Update Under Construction - Dev Letter

There's a few things...
But mainly the most broken ones...

Capturing a silo base that has an Orbital Strike in it, doesn't transfer ownership..
Some building won't convert to the opposing team when a silo base is captured, some of the details like colors don't transfer over.
All the modules inside a base after being captured will vanish.
Skyshield dont protect against OS, nor does the new bubble shield.

I played a bit today and enjoyed most if not all of the changes. My outfit mates enjoy base building as it is, and are hopeful for the rehaul.

TLDR: I enjoyed the map changes, and the construction rework. Just a few small details with the artillery system that I dont think are ironed enough yet.

For the map design rework, I enjoy it. There was a floating jump pad at Pommel Gardens when I was there, so I think it will need some tuning but it looks and feels great. I enjoy underwater fights, the only issue with them is the movement underwater feels too sluggish for the game. I also dont enjoy magrider floating over the surface, but thats just a personal gripe.

The biggest impact I had while playing today was turret automation. I think turret automation should be included as a module, but only as a high pressure one. This would allow defenders to outfit their base with AI to help them dispel threats, whilst not being too obnoxious for attackers.

Another complaint I have is the no deploy areas and targeting for artillery. I get people do not enjoy getting hit with artillery, but I believe to have a use for artillery and construction, maybe let it stand as it was before. Artillery is and always will be an issue of being overpowered once you enter a certain distance from it, I think making it a problem will benefit player base fighting, but will hurt normal gameplay captures. Having an orbital strike from an outfit vs a base is different, both take 15 minutes to fully charge, except the built one confined to only usable outside of no deploy areas. I think the forward observer is a good idea, additionally I think you could set up a 2 person system for it, having a forward observer and a shooter. The forward observer lazes the target, and the shooter lines the weapon system up with it and releases the rounds.

Alternatively, If you where to change no deploy areas, you could have the artillery require a specific setup to function through modules and players in order to fire. A forward observer would have to laze, and hold the laze of their target, whilst the modules would serve as a paywall into it. The cost to this would 1) the forward observer, this can be confined to only the placer of the object with their owned silo, IE. Only the builder of the silo AND the artillery piece may utilize it in this way. The base module in order to place could impart restrictions, like no sky wall, repair or shield module on the base, as well as highlighting the base with a marker on the map to draw attention. Another thing is the cert cost, with this setup and costs on live server it would be 1600 certs for the flail and module, this is the cheapest as its just the silo and flail. If you add in the cost of the command center which would be an okay addition as the command center would command the flail to fire, the paywall may be increased too much where the casual players would not pay into it at all, and suffer all of the negatives and none of the benefits.

The flails area of effect also needs to be worked on, as it stands the flail is too accurate for an artillery piece. I think if you tripled the size of the flail area, added a fifth shell, and had the math line up to where no shell was extremely close to one another it will be fine. Artillery is accurate, but it is never pinpoint accurate like it is now, this is why militaries have utilized creeping or sinking strikes.

The largest problem I see with the construction update, and with the alternate solution I gave to no deploy areas, is the use of force multipliers and how they are utilized. Artillery, Air, Vehicles and Maxes should all be treated as force multipliers and assets. The issue arises when an overwhelming force utilizes more force multipliers because their numbers are just higher. We see this with HESH shelling spawn rooms, or max rushes in an over pop fight. I dont know the solution to this, and I think to keep a balance it may never be able to change. I know for maxes you can impose a restriction if one side grossly out pops the other, then you can force them unable to spawn the maxes, this isnt a perfect fix as it would be tied to the hex and an armor column can sit out and shell while restricting max spawns for attackers who only out pop a small base. Additionally, any restriction on vehicles may push for more open infantry fights once nanites are depleted, which some may like, and others may not, or it may not push any fights and the loosing side will lose until their nanites replenish.

Personally, strongly disagree removing the AI turrets is a good thing. In most cases, a construction base are used for vehicle spawning and for them to retreat to it for protection behind some barrier while keeping enemies at bay. Also, the HP of turrets or anything construction-related dies against a few of vehicles, and extra firepower is always welcome.

Maybe only within the proximity of construction outpost silo's to not have AI turrets is fine, but anything outside of that is a complete mess for vehicle enjoyers. Also, please make Skywall Shield Emitter do damage again.

