Ikanam Biolab

You've not adressed the size of the biolab, nor is there a significant increase in the amount of entrances that can be used.

Teleporters can be camped by engineer turrets, effectively killing players mid load screen.

Liberators can and will take out the AMS sunderers at the jump pad locations, and random defenders will not defend them due to how far off they are compared with the base, and how forces are directed towards the center of the complex.

Not to mention if the sunderer is under attack you can't jump back to defend it either, and with no garages they will be exposed to AP prowlers and the like shooting at them from great range.

Large scale fights will play out better for the defender. They have less to worry about and more imminent advantages such as -

Not only once a satellite is camped can't players use the teleporters to get imminent access into the biolab, thereby giving defenders time to prepare.

Jump pads are some bit away from the base so large populations will have to move before large assault can begin.

Lattice limitations still limit the angles of attack rather than base design enhancing the angles.

In short.

These changes make biolabs more confusing to a new player starting out, and makes a mess of things without improving biolabs as a whole.

I would suggest, no implore you to go back to the drawing board.

You know, you COULD just make it so people can get in through the top via small, fat,(danny-devito-like) down-lift, it eliminates choke point, and the only way to get up there is via light assault/air drop. the down-lift will pull people around the outside towards the middle slowly (not getting sucked into the top like a disorientating vaccum), so it'll be harder to camp the top efficiently. and it gives drifters for light assaults WAY more usefulness.

Just hollow out the top part, so it still nullifies pac-manning (air units killing infantry) inside.

But I understand the problems of way more flanking for the attackers so i mean...

Eh, bigger Air Pads aren't really needed since the new Jump Pads allow you to choose which side of the Air Pad you go to, so it's much harder to camp since you need to cover BOTH sides.

Well the No Deploy Zone isn't as big of an issue as the Teleporters themselves; Being un-shielded allows the exits to be easily camped, while the Entrances at the bottom aren't very far away from the Defenders Spawn Teleporter.

Eh, the Biolab is already pretty decently SIZED, it just doesn't make use of any of it's vertical volume...
I do agree on the number of Entrances though, which is why I feel reworking the Leg Geometry to include an enclosed ramp up into the dome would be the best change.

Yep, which is the biggest problem...
The Teleporters not having Shields is suppose to allow both sides to use them, but since Teleporters work like Re-spawning you're just going to be fodder for camping.
This is why I'd try to do away with these Teleporters period, they were nothing more than a short cut used to get around the Biolabs terribly unplayable design.

To be fair, the Enemy is going to try to do this regardless...

Yeah, complaining about Enemies trying to destroy your Sunderers is like complaining about being killed in this game....
I do agree with you on the Return Jump Pads though, and building up the area around the Jump Pads on the ground wouldn't be too hard to do later.

Honestly this isn't much of an issue...
Most of these changes were so that your Vector of Attack wasn't mostly determined by which Satellite you captured, which was a BIG issue because with only a single Satellite, you could only come at them from one set of Jump Pads and one Teleporter.
While these changes still leave it inconvenient to Attack from another set of Jump Pads, you aren't having to go and park a Sunderer in another Enemy Base to use them, so it's an improvement in that regard as the Defenders will have to Monitor a much wider area than before.

Agreed, but mostly because something needs to be done with those HUGE FRACKING LEGS that otherwise serve no purpose in Gameplay.

More Jump Pads and better cover around those Jump Pads would be nice, but are Secondary in comparison to the Biolabs fatal flaw, only TWO real Entrances that still require in game assistance to reach!

I wouldn't mind this, but it's not much of a solution for the issue...
Mostly because a lot of Bases already play into Light Assault's Vertical Mobility already, and the Interior of the Dome is know to be a Jump Monkey playground as is.

What we really need is a means of WALKING up into the Dome, which I've always been surprised wasn't the purpose of the Biolab Legs to begin with.

more big biolabs soe more choke points now its got 3

PUT 5 choke points but give atackers more izy to cap points something 2 choke points, and defenders got 3

Firstly I think the area has to increase in size simply because of what needs to be crammed in there (along with players) there comes a point where it just has to happen - if design decides to do these fabled walkways and/or tiers then in order for them to not be corridor shooter choke points in themselves (i.e reasonably wide and spacious) then the overall footprint has to change. PS1 style corridors were not fun and I doubt they would play any different if designed in a similar manner; so players would just be annoyed with a different aspect of the choke.

I know you say it's secondary but more jump pads are bad - jump pads make for boring and lazy designs (look at The Ascent on Amerish - a whole cliff face to climb up that could have a rolling foothold of lines and you spend half of it bouncing around like some Quake 3 Arena / UT99 map fighting yet again at awful choke point platforms) sure they're a quick fix but on the flip side it just says to me that design couldn't be bothered with anything more compelling.
They also negate the entire point of any layered defense perimeter - why bother attacking the court yard if you can just bypass it all from the relative safety of a satellite? So no I don't think jump pads should be used in any reference design.

Biolabs do have a chance to be pretty cool and could even be unique to each other for abit of variety - someone in design just has to make the effort and not pull out the first aid kit when what it needs is the sternal saw.

