Titan Mode

[Shade Millith]

Originally Posted by Mechzz

I'm fairly strongly against such strong individual units as they can be very hard to balance into a game. If the PS2 Titan had no major offensive capability other than as a flying aircraft carrier but you could pilot it to be near a base it would really spice up the fight.

This would be sexy. Pure sex.

Giant flying Aircraft carrier that's used to help assault bases.

IDEAS:
1) One Pilot to fly. Several people to control it's defenses such as -
*A heavy directional shield of sorts. While it would give massive defense against a certain direction (Probably towards the base), it would leave the other directions very vulnerable.
*Maybe 2-3 point defense weapons like AA (About as powerful as a MAX unit)

2) It's only offensive ability is being able to be a spawn point, and spawn vehicles and aircraft, and provide repair and rearm.
*Aircraft take off from several launchpads on top
*Vehicles are dropped beneath it like the would in PS1.

3) Base turrets could be equipped with Anti-Carrier missiles.
*Dumb fire, slow moving, with a tiny splash damage would make them pretty useless against anything else.
*Or they could be stupid guided missiles that only lock onto carriers (Hopefully not, I'm sick to death of guided anything in FPS's)

4) Really slow moving, and really easy to hit. Probably have limits of obtaining one. Maybe an outfit spawned thing, that requires a huge amount of resources that would take a week or so to gather?

TL: DR It's nothing more than a mobile base in the sky, very useful for rearm and repair, and easy access to vehicles, but useless as a weapon.

[Mechzz]

Originally Posted by Shade Millith

TL: DR It's nothing more than a mobile base in the sky, very useful for rearm and repair, and easy access to vehicles, but useless as a weapon.

Thanks Shade. I like what you're saying.

I had another think about it, and added some depth to how it might work:

1. We get advance warning of when the PS2 Titan will be unleashed so that ALL aircrew and AA-users get the chance to cert up in the new Anti-Titan missile. (i.e. no special anti-titan missiles on the ground)

2. There would be a Maximum of 2 Titans on any one continent. I see it as a defensive unit, so you get one when you go below (e.g.) 20% of the hexes on the cont. Once destoyed, it would take an hour or 2 to build a new one, assuming you're still below 20% of the hexes.

3. Once you go below 33% of the hexes, you would see it slowly being built in the foothold. (That would be awesome imo!)

4. At 20% hexes, your first respawn would give you a chance to vote on a target. Could be any base on the continent. Once > 80% of players have voted, target is set.

5. Titan would slowly auto-fly to target. (no pilot needed). Say 30mins to arrive.

6. Titan has shield generator. Only foot-troops and fired ammo can get through. No vehicles.

7. Titan has flight generator.

8. Both generators can be taken out, shields first. If flight gen goes down, Titan crashes. Game over, next one starts to build.

9. Both generators can be repaired

10. Titan only has close-in, manned AA in exposed turrets (no killwhoring). And can spawn air vehicles.

11. Titan would require massive air support

12. Titan has loads of drop pods

13. When Titan is over target, drop pods become active spawn choices.

14. Cue massive pod drop on target and ensuing fun.

I think this type of design could:

1. Add a real focus to air-air combat. Swarms of reavers holding off incoming mozzies/scythes/libs.

2. The need to spec the anti-titan missile would open things up for standard air vehicles as Anti-titan would do enhanced damage to titans but less than normal damage to other vehicles.

3. The slow flight (30mins?) would add a drama to the battle, as it would probably be visible over most of the continent. Imagine it at night!

4. The huge drop pod assault would be pure awesomesauce imo.

5. Each kill around the Titan would still be 1:1 combat

6. Attacking and defendin a flying titan would be immense, with good opportunities for engy's and medics.

Stardouser, you've mentioned an outfit airship a few times. I guess you meant a Titan. How does this fit your idea? I think it's a reasonable tweak to make it work in PS2, although I get from the vid and people's posts in this thread how exciting it was in BF2142.

I leave it to Figment and other critically-minded peeps to review this (hopefully!) but I think such a vehicle enhances the roles of existing vehicles without putting a death weapon in the owner's hands that cannot be countered. And it would be fun!

[Figment]

I leave it to Figment and other critically-minded peeps to review this (hopefully!) but I think such a vehicle enhances the roles of existing vehicles without being putting a death weapon in the owner's hands that cannot be countered. And it would be fun!

Lol, note that by definition I'm not in favour of this sort of thing, as balancing by definition would be awkward really. Because what are you balancing it against? The entire enemy arsenal? Or just a small group? In BF2142, we're looking at a game especially designed around it.

