[Suggestion] Why we left after 5 years + Critical Mass Update + Wrel

Nanite regeneration is dangerous as hell.
As that means less time is needed to recover the prices.
The Continent that reduces Lightning costs in that situation is quite inferior to MBTs, Liberators or ESF's really.

I like the randomization bit for bonuses a slight bit, to keep it interesting: And would drive demand to conquer a continent for that day's bonus for holding it - a day, to prevent it being hard to keep track, and to prevent an ease of snowballing.
And it limits the amount of abuse that could happen.

Well, given that infantry floating to attack that tank is properly prepared for dealing with a tank, whom is prepared for anti-armor duty not anti-infantry...
I'd say the operator is likely more pissed off than warranted:
Given exactly would an AI top-gunner go, when facing a vehicle target, and not nailing it hard?
No where near as "pissed" as an AV tanker, taking pot shots at a well-prepared infantry unit expecting one-hit kills.
If it wasn't a flak-equiped unit, I could understand the anger a bit more.
But that infantry unit was literally specifically geared to resist that - the Tank was geared for AV combat.
Is it the tank's AV specialization meant to counter the infantry's specialization of resisting that weapon?

If Hives were an EXP farm after triggering the alert, you'd either have a situation where the builders are pissed that an alert ended, or builders deliberating demolishing the ability to have it end --- given it's the safest EXP farm in the entire game.

I can see the ability to see to the edge.
However being able to literally nuke any defensive position outside of a spawn room, means any hardened defense will be blasted apart by a better defensive position in a PMB, nearly a hex or more away.

Only an idiot builds an OSC without the automated defenses pre-built.
But at least the mentioning of a shield, would mean at least the larger facilities have some manner of defense from it that could be defended..
However it means all but the few, would be even easier to smash any defense put on by the owners of the hex.

You know, the main issue with leaving the ability to defend the lattice to builders is, that it means everyone that doesn't have the construction set is less useful if not useless as sin in defending it - but so that the number of Builders available control how many of the automated repairs & turrets exists per base.
So a larger force can leave a more brutal automated defense & engage, while smaller pops or those with less builders can't.

Also, Lattice base turrets are usually in positions that barely benefit the defenders.
Several are in positions to better destroy defender assets, and more easily reached by the enemy instead..

Well, given unless you can actually destroy the PMB, or find the dart, which is easiest to ensure near impossible to reach on lattice-targets than PMB targets, you basically can do nothing.
Not to mention, the process of gaining cort, feeds EXP, and the ability to massacre an entire lattice base of all life outside of spawn yields even more.
Getting to the PMB, and managing to destroy it: Yields infinitely less, for more effort & time.

Engaging an farming HE tank, actually rewards a bit, and is against an entirely living person.
The tank itself is also worth extra - not to mention, the reward for the time & effort can be enough.
A sniper, that has a kill-streak also has added value - the EXP reward for the effort & time, is decent enough.

An PMB, is easily automated, rewards nothing until destruction for one side, is one-sided, and feeds the builder certs while they are not required to be involved in any of it.
The EXP reward in this conflict is severely good for the builder in terms of time as well -- the EXP reward for the attacker is horrid in time & end result for the effort needed to achieve it.

IE it can be fun engaging a tank, a sniper or similar - it is engaging both the attacker & defender.

An PMB assault is usually an automated turret, a solid wall, and blasting module -- not riveting in the slightest.
Often enough having to shoot at self-repairing walls, turrets, and modules - and maybe the one active player that decided to care.
And this entire construct is one or three people, who got more EXP mining for it, and more EXP for any assault than the attackers.
It adds salt to it: As the end result is a net-loss for the attacker, and a net gain for the Builder regardless of what happens.

Hence I limited that one to 10% which in real world values is 5 Nanites per minute. It's useful but not overpowered. It is a lesser benefit which you can apply across all resource drains as opposed to being limited to one unit at a greater discount.

Note: for players with a 50% nanite boost eg membership the 10% would be additive not multiplicative. EG, 75 per minute would become 80 per min not 82.5.

To be clear the numbers put in were just what I deemed to be reasonable estimates, you you could make the Lightning get 25% off or rather than a percentage discount have a flat Nanite Value discount.

However, the randomization of bonuses would mean that even if two bonuses were not of equal value they would still be useful and attractive enough to motivate players. Notably I considered suggesting 5% for the Nanite regen boost but 2-3 Nanites per minute is just too low to motivate players to fight for that bonus.

