[Suggestion] What if Biolabs had additional entrances?

The Issue:
Biolabs are population sinks. Many times they are contested for hours at a time until they eventually fall, usually involving a disproportional overpop. The reason IMO is mostly that the entrances (Platforms and Teleport rooms) are usually heavily camped, much to the benefit of defenders and the more so if there is a prevailing lack of organization.

Suggestion:
Biolabs could have additional entrances.
1) Via the vehicle terminal teleporter
2) Via the roof

Elaboration:
1) Vehicle area teleporter.
Assume the actual teleporter were to be neutral and thus could be used by any faction. This would allow to enter the Biolab from the ground. The only obstacle here would be to turn the teleporter neutral and move the upper entrance out of the spawn room and e.g. into the small adjacent building just outside.
Attackers would have the obstacle of having to pass the vehicle shields (e.g. using gate shield defuser, or wait for taking out the upper generator) as well as the longer path from outside the no-deploy zone. Importantly however, this may provide a means of entering the Biolab apart from the camped entrances and enable flanking of the camping forces inside. Defenders could likewise defend the vehicle area downstairs and the upper exit (e.g. with mines). Furthermore, it would then actually make sense to deploy a friendly sundy below the biolab.

2) The roof.
Imagine the Biolab had a shielded exit at the peak of its roof. This shield would be powered by two generators, each located halfway on the upper outer rim on the outside of the biolab (i.e. halfway between two platforms). Similar to a tech plant, both generators would need to be taken out for the shield to fall.
The small (shielded) opening would be located in a way that grants access to the upper dome of the Biolab. Defending Light Assaults could use the opening to exit the biolab from the top and thus defend the landing pads and the generators. Attackers could, in turn, take out the generators and then drop troops on the roof and use this entry point to relieve pressure from the other entrances.
From a defenders perspective the generators could also be defended by air and vehicle support. Repair gals could even hover over to repair them and keep the roof clear. Likewise, attackers would have to deal with LA on the roof, but also have more options to breach the Biolab, provided they control the roof.

Overall, either or both of these suggestions would make Biolab fights more dynamic and overall less campy. Its also a way of involving air and armor support in the siege.

This is just a thought, however. If implemented, I wonder whether it would improve the gameplay or rather entail obstacles. If, so what are those and how could this work out?

I'm aware this may be controversial with some, but keep an open mind. I welcome a mature discussion whether this would add to the gameplay, or not. If so, reason the underlying argument.

Changing up the vehicle teleporter could be interesting.

There was once upon a time an entrance on the top of the dome (iirc), it caused... problems.

I thought part of the fun in this game was the fact that it is difficult to get into the BioLab....

The whole fun is that biolab fights take hours on hours.. unlike some small little flag capture call of doodoo...

Let's not make everything too easy.

The number of entrances is the one thing that makes biolabs defendable. You have the pads and the less popular teleport rooms (due to the fact that they are often camped like a spawn room (but no vehicles). Once the attackers get inside the overall base layout doesn't really give the defenders any terrian advantage.

If they give it more entrances I would like them to also add a catwalk along the inside dome wall that is only accessable to the defenders (enemy LAs can still get to it) as well as the back spawnroom door going to the outside ring of the biolab. It wouldn't be relying on choke points but the defenders would still have a clear advantage.

Something definitely should change about biolabs. The most terrible base to attack.

I don't know the answer, but World War 1 human wave frontal attacks being the only way to break into a Bio Lab put me right off trying to attack them. What about something like the location of some capture points on towers - some being outside so you can't just sit inside spamming fire at attackers on the landing pad all day but have to come out to play occasionally?
Or maybe two layered defence - one outer ring (as above) and one inner ring that defenders can retreat to if they can't hold the whole outer perimeter?

simple change ? put one or two cap points in small buildings outside of the lab and stalemates are nearly not existent anymore

iirc they were like this? Not 100% sure tbh. Then they made them in to separate bases. I can't remember why/when this was done: maybe around the same time as when they changed the cap system from people-on-point holds to simple point flip. Pretty dull holding the outthouses, mind.

A grav lift (or more than one) under the central base would be interesting (where the current veh bay is), though I can't think of a good place for it to emerge other than close to the SCU. That would be manic.

Biolabs can be conquered by normal attacks. Infiltrators,light assaults and MAXes can do incredible work if the enemy dont pay attention,so take advantage fo those 3 classes to conquer that biolab. I say in my own experience in bioloabs,including last day.

Last day,TR try 4 times in several waves to conquer the biolab that im in. My NC teammates have to control that waves with high losses and the biolab was half loss. Finally dont know to who biolab stay,but 4 waves of those difficult control problems was versus (in overall) infiltrators,MAXes and light assaults. I disconnected because i play in that biolab more than 2 hours.

Can't we build ways of getting into the Biolab that don't involve wisking oneself over laid defenses but also doesn't compromise movement / fire control or dump people into exposed fire lanes because that's the only option?

So, in other words, it becomes just another boring Tech plant or Amp station fight.

Biolabs are pretty much impossible to take without a 2:1 advantange. If the defends are even popped, good luck. There is nothing short of a really coordinated MAX crash which could break a biolab. It's best to attack other bases while the majority of the enemy sits at the biolab. Eventually, they will be forced to go elsewhere.

However, with the change made to how lattice and spawn works, you could, theoretically, cut the lattice link of a biolab which would prevent the enemy from being able to spawn there anymore.

they simple park a sundy in the vehicle bay to avoid this

I appreciate the comments so far.

One way to interpret the issue is that defending Biolabs does not require too much coordination, whereas taking it against opposition actually does. The time or population advantage it takes to capture Biolabs usually reflects this lack of coordination.
Defenders have several entrances to guard, but if attackers were to choose one point of entry they could overrun the defenders locally, since they can only effectively cover so many entrances at once.

I don't think that adding points outside the dome will actually improve the gameplay, mostly because it should still be a challenge to cap larger bases. The thought here is just to allow for more options.

Hold on, isn't there a Biolab on Amerish that works like this now?

Rather than having faction-owned teleport rooms inside the outer bases you have neutral teleport rooms with teleporters at the base of the Biolab. Anyone can use them... and no-one does. When I fought there, there were only a handful of defenders and attackers at the teleport rooms. Often someone places a mine near the teleport, but nothing some flak armor (and them going off while you are still teleporting there) can't fix.

Also, I found out that you can see which teleporters are defended by looking at the pads contested. The defenders will defend the teleporters close to the pad as they can easily check in on them, but not on the teleporters farther away from the pads. Figure out which teleporter goes where, then infiltrate from the back. Works like a charm....
Which shows that players distrust new entrances through teleporters due to the insta-kill of mines placed in front of the teleporter, and that defenders and attackers alike rather be lazy and look for heavily contested places for kills instead of being innovative and taking a bit of risk here and there.

Biolabs are fine. We have enough bases with a dozen entrances, or no cover at all. That's the whole point of different bases: giving different flavors in how to fight. Biolabs are the chokepoint bases, but you need a minimum amount of players to actually pull it off. You might ask for a change to one or two biolabs so you have infantry-only battles with more entrances somewhere, but not all Biolabs should be like that.

dome shield generators
There is a thread on this

To wrap this up I summarize that the support was less in favor of a roof entrance, but more in support of the vehicle bay teleport being usable both ways.

Through the roof?

Why does a scene like this come into my mind?

Yep. I'd like to remember Biolab changes went actually on pts but not for every single biolab but they never managed to be pushed live probably because they had low priority in devs to do list.

I don't find the never ending meat grinder fun. Most of the time I try and avoid the Biofarms.