Building Forward Bases - Supply Bases.

[GameCobra]

I just gotta say, I love this idea. Here's my suggestion though:

building a forward base though should be more of a turtled offense than a powerful offense. like a safe bunker, but much more of an annoyance than a powerful respawn point and requires good firepower to destroy, say from engineers with demolitions or something. It's meant to give a edge on the offense by not being powerful, but it provides a safe haven for the offense that wants to supply a reliable infantry spawn point for the outfit they are in and keep the pressure on with troop deployment and requires a good, solid demolition to destroy. Vehicles and Planes can destroy them with enough of them, but the one that can destroy them singlehandedly easy i believe should be the engineers.

[Stardouser]

I wonder if forward bases can be used defensively. Set one up in a hex that's in danger of being captured so that your guys can continue spawning there? Or anything else you can think of...sandbox tactics, right?

[GameCobra]

I wouldn't mind that either. I think they should be used more of a annoying offense, but having another spot for your outfit to spawn from outside your own home territory is nifty as well.

As for defending it, I believe that can be customized by the outfit themselves. create a way to have the forward bases setup to either be anti-infantry, anti-air or anti-vehicle, or possibly mixed as well with enough upgrades to supply a maximum of three anti-turrets that can eventually fill the role of all three , but can be converted to be a nightmare in a certain territory if possible ~ or just have no self-defense abilities other than the guys defending it and have them do all the defending with the base having specialization in what your forward base can have the most resistance against!

All in all, the idea of highly customizable forward bases i think is a really neat and fun idea.

[EVILPIG]

For he who asked, this was the thread that put me onto this train of thought.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39691

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

It is very possible to pull 2 AMSs and just jump between their driver seats resetting the 15 min timer.

I remember doing this many, many times on Markov during base assaults whenever we were short on AMS drivers. You bring an AMS to the fight, and deploy it in the enemy cy near where you wanted to fight. Then bring a second AMS and deploy it a little further out (like the far side of the cy, bd, etc), and bind to its matrix panel. Then each time you die you alternate your respawn between the two - either the cy AMS closer to where you died, or the further AMS that you're bound to - and hop in the vehicle each time to reset the 15 min timer.

Originally Posted by GameCobra

I just gotta say, I love this idea. Here's my suggestion though:

building a forward base though should be more of a turtled offense than a powerful offense. like a safe bunker, but much more of an annoyance than a powerful respawn point and requires good firepower to destroy, say from engineers with demolitions or something. It's meant to give a edge on the offense by not being powerful, but it provides a safe haven for the offense that wants to supply a reliable infantry spawn point for the outfit they are in and keep the pressure on with troop deployment and requires a good, solid demolition to destroy. Vehicles and Planes can destroy them with enough of them, but the one that can destroy them singlehandedly easy i believe should be the engineers.

A Forward Operating Base will by its very nature be useable either for offensive or defensive purposes. All it is is an anchor and rallying point for friendly forces and a method to more quickly and steadily apply pressure to the enemy.

I'm sure it'll be used both to sustain offensive pushes like pushing into a cy or establishing a foothold at the far end of a bridge, as well as to help hold and defend your own side of bridges, ravines, and other bottlenecks.

I gotta say that I luv the idea of building such FOBs and I've been thinking about such multi-vehicle designs ever since we heard the gal was taking over the AMS role, but with no cloak to keep it hidden. However, as much as I luv the concept and the possible battlefield dynamic such structures could bring, I'm afraid that it could have an extremely big weakness that I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet: vulnerability to Orbital Strikes.

Hopefully in PS2 there will actually be some sort of defense/protection against OSes, like not being able to drop an OS anywhere within the AOE of a sensor disruptor, or some sort of deployable shield gen that can withstand a single OS. Without such protection though I'm afraid OSes will make ad hoc FOB's easy targets and somewhat obsolete.

EDIT: Actually upon further thought I'd rather they just axed OSes altogether. The main purpose for their introduction in PS1 IIRC was to allow defenders inside a base to kill cy AMSes thus giving them a chance to push out and retake the cy. However, since gals in PS2 aren't hidden by a cloaking bubble it'll be obvious where they are, and their sheer size will make them impractical to deploy inside much of a large facility's cy so they'll probably most often be placed outside the walls. Thus I'm guessing that destroying them won't be as necessary for defenders if they wish to push attacking forces out of the cy.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

yeah, maybe.

How about leave OSes in, but attach a cripplingly high resource cost so they don't get spammed like they are now?

[Hmr85]

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

yeah, maybe.

How about leave OSes in, but attach a cripplingly high resource cost so they don't get spammed like they are now?

As long as OS'es are limited to outfit function only with a high resource cost I honestly don't see a problem with them. I don't want to see weak OS'es either. If its going to cost a arm and a leg just to fire one off I would prefer it had the ability to wipe out any vehicle / forward base in the near vicinity if they are clustered together. They need to be strong IMO. Also one last thing. Put it way back in the outfit skill tree. That way it takes awhile for them to unlock it.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by Erendil

I'm afraid that it could have an extremely big weakness that I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet: vulnerability to Orbital Strikes.

For now, Orbital Strikes are not planned at launch, but even if they do make it at live, what better target than the FOB? Also, if the players spread things out, the OS will not be able to hit everything. Given the resources that OS's are supposed to need for use, having you Galaxy blown up by one is fine.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

For now, Orbital Strikes are not planned at launch, but even if they do make it at live, what better target than the FOB? Also, if the players spread things out, the OS will not be able to hit everything. Given the resources that OS's are supposed to need for use, having you Galaxy blown up by one is fine.

I'm not really a fan of OSes in general (at least PS1's implementation) since I generally don't like the presence of easily used "I win" buttons in multiplayer games. But I won't be overly heartbroken if/when they make it into PS2.

That said, the potential issue I see with them is the balance between how frequent OSes can be used by one empire vs how much time and effort it takes to set up a defendable mutli-vehicle FOB. If it takes too long to set one up, or if the availability of OSes is too high, I can see people over time becoming discouraged such that elaborate FOBs stopped getting built because they think it's not worth the effort to set one up since it'll just get OSed anyway.

Plus I would think it both more exciting and more satisfying overall for all involved if a large assault of troops and vehicles was required to take out a FOB instead of just one guy sitting in front of a terminal pressing a few buttons to call down a storm of electric death from the sky.

[Stardouser]

Do we have any idea whether there will be some kind of deployable shield that would work with bases, has that been officially shot down, acknowledged, or left unanswered?

[EVILPIG]

In regards to this concept, if there was a shield, it would cover one vehicle. A forward base is just a collection of vehicles and other components that functions as a base.

[Stardouser]

Would that be a shield that's part of the vehicle, or deployed separately?

I was thinking of a shield big enough to cover say, an area 2.5 Galaxies wide and 2.5 long. But the question, either way, would be, how do you limit these things, otherwise people would set them up anywhere and everywhere? Meaning the shield generators, not the forward base.

[EVILPIG]

I had mentioned the Sunderer HQ being able to take a shield, or radar, or another sidegrade, but, a deployable shield could also be an engineering option.

[Tamas]

What happened to Towers? Last time I heard it was - you can deploy them anywhere you wish (on your own territory).