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View Full Version : Thoughts on that "mother-ship"


Sethsocrazy
2011-07-14, 01:11 AM
So everyone's been talking about that ominous "mother-ship" above Auraxis. I've got a few thoughts on this, but first let me start by listing all the things we know about it.

It's there. And it might not even be in the game. It's there in a concept picture.

Now for all the assumptions. Firstly, the drop pods. They've been mentioned that they exist in the game similarly to the ones in the current Planetside. It could be safe to assume that they come from the mother-ship, but there's a couple things that have me curious about that. One, Smed stated that there are no more sanctuaries in the game because they "slowed the gameplay." If that's the reason, then there would be no reason we'd ever be able to go aboard the ship, so then what is the process of being launched from a drop pod? Where do you go to initiate it? Is it treated like instant action where you click a button and suddenly you're barreling toward the ground? And two, who exactly owns this ship?

If the drop pods come from this ship, then that would mean all the empires have access to it. It's not such an absurd idea. It could be part of the tweaked Planetside lore that we don't know about. Or maybe there are multiple of them. Perhaps it doesn't just hover, but it orbits the planet. In the beginning of the trailer during the overhead view, you can see the very faint words up at the top that say something along the lines of "This vehicle have the best Technology for transportation. It goes so fast taht it is hard to believe" (including the spelling errors unless I'm misreading it). That could mean that it does a lot of moving around, and considering the idea of one mother-ship hovering over every continent simultaneously is illogical, and we don't know how massive it is, but it doesn't look big enough to cover an entire continent anyway, it would make sense if there were one for each faction that moved around, dropping people off like a school bus. I don't know if that would mean that you'd see the big ol' thing shoot across the sky every time someone drops or not.

Now for the fun ideas! It's already been observed (by the Smed himself) that the tower in the trailer had a type of "landing gear." This could mean that it hovers and changes location periodically or by someone's command, or that it drops from the sky by command, or Smedley is just fucking with us and it's just for decoration. I think the most agreed theory on it is that it drops from that mother-ship by an outfit leader or a well certified squad leader. That gives me some more ideas about it.

Wouldn't it be neato burrito if you had a high command rank (or whatever equivalent) and you could command vehicles to be dropped from the sky for your squad mates? This has been done in a few games and I always liked that idea. It feels powerful! I think it's clever and definitely caters to the idea of increasing the pace of a game. I might need me a god damn tank now and don't want to walk all the way back to our base to get it, so I'll have my squad leader send me one ASAP. Bam. Now I have a fucking tank.

Anyway, I'm just shooting theories and ideas. Let's hear some more.

Tool
2011-07-14, 01:21 AM
"Strike from the skies brothers!"

While I'm at it:

"Blood for the blood god!"
"Skulls for the skull throne!"
"Milk for the Khorne flakes!"

Aractain
2011-07-14, 02:43 AM
I really hope they put it in game. Not sure what it would do... but its cool!

Lonehunter
2011-07-14, 03:04 AM
It would be handy to have some kind of huge aircraft hovering in the background of planets. Where do all those drops pods come from? Orbital Strikes? Reconlike top-down views like in the beginning of the teaser, it would be a nice setpiece to show off some art.If they can do day/night, they can make this thing drift across the sky.

FastAndFree
2011-07-14, 01:37 PM
Oh my... I just had an idea that gives me shivers.

What if these motherships are the footholds???

Surge72
2011-07-14, 02:14 PM
Oh my... I just had an idea that gives me shivers.

What if these motherships are the footholds???

That would be a very cool way of having uncapturable facilities.

WellWisherELF
2011-07-14, 02:27 PM
there's already a thread about the 'mothership'

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36384

Hamma
2011-07-14, 03:33 PM
hmm, that would be very interesting if they were the "bases"

did not think of that

ShowNoMercy
2011-07-14, 03:54 PM
riddle me this. no sancs, multiple continents where does one start from when invading a new cont... oh hey its a base that moves.

krnasaur
2011-07-14, 05:10 PM
riddle me this. no sancs, multiple continents where does one start from when invading a new cont... oh hey its a base that moves.


who decides where that 1 base moves?

Lithious
2011-07-14, 05:13 PM
Yeah,the idea of having some type of "mother-ship" for each faction has always been one of my greatest wishes for this game. They are hovering around Auraxis in space and are like a huge city inside where u can train yourself, get certificates and just explore cool things. :)

FastAndFree
2011-07-14, 05:15 PM
Do we know for certain that there is only one foothold per empire?

Possibly there is one on every continent that you have acces to. Not sure how the winning empire could kick it out though. Maybe it has a capturable forward base, and if your empire loses it then that mothership is called back?

basti
2011-07-14, 05:18 PM
Those ships being the base?

Err, lol, genious, why didnt we think of that earlier? Much better than just a base somewhere you cant capture. And without the lattience, you dont need a base anyway, you could start everywhere anyway.

