[Suggestion] Prowler vs. ANT Base

How about adding an activateable shield generator with a large radius to the Silo? Like it creates a 400m sphere (maybe with part of the top cut off so that it only protects against ground vehicles) around it that blocks AV fire. That way you can force vehicles to get within a minimum distance before they can open fire on the fortress. Shooting the Sphere would increase the amount of resources it draws per tick, but otherwise it's almost invulnerable.

This means the fortress isn't very restricting to vehicles, there's more than enough space between the fortress's walls and the shield for vehicles to fight in and siege the base, without making the Prowler especially capable of leveling an entire fortress with barely any effort or possibility of retaliation. Of course, you would still need vehicles to counter them if they enter just the edge of the shield, but that's perfect I think.

I don't mean to be rude, but is like nobody who posted here have been in the Test Server. Got in a turret to shoot a tank with gunner: HP didn't go down at all, repair modules work extremy fast.

So I don't think a Lancer squad is going to have enough firepower. A single player with the ANT can collect enough resources to repair the damage done by 12 players. BTW, those 12 players are getting 0 EXP.

Dome shields don't have HP. They simply spend resources. So forget about having the "advantage" of higher ground. Forget getting a phoenix missile inside the base.

And don't forget bases can get 1 way shields in bunkers and walls. Infantry is absolutely free to stand still and shoot back. That's where Lancers get really scary.

TL;DR: unless you build your base in a terribad location, tanks can't just shell from a safe position.

Someone mentioned it takes about 3 Vanguards/Magriders to breach a wall defended by a single repair module.

Prowlers with AP and anchor are notorious for their long-range capability and high DPS that is easily twice that of the other MBT's. What they fear is that 3 anchored Prowler and a single ammo Sunderer could completely wreck any base build by any size player if it's not build with physical environmental shelter. It's incredibly tough to attack anchored Prowlers at more than 250m range, and these fortresses could easily be leveled from 600m distance with barely any coordination required. Compared to the incredible amount of time, skill and coordination required to build a well-designed fortress this is completely at odds with each other. Fortresses will not be useful if they can be defeated with less effort than it is to build one, assuming you designed it well.

The best engagement would be one where vehicles, infantry and aircraft worked simultaneously to breach a fortress, making it just as much an effort to assault (and defend) it as it is to build the fortress.. Personally I would change the aerial shields to have HP and need to recharge after hit, giving aircraft squads a chance to breach the shields. Of course, the whole purpose of the shields is to make sure the lightningfast and impossible to stop aircraft can easily breach a base, drop some infantry and C4 a VP generator or the Silo, so it needs to have more than enough HP to require a lot of firepower (which aircraft incidentally have in abundance anyway).

I genuinely like the way this discussion is giving a foretaste of the real benefit (that I hope for) from introducing construction i.e. the effect it will have on changing tactical thinking and gameplay............ planning move, countermove etc etc happening wherever something is built and not just at fixed points like bases.

And how many times have people asked for destructible buildings? I've seen a few suggestions in these forums

All that said, yes, the Prowler has an advantage attacking bases. And Lancers give a geniune advantage defending. The problems is I don't see NC shining anywhere, Phoenix is too close range, Vanguard doesn't have any useful advantage, only Raven MAX sounds good at medium range.

I think the current game meta for the deploys is weak and adds little to the game that isn't there. In their current meta, they are basically a large configurable vehicle that can't move. They are essentially a galaxy that can't move where the guns and add-ons can be configured in different ways. This mechanic adds little to the game inherently because the fact that they don't move means the only dynamic that can be altered in their gameplay is whether or not they statically beat different types of existing units. For example in this thread we are discussing how many tanks should be able to beat them. Having to chose win/lose scenarios where the outcome is predetermined regardless of circumstances is shallow gameplay.

If I were to add the deployables at all, the meta I would add to the game would revolve around the ANTs themselves as the core gameplay mechanic, somewhat like in PS1. I would make all the static deployable bases invincible, but require nanite resources as fuel. I'd make all deployables with effects hackable, destroyable, and repairable somewhat like a phalanx turret. In this way the deployables are not advantageous because of their power, since the enemy can also use that power. Instead they are advantageous for their placement, which helps build more dynamic gameplay. The gameplay would change from focusing on the attrition between bases and attackers, to the cat-mouse game of hunting ANTs that are keeping deployables fueled OR simply capturing the deployable bases for your own team (which is a smaller scale analog to the main base cap mechanic). An advantage of this set of mechanics is that the deploys would be viable on the offensive. For instance on Indar an ANT could be used to provide cover for a sunderer in the middle of open terrain. With the current system, the "voltron" style of mechanics means a base is only effective with a considerable amount of preparation. This will lead to their use on the defensive only, and make them extremely difficult to balance. Its likely they will either be useless and no one will use them or they will be overpowered and will be the predominant way to fight defensively.

Well... I haven't tested this, but if repair modules stack, we already have something like that. It would actually be even better.

