Drop pods, and the lack of SOI.

[Dreamcast]

Yeah...seems like the direction of the game was a bit off...Their was no real frontline at all, it was just chaotic.


Of course everybody was a n00b so maybe thats why....or droppods also kind of ruin the frontline.

[The Kush]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

You've raised a question. So you don't want squad spawning to work in bases.

What about battles that erupt in the space between bases?

Also, if squad spawn doesn't work in bases for attackers, should it work for defenders? After all, attackers worked hard to shut down respawn rooms...

Squad spawning outside a sphere of influence is okay. But being able to spawn on a guy in enemy territory makes defense worthless and isnt fair to the defenders.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

I highly disagree with what you are trying to equate here. Airplanes are exposed the entire time until the target area.

True, but how many times is a gal drop taken out BEFORE they arrive on target? Almost never. Now the flight ceiling is going to be even higher. The "exposure" you mention is basically zero in Planetside.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

Yeah...seems like the direction of the game was a bit off...Their was no real frontline at all, it was just chaotic.


Of course everybody was a n00b so maybe thats why....or droppods also kind of ruin the frontline.

Also, there was no "front line" because it is just a small fight in a very limited area.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by The Kush

Squad spawning outside a sphere of influence is okay. But being able to spawn on a guy in enemy territory makes defense worthless and isnt fair to the defenders.

Well, I think defenders aren't so bad off as that, but, let's just say I concede the point and let's have a sphere of influence preventing squad spawning in a base or even for 100 meters outside of it. If we do that, there's no reason to have huge cooldowns on it, since by definition they will only occur elsewhere, is there?

To put it another way, for battles in the middle of a transit route (halfway between invasion departure point to target base), are we expecting to actually deploy Galaxies there in the middle of nowhere, or are we not expecting Galaxy deployments and for the battles to be, you die, now drive all the way back?

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Raymac

True, but how many times is a gal drop taken out BEFORE they arrive on target? Almost never.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........... Wut. Sometimes they got taken out a continent away from target.

[Xyntech]

God damn it, is this another one of those things that we have to wait for beta to know for sure? Cut the hair already!

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........... Wut. Sometimes they got taken out a continent away from target.

Yeah, that 1 time in 9 years.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Yeah, that 1 time in 9 years.

Nooooo, more often. But you do have a point it was relatively rare if you had a sensible gal pilot and the route he/she flew avoided overflying enemy conflict zones, for example over the sea which we now can't do.

One thing we don't know, as mentinoed above, was this one of the game tweaks that was done to make the demo go better?

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Yeah, that 1 time in 9 years.

I can see this being true if you only played in the low population years. But this was not always the case. Galaxies regularly died before delivery.

Its also not the point, drop pods have no predators, unlike aircraft.

[Haro]

I can say, as a former Gal pilot, I don't think I ever got shot down, certainly not with a full complement. I think it will still be a go-to vehicle for transportation, because of terrain and the more flexible nature of the hex system. I could easily see galaxies flying around the front lines and either flanking the forces or undermining them behind the lines. I also think they said in the recent intro that the galaxy can hold 2 squads, which I'm excited about.

I think drop pods were way tuned up for the demo. I could see them limiting maxes, maybe even heavy assault, and it seemed like they gave it to more than just squad leaders. From what I understand, in the full game, it will be a cert that squad leaders need to equip instead of something else, so it won't be that common. At least that's what I heard.

I'm not overly concerned about this. There's no way to judge larger gameplay ideas like reinforcement flow and such from that demo, it was designed to the contrary for the sake of accessibility.

[PeteHMB]

I'm against an SOI. As previously stated, there are plenty of counters for any sort of semi-alert defensive forces; it's a tactic that's been around since WW2 as far as airborne drops (though hidden tunnels, caves, backdoors, etc have been around and utilized by armies for far longer); and I absolutely hated when they arbitrarily turned the SOI into a shield over the base that you couldn't even walk through. That was BS for a number of reasons. No SOI! Leave everything as open as it is now.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by PeteHMB

I'm against an SOI. As previously stated, there are plenty of counters for any sort of semi-alert defensive forces; it's a tactic that's been around since WW2 as far as airborne drops (though hidden tunnels, caves, backdoors, etc have been around and utilized by armies for far longer); and I absolutely hated when they arbitrarily turned the SOI into a shield over the base that you couldn't even walk through. That was BS for a number of reasons. No SOI! Leave everything as open as it is now.

"SOI" is not the Dome fields on Continental capitals.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

I can see this being true if you only played in the low population years. But this was not always the case. Galaxies regularly died before delivery.

Its also not the point, drop pods have no predators, unlike aircraft.

I've been playing since May 2003. Galaxies never "regularly died before delivery".

Also, I got plenty of kills of people just getting out of their drop pod, and I doubt I'm the only one who was their predator.

[KTNApollo]

Originally Posted by WildVS

What are these guys supposed to be dropping from?

Orbital stations, clearly. Same place we get OS from.