Planetside 2, off-planet

[Femtobyte]

Just some thoughts on a type of map expansion that could be interesting.
Disclaimer: I don't expect this anytime soon, just want to see it at some point in the far future, like a year after the game launches.
A thanks to Saifoda for pointing out these other similar threads, its nice to read what other people are kicking around in their heads.
EDIT: here are links to several other threads on this subject.
Saifoda's http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=42578
basti's http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=37173
Corax's http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=36283

Space "Continents" Just allow that thought to sort of ruminate for a while. Players could fight over asteroids / satellites / portions of moons. Using space specific vehicles, similar to the ground based vehicles or maybe even clones of them, just with an O2 tank equipped instead of flares or something of that nature. The maps could better utilize the amount of 3-dimensional space that is available with the fairly high sky-cap now implemented in the alpha testing. And just imagine, instead of needing to traverse a river or canyon, needing to traverse the gap between two floating asteroids? Being able to look down and see Auraxis in the gap, it sure sounds awesome to me.

This also seems to allow for all sorts of tie-ins with the ground based gameplay. See this thread on Orbiting Sanctuaries/Motherships http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=42324 You could even implement outfit capital ships that serve as a sort of mobile base for very high-ranking outfits. Requiring tons of resources to make and being able to be destroyed/scuttled. But I am getting distracted, that is an entirely different thread

I know this game is called Planetside 2, and that title certainly seems to preclude any type of Space content, but we ARE fighting in a futuristic/hightech universe here, and there is definitely room in the lore for this type of gameplay. I am also aware of the immense technical challenges it would bring to the development team, null-g to low-g shifts within a single "continent" as you transition from empty space to over a large asteroid or moon, determining if the "underside" (is that term even applicable) of these bases/land based areas will/can be made playable. (e.g. can I run all the way around this floating rock? Do my "mag-boots" hold me on while I go upside down?) I however have full faith in the extremely talented dev team and believe that they are fully capable of overcoming these immense sort of issues.

It would add in even more epicness and interest in a game that after a year will almost certainly have begun to peak in interest, and probably cash-flow. Finally, I for one, just do not feel complete in any sci-fi shooter until I have assaulted an enemy space base, and experienced some null-g dog-fighting. Possibly even forced to eject out of my vehicle and drifted alone in space, slowly depleting my O2 ala Battlestar Galactica style.

[berzerkerking]

Seeing as you calculated for the time effort and animations that would go into making this, I believe this is plausible. This should be postponed until all the continents are complete and bug-free Until then we wait.

[Femtobyte]

Yes, I know this will not be any sort of instant expansion, it would take quite a long time. At the same time, I can't help but get in a bit of a tizzy thinking about all the possibilities.

[Jomo]

Sounds like it could be a pretty epic thing if they think through and implement it right. As everyone said, it's a thing that wouldn't happen right away, but if we take that into mind, I'd be down for this.

[elementHTTP]

Great idea ! Imagine fractions fighting for solar system
Like there are 3 planets with 3-4 continents and 3 fraction battle moons
( aka death stars without mega laser , which are like last stand outposts/fortresses )


As you said that makes room for massive planet assaults (drops ) , space battleships and whoooole new pack of epic experiences



but time/technology wise it will be in Planetside3 (5 -10 years )



rating 5/5

[Femtobyte]

Originally Posted by elementHTTP

Great idea ! Imagine fractions fighting for solar system
Like there are 3 planets with 3-4 continents and 3 fraction battle moons
( aka death stars without mega laser , which are like last stand outposts/fortresses )

I would hope that the space battles would have an effect on the ground battles, like if one empire has control of all the space "continents" they would have some sort of improved surveillance on the land continents, whereas the enemies would have less surveillance capabilities. This is beyond the obvious resources that each faction should gain from control of these territories, just like control of any other territory. But I do not see any advantage to drops from space, as long as PS2 has warp-gates and footholds on each continent, there would be little to no point in them changing the way that the continents interact with each other. At least as far as how troops are deployed into a continent.

Originally Posted by elementHTTP

As you said that makes room for massive planet assaults (drops ) , space battleships and whoooole new pack of epic experiences...

While massive carrier to carrier battles are fun, (I admit to being a HUGE fan of StarWars Battlefront II) they would be inherently problematic in PS2 given that all ships cost resources, and I for one would neither want to be an infantryman stuck on a carrier during an epic space battle, nor would I want to waste MY valuable resources over and over again from spamming my fighter jet to defend said carrier.

