[Suggestion] ESF deep enemy territory penalty

Sounds like someone wants all the benefits, but no risks: You want to spawn an ESF in absolute safety, get afap to a fight and start farming (although you don't even know yet what kind of fight you're heading too ... maybe a ESF is not needed there anyway atm)

Planetside is an (rather) open world game ... treat it as such.

It's not a special "gift" that Air has to spawn at Warpgate, it stinks. But it's cause they are pushed to by a sea of worse options. Practicality dictates.

Most Air would prefer to spawn near the battlefront, but they are stuck spawning a the Warpgate because they don't have a lot of practical choice. It's not like they like having to do so. But due to how Air spawns and its weaknesses, spawning blindly at a battlefield is often suicide (or bases where enemies are at). Also, many bases don't have Air Terminals, and there's not way to tell until you get there on the non-standard template bases (yes, I know which bases on Indar have Air Terminals, but I don't know for lots of bases on the other maps).

And many of those bases that do have Air Terminals have them in a location that's much slower to get to than the Ground Vehicle Terminal. I've posted suggestions on multiple occasions on these forums talking about the poor placement of Air Terminals and making them faster to get to from the Spawn Rooms (like Ground Vehicle Terminals are), many places like Tech Plant and Amp Station it's just faster to spawn at Warpgate and then fly to the Tech Plant or Amp Station, than it is to spawn at these base types and run... and run... and run to the far away Air Terminal. I would love to have Air be spawnable from Ground Terminals, and would use bases to spawn them a lot more if they were. Towers and a few bases do have easy/fast to get to Air Terminals, and players do use those often when they can.

All Vehicles can spawn at the Warpgate. Sometimes players do so for their vehicle (ground or air) after scouting the map, or having been on a particular battlefront they want to bring the vehicle too but can't spawn at. Or when that's the only Terminal they can spawn their Vehicle type at.

Air (especially ESF) is motivated to spawn at the Warpgate because it is excessively visible, vulnerable, and easy to kill when it spawns. And because it's speed makes the travel from a Warpgate doable. I personally have often taken the risk and spawned at the battlefront, but I am a better and more experienced pilot than most players so I am better able to survive a dangerous spawn. And also I typically don't mind eating the resources if I blow up.

An open world game... that only has Air Terminals in some locations. And that is only non-suicidal prone to use the Air Terminal in some locations/situations. And that regularly places Air Terminals far away from Spawn Rooms. Air players DO make the best of available options. Just as every other player does. Re-deployside is a thing. Air spawning at Warpgate is a thing. Because players find workarounds to deal with the stumbling blocks in the game.

Aircraft are also the only ones that do not suffer from any issues with spawning from the warpgate.
And can reliably return there.
Land Vehicles that spawn there are either in large pushes, due to a lack of a tech plant, or to fight locally.
Since the time it takes & terrain to travel between the gate & the combat zone is large, and vehicles have to worry about aircraft.
The longer the trip, the easier it is to be attacked by a Liberator or ESF.

Why Air would want to spawn exposed to every enemy weapon in plain sight like vehicles do... is a grand question.
Sure, aircraft could nuke most of those, but the control delay on any vehicle, land or air, makes that suicide.

The bases without an Aircraft terminal, are those without the pads to re-arm them in general.
Logical result - given the larger surface area needed for said pad as well.
As for the distance to them; For towers, a quick lift ride or two; same for the vehicle terminal if not without the stair trip...
On the ground floor, with barely cover.

This also means, Aircraft terminals usually hidden behind a blast panel that curls up, is much safer to use.
In addition to the harder time to stalk, hunt, or hack these terminals allowing less caution from using them.

So, for the love of mercy, I prefer at least one non-infantry terminal not in the completely exposed position of the spawn room & vehicle terminal.

Ground Terminals are not in the proper area for aircraft, a good deal of the time.
Not only, are they in small alcoves often enough, too small for the largest aircraft, but also means any non-infantry terminal could spawn a Liberator at will - and in somewhere it likely shouldn't be in, or can't be in, causing death of pilot.


