To make defending less gimped

[Doppler]

These are some simple ideas I put out as a purely mental excersize. I'm not paying a whole lot of attention to implementation, although i think on most counts it whould be fairly simple.

Allow spitfires to be placed indoors.

Make the IFF on the CC, Gen Room, and spawns have almost double or maybe even triple the current hack time.

Anyone (other then cloaked infiltrators) passing through the archway of an IFF door set off the equivalent of a motion sensor unless they have hacked the IFF. (So no running undeteected through a door that an enemy opened when running out.

Make shield modules put an empire specific field over all IFF doorways allowing only defendors to pass through without hacking the IFF.

Place Phanalax (sp?) turrets at the corners of the bases indoor providing field of fire over the courtyard.

Provide some centralized command and controll (maybe some kind of chamber that you get in and gives you a third person perspective within the base SOI thats free floating) to help defenders coordinate.

Give towers a 5 minuete hack timer for empires that dont own the nearby base, but instantanious for defenders.

Give bases some sort of manable dedicated AA turret whos view is not obscured by the walls and buildings (i.e. on the highest point in the base)

[Hamma]

Interesting ideas, especially the tower one

[Lartnev]

Good ideas :thumbsup:

Some comments though:

Allow spitfires to be placed indoors.

I don't honestly like the idea of spitfires indoors, not to say I wouldn't like to see some sort of deployable indoors, just not spitfires. Not really sure why so I can't argue against it, I mean it's not as if spitfires are difficult things to destroy.

Anyone (other then cloaked infiltrators) passing through the archway of an IFF door set off the equivalent of a motion sensor unless they have hacked the IFF. (So no running undeteected through a door that an enemy opened when running out.

Surely the only problem would be cloaked infiltrators anyway? I'd rather see inside only hackable back doors.

Provide some centralized command and controll (maybe some kind of chamber that you get in and gives you a third person perspective within the base SOI thats free floating) to help defenders coordinate.

I like the concept but free-floating would be a bit too much imo. Perhaps a room where you could monitor CCTV cameras placed around the base (such as back/main doors, vehicle pads, gates, spawn rooms etc). Maybe add the ability for jammers to disable them, but you can't destroy them and only CRsomethings can access circuit.

Give bases some sort of manable dedicated AA turret whos view is not obscured by the walls and buildings (i.e. on the highest point in the base)

Whilst this seems a good idea, I don't think it will help. First of all, it'll just be the first port of call for liberators. Secondly it's gonna stand out like a sore thumb at the highest point of the base and hence be decimator bait (much like the rest of the turrets). Thirdly it's going to attract a lot of AV attention :)

I feel the AA options for all sides are pretty good if used well. And if a reaver or lib finds its way through them, then it deserves to have some fun :D

The rest of the ideas I agree totally with :nod:

[Eldanesh]

Honestly, I don't think base defense is anywhere near gimped but for defensive cep.

As is through effective use of weapons and vehicles, defenders have a massive advantage.

First base on the cont: attackers don't have a prayer if they can't control the cy and interior before they lose their ground vehicles. Tank supply, ams supply, air supply is all extremely limited and I have seen many poplocked attacking forces pushed off before they got their first base.

A capable defender can often kill the attacking ams, kick them out and rehack within 10 minutes if they get a comparable force.

If the defense starts before the first foothold, a small group of defenders can hold off a suprisingly larger number of attackers. This is compounded with shield mods and equipment mods.

The only difficult part about defense is prying defenders off poplocked stalemates to do said defense in time.

[Wraithlord]

Provide some centralized command and controll (maybe some kind of chamber that you get in and gives you a third person perspective within the base SOI thats free floating) to help defenders coordinate.

this is a great idea, and one that has been brought up before, perhaps make it were only cr4-5's can access it and you would have something that commanders in this game have been dreaming of for since release, instead of random people screaming
" NME AMS IN CY!!!!!11"
" ENEMY AMS!!"
"AMS! GET IT!!"

you could have a commander calmly state

"enemy ams under the northeast overpass, AV troopers please take care of the problem"

in a different color than normal broadcast.


also: The problem of one commander parking his ass in one of these things and then going LD or afk for an extended time would arise, perhaps it could hold any amount of cr4-5's and be easily destructable, killing any person caught inside...hey thats a new thing for cloakers to do ;)

I love the idea of a hovering spec mode for central defense



Allow spitfires to be placed indoors.

god no!

[Doppler]

I really question whether or not the observation system needs to be restricted to Cr-whatever. I think that anyone should be able to hop in the slots (in fact maybe make it a special selection you can make at the CC, despawn, go into spectator mode, if you wish to re-join the battle you need to respawn at the tubes. To take it a step farther, Cr whatevers could be allowed to remote controll objects in the base (making doors harder to hack, automatic turrets what have you) and be able to use their orb strikes within the SOI.

