Pop-A-Lock, Planetstyle

[Airlift]

Here's what we know about continent locks:

1. Continental Lock is achieved by capturing all the bases on a continent.
2. The only way to break into a locked continent is via HART drop.
3. You must capture a base on the continent to break the lock.

Now we can make a few inferrences from this:
1. If you want vehicles once you get into a locked continent, you are going to have to hack them.
2. The lock isn't broken when a tower is taken.
3. The lock isn't automatically broken when a base reverts to neutral on attrition.

And now for some things that are still way up in the air:
1. Can you lock a continent that adjoins a sanctuary?
2. Can you capture a depleted enemy base by refueling it, does it stay neutral after refueled, or revert back to its last ownership?
3. If 2 is the first or second option, is the lock released immediately after being hacked over?

Now then, how would you put together a task force to pop a lock. For the purposes of discussion, let's try to use a 30 man platoon or smaller group. Obviously you are going to rely heavily on Maxes and hackers, but what beyond that?

[TeamR]

meh..

bump

[Navaron]

I agree with your statements and inferrences.

1- I would say so, otherwise every faction has pretty much 2 sanctuaries.

2- I'd say it stays nuetral till capped.

3- I'd say as soon as you cap it, it drops.

You'd certainly want medics and machinists. You'd also want some scouts with the run boost, to bring the schmucks to you. I'd set the snipers up in the cover, send the scouts in the front door, just spam the place with nades as they haul ass back out, anyone who follows gets eaten up by the maxes. As soon as they catch on to what is going on the maxes just rush the gate, and by then hopefully the stealth haxxors will have gone in the back or around and are already starting havoc. I'd bring about 6-10 stealth guys, and half half start hacking every base function everywhere, and the other half just fucking with defenders.

That's just me.

[Toimu]

SJ said when a locked continent is being attacked, everyone of that faction goes to that spot.

I'd want...

10 Cloaker Hacker/Engineer/Advanced Medics
8 AI MAX's
4 AV MAX's
2 AA MAX's
6 Heavy Armor Repair/Advanced Medics

Then I would send 10 Cloakers, (5 groups of 2), to 5 bases that are far apart. Then have the 2 attack squads drop pod in and hit the lightest deffended base. Probable from 2 sides. The other 4 Cloaker pairs would just keep messing with the few people at their base. Trying to keep it in the T-15 minutes and counting stage.

I chose the Heavy Armors to be medics and repair because of their inventory. Also they would be carrying 2 rifles with them. (Remember, if a faction has a continent locked, ~50+% of that faction will probably show up to stop you. You'll need all the fire power you can get.). With only being able to use 30 people, this is the best I can come up with without playing the game.

---

Another way would be....

4 Cloaker Hacker/Engineers
5 Heavy Armor Advanced Medical/Repair poeple
15 AI MAX's
6 AV MAS's

Take all the Towers around the base you want. If more than 1 tower, I'd split up my platoon to take then all at once. Then everyone hits the base.

[Hamma]

The continental locks are indeed interesting, I'd imagine any continent is fair game for a lock.

[Yogi]

Continental locks, IMO, are a great idea. It adds a sense of realism. Gotta drop in if you want to open the doors up.

[Fire_Monkey]

Hmm well first of all I would definately not use AV MAXes, they cant lock air, AA MAXes lock air and can attack ground. But yes of course cloaked hackers is the way to go, but if they have darklight vis you might wanna protect the hackers with a max or 2.
I especially like Navaron's strat... very nice, very nice!

[Navaron]

Well thank you. Who knows, someday I may just send you headlong into the hornets nest.

[SandTrout]

my setup for breaking lock:

5-stealthers to find a base with a low silo and/or undefended.
15-assorted mediums.
5-AA MAX
5-Agile hacker pilots to fetch us some fire support.

[Duritz]

I think that a force consisting of:

Squad Alpha
2 Stealth Hackers
2 Stealth Engineers/Havocs
4 AI MAXes
2 AA MAXes

Squad Beta
6 Stealth Hackers/Repairs
2 Stealth Engineers/Havocs
2 Stealth Medic/Repairs

Squad Gamma
6 AI MAXes
2 AA MAXes
2 AV MAXes

will do the job quite nicely.

