Spitfires

[ringring]

Yea, CE in PS1 was great and people did put thought into it's placement.

We'd also use it as early warning or doorbells.

Early warning .... you'd CE up a strategically important base on another continent you own ... and if you see a hotspot appear you know it has been infiltrated so you go check it out.

Doorbells ..... you're guarding a hack on a base, there aren't enough of you to guard everywhere, so you want to know when and at which entrance an enemy is coming from, so you place CE there, at least 1 mine but also spitfires if you have the cert. Now you can hear and see on the map which door the threat is at and go deal with it.

Just another thought. From long experience of doing ant runs and coming across minefields that thinking engineers had laid, I learnt to drive over the 'obvious' places was a recipe for 'death by mine' as a result you' rarely find me driving tanks on a road, unless I was absolutely sure (ie I'd see another tank do it moments before) that it was mine-free.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by ringring

Just another thought. From long experience of doing ant runs and coming across minefields that thinking engineers had laid, I learnt to drive over the 'obvious' places was a recipe for 'death by mine' as a result you' rarely find me driving tanks on a road, unless I was absolutely sure (ie I'd see another tank do it moments before) that it was mine-free.

Indeed, which is why I often used reverse-reverse psychology and shortest-route-psychology to determine where to place the mines. Often based on observation of what the (ANT-)driver did when he left the base: did he use roads, a direct route or did he take a "safe" route (like driving right next to roads, weaving through trees, etc). I'd avoid those spots that are first checked for mines (base CY entrances) and would mine other areas such as choke points along the route instead. In some cases, chokepoints are tread with extra care since they're so obvious to mine, that you place them JUST beyond the chokepoint, just at the spot where they sped up because they thought they passed the potential CE area.


These are also the types of units I've often destroyed with the CE funnels: they're so inclined on not taking damage from CE, that they'll avoid it at all cost and drive straight into your carefuly layed minefield.

The involved skill in placing CE is virtually all psychology and behavioural observation. It's not as if randomly placing a mine or spit kills enemies or draws them in like a moth to flame. It requires thorough pre-knowledge to be effective with them and not squander resources. Likewise, the victims should be aware of this threat as if they pay attention, they can easily deal with it. You never hear people blame anyone but themselves if they drove into a minefield, though I have gotten compliments on smart minefield placement, especially when I used myself as bait.

Example: placed 5 mines underneath a tree. Sat on minefield with Fury: BFR came down the road, I fired at it, got its attention, then back up straight away: it starts to run directly in your direction as you're no threat and a quick kill. BOOM. Dead BFR (got a nice conversation with compliments afterwards). Another time, I decloaked to wave after tossing an EMP grenade at a Lightning, then ran around the corner. The Lightning of course sped up to give chase, knowing the EMP effect would wear off soon, but thinking he could run me over in the meantime before I'd disappear completely. 20m along he was dead, since I placed a minefield 30m wide just around the corner of the base in between all passages between rocks.


Again, the mine did not outsmart the enemy player, it was me using aggro-psychology and path prediction to spring a trap on an enemy who was outplayed due to falling for bait or sticking to their own habbits.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Figment

Indeed, which is why I often used reverse-reverse psychology and shortest-route-psychology to determine where to place the mines. Often based on observation of what the (ANT-)driver did when he left the base: did he use roads, a direct route or did he take a "safe" route (like driving right next to roads, weaving through trees, etc). I'd avoid those spots that are first checked for mines (base CY entrances) and would mine other areas such as choke points along the route instead. In some cases, chokepoints are tread with extra care since they're so obvious to mine, that you place them JUST beyond the chokepoint, just at the spot where they sped up because they thought they passed the potential CE area.


These are also the types of units I've often destroyed with the CE funnels: they're so inclined on not taking damage from CE, that they'll avoid it at all cost and drive straight into your carefuly layed minefield.

The involved skill in placing CE is virtually all psychology and behavioural observation. It's not as if randomly placing a mine or spit kills enemies or draws them in like a moth to flame. It requires thorough pre-knowledge to be effective with them and not squander resources. Likewise, the victims should be aware of this threat as if they pay attention, they can easily deal with it. You never hear people blame anyone but themselves if they drove into a minefield, though I have gotten compliments on smart minefield placement, especially when I used myself as bait.

