Construction system - what would you add?

Alright forumsiders, now that the construction system has been here for a while and we had time to check it out... What kind of toys would you ad?
Or maybe remove...?
I'm really curious what potential you see in this newest addition to the game.

Please adhere to two rules though:
1. I want to see what Ideas, at least I hope some people will add theirs, get the most approval.
So If you post your own ideas and you got several, write only one Idea per post, so people can upvote and quote them separately.
2. Please don't add ideas about a) Artillery or b) Superunits.
a) Tends to derail threads with an amazing speed and rarely gets a lot of constructive feedback. Besides the technical limitations (renderrange) have been discussed enough.
b) Although interesting in theory, it leads mostly to discussions about balancing details of a hypothetical unit. Although constructive in and of itself, it usully becomes so deep in detail it is hard to follow and it scares away people who just stumbled over the thread.

So, I'll open this with my favorite Idea:

Deployable Jumppads.
If you buy those at your silo you get two deployables.
If you die before placing the second one you need to rebuy it though (of course it costs only half)
The idea is usually to deploy the second one close or in enemy territory, and gaining an advantage like this should, at least in my opinion, carry a certain risk. After all the reward if it works can be pretty big.
Both deployables consist of both the landing and the jumping part on a small platform.
Unlike other deployable it can be deployed around "fixed" bases, except around painfields (spawnroom).
The maximum jumping range is 1000 to 1500m.
The second one can't be deployed if the "line of jump" is not clear.
Unlike other deployables it can be deployed on other constructs though - for example on top of a bunker. (Else your own basewalls would block this most of the time).
It does NOT work through skyshields.
And it can be used by the enemy.
The deconstructor gun does not remove it instantly, but needs 10 seconds charging time to remove it.
The resistances / health of this deployable are about equal to a blockade armor sunderer, and if one is destroyed, the other one blows up too. If you're in mid-air when this happens.... well at least your SPLAT will look funny.


I imagine this would enable organized outfits to quickly (well relatively, this thing has to build itself up too) secure alternative attack routes. Of course nothing stops you from using an LA to deploy this on top of a techplant, or its balcony or similar "high-value" points.
If they build a big base protecting the jumppad, or build it in a base with a HIVE the enemy might gain easy access to the base.
If they just build the jumppad with a sunderer it is pretty easy to destroy by a lone guy with a flash and explosives.
So counterplay is entirely possible, and of course you could also simply camp the landing pad and pad your stats

I'm against jumppads. As much as I like my LA and doing the slingshot, giving players the ability to put this anywhere defeats too much of the advantages. The range is also too large. I would think that a 500m radius is more than large enough for most battles.

I'll give you an alternative idea though: Teleporters.

Works similar to the jumppads, but without all the advantages that LA would have or the problems you are faced with when terrain blocks the jump path. It also allows placement inside buildings or more sheltered terrain. If you want the teleporter to be more easy to discover similar to jumppads (where you see a line of players flying towards it) you can put a big spawn-beacon flare on top or something similar.

Well, I admit slingshotting LAs all over the place was NOT my intention.
About the range - I didn't really check it, but my intention was the distance between Mani Biolab and Mani Tower, which actually does have a jumppad connection there. But I'm bad at guessing so maybe I overdid it.

Regarding the rest though, I actually thought about all of that before, and I think a jumppad is still preferrable.
I want the defenders to see the attackers coming
I want the attackers to see the landing spot before emerging. And teleporters sometimes cause loading screens, which I also want to avoid.
And I want the landing spot to be vulnerable. Which definitely isn't the case when its possible to simply hide it in a building.
A teleporter does not fit the bill unfortunately, and would give a lot more advantage to the user than I'd like.

Teleporters might be a possibility if there is a different drawback to it though.
Like... a cortium toll?
Teleporting infantery, 100 cortium per soldier, teleporting a MAX 500?
Thats 50 tps per loaded ANT, roughly a full platoon.
And its still two-way.
If someone actually managed to push to the tp exit, he can still use it and teleport to the base - and he uses the cortium of the base to pay for it
Of course without the restrictions by terrain etc. the range needn't be so high, so 500m sounds good.

