Changes needed game command system and more.

[Livefire]

1. Require certain battle ranks to cert the command functions,higher the cert cost = higher the required batte rank = more powerful the command ability.

2. Purchase of a command ability with cent points should also come with a piece of armor ornament/ helmet ornament like roman legion commanders wore and an command rank insignia that is easily identifiable so other soldiers can find him on the battlefield and request his abilities in support of there battles.

3. The last purchase and most expensive cert purchases of the most powerful command rank should be global chats and the coming orbital strike. There should not be a cool down for global chat as only high battle ranks should even be allowed to have it and it should be 1000xp, and the orbital strike should cost even more and have a cool down timer. The armor ornaments for these should end with an empire cape that is worn over the armor again like roman legion did. This cape could be custamizable with camo purchased from then SC store to match the armor camo.

4. The orbital strike should be a nuke from space one shot killing everything it hits. You should need to be running a squad to use it, just like the current command functions don't work when you are not leading a squad.

5. We need advanced self propelled artillery, it should require a forward observer using a laser target designator to mark the target to be pounded and then the artillery should be able to hit it with extream accuracy/ from extremes range and one shot legality. Very good splash damage to!

6. Proper interceptor class of fighters and attack gunships. Intercepted should be fast and maneuverable only able to hover to land and take off vertically. Able to kill other fighters in air to air combat with lock on missiles and drop laser guided bombs on ground targets. Attack aircraft should work like an apache gunship, look like the current reaver but from alpha and be 2 person. The pilot should only be able to fire spam rockets while the gunner can fire the 360 degree nose gun with explosive rounds and use a laser guided high damage precision hellfire type missile. It should be a stand off weapon with 1km or more range and the ability to hover perfectly but be slower and far less maneuverable then the attack fighter. But with high armor.

7. Driver/gunner crewed option MBTs. NC/TR should be 3 person, VS 2 person. NC/TR should be dedicated driver NO gun, 1st gunner operates main gun and a coax machine gun type weapon mounted next to the main cannon, secondary gunner operates the top current chooses turret gun. Tank should have access to more powerful weapons for main gun and coax and with the ability to have more weapons and fire more at the same time it should balance it against one man MBTs. VS should have current crew set up but with just a better main gun.

[psijaka]

I agree with the need for an overhaul of the command system; but I would take things one stage further and create a "commander" class, whose special abilities are command related (squad beacon, command chat, artillery strike, orbital strike (I'm sure that there are more ideas out there for command abilities). These would be certable of course.

They would be armed with a carbine/SMG/Shotgun/AR and have access to grenades and C4, but that's it, their value is as a leader.

Not sure I'm keen on Orbital Strike being a nuke, sounds way OP, and there are already plenty of ways to die fast.

[Livefire]

It would only be a small tactical nuke able to only cover one cap area and like I said it would be very hard to get and even if you do get it you would need to be in a squad to use it and have a massive cool down timer making it further more unlikely to spam.

Check this out, if it was a small tactical nuke you could make it an out of bounds area that would kill anyone that went in after the strike for a short time. So then if you use it you better really need it because if you nuke a base it would be uncappable for a short time pissing every one off if it was not needed.

Then you could add some meta to the game to and only let soldiers in the area of effect that say have max suits on and vehicles with NBC protection applied to them to try and capp in the contaminated zone. More items to make with more art for the players and more money for SOE.

Or if you don't want to give them small tactical nukes you can give them the rods from god kinetic strike the US airforce is working on. It was in the new GI JOE movie and leveled London No fall out but still just as powerful as killing a whole map cap area at once.

As a command only weapon that can only be used rarely, OP does not apply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbpZ22JIzzI

[Livefire]

reply repeat by accident

[Canaris]

you know there is roughly the same amount of people who play PS2 that dislike the idea of an OS in game as there are in favour. It's a tough call.
Check out the roadmap on the official forums.

[Livefire]

Originally Posted by Canaris

you know there is roughly the same amount of people who play PS2 that dislike the idea of an OS in game as there are in favour. It's a tough call.
Check out the roadmap on the official forums.

I would guess those are the half that did not play PS1 and simple do not understand it and how it is used and fits very nicely in this type of large scale MMOFPS.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Livefire

I would guess those are the half that did not play PS1 and simple do not understand it and how it is used and fits very nicely in this type of large scale MMOFPS.

i would guess those are the half that did play ps1 and understand how this would end up in a spamfest in a large scale MMOFPS.