Basically, you send Squad Alpha to a base quite distant from anywhere, but realistic to capture. Alpha hacks the base and lures all of the people on the continent to that spot. Of course, this group is probably crushed, but when the first attackers are arriving, Beta blows the generator and subsequently hacks another base across the continent. At this point, Gamma rushes in to destroy the defenses of the base. This way you have to deal with a smaller chance of reinforcements, due to the defenders losing respawn and being across the continent, and the ones that do arrive will be late and hopefully without correct resources to beat the very nice combo of 10 MAXes and 7 people left to repair them, that is with one hacking the base.

This strategy seems quite effective to me, but will definitely have big holes if you have bad luck with too many enemies nearby. Hopefullly, the huge number of MAXes should be able to handle most any force. Another thing that might be a problem with some strategies is that reinforced armor is nearly useless for this. because they can be spotted and do not move fast enough to strike like this situation requires. I chose MAXes and stealths because they can either go undetected or run in quickly.

[Ludio]

I would go with a strategy similar to Toimu's.

First start off with 20 stealth hackers/combat engineers and 10 MAX's (4 AI, 3 AV, 3 AA)

The stealth hacker would break up into 8 groups of 2, and 4 individual groups.

7 of the pairs would hack a vehicle terminal to get wraiths and then go to the other bases besides the one you want to take and prepare for the order to hack the main console by hacking inventory stations and other critical systems, preparing to destroy the generator and mining the shit out of the base(assuming that hacking invo stations doesnt set off any alarms).

The last pair would prepare to take the base you actually want to keep and then get 2 AMS (by hacking vehicle terminal) set up near/in the base.

The four individual stealth hackers would go out to nearby towers and start to take them over (travelling by wraith again).

The MAX's would stay at the base they want to keep.

As soon as everyone was ready the hackers would start hacking the main console on the base they want to keep, hack the main console/blow the generators on the other bases, and start taking the towers.

At this point a high level commander would be nice (rank 4/5), they could put out an empire wide call for reinforcements that could come in on drop pods and have towers/AMS set up for respawning. If this goes outside the bounds of the scenario that you set up Airlift, then it isnt neccessary, just usefull.

The hackers in the other bases cause hell to anyone for as long as they can, the towers belong to you and can be used as respawn/defence (gun towers) and the main base you are trying to take will blend in with all the others so that it wont get any special attention, but it has two AMS set up in it and 10 MAX's guarding it.

Imagine the look on the enemy commanders faces when all of the bases on a continent get hacked at the same time. They wont know which one is real (and they could all be for all they know), and so they have to have equal forces go to each one. And with the generators down they will have a really hard time taking the decoy bases. The 10 MAX's with respawn take care of the people trying to take the main base.

I think this plan or some variation of it would work, but I still imagine that popping the lock on continents would be more of an effort for multiple platoons. Just because there are going to be so many people coming at you at once to keep their bases. You could easily get a platoon or more coming to re-take a single base, that could get really nasty really quick. That is why I think that the first platoon would primarily be for setting up respawn points for reinforcements that dont even have to know about the plan.

[Toimu]

ooOOo, what about...

30 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers

Originally posted by Ludio

The hackers in the other bases cause hell to anyone for as long as they can, the towers belong to you and can be used as respawn/defence (gun towers)

doh, I forgot about getting the towers ASAP for repawn reasons.

[Ludio]

More havoc, but not so much defensive capability. Would only work with reinforcements after the bases started to get hacked.

[MooKoo]

lol ya 30 cloaked people all with knifes behind someone hacking at him haha that would be great

[Toimu]

Originally posted by Ludio
More havoc, but not so much defensive capability. Would only work with reinforcements after the bases started to get hacked.

But you might be able to hack all the Towers, AND bases at the same time All those spit fire turrets. hehe

Currect continents have ~15 Towers, and 10-17 bases, I think. So lets say this is a small continent with 10 bases, and 10 towers.

30 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers

Ok, so the platoon splits up into 10 groups. Each groups hits a Tower, binds, then hits their base. hehe

Might as well ask for 1,000 Cloaker Advanced Medical/Repair/Advanced Hacker/Engineers! Now that would be something! But if you can get that many together, the other team can too. No matte what, I still like my 1st strat the best.