Do you think NPCs could make base defense easier?

One thing about bases is that the battlements are often taken before the defending faction even realizes that it is being attacked, and so when they travel to the base; the enemy is usually already in control of most of the facility.

But this is understandable because this game rewards you for constantly being aggressive and active. Who wants to defend?


So, my thought was that if we had NPCs to do the chores nobody else could be bothered with (like defending a base in the middle of nowhere in case of an attack or ninja attempt), would this make defense easier?

I don't expect the NPCs to be that deadly. Simply stop large bases from being ninjacapped by few guys.
Maybe even add to the scale of the game.
Have them as a limited ticket, meaning as soon as players arrive in large numbers to the base, they're quickly wiped out and the fight becomes purely PvP.

What do you guys think?
Could it make defense easier?
Could it make the game feel more alive?
Could it give underpop factions a chance?
Could fearless bots encourage people to also charge out from the spawnrooms if camped?

I'd go for some turret automation, but NPCs I'd say no to.

I actually mentioned something similar to this a while back about automating defenses. NPCs in my opinion would be a bit much and it would add to the already unstable rendering in this game. In Planetside 1 Defenses were automated. You could just take manual control of them. Their accuracy was spot on but they fired slow so it wasn't like a player was in the AV/AA gun. Personally I think automated defenses could be somewhat changed in Planetside 2. Say a central nerve for the entire defense network of the base. Maybe even alter base structures and add interior defense setups. You could capture the central hub and effectively take complete control of the defenses. I wouldn't be surprised if SOE had thrown this idea around already but I think they are still trying to decide how they want the bases to be designed as well as landscapes. But it would add some much needed interest in large base capturing.

This. We want Spitfires back as first line of defense that will meet the enemy if the base is empty.

You mean there aren't bots already in game?

This sounds like an idea. Lattice would never have been needed because of ghostcapping, because automated base defenses would have popped the suckers 9 times out of 10.

Okay, guys, here's the thousand ping question: on whose computer are these automated turrets going to have their A.I. calculated?

Shot closest target to turret; done? Worked well enough on PS1 that I'm not overly concerned it being something unachivable in PS2.

the one they're shooting at, obviously

I never played PS1, so I don't really know how they work.
Let's say AI Turrets are added. Being a computer, wouldn't they consistently land every single shot, mowing every enemy who comes into view?
Again, I don't know how they'd work, but I don't think the turrets would be programmed to miss any shots.

I like the idea. If only the game could handle it.

This could be an interesting experiment: whenever a base is zerged, NPC would generate based off the population numbers. So that any fight is forcibly balanced. When reinforcements arrive, dead bots are not re-spawning. When you look at a base pie chart, it shows allies and the percentage of bots within the allied troops.

Since bots are way easier to kill, it won't be OP. But there will be no more "omg tired of this zerg" whine.

Say, you see a base is being zerged, and despite 50/50 ratio, you're losing it (because you don't have enought real players defending). It gives you chance to come to the rescue. Once you enter the hex, one bot for each new player is removed (naturally, through death, or forcibly).

All fights would be 50/50 then.

Base turrets in PS1 only autofired versus running max units and vehicles and the fire rate was significantly slower than if the turret was manned. Spitfires fired on any enemy within a small radius.

You balance base battles for imbalanced populations then base battles become imbalanced for balanced populations. Just like in wwiionline.

I meant whose client is going to do the thinking for the turrets, on top of the normal player, not how the turret is going to decide on which target to shoot. Automation implies the computer is doing all the work; the question is whose computer is spending the cycles doing target detection, bullet physics, and packet distribution for the turret.

On top of violating the game's policy that all shots are calculated from the perspective of the player who is doing the shooting, this creates a new, convoluted packet management model.

