Small taste of Urban Areas concepts to come

Hayoo · 2004-04-20, 09:58 AM

TorsoGirl, on the official forums, brought up the Area of Influence notion again, something I was planning on doing eventually, but now's as good a time as any to release a peek at my Urban Areas update.

Originally Posted by Hayoo

In support of Torsogirl's first idea (5 stars to ya!) I've been wanting something like this for a while too, a feeling of captured territory (not just structures), preventing those annoying HART drops far from any defense, and yet still allowing for penetration of the enemy rear, heheh, via transports with Spec Ops troops. I did have some differences like including a supply line model and adding urban areas (which I haven't finished detailing yet).

As for the gen shields, I don't know. With respects to the infiltrators, that is. I would have to hear more arguements for or against it.

Here's some graphics I've been putting together for concepts that run along the same vein as Torso's idea. I appologize for the straight-edged nature of the zones depicted here. I'm still getting around to making the areas follow the terrain.

*note: urban areas/supply depots do not have spawn locations, but equipment terminals that allow acquisition of heavy equipment. But only if that territory has an unbroken territory link back to your warpgate or to a friendly base connected by lattice to a WG. This simulates a supply line back to Sanctuaries. Bases and towers are uneffected by the supply restrictions, so players can choose to ignore urban areas if they don't need to rely on the HART to get around.

Edit: The current cont lattice/capitol system remains, but I have removed the graphics for them to reduce visual clutter.

Pic 1 - NC advance from warpgate quickly, capturing urban areas/supply depots that control territory. This allows NC reinforcements to HART drop to nearby objectives. NC galaxies have infiltrated TR airspace ahead of the invasion and dropped Tech plant gens as soon as the assaults begin. TR response weak.

Pic 2 - NC Zerg arrives, besieging first base while outfit units advance deeper into TR areas. TR try to "surround" enemy troops by taking back territory in the rear. TR also tries to relieve siege of base. Meets with resistance.

Pic 3 - An small NC force makes advances in the south to relieve solo tower as a base of operations for a push into the West. Effect is that two bases are almost 'surrounded' and TR won't be able to HART in, but for a single TR tower keeping the bottleneck open to valiantly defended territory between the bases.

Pic 4 - NC capture the base (elapsed time? 20 min), but the TR have resecured their Tech Plants and regrouped for an offensive. While NC continue to make advances up through the middle and west of the cont, a small TR force has launched a strike deep into NC territory toward the second besieged base. TR counterattacks occur all along the front, but most forces (as usual) are spawing from the TR base or attacking the NC one from nearby facilities. Most TR will probably bypass towns to get to the base because Towers and Facilities equipment terminals are uneffected by who controls the nearby zones.

Originally Posted by Hayoo

I appreciate TorsoGirl bringing up the area of control idea once more. It has a lot of advantages to it and I hope the community continues the discussion.

Also, elasped time between Pic 1 and 4 is the typical time it takes for a well-organized team or a frenzied zerg to capture the first base on a cont. The territory advances occured as a side show with maybe no more than a few squads acting in support of the invasion.

easypickings · 2004-04-20, 10:30 AM

i love it, looks great, i could really see this working.

keep up the good work,

Nalar · 2004-04-20, 10:36 AM

I like this idea. I think it will make for more well defined front lines. A couple of questions though that were unclear from your post:
Does your idea get rid of the latice links? And if so does that mean that you must have a line of connecting AOCs back to the last base?

I personally think that if it is the latter, then you will see a lot more ground battles out in the open with some people trying to hack the base while others (tanks, ground, air) trying to attack AOCs to break the link.

Again, great idea.

Cryptica · 2004-04-20, 10:39 AM

Sweet! OMFG I love it. It looks wonderful, and tactical, and great, and orgasmic! W00t! Great idea.

SilverLord · 2004-04-20, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Cryptica

Sweet! OMFG I love it. It looks wonderful, and tactical, and great, and orgasmic! W00t! Great idea.

What he said, most def. I love this, simply love it. I want more battles in the terrain.

krayons · 2004-04-20, 11:00 AM

I like it

shorts41 · 2004-04-20, 11:01 AM

Woo! This sounds like an aswome idea! Urban fighting is teh pwnage. But yah, my question is the same as Cryptica's

Lartnev · 2004-04-20, 11:16 AM

Didn't SmokeJumper mention something like that in the last Dev chat but said it was too radical to implement at the present time?

This would create true front lines and I'm all for it

BadAsh · 2004-04-20, 11:20 AM

My only concern here would be in how these urban structures are captured... are they buildings that require hacking? Are they old style CTF? Are they capture point style (like BF1942 and other games)?