Anyway, I'll give it some thought and will try to be openminded about it. There are a lot more questions that need to be answered though.

Originally Posted by Shade Millith

Giant flying Aircraft carrier that's used to help assault bases.

IDEAS:
1) One Pilot to fly. Several people to control it's defenses such as -
*A heavy directional shield of sorts. While it would give massive defense against a certain direction (Probably towards the base), it would leave the other directions very vulnerable.
*Maybe 2-3 point defense weapons like AA (About as powerful as a MAX unit)

Shield can't be smart or player controlled: it'd be boring. Would the pilot also be the person who spawns it? I take it point defense weapons would be destructable individually, just like base turrets?

2) It's only offensive ability is being able to be a spawn point, and spawn vehicles and aircraft, and provide repair and rearm.
*Aircraft take off from several launchpads on top
*Vehicles are dropped beneath it like the would in PS1.

So if that's a spawnpoint with pads, that makes it already a lot trickier to balance. Basically we're now talking about an advanced, mobile tower / base. Its balance now completely relies on the amount of people spawning there and what kind of additional defenses they can create. Should there be a limited supply to not have it last forever just behind that ridge that nobody can see?

How would people now start to use it in combination with other things? Would they put snipers on top? Yes. Would they put AA MAXes on top? Possibly. Would they have engineers with lock on weaponry on top? Most likely. Would light assault units base jump off and glide over to some section they normally would not be able to get? Probably. Would we be okay with it basically becoming a floating offensive platform? I mean, the height advantage is obvious.

This would depend on how easy it is to get up there in those different roles, but light assault can at least get there by bailing from aircraft, others could be dropped there by Galaxies and perhaps it's even possible to reach it by HART.

Can enemies reach it by HART and would that alone already damage the ship? How fast could it be repaired? Can it be repaired?

Regarding the spawning.

Does it even need to spawn aircraft, since the whole continent has a four minute maximum on travel distance for fighter aircraft? Does it need to spawn both? Why not make variants that have to pick one over the other for strategic choices?

3) Base turrets could be equipped with Anti-Carrier missiles.
*Dumb fire, slow moving, with a tiny splash damage would make them pretty useless against anything else.
*Or they could be stupid guided missiles that only lock onto carriers (Hopefully not, I'm sick to death of guided anything in FPS's)

Base turrets or any Engineer gun emplacement?

4) Really slow moving, and really easy to hit. Probably have limits of obtaining one. Maybe an outfit spawned thing, that requires a huge amount of resources that would take a week or so to gather?

A week for who? Zergfit or smallfit?

TL: DR It's nothing more than a mobile base in the sky, very useful for rearm and repair, and easy access to vehicles, but useless as a weapon.

I wouldn't say that, there's a lot of things you can do with it that you didn't consider yet by combining it with other units.

Originally Posted by Mechzz

Thanks Shade. I like what you're saying.

I had another think about it, and added some depth to how it might work:

1. We get advance warning of when the PS2 Titan will be unleashed so that ALL aircrew and AA-users get the chance to cert up in the new Anti-Titan missile. (i.e. no special anti-titan missiles on the ground)

2. There would be a Maximum of 2 Titans on any one continent. I see it as a defensive unit, so you get one when you go below (e.g.) 20% of the hexes on the cont. Once destoyed, it would take an hour or 2 to build a new one, assuming you're still below 20% of the hexes.

3. Once you go below 33% of the hexes, you would see it slowly being built in the foothold. (That would be awesome imo!)

4. At 20% hexes, your first respawn would give you a chance to vote on a target. Could be any base on the continent. Once > 80% of players have voted, target is set.

5. Titan would slowly auto-fly to target. (no pilot needed). Say 30mins to arrive.

6. Titan has shield generator. Only foot-troops and fired ammo can get through. No vehicles.

7. Titan has flight generator.

8. Both generators can be taken out, shields first. If flight gen goes down, Titan crashes. Game over, next one starts to build.

9. Both generators can be repaired

10. Titan only has close-in, manned AA in exposed turrets (no killwhoring). And can spawn air vehicles.

11. Titan would require massive air support

12. Titan has loads of drop pods

13. When Titan is over target, drop pods become active spawn choices.

14. Cue massive pod drop on target and ensuing fun.

1. I'd make sure there's a lot of different strategies, I'm not sure if special missiles should be done at all though, as this would suggest these players can only engage one target at that time, which means any other target has it easy against them.