After playing on the test server, I have parts I love and big parts I hate.
Love all the new buildings and the changes to the others. I can now use the bunkers and Sundy Garage in the construction of my wall and still keep it totally sealed off except for the gate. One thing I would like to see changed is the Command Center, it needs squared off, one of the entrances removed to allow good butting up to walls and a shield between the vehicle spawn point and terminal. I try very hard to keep structures out of the interior of my base and only built into the walls. Giving people places to hide inside your base is death as it is now with the little defense we have.
I do like that we have options for small solo bases and larger squad bases. I still have a spawn tube or re·spawn structure to fit into my solo base or the command center for larger squad bases.
Also love having more walls to use, three always felt one too few.

I hate the Mod system, it's way too much micromanagement and greatly increases the time it takes to get your base up and running.
It's also ripe for griefing. Even in buildings current state, with the few passive defenses we have, I regularly will have one or two dudes spend entire alerts harassing me when trying to build my base. Coming back again again after each death, even when I build way back in friendly territory. With this new mod system, I can totally see a single infil just running around overloading modules while dodging lights, keeping me busy trying to put out fires and not enjoying anything,
With the removal of the AOE repair mods and Structure Shield mods, I have to make sure every structure in my base has a repair module in it and any tank or sniper can sit way off in the distance and easily shoot the stuff in the interior of my base through the windows of walls and ****. Yes there are more wall options now, so I could double of walls, but that just gives even more cover for attacking infantry and reduces the space I have inside my base. The limited Skywall coverage really sucks too. As a solo builder, I am lucky if I can fit two buildings that can use the skywall mod, so most my base sits uncovered leaving me open to OS/Flail spam, aerial attack and people dropping in.
If you gotta keep this ****** mod system, I would recommend making all the mods base wide for all structures, and having a bank of 5 or something in your silo and/or your command center, instead of each structure having it's own mods. That way, it's far less micro management and if someone is overloading them, you don't have to run all over.

Removing any sort of passive defense is just evil. As the game is now, I can build my base in a way that it's fully sealed off so anyone without a jet pack, will have to enter from the Vehicle Gate. I place my Anti-Inf turret overlooking it and doing my best to not place stuff around it to not give attackers cover while covering it with a Pain Spire. And still, it's very common to have one or two dudes easily sneak in and harass the **** out of me while I'm trying to line up a building or placing something. Not to mention if I have to leave my base for any reason, rushing back to your base when on a cort run to find my base already on fire from one persistent person. God forbid two or more people show up with any vehicle. Aircraft sitting way out of range of our anti-air turret, just unloading on your base from below your Skyshield, is a pretty normal thing too.
Yes, I can just go shoot the bad guys, or spawn a vehicle to deal with them, but I am just one dude, if I am lucky there's two of us. I am trying to build a base and can't always be watching my back like a hawk when placing structures or mods. Also people are freaking persistent in this game and will not give up on taking out your base while you are still trying to get it set up or waiting for it to be in place that will get people spawning at it. You're also not going to get backup till the base is fully up and running.
I want to get my base up and running, so people will use it. I can't do that if I have zero way to defend it while I am putting it together or happen to leave it at all for any reason.

Then new construction buildings are going to be irrelevant once the enemy has an armored column firing up. Even with the same amount of people defending/repairing the base you will not win when the common 3 tanks and 2 rep busses show up. It makes building a big bass pointless imo. Forget about it if they have LOS on the silo, might as well deconstruct it yourself. Check out this video to see what i mean.

You all need to take inspiration from real life.

Construction should be thought of as military fieldworks: providing an advantageous defensive position (the opposite of a fun place to attack).

Artillery: good against fixed enemy positions, bad against moving enemy positions.

Artillery doesn't play well in Planetside 2. Oshur flail spam gameplay is the worst gameplay experience in the game. You can't even park sundies in some bases if there is a flail user near by .

Underwater combat is currently leaning toward "realism" at the cost of fun. No one likes it. This is a missed opportunity to make underwater combat MORE fun than land combat.

First of all, get rid of the speed and movement penalties - take that underwater propulsion device and have it be something that automatically appears on our back hip when we enter water. The exact details of how much it propels you could be up for debate. The point is that it's an explanation for having normal walking speed. Secondly, get rid of the bullet drop and weapon restriction penalties - it's the future, everything works fine underwater!

With these two changes, underwater combat could be like land combat, but because of the additions of unhindered 3 dimensional movement in water and perfectly functioning weapons, it could be even MORE fun than land combat. It could be like stepping into the old Tribes games. Planetside 2 with more movement sounds like a fun change of pace and a new test of skill.

