Alright today I brought some people from my outfit to test cooperative building and base management. We also had a very insightful lesson into current construction techniques by a vet from our outfit. First some bug reports as always: Spawn-Room Shields are inconsistent between command center and rebirth center. Rebirth you can shoot through the roof exit, while on command you cannot. Once again lost all my module certification upon loggin in, happend to the rest of my squad as well. Cannot pull modules from the construction array someone else set down despite full silo and same squad. Happened to everyone else. At the same time its exclusion zone didn't allow me to pull my own array next to it. Some minor feedback. Command Center spawn might easily be boxed in given the very negative angles of doors. The windows are somewhat of a saving grace, though I wished their shields would be almost bulging to allow LA to rapidly shoot away from the room with some cover. (I understand why they cannot be one way given the advantageous position they would provide) I kinda wished the Air Shield for the command center would arc down a bit more, like 3/4 quarters to give long range tanks or air less of an angle to hit its top part. I like the abundance of cortium. Have something more to share there later. General vibe from my squad mates,because they cannot be bothered to write for themselves I fear: Overall they find it interesting and given how they had everything unlocked, they seemed to really enjoy pulling their weight in putting down buildings and modules as well as providing fresh cortium. Because of that I really hope the cert cost to enter construction will be significantly lowered. Like all wall elements should at most cost 2000 certs put together and overall 10.000 certs for the whole package would be my pain point before I would still consider not dumping certs into construction by sheer principle. The first base to have flail + skyshield up can rec any base nearby if managed by a squad. We were entrenched with an air pad and just valked around dropping darts from the side like candy. -> I repeat my point from yesterday: Consider removing flail and glaive for now. Especially with the time it now takes to get a skyshield running. They also couldn't figure out what activating recon array was suppose to do. We love the new infantry tree tower thingy. The way it can just be flexibly placed given its foundation and placement box, should inspire the design for all structural elements and objects with a large footprint. Had someone halfway built 2 into a cliffside and it strangely struck a cord with me imagining infantry hunkering down in that little fort halway up a mountain. After having our base demolish everything in flail range, people didn't really see the strategic value for capturing the next base outside of being able to chain pull vehicles or deploying router. Which mirrors my sentiment from yesterday, that bases need to be more hooked into general capture gameplay and provide rewards for individual soldiers and outfits alike for engaging into fights at constructions. People got really confused they couldn't cortium bomb the silo in a silo base. Even after we explained to them how everything would play out. And honestly we found them much harder to deal with (especially since we lacked a siege base of our own nearby). So they can be fun, maybe. We shall see in live. Now we had a veteran for construction join us going over the system, since seeing them in person is worth more than any patchnotes. Sorry if I repeat some earlier points, but I wish to paraphrase them as best as possible: The new module system did somewhat piss them off on account for all the walking. Since previously a single repair module could cover multiple objects while now they have to get back and forth. They like that there is still a small footprint base for backline logistics of air. They actually thought command center fully replaced Air/Ground Terminal. They like the unhackable equipment terminal. The extra spawn options were a nice touch, though they didn't like how easily you could box people in due to limited angles on everything but the original elisium tube. They expressed a desire for a mammoth cannon (with high minimum angle) to shoot at nearby bastions or snipe down pesky air, who weave away from anti air turrets to fast. They are dismayed at the lack of pain spiral and AI because it makes bases on the front line very anoying to get going/keep alive due to the lack of meaningful draw for big squads to babysit a base. Especially with Valk + Beacon swarm drop being a thing. Allowing to put pressure even on a base you are cutting off for land traffic given the limitations on anti air turrets. They echoed my desire for bases to generate outfit ressources by some capacity, though their design of markets and mining operations was very confusing and would probably take to much work to implement. I ran my ideas for a Control Module providing Attack/Defense capabilites for Base Capture past them and while they were somewhat hesitant due to the possible abuse (if cramped into some inaccessible terrain), they could imagine it working a lot like an OS cannon (limited to its own hex of course), where close bases can more often fire and the effect being limited to 2-3 minutes and some minimum downtime of 4-5 minutes (see OS charge mechanics and minimum "distance"). Overall they like the direction, but also hope there will be some reevalution given their own impressions