2-4. If it's spawned automatically at a certain treshold, who'd control its exact position? A vote may sound nice, but positioning is more than a general direction of a base. A campable position would simply make it useless for instance.

If you're below 20 hexes, wouldn't you be in a bad position to defend it anyway? Couldn't that happen simply because nobody on your empire is present? And when does it go away? Would it stay in the sanc warpgate bubble as long as nobody started moving it? Would this lead to TKing and raging why the noobfit controls this sky-leviathan?

Also, if you're so low on hexes, wouldn't you now have this unit directly compete with your sanctuary? Do you need it to get reinforcements? ie. does it have a real role at this point?

5. 30 mins to arrive to where? :x Need reference input.

6. I take it you mean from on top.

7-11. Considering the ease of multi-directional Mossie drops (PS1), would the turrets have any purpose at close range, the point where they would bail anyway? As the unit is huge, it would have major blind angles to exploit. How many people would you expect to defend it inside?

I think this type of design could:

1. Add a real focus to air-air combat. Swarms of reavers holding off incoming mozzies/scythes/libs.

2. The need to spec the anti-titan missile would open things up for standard air vehicles as Anti-titan would do enhanced damage to titans but less than normal damage to other vehicles.

3. The slow flight (30mins?) would add a drama to the battle, as it would probably be visible over most of the continent. Imagine it at night!

4. The huge drop pod assault would be pure awesomesauce imo.

5. Each kill around the Titan would still be 1:1 combat

6. Attacking and defendin a flying titan would be immense, with good opportunities for engy's and medics.

I would say it puts a lot of focus on air to air and risks leaving the majority of players that prefer ground combat out aside from those using "titan missiles" at this point. What kind of other things would you have players do to feel they're useful engaging this from the ground?

Would you add (like BF2142) human cannonball tanks to shoot people up there? And if so, would people use those tanks differently?

Have you considered how spawning on squad leader would function here? ie. calling in drop pods on a squad leader that managed to land on top of the unit, or... if he stands right underneath it.

And if that's the case, could a lone cloaker get on board and destroy both gens single handedly and would that be okay? Can cloakers actualy use aircraft on their own? Would that mean some people have to go on "boring guard duty"? I presume that in BF2142 there was a clear distinction of a move between the different fights?


There are a lot of questions to be answered and considerations that would still have to be made. I'd stay there are some things that could be used as counters that are already in game (squad leader drop pods / mannable (AA) turrets / air and other AA), but I'm not sure how much sustained fire would be needed at this point.

[Sabot]

Was kind of worried at the start of this thread that you were on the "super weapons" path again... I see you've come to your senses though.

As a great big flying platform for repairing and re-arming vehicles, it's fine... as long as it's effing expensive and slow moving, and has absolutely no offensive capabilities in itself... no doomsday devices or ion cannons or nukes... m'kay?

[kasiraghi]

Well, reading through I think that there could be something really cool to this along the lines (but not exatly) what Mechzz is suggesting:

You could employ floating Titan-esque vehicles that boosted faction resource-gathering and had NO offensive OR spawn capabilties at all (i.e. they're effectively a refinery to attach to a base).

You'd effectively try and capture them purely to move over one of your own-controlled areas to gain a resource multiplier/deny your enemies resource multiplier, but the defense would come purely from normally-spawning infantry/vehicles. They could be linked to capture points so that you could either capture them individually, or gain control of one which is attached to a capture point if it's attached at the time.

This would make them a valuable commodity, a cool mechanic, without too much (depending on multiplier) capacity for being OP.

[Canaris]

If you were going to have Titan size ships in game, I wouldn't have them as spawnable or flyable, I'd have it be the continents capital requiring your faction to own the majority of bases on a cont, similar to capitals bases they have already in PS1.

Once a faction has the majority of bases the Titan becomes attackable for capture, it would give a continent benefit to the faction owner making it a big prize.

I've seen the player run faction combat airship concept since 2003, while a nice idea in concept and theory it's just a bad idea for this style of game. I can't see it working or being balanced. In a different form it could.

[Alderego]

After reading through the whole thread it seems to me that everybody usually goes towards "buy it for resources" or more recently "spawn it to once under xx%"

What about connecting it to some sort of base?
To be precise: you could capture a base, with one command building/tower and some construction places. After a certain amount of time one of these titans (sorry I like the word ) gets built here and lifts off.

This thing can then be controlled either directly by somebody with a cert or somebody in the command tower could set a nav-point, needing a certain command cert to do this. I'd prefer manual flying overriding nav-points, but I admit that there would have to be some way to make sure some numpty doesn't steal it and flies it of to some godforsaken place to hold a bbq so to speak.