Example: placed 5 mines underneath a tree. Sat on minefield with Fury: BFR came down the road, I fired at it, got its attention, then back up straight away: it starts to run directly in your direction as you're no threat and a quick kill. BOOM. Dead BFR (got a nice conversation with compliments afterwards). Another time, I decloaked to wave after tossing an EMP grenade at a Lightning, then ran around the corner. The Lightning of course sped up to give chase, knowing the EMP effect would wear off soon, but thinking he could run me over in the meantime before I'd disappear completely. 20m along he was dead, since I placed a minefield 30m wide just around the corner of the base in between all passages between rocks.


Again, the mine did not outsmart the enemy player, it was me using aggro-psychology and path prediction to spring a trap on an enemy who was outplayed due to falling for bait or sticking to their own habbits.

I see your mines and I counter your mines. I see you counter and I counter your counter!

Also the ams trap! Deploy an ams at the backdoor, maybe damage it a bit. Lay mines around it, several boomers and put 1 or 2 spits out in plain sight - then when someone does gal drop they see the spits, realise they have to do an EMP, it's like a mini OS going off.

I used to have a favoured method of mining the BD (prompted by psycho I must admit). A few mines, but importantly 5 shadow turrets on a friendly base of 5 normal spits on an enemy one. Two of the turrets go on the walls themselves looking down - it's a nearly guaranteed kill and impossible to breach without showing something is up.

tbh, it's an example of something great in PS. The devs simply provided a framework and the players the intelligence.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by theknits

Glad we agree.

What? You are just trolling now aren't you?

[hurikane]

sounds fun

[theknits]

Originally Posted by Figment

I'm against the concept of snipefils and shotfils for good reason.

I also preferred the way infil worked in ps1. Playing infil as an actual infil was probably my favorite part of that game. But since they no longer work that way in ps2 we have to consider them as they are.

Originally Posted by Figment

Think you misinterpreted what I was saying. The point I'm making is that you can create an "obvious obstruction" along a certain line and, pretending the line ends somewhere, create a weakspot: a semi-obvious opening which initially seems to avoid the entire CE line. They don't have to bother with it, they don't have to take it out, but it is an obstruction in their path, so they go around it because that's the route of least resistance. Fun hasn't gotten anything to do with it, they don't avoid it because it "isn't fun", they avoid it because it's a potential threat. Players stance towards CE in PS1 are completely neutral, they take it as a given obstruction, not as a fun quelcher.

I understood the concept just fine your making a hassle obstruction while trying to give people the impression that they have a means of bypassing said hassle. However your intentionally directing them to that point. It's hard not to understand it considering it is one of the most obvious ways of doing CE. The thing is it really doesn't add to the game. Maybe it kills a few of the worst players. It probably even slows down everyone else which is a good thing. However they can put in much better mechanics for slowing people down. This whole stopping to blow up a whole lot of nothing feels like a waste of time. Probably because it is and like I said things should be slowed down but it doesn't need to feel like such a drag.

Originally Posted by Figment

Stop here. The remainder of this alinea is non-relevant and well-known and actually an argument in favour of using turrets, because it doesn't provide an unfair challenge.

I don't think anyone ever thought that they provided an unfair challenge just the opposite even. They are pathetically easy to overcome to the point that doing so is nothing but an annoyance. The thing is that's how they need to be for balance reasons. If they were a challenge it would be a major balance issue. It's easy to drop a turret if it was hard to kill a turret you get a net loss of effort from the offense.

Originally Posted by Figment

The point isn't that the TURRET outsmarts people. The player who PLACES the turret outsmarts people by either creating a(n avoidable) death trap for careless players, but beyond that a warning sign, a stalling tool, a force multiplier or as described above, by using the turret as a (psychological) tool to influence the behaviour of another player into a position that is advantageous to the placer of said turret. IF the placer is actually good at it. Think of it like a carrot and stick, where the turret is a stick.

Catching a careless player in your turret trap isn't outsmarting them. Steep cliffs and deep ditches catch careless players all day but it's not because the map designer outsmarted them. Sensor type CE can replace turrets when it comes to giving people a warning sign and they can do so without all the problems turrets bring to the table. As for using them to position other players most people will just shoot the turrets. Sure this gives you a chance to pinpoint their location but that's just another thing sensors can take care of.