How does that sound?

I think you'll find that teleporters that cause loading screens are beyond 300m distance (or heavily occupied), and that no single jumppad in the game has a range more than 300m, infantry render distance.

With that said, I think we have the pro's and cons on the table:
Jumppads: Allows for easy slingshotting, could have problems with terrain, easy to spot it's position due to the players going there.
Teleporters: Could be placed in-doors (but you could restrict that) and it's harder to spot it's location (could perhaps also be fixed with telegraph signals), teleporters could also cause loading screens when placed too far away from each other.



Now on to one of my idea's, let's keep it simple:
Vehicle spawner. Allows players to spawn all vehicles except MBT's.

Approved. We should have had that from the beginning.
Speaking of which - take some armor and HP off a bunker and make it a deployable spawnroom.

I still think spawns at both of those should have a cortium cost to prevent a besieged base spitting out stuff indenifinitely though.
But then a Sunderer would be the better option and we HAVE a sundy garage... hmmm.

Next idea: Guard towers.

Walls have the tendency to not lock perfectly together because you can't see the edges very well. Guard towers are already in-game at bases on Esamir mostly, with gravlifts to bring you upwards to the top where a sheltered area allows you to fire on enemies below.

Guard towers could easily be placed in the inevitable gap created when placing walls to plug them and function as part of the wall, while also offering a place to return fire. Alternatively they can be placed behind the wall for elevated firepower or good sniper spots. Guard towers would take the place of a single wall slot, so with each guard tower you can place less walls and vice versa.

i've got a better idea vehicle spawner, all ground vehicles, ESFs and valkieres. MBTs are the only vehicle reliant on techplants and if heavier aircraft were it would make no difference due to their speed.

it makes no logical sense that a vehicle spawner building that has a large enough footprint to use nanites to create a galaxy can't make an MBT.

additionally not only pulling them would cost nanites but to pull from a constructed vehicle bay drains a fixed amount of cortium relative to the nanite cost.(i.e holding the discount bonus' of ground or air will reduce the cortium pull cost)

i'd like to see an Air radar installation that reveals all non-stealth aircraft like engagement radar within 700-800m and stealth aircraft within 200m of the radar.

i'd like to see a control point capture blocker building that you can place ether it or the HIVE not both that when built and supplied with cortium prevents control points in the hex from being able to be flipped to an attacker. . it should have a high consumption rate of cortium

attackers can destory it or the silo to nullify it's effect.

this will encourage more sieges or counter tactics of changing the line of advance and attacking a nearby hex to draw the base defenders out, ether way ether the attacks or defender benefit from it depending on how their enemy plays and reacts.

bases would be more important and attackers could use it to fortify a recently capped base to slow down enemy counterattacking.


as for walls i would make a new set of walls designed to click together (but no windows for firing ports) via a toggle that you can put on that when you place those walls you can make them snap onto special joints on other walls, sundie garages, the front of turrets.

there should be some vertical freedom on the joint to account for how wall placement is given they have a long horizontal footprint.

I was going to suggest aircraft spawners as a separate idea later, but consolidating them might not be a wrong idea.

Wasn't the idea that you suggest 1 building per post? Anyway, an air engagement radar wouldn't be amiss... Although following your example, why should it only work against aircraft? Those air-shields are the equivalent of walls but build to be more mean because otherwise fortresses fall too easily. But creating a radar purely for aircraft? I would suggest allowing this radar to pick up on infantry and vehicles as well... But with a twist.
Current radars work in a circle. But what if we build them to cover only a 90 degree angle forwards of them? See it as a focused radar that allows it to have that massive range.
This way you create weaknesses that can be exploited. Mapping out the radar coverage could be crucial for mounting a surprise attack, and targeted attacks to destroy a particular radar station could be staged to get people closer unnoticed.

