Upvote if you're with me on this. Giant flying bullet sponges that don't even fit on airpads now can be spawned at all large outposts??? Now you get even LESS warning that a galaxy is coming and even LESS time to attempt to stop it before it can ram your infantry / vehicle group, or liberator. I find no good reason for this change other than the "MOAR THINGS quickly and conveniently" argument. Same goes for lightnings but this is more forgivable. A more balanced approach, IMO, would be to allow all large outposts to spawn lightnings, and leave the galaxies for the major bases and warpgates. Who is with me??
It has bigger repercussions than this. During alerts, any decent outfit would at least have an infiltrator idling at warpgate to call for enemy gal drops; because it's the only way to really prepare for it. So unless Galaxies have either infinite render distance or blip on the radar, there's no way you'll be able to prepare for a Gal drop from Scarred Mesa to Zurvan. Not mentionning that I used to ask my Squad for a Galaxy extraction after capturing an outpost, so someone had to go to the warpgate and fly the thing, which could be intercepted by enemy fighters, so I had to find another guy to gun for it, and ask a Scythe for excort. Now you just have someone run to the terminal and everybody press [Delete] and redeploy inside. Organization is skill, and this effectively reduces the skill ceiling.
Hyperbole much? All it means is that you can't expect all gals to come from the warpgate, since nobody ever pulled from tech plants anyways. This is a good thing, it means an increased skill ceiling in being prepared for these things. I mean they even give you the tools to deal with it in this patch as well (lightning). Infiltrator at WG, hahaha what, how about you just have everyone in a position they can be useful in (able to shoot the dudes as they drop). Looking to the future, this makes it sound more like prep for resource revamp where spawning great distances might actually cost resources and you'll be expected to be driving/getting pickup to actually get around logistically.
1 guy out of 48 that allows you to call Gal drops in advance, because there's no other way. You don't know how many players are in a gal by spotting it, and the render distance is limited which makes it pretty much useless to try and predict exactly when a Gal is coming at its drop location. It's not like predicting a tank column which can only use roads and are much slower than aircraft. If you could only spawn Aircraft at Warpgate that'd be a better thing overall, making scouting and AA nests more efficient but hey. That'd make sense, but don't get your hopes too high.
I dont like it at all, and think it cuts a bit of immersion. People enjoy the 'suiting up at base' prior to an assault feeling.
I am not a fan of any "making vehicles more numberous" shtick the devs do. This is detrimental to vehicles also as with how more spammable something gets, the higher the chance is that it's getting a nerf in some aspect. Yay, you can pull a lightning at every base! Aaaand then they nerf it into being a single person pre-nerf harasser. Yay for you. Just calling it now. Simply because lightnings are available at a base doesn't mean anyone will pull a skyguard. Also, on the topic of the resource change. Hacked terminals should have a limited list of available vehicles. Infantry terminals not allowing for MAXes and hacked Air terminals not allowing for Galaxies (unless it's the galaxy specific terminal). Same for ground, you don't get access to a lightning on a hacked terminal in an enemy base. Without this change, or any other limiting. The enemy can drain a base dry (especially if they overpop you) before you can set up any kind of a defense.
I like it. If it were totally up to me, I'd make all aircraft available only at warpgate and tech plants, and turn all other places where aircraft are spawned into rearm-spots only. Aircraft have enough mobility that they can go anywhere. However, in light of the fact that ESFs and Liberators can be spawned in so many places, it makes sense the Galaxy gets to play the same game. Otherwise it's just not fair on the poor Galaxy pilot. Tech-plant aircraft spawns in general have a big problem: the time it takes to get from the spawn room to the air terminals is just nuts. It is quite possibly faster on any given map to go to WG and then fly to the tech plant than it is to spawn at the tech plant, make your way to the air terminal and finally spawn an aircraft. Less danger of being ambushed by that random infiltrator when you finally get to the ternimal, too.
Dislike. SOE are gradually removing the few, extremely limited, logistical requirements the game ever had (by adding squad spawning in Sundies/Gals and spawning Gals in more places). They should be going completely the opposite direction to give us more strategy - not only undoing those changes but also limiting redeploys to something individuals do, while squads and platoons prefer transport. People want more metagame, more objectives that can affect the outcome of a battle. The resource revamp should, eventually, do exactly that. Encouraging escort and ambush gameplay as resources are transported between a limited number of locations. Why is that seen as desirable gameplay but transporting the actual soldiers isn't? It feels like this game is having an identity crisis, going in one direction with resources and the opposite with logistics. Haha, that's true about the Tech plant terminals. I don't think the middle-ground is quite so non-nonsensical. As everyone knows, vehicles may have a drastic affect on a battle but at some point you need someone to get out and grab the point. Galaxies are the more important to limit because their role focuses on transporting troops into the fight and dropping them in a good position or right on the objective. This means they tend to fly in a predictable line, and they're slower and easier to ambush. That said, making all aircraft only available at the WG is an interesting idea. In fact maybe, without realizing, I settled for the middle-ground even though I don't think it is best for the game. Certainly, WG blockades would have more meaning. Conversely, people would care more about protecting their WG and, whether they do or not, if every aircraft pulled came from your WG it would do that little bit more to make that the most protected part of your airspace. It would at the heart of aircraft movements, not just one of many places to grab aircraft that happens to have a shield. The immersion of loading up quickly, travel time, relying on teammates for protection... There are reasons logistical requirements would make for fun, varied gameplay. But they get buried by people that get bored if they spend 30 seconds without shooting someone.
Galaxies really aren't very powerful overall. While not as bad off as in PS1, I would much rather face 4 players in a Battle Gal (who will make a reasonably good impact on the battle if they're competent) than 4 players in two Libs (who will be big threats if they're competent.) Ramming gals are even less impactful. As a player who refuses to spawn as fodder (infantry) for outdoor battles, I'm going to spawn at the nearest base with access to heavy combat vehicles (tanks/air) most of the time, and there aren't really strong reasons that this shouldn't be almost every single base. Which means that this change didn't actually go far enough, but is at least a step in the right direction.
Change is inevitable within any complex and large scale game such as this. Whether it's a good thing or bad would depend on how it impacts the flow of the game. In my opinion it would add more complexity and strategy to a game many have been complaining it lacks. Multiple scenarios must now be accounted for and situational awareness must be at an elevated level to account for the new threat(s). It could bloom an entirely new breed of Drop Shock Troopers(for my Halo buds) ready at a moments notice to spawn in an jump into the heart of a battle. I personally look forward to the new challenge. I'll give it a go and see if I like it before rendering a final verdict. Troubleshoot it, examine it, then judge. We're gamers. It's what we do.