All vehicles can.
Only aircraft can use the Shield at the gate beyond once.
Air is only vulnerable like the ground is, when spawning a vehicle.
An Aircraft can move in three dimensional space, with plenty of elevation beyond most weapon elevation limits.
While visibility, depends entirely on height, terrain, and path - Ground Vehicle are also exposed highly.

The same risk ground vehicles take, expect there is also tank mines in the path of the auto-pilot on spawn.
Which can be at any pad but the warpgate.
Aircraft actually have one less risk than vehicle operators of the ground. But do have the fragile ESF for once stationary.


Same situation for vehicle terminals, that could spawn MBTs prior to the update that changed that.
Not to mention, the increased likely-hood of vehicle terminals being exposed to all directions of fire with perfect sniping positions.

The Warpgate is the best option only for aircraft, unless en-massing a large force.
Which is universal.
Warpgate provides perfected protection, a clear view of enemy forces nearby, ammunition, gunners etc.
For non-aircraft, the gate comes at the cost of distance from all but the local hexes being long enough to regenerate all nanites in the trip - while also rendering the time exposed without combat or any form of allies beyond those that can with, to any & all enemy aircraft which can cross the entire distance between warpgates before a Tank manages a hex.

That is called freedom you slave... go play tetris you vvould be happier.

Gettysburg: J.E.B. Stuart

Air suffers less from travel time out of the Warpgate (massively less; it's a nuisance for Air whereas it's a massive wall for non-Harasser ground units [and still a very big wall for Harrassers]). Air suffers more from being contained by enemy forces at the Warpgate.

That any unit suffers at all. Pushed to use the Warpgate or unable to use the Warpgate without major setbacks. It's squarely in the control of design at DBG (whether that's actual designers and/or management).

Most Air doesn't choose to return to the Warpgate in most cases. But yes, they can return there.

On the flip side, Air has great difficulty traveling within hexes of more enemy heavy areas, whereas ground units can do so much more easily. Air also has a *much* lower resistance to ground objects, and can much more easily can get stuck on ground objects and quickly flip and blow up.

Yes, most land vehicles spawn where they actually want to be (or close to it). Some land units are cursed with spawning limitations (MBT), which I think is pretty lame personally even though I've never used MBT much.

That is a factor, but it's not a huge one. Most air traveling deeper in are not hunting for ground units deep in enemy territory. If such was the case, ANTs would be extinct.

One area where it does factor in, is in limiting what could be done with ground forces, such as supply convoys. Air's trivial ability to prowl and kill ground units outside the zerg limits creating gameplay for ground units outside the zerg: the more you create that gameplay, the more targets emerge for Air to start actively prowling for said isolated ground targets (like the Pumpkin/Snowmen hunt). ANTs survive ESF because their resistance to ESF is massively high, but if you apply this change to all ground units then ESF would not be able to reasonably kill anything.

I personally am all for the limitation of air to operate easily in enemy territory. And one of the reasons is to give ground vehicles more freedom of movement. (and all the cool things that can come from that)

I spent a massive amount of time driving Sunderers solo to start new battlefronts at quiet bases. In addition to the massive time I spend flying ESFs doing G2A or scouting. I am very familiar with much of the dangers of Air toward ground units: massive. Air (especially outside the range of enemy zergs) are tyrants. I am not a fan of the power levels of Air.

Agreed.

In practice, you live a lot more than you die (if you're an experienced pilot). But the risk is massively bigger spawning in a heated area. If you are not an experienced pilot, things can easily get very bad very fast.

And ues, I have also spent some time as that Stalker who sits just outside an AA Turret facing the Air platform at Dahaka, and then jumps in and wipes out ESFs that land/spawn there.

I am not opposed to some number of bases not have Air. As has been discussed, Air does have Warpgate as a very viable option.

But I would like some changes:
1) easy way to tell on Main Map what Vehicle Terminal types are at that base.
2) any base that has an Air Terminal be designed so that a player can spawn and get to it within ~15 seconds max. Same for Ground Vehicle Terminals, but for them make it ~10 seconds max.

