Squad composition

[NapalmEnima]

How do you guys see squads being built?

I can see two very different possibilites... and we'll probably end up seeing both

1) Balance: A group tries to contain a group that can handle most situations. A medic, an engineer, a couple pilots/drivers, a MAX or two, that sort of thing.

This would work best when a squad is operating independantly, say when they're off trying to take a base.

2) Specialized. A squad of 10 heavies, or engineers, or pilots, or whatever. Kick @$$ in one particular way.

I see this happening when multiple squads are working together. To get back to the MAXes, I could easily see a squad of heavies waiting in orbit as a reserve force, dropping down on a friendly base when it is being attacked... crushing said attack, and returning to orbit, ready to go for the next base in need.

Such a force could do one job Extremely Well, like air superiority, prepping base defenses (turrets and mines), repel base attacks (those MAXes ought to do the trick), that sort of thing.



So what kind of squad groupings do you guys see for various tasks?

[Unregistered]

I almost missed this thread with all the Beta news going on....

I think you'll see some of the larger outfits try to be more specialized like you mentioned, but I think the majority of the time it will be smaller groups made up of several diffrent types of players.

Another thing that just occured to me is that it would be hard to orgonise an outfit to go and fight every single night. I wonder how hard it would be for a small out fit of say 5 guys, to link up with a larger outfit to go out on raids.

I can't expect everyone in my Outfit to be on all the time, but I'll still want to go with a group of people when I'm "Pubbing"

INteresting questions.

[Manitou]

The key to any operation is the correct application of available assets to the task at hand and the demands thereof.

But most teams would need a few standard members to be successful.

I see most teams as having at least on medic, one engineer and 2 or more basic riflemen. If available, a heavy weapons troop or two would be icing. That would be minimum to accomplish any task.

Depending on the objective, you would throw in whatever enhanced forces you can get to make the job easier.

[NapalmEnima]

I'm hoping that mission definitions will include some sorts of minimums on what is needed to qualify for various positions within that mission.

So SOMEBODY will have a medic cert, and SOMEBODY will be able to fly the dropship...

It'll be interesting to see how everything pans out.

(fingers still crossed for the beta)

[snipe]

this is what i think it will be like:

1. You click on the mission terminal.

2. You select the type of mission(outfit, temporary squad, lone wolf)

3. tells you of the different missions there are. you click on one.

4. If it is a temporary squad, then there will be different jobs that you can select (medic, assult, commander). You click on one that appeals to you. It tells you where to meet and when the mission is. There will also be some kind of chat or something. The commander will have the choice of accepting you or not.

5. if you choose outfit, then if you are in the outfit as the commander, you can apply. the commander can accept if you or not. If it is a new mission, then you can choose to be the commander of the squad.

Does this make sense?

[NapalmEnima]

Are you basing all that on anything in particular? I'd just LOVE to have that kind of info.

[snipe]

no, i made it all up based on the info we have now though

[Hamma]

snipe often posts like that followed by "Where did you get that information"

:lol:

:love: snipe

[Tobias]

One of the coolest things i think we will see are major battles

Think: 2 outfits from Venu used teamwork and about ~ 250 trrops on one night to capture a almost totaly New conglomorate contonent, of course a few other outfits had men there to, a total force of say 400 venu. 200 stay to guard the captured bases but the other 200 roam around killin all the Cherrys they see, so the cerrys get three powerfull outfits who all have a good deal of members on and get 310 men togeather to go kick some ass, and a titantic battle ensues, 500 or so men in it, that would be sooooo |337. the venu would win cause cherrys suck but would be kick asss no? i know such major battles will be rare but still i look forward to them. Some questions about such bttles:
1) with so much lead and plasma flying about would the batytles take time (say 30 mins) or would it be almost everyone cut down in a hail of gunfire in the first 2 mins of the battle anda few tanks and reavers still around (and a max suit or two) after the carnage?

2)Does anyone think the game will be a bit laggy in such a conflict, you know you click fire and 30 secs laterr and 1 frame, everyones dead, including theyself? or do you think they made ways for such large battles to occure with little lag?

3) Could such battles say with even 1000 men (organized by the diff outfits on the message board, like a once a month titantic slug fest) last hours with real tactics like moving your armored commpony to their flank and then charging the center with your Max's to break em up or something, you know not just a charge and fire, see who's left kinda battle

more quetions later

[Hamma]

1.) One would hope they take time, id hate to have huge battles be over in 1 min :p

2.) They have been working on this game for 2 years and tweaking the net code, so hopefully the lag wont be too bad heh.

