MAXes will work in pairs to sweep the interior of the base. The 4 AV MAXes will work the exterior of the base, letting the most determined infantry through, but harrassing the vehicles and drawing as much attention away from the interior defense as possible without being destroyed.

My theory is that the base can fall after it's taken, but you must be able to fight a delaying action until that happens. I'm going with an aggressive turtle using a lot of mines and MAXes to hold hallways and choke points. I don't count on reinforcements, but people might naturally start dropping in if they see towers blinking in a locked house.

[Format]

I like your idea Airlift, a swift and affective way to catch the enemy off gaurd. With the enemy faction members consentrating on defending the towers, the rest of the squads will have a much greater chance of infultrating the base. Nice thinking.

[Duritz]

I just got an idea that might work.

If you have 3 Squads Alpha, Beta, and Gamma
Alpha
10 Reinforced Medic/Repair/Grunt

Beta
10 Reinforced Medic/Hacker/Grunt

Gamma
6 AI MAXes
2 AV MAXes
2 AA MAXes

Doesn't really matter that you may take heavy casualties attacking and holding a base because you can revive them. Just have all Reinforced carry lots of Medical Applicator ammo try to refill often with hackers or carry ammo in MAXes. It would be more of a brute force attack than anything strategic, but it might work.

[edit] hmmm, Ijust noticed that I'm a Soldier. Sweet, guess I've been here long enough to make a sig. hey Airlift, would you mind making me one? I can't think of anything.

[Flameseeker]

Can I have one too? Or am I too lowly and unimportant? :( I was thinking the close-up NC skeeter with Flameseeker in flaming letters. I wish I had Photoshop....

[Airlift]

I suspect reviving is going to be a downtime activity, it will probably take a little while, and they said at the last dev chat that you woulc come back with lowered health and armor (but all the same equipment). I'm all for lots of medics around, but don't count on them bringing people back under fire. It would probably be better to keep fighting and then revive as soon as you get a minute.

http://66.186.214.181/~airlift/duritz.gif
http://66.186.214.181/~airlift/flameseeker.gif

No request for you flameseeker, because I did it a couple weeks ago.

[Flameseeker]

:jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop:
Thanks! Sweet! Just crapped pants! Gotta go!

[Flameseeker]

Back, so how would I put that in sig? :confused:

[Zatrais]

click on user cp, edit profile and go to signature

then type [.img]www.thepicsadresshere.com/imagename.jpg[./img] but whitout the .'s in it.

[Lexington_Steele]

It might be nice to have two platoons hart in to the continent.

One platoon + 1 squad from the second platoon goes in and hacks a base where you can get mosquitos. The rest of the second platoon will remain in hiding. The first platoon sits in the base and fortifies its position.

The extra squad hops in a bunch of mosquitos and runs recon for the rest of the second platoon. The second platoon's job will be to harrass enemy forces guerrilla style. Hit and fade, hit and fade. This should keep the enemy forces off ballance enough that the first platoon can defend for 15 minutes.

[Tobias]

Not sure, but can MAX's drop in the pods? I dont think they can but i have a feeling i may be wrong.

[Zatrais]

MAX's fit in droppods

confirmed by Rogue13 in the post dev chat chat.

[Airlift]

It would be fun to try to grab up a terminal and crank out a squadron of mosquitos under the enemy's nose. On the other hand, if I got a second platoon for the break-in, I would probably just hit two bases instead of one. That would work as well as anything to diffuse the response.

Now, here's something to think about. If your pathfinders locate a completely undefended base, don't attack there. I would go to the next easiest grab (pick a distant one for best effect), but send the pathfinders that found it in for the uncontested hack. Then their task would be to hide raise the devil on anyone who comes in to recap.

That reduces your tower grabs, but it will send people to the stealth-haunted base first, and when they do arrive at the real target they are more likely to expect little or no resistance.

[Serbitar]

Most of the LOCKS will be broken in OFFTIME attacks. Just bring a good outfit with 1-2 Platoons at 3 o clock in the morning and nobody will be there to defend the continent lock.

(may not be fair, but it will be done this way)

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by Airlift
It would be fun to try to grab up a terminal and crank out a squadron of mosquitos under the enemy's nose. On the other hand, if I got a second platoon for the break-in, I would probably just hit two bases instead of one. That would work as well as anything to diffuse the response.

I am not sure if I would want to split my forces to two different bases. All you need is to grab one base. Then, the lock is broken and you can have your faction's forces warping in. All your defensive focus should be on that one base.

If you are going to try to divert enemy forces to two bases, one of the bases should be a decoy, and most of your forces should be concentrated on defending the first base (maybe hack the decoy base a couple of seconds before you hack the real base so enemy forces go to the decoy first).

I think having geurilla ground troops and mosquitos feeding snipers and long range anti vehicular ground forces would be invalulable. The idea here is that these forces are trying to take advantage of the fact that they won't appear on radar. They would also change positions very often to aviod detection as long as possible. Think thorn in the enemy's side rather than a solid combat force. Snipers shoot any foot sodiers they see, and the anti vehicle guys have the ground troop delivery vehicles as their primary targets. The primary target for mosquitos would be galaxies.

Maybe the two platoon should be configured like this. Maybe one platoon "turtling"at one base, one squad of mosquitos (harrasing and feeding tactical info), one squad (half snipers, half anti vehicle)playing geurrilla style (surge implants would be nice), and a squad at a second base acting as a decoy (maybe they would mine the crap out of all the entrances to this base).

As an alternative, you could spawn tanks at the base instead of having geurilla forces and mosquitos, but I think a geurilla squad and a squad of mosquitos would be more effective.

