Defensive Improvements

Doppler · 2003-07-05, 02:03 AM

A few things I'd like to see implemented in order to give defenders a little more help. Right now an inferior numbered and equiped squad can take a base with a little strategy and tactics. This is not how it should be. Here are some things I whould like to see implemented to give defenders a bit more of a home court advantage.

1. Hacked bases should now have all facilities useable by the owning empire. For me it just seems ludicrus that the defenders in addition to having enemies in their home and fithing to survive must now do it with inferior armor tech. I do fine with the weapons stock in my locker, it's running around in standard that pisses me off.

2. The back door. I've heard about the changes they plan on making to the back door about it only being able to be hacked internaly. This is good except how often have we all waited by a door somewhere, either waiting for an enemy to run by so we can dask in, or blocking the doorway and forcefeeding them some buckshot/MAX ammo as soon as the door opens. Personaly i pull this gag with a boomer and audio amp all the time. The changes i'd make to this setup are twofold. A) Place a forcefield ala tribes that only allows passage to the owning impire, unless i'ts hacked from withing or taken down with a copious amount of antiarmor fire. B) Place a wall mounted turrent right above the door alcove, preferably controllable from some point inside the base.

3. Make turrents remotecontrollable, either from the CC or some other area within the base. Near where the lockers and the medterminal are in many bases comes to mind, or perhaps the room with the implant terminal in biolabs. THe point is the defenders should be able to operate the bases defensive hardware without exposing themselves to enemy fire.

4. Install somehting at the gates that restricts vehicle movement, perhaps jersey barriers that spring up when an enemy vehicle approaches but retracts for friendly vehicles driving out. These whouldnt completely block off the gates but whould make the base courtyards harder to drive into.

5. Doors, make all doors act like a motion sensor giving off an alamr if the enemy crosses the threshold simply because the door is blocked open from the inside or by a body. Crouching infiltrators can avoid this alarm as well as anyone who has actualy hacked the IFF.

6. Turrents in the spawn room. Even if these were somethign simple like a spitfire equivalent in each corner, something needs to be done to make spawn camping just a little bit tougher to pull off.

Thoughts?

Sentrosi · 2003-07-05, 02:19 AM

Personally, I hope they don't do away with the back doors. Many squads do not guard the back door and then wonder why a hack has failed or started. It's their own fault for not assigning anyone to guard the back door. Some of those battles are the best fun in the game. Close quarters, hard charging infantry against multiple targets. I wish some of those hallways could be longer for more fall back positions before getting to the base.

Doppler · 2003-07-05, 02:31 AM

Waiting for an enemy to come through the back door has got to be one of the most excrutiating duty, plus depending on the weaponry employed and whether or not the attacker actualy has his gun out when he approaches (i kill more people with audioamp because i'm prepared and their not) The most effective way to guard any doorway continues to be a well placed boomer and some patience.

Phex · 2003-07-05, 02:40 AM

It's really amazing to me as a squad leader to see so many people not using the back door by default. It's always the very least guarded of all the entrances to the base. "Can't go in the main entrance", "can't go in the second main entrance", "can't hot drop down", "woops guess we are fucked".

The back door has always been the number one place to enter a base simply because of all of the possible areas to exit the tunnel system. Once you breach the back door you have access to (usually) the CC, the spawns, and the generator. You also have the strategic advantage of being able to work from the inside of the base to the outside, instead of working your way in.

It's really difficult to understand why not many people automatically go for the back door.....whether they don't know it's there or are just lazy, I have no idea.

Doppler · 2003-07-05, 03:30 AM

The door I enter depends on two factors, time of exposure and proximity to the CC. Usualy the courtyard is a killing zone between the spitifres the snipers the mines and the enemy tanks. However on rare occsions the best way to penetrate a base is eithe rthe front door, or my personal favorite, into the courtyard up the stairs tot he walls and into the base on the upper level. I use a thumper and coming at people with an uphill advantage helps me emensly.

BloodWulfe · 2003-07-05, 04:24 AM

To me, the back door just doesn't make any sense. If you're designing a base with defense in mind, who throws down a totally defenseless door smack in the middle of nowhere? It makes sense if you plan on losing the base... But if you plan on losing the base, why design it at all in the first place? :P

As it stands, nobody guards the back door. It's a very defendable location too, but you can't really ask people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs until an enemy walks down. I like the idea of a blast door that can only be blown from inside, via a hack or boomber or something. If it's blown, it should broadcast a message to everybody in the SOI: "Back door breached! Oh no!"