3.) :eek: that would be cool, who knows tho

[Tobias]

it would be more then cool it would be...... uber.......leetness
yep
this game is going to be pretty kick arse me thinks

[TurkishGold]

Id think of these battles as like counter-strike.. where if you get a headshot thats pretty much it for the enemy that type of thing heh..

[Wowbagger]

Im from the UTworld with 16-20 players and im a bit skeptical about these huge numbers. (in clanwars 10 players)

Will it be like Quake or UT but with 500-1000 players or is there a difference to make it possible?

I dont think they can do magic so maybe they have changed some of the ways you can fight?

Also is there any comparable game out there atm?

[Tolvy]

I doubt it will be one headshot kills. If it was, the helmets are kinda useless :rolleyes:

[Hamma]

There is no comparable game, but they have worked on the netcode and system for 2 years..

As for headshot kills, this is correct.. there will be no one headshot kills as far as i know

[Unregistered]

I can't imagine being in a battle with 500+ people all slugging it out for control of a base. I'm sure it's possible, but I think it would be more likely that you'll see squads of about 20 players assulting a facility that has 30 or so people at it.

Although you never know.

[Wowbagger]

I wasnt clear enough i guess.

Is there any game now that can hold that many players?
If yes does it work well?
Is it a fast or slow game?

The best answer here would be, Yes, Yes, Fast ;)

It would be nice if there were, then the chances of this game succeding would be higher.

Thinking about only 200 players against each others is mindboggling (sp?)

[Hamma]

1. no
2. no
3. n/a

:D

[Unregistered]

Come on Hamma the answers are

Yes (eq, daoc, ect)
Yes (from what I've heard)
I'd think DaoC and EQ are slower the PS will be, but I have never played so i don't know.

[Hamma]

those games cant really be compared to an FPS mmo tho.. all you do is walk around

[Wowbagger]

Thanks Unreg :thumbsup:

I guess EQ= EverQuest but DAOC and ECT?

Ill have a search for EverQuest.

[Unregistered]

DAOC = Dark Ages of Camelot, and ECT = typo for ETC which is et cetera

And your right Hamma in all you do is walk around, but the EQ servers still hold about 10,000 players a peice I hear.

[Hamma]

Indeed, lets not forget also that these will probably be server farms, not just one server, and they will be sitting on some huge bandwith.

No mom and pop server companies ;D

[NapalmEnima]

I'm hoping that Really Huge firefights will be relatively common.

I'm imagining things starting off relatively small. The commander of squad A decides he needs help and calls in reinforcements. Squad B's leader, seeing that he's now badly outnumbered, does likewise.

Back and forth, back and forth, till just about every spare body available from both sides is rushing into this giant bloody dog-pile of a fight.

At which point you get to see lots of pretty colors.

At least, that's how I hope it will work.



Does anyone know if there's any way to get down from orbit other than in a drop pod? Say in the aptly-named 'dropship'?

"In the pipe, 5 by 5."
"We're in for some chop."
Lots of potential "Aliens" references here.

I wouldn't be too suprised if all the 'air' craft can handle an orbital insertion. This IS the distant future we're talking about here.

Yet another "wait and see". *sigh*

[Tolvy]

To get down from orbit you could always jump.:D

[Surtur]

I think you can take the Realm vs. Realm war in DAOC as a good example, of how PS is going to be.
Battles with about 100 vs 100 players can become laggy if you have a weak PC.
Usually there will be small groups of squads beating each other up on the battlefield. But the big and powerfull outfits will organize alliances within their empires quickly.
As soon as an alliance starts its attack on an other empires' bases, everyone runs like hell to defend the attacked region and battles become very large. The real big raids usually take place at the weekend and you will be forced to defend your empire till 4 am. :-)

And PS is going to be much bigger and faster than DAOC because you dont have to kill monsters to level.
The empire with the better organization will win most battles, so commanders will become very important.

It is more than impressive when you see an army of 100+ players approaching your defense line.

PS: Pilots, better watch your back


;)

[NapalmEnima]

Originally posted by {BT}Tolvy
To get down from orbit you could always jump.

Geronimooooooooooo..... (splat)

I'd rather not wear out the soles of my sneakers using them as reentry shielding... but I'll definitely keep that it mind.

I can only imagine the Nike comercial...

Pilots, better watch your back

That's "watch your six". Sheesh. Kids these days.

[Hamma]

:lol:

I think we would be mistaken to <b>not</b> think there will be any lag. In any game, especially one of this size there is going to be lag, its unavoidable. The only think we can hope for is their netcode is built well enough to sustain it.