Originally Posted by Figment

Who says you aren't? Can you imagine this concept of someone being alone working in relation to the rest of the empire? An example. I've seen comments like this when naieve and unimaginative people accuse infils of being skilless noobs who should be going in in teams. If infils go in together and stay close to one another, they hinder their allies by creating a bigger risk of detection and thus triggering a dark light sweep of the area. The best example of teamwork as a loner in PS1 I can give you is when I prepare the gen and spawn tubes at an enemy base, on my own, with boomers, grab a CUD, go to the backdoor, hack the door open again and wait for the Gal drop that's coming in, 7 seconds before they hit the ground, I let the CE explode, run inside and while the enemy starts to respond to the incoming troops at the BD, I drop the gen, kill the spawns and hack the CE creating chaos in the enemy defenses and paralysing the enemy in a way that I could not have done if all attention had been on me due to my group.

As a loner myself most of the time I understand how you can still be working towards your empires goals while remaining alone. But this example just emphasizes my point when it comes to CE actually reducing risk. If your out there alone without any CE down your just going to be run over. With the CE your still going to be run over but it takes a little longer.

Originally Posted by Figment

In the above example, a loner setting up CE somewhere, does this in the interest of the empire: they blockade routes from small teams, they prevent tactical flanking maneuvres, they obstruct enemies, delay and provide early warning systems for their empire.

CE shouldn't replace players. Without CE players can still accomplish all those things they just need to work together for a lot of it.

Originally Posted by Figment

You don't want to know how often, as a loner, my CE destroyed AMSes, Skyguards, tanks and BFRs that were supporting the enemy advance. The mere presence of CE can stall an enemy for half a minute to 3 minutes, which is a HUGE deal in terms of base captures. If they kill something, great extra. You really underestimate the strategic, logistic and psychological benefits of having CE. I can't but say that you really missed out on some massive creative options if you never realised their potential. :/

A loner can still have a huge impact even without the use of turrets.

Originally Posted by Figment

Sunderers have no cloaking field in PS2 YET (they might or the future actual AMS might). There's also no CE now (YET). Thinking in the now doesn't make the point invalid. It just seems you're interested in dismissing the point even though you do not deny that under different circumstances it can be a tool. Please be willing to think outside the box and consider the fact that anything can be a handy tool in psychological warfare and that where PS2 may provides very few such tools right now, that doesn't mean we'll never get such tools in the future.

There's no doubt that spitfires are some kind of tool. The problem is that its a tool that tries to fill a niche that should be handled by players.

Originally Posted by Figment

Somehow I doubt you considered or see detonating C4 randomly within earshot as the metaphorical stone to distract a guard though. Did you ever consider using an OS as an EMP grenade in PlanetSide 1? I've often OSed towers with the goal of getting inside undetected, rather than throw an EMP in a dense CE field. The OS has to have the appearance of taking out whatever is on top of the tower though. Why the OS and not the EMP blast or grenade? Because I chose the OS JUST to not trigger the Engineer who placed the mines that there's a cloaker sneaking in. It is such an obvious and blunt instrument, that nobody sees it as a subtle scalpel to take out automated proximity defenses. In fact, I know the engineer who placed the CE will come out to place new mines within 10 seconds, so I didn't even need to use a REK: I popped in while the new mine was being deployed without anyone ever knowing: new mine in place: tower is considered safe: no dark light sweeps.

Its funny how turrets didn't even popup in that example. Funnier still is that you want to believe I can't be creative just because I don't want turrets in the game. I'm for a game where you need to think harder to get the job done rather than just having tools handed to you to do the job.

Originally Posted by Figment

Psychology. Deception is a powerful weapon.

It is and it doesn't require turrets to use it. Just get a little creative.

Originally Posted by Figment

Clearly? Highly disagree with your statement that "he'd be letting his faction down". Either you never played PS1, or you just don't get that CE is just a tool that you use it when you have time for it. When mines disappear after you DIE and change class because you have another type of enemy to fight, THEN you're letting your team down, because you stopped passively denying easy access to an area, opening them up for getting flanked where they thought they had some sort of early warning (explosion or gunfire required to enter through a certain area for instance - or some people THOUGHT they had defenses against a tank located somewhere).

If you can have CE down regardless of what class your playing then failing to have it down is equivalent to dropping the ball. You only get the benefits of the class your playing as things stand now. That's what allows them to balance classes. Now I'm not saying that's a perfect system (in fact I hate how rigid the whole thing is) but it's whats currently in place and most likely what will remain in place.

