The Stronghold v.2.0

[bpostal]

Then at least it has plenty of turrets!

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I really love the stronghold when I get a chance to fight there. It's totally Starship Troopers.

In looks only.

I do not recall them having to walk around inside outer wall to get to the east side of the base.

[Hamma]

Are you only able to take things literally?

[Figment]

Hey he's TR, TR take all orders literally, if you tell them to jump of a Bio Lab airpad...

[Artimus]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I really love the stronghold when I get a chance to fight there. It's totally Starship Troopers.

Whiskey Outpost all day.

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by Figment

What do you guys think of the current Stronghold design?

Changes that are especially interesting to note are the tunnel and indoor CC and also interesting is the AA roofing and obstructions around the spawnroom's ground floor exits.

So I JUST discovered the Tunnel at the Stronghold, which sort of blew my mind...

...But what also caught my attention is the Omni-jumppad right above the vehicle bay...
It sends you in an arc in whatever direction you walked onto it, unless you go straight into a wall which sends you ricocheting harmlessly.

...Ok, so why shouldn't this an Engineer deployable?

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Pella

Vanu Archives / The Strong Hold / Impact Crater.

What i would like to see is some kind of protective forcefield that covers each base. To protect from Arial assault. That quickly lock down any fun Infantry combat.

Stronghold is in the perfect spot too so that the rock formations could go over it completely. It would look like a base carved into the canyons with a high ceiling.

[Chaff]

I find a good donut fixes everthing, until the last bite...than I need another one.
Jelly-filled donuts are fixed by tunneling into the donut & squirting the filling in it.

[CraazyCanuck]

Tunnel fight at Stronghold are always fierce when both sides remember it. Could use some pocket alcoves.

Would like to see it a secondary tunnel to connect it to the spawn room like in the larger facilities. Would also like another one to connect it to the building next to the capture point.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by CraazyCanuck

Could use some pocket alcoves.

"Perhaps this would more accurate 'nooks and crannies' rather than 'alcoves', yeah"

Wish I could find a better quality one

[KALU]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I really love the stronghold when I get a chance to fight there. It's totally Starship Troopers.

Haha so true! Many a great fight i have had here.

[Falcon_br]

Today on Waterson the TR got Esamir and Amerish under control.
On Esamir we hold the NC on Mani Bio Lab, I was holding them there since Wednesday. So we could maintain the bonus.
Today on amerish we lose everything, the last base was The Ascend.
Dude, it was epic! Just one LONG way up to the base, I placed almost 50 mines on that road, sniper in all mountains around the base, I and some guys were sniping like no tomorrow! At least 20 anti air maxes on the landing pads of the central tower.
It was so much fun, because we keep telling on the Yell chat, bring more maxes NC, please! Where are all those scat maxes we see in every bio lab now?
TR high command were also in really good intel today, they gave great orders today, they said, 20 full galaxies coming from the north, everyone to Anti air maxes now, I thinked 20 full galaxies was exaggeration, but when they camed out of the mountains, it was epic! Almost 40 scat maxes dead before they could hot drop, lot and lots of liberator shell coming down the sky, the got bravo full of maxes and we used all grenades, to stun and blind them and it was a massacre!
With double XP I reached my new record of 30k/h points in this game during 3 hours of play!

[OctavianAXFive]

Figment, be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.

I'd never been to the Stronghold for one reason or another so when I saw this post I was curious to check it out.

I was lucky enough that while I was walking around inspecting it the NC attacked from Tawrich and I got to see how the defense played out from that direction.

It didn't end well.

A few hours later I went back once the TR had recaptured the base and went about examining it again, trying to discern the pros and cons. This time the VS attacked from the north.

That ended much better.

So I got to see how 2 different battles played out and I spent a lot of time giving it a tactical appraisal.

Here's what I've found.

The Stronghold is definitely designed to benefit the faction controlling the canyon warpgate. The north road from the AMP station and the west road from the tech plant are on a lower elevation, meaning that attacking vehicles do not have a good shot to the other side of the wall. The east road coming from the canyon gate however, is at a higher elevation. While this does not allow for a total bombardment of the base, it gives a significant advantage in retaking it for the canyon faction. The road is also wider allowing for a greater volume of tanks to fit down it at once at the cost of there being less cover.

Another thing I noticed is that the AV turrets are very specifically designed so as not to be able to fire past certain rocks. The turret looking west is victim of an extremely inconvenient (though obviously it was placed for balance) rock that keeps it from firing too far down the road. The guns are also not able to look up at the cliffs overlooking the stronghold. This severely hurts its defensibility.

There are two good cliff spots MBTs can get into that provide a clear and full view of the spawn area of the Stronghold. For an approaching faction, these areas are easy to get to and nearly impossible to strike from the Stronghold without air support. Infantry rockets are the only things that can fire up at the cliffs but as I figured, you don't even need to pop smoke to pull back over the lip of the cliff to avoid being struck.

As many have pointed out, the open roof of the stronghold allows for total aerial bombardment. The two AA guns are hardly enough as enemy tanks and rocket launchers can do away with them in their highly exposed and elevated positions. Additionally the surrounding cliffs provide excellent cover for aircraft to run behind when engaged by AA turrets.

The cliffs around the stronghold also allow for a never ending rain of infantry from above. Obviously light assaults can find their way down from a parked sunderer and I suspect a beacon placed on the cliff immediately behind the Stronghold will live until someone makes the trek up there.