Oddly, there is at least one base with an Air Pad but no Air Terminal.

Towers have great layouts for many things. Terminals included. Towers are great.

True.

Yeah, I can appreciate the fun and even strategic value of camping Terminals, but it's silly they are designed with an ease of being camped. And (even more negative) people HATE it and it really does push some numbers of people to hate and get closer to leaving the game.

Well, you have options.

You could create launch tubes that fire the Air at an angle. Like BSG.

Or you could do what Indar Comm does where you access the Terminal in one area, and spawn your Vehicle very far away in another area.

At this point. I'd probably just leave the Terminals as is. Just make it easier to see which bases have or don't have Air. And make with those with Air Terminals fast to get from Spawnroom to Air Terminal.

I don't mean to belittle the dangers of Ground Vehicles. Or belittle those major advantages of Air. Both have major limitations and advantages. And in terms of the nuisance to operate stuff, I'd prefer reducing that for all units (so long as it doesn't come with a notable power level boost as well).

Air also have the problem of spawning into the FOV of enemy ESFs.

ESF vs. ESF is like playing on a base map as Infantry where there are no buildings and poor visibility. If an enemy spots you within a certain range, you cannot really just run and evade, as they will just run after you and gun you down. And if you turn to fight, you will lose if they have more skill or skill+numbers. So you have to control how close you get to enemy ESFs, and spawning blindly at an Air Terminal does not help with that.

Both things I would like to change.

I would also like to change the inability for Infils to access a destroyed enemy Terminal. This is an effective tactic, but it is too effective and totally nonsensical: based on how effective it is, bases would be designed to auto-destroy their own terminals, and then Engineers would have to be used to access them.

Agreed. Or as you said, if the enemy is literally on the hex next to the Warpgate (which is very rare).

I think the lack of Ground Vehicles in Server Smash was a very telling issue on the design failures of ground vehicles. They should have added solutions into SS that would have made ground vehicles used more. My first direction would be ways to make them make mobile moves (maybe assisted by other units).

The fact that SS, casual play, and hardcore organized regular play all pursue different gameplays ends up making for a very confused game. Steps should have been made to get all 3 to sync better together, or to share/enjoy more similar gameplay. Also, the dead units for each type of gameplay should have been addressed and made more playable. And each of SS, casual play, and hardcore organized play should have been made more accessible as play modes for players.

I agree that spawning Ground Vehicles from Warpgate has major negatives. Travel time and vulnerability to Air. I would like to change BOTH. Limit Airs ability to prowl enemy territory. Give Ground Vehicles methods to travel faster (Gal, construcable Stargate that can only be placed at hex borders, etc.)

I think Air can use the Warpgate as a workaround for their spawning issues. But it still leaves the nuisance factor on the table, which I think is both silly to leave there and easy to largely fix without major collateral damage to non-Air.

I think Ground Vehicles can use redeployside and bases near the frontline (ally or enemy) as a workaround for *most* their spawning issues. Again, nuisance factor is there, and it should be addressed. And MBT is still plagued by their spawn limits, which I think is lame but I don't MBT so I will leave it to them to decide if they like it or not. I would change the ability to access enemy destroyed Terminals (making it something players can do, maybe they self repair like the Turrets after a certain number of minutes), etc. And agree that more Terminals should be shield protected or that the "safe spawn vehicle from infantry spawn" should be easier and cleaned up bugs (spawning upside down bug as Air when doing this stinks).

Oh this'll be fun.

Aircraft has the speed & durability (For libs, and at the warpgate the likelyhood of a good position for an AP shell is slim)
To escape & evade all but identical aircraft units that must be of equal skill, greater or at least be severely outnumbering them.
Aircraft can also fly off the map and back onto it, before it kills them.
Containment of aircraft is hard.

However, Vehicles must exit the field at a slower pace, with no cover of any kind.
Enemies as well, need only protect a much reduced field of motion, with no differing height levels, just the ground.
The terrain itself, which funnels the vehicles - and with effective AV they die fast.

