Cutoff bases

[Kail]

Today I realized one thing I really missed from PS1 - the fact that when a base was hacked, the base itself changed (yellow warning lights flicked on iirc). And perhaps for running out of NTU as well. What was really cool about it was how much the atmosphere change affected how you felt. As a defender it was "oh crap", for the attackers it was "phase 1 complete, dig in and don't let them resecure!".

With Planetside 2 that's not directly translatable since there is no hack-and-hold mechanic. But that got me to thinking how it could be cool to make bases that are cutoff more important than simply not gaining resources from the hex. Imagine you've been fighting somewhere for awhile, then all of a sudden all the base lights flicker for a second and yellow stand-by lights come on all over. You instantly know that you are now besieged on all sides and you're in trouble.

Ambiance aside, the other key piece is that it needs to matter when you're cutoff. How can you make it matter in a way that makes defenders really want to avoid territory being cutoff and an advantage to attackers, without screwing over defense so badly a base that is cutoff is a lost cause? My idea revolves around the auto-capture mechanic. For background, if no enemies are present at a capture point for a certain amount of time it will eventually flip back to the defending empire - this was done to prevent individuals from just running around everywhere, starting a base capture, and then leaving.

What I propose is that for bases that are cutoff from their empire's warpgate, their capture-progress decays to neutral if no defenders are near the point - ie, all empire bars are empty. The base itself never flips or anything, so territories that are cutoff but have no defenders are just 50% easier to capture if left alone for awhile. Bases that do have defenders require defenders to babysit capture points, which may be an annoyance at worst that they want to avoid.

Simply surrounding an already heavily-contested base doesn't change that dramatically by itself, besides maybe pulling a few defenders out of the fight. But cutting off chunks of territory can be very scary for an empire, because now all those territories that aren't being actively fought over are becoming easier and easier to take.

[Sobic]

Love the points on ambiance. unfortunately your just getting my hopes up.

As far as attack/defense.
Make the points require a MINIMUM number of people to actually make progress on the cap. IE: 6/6 point would require six people on the point for it to count to cap progress.(Not just speeding it up)With clearer UI representations of this. Then scale the points to the size of base. two being the smallest, and possibly larger ones in the 8-10 range. That way people have to bring at least a few people to take even the smallest base. This would require some base refinement as well(Especially bio labs).

[psijaka]

Cut off bases are already under severe pressure due to the influence system.
Experienced this myself a couple of days ago; was cut off at Mesa, the enemy got a few people at "A" and the base flipped really quickly.

[Kail]

Originally Posted by psijaka

Cut off bases are already under severe pressure due to the influence system.
Experienced this myself a couple of days ago; was cut off at Mesa, the enemy got a few people at "A" and the base flipped really quickly.

Its not directly related; small bases with large territories can have that happen very easily even when they share a link to the rest of the empire territory. But I agree with you're example, and that's the reason I don't think actively weakening bases is a good idea. More around making territories cut off from their warpgates harder to "keep up" unless being actively defended (you don't want to get cut off so that you don't need to actively defend all that territory).