Lower tech?

[FortunadoAE]

I always felt like Planetside's level of technology hurt it more than it helped it. It didn't help that they always ramped up the tech in updates.

Let's revisit Auraxis after things have broken down a bit and a lot of the tech has been lost.

-Let's see some rifles comparable to what we have today. Less magnets and lasers and energy fields.

-Let's see more cloth/kevlar in the uniform design. Plate armor wasn't even a good idea in the middle ages.

-Want to get out of your mosquito? Gotta land. Don't worry, you can still rappel out of your Galaxy.

-All the core alien tech and the vehicle variants? All lost. BFRs are gone too.

-Bulkier MAX suits. MAX weapons that you can actually quickly and easily identify because they have unique silhouettes. Let's see those magnet/laser/energy fields come back in the MAXes, but at the cost of bulkiness.

-VS can still be the tech nerds. Their stuff has gotten bulkier and less effective too, though.

-Internal combustion! Auraxis has changed composition and doesn't provide as much NTU energy. Now they gotta drill for the stuff that's broken up in the core. Like oil, but more sci-fi. Fight over the drilling stations to get vehicles on that continent.

Retro. Steampunk. Awesome.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by FortunadoAE

I always felt like Planetside's level of technology hurt it more than it helped it. It didn't help that they always ramped up the tech in updates.

No technology does not hurt the game. This a FUTURISTIC shooter that takes place far beyond our current time.

Let's revisit Auraxis after things have broken down a bit and a lot of the tech has been lost.

No thanks.

-Let's see some rifles comparable to what we have today. Less magnets and lasers and energy fields.

This is not BC2 or MW2. If you do not like the weapons please go play those games. The technology makes PS unique and way more interesting then carrying a M16 around.

-Let's see more cloth/kevlar in the uniform design. Plate armor wasn't even a good idea in the middle ages.

This I can partially agree with. I could see armored suits, but no as much metal on them. The TR doesn't look like plate armor, NC looks like a knight from long ago, VS is plate armor meeting the 31st century.

-Want to get out of your mosquito? Gotta land. Don't worry, you can still rappel out of your Galaxy.

Understand the point, but there is bailing mechanisms in current aircraft. No reason not to have them be able to bail. Perhaps putting in an actual pilot suit that limits users to MA would be a suitable alternative? Though still having an armor that can use weapons like AV/HA that does not require certs would have to be in place.

-All the core alien tech and the vehicle variants? All lost. BFRs are gone too.

Alien core tech? I never cared for any of the vehicles. Though I think there should be a place for a flail type weapon, but requiring a 2 man team to fire it. On top of having a limit on a cont. Anything more then 10 flails is almost game breaking. Vehicle variants pretaining to Thundies, Raiders, and Auroras? Keep them if so adds more to the game. Delis suck as well. BFRs should be out too.

-Bulkier MAX suits. MAX weapons that you can actually quickly and easily identify because they have unique silhouettes. Let's see those magnet/laser/energy fields come back in the MAXes, but at the cost of bulkiness.

Bulkier as in slower? You can't get much slower otherwise the MAX units will die rather quickly from the onslaught of AV use. Though I would like to have more recognizable features on the weapons. I can't tell the difference between the VS/NC ones from range.

-VS can still be the tech nerds. Their stuff has gotten bulkier and less effective too, though.

Sounds like you are looking to just nerf the VS here. The whole point of the VS empire is to be flexible and use the might of technology to win. On top of making them bulkier the VS are supposed to be able to be quick (Jump jets on MAXes, Magrider, and so on).

-Internal combustion! Auraxis has changed composition and doesn't provide as much NTU energy. Now they gotta drill for the stuff that's broken up in the core. Like oil, but more sci-fi. Fight over the drilling stations to get vehicles on that continent.

LOL. No thanks. Auraxis is built on nanites. If you want to play Earth please go out to RL and do something with yourself.

Retro. Steampunk. Awesome.

Not awesome. Dull and boring.

Above.

[krnasaur]

Lets take the "sci-fi" out if a "sci-fi shooter"? meh.

[Bags]

Yes, we really need more COD style shooters in the market.

[Aractain]

I always liked the low tech TR, middle tech NC and FABULOUS tech vanus.