Maybe that focuses too much on fortress battles. The old gameplay needs to be just as relevant, but if the game becomes a series of "hold the fort" it might get boring too soon. Perhaps you should change it from "prevents capture" to "extends the capture timer". This does not make it a prerequisite for capturing the base, but it might be more useful in the long run to destroy these bases.
I think it would be better to reverse it: The attackers can build lattice-link generators, allowing them to attack regions outside of the normal lattice area's.

This creates a nice balance. The defenders instantly know there's a lattice generator within the region of the base, and try to take it out. The attackers now have to defend the lattice generator (possibly with a fortress) while the defenders attack it. This creates a much more intricate back-and-forth, where you get fighting to get into/defend the fortress and at the same time fighting to get the strongest foothold in the area.

Doesn't anyone think that if a snap-system could be easily build, the developers would have done it by now? Hell while they are at it, allow buildings and turrets to be placed on top of each other where possible! But those things probably take way more time and effort than it's worth.

1) radar that has to be directed is terrible and makes it another boring thing for a players to do, sit on a radar array pointing where then enemy *might* be, rather then a system that detects in a sphere aircraft with it's weakness being it can't locate ground units so ground units can move about and get at it while aircraft can remain hidden from being displayed on enemy's UI as a target until they get into close range.

it might be better to have separate air radar and ground radar and only let you place one, this creates counter play where only one tyoe can attack the base completely undetected until they strike. air or ground not both. while the counter to the radar is absent the unit it counter can take stealth cutting down it's effective range against hem giving them a greater area they can lurk around the base.

2) adding to base capture timers might be a better idea, the lattice generator sound like it could bring back more ghostcapping by using it like adjacency rules used to, done right and some bases made immune to this could work. the terrain might have to be reworked to allow the flow of battle to go between the bases on foot and in ground vehicles.

3) i didn't say it was easy or a trivial task, the premise of this thread is 'what would you add' presuming you were in a position to develop them and have the expertise to know what is attainable and what is a pipe dream.

there needs to be more useful structures that would compete with HIVEs for placement, vehicle pads, air radar, why not a spawnroom with limited spawn capacity that uses cortium for every respawn?

Why would the radar be turnable? Just place 4 facing in a different directino and you've got full coverage! But in allowing the radars to have exploitable holes, you allow players to use them. You can make those holes practically non-existant... But it still requires more effort and allows for tactical assaults to exploit it, or be doomed by it.

Well it wouldn't exactly be ghost capping.
Ghost capping is based on ease and lack of ways to be unseated. This system however forces the "ghost" capper to drive an ANT behind enemy lines, get resources (beforehand or afterwards), set up one of these lattice generators and then move to the base to capture the points. But while capturing he runs the risk of having his lattice generator being found and destroyed, instantly stopping his entire capture, or simply having his butt kicked by the defenders that might show up.

Since you can't just decide to hop anywhere and start attacking, ghost capping is probably one of the last things these things are used for. Ghost capping can easily happen when all the ghost capper needs is a defender team that has too many bases to choose from to defend and an easy&stealthy way to get to the base, IE a wraith flash or fast small vehicle like Harassers. Dragging an ANT to the area, setting up a generator somewhere it won't be instantly found and destroyed possibly with a tiny fortress around it if you can afford it, then moving to the base to capture it... Not my idea of ghost capping in the least, even if you don't get any resistance. However, since everyone would be alerted to your attack and the defenders still have a limited amount of bases to protect, you are probably going to get your butt kicked out when you are halfway towards the base after setting up the lattice link.

I'm all for a spawn room.

I've seen some bases with garages capable of this already...still trying to figure out how it works, but I've seen it done

You mean the empty vehicle garages that are now on places where there used to be bases? No idea how exactly they work either, it's probably owned by the faction with a Silo closest to it last.

But I would like players to build their own.


Another idea: Ammo towers for vehicles and aircraft.

I may be mistaken but, in player made bases, I've seen garage like structures with a vehicle terminal in it. Usually they park a sundy or two in there. I have to figure out how they do this, like I said.