And how are they linked to allow hacking/capture? If they require no link and as quickly hacked at a tower it seems that a lone cloaker with adv hack and surge would play absolute havoc by perpetually hacking and running. With 2 or 3 guys doing this it would be impossible to hold urban areas.

Also, will these urban areas have spawns and equipment terminals? Or simply be empty structures that require hacking/capture to allow dropping into the area/zone?

This overall is a great idea, but the demons are in the details. If done correctly it can be a great addition to the game. If done poorly it might be a colossal pain in the ass.

Nalar · 2004-04-20, 11:47 AM

From his original post he says that these urban building will not have spawn points but will have equipment terminals.

I would think that it would be a good idea to only allow hacks of AOCs if it borders another AOC that is under friendly control. I would also think that it would be a good idea to maybe put a short (1 min?) hack timer on it with some sort of indicator showing that the area has been hacked to prevent the lone surge infil hacker from just sweeping deep into enemy territory unnoticed.

Hayoo · 2004-04-20, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Nalar

I like this idea. I think it will make for more well defined front lines. A couple of questions though that were unclear from your post:
Does your idea get rid of the latice links? And if so does that mean that you must have a line of connecting AOCs back to the last base?

I personally think that if it is the latter, then you will see a lot more ground battles out in the open with some people trying to hack the base while others (tanks, ground, air) trying to attack AOCs to break the link.

Again, great idea.

Whoops. Sorry, the lattice links do stay, I just didn't want to clutter up the screen with the extra colors. I'll edit the post here and on the official forums. You do have to have a line of AOCs back to a WG to access heavy equipment in the supply depot terminals (otherwise you can only get Agile, Suppressor, standard ammo, shotgun ammo, VS ammo, etc., just the basics of combat). Of course, someone can always have a few AMS for full equipment support. A twist, to be detailed later, is that the longer an AMS is used in an unsupported AOC, that is with no link back to a base or WG, then its heavy equipment supply will run out.

Hayoo · 2004-04-20, 01:03 PM

Originally Posted by Nalar

From his original post he says that these urban building will not have spawn points but will have equipment terminals.

I would think that it would be a good idea to only allow hacks of AOCs if it borders another AOC that is under friendly control. I would also think that it would be a good idea to maybe put a short (1 min?) hack timer on it with some sort of indicator showing that the area has been hacked to prevent the lone surge infil hacker from just sweeping deep into enemy territory unnoticed.

I'm glad everyone is liking the graphics so far.

Hacks of AOCs generally goes like this. The empire with the Capitol dominance has the advantage in that they can hack back an AOC anywhere on the cont with a small hack time. When there were hints that Auraxin colonization had lots of people on the planet, I thought of an idea where the urban area lights off fireworks in celebration of being liberated.

The concept was that this area belonged to the dominating empire, so it was easier to take back.

Now the attacking empire can also hack any AOC anywhere on the cont, however, unless that zone is connected to other zones back to a friendly controlled base or to a friendly WG, a timer counts down from when it will revert back to the dominating empire. This helps prevent ninja hacks all over the place that defenders have to get back. The urban area will soon revert back if the attackers don't invest time in it. A spec ops operative can sneak in, take a supply depot to open up the territory, have his friends HART drop in, and then go about their mission. The AOC will revert back to enemy control in time unless they decide they want to hold that town/depot and wait for relief forces to arrive.

The reason for allowing hacks anywhere (just like towers) is to provide spec ops with missions to open up HART drop areas. This idea though is open for debate. Allowing no hacks for non-adjacent areas puts greater and much needed emphasis on transport but there's always objecting voices to changing their style of play. So I tried to be flexible with it.

I agree with your idea on hack indicators for these areas (I also wanted proximity indicators for those stading within the zone if a large force passed through the area. To make it hard for lone hackers to be too much of a pest, I think a mild radar system should be employed for control territory as well. This allows vigilent forces along a front to (maybe) notice enemy air incursions. It also provide a level of excitement in penetrating forward screens.

Nalar · 2004-04-20, 01:19 PM

I dont know, I actually think the AOCs would be better without the latice links. It would encourage vehicle patrols along protected AOCs and give more incentive for keeping them while hacking a base. This would be like protecting supply lines to the front lines.

For example, if the defenders managed to stop a hack under the current latice link system, they would have to push all the way back to the last base in order to sever the link and secure the base. But if there were no latice links and the only way to hack a base was to have a direct line of AOCs back to a friendly base, then if the defenders manage to stop the hack, they just need to secure the surrounding AOCs in order to keep the base safe.