Another possible bonus for the randomiser might be 20-30% off Expendable munitions.

Regarding the fear of snowballing I'd suggest that that is (while greater than at present) a negligible issue since worst case scenario would be something like Libs and MBTs both being locked at the some time by the same faction and even then they're still no where near as bad as the 50% for all vehicles that the old system had. Then as soon as another continent is locked they'd lose one of those bonuses.

Further due to the randomiser it would be quite rare for both of those powerful bonuses to show up back to back and rarer still for the same faction to win both of them.

About locking in a bonus for a day, how would that work? I'm intrigued by the idea but if wining the bonus lasted 24 hours and was not replaced with the next alert you could conceivably have 6+ bonuses active at any given time. Which wouldn't be an issue if they were split across the factions but they could end up under one faction and cause a snowball effect.

Limiting them only to when that continent is locked at least ensures that worst case scenario you have only 2 active bonuses at once (or 3 if they refuse to reopen the ghost continent).

Except the flak armour is supposed to resist explosions not direct hits. It was designed to counter HE farming by letting troops better resist the splash with the understanding that a direct hit would still nail them. Now the weapon it was designed to resist can still nail them and the one that gets almost no splash (to make to less useful against infantry) can't be certain of a OHK even with a direct hit.

To add to that insult the HESH can do almost as much AT damage and if I remember the patch notes right HE does a shake effect to enemy vehicles that AP doesn't get (which was to compensate for it being less powerful tank to tank, it may have been removed to be fair).

HESH is just objectively better than AP now, the squad wasn't geared to avoid AP they were geared to counter HE because at long range against infantry that's what you'd use.

To be fair I think we're not going to see eye to eye on this point. I'll never be able to accept that a flak jacket somehow prevents an AP round putting a 6 inch hole in a troopers chest, especially not at 10m range.

To be fair even with 5 decent percentage Hives hitting the 10k mark to generate xp takes a while if you had only one up it would hardly be a profitable use of your time, but while it survived it would tick towards that xp bonus and not be TOTALLY worthless. As for the xp for mining and putting in Silos I'm happy to see that adjusted as needed, if OS uplinks were made as powerful as I'd like the motivation to mine would be the strategic advantage of being able to strike nearby hostiles once every 30-60 minutes.

Yes I know, so consider. Mine 40k cortium to build a base. Mine 30k more then wait 5 minutes while it builds the OS uplink. Mine even more so that the base doesn't run out as it charges and you'll need 10-30K to fire the weapon too.

It might take as much as 60 minutes to charge to the point where it can reach a target at it's 800m range limit. Add in the building time and any losses from attacks against it setting up and using the weapon is a time consuming struggle having to escort their ANTs as they'd be vulnerable out mining at known Cortium spawn locations.

An OS wouldn't be something that could be thrown up an fired in 15 minutes even with an organised unit. Hell it's not that fast even atm but right now there's no reward for doing it.

The other thing is that it would rarely be just one faction that was setting up an OS. You'd have builders on all sides eager t finally work on a toy that could have a serious impact on the game. But even with that I doubt you'd see an OS going off more than once every 20 minutes or so. Indeed they'd likely be being used to knock out enemy OS uplinks that were being charged meaning that they'd spend even less time hitting the lattice bases.

Also even if they hit a lattice base it would require at least a little coordination to avoid friendly fire and being able to take advantage of the blast to seize critical points in a base.

Again you're assuming that only the attackers would have an OS up and that the defenders couldn't make a similar strike against the assaulting sunderers. he point of PMBs is to draw fights away from the lattice, and something I can say for certain is that short of a near glitchy location a determined force of 12 or so can breach and sweep aside a base in under 20 minutes.

If DBG took steps to remove those broken locations then a dedicated OS hunting force could put down some or even most OS uplinks before they ever fire a shot. Either by hitting the ANTs or by knocking down the front door with overwhelming firepower.

Well even a BR1 has access to the AI tower, and an AI modules only 1000(1500?) certs so if the game was restructured to make those useful for lattice base defence we'd find most BR20+ would have AI modules and at least one other base defence tower.

Yeah I've always been perplexed by the awful defencive positioning of some turret assets, but having Player Towers augment those defences can only be a good thing for defence.

