Continent creation - the quick way.

[Figment]

Alright, so continents need to be churned out at a faster rate, while it takes a lot of time to design bases and terrain apparently, where each is handcrafted in great detail, then tested etc.

I would like to propose an alternative way of creating a lot more continents, relatively quickly.


The most important thing here would be to have a good lay out for all the large facilities and the main terrain, then to have all the facilities in place. Once the big facilities are in place, you can simply launch the continent.



Around each facility, you create a small number of defensive structures without spawn rooms. You simply create a couple of places in such structures for AMSes to be parked.

When an AMS is parked in such a location, the local vehicle pads and equipment terminals linked to that AMS parking station become active and provide the units required for sieging the nearby main facility, or to provide that stepping stone along the way to the next facility.

These AMS defensive structures can be copy pasted as stepping stones all over the place. They would NOT require a lattice, but, they would show up as "controlled by" or neutral on the map.

Taking out the AMSes would allow combat to move on as the whole "mini facility" would instantly lose its capacity to produce units for the enemy. Hijacking it would take it over, etc.



Over time, you can see where bottlenecks occur, which bases require more permanent staging grounds to overcome, from what direction attacks usualy occur and then you can upgrade such locations to hand crafted outposts that take this into account. Similarly, AMS outposts could simply be expanded or "localised" a bit.

Keep the amount of minor or satellite bases to a minimum.


The main target would be to have the terrain around main facilities be different and special and to have a somewhat decent variety in main facilities. This way, focus can be put more on mood and theme and general approach cover, rather than detailed bases. Once you have a large number of continents and don't need to work on the main bases, you can start refining them further. Then every two or three weeks you can change a couple bases somewhere on a continent, but it wouldn't take as much time before a continent can be launched.

I made a sample AMS outpost a long time ago, during beta:

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3290/amsoutpost01.jpg

Most obvious thing missing in that image is the amount of cover from air units required, since you wouldn't want Libs to come in and simply destroy any AMS from above while farting some shots downwards. But it should be doable for any quick strike spec. ops crew.

[Stardouser]

Whatever the specifics of the acceleration, do we really need to handcraft everything?

[Chewy]

I don't know if making an AMS into a hard spawn would be that great. The sunderer is overused as is in its roles and adding more roles to it might push it to needing a balance pass in weapons or armor.

Having a new vehicle could work. Say an ANT. Use the vehicle as a battery for a small outpost like you said. Or just replace the SCU or a chain of gens (3 at least) back into every outpost that doesn't need to be destroyed, but maintained. Fail to maintain them (by ANT or by hand) and they will die over time nulling the base ownership.




2nd thought. That could be a new way to cap a base. Replace the king of the hill cap points with gens that once shut down start to flip the base then need to be rebooted once power is drained to fill up your factions cap bar. BUT, that starts with just one gen taken instead of majority at the cost of taking MUCH longer. Infecting/hacking (give cloakers something to do) speeds up cap times, attackers only. Repairing/overcharging (a repair tool needed either way) slows the cap time, defenders only with a limited time. Any class can turn off or on a gen, but engineers and cloakers do it faster once certed with the added effect of being able to toy with the gen to effect speeds.

Example-
Instead of any class (but MAX) capping a point by standing near it. He holds "E" on it for 5 seconds. Cloaker and/or engineer, once certed, cuts the interact time to 3-4 seconds. Once the gen is turned off, the cloaker can then hack it for cap speed. Then when the base goes neutral, any class holds "E" on the gen for 5 seconds to power it on for their faction to fill the cap bar. And if hacked by a cloakers that makes it so you don't have to reboot the gen. It is already for your faction after all. But ONLY cloakers can turn a gen into another factions unless the cap bar for that base is nulled out or close enough to that (10%-15%).

Any engineer can overclock a gen of his/her faction (repair it) to give it a boost slowing or speeding a cap time depending on attacking or defending.

TEAMWORK! Heavies/MAXes push to the gens, cloakers hack them, engies maintain them, and medics back everyone up. LAs be a pain in the ass to everyone. Plus once a bass is nulled out everything shuts down. Terminals, spawns, everything for bases without an SCU. Removing spawn room warriors and making defenders counterattack from outside if they want to keep the base. Cap times would have to be redone for this though to give time for a fight in base and time for defenders to setup a counterattack.

