Gameplay: Idea for resources and empire balancing.

[Headrattle]

Follow me here while I spin a yarn.

You and your squad are hiding in a Hossin forest near a road when the boxy vehicle crests the hill. It is heading back to Acan with its payload of resources that the NC need to build and improve their vehicles. They have already chopped up a sizable chunk of the continent and with the land they have taken; they are going to be able to take Hossin in just a few hours. As part of a new Fabian Strategy you are there to slow their progress down so the TR can fight back and stop them from taking the rest of the continent. Your engineer had just laid mines, but you know that those won’t take it down alone. Your squad holds until it hits the first mine, and then they unleash their anti-vehicular weapons. The first Devastator hits it just as the machines small 12mm turret kills the first soldier it detects. Your medic runs to help him out knowing that if he respawns, he will be very far away, and will be out of the fight for a while. A final missile hits and the target explodes brilliantly, and you know Acan won’t receive the resources that it needs and thus the NC are going to have problems making more vehicles for the front lines. Your squad jumps on their ATVs and bug out because there will be Reavers and other aircraft incoming to investigate and perhaps repair the now empty and wrecked supply vehicle.

Know that I am piggy backing on this thread here. I felt that my idea was different enough to post in its own thread.

So we know that we are getting resources. Cool. The idea for grabbing land is also interesting. I am not sure how it is supposed to work, but it sounds like it is going to be some sort of instantaneous delivery system. It also sounds like the ANT will be done away with, which is ok if there was some kind of system to replace it. So I got an idea.

Drones. Let’s call them ARTs. Automated Resource Transport. (Close to the ANT, isn’t it?) The resources are collected at a local resource node of some sort that collects from a certain area. Between this node and the nearest base is a road. When that node is captured, the base automatically sends out an ART to collect and retrieve the resource collected by the node (maybe after it has gathered so much) and deliver it to the base. The ARTs are automated so no one has to drive them, limited to one or two per node or more depending on the amount of resources at that node, and tough so that it would take a few mines to kill. Then, perhaps, between bases the ARTs would deliver the resources from one base to another.

Why do this? Why not just instantaneous delivery from the resource field to the bases?

First: Slows down expansion in a more intuitive way.
Empires take more territory and thus gain more resources, and thus are able to gain more territory and thus resources. With the ART, you can slow that down a little without giving incentives (bonuses to spawn and the like) to the losing empires. Instead, they had all of these resources that arrive slower. Thus the expansion curve evens it out a bit for the larger empire, but doesn’t stop it. It is a problem that empires have always been dealing with.

Second: It provides the ability for other empires to cut off supply lines.
This is a rewarding way for the smaller empires (or any empire really) to slow down the expansion. When you have a smaller empire, protecting your supply lines is easier. But with more territory there is more area for the other empires to harass your supply lines. This won’t drive the empire to a halt, but it will slow it down a little. Of course this would be done by small groups, and thus be repelled by small groups. If you are a large army moving in, the supply line is already disrupted.

Third: Fun Guerilla tactics.
Let’s face it. Big battles are fun, but sometimes doing some commando stuff is fun too. Attacking the ART to help a big push on the front lines would be fun. We already do that in PS1 with blowing up the Gens in back bases to get rid of the benefits. If you wanted, the ART could have a nice turret on top for self protection. That would be fine. Hey! They wanted PVE right? I would find that acceptable. (Aliens? Not so much.)

So, how would I do it?

Well, first you would need a selectable map overlay to tell you where the ARTs are and how damaged they are. If you don’t want to look at it, don’t turn it on. Maybe the little icons would flash if they were being attacked. Think of the “see friendlies” option of the command module in ps1. The icons would look something like that. Only moving and of different colors depending on status. This way, you can (if you so choose) see a damaged ART and repair it, or an ART being attacked and defend it.

It would also need a small defensive weapon or weapons. Something that will kill one attacker, but have problems killing a group. AI could be as simple as the defensive turrets we have now. Perhaps a small flack cannon to take out aircraft. It should be tough enough to stop one or two attackers, but not a small squad that is well organized.

They would only follow the roads and only in friendly territory. If the road they are on goes through enemy territory, either it turns around and goes back to its base, or waits until the territory becomes friendly again. This would help dumb down the AI and help make the territory between bases and resources valuable. It would also allow for pincer strategies in that your army could sweep through and take the territory between a base and its resources, thus cutting it off from the resources. Giving you another tactical option to fight the enemy with.