Originally Posted by elementHTTP

...but time/technology wise it will be in Planetside3 (5 -10 years )

Lastly, I believe (hope) that if the space "continents" are treated more like the traditional continents in PS2 having areas that can place ground, space and infantry units in direct conflict with one another, and not being an entirely different game (not Spaceside) it would not have to take 5-10 years to develop. Not if we are keeping the things we love about PS2 (massive scale / interplay between support roles / etc) even though its not out yet. And just changing some of the gameplay physics aspects / tactical aspects of it since we are in a different environment. Nor would we have to wait until PS3 *crosses fingers* At least, I reaally hope not.

[Dagron]

Hehe, i said it in that thread you linked and i say it again: awesome idea.

[Saifoda]

Well since you DID ask for other threads to be linked, might as well toot my own horn here Link


Also I am writing more stuff on some details of the space combat stuff; I'll get that up in my first thread when they're done.

[Neurotoxin]

After continental combat is perfected, after naval warfare is perfected, we're either going up or down.

I doubt we'll see a return to the caverns as something on Auraxis, but instead perhaps randomly-generated near-passing meteors and asteroids will spawn for teams to go on and collect resources from while they are close enough to access, or possibly being a moon-related kinda thing.

I could see some sorta combat on the flotilla still orbiting Auraxis. Some ships are civilian ships, some are tactical orbital stations. The civilian ships should be the ones which function like our old sanctuaries, while the tactical orbital stations are where space combat is really focused. Maybe this idea could be combined with moon caverns.

[Femtobyte]

I enjoyed reading that stuff saifoda. It was an interesting idea of how the actual combat etc would work. I haven't gotten into that much detail to be honest. However there are a few main points that I definitely disagree with.

1st, making the population cap for the space continents/sectors smaller than the regular ground continents. Putting it to only 500, so that the main part of planetside will remain more heavily populated.
I really dislike that idea, it seems like an artificial limitation that would only serve to force players into doing things they don't wish to. If/when this space combat is ever released it will DEFINITELY be something that people at least want to try. Allowing only a measly 500 people into space is sure to irritate some people. And it would all be so that we could artificially "keep the ground combat more populated" I don't know if there will ever be a huge problem with nobody on the ground and everyone just messing around in space. But with as popular as this game is going to be, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
Perhaps if we needed to enforce a sort of limit to how much space combat there was, we could do it through resources. Make space comparatively much less resource rich, so it is mainly a tactical advantage. That should force most empires to go down to the planets surface. Without imposing an artificial limit on players.

2nd, I also do not like the idea of infantry being unable to go outside, having to fight only in the capture-able bases. Why not make them able to flit around in space with small jetpacks? Make them much slower than any space vehicle, but don't make them unable to fight in space. Let them zip around on the surface of an asteroid in a moon roveresque dune buggy thing. Make it fun to be in space for more than just the big outfits.

[Saifoda]

Originally Posted by Femtobyte

I enjoyed reading that stuff saifoda. It was an interesting idea of how the actual combat etc would work. I haven't gotten into that much detail to be honest. However there are a few main points that I definitely disagree with.

1st, making the population cap for the space continents/sectors smaller than the regular ground continents. Putting it to only 500, so that the main part of planetside will remain more heavily populated.
I really dislike that idea, it seems like an artificial limitation that would only serve to force players into doing things they don't wish to. If/when this space combat is ever released it will DEFINITELY be something that people at least want to try. Allowing only a measly 500 people into space is sure to irritate some people. And it would all be so that we could artificially "keep the ground combat more populated" I don't know if there will ever be a huge problem with nobody on the ground and everyone just messing around in space. But with as popular as this game is going to be, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
Perhaps if we needed to enforce a sort of limit to how much space combat there was, we could do it through resources. Make space comparatively much less resource rich, so it is mainly a tactical advantage. That should force most empires to go down to the planets surface. Without imposing an artificial limit on players.

2nd, I also do not like the idea of infantry being unable to go outside, having to fight only in the capture-able bases. Why not make them able to flit around in space with small jetpacks? Make them much slower than any space vehicle, but don't make them unable to fight in space. Let them zip around on the surface of an asteroid in a moon roveresque dune buggy thing. Make it fun to be in space for more than just the big outfits.

First of all, thanks for linking to my original post -- appreciation +1 .



I think your 2 points on some improvements to my suggested model are definitely valid. I'll address those now:

I personally "set" the cap at 500 because 1: It's a nice round number. And 2: To keep the post from turning into a flame war about how it'll detract from the ground game play. I think we could see this being successful with each zone having the 2000 limit or whatever number, as long as the servers can handle it basically; if the servers can handle 10,000 and we've got 8,000 that want to jump in, that's great! But I also do think it shouldn't detract from the gameplay on the ground (but hey, if the players all want to be in space -- LET 'EM!!)