That and you will need a good PC, no matter what game if you squeeze a couple hundred people on the screen it will do some strange things :p

[Zarparchior]

Oh yeah, have you recieved an answer for the e-mail questions Hamma? My curiosity needs to be satisfied.

[Enkidu]

One way they could reduce the video type of lag with 100 people on screen is by going 2D, similar to Xenogears :P

We could run around and give eachother papercuts.

[Zarparchior]

Awesome game. Awesome music. :D

[Hamma]

Originally posted by Zarparchior
Oh yeah, have you recieved an answer for the e-mail questions Hamma? My curiosity needs to be satisfied.

Should hear back from them in a week or 2.. needless to say they are a bit busy hehehe, I never got a specific timeframe

[Warborn]

Is there any game now that can hold that many players?

Yes, World War 2 Online.


If yes does it work well?

Yes, it does, if memory serves me. It has a bunch of design flaws, and its graphics are screwy sometimes (it's hard to tell if someone is firing at you because of the "realism" involved with not seeing any bullets... bleh).


Is it a fast or slow game?

Fast. The actual pace of the combat is fairly slow (as was much of WW2's combat), but the game runs well. Previously, it was ass in a basket, but now it's not too bad at all.

[Tobias]

Everquest servers dont ever get more then 3k pplayers or so (3500 is most they can hold before crashing i think) and its not all about walking around, the first few dragon raids are exciting, but in the high end game in a high end guild it becomes (wow i have the best of everything i can get, but for a raid agaisnt <powerful monster name here> i could use <risist/hp/FT item here> so lets all raid <zone here> and kill <powerful moster here> to get some for the guilds <class here> and gets boaring as hell. PoP seems like it well be neat, but letting us get to 65 will overpower us to much i think, and knocking you down to 30 stored AA points before PoP came out was a cheap shot. opps this doesnt apply to the converstation, and oh yes on big raids like that you need all your graphics settings at min or its laggy as houch.

[Unregistered]

I hope I never have to turn down my graphics settings to get a game to run well.

[Hamma]

I had to for bf1942 :|

[xuur]

I think almost everyone does in bf1942. the game while fun and all, has some horrid netcode and serious hack issues.

I mean 20 cable jockeys running around like crazy and a single 56k guy grinds the place to a halt? c'mon.

PS is going to/MUST be able to handle some serious population in a single hot zone. if not, the point of 'good game/bad game' will be moot as no one will be able to play.

I have some serious high hopes for this puppy.
just please oh please dont be another AO.
:evildrop:

[xuur]

oh...one thing I havent heard mentioned are armored columns.

Im assuming there will be some fairly substantial means of anti-aircraft, so an armored column moving into an area en-masse initially to pulverize a landing zone from a distance could be pretty effective in a base take over scenario, not to mention keeping the skies clear of baddies while the airborne drops in.

I just keep hearing folks talking about airpower when theres going to be some serious ground based armor available.

how do you see those being used? I'd just hate to see tanks and ground based armor relegated to defensive postures.

mi dos centavos

[Warborn]

Aircraft can't take installations, so like always, the battles will be won by the ground grunts.

[Tobias]

All armored columns will ph34r my leet galaxy crashing skills: Crash a big plane into a big tank!

[xuur]

oh god I always hated that tactic....erm...altho used it a few times myself. heh

Im just wondering how productive that will be if you have to respawn and re-join the battle and how much actual time that will use.

but Im a tank guy over piloting myself. artillery even more so.
Im really hoping those play major roles in PS.

[Tobias]

As PS is not real life, and the Galaxy is gonna be pretty slow, aim that big cannon the tanks have, or the chain gun most i think will have, and lay into what ever is crashing into you, proably kill it, and if more then one tank shoot at it you will most certinaly kill it, i was joking bout the crashing thing, that would be like last ditch to save some inf who dont pack AP && || rockets. I think landing behind an instlations walls with the galaxy (have skeeters fly over you and heal to avoid AA shooting you down) would be a good tactic too, as you can carry lightings and Max's in em, rip up those guys from inside, ground units will play a major role yes, but driving for half an hour, trucking say 4 heavy tanks 6 transports with a total of 40 inf and 12 Max with mabey 2 reavers escort, only to get blown up would suck (also a few buggys but they dont count cause i dont like them), but if the tanks and trasports sport enough armor that 2-3 guys cant just rocket them and no more tank (Ah la tribes 2, that tank sucked anywho though) then it will be gravy.