The ARTs would travel between base to base delivering supplies from bases with a lot of resources to bases will little resources. Say one base gets full, it then starts transporting ARTs to the next base in line. Thus the resources get to the front lines. There wouldn’t be a lot of them like I said. Maybe one or two per route per base. Admitedly this could mean dozens of them on a continent if an Empire has taken most of the territory. Still, it also means that killing one or two won't bring an empire to its knees.

Maybe they wouldn’t be completely destructible. If it goes down, it has to be repaired before it will start working again or after a set about of time it woulrd repair its self. However, if you killed it when it was full of resources and on its way back to base, it will continue to the base, and then back to the silo empty. No matter what, it will continue along its circuit. This would decrease the coding involved. Alternatively, the base could just build another one after a certain time has past.

This will be the type of stuff that is without experience benefit for attacking, but experience for helping an ART defend its self. (You could get a large exp bonus for killing an enemy within a ceretain area of one for example.) Or if you do want experience make it part of the mission system to attack one or two with a counter mission of protecting them if one gets attacked in your area. That way, only the more strategic minded will be interested in attacking them, yet the experience minded will be interested in defending them. Thus adding challenge to the event.

Now, the inevitable argument against is "I don't want to have to deal with things happening behind the enemy lines. I want to fight in the front lines. It is too much to defend!"

I understand that. But to counter then I am gonna use some examples that are in PS1.

First example will be ANTs. When ANTs were first talked about, no one was interested. They didn't want to be a delivery boy while there was a battle going on. However, people did it, and people did it a lot. Back in the early days I met one of the best gunners I know while driving an ANT from base to base. Still, people do ANT deliveries without a problem, and you often see command chat asking for, and then receiving an ANT. It is a good feeling to help a base during its time of need, and thus saving that base. Even if it didn't involve front line combat.

Second example will be blowing generators and tower clean up. These are both challenging yet usually thankless jobs that get done by people who don't want to fight on the front lines ALL THE TIME. This type of thing is a great way to diversify gameplay for those who want to do other stuff besides zerg constantly to the next base or area.

Now, it is true that there will be a lot on the front lines to attack and defend. I am simply pointing out a possibility to do other things besides just attack the front lines. And these smaller behind the lines skermishes seem like a good idea. Like I said, if it was a large force, they would just be capturing the territory and not worrying about supply lines, though this would allow for flanks and pincer movements that would cut off a base from its supplies.

That is all I got for now.

[NewSith]

I like the idea. I can make the same comment I made to the original post. As there'll most likely be no NTU, this should replace it.

However that means that those ART's will have to take giant portions at once and each launch should be announced, throughout the route area AT LEAST... Otherwise they'll just become another shooting dummies.

[Dorest0rm]

I believe the ART's should be supported by player driven transports to, to speed up the transport speed.

Allowing a galaxy pick up the player driven transport so it can deliver resources faster to a base.

[Headrattle]

That is a good idea. Perhaps if infantry get to close to it the ART stops, this would allow for it to be repaired and possibly driven. That is an excellent idea for base saves if the base was surrounded or something.

I remember once a prolonged base attack was occurring in PS1. Their NTUs were very low and they other guys had the base surrounded. We knew that once the base went neutral, we would have lost the base. But then a Galaxy with an escort appeared, dropped an ANT and saved the day. It was one of those events that you remember on both sides. Imagine that happening again.

You are attacking a base, you have depleted its resources and surrounded the base and it is quickly losing resources because of your siege. Then a Galaxy drops an ART with the resources that the base needs to make an offensive push out of the base. Again, something that players remember and talk about. People don't talk about zerging as much.

As for NewSith, I like the idea of an overlay on the main map. The owning empire can see which ones they want to see, and the enemy empire would have to find them. This overlay would also give health levels (green, yellow, red, black colors) and flash if attacked. That way, the ones that give a crap about them can work to protect them, and the others can just ignore them if they don't want to bother. Most of the resources will be collected with out a problem. However a few times, they will need some defending. The tactics would be analogical to back base generator blows and drains in PS1.

[Malorn]

As much as I personally like supply-line mechanics, I'm not sure it would play well in a fast-paced shooter that is trying to funnel action along a battle front. Epic battles is what they want and while it would add more gameplay options it would detract from that. You're already going to have people spread out along the entire front line of hexes.

I also don't like anything that's NPC-driven. One of the shining points of EVE sandboxing and PS was the fact that players did and controlled everything. So if there's EVE-like space-trucks in PS2 I'd want to see them driven by players. That opens up convoys and other such behavior.

But space-trucks was a necessary but boring as hell part of eve. Moving your shit around was just time consuming unnecessary BS. I fully support less BS and more action in PS2.