However, there's a grand thing: Aircraft spawn at the warpgate for a perfect defense that is at no cost.
Aircraft can spawn at any Bio Lab, Tech Plant, Tower, PMB, they wish, at any distance from anything without a damn.
A Vehicle is dependent on the position of the terminals, for travel time & exposure time.
As well, Air Pads are near impossible to trap; Pilots do not have an auto-pilot for an extended period.
Land Vehicles have tank mines, auto-pilot, and the ease of sticking obstructions.


Only aircraft can return to the perfect defensive safety of that, and head out to anywhere on the map within minutes.
No vehicle beyond aircraft has the safety of that gate always at a moment's notice.

Yes Bases need a ******* terminal list.
As mother of hell, it's a "Lets see if this has one"
Mind you, unless the base is under assault the maps-spawn system allows a peek.

You can reach the air pad's terminals in most of those bases, beyond the Tech plant within seconds.
The tech plant's are on the main facility roof, and in the same building is the shielded vehicle pads.
Expect a single one near the spawn room, with a completely exposed vehicle pad.

Every single thing including infantry in spawn rooms suffer from spawning in easy LOS of ESFs.
Expect only an ESF can run from an ESF - Everything on the ground can not outrun a single aircraft.
Every vehicle terminal pad spawns in visual sight of enemies, the only shielded bays being rare & in tech-plants.
- And even those show the vehicles to the exterior, and nearly push them out fully with the auto-pilot.

As well, ESFs can be equipped to even outrun each other.
Any land unit however, can't evade each other all that easily regardless of skill.


Ants are hardy construction vehicles equipped with boost systems, cloaking systems, shield systems, AA mounts, and durable armor.
They have numerous means to evade aircraft, and can traverse most of the bloody map.
They wouldn't suffer from Libs even unless the lib is actively looking & hunting a cloak-able target rather than the easier-to-see & kill tanks, sunderers, and infantry units.

So no, they wouldn't be extinct. They are the sole vehicles well equipped to evade aircraft.


Infantry is faster to replace, and can hide in buildings from aircraft.
Aircraft nukes land units too hard, and takes obscene amounts of allied units to 'deter' while still taking loses to those units.
As such, Vehicles with the forced exposure mean without any reliable ability to use AA, are too easily killed by aircraft.
Rendering their value 0.
Hence infantry.


I do not want a zerg or similar teleporting their **** across hexes...
Stealth gate, with a damn armor zerg appearing at the edge of it.

Redeployside, does not protect vehicles.
You despawn and attempt to respawn anywhere near the front, to suffer the issue of lack of ability to detect tank mines prior to the auto-pilot stopping.
Further back, suffers same issue till the value of that redeployment is void.
As well... Tech plant... You ever seen the point of taking a tech plant? To make them need the gate for heavy armor.
Tactical choice to defend or attack it.

Imagine if ESFs required an airbase outside of the gate, or couldn't be used.
That's a damn fine motive to actually bother with that base, rather than ignore it entirely.

Allies & enemies destroy terminals to prevent hacks, so you don't have to play endless wack-a-mole with an infil or enemy force having terminal access even if you properly disabled it ahead of them.

I comically seem to never suffer the bug, but yeah it needs a little check to delay the spawning if it detects a spawn at the same time.
Or an anti-team-damage\anti-team-collision barrier upon spawning so you don't implode.

That would break the game. If you don't have access to MBTs, you make do with Lightnings and Harassers. If you don't have access to ESF...... well..... Libs aren't a counter, Skyguards aren't a counter, Lock-ons aren't a counter..... Good luck.

Containment of the highest skill/power pilot/crew in an area is hard. Being the highest skill/power pilot/crew in an area is hard.

Both are terrible for most players in the game.

Ground Vehicles play so different from Air. They are much more tied into Infantry, and the average player can and does use them.

I am totally down for discussion of nerfs/buffs to each unit, loadout, weapon, cert, faction, graphics setting, playstyle, map, etc. I am a firm believer that Air is both too powerful and too hard for the average player to use effectively, but I have problems with most units in the game in one manner or another. I'd be happy to change them all.

