Alpha - Bases Weren't Always Poorly Laid Out

Alpha bases looked very defensible from what I've seen, I'd love to see those back for Searhus or something. Maybe jazz it up a bit in the new continent.

PS: Copy/Paste sucks.

Currently the bases look so flimsy and senseless, If you look at them from a vantage point you can see how the enemy can just drive in most of the time. I want assaulting bases to mean something. it needs to already be in the favor of the defenders.

Want to know what not crap map design looks like?

Go play the bf 2142 mod 'First Strike', I tried finding some video but couldn't find any that really show it properly.

Good luck finding a game, it's near impossible these days, but go check out Hoth, Tatooine and Endor on Speederbike as a start.

Some more bases from Alpha.. Sorry if they have already been posted. Take careful note on all the architecture.. I wish bases were like this



Bubble shields all around a AMP station



Notice the wall leading from the amp station to the outside walls. Buildings more closed in creating chokepoints





Take note of the heavily encased walkways on the previous 2 photos. No lib spamming those.. Also look at the small doorway next to the shield.. Now compare that defensive walkway to this..



Far more opened up to spam from Libs and HE tanks...

SOE should create a server that is from the alpha build.. All the old base designs, since that data is already stored somewhere in the SOE archives, if the community likes those would be easier to implement then trying to fix the mess we have atm

bump it up

I would actually approve of the revert back. Currently the only time that infantry really play a role in stoping the zerg is desperatly trying to stop them from destroying the tank shields on bases. As soon as that shield is gone there will be more libs and tanks and all sorts of garbage in that base than you can even count.

The game is just a massive zerg with vehicle spam.

Yeah, give us those old walls back!

Small doorways have a big issue, it becomes possible for a single engineer turret to block all progress. I feel that's one of the reasons you see slightly larger doorways. Plus, high-traffic choke-points should have double-wide doors, just like we have double-wide doors in real life for high-traffic areas.

The best door designs are those which are double-width, but deep, with cover both above and outside. Width to keep it from being easily trolled with an engineer turret. Deep to make it harder to fire into the interior easily and provide a bit of infantry cover. Top cover to prevent aircraft from shelling the interior. Outside cover (obscured line of sight) to make it more difficult to shell the interior with armor.

The picture above with the bubbleshields makes me so sad... I yearn for such defense.

That shouldn't be an issue. It's already pretty hard to deploy a turret on open plainish field, I'm sure they can find a way to stop you from deploying close to the doorway.

Bubble shields would be awesome, protect the bloody bases until an infantry strike-force can move in and destroy them. Hell make the generators fairly vulnerable and easy to destroy but require infantry to actually move in to do it. That and make all the bases smaller, they are much to big and open right now. Which means a small team can attack and take them, but a small team can never defend them.

Not that hard to do, influence affects spawn timers for infantry. So if you surround and enemy base thats hard to cap they will spawn slower than your guys meaning you will be able to overwhelm them. That way there is actually a point in trying to help an assault by capping around it, and there is something for reinforcements to do even if they are not big enough to break the siege, get the bases back.

Today there is a great public forum going on with the developers. Azure Twilight (Outfit on Mattherson) organized a meeting with the developers to voice the ideas of the community to them. The ideas were voted on on Reddit's Planetside 2 subforum and collated into a finalized list of the most popular changes/ideas which will be presented to the Dev team today.

Some of those changes involved base defense, and hopefully we'll hear good things regarding that.

While we're on the subject on base design, I notice Vanu Archives spawn room has a grand total of 1 small exit. I hope all bases are getting the new spawn room.

Also I don't get why Amp Stations and Tech Plants only have one control point, while even some little pointless bases have 3. Surely the fight would be more dynamic and interesting if there were more. It would take a bit of a redesign to put them in - maybe some of the upper part of the tech plant could have a control point, after all most of that huge building is wasted space at the moment. As long as it's not open to air bombardment. As for amp station, add a new building towards the back, or use the upstairs bit above the SCU.

Agreed, the single focus of Amps and techplant is kinda wierd. But even with more cap points the only real battle is over the spawn because that is the only thing that matters. If cap points actually did something, say controlled towers or spawn rooms etc base defenses and attacks would be more dynamic as well.

Bases should have more than one spawn room, that would really improve base fighting and help limit the spawn-camping focus from base.

There was a moment that PS2 was really shinning and I believe most were happy. Than SOE decided that it was time to do what SOE does best... To NGE their game a bit...

Quartz Ridge has only 1 spawn point, and yet fights often rage on for 10-15 minutes as the 3 capture points get fought over.

Personally, I detest the "single capture point" designs of the large facilities. More capture points = more tug-of-war and makes it more likely that by the time the fight is "over", your capture bar will be at least flipped over to your side and well on the way to capture. Single capture point designs mean that you'll crush the defenders, then be more likely to stand around for 2-5 minutes while waiting on the capture.

Amp plants could support more capture points:
- A 4-point in the existing location
- A pair of 2-point capture locations in the buildings nearest to the Amp station

Tech plants could have 5 or even 6 locations:
- Existing 6-pt changes to a 4-pt
- New 2-pt in the back vehicle bay on the curved side of the plant
- A 3 point capture location on the deck below the air pad (currently unused area)
- A 2 point capture location up where the AA/AV turrets are located
- A 2 point capture location in a nearby building

Bio-labs usually have 3 or 4 capture locations inside. Then you have something like Suarva with a capture point outside as well (but that only works if there is an anti-vehicle wall around the facility).

The better tower fights are those with (3) capture locations, although the tower control point should be boosted to be a 3 or 4 point location instead of two points because it's central and harder to capture.

There shouldn't be a limit of 6 points on the large bases. Large facilities should have a totals as high as 12-15 total points (4/4 + 4/4 + 2/2 + 3/3 + 2/2 locations). If the attackers can capture the peripheral points, the defenders should be forced to stack people on the interior points in order to keep the bar from moving.

PS1 had some amazing base fights. So what happened with PS2? Bases have so many points of entry and holes in their defenses that defending isn't fun because it's too hard and attacking isn't fun because it's too easy.

God that makes me angry and exasperated all at once. LOOK at it. Multiple courtyards like spokes on a wheel, each with their own anti-Lib-spam force shields -- undoubtedly with their own generators, each of which needs to be fought over and taken down. Each courtyard represents a separate challenge to the attacker; a different bulwark for the defender. Siegework. Teamwork. Multiple checkpoints instead of *none.* AND IT STILL EXISTS SOMEWHERE. But they won't show it to us.

Instead we get fed crumbs. Tunnels from spawn outhouses going we know not where, when they could simply be placed INSIDE THE FRIGGING BASE to begin with. God d*mn. Hey. Higby. Put THIS on the Six Month Plan thread and see how many people vote for it. I double dog dare you.

those bases need to come back please