The controlling empire could then use it as an offensive/defensive tool. (I'll leave the armaments/abilities out of it for now)
The defending empires could then choose to either take down the titan itself or go after the command-base, once that is captured the thing crashes for example (maybe crushing everything under it or so).

This would give both the holding empire a strong tool, while at same time, giving the defending empires the possibility of taking it out in a couple of different ways: boarding, big air battle or a push for the command-base.

Ideally this command-base or bases (I'd suggest 2 per continent, just imagine 2 of these things facing off with their respective support zooming all around them) would be located near the middle of the map. This since it seems likely that that is where a 3-way meeting point would be for all the empires, preventing any base from having an obscenely long cap-timer for one empire, while another has a very short one due to surrounding hexes being held by one or the other.

This is ofcourse just an idea/suggestion and plenty of tweaking is still needed.

[Mechzz]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys. Hopefully Stardouser will chip in too. He's usually constructive.

The reason I see it as a "defensive" structure is to avoid the problem of "the rich getting richer". Give the titan to the winning side and it could push the battle even further their way against already weaker enemies. I'm looking for a way to boost the weak in a way that builds on existing vehicles and play styles, rather than introducing new weapons.

You can tweak the %hexes at which the titan build will complete. So if you set it to 70% there could always be at least 2 and maybe 3 titans on the go. You would only lose your titan once you were at more than 70% territory on the continent, making it harder to push to 100%.

I have to say I love the idea of the thing having 20-30 drop pods that only become active over the destination base. Such a coordinated offensive from a huge aerial vehicle would be like something straight out of Independence Day!

[Marinealver]

Mabey it could be something an outfit could spend resources on. But it would have to be a resource consumer while your standard bases would be a resource generator. Also you would have to work out all the little details like outfit control who get to fly it. What to do when no one is on because you know like most of us have work or school faimily and each one of us has to go to sleep some time. How would you keep a greiver (or a grieving alt char from another empire) from getting behind the stick and crashing it to the ground?

[Mechzz]

Originally Posted by Marinealver

Mabey it could be something an outfit could spend resources on. But it would have to be a resource consumer while your standard bases would be a resource generator. Also you would have to work out all the little details like outfit control who get to fly it. What to do when no one is on because you know like most of us have work or school faimily and each one of us has to go to sleep some time. How would you keep a greiver (or a grieving alt char from another empire) from getting behind the stick and crashing it to the ground?

I saw some issues that I tried to avoid in my proposal for how a titan could work in PS2:

If it's something you buy with resources then richer factions can buy more titans, making them still more powerful. That's why I prefer to see it as a leveller to help knock the big guys back. So you get one when you don't have enough territory.

And I had no pilot as it's too big a responsibility to give to one person. How do you choose that person, and as you say, how do you control where the titan goes?

[Bluecewe]

The feature could be implemented, but the developers would need to devise some method of allowing players to direct where the ships went, and more importantly give the ship some sort of importance; what strategical benefit could a titan give to a continent?

[The Kush]

Originally Posted by Jownzorz

I'm not sure if you've been paying attention to the game play videos, but capturing bases is very similar to this. It won't work in PS2 because this type of capture doesn't require you to hold all of the points. One of the greatest parts of PlanetSide was being hunkered down with a platoon in a CC knowing that you were the last line of defense. I don't like the idea of holding 3/5 points and being able to capture a base. You need to work for every inch.

PS1 veterans will agree, this carebear type of conquering will not be tolerated.

This

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by Marinealver

Mabey it could be something an outfit could spend resources on. But it would have to be a resource consumer while your standard bases would be a resource generator. Also you would have to work out all the little details like outfit control who get to fly it. What to do when no one is on because you know like most of us have work or school faimily and each one of us has to go to sleep some time. How would you keep a greiver (or a grieving alt char from another empire) from getting behind the stick and crashing it to the ground?

IMO it would be better off belonging to, and payed for by the faction in general not any one outfit. The highest ranking officer on the continent tells it where to go. Obviously wont work if the ranking system still allows there to be hundreds of max rank generals at the same time.

[Figment]

What if it is not player, not outfit, not empire, but NS owned... In other words: an AI event?

And moreover: a neutral resource carrier, or group of carriers and part of a convoy, that you have to take and hold and return safely to your warpgate or empty over a friendly base? Each of these having a supply of specific resources or leading to a sub-event?

Let's think out of the box.