[Design/aesthetics] Ideas for base design (not construction )

We all agree that bases in ps2 are rather bland and have no believability. There are a few nice details like the purple stones relic things in some Amerish base. Another thing is the issue of bases being vulnerable to bombardment. Here are some simple design ideas to make bases prettier and more protected.

Wide use of the teal force fields. Think of them as indestructible glass windows. Allowing light to pass through and the inhabitants to see the outdoors. Notice the dome shaped green house. There are some openings in the force fields for LA to get in and do their role.


Say what you think and feel free to post your own ideas. Draw in paint, make 3d models. Now I have to go to bed, going to watch the sunrise tomorrow. :3

First off, I'm glad I didn't have to take time to write this one, because I know myself and all my friends want to.

I agree 100%, there are so little "memorable" spots in the maps and bases... so many copy/paste bases and whenever you go into a base and see like some "relic" or weird looking generator it really makes you remember that spot and immerses you in the game, like the crater in the top left of indar with the dinosaur/skeletal bones where it looks like there was some kind of excavation site there, or the bones all over indar always trigger my imagination when I see them, trying to tie together all that happened between the huge crater where the meteor must have hit and wiped out whatever was living there, and then you see the tubes at some of the bases trying to pump out the last underground water for use, and you look at the large coral spongy/red/purple things sticking out of the ground in places and you think the bones must have been from giant sea creatures that died from no water and idk maybe that's why indar is everyone's favorite map? because it has some PERSONALITY and CHARACTER !

Also some bases on Amerish and Esamir(Especially that one knocked down base) or interesting structures and I find them scintillating to myself anyway.. it gets boring having fights on Hossin where everything just looks like a jumbled mess of randomized trees and swamp, like maybe they could have had SOME open plains areas or something interesting like a lake in the middle of the map i don't know. *shrug* the purple spikes are kinda cool on Esamir I guess.

Yeah I like your designs, reminds me of the bio labs which are some of the only bases with interesting things to look at, the tech plants don't really have any tech machines or neat robotics in them.

Maybe the next map could be an Urban City or a Lava/Volcanic map/planet, or maybe even a moon.

Are there any beds in PS2? Or toilets?

Come to think of it there is barely any furniture altogether. Apart from the odd computer console, most rooms are pretty open and barren.

I'd like to see more random doodads positioned around a base. It would give more concealment, and also add character.

There's some food cylinder things stacked on things. Huge computer screens randomly placed with no chairs or even keyboards often. Some randomly placed bed-sofa things and low res lockers. Sometimes there is light but no lamp nearby. Most indoor objects consists of chest high boxes to provide a nice team deathmatch in the doorless steel boxes that are the buildings.

Could you make is so the moon is slightly slower / faster than the sun?
Is that possible?
Then youd have variance in the location and rising or setting time of the moon each night, and perhaps the possiblity for solar and maybe lunar eclipses. Also moonless nights that require night vision would be awesome.

The apparent rotation of the moon and sun is due to earth being the thing rotating. Having one rotate slower than the other makes little sense.

Great designs... I think bases need a lot more to them in general, such as the one Amerish base which has the light bridge you must capture... things like that add so much more to the overall game and yet it's unbelievably rare. New base design would help a bit, however if we're going to add these force-field domes I think a neat sub-objective could be a force-field generator inside a facility, destroying that and the interior becomes more vulnerable. But unlike the other generators these could be better defended, as they are not necessary in capturing a base.

Would also be neat to have objectives to open/close doors in certain areas of a facility via hacking(General hacking like the aforementioned light-bridge) to create new access points, or lock out/redirect forces on both the attacking and defending sides.

Please also remember that all those BioLabs, TechPlants, AmpStations(excluding walls ofc), major facility towers(those with 4x air resupply pad) and most likely few other things are in fact mass produced spaceships that has landed and some crashed (Esamir crash site biolab[CRASH, someone flew that **** into ground], buried AMPStation(s) on Esamir, BioLab on Hossin...) during landing.

What I want to convey, while cores of major facilities should remain true with lore, all that stuff around... it should be more or less redesigned to be more diverse. There is lot of copypaste buildigs. I know, NS Nanite magic, drop nanite seed, pour water and you got premade building... But still, Indar redesign gave us some nicer looking bases even if there is still lot of copypaste...

Also stuff inside bases... I agree it's bit too barren. We have beds in big spawnrooms (even if they look like couches) and apparently some tables+chairs from Indar redesign, but more stuff like toilets would be still good to have. Sure our guys do not bleed and all of us are more like robots than humans because of nanite assembly... Still, more immersion! Me want!

I think regular bases could use some construction system love.