[Canaris]

I think Goku summed it up nicely and I approve of his post

[Koopak]

Agreed, this is stupid, when i saw it i thought it would be a post on how the tech is not advanced enough (This is common with Si-Fi, we used to think automatic sliding doors would only exist on the enterprise, but now they are everywhere)

But Steampunk? I can get the idea of technology degradeing in a colony disconnected from its home nation (That's what Auraxis is after-all) but that didn't happen and cant happen. Planetside is based off the discovery of Vanu Technology and the Re-birthing process, as long as people cannot die for good, they cannot forget and lose tech, and no one is actively destroying it.

The tech is really base to begin with, aside from the Vanu most factions still use the old fashioned bullet, hell the modern bullet has been around for what? more than a 100 years? longer if ya wanna talk about pre-shell era. In the end this makes sense, a mass driver is a mass drive not much to do with it.

As for Armor, you clearly don't know much about modern body armor, Kevlar don't stop shit, in an actual war Kevlar will not save you, it might stop the bullet from going in you, but it wont stop it from causing Hydrostatic Shock and killing you, more importantly, throw a phosphorus tip on the round (incendiary) and it goes through like the Kevlar isn't there. The only thing that will stop a modern assault rife round withing its effective range is a trauma plate, we used to use Titanium for this, worked fine, now we use Ceramics, they work great as they fall apart on impact and spread out the bullets force, and now we are looking at a gel layer that will do the same by hardening on impact but not have the flaw of being useless after 1-2 hits.

My assumptions about planetside armor? Gel layer takes most hits, the plates are probably advanced trauma plates for additional protection where they wont impede flexibility.

This is a Sci-Fi shooter, nuf said.

sorry for the rant

[Grimster]

Yepp, I second what Goku said also.


I really like that idea with having a specific suit for piloting. That could be a really good idea if for instance pilots were only able to bring MA weapons on them.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Grimster

Yepp, I second what Goku said also.


I really like that idea with having a specific suit for piloting. That could be a really good idea if for instance pilots were only able to bring MA weapons on them.

Indeed. While I know this does hurt the way some outfits work for certain operations at least the pilot can still bail from the vehicle. Due to not having HA/AV you can add perks to the suit. Increasing movement speed beyond agile is one, so a player can out do a slower more armored opponent that way. This of course makes the use of the galaxy that much more pivotal to game play too.

[FortunadoAE]

Think of it this way: It's set 2,000 years after Planetside takes place.

The world has changed. Two thousand years of war has ravaged the planet's energy supply and the factions cling to what's left to preserve the rebirthing processes and other essential functions.

Each faction desperately competes for access to other energy sources. Solar, nuclear, core materials, and anything else they can manage to control. The extreme length of the war has lead to unique resource issues for each faction. The VS face a shortage of access to metal, resulting in exo-skeletal designs supplemented by energy shielding. The NC, without the luxury of VS's superior energy management but with a wealth of metals available, have adopted massive, brute-force designs. The TR still cling to tradition and have managed to keep their design philosophy mostly the same.

Core shifts and collapses have led to massive earthquakes, with some continents slowly sinking into the planet, forming gigantic canyon systems. Levees and dams have been constructed to keep the ocean from flooding the canyons and destroying the ever-more-valuable bases within. Other continents have seen the opposite effect, being pushed toward the sky and forming mountain ranges unlike anything seen on Earth. Climate shifts have pushed weather patterns on Auraxis to new extremes.

Rebirthing human bodies remains one of the least energy-intensive reconstruction activities. Millenia of constant death has hardened even the softest of Auraxis's soldiers. Armor designs emphasize one thing and one thing only: Battle hardiness. Safety and comfort considerations are a thing of the past.

It's the ultimate war of attrition. Who will last the longest: the TR, the VS, or the NC? Or will they all fall as Auraxis itself finally fails?

***

I think this is more sci-fi than finger-mounted flails and personal teleportation devices. But that's just me.

On the pilot suit: I totally agree! In PS I always thought that pilots should have to wear the spawn armor (the one that seemed completely pointless otherwise). A more badass-looking version of that would be great.

On military tech: C'mon, guys, this is all relative. A lot of the stuff in PS is low-tech compared to what we're flying around. They're already talking about the latest generation of fighter craft being the last to actually have a pilot in it. I don't think Reavers as we see them in the game are in our future.

On tech in general: Technology advances according to limitations. The game wouldn't be lower-tech, it'd be lower limitations. Maybe the flail takes 20x as much energy to create as a tank, so they thought it wasn't worth it. The longer a war wages on, the more practicality becomes a concern in weapon design.

