Join the Discussion on Reddit! A Dome Shield Crusade

LA dropping C4 is a nerf to the sunderer. You know it's really easy to be camped as infantry when you have only 1 spawn point every square kilometer.

So that LA dropping C4 to "combat those evil camping tanks and maxes", is actually making camping infantry worse.

all I see is a stop gap for people who can't work as a team. libs need to be toned down not taken out of the game.
I see so many issues with this can aa and lockon rockets be fired from within the shield with no fear of death so now we have a no skill immortal bunker that spans whole bases neat! wait no the other phrase sad and pathetic there we go. why these guys continue to listen the crowd killing the game ill never know. planetside 2 is a combined arms game if libs are broken as **** lets fix them not deny them a point in the game less combat = boring as ******* arena shooter.

I don't understand how LAs dropping C4 makes infantry camping worse. That's like saying that Skyguards make the Lib problem worse.

Only if the defenders had a meaningful, protected, way to get up there. Elsewise all it would take was one pilot who got bored around the edges or wasn't brave enough to just fly under and in to just land, arm it, and farm all the defenders trying to disarm it.

I personally don't like them however, and feel they aren't the right solution (beyond just look garish).

As much as I hate being killed by air and vehicles off in the distance, the game is at a good point here in that it aligns well with the reality of combat. Vehicles are amazing force multipliers and can turn the tide of an engagement, but they can not by themselves take or hold territory.

I feel a better solution would be a more robust implementation of the tunnel systems we see at amps/techs and the teleporter alternative exit. As it stands now the problem with the major facility tunnels are that they launch you blindly into any waiting guns, and with their locations obviously known, are most often camped. While this does "spread out" the campers to a degree, the campers always seem to have thrice the numbers they need for the job to begin with. Two men can lock down a door as good as twenty the way spawns are now, yet you often have 20 watching.

And this brings up another good point; when a base capture gets to this point it is boring for both sides. The people trying to get out aren't having fun and the people gunning down hapless runners aren't either. The best base battles are the ones where the point flips back and forth more than once before ultimately being determined.

We can make this situation at every base by making the attackers have to focus on the points, rather than the spawn. We do this by making it "easy" to get out of spawn and to meaningful locations.

The first step is to make the points capture areas defensible from 360 degrees. This means the defenders have a chance of defending it, and if the attackers take it, the attackers stand a good chance of holding it against counter attacks. Many bases easily accomplish this by simply putting the point in a building; instantly providing cover, choke points, and naturally limited the avenues of attack. A greatly underapreciated base does this well, also, on Indar. I can't recall the name, but it is the north point satellite on the right most biolab.

The next step is to make routes out of spawn that are self supporting. Take the tunnels under techs and amps. If you made a little staircase into the wall to a pillbox near the exit of the tunnel, that could not be taken by attackers, and gave that pillbox the exact firing arc needed to cover the tunnel exit to the first piece of cover - you've now given defenders breathing space.

Lets use a Tech plant as an example. You take the longest tunnel to the far end of the base, where the vehicle pads are. The pillbox here would be behind the tunnel exit and likely close to the floor. From here it should be able to fire on the catwalk above (where the vehicle terminal is), and to the first vehicle spawn platform, with about 30 degrees visibility to any side of these landmarks. Defenders here would be able to clear the high and anyone off the vehicle pads. Those coming out of the tunnel exit would then be able to either head straight and cover behind the vehicle pad, or head towards the point where there are already several computers for cover.

This allows defenders to get into the tech plant proper in a quick and meaningful way, and gives them defensible muster room to try and actually push out. However it doesn't give them the most defensible territory, which at this point would be held by the attackers. This of course being the top of the stairs and grav lifts to the point platform.

Applying this logic to teleporter exits (ESPECIALLY in Biolabs) and tunnels across the board, and making atleast one of these available at every base, (I feel) would make the battles much more balanced and engaging. Broken Arch Road is a great example of this logic in actual practice using just terrain, geometry, and a bridge.