LAs could combine their jetpack + underwater propulsion to have more speed/movement than anyone else. Water scooter would always be active with the WASD keys. Works the same as walking. For non-LA classes, space propels you upwards and Ctrl pushes you down. For LA, space activates your jetpack and upward water propulsion at the same time, which is where the increased speed comes in. The flaw with that control scheme would be that LAs can't choose to have one of their two different propulsions off.

Other possible control scheme is that WASD activates the water scooter, but upward/downward directional movement is controlled by moving the mouse up or down. That way a light assault can press Space and not have two different upward propulsions activate. The flaw with that control scheme would be that it's similar to flying and having to move your sightline to move a certain way isn't ideal.

There could be another way I'm not thinking of. I suppose it's possible the water scooter could be "switched to" by holding Shift.

So devs, PLEASE do something to make water combat better if you're going to make half of the center base on Oshur underwater fighting. Making half of the mid fight be underwater with no changes to the current underwater combat system is a disaster waiting to happen.

"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl." Frederick the Great

Ai turret modules need to come back, i need to feel at least a little safe when i leave base behind
There should be 1 module in the spawn tube so that it can be repaired when damaged.
the structure shield module needs to come back, the walls, the infantry tower's function is very low, they will only serve as the great wall of china

The objective of the construction update is to make construction better, yes? The update is making construction worse off than before the update started.

- The new buildings are hard to place because there isn't a lot of flat, relevant, and constructible land in the game.

- The new module system is tedious to place and not open to creativity because structures have module limitations. Only 3 structures even allow skyshields, and on one of those structures the shield is so high it doesn't even really cover anything. Some structures don't even allow modules. The system is convoluted.

- It isn't always easy to tell when modules are being sabotaged.

- Automated defenses are being removed with nothing being added to supplant the void. Previously, builders had issue with stalker infiltrators sneaking into a base and using an explosive crossbow or AV knife to destroy any necessary modules in the way of them destroying the silo, which only takes a couple minutes. Without automated defenses, these players don't even have to play as infiltrator anymore. They can walk in as a heavy to put up more of a fight and have access to explosives, so now solo base destroyers are more emboldened than ever to destroy your base for funsies when they see you leave.

- Solo building or small group building anything besides super barebone bases is effectively dead because bases have to have someone standing guard over them at all times now. No one is going to stand there doing nothing. Construction is supposed to be something that adds a benefit to our play session, not something that entirely takes it over. We still want to play the rest of the game.

- I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather have no shields than 2-way shields on anything but the Sunderer garage. 2-way shields are quite useless for defensive fortifications.

- Still no snapping or any real changes to the placement system (like clipping tolerance or foundations) despite it being a highly requested feature.

- I know this is still a WIP, but please tell me the current UI is not indicative of the future in that we're only going to get a single darklight lamppost.

I tested out the update when it dropped on the test server. There were a lot of people talking to each other in chat and it was a constant deluge of everyone expressing their dissatisfaction as they learned every change that was being made. I don't know a lot of builders who are happy with anything in this update besides the addition of interior play spaces. The module system alone is discouraging me from building because it's so much tedious busywork, and that's before I get into the issue that there's a decent chance if I leave my base, it will die.

At the very least, I'd suggest a couple things.

- Change repair modules to how they used to work. If a structure is affected by them, that structure is invincible until the module is deactivated.

- Alternatively to the above suggestion, add a damage threshold system where a structure cannot start ACTUALLY taking damage until it has received a certain amount of damage within a short time. That damage requirement would be higher than what any single player can dish out in that time. This could be tied to structures individually or to the base as a whole, as if the whole base has a "secret" collective HP.

- Make the new recon array a default unlocked item since the only line of defense your base has now is a warning telling you to redeploy.

- Make the module system more uniform and easier to place. Perhaps make the module slots interactable as a module buy terminal?

This update was supposed to overhaul construction and make it better for everyone to use and play in. I was excited for it. However, all it has really done is add a few building to play in while stripping away a lot more as retribution. There are no REAL changes to a lot of complaints that builders had, as if very little of the feedback in the past 7 years has been heard. All in all, between construction being made worse and Mirror Bay being made worse, this update needs a LOT of work to turn it around. Which makes me afraid, because the update that hits live is usually not too drastically different from what is on PTS.

thought this update was to make construction easier to use, not harder to place, and have zero AI defenses now.... this will make it completely impractical to build where previously it was difficult to find good locations, but enough of them to make a diffrence to the overall play of the map