Originally Posted by Figment

Besides, you spent resources on it. If you change tanks, your tank doesn't just disappear immediately. In fact, others can enter it and take over. Is that too letting your side down? Should you never be outside of a vehicle or purchase one for others if you have resources for it? Should your tank disappear because you went from medic to LA? No!

They should remove the resource cost on CE as it is a class based ability. If everyone could deploy CE then the cost makes sense but clearly allowing everyone to place CE just leads to a whole mess of CE.

[Figment]

What it comes down to is that you want players to do menial tasks. I agree that proper sensors could (the likes of which we haven't seen in terms of alerting: so far those only alerted locally in PS1 (Motion Sensors) and usualy FAILED to do so). The problem with Motion Sensors is PS1 was that you could just ignore them as an Infil. Place them somewhere? Sensor Shield.

Place them in the way (middle of door), just open the door and keep pushing it in the ground till you can jump over it. Slows you down a bit, doesn't actually warn you. Only when used in Interlink and when you accidentally took damage did they trigger.

You can't ignore a mine however, you HAVE to take it out. Of course, most mines in PS1 were placed poorly at doors, allowing you to take them out without even using a bullet or EMP grenade using just the proximity detection. However, that still made an explosion (clear sound) and that still told someone one of his mines was missing.

That sort of warning is not present in PS2.

Originally Posted by theknits

They should remove the resource cost on CE as it is a class based ability. If everyone could deploy CE then the cost makes sense but clearly allowing everyone to place CE just leads to a whole mess of CE.

Disagree. Related issue: Considering everyone can use grenades and I don't see people use grenades because they're costly, you only get one and the one you get is usualy a wasted throw, not really clear no.

Some more grenades wouldn't hurt, especially support grenades (smokes are too few and free EMP grenades are dearly missing in the squad of infantry vs solo-mbt-tank division fights).



I highly disagree as well that turrets take the place of players. I don't know what you think is the ideal amount of mines, but I'd say around 20 per player and remaining is a must. A minefield takes some dedication to place and in your system of removal and no mines, NO MINEFIELD AKIN TO PS1 CAN EVER EXIST, unless a full platoon decides to go full engineer and place mines in the same area. After which ONE SUNDERER OR VANGUARD EMP BLAST takes them all out.

You know what a waste to the empire that is to have 30 people run in engineering suits just to try and take out one or two tanks while they could have been wearing HA?


20 mines per player and should remain in place. Should require certification of course. Mind, I don't think everyone should have access to everything, it's a stupid class system they've implemented and I'll keep fighting to have it changed to be more flexible, yet the total tools more limited, regardless of how long it takes.

[theknits]

Originally Posted by Figment

What it comes down to is that you want players to do menial tasks. I agree that proper sensors could (the likes of which we haven't seen in terms of alerting: so far those only alerted locally in PS1 (Motion Sensors) and usualy FAILED to do so). The problem with Motion Sensors is PS1 was that you could just ignore them as an Infil. Place them somewhere? Sensor Shield.

If you find defending vital objectives menial your missing out on half the game. A sensor should indicate enemy presence on the minimap if they are uncloaked and possibly in sight of the sensor. It should also activate a small hud element on the engineers screen. In addition it should display a number on the map representing how many enemy targets are currently in its range. The number may be an average of how many people have been in its range in the past 30 seconds or whatever balance dictates is best.

Originally Posted by Figment

Disagree. Related issue: Considering everyone can use grenades and I don't see people use grenades because they're costly, you only get one and the one you get is usualy a wasted throw, not really clear no.

Some more grenades wouldn't hurt, especially support grenades (smokes are too few and free EMP grenades are dearly missing in the squad of infantry vs solo-mbt-tank division fights).

As it stands now grenades bounce around like they are made of rubber. As a result a lot of people probably have trouble adjusting to them. Factor in the fact that characters keep getting wiped and you realize few players have a chance to get a large stash of grenades. I think you will find that after the game has been out a couple months regular grenade use will be a lot more common. I do agree on EMP grenades though.

Originally Posted by Figment

I highly disagree as well that turrets take the place of players. I don't know what you think is the ideal amount of mines, but I'd say around 20 per player and remaining is a must. A minefield takes some dedication to place and in your system of removal and no mines, NO MINEFIELD AKIN TO PS1 CAN EVER EXIST, unless a full platoon decides to go full engineer and place mines in the same area. After which ONE SUNDERER OR VANGUARD EMP BLAST takes them all out.

