Question

[CraazyCanuck]

So once a continent is 'locked', how does a faction unlock it? Is there anything available to a faction beyond the obvious method of straight forward progression through the lattice till you win back entry?

It is suppose to be a time of warpgate technology etc., so I was wondering/hoping if a faction had available a special vehicle/ability to warp to an area not connected to a factions influence on the lattice (on a timer to keep its power in check. Perhaps after a set time has passed without advancement once a faction has been locked out of a continent) and establish a point of influence that you could expand from and begin taking over territory from behind enemy lines?

As example. TR has Esamir locked and NC has tried but failed for over 24 hours in gaining entry. Once that 24 hour mark has come, the NC are given a warpgate window that is controlled by a CR5? which allows the NC to warp assests including a special vehicle? to a territory outside their lattice influence on the locked continent. That warpgate is only open for a brief period of time and the faction in control of that territory is alerted of the warp signature. (sorry couldn't resist)

The NC would have a range restriction as well. Perhaps limited to 2 lattice links to the entry point to the continent. If the special vehicle is destroyed, the temporary warpgate is closed. The special vehicle is planted in place and can not be moved once the warp gate has been established. If the NC do not have control of any links during the time of the vehicles existence they loose any chance of gaining a foothold. If they do have a link in their control, they now have the ability to expand from it. Once used, make the availability for this vehicle/ability even longer then the initial one or have it tied to resource build up or a specific facilty on the home continent.

This forces the redirection of TRs assets from the front line where NC can not make any headway, or if TR ignores, they now face forces on multiple fronts.

Until April 2nd, I have yet to experience PS1's lattice system/continent lock but I was wondering if something like this was already in place and/or the feasibility of something like this working.

[Mastachief]

Right then to explain the lattice

NC Sanctuary has 2 links to 2 home continents (imma use the old home conts and random other conts)

NC Sanctuary
- Hossin
- Solsar

On each HOME continent there are 4 warpgates that the lattice connects to
- Sanctuary
- Searhus
- Oshur
- Cyssor
- (1 of 2 possible cave links)

In order to use the lattice link to another continent (unlock that continent) you need a friendly base connected.

Essentially the lattice was huge and global with caves also factor in and you could also drain a facilities power to hack hold and refill it creating a friendly base in which to lattice from without any other links


Brief explanation which could be better

[Mightymouser]

I don't think you're fully understanding the concept of a PS1 continent lock...
See if this makes sense:

The first thing you have to recognize is that in PS1, Warpgates were just what their name says, they were transport gates that warped from one continent to another. You could not 'spawn' at a warpgate, you had to spawn at a facility (or your sanctuary) and travel to a warpgate to warp to another continent.



This is Esamir in Planetside 1, you should note that in PS1, only bases were connected to the lattice; towers were mere small outpost which could be captured by anyone after a (roughly) 30 second hack, and they provided only a spawn point. They are the little red dots that look like pimples around the map.


At the time this screenshot was taken Esamir was a VS home cont (The home conts rotated very rarely, about once a year, or when the dev's were bored). Therefore, the VS have a link from their sanctuary to Helheim. This link cannot be broken, and the VS can always warp from their sanctuary to Esamir via the southern warpgate.

The other three warpgates on Esamir lead to other continents: Forseral, Cyssor and Ishundar. (Note there's also an active 'Geowarp' connected to Mani, that goes to one of 6 caves, in the screenshot it's going to Annwn).

The way the Lattice worked in PS1 is each empire's lattice would originate at an empire's Sanctuary. This would cause their 'sanctuary' warpgates to become "Broadcast Warpgates" for that empire. Additionally, any warpgate or geowarp which is lattice linked to a Broadcast Warpgate by an unbroken line of friendly bases will itself become a broadcast warpgate. A solder can warp from any of his Broadcast Warpgates to any other Broadcast Warpgate, however if a warpgate is not a broadcast warpgate, it will take the soider only to the warpgate to which it is directly linked.

That probably sounds confusing, but stick with me; in the above map, the Northern and South-Western warpgates are showing as "Broadcast Warpgates", and they are linked to TR bases (That the Lattice Line is red means that the base linked on the other side of the Warpgate is also a TR base, and Yellow means that one of the two bases linked must be a friendly base), This tells us that the person who took this screenshot was a TR.