As for the Infantry not being able to go outside except for on the surface of the structures, I thought about your suggestion as well of having the space zones be totally available to all types (Infantry AND ship) and quite honestly I think that could be OK too. Again I was trying to avoid a flame war from a lot of the potential hazards of this, to which I've already thought of solutions. The biggest argument to having infantry only be allowed in ships and on the space structures (asteroids, space stations, etc...) would be that if you're a lone Infantry dude just kinda floating around in space, then the game would suck for you. True, and...Solution: If you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, simply deconstruct your player (keybinding the command even, to say, "P" or whatever key) and you can then spawn on any friendly ship with a spawn room (only the large ships would have this -- frigate-class and above) or your space station sanc or a friendly controlled space structure. Pretty simple, I think.





The things I'm writing to expand on in the future with the space combat zones idea are the details on the ships and how they are constructed with the outfits (going to have to wait till launch to know exactly how the resource system is going to work, but we can still speculate), and some of the space structure layouts. A big thing that I'm still not too certain how it will work is going to be boarding. I would LOVE for there to be a boarding mechanic -- fighting as "Marines," in the original sense of the word, on ships; quite frankly I think it would be FUCKING awesome.

[Femtobyte]

There are other ways we could address this, to cut down on people being that lone-man floating in space -- which don't involve suiciding to the nearest spawn-point. I'm going to start with the terrain limitations, and then go over a couple of gameplay mechanics that are a possibility.

Terrain based limitations:
Option 1: We could go with moon-based game-play. Basically this is what I feel is most likely to come to PS2 given the relative ease with which the devs could implement it. In moon based game-play, what we have is essentially the same as the ground continents, different units, different sky-domes, different cappable structures, and obviously some different terrain. But in the end, it would be basically the same as fighting on Indar, or any other ground continent, except you can look up, and see Auraxis.
Option 2: Asteroid belt type game-play, bases, and hexes are made up of various free-floating chunks of debris, some massive (main-bases) and others smaller (tower sized). I would love it if they were able to be walked around, in a sort of Super Mario Galaxy way (only game I could think of that does its gravity in this way). Think like the Hallelujah mountains in Avatar for about the size and distance from each other, that I think these things should be. Infantry could be stuck on these, unless they were able to go across on some bridge type thing, or maybe have a deployable zip-line to eliminate choke points. For me this type of game-play is sort of the holy Grail of space based warfare. Infantry and Space-vehicles could/would have all sorts of ways to interact in the same place. The large outfit specific ships would be able to maneuver in and out, being useful to the outfit as an extra staging point their enemies don't have. But at the same time they would have to be very careful with their big fancy ships, crashing into one of these asteroids would mean damaging their precious ship. And given the intrinsically 3-dimensional strategies that opposing empires would use, it would be very easy to become trapped in some sort of clever ambush.
Option 3: Massive Starbase / Orbital Station. This is, of all of the potential map-types I can think of, one of the most difficult for me to decide if I like it or not. On the one hand, the strategics involved in say, capturing that nano-respawn control generator, so that your troops can respawn 1 second faster than the enemies troops down on Indar (or whatever continent) would be really interesting. It would also be fairly easy for SOE to implement, as down is still down, and there is no real reason to mess with the physics engines. It would also allow for the Outfit specific ships to really come into play, outside the main starbase, But, there would be no real cross-over here. Ships would shoot down other ships, and maybe shoot down the starbases turrets if other players were controlling them or whatever. But the lack of really Airborne vs Infantry play would make this quite un-planetsidey... at least to me.

Game-play Mechanics
Option 1: A simple jetpack and an O2 tank: It could be just like being an infantry on the continent and hoofing across the continent. You can do it, if you want, it will just take you a long time. In order to stop people from just being an infiltrator and hiding somewhere just floating for hours and picking people off, I suggest like a 2 minute (open to suggestions/certs/inprovements) O2 tank, you can get where you are going with no real problems, and as soon as you are on land, your nanites begin cannibalizing the ground to replenish your store of O2.
Option 2: Nanite Sytems to the rescue: you could also have some sort of distress signal that would go out, and a Nanite Systems automaton would come and pick you up, then take you to the nearest friendly hex. I haven't completely thought this one out, but I'm sure something like this could be implemented. Possibly it could cost resources and be destroyable by any enemy that happened to spot it meandering back to your hex.

Anyways, this post is getting quite lengthy and that is where I will end it.