But my arguments here have not been meant to protect Air's power level. Many of my arguments call for Air nefs. And other stuff I've argued for is to get rid of nuisance level stuff that isn't really a factor in power level, and I want the same removal of needless nuisances for all units.

It's narrow to pick out the advantages of a unit, and not also list its disadvantages. Air has both pros and cons.

And even with all the great stuff you list above, the average player still stinks in the Air. And Air has limited impact on many areas when they are very crowded with enemies.

Only the highest skill/power pilot/crew in an area really has these great powers at their disposal.

The Warpgate is a reliable spawn point.

It is not practically a safety zone for most Air sitations. If you are running from Ground, you don't need to run back to your Warpgate, just to out-of-sight. If you are running from Air, you will never make it back to your Warpgate before dying (unless you have a faster Air and start running when the enemy is very far away, or your enemy has terrible aim).

Air cannot typically access their Warpgate at a moments notice. Most Air use is pretty far from their Warpgate and returning to it is like an Infantry player running from a turret on the outer wall of an Amp Station to the Vehicle Terminal inside the middle of the base. It's not crazy far, but it's typical not either convenient or needed or done.

Agreed.

Some bases it's easy. And those bases are used often. But some bases are a nuisance, and are largely not used.

Some Amp stations were re-designed so you have to run to the Ground Terminal side, and then across back again to the elevator for the Air. Why change the base to add that extra running?

And ESF usually cannot run from an ESF... and survive. Unless they are very far away when you start running.

ANTs can evade/survive ESFs well (which is good). Buildings will protect most Infantry. Infils can cloak and re-deploy.

I'm not excusing or justifying the ESF power level. I they and other units should be nerfed/changed. But I am correcting the info to be more specifically accuracte from my understandings.

ESFs have a hard time outrunning other ESFs (unless you start running really early, or you have good protection nearby (PMB Airshield, Warpgate, active ally AA, etc.). Scythe is the slowest, so maybe it has a harder time chasing the others. But for the most part, the ESF speed just makes it something the other ESF shoots down with Nosegun from behind.

Harasser can evade other Ground Vehicles pretty well.

I know ESFs have a hard time killing ANTs, but that's when it's 1 ESF. I don't think DonAlfrago's group would have a hard time wiping out ANTs. And that's what I am talking about. If the game's meta changes where players make active use of their ally territory doing things like supply convoys, then it starts to compel Air to have more reasons to hunt down these convoys.

Zerg harder and Air become less effective. And we see players zerging harder, unless it's during low pop times.

I don't like Airs power level. I don't like that Air isn't something the average player can use well. I don't like the power boost of skill gap in Air (or anywhere in the game). But if all that is not going to change, then focus on other things you can maybe get DBG to implement as a change.

You could make the gates only transit from adjacent hexes. Where a faction would have to setup and maintain a chain of them to keep a gate road going. And at the end of it, it would only invade an enemy hex from the hex edge.

It's not all that different from re-deployside and then spawn at Terminal. Except that it adds layers of strategy and actual vehicle play and not just Infantry based play with slapped on vehicles-as-exoskeletons as (and if) needed.

Run out and check the area in front of the Terminal. I did this all the time when spawning Sunderers.

Re-deployside to get to the base you want to spawn your Vehicle at. Run and check for mines. Then spawn. This works for most bases except those silly ones like Indar Comm Array, which you just avoid or suck it up and roll the dice (which is lame).

I prefer when both sides can spawn what they want. I'd rather teams can field units, than to just win cause one side was running garbage units. If I just want to win with superior arsenal, I'll just go ghostcap or take an ESF to a small fight... but I generally have no interest in such.

As I mentioned, I can go around and blow up ally Vehicle Terminals to literally choke out entire enemy operations/tactics. One time I was in my ESF and saw a massive invasion setting up to take out an ally PMB in our territory. I landed and took out the nearby base's terminal using AV Mana Turret from inside my spawn room, and it literally choked out that Organized Groups ability to take out the PMB. They just failed to spawn the units they needed, died, and then it was over.

