[Discussion] The Zerg

[TothAval]

To give the devs some proper feedback about one of the most discussed "issues" in this game,
i start this thread to discuss pros and cons of the zerg and ways to improve its occurence and
to develop ideas and suggestions to counter it.

Please feel free to discuss any aspect of the zerg and feed in your ideas about it.

My opinion regarding the zerg:
For me, the zerg is an elemental part of the game, since it's a mmofps about a massive scale war.
I like big armored columns and fighting in or against them is really funny and entertaining, all the explosions
and weapon sounds and the feeling of combined arms warfare is what makes this game so epic.

But alongside with these positive aspects comes the downside of ww1-like stalemate and the
feeling of no progress at all and therefor after some time boredom and redeploy to a place more quiet.
Also a zergclash is killer for lowlevel players, cause you lack all the useful little certifications.

Modern warfare should be fast paced, shock and awe like ambushes and not a neverending stalemate at
the same place. The reason why this is the case is because of infinte supplies on both sides, if the
supplies were finite, zergclashs probably won't last that long.

You can jump to the end of the text if you won't read the following wall of text, i marked the begin
and the end with [this color].

[Begin of Wall]
In my opinion the only way to adress the duration of a giant battle is adding some sort of
attrition to gameplay.
This could easily done by adding one new ressource to the game - energy.
You need energy to run your vehicles and to power the nanites, once you drain enemy supply of
energy, he will loose the ability to fight on in a certain area.

Energy should be needed for spawning, support tools, fueling vehicles and autorepair systems
and should be brought to the frontlines by latticelinks or special certed galaxys and sunderers.
Galaxys for air supply while in the air or for ground while landed, sunderers in a deployradius
for landed aircraft or ground units. Latticelinks behind the frontlines should be open for sabotage
to reduce energy delivery by 50%.

Every Vehicle and Class will get an additional energy bar.
Infantry:
Every action beside shooting, throwing, running, crouching, spotting, deploying mines
or using medkits should drain the energy bar. So your shield reloading or selfhealing or ammopacks
or ... will cost energy and you need to refresh your bar at a supply vehicle to keep things running.

Vehicles:
Driving and shooting will cost some energy so your bar slowly drains. Autorepair, Smoke, Radar, AMS
and any sort of additional usability besides driving and shooting should drain energy a bit faster
then only shooting and driving. So for example a vehicle with no extras can drive for 10 mins
without resupply of energy, a vehicle constantly in need to use autorepair need resupply after 7 mins.
Numbers as always to be chosen by the devs, simple examples here.

Air:
Same as ground, afterburners, flare and that stuff drain your energy faster then only flying and shooting.

Spawning:
Spawnrooms and Sunderers need energy to deploy troops and constant resupply to keep the deploying
running. Under a certain energy level, spawnroomshields could weaken. Latticelinks could provide a slow
energy resupply to a certain cap, giving an outpost for example 200 spawns per hour when only depending
on lattice connection. Resupplying the outpost with energy sunderers or galaxys could double that amount.

Sunderer spawns will also be limited to the amount of energy available. Maybe sunderers could also benefit
from their lattice connection. Due to the fact that sunderers are mobile and not bound to a location like a
spawnroom, they should have fewer energybased spawncapability, so for example 36 spawns per hour,
48-60 when a lattice link to their factions warpgate or an ampstation exists.

Where to get energy:
Warpgate and ampstations. Every ampstation an empire owns will add 33% additional energy production per hour
to lattice connections. Outposts, Biolabs, Techplants will improve total energy storage amount in the warpgate,
so owning territory with connection to warpgate will increase the ability to storage energy which can be used to
resupply forces. Warpgates should constantly loose energy for the giant shield. When locked to the warpgate for more then for example 2hours, energy drains slowly, this could be combined with continent locks, if warpgate energy level drops under a certain amount, the continent is locked for the faction for a while.

This hole mechanic should also be balanced in a way that empires with large territories suffer energy issues
because of overexpansion.

[End of Wall]

This is what i believe could all sides give the ability to strategicaly and tacticaly control massive fights and
enemy forces to counter zergs better and shorten the stalemates. This would also provide small outfits
with a variety of options to impact the battlefields more then now.

Share your opinions, thoughts, issues and solutions regarding the zerg to give the devs some input and
feedback and to give us as a communtiy a possibility to work out a common understanding of what should
be done to positively effect the majority of the playerbase.

greetz