Think about major and large facilities that have cortium silos. These silos are part of the base itself and cannot be destroyed, but are taken by the enemy when the base is taken. These silos are used to power shields (sort of like the ones in the OP for an example). Those shields last as long as their is cortium and damage drains the cortium reserves.

In addition some walls and ceilings are open to being destroyed. They can be repaired if repair gens are up (can be overloaded), and there is enough cortium to regenerate them.

So now attacking a large facility with vehicles becomes an interesting affair. You can capture the base as you do now. Or seek other ways in by destroying walls and the like. To make the assault easier you can use vehicles to choke off the cortium supply in a sort of land blockade.

Medium sized bases I'd leave alone. These are your 3 cap points.

Your small bases I would do something crazy with. I'd remove the spawn rooms. Both defenders and attackers need to bring sunderers. What this does is cause the battle to flow fluidly and dynamically around these small bases. Small fights can escalate, or not escalate, and when they don't they act like they do now. But when they do, you don't have a 100v100 in one small space between a control point and a spawnroom.

I would also add two more base types. Something like old Scarred Mesa Skydock requiring air to do anything with. As well as a non-base capture point. Basically a capture point in the middle of nowhere. The idea is to give a vehicle predominant fight.

Additionally I'd allow for some bases to have a V point alongside A, B, C, and D. The V point doesn't count towards capturing the base. What it does is provides a bonus or penalty depending on who is capturing the base. If the attackers are capping the base and have the V point, their capture time is cut in half. If the defenders have it, then it doubles. Vice versa works too. V points can only be captured by vehicles and their range is a bit larger than normal control points. They also revert to neutral if no vehicles are present.

And to give infantry a bit of love. More underground and elevated up in moutain type bases. With the idea of using Light Assaults as a good portion of your attacking and defending force. Adding verticality to where the action is.

Finally, off the grid bases. These bases could be scattered in and around the map and mostly on the outskirts. The purpose of these bases is to apply a buff to your faction on the continent. These bases can be attacked by anyone at anytime. A handful (maybe 1-2 per continent) would actually be flying bases, something like a dropship. Holding these could provide VP as well.

Solar and lunar eclipses are perfectly possible. It's tricky though to prevent them from being too frequent. You want them to be rare not everyday events. How fast moon orbits earth, how much tilt to the moon's orbit. Where on the planet the map i located. The of course translate all these orbits to having the earth as center.

I managed to get a lunar eclipse as well as a solar eclipse once every 8 days. Day 1 moonset makes lunar eclipse. Day 5 morning makes solar eclipse.

I could get on board with some of this.. what about sandbags and boxes or turrets in the regular bases? or maybe have to reconstruct the walls with cortium? or have to fill the generators to keep the base running or spawn vehicles with cortium?, also I like the NO spawn point on small bases and make people bring sunderers.

If we're talking astrological events. All they have to do is repeat or copy and paste what they've done in EQ2. They have solar eclipses that can be predicted in Norrath time. They're rare, but they do happen.

So the devs had already achieved such features long ago. Btw eclipses would require lunar phases so I supposed it had those too. Nine years later in ps2 we get a moon that transforms into the sun and bounces on the horizon without even hiding it and it can't even properly interact with fog. Video game graphics sure is a bumpy road.

It's nice that it's there but it needs a lot of work. The whole area should turn dark almost as night and the white tendril shaped sun corona should be visible.


Also I red some hit about EQ2 having red sun sometimes, is that true?

This would be very cool. I love the idea of a LA spearhead up the sides/walls of a mountain fortress. Anything which also encourages more Gal drops is good in my view.

I am an astronomy nerd/lover for sure. This is awesome!

I'm pretty sure this is a later phase of Construction where Cortium is needed to supply facilities, this creates an actual need to participate in the construction aspect of the game. It gives defenders a more difficult chance to win as they will need to supply their base, and attackers can easily blockade them and completely shut down any ANT chains.

When it comes to sandbags, boxes, or turrets, that seems more like a job for the Engineer. As I detailed on these forums before, Engineer should have access to some constructs exclusive to the class. These take the form of 'Blueprints' you can equip in your Ability and Utility slots, the Blueprints require Cortium to build, which you can obtain via a portable mining laser which replaces your repair tool. I could go in much more detail than that, but I will not for the time being unless you wish me to.

Just remember that engine was finished development (for the main game), 12 years ago. Primitive lighting engine.

I don't know about that. It does have two moons. Drinal which looks like a normal moon. And Luclin, which used to be a biosphere itself, but has exploded.

I'm pretty sure they could animate a light source's intensity and color back then.

While in 2016 we can't have a single proper moon.

You know what, *** it...........

A little update. Would it not be nice if the force field cast shadows?