Inside the Stronghold the base is clearly divided into two halves. There are three “lanes” through the base. One lane is the outer wall, one lane is the tunnel, and the third lane is the building in which the control point is housed. Each lane provides a footpath from one side of the base to the other. Cover inside the base is competently laid out but is assuming equal numbers. Light assaults make things very difficult in this base because they can negate a lot of the cover and prevent the defenders from setting up good lanes of defense.

The Stronghold is not a very Strong Hold. It universally suffers from the same problem both inside the base and outside of it: Too many lanes of attack. A good base will funnel attackers, allowing for a smaller force to hold out against a larger foe with relatively little coordination. The Stronghold’s outer defenses are very poor in this regard. The wall may keep infantry safe from an approaching army but the real defense must come in the form of allied tanks stuffing the roads. Additionally enemy tanks and aircraft can utilize the canyon to bombard the Stronghold, which will inevitably lead to any outer tank walls crumbling as they will not be able to return fire against the opponents on the higher ground. The highly exposed weapons on the raised platforms provide some defense but because they are so terribly exposed they can be brought down with relatively little effort, especially from the heights as they cannot rotate to fire on enemies above them.

Many bases in Planetside 2 have poor outer defenses so sweating the Stronghold’s ability to keep enemy sunderers at a distance or keeping tanks from pulling up to the wall isn’t that concerning taken on its own. However, because the Stronghold is open to so many lanes of attack, this becomes a major issue for defenders once the enemies can park all around the base.

Looking at it one can only see two staircases leading into the stronghold. Those staircases have cover for both attackers and defenders to hide behind, permitting a good infantry fight to take place. However, given the jump mechanics, light assault, and spawn beacons, the walls actually become a disadvantage when the CQC begins. It isn’t hard to pull up a few sunderers and begin attacking the stronghold from multiple sides. The wall can provide cover from rockets for at least one sunderer (maybe 2). You can also park sunderers on the western and eastern sides of the wall in some locations to use them as ladders, allowing the attackers to hop right over.

The location of the control point inside the building is also a problem. Attackers coming from the east will have excellent ability to reinforce with little trouble from the defenders in the spawn room due to the base’s split design. Once they have cleared any forces watching the eastern staircase they can pour onto the point while the defenders have to continue to watch the western stair, the tunnel, the boxes (for LA), the wall lane, and the building patio. The building actually has 2 entrances for foot troops coming from the spawn room, though one is a little less obvious. The obvious one is on the ground floor and is extremely exposed to the wall lane. The other entrance is accessed by hopping onto some boxes outside of the spawn room and using them to mount the side of the building, accessing the patio door on the second floor, next to the AA gun. Those boxes can also be used to hop over the wall and flank the other doors and the tunnel.

The tunnel is more advantageous to an attacking force, assuming the attackers are coordinated. The tunnel is a very tight choke point and while the defenders can keep the attackers held in the tunnel, it really doesn’t matter. The attackers don’t need the tunnel nearly as much as the defenders do. The result is that the defenders are going to have to go on offense to secure the eastern tunnel entrance. They have two ways of doing this, but splitting defenders off to secure another position is simply inefficient. Since I’m going to assume a base’s defensive capability is judged based on the ratio of defenders to attackers needed to capture it, peeling defenders to ensure the attackers don’t spawn camp from the tunnel is actually detrimental at the end of the day. Against an uncoordinated or relatively small attacking force the tunnel is useful, but past a certain point it actually swings heavily to favor the attackers.

The building that houses the single capture point isn’t really anything special though having only one capture point is a bit nice for the defenders as it doesn’t force them to split themselves any more than they already do.

At the end of the day the previous posts are pretty much spot on about the elephant in the room that makes this base indefensible. There is virtually no air cover. You cannot fight it and you cannot hide from it. The tight quarters around the spawn room mean that it just becomes a trap once the defenders are penned in.

The Stronghold is almost as weak as any minor outpost. The wall is a false sense of security, as are the laughably exposed turrets. While writing this up I had my guy sitting in the spawn room for reference. I checked back and the Stronghold was under attack. Pretty much every flaw I listed was exploited and the defense lasted less than five minutes. My theory on why the tunnel favors the attackers also gained some validity as I watched the fight unfold. A few of us tried to hold it but once it fell, the attackers had a new way of camping the spawn. (Sadly, no one had explosives to stave off a Max.)

The Stronghold needs a complete revamp if it wants to keep its name. Stronghold is simply a misnomer. An AA dome would help but now that you can put things underground, my suggestion would be to build that sucker into the side of the mountain.

In general however, when the devs go to make a base they should always refer to simple design principals in real forts and castles. Layering the defense of bases is what is missing, as too many of the bases in this game have so many avenues of attack defenders are constantly being stretched thin. As the attack gets deeper into the base, the lanes of attack should be reduced until it is only one or two. With the new system incoming the defending forces should have more manpower to stave off attackers. This goes back to the legion of complaints about this game being heavily in favor of numbers over coordination.

I dig the Starship Troopers look just as much as the next guy but it’s deeply flawed.

Writing this gave me a brain surge about capture points and why they suck. Perhaps more on that later.

[Figment]

Thanks Octavian, largely detailing my observations as well.