[Livefire]

Originally Posted by Shogun

i would guess those are the half that did play ps1 and understand how this would end up in a spamfest in a large scale MMOFPS.

What? did you play PS1? OS's were never really spammed. In fact when they were spammed the very few times I saw that they never hit anything because people always could get out of the way most of the time. 10 year PS1 vet here dude, OS's did there job great and need a much deserved return. Just like artillery does.

[PredatorFour]

Command needs a MAJOR overhaul imo. You know there's something wrong when a guy can load up the game for the first time, go to the crown get 100 certs then begin to cert command and 'lead' his troops to victory.

Command is something i'm not bothered about yet purely cos of this and PS1 's system was better. However i like the idea of a commander class, that's cool but i would only give them pistols maybe and give them a laze pointer and other cool tools.

I think to buy into command the cert cost needs to be way higher also, like 5,000 certs or something and maybe have a br 50 cap of being able to use it.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Livefire

What? did you play PS1? OS's were never really spammed. In fact when they were spammed the very few times I saw that they never hit anything because people always could get out of the way most of the time. 10 year PS1 vet here dude, OS's did there job great and need a much deserved return. Just like artillery does.

i played ps1 for about 7-8 years, and in the later years everybody had cr5. and most of them only grinded cr to get the OS. orbitals everywhere! there were times where i was killed by orbitals 4 times in a row because when i spawned at an ams, there was already an orbital charging there, bamm. spawn at next ams, same thing, rinse and repeat.
this was not funny at all.
and this was not the only incident with multiple orbitals involved! it was very common.

[Canaris]

Originally Posted by Livefire

I would guess those are the half that did not play PS1 and simple do not understand it and how it is used and fits very nicely in this type of large scale MMOFPS.

I'm a 10 year veteran of PS1 and I'm not at all keen to see OS make a come back.

[ringring]

I agree command needs to be revamped. I also think from comments he's made he also thinks that.

In my view there are a few aspects to this all of which are important and requires a lot of thought before putting into practise.

Qualification: I feel that simply having cert'ed into a command tree and be a squad leader isn't enough. I like the old PS1's idea of separate CEP from normal XP as a method. And in response to the OP 1000 certs isn't very many, if you're going to go down the cert route it's nowhere near enough.

Social: Higby has recognised that command is social as well as simply giving order. This is good.

OS: Simply decouple the OS from command. There's no reason for it to be there apart from that it was there in PS1 it also was a perverse incentive to get command rank. I mean people went for command rank because they wanted the big gun in the sky and not because they wanted to participate in the command structure.

Comms: I was sad to hear Higby say that communication will be only by in-game VIOP thinking text was out of date and 'bad' I suppose. I oppose this. Text chat is better for empire command (it's worse to outfit comms). Why is it better, because your brain can ignore it (text) more easily than voice and more people can participate in a chat in text than by voce before it becomes a 'house of Babel'. Remember everyone in command voip will also have outfit comms happening at the same time.

Intel: Commanders need intel, commanders also can't be everywhere, or rather a single commander can't be everywhere but commander(s) can, therefore commanders have to be able to pass intel to each other. Clearly to much can again become overwhelming, so TEXT and not VOICE is the way to go.

CR5's: Personally, I would resurrect CR5's. The PS1 CR5 system worked in general and even when it broke down it was at least entertaining and it was the best example of the 'show' being run by players and for players. The only question in my mind is 'does the increase in population mean that model is invalid'?

In summary: Bring back CR5's but remove the OS to a different 'tree', one that is mutually exclusive from command.

[Livefire]

Originally Posted by ringring

I agree command needs to be revamped. I also think from comments he's made he also thinks that.

In my view there are a few aspects to this all of which are important and requires a lot of thought before putting into practise.

Qualification: I feel that simply having cert'ed into a command tree and be a squad leader isn't enough. I like the old PS1's idea of separate CEP from normal XP as a method. And in response to the OP 1000 certs isn't very many, if you're going to go down the cert route it's nowhere near enough.

Social: Higby has recognised that command is social as well as simply giving order. This is good.

OS: Simply decouple the OS from command. There's no reason for it to be there apart from that it was there in PS1 it also was a perverse incentive to get command rank. I mean people went for command rank because they wanted the big gun in the sky and not because they wanted to participate in the command structure.