At Broken Arch Road the defenders are naturally protected from direct air assault by the rocks above, and have a bridge that is meaningfully shielded (but not perfectly shielded) from north or south armor bombardment. This bridge is in line with one of the spawn room doors and has little to no cover. This means that advancing soldiers are covered from attackers on the far end by those in the spawn still; making a kill area that attackers usually avoid.

From here there is relatively neutral ground to the point, with usable cover for firefights heading in either direction. Then the point itself is inside a building with only two means of entry, that is angled in such a way that vehicles can not reliably fire into them without entering the "suicide" zone between the two bridges of the base.

Getting camped in a Biolab has nothing to do with dome shields or aircraft; their problem is something completely separate (ie: terrible base design and easy-to-camp entrances - exacerbated by MAX suits).

Aircraft cause problems at just about every other base, hence the dome shield discussion.

Step 1) LA dropping C4 is too easy to destroy sunderers
Step 2) No more infantry spawn point
Step 3) only infantry spawn point left is at the camped base.

TADAAA. Like the Orbital Strike in PS1, C4 fairies is a nerf to the only reliable infantry spawn point that ISNT CAMPED all the time.

Terrible base design huh?

The defenders have 1 tiny spawn room
The attackers have 3 teleport rooms, and 2 pads

Why is it the attackers are the ones always camped if they have a 5:1 advantage in entrances?

I guess they don't want to **** where they eat.

the problem is the team hiding in the spawn room lacks the team work or ability to think of a way out they give up and say "LOL NO SKILL AIRCRAFT AND TANKS" or something along those lines while they could respawning at the next base in the line forming a defense or counter attack. the funny thing is this won't change anything cause the people camping will just be troops camping you with unkillable ams protected by a spawn shield so you have no air support. what you guys want is an arena shooter with no tanks or aircraft they have that it's a game i would never play it but seems right up your ally its called call of duty you should look into it. takes no team work and you can just kill people all day with no tanks or aircraft to bother you.

Wish it looked more aesthetically pleasing with each of the shield "corners" coming from each tower, rather than just splatting a tomato on on top of the station.

crap idea should look like crap =3

2 C4 doesn't kill a sunderer unless it has taken at least ~20% damage before being C4ed.
Yep, that is kinda the point of a counter-offensive
I don't think we are on the same page here. We are discussing the C4 fairy, not base camping (which is a more important, but irrelevant topic to the C4 fairy).

Yeah it's so hard to do, most of the Sunderers I see get destroyed by C4 fairies.

I like the idea of base shields but how they're implemented now is just ugly as hell during the day and absolutely blinding at night.

Yep, that is how a lot of sunderers die. Or used to before Libs just started killing everything :|

PS2 base design is funny.

First in Beta they start out with a simple spawn room you can shoot out of.
Then they block off some of the windows.
Then they put in teleport rooms and add more spawn rooms.
Then they put walls up to block line of sight of those inside the spawn room.
.
.
.
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meanwhile my framerate is going through the floor with the extra polygons, you see where this is going


You can't fix spawn camping by redesigning bases, but what you can do is give the underpopped side the tools to deal with underpopped situations: PS1 AMS, PS1 mines, PS1 spitfires, PS1 motion detectors.

Just a question, what bases would these be placed at? Also, why does an amp station need a dome shield? It has like, 10 or more AA turrets.

I am against them. They are just ugly as hell.

I am totally against dome shields. And I'm not a pilot and basically never fly.

The last thing we want is yet another artificial restriction on the sand-box elements and freedom of the game. Hopefully these shields will never ever be put in game, but if they are they have to have an associated generator which can be blown up.

I think it is lazy map design.
A bit akin to "Oh, people are complaining about vehicles shooting the spawn room! Lets remove all vehicles from bases!"
A better move would've been to move spawn rooms to an underground area with tunnels. Same effect but gives different battlefield layers.

If there was a shield generator coupled to it that could be primed without a latice link then I could sort-a agree, because that would leave the door open for some sneaky back stabbing tactics. And behind the line logistics. But what do I know about base design?