Somehow this made it from Test server onto Live... and now the Live one is FUBAR. Jumppads goin nowhere, missing teleporters... wtf

Definitely FUBAR. Teleporter in the spawn room leads to what would be one of the all access teleporter rooms at ground level instead of the vehicle closet (yeah, not big enough to even be a called a room). Just to make things worse, there is a huge shelf placed inside the teleporter at the base so it pushes you out (facing the outer door, and in my case a firing squad) and you can't go back up that way.

Ho wow, imposing this from test to live without any word on this, and considering just everybody is proving how bad this is ...
This is completely wrong, ignoring players. Terribad move here.

I like the invisible Jump Pads

Indeed, I for one am pushing for the Biolab Legs to be redesigned to be used as corridor-ed staircases that lead up into a sub-basement beneath the Current Dome.
Then we can simply have Grav Lifts, or even regular stairs leading up to the where the current Teleporter Rooms are.

Should move/add capture point to bottom or a building Who ever controls that point controls the shielded tellaport rooms, put tellaporters close together and this will also move the fights outside if the dome (didn't read whole thread if this has been said in one form or another sorry)

That's a terrible idea...
Problem is, this doesn't do anything to alleviate camping.
Hell, this is exactly what the Satellite Bases STARTED as.

this is one of those rare threads where there's 90% agreement over what sucks, let's recap now since it's live and more people will see this original test thread. These points are covered in the review video on the first page please watch.

• unshielded teleport rooms are more camp-able than the old. at least the old gave you a staging room for pushing out.
• 1 way jump pads mean you can't check the safety of the air pad before committing to the battle, nor can you jump back to rescue your Sundy at the source jump. it's a suicide jump.
• tiny one way vehicle bay with new opaque shields means they get camped by mines and zergs.
• satellites have no way to be attacked from the biolab defenders. this was a valid strategy, cut off the teleporter in a satellite = 1/3 win.
• all these changes have reduced options and moved the chokepoints and hasn't alleviated anything, so far on live it has made it super easy to defend as every entrance is more campable.

I'm glad it's being worked on, changes are cool, I'm just shocked it's on live in such a bad state. Personally the last round of biolab changes were a huge improvement, like more line of sight barriers to the teleporter rooms means there's always two ways to break a stalemate on an air pad camp - it's my favorite thing, see defenders looking out camping the pad, go through the teleporter and mow them down from behind and vice versa. have complete stalemate at both pad and teleporter, then you need to attack from another satellite OR your team just doesn't have the pop to take a biolab and it becomes a satellite fight. my point is CURRENT BIOLABS ARE GREAT and no more flawed than any other large base. there is always a way around the choke points and if you're not seeing them, you need to study and learn your PS2 tactics (which is part of the fun of learning PS2).

there are also some good suggestions in this discussion so far:

• make the legs do stuff, put the teleporters on the legs (duh! why didn't they think of this sooner?) or, put stairways in legs with joint platforms.
• keep the teleporter shields, but make them faction controlled like light-bridges on the attack side (teleporter is still all faction so you can get out when it's flipped) or even simpler, Gen controlled somewhere very close to the teleporter room so that you have to push out to keep your shields up - I guess that would work for the light-bridge style too but Gens have timers that everybody understands.
• a more vertical / bigger biolab. could easily be done with adding structure underneath replacing the legs, Subterrainian Nanite style.

Eh, I'm all for REMOVING the Teleporters from Biolabs entirely...
They are a tool that enables LAZY Base Design, and this is especially evident in Biolabs.

Honestly if they HAVE to stick with Teleporter Rooms, I wouldn't mind Faction Control Terminals...
I've had similar thoughts when it came to "Shield Doors" on Bases after all.

That's the thing that's ALWAYS baffled me about Biolab Legs, why AREN'T they a Structure we can fight IN on our way up to the Dome?

these strike me as changes that would actually make the biolab fight a little more spread out and dynamic. How so? well the battle now extends to all the satellite bases, and with the neutral teleporters effectively once you have connection to one satellite, and have control of the point you can pretty much move in to the dome already.

Defenders can camp the attacker's entrances but now attackers are not limited by which satellite base they control.

Still, the flow of battle will still be: shield-gen, SCU, point cap. (unless you want to take the dome by pure force of will and hold the points forever) So I agree with everyone that this will only make things harder since the battle is the same, only with less cover/safety for attackers. The additional choices gained will be alot less effective since in the end everyone knows to defend the shield gen or SCU regardless of attackers point of entry. Now the pubbies used to camping in the teleport room will have to run around like headless chickens I suppose.







I think they should have three shielded entrances to the SCU, which are triggered by a corresponding shield gen on each satellite base.. and then keep the shield gen in the dome that will knock all three out.
that way defenders are actually forced to push into the satellite bases and fend attackers off and not just bunker down in the dome.

Why not open up a spot on top of the bio lab as an alternate attack route? Would require air transport to get three, but you'd have the advantage of getting past the meat grinder pad for your work.

There's nothing wrong with this idea other than it gives Light Assaults even more mobility in an environment that already favors them...
Hence why I've been pushing for the LEGS to be remade into a ground level Access that leads up into the bottom of the Dome; It allows other Classes to push up on Foot.

The teleporters should work like the Light-Bridges (hack a Console from the enemy and it's yours) or like the teleporter at Vanu-Archives (cap the point and you can used)

Why are you trying to destroy the Bio Labs? They're fine as is. nobody complains about it. Well, except those tools who sit in their ESFs and MBTs all day farming infantry kills.