Dear Daybreak, please consider making construction meaningfull as it's rather pointless to create bases atm except for cheesy orbital strike near Ti Alloys. Back in the day when there were hives to defend I actually loved it. I'm not sure why so many people called it cancer, but construction had its purpose. I remember huuuge north indar bases and several platoon of tanks assaulting it. It was hell of a fights, how could this be wrong? Maybe creating new type of alert like killing silos or something similar?...
At the very least, give XP for construction, rather than just cortium runs. Incentivize building outside of the current situation of, "If I'm really fast I can maybe get an Orbital Beacon up before the map changes and it's no longer in range of anything, otherwise I'm just kinda sitting here with nothing to do and no real reason for my team to show up."
im a big construction fan, i spent thousands pf certs on it in my VS and NC chrs. it is what kept me playing this game, building a stratigic impenetrable fortress between two facilities that provides a safe zone for allies and an obstacle for enemies. never was a fan of this orbital strike ******** cancer. i barely play the game ever since they destroyed construction. i really tried to get in the "open world team death match" meta that the game is currently in, but its just so pointless, not for me. construction is pointless, unrewarding and a chore, unless, as the op said, you do this orbital thing.
The fights and big battles should be focused on the big bases and capture points. That being said, engineers or ANT fan boys should be able to fortify existing bases. Hives are gone and bases have zero lifespans without troops to protect and use them. Current base constructions are a waste of time.
HIVEs made every Lattice Base worthless: Each HIVE had the capacity to endlessly deliver VPs, with no increase in effort, region to secure, or even time investment between VPs. Each HIVE VP was also impossible to lose, and impossible to lose progress, with each HIVE increasing the speed of which VPs were produced. Each HIVE also functioned where-ever the player wanted it, allowing the most secure & easily defended positions to be chosen, and turned into Meat-grinders, with fully automated & self-repairing bases. Each HIVE also has a self-destruct, and multiple layers of protection: on destruction , the HIVE literally kills everyone near it, and launches many more, This typically means the Reward for removal of one is death. By comparison, The largest Lattice Base was worth at best 1 point, had equal enemy & allied positions, limited manual-use turrets, by-design Sunderer-Protected positions for enemy spawns, and in the case of Bio-Labs, Teleports direct to enemy controlled positions. Normal Lattice bases, each became de-vauled depending on Territory already controlled, quickly increased the sheer amount of land & positions to defend: as a single one, removes the VP it gave. With the best common example being 3-Hexes-per-VP. A HIVE however, needed to defend only the internal section, in a static position, placed by the player, often near Invulnerable terrain or World-Borders, literally making it a One-sided meat-grinder, that provided a Map-Locking Advantage un-matched by anything else, yet also was able to near completely automated. The common tactic was Lose all territory, to the warp-gate, and focus on HIVE VPs, a process that can't be stopped. Since you have no land, Every single lattice-base near the warpgate nearly has a 1 VP value, making a quick rush profitable, with the HIVE VPs providing the rest, and locking the map casually. If stopped from capturing the bases, all HIVE VPs remain, making it a constant threat that increases the longer the map goes on. The only means of delaying HIVE VPs, was to constantly stalk the map in Air-craft, and dumb entire squads into their cores, which also Kills the entire squad. Construction Bases, on damage give EXP for repairs, Add in damage & Kills, along with the impressive EXP from Cort mining & storing (2 entire separate EXP events), this was further boosted by any HIVE Proximity boosts. On attacking, only Destruction gives rewards; And if lucky, You were in range of the HIVE proximity boost. The end result is Attackers spend more time having to chase down rapidly-built Grinder-pits, for little EXP, while the Map locks, or they ignore it , enjoy their fights & still get locked out. Construction, literally was hellish for anyone not building those bases. If it wasn't quite literally designed (even to this day) to provide benefits only to the Builder, and not their team, It might actually have allies Defending it, and Foes attacking it freely. What in your kit, currently helps your team Past murdering them & any enemy nearby, with the "help" as a side-effect? Ammo? Usually not near front-line, and often buried damn deep inside if at all. Garage? Same problem (not entirely your fault either) Artillery? Only you can use it, and it slaughters hard & often, hence why it's not able to aimed inside Lattice. OSC? You murder every sodding ally & enemy in a massive radius, wiping out any defense or offensive force. Vehicle Pad? If spawned, and not buried, some-times useful, but also dangerous as hell. Air-Pad? For pilots. Spawn-Tube? Usually just for the Builder. The Alert System? Just for other people to rush to the Builder's aide. The Pain-Fields? To kill attackers automatically. Turrets? To engage autonomously. What in your field kit, isn't a tool to Force others to attack by mass-weapons-fire, or to defend the base? Make Construction actually help the team, Not as a side-effect: Actually design it, to help the team. As nothing it has, past Fortifying the hell out of a Base (lattice or otherwise) autonomously, does it have for Allies.