Self destruct that takes out everyone and everything in a given radius.

Like the radar module ideas. Also like the vehicle terminal idea. Would support the "no big stuff" concept. One for each, aircraft and vehicles.

A very cool thread. Only potential problem I see is that many of the suggestions are available via other means. Respawn, ammo and repair can be handled by Sunderers. Infantry motion spotter... goes without saying. Aircraft radar is available on the Lightning, not sure about others. Adding construction items that duplicate in game mechanics may not fly.

Of all the ideas so far, I think the vehicle terminals are the best bet. Most needed and requested. As to the details... That's not my goat.

How about generators? We have HIVE generators, but what about a Nanite Generator? Something that converts cortium into nanites for the entire faction.

Works like a current HIVE generator, blocks other Gens from being constructed near them and gains efficiency based on where its placed in relation to the warpgates. His the kicker.. it gains more effiency the further it is from ANY warpgate. Meaning 100% efficiency is gained from the center territories on the map.

There's no limit to how many active Nanite gens you can have up. As they don't require cores. But they DO appear on the map for enemies to see while active.

At 100% effeciency, the Nanite gen generates an additional 20 nanites per minute. To a max of 100 generated in this fashion. If you have more Nanite Gens than the max, they don't do anything extra other than being redundant targets.

Ah, those are Sunderer Garages you can build. Those do not have a vehicle terminal in it.

I think one common theme I see on this thread is that people want lots of options. I think that the building system should ultimately be upgradable to the point where it can be any kind of base you want. I definitely think being able to upgrade to MBT and Galaxy spawn points is a good idea. Also infantry spawn points.

Maybe creating a tree system would accommodate these concepts while maintaining balance?

If you want to make MBTs, you make a "vehicle plant", which would bar production of the "air base" and the "infantry barracks".

I also wouldn't want to give up on the idea of a fixed infantry delivery system. What about a one-way, long range jump pad? Something that you would maybe get into, point at an area, then be "launched" to that spot? (Similar system was used in BF2142 and it was fun).

Things I would change:
1. Make the default turret more accurate, I think its intended use is for infantry killing but it's really bad at it because it has such a huge spread.
2. Ability to place modules inside bunkers, right now bunkers don't have much use and I feel like there's little use for infantry in base assaults, being able to put important stuff inside buildings would provide an incentive for infantry assaults.
3. Decrease "hitbox" of bunkers, bunkers are really annoying to place right now, you need like 10 feet of available space on every side of one to place it. I'd love it if I could fill in wall gaps with bunkers but right now that's impossible.
4. Some more Silo fine tuning. Maybe an option to allow anyone to buy modules until a certain Cortium amount. I like other players being able to build stuff off my silos but I also don't like them drying my silos up just so they can build a useless wall or bunker.
5. I would also like to see the ability to take Cortium out of a silo via an ANT, again with an option to toggle whether or not this is a public or squad feature.
6. HIVE generators need more health, I think. Or their shields need to be stronger with a shield module. Right now you're basically forced to put HIVEs inside sundie bays or they're going to be cheesed eventually.
7. Slightly decrease no-deploy zone size around bases. I understand they don't want people building inside bases but some of the no-deploy zones are unreasonably big.
8. Maybe mark non-HIVE bases on the map, somehow. Not all constructed bases need HIVEs to be useful but if no one knows it's there then you won't get any help.

Things I would add:
1. Wall variants, maybe a wall with an overhang to protect from aircraft fire, a shorter wall, or maybe a wall with a doorway. Maybe even more expensive walls that have more HP, but that could lead to problems.
2. Smaller fortifications, like barricades. These would be cheap and would be able to close gaps in walls or provide some cover for modules/infantry
3. Definitely agree with vehicle terminals and infantry terminals
4. More building variants, like towers, especially building variants in which you can place modules and stuff like that. I just hate having to place everything out in the open.
5. Lower-profile turrets, more useful for hitting infantry inside the base.
6. More ways to make a base useful, I really like the "base blocker" idea that pelojian brought up.