Lithious
2011-07-14, 05:33 PM
Would be awesome for sure. That would explain perfectly where all the deployable bases and drop-pods comes from ;)

CrystalViolet
2011-07-14, 05:41 PM
The devs also mentioned that they were considering adding outfit specific bases. Adding these to the existing landscape would require constant modification to the maps, and would most likely be impractical... unless they were floating bases. I think you guys nailed it.

basti
2011-07-14, 05:50 PM
The devs also mentioned that they were considering adding outfit specific bases. Adding these to the existing landscape would require constant modification to the maps, and would most likely be impractical... unless they were floating bases. I think you guys nailed it.

Maybe not. Depens what the engine is capable of, and how they prepared the map. If they added room for possible bases, or if the engine is capable of changing the terrain to some degree, then dropping bases at certain points would be possible. Just not everywhere, that would screw with balance anyway. :)

But theres just another, story reason for those motherships being the home bases: shielding. After all, if we can build a force dome to protect our home base forever, why not build force domes for territory we have under our control, making it impossible to loose them? A mothership would fit perfectly there, because thats an entire new level of power generation that is not possible on the surface of a planet (imagine a power generator that would cause a massive, devestating explosion in case of failure. You dont want to have something like this in a war zone, in your base, on the surface of the planet you fight for. :) )

Lithious
2011-07-14, 05:57 PM
Totally agree on that basti. Would be a really new cool aspect of the game which only a handfull of games have.

ShowNoMercy
2011-07-14, 06:03 PM
who decides where that 1 base moves?

random generation? guys with really high lvl leadership skills? im not smed here, idk exactly.

CrystalViolet
2011-07-14, 06:10 PM
Maybe not. Depens what the engine is capable of, and how they prepared the map. If they added room for possible bases, or if the engine is capable of changing the terrain to some degree, then dropping bases at certain points would be possible. Just not everywhere, that would screw with balance anyway. :)

The way they've described the maps so far with quotes like "every square inch is contestable", and "we are designing each map by hand" makes me think that there engine won't be doing any procedural landmass expantions. Also, it would be difficult to predict how many additional outfit specific bases would be required. If it starts getting into the thousands, then you'd have continents that were 90% uncapturable.

basti
2011-07-14, 06:13 PM
The way they've described the maps so far with quotes like "every square inch is contestable", and "we are designing each map by hand" makes me think that there engine won't be doing any procedural landmass expantions. Also, it would be difficult to predict how many additional outfit specific bases would be required. If it starts getting into the thousands, then you'd have continents that were 90% uncapturable.

True.

Well, they also said they do that stuff post release if i remember correctly. We will propably have broken quite a few mechanics before they even start working on outfit bases. :D

Lonehunter
2011-07-14, 06:38 PM
If these ships did make it in it also opens up all kinds of lore options, not being tied down to the planet and all. I know some say lore has no place in Planetiside, but it's a nice extra. The Halo novels ended up being some of my favorite books.

IceyCold
2011-07-14, 06:53 PM
If these ships did make it in it also opens up all kinds of lore options, not being tied down to the planet and all. I know some say lore has no place in Planetiside, but it's a nice extra. The Halo novels ended up being some of my favorite books.

And also remember that according to the lore the Terran Republic sent space ships into the wormhole and found Auraxis on the other side. And for a very long time used the wormhole to go back and forth until suddenly it had collapsed. So by the lore large space faring ships were very much part of the story.

They could easily make these large ships the uncapturable base, giving it automated gun defenses and other systems to make it very difficult to camp it. Maybe even put a large sector under the ship that could be captured that would force the ship to return to orbit. This would allow for a "lock" of the continent, and the only way for the other team to bring their ship back to the front would be to retake that territory by using the HART style drop pods and vehicles brought in through a warpgate.

This could make for a very interesting "Normandy" style beach-head battle where the assaulting team has to bring down the orbital defenses so that their ship could come into atmosphere to act as the main foothold.

ShowNoMercy
2011-07-14, 08:14 PM
true story icey, that would make for some pretty awesome battles, you could also have several mothership supporting bases so that multiple bases could be captured to start the campaign on a given cont giving you starting options. It would be similar to the lattice system in PS1 except once the first base was capped you could move where ever you wanted, and the start base could be anywhere on the cont, not just on the outsides by the warp gate.

Baneblade
2011-07-14, 09:17 PM
outfit air cruisers > outfit bases

Sifer2
2011-07-14, 09:44 PM
Just like I said in the other topic it reminds me of Titan mode in 2142. Which was fun. Mostly because it was possible to bring the shields down an storm the floating base an destroy its core. Then you get the fun but pointless epic run to try to get out of the exploding ship.

The question is would they do it like that or would that make the mothership more like an instance in space that doesn't do much but launch pods an maybe give you a place to do VR training. I do hope that if they do outfit bases that the Titan mode style is what they go for. I could see the main base most likely being an untouchable launching point from orbit though. One that maybe moves around at random offering drop access to different continents to spread out the fighting.