I am almost fine with current iteration of Construction system, but for Higby sake make buildings more resistant to damage (because they feels like made of cardboard now. Maybe buff Structure Shield module to passivly increase building`s armor in it`s area), allow Glaive and Flail to hit same areas as OS and give us more EXP sources from Construction logistics - blocking damage with walls, providing ground and air vehicles with ammo resupply. Right now there is no purpose to build anything except OS because there is NO CERT GAIN.
I can get the Damage Resistance improvements. If the flail can fire into the lattice, it will be unrelenting wave upon wave of artillery fire at every Spawn-room & control point, as It can more than once every 15-30 minutes... Glaive nailing shields constantly would be annoying, but the Flail is a literal death-sentence from long-range, and would lock the entire ability to use a base near instantly. IE, We do not need More Long-range Indirect-Fire AOE spam on the lattice, Base-wide wipes every half-hour is bad enough.
I do not see logically explanation why they shouldn`t be able to fire on lattice bases. If you`re so concerned with consequences - i`ll remind that Flail and Glave could easily be balanced out by increasing cortium cost for firing each volley or by making them self-excluding in bigger build-radius (so you won`t *********** build all of them in one base). Bases should have more strategic weight and posess more threat to enemy forces if left unattended.
Logical explanation? Why on earth do we have Sky-Shields on PMBs, but not our Lattice bases? Why do have only automation in PMBs? Artillery-Targeting is scrambled near lattice Bases, dues to Jamming Technology, There you go. OSCs can't care, as Orbital Satellite. Cort cost? No cort cost is worth a damn, to constantly bombard & shell spawns for solid minutes. An OSC costs thousands of the crap, per shot, with a lengthy charge, with a up-front high cost to build: It's still spammed. We have multiple OSC's, nailing the same bases. We do not a 2nd Source of Construction , let alone that reloads faster-than-sane. There is a notion of threat, and then there is Completely making the Lattice base nothing but suicide if the Easily constructed, Spammed, and fired Guns can literally lock the base into oblivion inside a minute. As that isn't threatening, That's ******* annoying, and renders lattice bases useless: We already can lock down the lattice, We don't need artillery that can do it constantly, That doesn't even expose itself to return-fire, To phrase it another way. Daybreak has commented about how fast that Flail Fires. Get the spawn-camp artillery fire else-where.
Ever thought of a possibility that Planetside is not one of yours Callofduty shooters? You can deploy on sattelite base, you can deploy additional Sunderers, you have whole map for tactical moves. You are not restricted by spawnroom. And if you do and want bases to be greenhouses where you can fight from point A to point B then i suggest you move to some different corridor PVP shooter and stop trying to mold Planetside into another one of those.
So when it's not COD, it's "Attack the infinitely respawning PMB, that lobs fire over an entire mountain at the spawn-room, any sunderer, and is more easily built & positioned, than any Sunderer is, while having more firepower than an MBT" I don't specifically like an Ant vehicle, that I have to endlessly chase, every 30 seconds or I get an entire artillery barrage on my skull. I do not like the notion of constantly getting artillery-fire on my face, at every single lattice-base, on top of Anywhere in the field. That is the one location, already nuked by a base-wide laser, that at least Isn't a farm-fest for a rapid-reload & rapid-fire Cannon that I can't even return-fire on, as it's barely in the same hex. To flip the table; Imagine if Every single time you spawned an ANT, I had C-4 On your ANT. And I told you, to spawn into the Field, full of land-mines. I already take alternate paths; There isn't one, when the entire spawn is literally under artillery barrage, and every other spot is already Endlessly nailed by Artillery, Enemy MBTs, Air, or requires traveling through the artillery fire. You do not need, Your Rapid-fire Artillery to constantly **** the lattice. The Lattice has no Sky-shield, is easily spawn-camped already, OSCs already wipe the entire damn thing out every half-hour, has no automated-turrets, and Allies can't deploy Sunderers near the base past select locations, most of which are exposed to enemy-fire.. An PMB has more defenses than the lattice. The Lattice has barely any defenses against normal infantry, and is already assaulted by a mass of AOE weapons, Why do you need another way to Farm Infantry At their ******* spawn-point.