Either that or people learn to guard it.

Doppler · 2003-07-05, 04:56 AM

This is exactly my point, the bases were not designed with defense in mind. Not really I've been working under the assumption that the bases are civilian compounds converted for military use. Back before the colonies were cut off the bases were basicly walled structures out in the wilderness for the protection of civilians. Like when our colonists automaticly built walled stockades to protect themselves from possible attack by animals or native in thousands of little backwater colonies so the immigrants to auraxis built walled structures around their homes and labs. The back door is a logical escape route for a building that was never designed to be militarily held anyway. They assumed their IFF locks whould be sufficent to prtect them from any non advanced fauna and natives. Looked at from that sense it does have a certain amount of logic.

Edit: Having said that the first thing I'd do is rip out the door mechanism then weld the door shut. Then i'd rig the thing with enough plastic explosive (or the equivalent) to kill the poor stupid fool who dinked with the door, and blow his teeth through the skull of the guy behind him.

SumYungGui · 2003-07-05, 07:02 AM

turret, turret, turret, T-U-R-R-E-T. there is absolutely NOT an 'N' in the word turret. it is not turrent. I don't know where the hell you people get it, but it runs rampant amongst games like this and it drives me bat-shit insane when people can look at the words 'Phalanx Turret' or 'Spitfire Turret' day in and day out yet still spell it 'turrent'.

yes, this is major pet-pisser of mine. you were unlucky enough to walk into it face first.

Sentrosi · 2003-07-05, 07:57 AM

I knew that you could do this in beta, but can you still mount the Boomers on walls? If so, then mounting a boomer on the wall in front of the door would bring a lot of chaos and kills to the Engie who did it.

Of course, he'd have to go out and apply another Boomer.

FearTheAtlas · 2003-07-05, 09:06 AM

1 boomer? Psssh, throw a whole inventory of those babies around the door, prime a jammer, and happy forth of july! That door will be light up like Baghdad on the opening air attack of Desert Storm.

Incompetent · 2003-07-05, 09:12 AM

Well, I dunno about anyone else but me and a few other members of my outfit love nothing better then setting up at the back door, you get three to four guys (five for really heavy fighting, anything more is just dead weight), you can hold that corridor almost literally forever.

AdvocaTe · 2003-07-05, 03:43 PM

defending bases involves a lot of holding the surrounding towers and having air support to take out any AMS's ... but you are right, bases should have major chokepoints instead of everyone running around in the courtyard

Phorcy · 2003-07-05, 03:46 PM

Like stated above.

No AMS = No Offensive.

SumYungGui · 2003-07-05, 05:23 PM

you might think that sentrosi, but as far as I can tell boomers are a little borked. this is all guesswork based on what I've seen, but here goes. it seems to me that the blast from a boomer primarily goes straight up and out just alittle bit in a cylindrical fashion. unfortunately, when mounted on walls, this does not appear to change still sending the blast vertically with only minor spash damage to the sides I.E. into the hallway. while expecting massive devastation from a wall mounted boomer amongst a gaggle of targets, I've only ever gotten a single kill with (I hope) lots of little wounds all around. placing the boomer on the ground amongst a pack of Terran Regime yokels at the vehicle pad netted me seven kills with one press of a button as my current record.

all guesswork on my part of course, but it's the best I could come up with.

BigFreak · 2003-07-05, 06:13 PM

No offense intended, but these seem the worst ideas I've seen. How the hell is a team gonna defend a hack when the opposition has the chance to spawn, kit up, and carry on? Yea, take out the
Gen/Spawn tubes, etc, but that just puts it back at square one.

Remote turrets, so they can kill people without taking damage...think about that...balance issues.

Restricting vehicle access to bases? Vehicles don't get used enough in the field as it is.

Door Radars, or you could spend a few certs and place motion sensors.

Yes, I have a problem with spawn camping; however, when it pisses me off, I spawn elsewhere, get some people together, and go in in force. It's a simple tactic.