Comms: I was sad to hear Higby say that communication will be only by in-game VIOP thinking text was out of date and 'bad' I suppose. I oppose this. Text chat is better for empire command (it's worse to outfit comms). Why is it better, because your brain can ignore it (text) more easily than voice and more people can participate in a chat in text than by voce before it becomes a 'house of Babel'. Remember everyone in command voip will also have outfit comms happening at the same time.

Intel: Commanders need intel, commanders also can't be everywhere, or rather a single commander can't be everywhere but commander(s) can, therefore commanders have to be able to pass intel to each other. Clearly to much can again become overwhelming, so TEXT and not VOICE is the way to go.

CR5's: Personally, I would resurrect CR5's. The PS1 CR5 system worked in general and even when it broke down it was at least entertaining and it was the best example of the 'show' being run by players and for players. The only question in my mind is 'does the increase in population mean that model is invalid'?

In summary: Bring back CR5's but remove the OS to a different 'tree', one that is mutually exclusive from command.

I agree people working for command to only get an OS is bad, but who else would you want to have it? I want as few people to have it as possible and that is also command. I would just make it extremely taxing to get. I am all for putting command xp back in the game and making it generate command cert points as separate from battle xp witch gives you battle certs. That will also separate though's who deserve command rank and that deserve the OS from though's who don't. I really do like the new feature in PS2 that disables your command abilities unless you are currently leading a squad. This further reduces OS and all command ability spamming

[ringring]

When I first started playing PS1 OS's were used mostly to farm easy kills. If you were standing by a vehicle term there was maybe a 1 chance in 4 that some nearby enemy cloaker would fire of an os onto the folk waiting to pull a vehicle. 20 kills easily.

Later on it became a tactical weapon. Someone in your squad would identify an AMS, which was cloaked and you'd work together to put the OS to destroy it onto the right place.

I'd hardly every be killed by an OS personally because I could simply run in the oterh direction and as an OS user I don't think I got many kills from it, maybe 15 at best buy mostly it was around 5-6.

But, this whole OS discussion shows why it needs to be decoupled from command, if it returns. Treat it as if it's a more colourful artillery strike and discuss it from there.

However to the OP.
I don't agree limiting access to command to current squad commanders is a good thing. Relating this back to PS1, often the most valuable input came from those who weren't leading. Squad leaders often concentrate on the small scale, the battle immediately in front of them. Commanders should concentrate on the larger picture.

There's also the question of Intel. If you have a base hacked and you need to know the situation it would be good to have a commander there who can take the time to scout it out and report.

Lastly, and again speaking from PS1 experience. As a CR5 I'd lead squads and platoons a lot more than most but many times too I'd want to take a break. You're saying on those times I wouldn't have access to the new cr5 channel and that even though I am not leading in squad play I can't contribute to the overall global strategy. That doesn't sound good to me.

[Livefire]

Originally Posted by ringring

When I first started playing PS1 OS's were used mostly to farm easy kills. If you were standing by a vehicle term there was maybe a 1 chance in 4 that some nearby enemy cloaker would fire of an os onto the folk waiting to pull a vehicle. 20 kills easily.

Later on it became a tactical weapon. Someone in your squad would identify an AMS, which was cloaked and you'd work together to put the OS to destroy it onto the right place.

I'd hardly every be killed by an OS personally because I could simply run in the oterh direction and as an OS user I don't think I got many kills from it, maybe 15 at best buy mostly it was around 5-6.

But, this whole OS discussion shows why it needs to be decoupled from command, if it returns. Treat it as if it's a more colourful artillery strike and discuss it from there.

However to the OP.
I don't agree limiting access to command to current squad commanders is a good thing. Relating this back to PS1, often the most valuable input came from those who weren't leading. Squad leaders often concentrate on the small scale, the battle immediately in front of them. Commanders should concentrate on the larger picture.

There's also the question of Intel. If you have a base hacked and you need to know the situation it would be good to have a commander there who can take the time to scout it out and report.

Lastly, and again speaking from PS1 experience. As a CR5 I'd lead squads and platoons a lot more than most but many times too I'd want to take a break. You're saying on those times I wouldn't have access to the new cr5 channel and that even though I am not leading in squad play I can't contribute to the overall global strategy. That doesn't sound good to me.

No as a solo commander in rank you would have full access to the communication channels of other commanders just not access to address everyone on the cont/global and when the OS comes out you would not be able to use that unless you are leading a squad. Remember it is not your OS it is your empires and should be used as such. Each CR5 should not have his personal OS satellite but simple have access to your empires global defense system which lets you request one from your empire when you think you need it. That request should "under certain circumstances" be denied unlike in PS1.