and hearing it echoed by other construction workers. Last but not least after the PTS event we joined our vet for some action on live with a backline base building squad. I only want to give some interesting points that came up: Combined Construction. Due to a very old and apparenlty well known bug, 2 people working in tandem can technically merge constrution objects. This is how you end up with silos in garages and whatnot. We didn't think to test it in PTS yet, but haven't seen any mention of it being fixed. I am not pointing this out as a bug to be fixed with the update, but rather an inspiration. And making this bug more like an official feature. Here is just a sneak peak of a vehicle pad + pill box merge: What I want to say, is that some construction object really should be able to overlap by some extent. Why not have an infantry tunnel feed right into an pill box or a bunker connected to a resspawning center? Sure some might argue someone might end up abusing it, but honestly at this point, shouldn't we try and maximise creative freedom first, see what works and what breaks to really get people invested into the system? Cortium distribution. We had some real struggles to get cortium in some locations far away from sensible silo positions. That was partly due to other enemy bases eating the stuff up or deposits concentrated into a few locations. While builing next to a 35k vein sure is easy, I don't envy the next person wanting to build a siege base and live off scraps. Especially since Ants can be favourite target for air or lone tanks on the frontlines. PTS might have overdone it to be honest, but I wouldn't mind if on each lattice between all bases you could always find at least 20k worth of veins, especially on those of the front line. Maybe cut down on 35k, change the small vein to 5k and big ones to 10k, since those would neatly fit into the new ANTs reducing the number of half drained and thus not respawning veins. WASP. While I haven't been playing PS2 during the time of the wasp, I only have heard good things about it and also like the design. Especially with how vurnable ANTs can be (especially on the front lines, even with friendly amor in the area), I wouldn't mind an air variant. Maybe have the storage reduced to 5k / 4k depending on vein size to make up for it. Then again aside from ride along infantry, it cannot have a weapon like the ANT and also not built silos. Siege Construction. So this didn't really came up, but upon reflection on stuff like the mysterious function of cortium capacity extensions for terminals and the fact how repair modules can somewhat stop decay, but also how flimsy a base can be given Silo vurnerability, I wanted to throw this into the room: Capacity Modules can feed not just from Silos but also friendly deployed ANTs. And in addition to their current function, they should prevent decay, by passively expending stored cortium. This could solve 2 issues: A base could further secure itself against Silo loss with Capacity Modules. This would give builders a brief window to restore Silo access during a Siege. Maybe make it so a command center with capacity module can prevent decay to nearby structural stuff, like walls, tunnels etc. but not allow for functions like recon, flail, but also stress modules to keep running. The extremly short lived "bridge head". Just an ANT circling around the enemy putting down a pad here, a spawn tube or router there and maybe a rampart / blast wall, each feeding from a limited amount of cortium slotted in via module (I would say at most should last 2-3 minutes before regular decay sets in unless resupplied). Thus bringing bases closer to the fight. And by limiting where a capacitor could be fitted, certain structures can be excluded. Final thought The last 3 days really made me excited for the new update. I think I've seen all there is to be seen for now and the true effect of this new system will only be seen in the wild of live game servers. So this shall be my final log. I have also read a lot of the ingame chat on PTS, followed other threads here and reddit.And while there is a lot of negativity and fear, some of which I share and have talked about. I also see just the amount of effort and good will by the Developers and want to applaud them for this update. So keep at it, but also maybe put it a bit more into the oven before live (you can always have more PTS events down the line) or at least make sure to let the community know, you intend to monitor the situation and apply adjustments as needed. Cough Cough Damage Resistance, Silo VurnerabilityThere is one final inspiring meme of the bug allowing for construction to be merged into existing bases.And honestly? I wouldn't mind if to some extent that could be the case. Module slots in the turrets for either repair, heat or durability upgrade. Double Sided Window and Door Shields for Non-Point Buildings. Garage Door Shield being module powered. A fortress shield for structures like Elli Tower. The ability to "activate" some modificated architechture (exampke ramparts blocking road access on more open bases). All facilitated by ANTs at greatly inflated prices, like 5k for a 60 second citadel shield, 1k for 2 minute Garage Door, etc and for structures like 10k.But that will be enough for now. Thank you if you read through all 3 entries and I hope there is some useful information and feedback packed inside. Looking forward to see construction maybe becoming something, me and my outfit will pick up more in live play.