I also think that if there were no latice links, it would concentrate battles more along well defined front lines and prevent stealth hacks from occuring. Of course this doesnt completely hurt spec op teams b/c they can still go behind enemy lines and drop gens and such.

As for facility link benifits, they could still work with AOCs in the same way you would need a line of AOCs for a hack. For example, obviously if the gens go down, the surrounding bases connected through a direct line of AOCs would lose the benifit, but you could also cut off benifits to a sieged base by taking all of its surrending AOCs effectively cutting off its supply lines.

These are just some of my thoughts, I am sure there are probably a few holes in my logic and ways to exploit this system but I cant think of any right now. If anyone has any thoughts, I would love to hear them because I think we could probably come up a pretty good system here.

PS: could we get a link to where you posted this on the OF, I would like to see some of the ideas they have kicked up.

Hayoo · 2004-04-20, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by BadAsh

My only concern here would be in how these urban structures are captured... are they buildings that require hacking?

Yes, to capture an AOC, you either have to capture the supply depot (if it's only one building) or hack the admin terminal if it's a collectoin of urban structures. There's a small hack timer to give defense time to react. Once the hack is through, you get access to the equipment terminals, lockers, garage (at the supply depot), the supply depot landing pad (non-repairing) etc. If you park a lodestar and AMS at an urban area you essently create a forward operating base that the enemy can't HART on top of.

If they require no link and as quickly hacked at a tower it seems that a lone cloaker with adv hack and surge would play absolute havoc by perpetually hacking and running. With 2 or 3 guys doing this it would be impossible to hold urban areas.

Without a link, they can't access above standard equipment and the urban area would revert back to previous empire control. They would have to stay in the same spot to maintain the hack. They also wouldn't last long against attacks anyway without a spawn point or reinforcements, notibly an AMS via ground transit or via Lodestar. And with a light radar system in place, defending troops could stay near the front fights but have some way of checking for incursions.

Also, will these urban areas have spawns and equipment terminals? Or simply be empty structures that require hacking/capture to allow dropping into the area/zone?

No spawn points for urban areas, and equip terminals only provide full supplies if linked back to friendly positions. They aren't that far from a base of tower anyway. And if you bring an AMS, you have all you need (for a limited time).

There was also this wild idea I had about being able to purchase certain types of goods from a AOC using a limited salary model.

Real quick - the concept is that each rank gets a set salary per cycle, but your bank storage is limited based on that rank.

Say a BR 6 only gets $75 per cycle but he can hold $1000 in his credit, even when offline. A BR20 gets $200 per cycle, but can only hold $500 in his credit as he adds certs and implant abilities. The higher you go, the more 'matrix' space for cash you are trading for training. Items you can buy in these goods terminals are your standard ammo, grenades, medkits, armorpatches, etc. There might even be some special expensive one-time use things like a type of charge or mine that BR6 would have to save up for and yet get multiples of, but a BR20 can get only one at a time such as wanting to buy two $300 items but can't cause his credit can hold only $500. The BR6 could get two but has to wait a little longer to save up for it. There would have to be disadvantages in place to reduce hording and muling. The notion is to provide some form of resupply for beleagured troops who might not have an AMs.

Anyway, that's a whole 'nother thread entirely and I've only provided light examples.

Hayoo · 2004-04-20, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Nalar

I dont know, I actually think the AOCs would be better without the latice links. It would encourage vehicle patrols along protected AOCs and give more incentive for keeping them while hacking a base. This would be like protecting supply lines to the front lines.

Well, there's the problem of players not knowing where to go next. The lattice provides an easy way for all players no matter their level to know what's the target. The AOC is a way to help the tactically minded influence the fight in a subtle way. I also worry about it being too easy to cut off a base. But I'm open for discussion though, since the model you describe would perhaps better mimic actual warfare, which I'm a fan of.

PS: could we get a link to where you posted this on the OF, I would like to see some of the ideas they have kicked up.

I didn't want to steal any of torsogirl's thunder since they were proposing a slightly different idea, but it was similar enough where I could post my maps in support of the idea. So with that in mind here are two links:

This is Torsogirl's thread: http://psforums.station.sony.com/ps/...ssage.id=49853

And the urban areas section on my site that will explain things in detail: Be warned though, what is there is little more than my first draft I jotted down last year and I'm still working on the pieces since the game has changed a lot since then - http://www.planetside-idealab.com/idea_urbanareas.shtml