1. The turret enters the rendering distance of the target's client
2. The target's client calculates the distance data to the turret periodically
3. Decision:
   1. When the distance between turret and target model is within the activation distance of the turret, goto 4
   2. Else, go back to 2
4. That target's client requests that the turret declares its player as the active target (sends packet to turret owner)
5. The turret owner (either another player client, or the server) receives the target's request
   1. If the turret has not declared a target yet, it accepts the potential target 's request and declares it the target
   2. If the turret has already declared a target, it rejects the potential target's request
6. The target's client recieves the turret owner's response
   1. If affirmative, goto 7
   2. Else, goto 2
7. The target's client begins to calculate tracking and shot ballistics for the turret
8. When the target dies or leaves the turret's activation distance, send a response to the turret owner
   1. If the target dies, the target client does nothing special (normal death behavior)
   2. If the target has left the turret's activation radius, goto 1
9. Turret owner receives the response, forgets the last target, and will now accept new target requests

If it doesn't do this, the game can enter a state where one turret can fire at all clients within radius of it at the same time. You can cut down wasted search time by the turret owner keeping track of allvalid potential targets within the activation radius of a given turret periodically sorted by distance and actively updating as targets report entering and leaving the activation radius. Even so, this is elaborate work for both servers and clients that already get taxed heavily.
This means the turrets will be affected greatly by ping and latency as well.

This game does not need, and in its current state would be utterly crippled if they added AI behavior processing on top of all the other stuff currently choking the clients and servers to a near standstill in big fights.

Automated turrets might be of some marginal benefit, but the turrets are so trivially destroyed or easily hacked that it would not do anything to slow down any significant force. It might dissuade the occasional random solo noob wandering around in a Lightning at a base where nobody is watching, but that person wasn't going to accomplish anything anyway.

That would be pretty funny

It would be just as effective, but the turrets would not be as immersive. The game would look better with guards defending empty bases, since no player is going to stand around pointlessly. I doubt it would generate much lag, since the area would be devoid of players anyway.

I imagine they would solve this the same way they did in Planetside 1, as for all intents and purposes they have done so in Planetside 2 already.

That is to say, the server would handle it. Not any one persons client. The generators, consoles and turrets are all already server-managed entities just like they were in Planetside 1. They would be adding a behavior, much like you just described, to the turret in addition to the capability for the player to interact with it, on the grand scheme essentially piggybacking on the existing query as to whether the asset is in line-of-sight or not.

On the other matters at hand; the turrets in Planetside 1 fired with pin-point accuracy, but fired in short bursts and only at (as has been said) MAX's [if in run mode], aircraft [except the cloaking transport when cloaked], and ground vehicles [except the Harasser]. Infantry were ignored.

I imagine this could work similarly in Planetside 2, except more specialized.

The AI turrets would engage in short bursts at a rate of fire that would never reach overheat, normal COF but perfect tracking, of any SPRINTING infantry or MAX enemy. Excluding cloaked infiltrators.
The AA turrets would engage in short bursts at a rate of fire that would never reach overheat, normal COF but perfect tracking, any aircraft. Excluding aircraft with Stealth 3-5.
The AV turrets would engage at a rate of fire that would never reach overheat, perfect tracking, any vehicle. Excluding vehicles with Stealth 3-5.

Ultimately this would work, like it did in Planetside 1, as a mild deterrent. Only the most oblivious would be killed; all others would receive damage at a rate that should be enough to make them atleast pull back and repair once while fighting the turret engaging them.

The time spent hacking, or destroying, the turrets to allow mobile assets to enter the area would give defenders time to see the hotspots (generated by the turrets firing) and move to support.

Alternatively, attackers can now use stealth and patience to enter an empty base undetected, thus creating no hotspots, and begin the cap early and unopposed.

I would also tie the automation to a generator. This would give an infiltrator a clear role; get in, blow the gen for the automation. Sunderer/friends can now move in at normal speeds. Alternatively, infiltrator gets in, hacks the turrets, they now start auto-engaging the base owners. SURPRISE.

As for actual NPCs? I don't think they are viable, and I don't think the game could handle PvE on that scale. But I wouldn't mind if they added them. At the least I wouldn't mind some officers and grunts in dress and fatigues going about mindless tasks in the warpgate. Just to make it seem like SOMEBODY is processing our bonus checks while we fight.

Wouldn't mind the same in bases too, and when fighting starts (shots fired within x radius) they just run to the various locked doors and dissapear. We are the fighters. They are just paper pushers there to make it look nice.

It would be awesome if bases had automatic defense systems and a tiny squad would have to be stealthy to deactivate it in order to cap it with a small group.

A large group could simply overwhelm the turrets as they do now.

Auto Turrets would be a great part of the engineer update *wink wink cough cough nudge nudge hint hint*