God, give this man Skyshield generators for Large lattice-bases. Same as Gate Shield ones, which can be overloaded.
That'd be great. As then, the lattice would actually have something that blocks Air from having a field day over the incredibly exposed area.. Most of which lack even AA guns. Your skyshield also Blocks OSCs... You get the idea yet? PMBs have a counter to a lot of things they fire. The Lattice has not even the simple skyshield. You want to fire a rapid-artillery gun, into a lattice-base, Most likely Spawn-rooms. The only place infantry can spawn near a fight, that isn't literally exposed at the instant of spawning to every single ESF, MBT, or artillery past the OSC (A construction weapon, that takes a half-hour to charge) The Lattice has less defenses, than bases build by a solo ANT in the middle of a field. And you want to fire another Artillery gun, into the place that has cover from tanks. Tanks: Which deal less damage, Open themselves to return-fire (as direct-fire guns), and have less range, than your Artillery. Like dear lord, not every single AOE death weapon needs to be able to farm the Lattice.
Don`t forget that PMBs can easily be destroyed by 2 stray tanks, or by Flail barrages, or by OS, or by suicidal LA. I`d say Lattice bases have MORE defense than PMB right now because they can withstand zerg. Again, you should not be restricted on what to fire and where to fire. The Lattice base design is another topic and a true suspect in this problem. Bases got designed by total unprofessional man who had played too much Overwatch - no decent fortifications, key POI such as Generators are close to borders, defenseless Point building, turrets facing trees and etc. Look for Planetside 1 base design and you`ll get an idea about what i try to say.
2 Stray MBTs, assuming Base has no actual allies, proper defenses or similar. Flail means Construction. OS means an entire Base. Suicidal LA shouldn't get far, unless your defense is crap. A lattice base, has the Defense's spawn-point typically exposed to the elements, with a killing-field for the enemy to use around it. No sky-shields, nor automated defenses (turrets are limited & predictable) The Base design is geared to allow a fight. You aren't allowed to fire it there: Would you enjoy an Endless barrage at every spawn-room? No. Is it fun, to be fired on by an Base that isn't even in LOS even once, Since a stalker pointed a laser-pointer? No. It's a one-sided slaughter, fired by a Device, in manner that is hellish to combat: To engage a PMB, you most of the time fight an Inanimate object, Automated Defenses, automatic Repairs, and maybe the single man behind it: Often that single man, is at a base fighting on top of whatever his PMB is doing, or is hiding, firing these barrages. That Builder, to be "countered", means the enemy has to Literally engage in PvE content for less EXP, constantly. While that Builder can AFK in a corner, Hide indefinitely & rebuild their PMB, which from mining gives them one of the highest EXP gains (that also doesn't involve a single enemy player to do), While firing this dart, in a way they aren't in-danger at all in. It is not fun in the slightest to be constantly bombarded by PMBs run by automations, and a lone Stalker-Infiltrator in the field, who is playing with a Laser-pointer. An MBT shelling spawn is more engaging, As you actually see & hit the damn tank. It's not from across an entire mountain, over 3 buildings before that, by an automated-machine, thanks to a Laser-pointer on a stalker, with an infinite-duration cloak, Forcing a Constant Shell-the-PMB-wall action for Little-EXP, or be bombarded by this Little ****. Imagine, per chance If you were deployed an ANT, and an enemy Liberator Appeared instantly, blowing up the Ant. That isn't Fun. That is what being bombarded by a Bot, nearly a hex away is like. Let alone with how screwed the spawn-system is right now. You either spawn there, get bombarded by that ********, nuked by an OSC, spawn in the field & have the same thing, or spawn far enough that you can Hope no Sod wants to bomb it. At which point however, You can't actually have a fight. As then the artillery starts, wiping that notion out, as Everywhere is Artillery-fire, from PMBs that are completely automated.