Another change i'd like to see is no more mines in an enemy SOI. In fact when the base changes hands i'd like to see all enemy deployables either change over or blow up.

[SandTrout]

The one thing I would realy like to see is the Phalanx turrets on the corners of the base with a good field of fire on the CY, would help prevent quick ams placements, but Phalanxes are still easy enough to destroy, and frankly, the bases just don't have enough of them.

[Doppler]

My other complaint is bases that have trees and such in close proximity to their turrets, this is a oversite on the developers part that just makes me want to grind my teeth everytime i see it.

[Real Mulambo]

I agree doppler.

If you were building a base in reality the first thing you would do is to chop all those bloody trees down that can hide people and obscure your field of fire.

[Incompetent]

Agreed on most counts, while there at it, they should move the bases into terrain thats actually defensible.

[Real Mulambo]

agreed again

What twat decided that an area surrounded by hills was a good place for a base.

DOH! maybe on the hills may be better. DOH!

[Seer]

Agreed on most counts, while there at it, they should move the bases into terrain thats actually defensible.

Tell me about it. 90% of the bases in this game must have been placed by the same people who thought Dien Bien Phu was a great idea.

[Sputty]

I agree with everything but the indoor Spitfires.

[Doppler]

I forget which base it is i think its one of the closest to the warpgate on amerish, the only ground access is a windign road in a fairly deep revine. I love fights at that base i seem to recall even letting the enemy take the rest of the continent with my outfit before seeing how well we could hold out there. Good times. On a side note why does everyone hate the idea of indoor spitfires so much? I mean other then pricks putting them in places where they'd block friendlies, you'd have to not allow them to be placed in the jeffries tube style corridors, I dont see them as that overpowered.

Yet another thign i want to see, a reduction in the bubble radious on deployables, and more consideration of the Z axis. Sick of not beign able to place one mine above another, its gooten better dont get me wrong but still happens on catwalks on some bases. The alternative to this whould be allowing certaind eployables to ignore other deployables for radius, (actualy just motion sensors) and then cut the limit down a bit, say the ability to place motion sesnors right near mines, but only able to place 5 motion sensors whould really help out the base detectiong grid.

[drsomewhere]

LOL Base placement in this game makes me laugh. Maxes shouldnt be able to prop themselves up on mountains overlooking the bases and fire freely below. That is the main deficiency when it comes to base defense. Defenders are USUALLY surrounded from elevated positions. Searhus espescially.

[Lartnev]

On a side note why does everyone hate the idea of indoor spitfires so much?
Well for a start they'd only ever be deployed indoors. They're vulnerable on the outside because they can be attacked from range, but indoors they could deal some decent damage before being taken down. They'd probably also get quite a few TKs as well since they don't stop firing when people cross their path. In Tribes 2 you had 2 versions of turrets, Landspikes and Spider-clamp turrets. Landspikes could only be placed outside because they drill into the ground. Spiders can be attached to walls and stuff but are weaker in both terms of armour and firepower (and they can't stick to the ground. I wouldn't mind seeing that in PS but as it stands spitfires wouldn't really work indoors.

I agree with the deployable radius stuff. I'd like to see areas where you can't place deployables highlight in red when you get the ACE out so you can see where you can plant your stuff.

[drsomewhere]

I'm surprised...Doppler managed to keep his name out of the title of this Thread

[Spee]

agreed again

What twat decided that an area surrounded by hills was a good place for a base.

DOH! maybe on the hills may be better. DOH!


Romans?

[flypengy]

Give towers a 5 minuete hack timer for empires that dont own the nearby base, but instantanious for defenders.

People always seem to want ntu silos or hack timers for towers and I personally think it is an incredibly shortisighted idea.

Except for interlink facilities, towers are the most easily defended structures in the game. Why would you want to make it harder for those on the offense to capture these? Besides, any sort of hack timer completely negates any need to do gal drops or any other sort of coordinated assault because once you've hacked the cc... you have to hold it for 5 minutes!

[Doppler]

I'm surprised...Doppler managed to keep his name out of the title of this Thread

There's a story behind why i do that, it involves someone posting my stuff from PSU almost verbatum to the OF's as their own work. So yes call me a little bitter.

On the defensive part of towers, i dont care if towers are the most defensable thing in the game, that doesnt help defenders at all. I'll give you an example. Lets say you had to hold a town or small city or whatever, and near the city was something that you didnt need (airport, truck depot etc) that could be used to launch attacks against you. It doesnt matter if it can be defended by two small boys and a cat, you'd blow it up in order to have those two small boys and a cat defending your base. Since this is planetside, making towers less of a liability for defenders involves something like a hack timer, you could even allow the offensive force to use everything in the towers but the spawn tubes and i'd be happy. But this having towers there just for launching attacks on the bases is stupid.