You know what a waste to the empire that is to have 30 people run in engineering suits just to try and take out one or two tanks while they could have been wearing HA?


20 mines per player and should remain in place. Should require certification of course. Mind, I don't think everyone should have access to everything, it's a stupid class system they've implemented and I'll keep fighting to have it changed to be more flexible, yet the total tools more limited, regardless of how long it takes.

I would be fine with them upping the amount of mines an engineer can deploy. But as long as deploying mines is specific to engineer they need to continue despawning mines when an engineer changes class. For the most part any benefits from the class you were previously playing go away when you change class. Engineer should be no different.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by theknits

If you find defending vital objectives menial your missing out on half the game.

...Okay, you're not getting it.


You can't be in 20 places at once. So what you do is leave alarms in places you can't be due to being required elsewhere, in order to return or at least prepare the next place once something happens. You do this, SINCE YOU DON'T KNOW IF SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE THERE AND AT THE TIME OF LEAVING CE, THERE ARE NO ENEMIES THERE. Menial task would be guard duty of something that may not see action at all. That is not the point of the game and as long as there are no enemies there, you're not aiding your empire at all by simply guarding and staring in the distance.

Did you ever play resec team much, or at all? Resec teams are vital to the empire, but they can't be everywhere at once, they need information on where they need to be and when and they can't do their job by spreading out over every empty base everywhere because then they are too dispersed to be of any use.


Your sensor idea is all fun and giggles and has its pros, but it doesn't slow down an enemy long enough for you to not have lost it by the time you return to these far away outposts. Something that makes the enemy take some care (even though they probably could just respawn if they bring a Sunderer) could slow them down a few seconds at least. Every second lost to them is a second gained by you.

A proper minefield would. However, if you leave a minefield and you go somewhere else, you can't expect someone to stick in Engineering class because he's got a minefield somewhere else. That's just bull. I agree though that mines shouldn't be limited to engineers. But IMO any normal class should have access to a wide variety of things, I just feel that beyond a couple role specific tools, they should have different sorts of limitations: less medic juice, med packs and recharge rate on tool, less engi juice in tool, less missiles and ammo to carry, that sort of thing would make the game a lot more sandbox and open to creativity. Creativity stimulates continued playing.

[theknits]

Originally Posted by Figment

...Okay, you're not getting it.


You can't be in 20 places at once. So what you do is leave alarms in places you can't be due to being required elsewhere, in order to return or at least prepare the next place once something happens. You do this, SINCE YOU DON'T KNOW IF SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE THERE AND AT THE TIME OF LEAVING CE, THERE ARE NO ENEMIES THERE. Menial task would be guard duty of something that may not see action at all. That is not the point of the game and as long as there are no enemies there, you're not aiding your empire at all by simply guarding and staring in the distance.

Did you ever play resec team much, or at all? Resec teams are vital to the empire, but they can't be everywhere at once, they need information on where they need to be and when and they can't do their job by spreading out over every empty base everywhere because then they are too dispersed to be of any use.

And you don't seem to get that a sensor can not only fulfill the role of an alarm but it can do it better than a turret. This mean a player doesn't need to stick around in the event of an empty base.

[Crator]

This guy just doesn't like spits. Haven't seen this much opposition to them from anyone actually.

Guess we should just agree to disagree?

[theknits]

Originally Posted by Crator

This guy just doesn't like spits. Haven't seen this much opposition to them from anyone actually.

Guess we should just agree to disagree?

lol at this point its tempting Id rather not have to pour over another one of Figments monster posts again but someone has to represent the other side.

[Crator]

He does well giving perspective on how it worked in PS1. Most players aren't developers and don't spend uber amounts of time thinking about new things to come up with. They know it worked and liked it in PS1.

Is there really a group of people against the spits? I didn't see hardly anyone oppose to the idea on the beta forums. But we all know how that goes with the massive amounts of threads there, I could have missed it.

[Rokii]

Sounds cool

[Buggsy]

Originally Posted by theknits

One of the biggest parts of an assault is moving forward. Where standing ground and holding back the enemy is defending whether your a person or a turret.

Without field works defense is nothing but Frontal Assault without advancing.