Thoughts on that "mother-ship"

[basti]

Originally Posted by CViolet

The devs also mentioned that they were considering adding outfit specific bases. Adding these to the existing landscape would require constant modification to the maps, and would most likely be impractical... unless they were floating bases. I think you guys nailed it.

Maybe not. Depens what the engine is capable of, and how they prepared the map. If they added room for possible bases, or if the engine is capable of changing the terrain to some degree, then dropping bases at certain points would be possible. Just not everywhere, that would screw with balance anyway.

But theres just another, story reason for those motherships being the home bases: shielding. After all, if we can build a force dome to protect our home base forever, why not build force domes for territory we have under our control, making it impossible to loose them? A mothership would fit perfectly there, because thats an entire new level of power generation that is not possible on the surface of a planet (imagine a power generator that would cause a massive, devestating explosion in case of failure. You dont want to have something like this in a war zone, in your base, on the surface of the planet you fight for. )

[Lithious]

Totally agree on that basti. Would be a really new cool aspect of the game which only a handfull of games have.

[ShowNoMercy]

Originally Posted by krnasaur

who decides where that 1 base moves?

random generation? guys with really high lvl leadership skills? im not smed here, idk exactly.

[CrystalViolet]

Originally Posted by basti

Maybe not. Depens what the engine is capable of, and how they prepared the map. If they added room for possible bases, or if the engine is capable of changing the terrain to some degree, then dropping bases at certain points would be possible. Just not everywhere, that would screw with balance anyway.

The way they've described the maps so far with quotes like "every square inch is contestable", and "we are designing each map by hand" makes me think that there engine won't be doing any procedural landmass expantions. Also, it would be difficult to predict how many additional outfit specific bases would be required. If it starts getting into the thousands, then you'd have continents that were 90% uncapturable.

[basti]

Originally Posted by CViolet

The way they've described the maps so far with quotes like "every square inch is contestable", and "we are designing each map by hand" makes me think that there engine won't be doing any procedural landmass expantions. Also, it would be difficult to predict how many additional outfit specific bases would be required. If it starts getting into the thousands, then you'd have continents that were 90% uncapturable.

True.

Well, they also said they do that stuff post release if i remember correctly. We will propably have broken quite a few mechanics before they even start working on outfit bases.

[Lonehunter]

If these ships did make it in it also opens up all kinds of lore options, not being tied down to the planet and all. I know some say lore has no place in Planetiside, but it's a nice extra. The Halo novels ended up being some of my favorite books.

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Lonehunter187

If these ships did make it in it also opens up all kinds of lore options, not being tied down to the planet and all. I know some say lore has no place in Planetiside, but it's a nice extra. The Halo novels ended up being some of my favorite books.

And also remember that according to the lore the Terran Republic sent space ships into the wormhole and found Auraxis on the other side. And for a very long time used the wormhole to go back and forth until suddenly it had collapsed. So by the lore large space faring ships were very much part of the story.

They could easily make these large ships the uncapturable base, giving it automated gun defenses and other systems to make it very difficult to camp it. Maybe even put a large sector under the ship that could be captured that would force the ship to return to orbit. This would allow for a "lock" of the continent, and the only way for the other team to bring their ship back to the front would be to retake that territory by using the HART style drop pods and vehicles brought in through a warpgate.

This could make for a very interesting "Normandy" style beach-head battle where the assaulting team has to bring down the orbital defenses so that their ship could come into atmosphere to act as the main foothold.

[ShowNoMercy]

true story icey, that would make for some pretty awesome battles, you could also have several mothership supporting bases so that multiple bases could be captured to start the campaign on a given cont giving you starting options. It would be similar to the lattice system in PS1 except once the first base was capped you could move where ever you wanted, and the start base could be anywhere on the cont, not just on the outsides by the warp gate.

[Baneblade]

outfit air cruisers > outfit bases

[Sifer2]

Just like I said in the other topic it reminds me of Titan mode in 2142. Which was fun. Mostly because it was possible to bring the shields down an storm the floating base an destroy its core. Then you get the fun but pointless epic run to try to get out of the exploding ship.

The question is would they do it like that or would that make the mothership more like an instance in space that doesn't do much but launch pods an maybe give you a place to do VR training. I do hope that if they do outfit bases that the Titan mode style is what they go for. I could see the main base most likely being an untouchable launching point from orbit though. One that maybe moves around at random offering drop access to different continents to spread out the fighting.