The Northern most warpgate actually links to Forseral; here is a map of that continent:



The Esamir-Forseral Warpgate links to Dagda on Fors and Andvari on Esamir; as you can see from the map, Fors is a TR home cont, and when they own enough bases on Fors that Dagda is lattice-linked to Eadon (and therefore the TR sanctuary) the Esamir-Forseral Warpgates become Broadcast warpgates for the TR.


Also, just to throw another bit of confusion in; when an empire locks a continent, all the warpgates become Broadcast Warpgates, regardless of whether they are linked to that empire's sanctuary or not (there is a bit of back story to why that is, but it's not worth getting into)


Hopefully, you kinda understand how warpgates work in PS1 now; so to address your question, how do cont locks work, and how does an empire 'unlock a continent'?

Well, a cont lock means that 1 empire owns all the bases on a continent (towers don't count, remember), and that's all it means. There is no game mechanic to prevent the other two empires from coming back to the continent, and despite what the name 'cont lock' implies, the continent is still as vulnerable to attack as ever. In the above screenshot, Forseral is locked by the TR. However, the VS have a link to Dagda and the NC have links to Pwyll and Bel. This means they can warp to Forseral and hack those bases and try to take them (it takes 15 minutes to hack a base in PS1), this is called 'opening a cont'. They can do this whenever they want, as long as they have the links from Esamir (for the VS) and Ishundar or Annwn (for the NC).

Of course to try to protect Forseral (and all of their territory), the TR will try to keep the NC and VS engaged else where, and at the same time, if the NC/VS wanted to pull the TR from another fight they might send a few players to try to open Fors. Dagda in particular is was a very popular target because once taken Interlinks are very difficult bases to recapture, and a small number of skilled players could hold off many times there number in enemies for an extended period of time.

Does that make sense?

[CraazyCanuck]

yes it does. thanks MM for taking the time to explain. I like the fact about being able to hack/drain/refill a facility as well.

[Crator]

Another thing to mention. Not all continents in PS1 are home continents. The ones that aren't give the empire that has it locked special benefits. The locked benefit-giving continent (that your empire has locked) which connects to bases via the lattice (that your empire has locked) on other continents will give you the locked-continent benefits at those bases.

There were also caves that were added with the Core Combat expansion. The caves dynamically opened and closed every few hours and randomly attached themselves to mini-warp gates (GeoWarp) on the continents. Each cave always had 4 links from various different continents. If your empire owned all the bases in the cave the link provided to the continent would give very nice benefits! The caves had module buildings inside them. You go to these buildings and grab a module and then bring it to the center of the cave to charge it. Once charged you could bring it up top to a continents and install the module in a base. Any empire bases linked to the base with the module would get that benefit. An enemy could take down the generator at a base with modules installed in it and take the modules for themselves.

Home continents had a single base in the center of the map that had a shield around it. It was called a Capitol building/base. You would normally put all the cave modules you could in this one base because the enemy cannot penetrate the shield on it to take down the gen. In order to take down the shield on the Capitol base you had to take at least 2 sub-Capitol bases connected to it.

See more in links below. <---- Really, check them out. Everything I just talked about is explained, some with pictures even...

References:

• Continental Lock: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...ntinental_lock
• Continental Lock Empire Benefits: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...Empire_Benefit
• Caves: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...?title=Caverns
• Cave Modules: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...odule_Building
• Home Continent: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...Home_Continent
• Capitol Bases: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...?title=Capitol

After typing all that just reminds me how PS1 had a lot of game-play mechanics that made it great! I hope they can get there with PS2 eventually... Seems they've only really added the continent lattice, without a global lattice yet and that is it...

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Mightymouser

This tells us that the person who took this screenshot was a TR.

Sorry, but I just thought I'd point out it was taken by a VS. The TR would see the sanctuary link as grey.

[Mightymouser]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Sorry, but I just thought I'd point out it was taken by a VS. The TR would see the sanctuary link as grey.

No, it's a friendly (TR) base linked to an enemy (VS) base (sanc) so it's yellow. Similarly, Dagur and Jarl are TR bases linked to a non-friendly (neutral) Andvari and are yellow because the screenshot taker is TR; were they any other empire, these links would be grey.

[Baneblade]

Hmm, I thought unpowered bases were yellow linked for everyone... I guess it has been too long.