[ringring]

I wonder if the Devs could adapt Landmark for PS2 continents.

1. Create an empty Searhus
2. Have 'claims' everywhere where you want the bases to be created
3. Allow payers to claim 'claims' and create enough duplicate instance to accomodate everyone who wants to build.
4. Adapt the tools to remove references to voxels and replace EQNext assets with PS2 ones.
5. Remove the game elements from Landmark, the aim would be to build and not to gather resources etc.
6. The best outposts per claim across the instances can be included within a new Searhus

[Edfishy]

Voxels are too intense for the scale of PS2, so I don't think Landmark's carveable landscape will ever make it in.

Someone in the PS2 forums had suggested continents where outfits could place some of the little structure doodads (barracks, etc) for outfit points... that sounds like a fun experiment to try on a continent!

[Babyfark McGeez]

Imo the best way would be to resort to copy+paste bases in the vein of PS1s towers. It has the additional benefit of levelling the playing field and removes disorientation from the equation...to a point.
The surrounding terrain (and possibly the visual design of the bases) offers enough opportunities to make each base unique and play out differently.

So instead of having a crapton of unique bases with the same, old, boring capture mechanic ("stand there for a bit"), have different base "types", based on (popular) game modes in FPS gaming that are easy to understand;

- Hack and hold (Control console based, re-hacking it resets the timer, like in PS1, not the bastardized ps2 version)
- Capture the flag (Like the "Llu" in PS1 or any other CTF mode, "steal" an object from the enemy base and bring it back to your base)
- Assault type, progression of a series of events, completing them flips base (See UT Assault, Return to Castle Wolfenstein)
- Escort type, protect a moving object (Tricky one, escort missions tend to suck)
- Domination/Conquest type (Basically the current PS2 capture mechanic, or like any Battlefield game)

Have one standardized base for each "mode" and just stamp them onto the continents. That would imo be the best way to combine fast continent creation with a diverse gameplay.
Also as i said, i think having "standardized" base types benefits new players a lot by removing one confusing element ("hey i know this base type, so i won't die 203493 times due to not knowing the map, hooray").

So yeah, that's how i would go about it. But thankfully, i mean unfortunately, i don't work at SOE. ;P


Edit: And if the players themselves would be the ones to stamp down / build these bases in conjunction with a meaningful resource / supply system then we actually would have an incredibly engaging and innovative game lightyears ahead of the current FPS games that would make me drool.

Crazy talk, i know.

[DevilzRightHand]

Imo the best way would be to resort to copy+paste bases in the vein of PS1s towers. It has the additional benefit of levelling the playing field and removes disorientation from the equation...to a point.
The surrounding terrain (and possibly the visual design of the bases) offers enough opportunities to make each base unique and play out differently.

So instead of having a crapton of unique bases with the same, old, boring capture mechanic ("stand there for a bit"), have different base "types", based on (popular) game modes in FPS gaming that are easy to understand;

- Hack and hold (Control console based, re-hacking it resets the timer, like in PS1, not the bastardized ps2 version)
- Capture the flag (Like the "Llu" in PS1 or any other CTF mode, "steal" an object from the enemy base and bring it back to your base)
- Assault type, progression of a series of events, completing them flips base (See UT Assault, Return to Castle Wolfenstein)
- Escort type, protect a moving object (Tricky one, escort missions tend to suck)
- Domination/Conquest type (Basically the current PS2 capture mechanic, or like any Battlefield game)

Have one standardized base for each "mode" and just stamp them onto the continents. That would imo be the best way to combine fast continent creation with a diverse gameplay.
Also as i said, i think having "standardized" base types benefits new players a lot by removing one confusing element ("hey i know this base type, so i won't die 203493 times due to not knowing the map, hooray").

So yeah, that's how i would go about it. But thankfully, i mean unfortunately, i don't work at SOE. ;P


Edit: And if the players themselves would be the ones to stamp down / build these bases in conjunction with a meaningful resource / supply system then we actually would have an incredibly engaging and innovative game lightyears ahead of the current FPS games that would make me drool.

Crazy talk, i know.

Take away Capture the flag and Escort type and you have something there