An ANT-Points based system to limit siege durations

[Stardouser]

Long term sieges at bases like TI Alloys are getting out of control, exacerbated by players who flock to those areas to cert farm, defenders don't push out and attackers do anything but hit the cap points.

I was thinking, what could we do that would cause a base to eventually fall through sheer deathmatching?

Perhaps each base could have a nanite power charge or whatever, yes I am thinking ANT style stuff here. Let's go straight to numbers to explain how this would work:

Let's put it into EXAMPLE numbers:
1. Each infantry spawn charges the base what I will call 200 ANT Points (MAXes cost resources and so I don't factor them in)
2. A small base like TI Alloys has a pool of say, 100,000 ANT Points (ie, 500 respawns)
3. A small base like that might recharge ANT Points at a MAXIMUM rate of 10,000 per 5 minutes, ie recharges 50 spawns per 5 minutes.
4. Actual number of recharged ANT points per 5 minutes would be based on adjacency/influence, so isolated hexes could drop down to 2,500, and partial adjacency would put it somewhere between 2,500 and 10,000.
5. And - some of you will love this - special Supply Sunderers and Supply Galaxies can dock and recharge the ANT points even if there is no adjacency.
6. This would apply to all fixed base spawns, sunderers and spawn beacons of the OWNING faction.
7. Attacker sunderers deployed in the besieged hex would either continue to be unlimited or would be considered to be using the ANT points of the nearest held territory, whatever works best.

Personally I believe the game should make attacking a lot more fluid such that defending has to be accomplished not by respawn spam but by troop movements. The front line should move often, forcing armies to move often, meaning that you have a chance to defend not by respawn spamming but by killing enemy convoys between bases. A smart platoon that whacks a tank column out in the open would, in such an attack oriented world, put a serious hurt on the enemy. Tanks would have to move with Skyguards interspersed, and so on.

I just wanted to throw that bit in, the idea in this thread isn't targeted specifically at making the game more offensive-oriented but simply at finding a smooth way to end long sieges. Obviously another idea is to add SCUs, but so far as I know, no one wants SCUs, right?

[DarkBalths]

I figured I'd hate this idea, but it actually sound pretty reasonable.

[Silent Thunder]

Really what will stop this is part of the new hex system that's been proposed. Namely the fact that you won't wind up with these isolated pockets of resistance that hold out indefinatly as you won't be able to play ring around the holdout hex anymore. If you want to get to the next point, you HAVE to push though, and same for the defenders. The Hex Lattice will remove the akward situations of nearly any defense being avoided simply by going around it and seiging it later.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Silent Thunder

Really what will stop this is part of the new hex system that's been proposed. Namely the fact that you won't wind up with these isolated pockets of resistance that hold out indefinatly as you won't be able to play ring around the holdout hex anymore. If you want to get to the next point, you HAVE to push though, and same for the defenders. The Hex Lattice will remove the akward situations of nearly any defense being avoided simply by going around it and seiging it later.

I haven't actually looked at the new system in detail but if it literally forces linear attack progression, then that's insane. Forced attack path? Why would we need big continents if that's how it is?

There has to be another way. That said, there are still going to be issues at poorly designed bases like TI Alloys where there is only one easily defended capture point.

[Bocheezu]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

I haven't actually looked at the new system in detail but if it literally forces linear attack progression, then that's insane. Forced attack path? Why would we need big continents if that's how it is?

There has to be another way. That said, there are still going to be issues at poorly designed bases like TI Alloys where there is only one easily defended capture point.

There's still options, just less of them. Which is a good thing.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...t-more.103900/