If the game is just Planetside: The Next Expansion With Better Graphics, then it's going to fail. They just don't have enough of a population in the current (and even former) PS players to support a modern game. This isn't 2003, they no longer have a first-mover advantage (or close to it) and there's a couple other great-looking MMOFPSes coming out.

Expect it to be simplified one way or another. I think this is the best way to do it.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Grimster

Yepp, I second what Goku said also.


I really like that idea with having a specific suit for piloting. That could be a really good idea if for instance pilots were only able to bring MA weapons on them.

Pistols only. If you they don't like it, they can always just walk. The grunts don't get to whip out a plane and get into it after getting too low on armor HP's.

And, having a slower, less-armored plane to whip out doesn't add any balance, just like using MA for a pilot doesn't. Pistols only.

[Canaris]

Originally Posted by Traak

Pistols only. If you they don't like it, they can always just walk. The grunts don't get to whip out a plane and get into it after getting too low on armor HP's.

And, having a slower, less-armored plane to whip out doesn't add any balance, just like using MA for a pilot doesn't. Pistols only.

I wouldn't go so far as pistols only for pilots, if something like the standard supressor makes it back into PS-N I would allow them to use it.

[Goku]

I see there being both AI and humans controlling planes in the future. The AI will probably be able to say be a bomber or spy plan by going to X target and drop Y bomb there. Right now we are still far off from even using AI in a fighter plane in my opinion. AI lacks any true intelligence for engaging opponents. When the AI finally can it will have to be self aware and be able to do its own actions, not a preprogrammed flight pattern from someone in DC. That is why I see humans still at least being fighter pilots for the time being. Will all this change at some point? I am sure it will of course as AI will progress a lot in the coming decades. Though with the advances in biology along with other technologies I am sure humans will be able to upgrade themselves to even take on the best of the AIs.

I think PS in its current form excluding some features and adding new ones will be a highly marketable games. Really the final nail in the coffin for PS was BFRs then SOE no longer supporting the game. For only being a DX8 game PS even made even bring higher ends rigs to their knees. Really until the introduction of the Core2 series along with higher end vgas did we see decent performance on high settings in red alerts. My Ahtlon X2 4200+ and 7900 GT SLI often struggled playing this game. My E8400 and 8800 GTS 512 played the game far better, but I still found issues running the game sometimes. Today with the adoption of quad cores and the large increase in video cards I do not think this will be as much of a problem. I think the performance of many computers is what made a lot of people leave as well.

Concerning the rest of your post. My feelings are laid out in my first post in the topic. All of what you describe is not PlanetSide in anyway, it is a entirely different game. That is why I have no interest in seeing these changes come Next.

[FortunadoAE]

We seem to be moving away from pilots-in-planes quite nicely without the benefit of AI.

PS had average graphics when it came out. It's been eight years and it hasn't aged well. If it were marketable in its current form, it'd be, well, marketed in its current form.

The game I describe is more like Planetside than what Planetside has morphed into. It's a return to basics. The game has suffered from feature creep which is too happily fueled by players. They need features that solve problems and make the game simpler, not more complicated.

[Goku]

Tell me how planes are going to be able to engage targets air to air w/o AI? Split second decisions is not something that going to X location and doing Y can handle. I don't see it happening. Last I knew there is NOT any plane in the works for air to air, but only bombing. If there is please link me to it.

I don't think you understood my point. Even on the last gen of DX9 cards PlanetSide ran like crap on them. The graphics may not be intense but with 399 players meshed in one base that is the issue there, not how much the water looks real. My miff with the game is that it ran like shit on systems that were modern back then and probably made lots of people stop playing as a result. SOE needs to make use of the enhancements multithreading offers in quad cores and the better rendering technologies in DX11 (tessellation would be great, so we don't have land features from PS), so it is not as demanding. I am assuming this is a PC title, so it should be doable. DX11 can back track to DX10, so that isn't a problem at least. If you have DX9 card, well oh well. Probably won't run the game at all anyway.

You're game sounds like a post apocalyptic version of PS. That is not PS. Nanites are the source of everything, its not going anywhere. No nanites= no game. A game set that far in the future from the original can't be any kind of sequel. If SOE doesn't want the limitations of PS they should just bring out a totally new MMOFPS that has nothing to do with it then.