Either way, one of the advanced hackers at the base is going to be very busy spawning vehicles. :)

[Airlift]

It's a tradeoff either way, but I would still task the platoons separately if I thought it was at all possible to cap a base with two squads. While it is true that you are splitting your forces, you are doing so with the intention of doubling your caps and giving the enemy more than one real headache to deal with at the same time. If we take a decoy base that we cannot hold it will only buy a limited window, but if we put solid defenses up in both bases, the chances are increased that at least one of them can hold on to the cap.

[RageMaster]

I personally think the simplest strategy is the best. This would be to stick ALL your forces in one base, and try and hold it for the 15 minutes. You co-ordinate a MASS HART drop centered around one target. You'd need numbers, but as soon as the CP is hacked you've only got to sit there for 15 minutes before everyone can pour back through the warp-gate.

In 15 minutes I doubt the enemy would have a decent counter-offensive sorted. I'd imagine you'd be recieving mostly straggler groups defending surrounding bases as they do a mad charge to your position. 15 minutes is not a great deal of time in reality, and all a squad has to do is make sure enemy hackers dont get to the CP.

You'd go for the base you can re-cap and defend easiest. This might lead you to a base with good defense terrain, or a base with a specific vehicle lab so you can churn out vehicles, or a base with lots of pre-existing turret defences. Ideally you'd want a base on the coast, and particularly on a beach-head, so you only recieve ground attacks from one direction. You'd also want a base which you can get to quickly from your HART drop location. You might have to compromise on some of those aspects for others.

I doubt you'd need to get a load of units on the other side of the warp-gates, I'd imagine they'd be sitting there as soon as they see "Your forces have hacked a base in Cysorr, 15 minutes untill continental lock is released." I can see the broadcasting of such messages would gather enough forces for a retake of 3 bases after lockdown is released. After-all, your allies want to be where the fight is, otherwise they're not earning EP.

The dynamics of the game will bring the players together for huge battles. And even off-peak time. An outfit won't rampage through a continent, cuz the enemy factions off-peak outfits will most ceirtainly get wind of it and put up some resistance. If your faction controlls an entire continent and has it under lockdown, you will have a significant portion of your army defending it, even in off-peak.

I'd imagine potential to loose or break continental lock would be a message broadcast to the entire server over all 3 factions. Simply because its a 'big event' for the server. The GMs would have an obligation to let people know what's going on and where the major action is. Sure, when continental locking starts, all hell is gonna break loose. Forget your ideas about 30 unit HART insertions. Serious. Double the number twice over and see how that sits.

If I know a continental lock is goin down, I'd be there if my faction were attacking OR defending. Its a major event, every non smack-tard on the server would be there, just to say they were involved. Thats what happens in MOGs, especially after people have maxed out on BEP.

[SmokeJumper]

Cool discussion. I love this thread.

A few things to keep in mind:

- 15 minutes is a long time to wait/fight without a bind. Therefore, jacking enemy AMSs and/or having good advanced medics along (for revive) will be critical. (I would try drop poding in a half-squad of stealthers to scout and find AMSs to jack, then steal them and drive them somewhere safe for the attack. Might not work...but I'd try it a few times just to see...)

- Gun towers are also important (bind positions). Probably want to hack those at the same time as you attack you chosen target facility.

- Unlike AMSs, you don't have an equip term at Towers, so be sure to stock your locker heavily beforehand with bullets, grenades, ACEs, medkits, repair kits, etc.

I won't list any more strategies. That takes the fun out of it. I look forward to reading more threads like this one.

[Airlift]

That brings me to a few questions about assumptions I was making. You've mentioned the tower spawns as bindable, and elsewhere I had heard that you can opt to respawn at the nearest friendly spawn tube instead of your binds. Does that include the towers or would you have to manually bind in a tower to use it for respawning?

You mentioned that the towers don't have equipment terms, but do you respawn unarmed or with basic weapons?

[LesserShade]

Originally posted by Airlift
You mentioned that the towers don't have equipment terms, but do you respawn unarmed or with basic weapons?
^That's what I want to know

[Yogi]

Originally posted by SmokeJumper


I look forward to reading more threads like this one.

Check out the tower's thread ;)

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by SmokeJumper
Cool discussion. I love this thread.

A few things to keep in mind:

- 15 minutes is a long time to wait/fight without a bind. Therefore, jacking enemy AMSs and/or having good advanced medics along (for revive) will be critical. (I would try drop poding in a half-squad of stealthers to scout and find AMSs to jack, then steal them and drive them somewhere safe for the attack. Might not work...but I'd try it a few times just to see...)

- Gun towers are also important (bind positions). Probably want to hack those at the same time as you attack you chosen target facility.

- Unlike AMSs, you don't have an equip term at Towers, so be sure to stock your locker heavily beforehand with bullets, grenades, ACEs, medkits, repair kits, etc.

I won't list any more strategies. That takes the fun out of it. I look forward to reading more threads like this one.

Your not using threads like this to steal tactics for your Terran Republic are you? ;)

[Flameseeker]

At the risk of sounding stupid, how would I host that pic so I can put it in my sig. :confused:

[Ludio]

Flameseeker, ask someone to do it, or sign up on angelfire or some other free hosting service, it only takes a couple of minutes.

SmokeJumper:

I would try drop poding in a half-squad of stealthers to scout and find AMSs to jack, then steal them and drive them somewhere safe for the attack.

Does that mean that you can't hack a vehicle pad for them?

All the other questions I was thinking of were already asked by Airlift, so make sure you answer those! :D