Matt Higby's ReachCast Community Question #87 - What Base Benefits do you want to see in PS2?

Last week Matt Higby was our special guest on ReachCast and he wanted to know ...

“What Base Benefits do you want to see in PS2?”

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As always, respond here or e-mail us at ReachCastShow@gmail.com or call us at (415)787-3224!

With the games current state i don't feel that there is a fair way of adding substantial base benefits without adding further frustration due to the ease of capping bases w/ an overpop faction which will ultimately just further improve the quality of life for said faction. Something like upcoming features/mechanics like the resource overhaul can play a part in making bases actually mean something. Or a way to provide underpopped factions with an equalizer which doesn't directly give the players an innate advantage.

More terminals spread throughout base's
More bases offering MBT spawns.(Since Libs are more powerful and can get to any hex in less then 30 seconds I don't see why it would be unbalanced to have every base spawn MBT's)
Generators that provide dome shields over the edges of base spawn room's so only infantry and MBT's at ground level can shoot infantry leaving the spawn room. (not libs hovering above)
Add steel doors to buildings
Add explosive barrels that respawn to bases.

A random thought I had for the Interlink Facility was that it would be required to capture warpgates.

Amp Stations should slow down implant energy consumption, not by much, but enough that it makes a difference over time, perhaps 10%. Slower overheating for turrets is not particularly useful, as far as I can tell at least.

More teleporter's between bases with Signs saying where that teleporter transports you.
Bases that offer discounts on certain items and Vehicles when using terminals there.
EMP Turret guns.
Paved roads between base's.
Different colour schemes in bases with more room designs for buildings. (such as tall towers cwith only one set of siral stairs to the top and no other way in.

Planetside 1 style Vehicle Shields. Within a base, vehicles slowly gain 25% of their health as a shield. It stays once they leave the base, but can't be recovered except for by returning to base.

Free flashes from small outposts :O

DJPenguin makes a good point.

Just small random stacking bonuses. +5% top speed on all vehicles or something.

let outfits claim outposts. give the outfits like a 5% xp boost for fighting there. Let them put up their own little flag or something. Sell cosmetics for it. Makes people care about fighting over outposts. bam.

I'd like to see all small & large outposts removed from the game. Leave only facilities. That would be a huge benefit.

Obligatory statements aside, I don't really think base benefits matter at all, and I'm not even sure they should matter. The tech plant bonus is the only important one. However, here's a few ideas for giving implant-related benefits.

Amp Station: Charges up implant energy while not using implants, otherwise mitigates energy drain.
Biolab: Allows use of implants. Might be a little overboard, but, best idea I could come up with. I figure biolabs should be more relevant to implants.
Tech Plant: Increases implant & charger drop rate.

Some more general ideas:

Amp Station: Decreases overall vehicle costs by 15-20%.
Biolab: Decreases tool cooldowns. Stuff like spawn beacon placement and deployment,
Tech Plant: Provides more reserve ammunition for all weapons, including rockets and underbarrel weapons. Or better yet, decreases vehicle cooldowns to 5 minutes.

Though, going back to my starting sentence, it would be pretty nice if each non-facility in the game had small individual global benefits. Like for example, controlling Ceres Hydroponics gives you five percent faster cooldown for heat-based weapons, controlling nanite analysis gives you ten percent faster healing and repairing, that sort of thing. A unique benefit for each base. It would get pretty hard to keep making those though, given how many of them there are. There's an easy solution to that though. You know what I'm getting at. Do it.

What "benefit" is there to spawn into a spawn camped base?

How about some PS1 AMS, PS1 mines, PS1 spitfires, PS1 motion detectors.

Higby makes a lot of good points in this video and it actually makes me feel better because he seems to actually understand a majority of the issues with the game.

I think Higby needs to have more communication with the community such as in this video where he just takes a ton of good questions and answers them.