I don't really like that can be done though. (though I don't like the special tools Hardcore Organized groups have either)

If you made ESF only spawnable outside the gate, it would just:
1) shift the skill curve for ESF to the right
2) make ESF pilots have to do 1 redeployside hop (or just select a non-Warpgate base if on the big map base spawn) before spawning the ESF

People destroy terminals for all kinds of reasons. *Some* players take out ally terminals to prevent enemies from being able to hack and use them to spawn a vehicle armada/beachhead there.

I died to it maybe 2 times out of 10, then proceeded to never use it again. I can be risky with my Resources because I have them, and just crashing on launch means I then can't be as risky without consequences.

That wasn't a suggestion.
That was a comparison.

The ease of locking ground vehicles vs the difficulty of locking pilots in;
Showcasing the issue with mentioning how aircraft can be pinned in there as if it isn't well in their favor, with Skill only being a factor when dealing with other skilled aircraft.

The advantages of aircraft put it well above vehicles.
The control scheme of aircraft, is one of the few issues; And what prevents most common users from flying.
The second bit, is related to this, IE hover-fighting.
Due to how aircraft work, and how the controls are, this ***** over Air-to-Air.

The power to return to the warpgate, does not need the skill to bombard.
It needs the skill of "aim at sky" "press boost" and fly in a straight line.
The only thing the 'most skilled' can do, is solo-dalton or kill ESF with a nose-gun as an ESF.
Flying in a straight line, which due to the nature of air, is no where near hard; I've done it.

Why change it: Likely to increase the exposure time, or was a side-effect.

ESF without Boost vs ESF with Boost.
When the only unit that can give a hard-time is the same vehicle, with the speed loadout, it says a lot.

Harasser is a two-man vehicle, that deals with terrain issues far worse than an Ant , a construction vehicle.
It also is more easily hit during engagement, as well can be affected by tank mines.
You can also lead on this target easily & hit it.
An ESF is a three-dimensional moving target with speed independent of motion, and full rotation capabilities.
A greatly different thing to evade or chase down; As it also is the fastest.

An harasser is slowed by terrain easily.


And I don't figure about one group; As well, if your logic is "a swarm can do it, so da"
Then I introduce you to how an ESF can die to pistol fire alone... in a swarm.
Ants are not simple targets, and have cloaking capabilities; At any height, this becomes very very effective more so based on height.
A low-flying ESF has less view, and vice versa - And any time spent hunting an Ant is time better spent farming easier targets.

Zerging requires numbers.
Numbers invalidate the argument of a counter being effective; As if it takes that number, then it is equal in effectiveness if not far far inferior to weapons capable of the same result with less instances.
AA is a grand example of this.


Teleporting armor, making the entire point of roads, and traversing useless.
Edges of hexes; Let me jump armor gate to gate on the fringes...
No.

Ah yes, run outside to where-ever the physical pad is, which can be quite far below, across the entire yard, and all of which is ensured to be exposed to every single possible enemy weapon.
Then spawn the vehicle, at the exposed terminal.
You try that on an aircraft pad.

As well, this does not at all help with the entire issue of auto-pilot & land mines that only the ground faces.
It requires actually knowing the base, and looking; Aircraft need not care.


That was an example, to why MBTs are locked behind Tech plants: Gives the base a motive.
Not a proper suggestion or idea, I was heading to a Lunch.


Yeah, I'm one of the people disabling the enemy's spawn capabilities, as well.
This is called a tactical plan: Scorched Earth.
This is a logical & strategical element; Do you leave the terminal there, so your allies can use it at the risk?
Or do you shatter, making them need to take the base to resupply their forces with new local vehicles.

Poor planing on their part.
And incredible power of the PMB ********-machine.


And if only major bases could have them, rather than the gate, You take the facilities or hound them, and the enemy can't ever have aircraft.
With aircraft's power, You just ****** that entire side.