Stationary Battles

[Senyu]

Battles in Planetside vary from quick pace and fast changing in location across the continent to stalemates over one area for a long time. This thread is to provide ideas to make those stationary stalements bit more interesting.

So far we have the deployable manned turret from engineering but this could be taken some steps further. Optional small buildings/protection/weapons/support.

Some of the have been discussed in previous threads and can be found on some websites like Planetside Upgrade I believe its called that have small deployable stations of a variety of uses and designs. With these and adding more say turrets or gun nests of different types, small secure almost base like locations can appear anywhere for those long fights and giving a tactical point of control or loss. I can picuture a small tent like structure as supply/comm support with some gun nests/turrets around it and even small sandbag or whatever walls for players to hide behind. And it being attacked from all sides by enemy fire.

I think things like this will only add to the Planetside experience and give some memorable "Last Stand" moments :D

[DviddLeff]

The problem with the current game is that it is totally focused around capturing towers and facilities. Towers and facilities are easy to defend (especially with third person corner camping) and its much easier to simply wait for the enemy to come to you if you are on the back foot. This also makes tactical sense when anyone can simply jump in air cav and bypass the entire outdoor fight.

Outdoor fights typically happen when the balance of power is near even and as such are now a rare thing, often the nearest situation is when one stronger empire is besieging a facility.

The balance of power is decided by among other things:

numbers
respawn time
vehicle timers
tech benefit
time to nearest base/AMS/Lodestar


See Malorn's PS Manifesto (http://www.liberty-clan.com/topsecret/psm.pdf) for more details on this, Chapter 3.

In PS2 there must be ways to adjust this balance of power so that there is more reason to fight away from bases.

As you say I have done a fair bit of work on this, with the pertinent additions being:

Lodestar acts as a vehicle bay
Heavy AMS able to supply MAX armour
Commanders able to deploy rearm terminals (standard AMS terminals)
Engineers able to construct fortifications (as per Hayoo's designs)
Heavy Field Turrets (equipped with tank sized weaponry)
New common pool none tech benefit medium tank
NTU fuel required to spawn at AMSs, vehicles at Lodestars, etc.
Medics able to deploy simple, uncloaked respawn points
Support role AMS variants (hacking, medical, engineer and command)
More towers introduced, of various different kinds.
Civilian buildings around the landscape, which can be quickly captured in a similar way to battlefield games capture points.
More infantry cover outdoors; becomes harder for vehicles to roll through any landscape.
Naval units introduced, powerful vehicles which can act as spawn points and strong points away from the towers and bases.


Check out my upgrade project for details of any of these.

[Mightymouser]

I think the biggest problem here is that there are twp separate groups in Planetside:

- those for whom the 'fight' is the objective; and who don't mind zerging in the middle of the field as long as there are enemies to shoot there
and
- those who want to take bases; who will jump over, or around a field battle and take advantage of the fact that the enemy fighters are out in the field leaving their base unprotected...

I'm not sure how anything which enhances an army's ability to stay in the field and fight will deter the second group from simply skipping over them and attacking their base (and link) behind them. That's why field battles are typically limited to areas where a choke point is particularly close to a base (such as around Cyssor, or the Enkidu <-> Akkan pass) because armies fighting at those 'field battles' are still close enough to their bases to easily respond to attacks.

You might find a way to limit attackers from 'skipping' the field battle (That was one of the ideas behind LLUs IIRC) but that gets tricky, especially given that anything that causes deadlocks tend to irritate some players; so anything put in place will need a counter-balance to ensure the fights don't rage indefinitely on a hillside in open territory.

[Senyu]

It could be designed in a way that makes them more temporary and quicker to set up. While it does not happen all the time, the choice to add some quick built outposts would add to the fights. They should be easily built, but not spammable, and simply apply some forward ground or tactical position to aid the fight in pushing forward. Yes they could just simply go around them but these outposts would not be so important as to be wasted nor to strong as to be considered a waste of time to go agaisnt. They are just an option when it does happen to be in one position or slowly creeping forward. Plus theres plenty of base battles they would be of use to.

[Canaris]

had a good topic going on this and about Combat Engineers http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35879

would add an amazing dynamic to the game be able to create semi choke points in the open areas :)

[DviddLeff]

Being able to skip the outdoor battle is the major problem with the abundance of air cav certified players and the combat effectiveness of pilots.

[Senyu]

Agreed, but how do we limit this while not upsetting the player base?


Making them more vulnerable to fire or adding more effective weapons would create more hazards and threat from flying an aircraft potentianly redcuing how many people take the risk to fly.

Or by limiting the amount would cause anger in how many people do want to fly and make them that much more wanted.


Any ideas in this? And perhaps it should be also asked what Role aircraft should play. The common mosqito for example be effective at quick skirmishes across the landscape but offer a poor choice for bases as the base has supieror defence agaisnt it. By sharpning the roles they play it could be managable on what air vehicales are taken and a solution made from there