Before this interview Higby no offense seemed a bit detached and unsure of where the game should go. Having listened to this I feel much better with Higby now

Most of the bases could be easily fixed by just adding a teleport room in the oposite side of the base. Bases should be much harder to capture, much easier to defend. Teleport rooms prevent spawn camping. CoraMed labs is perfect example.
Also towers need teleport rooms to outside the tower, might be more than just one.

^^ This
Bases should be MUCH easier to defend, and SOE's come a long way toward making that happen. Look at some of the new bases on Amerish, beautiful. However I feel like there is some strange double standard at play, as for every awesome and defendable base, we have another base that is absolutely UN-defendable when there are any more that 1-12 people attacking it.

I feel part of the problem stems from the fact that many players have an aversion to long dynamic fights over a single base. If they can't cap it in a few minutes they leave to go somewhere else less defended or come to the forums to get the base nerfed. (I salute you Crown of old).

I personally enjoy defense MUCH more than attack, but there are very few well designed bases in the game that truly shine when dedicated defenders are allowed free reign over the actual base itself. All to often with most of the bases in the game we have most if not ALL of the points far away from the defender's spawn and difficult to access for the defenders. More often than not it's easier for the attackers to get to a point (or two or three) and set up a sunderer right next to it.

Bases have come a long way, but they still need some work.
-Q

Tech Plants: Reduces vehicle acquisition timers by 2%

Bio Labs: Increases healing rate(Medic gun) by 1% in defensive zones.

Amp Station: Phalanx turrets do 1% more damage in friendly zones. Increases friendly vehicle/infantry gate shield overload timer by 5s. (The generators you overload at techplants/ampstations to get inside) A 2:00 cap would become 2:05(ish)

i'd more base immersion. currently all bases and their rooms look bland. just add more stuff like furniture, office items, cover, machinery -- things that make it look like people worked and lived there before the war broke out

I'd like to see all bases have a meaningful benefit.

This is another place i feel like PS1 did better, each base has a tangible bonus that effects an empires power and gameplay.

(PS1 Benefits)
Tech Plant: Allowed the empire access to Advanced Vehicles (MBTs, Phantasm, Reaver, Assault Buggies ect ect)

Bio Lab: Reduced spawn timers at major facilities. (In PS1 average spawn time was 5 seconds. But if you died alot and frequently your timer increased by 5 seconds stacking up to 30 i believe) Bio Labs could reduce spawns down to 1 second.

AMP Station: Provided Vehicles with shields, the shields slowly charged while you were in the bases SOI and were roughly 25% of the vehicles HP. You had to return to the SOI to recharge shields.

Interlink Facility: Provided advanced Radar for all connected bases, this allowed most players and vehicles to be automatically detected. (Except for the Harasser which was hidden from Interlink Radar and Sensor Shielded players)

Dropship Centers: Provided Repair benefits to all connected bases Re-Arm silos. Just sitting by the Silo while you were getting ammo repaired your vehicles. The Dropship bonus made non-engineer pilots more efficient and was a huge boon to any empire. (There was only ever 1 DC on anycontinent. Making it a highly desired base.) Not to mention ONLY dropship centers could deploy Galaxies, Galaxy Gunships and Loadstars. (aside from sanctuary dropship pads.)


Right now the only base with any worthwhile benefit is the Tech Plant, and even then, you can just pull a MBT from Warpgate and drive it. You donthave to go back to a Sanctuary Continent and make the long trek. And now they also made Gals available anywhere. (which i think is a horrible idea.)

I think AMP stations in PS2 should retain their PS1 bonus, and Bio Labs need a new bonus entirely, spawns are already quite fast in PS2. But what exactly for the BioLab i am not sure.

Interlinks, when the arrive, should also keep their PS1 bonus, but instead make it a Radar Ping (Like a Infil Dart) every 5 to 10 seconds within all connected Friendly Hexs. This wont invalidate the use of Infil Darts/Trackers and can still be countered by Vehicle Stealth and Sensor Shield.