Just imagine: 1 repair module can already outrepair 2 NC/VS MBT's and stay alive for quite some time under the pressure of 3 NC/VS MBT's. Now imagine if players build double walls, and placed 3+ repair modules behind it? You would be protected against 6 simultaneously firing NC/VS MBT's assuming they target the same wall.
With vehicles it quickly seems like there's a lot of them, but I doubt you'll find many vehicle columns bigger than 20. Even if you did field such a vehicle column against a fortress, no one is expecting a fortress to survive without any vehicle support do they? With enough vehicle targets to take some fire and cash some out and a strong defense you can overcome this problem with multiple people.
But there's more. Tactically you can expect the vehicles to attack from one direction, so you can stack your repair modules there to reinforce those walls and make sure they survive, the other sides can make do with just one repair module keeping it alive.
But hey... This means that a flank on that side with vehicles can potentially break through and open up a hole in the fortress. With proper defenses this shouldn't be too much of a problem, a wall that's destroyed takes a few seconds to disappear so even if a Vulcan Harasser team does a lightning strike against your walls you have some time to react to it, but it's possible. It's a tactial consideration that changes the way you build the fortress, and the way you can approach to attack it. Allowing for pure brawn to breach the fortress is a good thing... So long as you can protect yourself against that brawn. Having the repair modules stack would be my solution.
Vehicles represent mostly the brawn, with a quick strike you could breach the walls and get to the center. But there's more! Infantry could try to assault the walls and get insides. Once inside they could destroy a few of the repair modules, which instantly allows the vehicles outside to use their firepower to punch a hole in a wall. Of course you could also strike against the other base components by trying to take out the golden Silo which instantly stops the entire fortress or (if it's placed) the VP generator itself to kill everyone there.
And even then, you could potentially just besiege the fortress until it's resources run out by killing any ANT that tries to harvest.

Or the defenders could use that powerful fortress and some vehicles to stave off the attacks, keep routes open to harvest or even manage to tear the attackers apart and push them back! And all that would be possible if the repair modules stack, I sure hope they do.

Otherwise any fight against a fortress would boil down to "get as many guns pointing at one wall, blow it up, push through and blow up Silo/VP generator, go home".

And don't forget comets!

It's been a few weeks since I was on the test server so I don't know if anything's changed in that regard however repair modules can't be placed near each other. Most things decay over time, the repair module included, but it also stops and reverses this decay damage, as such in order to stop someone building a pointless base somewhere no one will every go and having stay draining server resource (I'm guessing that's why, probably other reasons too) the repair modules can't be placed near enough together where they'd repair each other, so you'd have to have an engi come by regularly to repair the repair modules.

However as a side effect you wont be able to easily stack repair modules by a wall, you MIGHT be able to get two to affect it from behind the wall, but that'll be it most likely.

I'm pretty sure that repair modules don't stack.

I imagine the best way to kill a base is to simply kill any ANTs from delivering supplies to it. It will starve eventually.

Really? The dev's didn't see the whole "let's make the repair modules not repair each other" and simply denied them placement next to each other?
Besides that, a fortress in the middle of nowhere would eventually run out of cortium and start decaying anyway unless someone is actively keeping it alive, so I don't see a reason why they would be barred from being placed next to each other. If someone is actually trying to keep it alive... Why not let it stay there? It's not as if it will happen often, and it will rarely happen with large enough bases to matter.

So for the developers: Please just allow repair modules to be placed near each other. It would help tremendously in the fortress design and methods for attacking a fortress, otherwise the metagame would be "rush it with X AV Harassers and blow up the center", or if the defense is tight "snipe it from a distance with X MBT's".

Bad bad bad for the fortress game...

The Devs do not listen anyway

Yes that's why we are getting a construction system that no one asked for. Oh wait we did! Maybe we didn't ask for it in this capacity, but developers shouldn't listen to the exact things players ask for in most cases and only introduce things with the entire game in mind.

Just remember, every now and then some player would come up with having outfits build their own bases in instanced area's and allow them to accumulate resources and attack other instanced outfit bases. Why instanced or only outfits? Because the players never thought it would be possible to integrate it into the live game! But this system could be available for anyone, from solo players to a bunch of randoms that comes together to squads or outfits. No restrictions! The dev's not only introduced the idea, but are aiming to make it work within the meta for everyone rather than just the outfits! That's how dev's should act.

DBG might have a long way to go, but they have undoubtedly improved in how they handle the game and updates. If they now solved a few long standing issue's such as ZOE they might actually be capable of getting back some faith from the playerbase.

if they were like this during BETA, how different would the game be now ?

I think that the game would have reached half a cult status. Not a complete one, but damn it would still rank pretty badass and be named as a commercial success. It's a unique feature (no lobbies, complete freedom in your approach including purely overwhelming your opponents, the possibility of a cross-battle metagame where one battle influences another etc etc) that would have taken the world by storm if it had had a solid gameplay and balance behind it. It would be the Tiberium Dawn for RTS's, it wouldn't be the first one, but it would be the one that got the attention and set the bar.

Alas, they screwed up. I actually think that if they simply started balancing the game right now (after construction system) and made sure that every class and vehicle in the game had more influence on the metagame (IE vehicles having more to do than kill to aid in base capture) they could still reach that cult status and lengthen the game's life with at least 3 years more, although the biggest damage is already done. Maybe a relaunch could help in that respect. "look guys, old game, new trailer, new mechanics, completely different gameplay aimed at all the things you actually did enjoy".