I got a theory

[Venoxile]

In taking over a base, let's say after 15 minutes after you hack the terminal, why would the battle stop? Why couldn't the defenders have 4 ams's outside the base so the teams just switch sides and the battle could never end? I mean if that was possible then there would not really be any control over the bases because it's just mass chaos. And each side would have the base for only a few minutes to an hour each. And if it was this way for all bases, then there would be no real winning or losing.
The game would just turn into a massive team death match at every base.

[Furio]

Im sure that wouldn't happen but whats wrong with mass chaos!!!!!

[Diviant]

That's not what PS is about. If you want that type of gameplay, go play Tribes 2.

[PlasticGEAR]

my best guess it that they would destroy the AMs, then they'd have to walk really far to actually get to the base. im sure it not easy to destroy one, but im sure its possible.

[DarkJaguar]

who says all the attackers are in the base? im guessing there is likely to be a LOT of armor waiting outside of it for just such an occasion.

[PlasticGEAR]

and im sure that there will probably be invisible people coming out of the base to do stuff to the AM's, just as there are probably some from the other side in the bsae itself

[FraBaktos]

Eventually someone would win by calling in reinforcements from another continent, using a good attack/defend strategy or something like that. Someone would eventually become the victor.

[Airlift]

Don't forget that there are a lot of bases, as many as 100 or more. Let's say for argument's sake that you have 3000 people on a server at a specific point in time, split evenly between 3 empires. You can probably assume that at any given time, 1/5 of them are out of the action in their sanctuary or respawning or waiting on a vehicle/group. That leaves 800 people ready for action per empire. If you split those 800 up among the 10 continents, you're now talking about 80 people per continent per empire. If there are an average of 10 bases on each continent, now we're down to 8 people per base per empire.

If the bases were constantly supplied between equally distributed replenishment soldiers from the 200 people per empire we set aside earlier, we're talking about a regular flow of 2 new people per empire.

Obviously, I just abstracted the hell out of the situation, overlooking travel time and the fact that people will not be distributed evenly. Still, that should give you an idea of the average contention between the empires at a base at a time. With 3000 players online, you are talking about an average of 18-21 people per base without regard to losses. It is reasonable to assume that losses will occur more rapidly than replenishment. For our purposes, let's assume that it happens at the shallow rate of 2 losses for every replenishment.

Still with me on the leap? Ok, if losses are happening at a rate of 2 per minute and replenishments at 1 per minute, within the 15 minutes, we've lost a net total of 7 people per side, which accounts for the full number of soldiers that we estimated to be on hand, leaving all sides struggling to mount a force to hold the base.

Ok, so that isn't going to happen, but it should be a safe assumption that the empires will win and lose at various battles for the various bases with these numbers as an average reference. If the Vanu only lose 3 net soldiers while taking out all 7 or more of the NC and TR at a given base, they will hold a strong enough force after replenishment to claim the edge in holding that base for the next value. If you consistently beat the curve at a single base, it stands to reason that you would be able to hold that base.

So, if that happens in different places (which are naturally distributed based on travel time from the various empires), the outcome would be a slowly stablizing picture where each empire is building a powerbase around nearby objectives, and harrassing more distant objectives.

That assumes a lot of equality between the sides, in equipment, tactics, and strategies. The reality will be another animal entirely. The sides may balance on stats and equipment, but they will not come out even on capabilities. Thus you will have surges in relative empire holdings based on changing personnel and differing outcomes.

So what's my point? This is a lot of damned words to say that I think you'll find constant chaos at some bases (based on geography and importance) and quiet time at others. Decide which you want on a given playing session and head to the nearest appropriate objective.

[PlasticGEAR]

makes sense to me...

[FraBaktos]

You have to take into account that some players will be more skilled than others allowing them to do more damage before they die.

[Airlift]

What seems most interesting to me would be to see how each server develops in isolation. If you have 10 communities of 30,000 users each and you let them all play the game out for a month, how similar or unique will each one be? Some tactics will be universal, but in persistent state competitive gaming most people horde their secrets instead of posting guides. The same empire across each server may vary wildly in strength and influence. We know continents can be theoretically owned, at least temporarily. We could see fairly stable borders on some servers, while other servers may be pure chaos at all times.

[Cuthbert]

Originally posted by FraBaktos
You have to take into account that some players will be more skilled than others allowing them to do more damage before they die.

I would guess that "good" and "bad" players (in the nicest possible way) will probably even each other out.

[DarkJaguar]

cuthbert? does someone play a little D&D?

[Serbitar]

Airlift: 6 bases per continent !

[Marsman]

Actually, Cyssor has 17 bases on it. From that I suspect the average number of bases/continent is probably greater than 10.