Alright folks, if you've been following you had to know this one was coming because this build location is a gem when you have the western warpgate. There's a flat-ish plateau surrounded by cliffs with a bridge that enemies have to cross or else go kilometers around. Plus, with the 1 minute base, enemies have to deal with this one, they can't just go around or over like they would do with roadblock bases. It's worth pointing out that the benefits of owning this base extend as far north as Crossroads Watchtower. This is because of the impact that owning Xenotech Labs has on the armoured battles at Crossroads. If attacking armour can only be pulled from Tawrich then it gets bottled up a lot of the time, whereas if flanking armour can be pulled from Xenotech, it makes it much easier for the armour to push through. There is a world of difference for infantry defenders between defending a base while an armoured battle is ongoing, and defending a base while surrounded by armour. So yeah, Berjess is worth it. First up as usual, silos: Place this one first, as the placement is more precise with the other objects it might collide with. This location is decently sheltered, but it can be beaten. Second Silo goes over here: (yes, each player can only place one silo, don't build alone) The location is not quite as critical on this one, place it a couple extra meters away from the first one for good measure, you may have to replace the first one after a battle, and you don't want your placement to be so tight that you can't possibly replicate it when repairing and replacing battle damage. The end result is the two construction zones are close enough to each other that they function as a single base. As you can see, without those lines there, you'd never know that those buildings are in "different bases". Those two rampart walls even touch. In addition to a larger build area, the second silo adds resilience. You now have a very fast recovery option when losing a silo: draw a new silo out of the other silo. Anyone but the owner of that silo can do it. There is something that will happen, and I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, (the two seem rather interchangeable) but when you place the new silo on the grave of the old one it will be VERY thirsty. It will drain more than 10,000 coritum in less than a minute, and the longer it takes to get the new silo online, the more severe this will be. You can overcome this initial drain, but you can't do it alone. When replacing a silo it's all hands on deck for the construction squad to gather new cortium. Whoever else is fighting will just have to get by without you. But enough about silos, lets look at the bridge: -Place that pillbox first, and be ready to place it a couple times before you get it right. You will want to place modules under the forward catwalk (interior shot coming). If it is too high you will not be able to place them, if this happens delete it and try again. It needs to be offset to the left to allow friendly vehicle traffic on the right. Even MBTs can fit here, that bridge is honestly wider than it needs to be. However, the ground on the left isn't level, hence the difficulty in getting the height correct. Once you have it and its interior done, place that pain spire in the door. Troops can still fit through. -Place the vehicle gate behind it, at that diagonal angle you can see and as low in the ground as possible. I could have got that lower, but this was good enough. Here's the interior of that pillbox: You want repair and structure shield modules as well as the spawn tube. It is possible to fit a skywall in here too, but this assembly wasn't perfect, and we placed the skywall outside. As you can see, troops will spawn in and have clear sight lines down the bridge. Place this short AV turret beside the pillbox: And this one beside the static structure: I forgot to grab an exterior pic of this turret, but it is by the door of the static structure, and is the reason you put the vehicle gate low. As you can see, I fired that shot down the bridge. After that place a rampart wall on either side of this set up to stop vehicles from squeezing around it. Then it's time for the flail: That infantry tower is mainly there to body block for the flail, but it also houses modules nicely. Make sure to put a pain spire by it or else it will get captured by enemy infantry, who will be very grateful for the upper window sight lines into your base with shields to protect them. Remember that anyone in your squad can grab the flail dart. It doesn't need to be you. And now it's time to talk about the second base. This bridge roadblock is great and all, but it does bugger all about galaxies. Now I've both seen and tried a few builds for the second base, and there is more than one way to do it. It's not uncommon for me to step back from the bridge roadblock, and see that someone else already built a second base. I'll sometimes just say good enough and leave it be. However, this is the most powerful build I've come up with yet, bring friends for it. Sorry about it being a night shot, I was running out of time. Now, I know this is a lot to look at, so I put my craptactular MS Paint skills to work to make this overhead view: Those circles represent anti personnel towers, and the squares are the pillboxes. Ignore the lines connecting the squares, I imagined this being looser on the spacing and there being rampart walls connecting the pillboxes, that part didn't happen. So, what you are looking at is an inner concave of 4 anti pers towers, with a back line of 3 more, powered by 3 AI modules, 1 in each pillbox. Each pillbox also has a repair and structure shield module, the outer 2 have skywalls and pain spires on the doors. Placement restrictions won't allow a pain spire on the central pillbox I also start with my anti aircraft turret on A point to get the spacing right, then delete that and put it elsewhere when I'm done. I have to say, the results of whatever infantry manage to beat the roadblock running into this are just amazing. I don't know if you've heard what it sounds like when 7 anti personnel towers are firing at once, but it's about the closest thing to godhood I've ever encountered in this game. Some final points that I don't have screen shots for: -Build your OS uplink in the second base. You want it at least 200 meters away from the bridge. The OS isn't for Scarred Mesa, it's for those moments when you feel compelled to role play as Gandalf. -Sometimes vehicles will get behind this base, make sure to have gates on the back doors. A blast wall north of the first silo helps too. -Losing crossroads watchtower is bad. I mean, it's bad in general, but particularly for this base it's bad. You should either be in a platoon or leading a constructions squad and therefore have command chat. If Crossroads starts going down, make sure people notice. -Leave a path for friendly vehicles though your base. They will need to get through from the northern bridge, and the road from Regent Rock Garrison. There are two east-west roads at Berjess, I usually build on the southern one, but keep the northern one open. -Harassers can get up a slope north of the nothern bridge, so expect that they will. -There's a big hill north of Berjess, keep an eye out for enemy spawn beacons and routers. So, there it is, my Berjess build, enjoy!
Builds like this make solo players like me weep tears of jealousy. I've tried making bases on that point before and each time I've gotten just plowed over by a Squad moving through.
The bits on the eastern section should be buildable by yourself, actually defending it will require numbers. I would remind anyone who builds alone that if any aspect of the game allowed 1 player to reliably take on 12 and win, that would be grossly OP. Thanks for the interest though, it does keep me going with these. I have another one I'm waiting on, just waiting for the RNG to give me the right warpgate on the right continent. Speaking of the RNG, so far I've only inflicted the xiphos forest on the NC, the TR haven't encountered this monster yet. The last time the NC were having none of it however, they double tapped OS the moment they saw what they were up against.
