TL;DR - I want every piece of equipment (armor, weapons, vehicles) to cost some NTU, and to have ANTs stay deployed after the base is full. The goal is to have 1 ANT always at a base thats under heavy use to prevent NTU levels from rapidly draining.
Introduction:
NTU is the fuel bases consume to remain operational. There are 3 ways to drain NTU. One is by using a virus from hackers, another is by destroying base equipment and the last is by letting it drain over time. Once NTU reaches 0% the base becomes neutral. So long as a base is defended from viruses and repaired, it would take hours to fully drain a base of NTU.
Problems with the current state:
NTU draining as a strategy is nearly impossible, if a base has alot of NTU it will take a very long time to drain it. The problem with trying to drain NTU is that all it takes is just 2 players, 2 players being a lodestar + ANT which can fully refill the base in just 2-3 minutes. The speed at which a base can be refueled and how slow it uses up NTU works against the reward for doing an ANT run and it punishes any sort of strategy involving NTU draining. Most players think that maybe 1 or 2 players have noticed the low NTU levels and are doing an ANT run so they assume it would be a waste of time to do it themselves.
What I would like to see:
I would like to see NTU levels go from 100% to 0% in just 15 minutes on a base which has many players actively using it. Lets say a base can hold up to 100,000 NTU units. Each piece of equipment would have its own indivigual NTU cost. A fully armed rexo soldier might cost 200 or so NTU units. This means that after 500 soldiers have been equipped, it would go from full NTU to zero. This puts ALOT more pressure on players to do ANT runs. But more importantly, it becomes more rewarding to refuel bases and NTU draining as a strategy becomes more effective.
To help accompolish this goal, ANTs should stay deployed even if the base was full and refill it whenever NTU was used, this is what makes it more rewarding to refuel bases as you can deploy it, forget about it and get BEP over time. The goal is to have 1 or more ANTs always sitting at a base to prevent NTU levels from draining.
Grief Points/Balancing:
A player can use a maximum of X NTU units per minute per base. Using more will give you grief points as its considered intentionally wasting NTU resources. This is much harder done than it appears, if you decide to change equipment without dropping it, the equipment gets deconstructed back into the system and the NTU resources are restored. If you keep spending NTU (by dropping equipment on the ground, or getting multiple vehicles) and accumilate lots of grief points, it will prevent you from getting equipment from that base for several minutes. Enemy players who hack a terminal have no effect on the NTU resources on that base. This prevents a single player from draining the base themselves.
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2011-02-15, 04:39 AM
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