This is a simple matter of adjusting xp values. I think I said above that I'd be ok with adjusting the mining xp and the silo supply xp. I'd likewise be perfectly happy bumping up the xp for destroying base components and would think destroying a silo and/or Hive/OS uplink should be comparable to capturing a Major facility in xp for everyone within a radius of the structure and also for the one to make the kill if they happen to be outside that radius.

There can be xp added for structure damage too just like vehicle damage exists now. This means even if a structure is getting repaired the attackers are still gaining some xp. Also te towers and modules should reward similar xp to armour units.

A fully automated undefended base would fall swiftly to a dedicated attack the towers would need constant repping to survive focused fire.

If OS uplinks had the potential I suggest, more people might care, the issue (certainly now) is that OS is worthless, Hives are almost worthless. Even if it falls you can build another quickly.

If OS becomes worth something then people will take more of an interest in it.

As I said, that's a matter of balancing the xp for fighting and destroying a base to make it a target that is fun/worthwhile to assault beyond destroying the giant OS uplink that is preparing to blast you.

Keep nerfing the game till it becomes another dumb version of call of duty in which infantry can now resist direct impacts from a tank. You have killed all other types of gameplay in order to satisfy a bunch of whiny infantry noob players(People that think that tomcats used to one shot kill tanks lol?). People like darkelfdruid manage to have great infantry gameplay without all these fail nerf updates. 2013 Planetside was great, you had multiple choices and continets had a real benefit, 2017 Planetside is a one dimensional call of duty in which now infantry are rambos that can survive direct MBT hits. The logic of the game now is: If someone is enjoying a different style of gameplay nerf it. Planetside really felt like a game in which you had different options, now is just a mutilated version.

Now that is workable.
As it's not excessively high at least - some possible work could be made to ensure certain bonuses can't be selected when another is active to remove obvious concerns.


Locking for a day; at the start of the day, when the continents are re-set, all bonuses for those continents are selected.
For that day, those continents retain those bonuses until the next day - where all is started over again.
So for "today", an "amerish" lock would result in "10-meter Radar around Allied Capture Points"
Tomorrow, that lock bonus could be "+50% Max Ammunition Supply"

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Setting up an OSC, grants tons of certs for the mining, for the returning of those resources into a silo.
So after that much Cort, the Builders already have a ton of certs for the set-up -- more than anyone else.

Not to mention, if lower BR's are expected to cert into the several thousands Construction system, rather than suit upgrades, weapons, or anything of the like...
It's quite brutal, given the higher BR's are more likely to have those Max'ed and more certs to purchase the rest.

Not to mention, it doesn't solve the numeric issue of one side having more builders making the automated defenses require more people that the other side doesn't even have.
IE there is 100:50.
The Automated Defenses of Side A(100), would equal or be greater than the number of players on the other side.
So Side A has more automated weapon systems than Side B has living people.

Defender & Attacker OSC are basically identical.
An enemy PMB operates at the same level, work, and yield as an allied PMB in their own land.
So both sides have identical capabilities in the allied hex of one side, and have a more dominant hand in the defense or capture of the local lattice than the lattice's own base defenses do.

So rather than be reliant on Players to add turrets into a lattice base to make it actually defensible, I rather they fix the bases.
Since this also compounds the select bases where attacking is near damn murderous - by buffing the entire defensive capability with stacking automated defense systems.

You see, the problem is, there is no motive to place PMBs in places that aren't hell, since all attackers are forced to engage or die anyway.
and Builders will be quite cross with a reduction in the double set of EXP from mining & depositing - which will be a constant source, as would Hives, and automation -- Only Builders have automated methods to gain EXP, and a stream of EXP gained from inanimate objects in allied & hostile land.
So it's a fragile thing.
But, EXP for damage while easily farm-able by attackers, at least means it's a bit profitable to attack the enemy PMB
Given it's presently, 0 or some only once the base is leveled -- which if a Hive, easily means death if in the blast radius.

Not to mention, automated bases have interior turrets, and have been hunting for a non-tower AI.
They have a non-tower AV.
And building placement can hide select towers due to terrain.
But mostly, the radar tower that alerts the afk to an attack, also makes their response quick.

OS is worthless unless demolishing OSC's or Hives with it.
Hives are a "WTF" concept, given they were more valuable than the entire lattice for land control, and now barely have a use.
That is the problem with matching an automated & unstoppable generation with the Victory-Point system.
It either is too dominant, or useless.