[BUG] Orbital Expoit

Someone was suggesting that it was on the PTS as a feature but it would need to be an exploit on the live servers.

Ok, gonna have to ask again for clarification as I believe it was this comment that has spawned some later confusion.

When you say it's how the OS works are you talking about exploiting the spherical nature of the range detection to fire into a circular no-fire zone?

When you say it's coming anyway, did you reach a change somewhere indicating they are removing the no-fire zone?

Also from what I saw, this exploit was a thing going ranpant on Emerald and Connery. Now that it starts attracting the spotlights, my guess is that they try to cover it up with that "new feature" distraction. Their aim is either to make it look legit, or to get more people to use it so they can blend in and avoid punishement for exploit and abuse.

You just don't know when to quit, do you? Really have no intelligence I can tell. Everyone has said it's an exploit, there's a post showing that DBG calls it one and wants it reported and you're still sitting here trying to tell everyone that a bucket of chit is a barrel of diamonds. It's not working, my friend, nor is your blatant dishonesty and support for a cheat. And trust me, I'm not letting you off the hook on this AT ALL.

Exactly what Mccheatmore is trying to do. Given who his TR outfit is, it doesn't surprise me in the least. They're disliked in game, and for good reason, so this is his chance to try to do PR and get people on his side-all so they can cheat with impunity. As I've said before: seen his type come and seen them go...of course they leave once they kill the game. Then they just set up shop in a new one to do the same.

The way it worked is when in a valk have ion cannon dart gun and shoot over any area that is covered by no dmz and in some places it allows you to fire and since the dart gun has unlimited ammo you can repeatedly fire it until it does work while in a valk.

That there I would fully classify that as an exploit just like with using air burst max in a valk.

This ^. As it currently stands the orbital strike is a pain to build, defend, and charge up over a LONG time in order to use it to kill a small number of players (outside of bases) in a very small area, with IMMENSE limitations.

I built one just to find out I couldn't attack anyone in a base battle because of the absurd no-use zones around them, then had the base attacked and find out I couldn't use the ******* thing to defend the base either because it can't be used too close to the base.

The orbital strike is COMPLETELY USELESS unless you exploit it currently, so I can't complain when someone does really. It's the most broken weapon in the game, with neither a purpose nor any practical application.

Exactly, now I would impose some limitations on it if I was redesigning how it worked. Like have each shot drain half the silo's cortium and a destructible Orbital Shield generator added to Major bases like Bio Labs, Amp Stations, etc (possibly just adding the effect to existing shield generators) which would create a cylindrical no fire zone covering the base to the ceiling.

I don't think they fire it out of the valk towards the ground. It's more like they shoot the dart at an allied aircraft above, from the rumbleseat of a valk, which is then presently not in the NDZ. It's obviously the only way it's done because the dart has extremely short range. To fix, simply make the dart not work on impact with a vehicle.

I asked someone "Why would you want to attack a PMB?" I have watch the YouTube videos of many saying constructions was a mistake and a failure etc. but now the concern is an orbital on a spawn room, and it should be. Kinda gives a reason to take out the PMB. Just my opinion. Take care all.

Exactly atm, PMBs are totally separate from the Lattice gameplay. Making OS able to fire on he Lattice is an essential step in integrating the two features.

So a builder, sets up shop in a corner, as far as possible but in range, and builds an OS.
Now everyone else who doesn't want to die inside spawn-rooms, Bio-labs or similar, is forced to engage a Meat-grinder designed by a Player, as far away as they can be, with as many automated defenses as possible, including Pain-fields.
"a forced motivation, on one side, with little profit & a massive penalty. On the other, a hefty reward for any action or inaction."
That is, what making a PMB be able to exterminate lattice spawn-rooms & bases is..
One-sided rewards, with a punishment on the other side.

One Step in making the lattice, the ***** to the Slave driver PMB..
That's one-sided interaction.
PMB exists, created by Builder; Builder is rewarded for building, rewarded in defending, rewarded for attacking & using.
If OS exists, the Builder is awarded massive boons for firing on lattice.
Everyone else, either is killed inside spawn-rooms, or killed inside lattice-bases they can't escape in time, or forced to engage a PMB designed as a Meat-grinder for little rewards, that also has as little actual players involved, making the enemy attacking the PMB, fight mostly Pain-fields, Turrets, land-mines, and barely any actual PVP involved.

The Builder gets rewards, and positive reinforcement.
Everyone else, in this exchange, gets to die to an OS, or die to automated gun-platforms, Pain-fields, and land-mines.
That's the worst possible way to integrate the building system.

Take PMB's, and have them reinforce allies: Give Builders a motive to build in places where it is tactical for the faction, for allies to defend the PMB, and to have the PMB - not where it's best to build as far from everything as possible, which it is now
Make these PMB's, grant notice-able but not required boosts to Allies in the nearby hexes
- make allies want these to exist, as it enhances them, IE don't motivate only the Builder to make these.
Now that the PMB, is worth more near allies, near the fights... Reinforcements to defend & attack them exist naturally.
These PMB's are now part of attacking & defending the lattice, as they improve allies in these tasks.
And the PMB's are not in a one-sided relation, where they dictate everything that happens.

So? Look, the point is that they need to be connected then balanced. Having the totally disconnected and unable to interact is broken AF. So let the OS fire into bases but impose sufficient restrictions and balancing changes to make it not OP.

Make firing drain 25k cortium from a Silo? make pulling the targeting laser cost Nanites? tweak charge up times? Make building an OS take 5-10 minutes while remaining on the map in a weakened state before it even begins to charge up for it's first shot? Destructible OS shields that protect major bases until they've been taken down? Limi the number of OS sites a faction can create?

You could even make it so that there are specific regions of the map that are required to be built in for an OS to be buildable, preventing some of the more awkward bases from being used. And yes fix Hossin so that those plateaux aren't nearly invulnerable.

There are lots of ways to make it so that you don't get OS' hitting bases every 5 minutes.

As for them not being fun or worthwhile to assault...

Increase the xp rewards for assaulting bases. Make there either an xp boost for fighting in proximity to an enemy OS? or link spawning in proximity to a friendly PMB give you an additional xp factor when killed similar to extreme menace.
And or just double or triple the xp gained from destroying base structures?

ISO-4 or Implant drop rewards for destroying certain structures like Glaive IPC or OS uplink?

Make the shielded walls and skyshields more vulnerable (in progress last I heard)?

Take steps to prevent construction in the most absurd places either by increasing their accessibility or preventing construction in those areas?

Please don't dismiss the notion of integrating the OS and Lattice without considering the myriad of ways it can be balanced.

I do like the notion of other reinforcement effects, I'd like to hear more about your ideas in that regard.

I've suggested in the past a barricade which would secure that Hex's control points (similar to back capping) forcing that structure to be destroyed before the lattice could be pushed.
Additionally, a HEAT, HESH and AP variant of the Glaive IPC would be cool and could be linked by a barrage module to give artillery support to nearby regions.

So?
You want one-sided interaction?

If you want PMB's to be involved, they have stop having their motivations be one-sided:
Not to be strictly profiting their builders, at the expense of everyone else involved.
If PMB's can fire into the Lattice, you put the PMB in a situation where it has every motive to be as far as possible from any location useful to anyone even on their own side, so they can more easily Nuke opponents for profit.

The OS was designed to siege bases, not Dictate the Lattice from remote locations.
The Lattice should not be second-fiddle to any PMB that is created near their Hex.
How do you balance a weapon platform place-able by Players, that can shoot into any spawn Room, killing or forcing all players in the blast radius to pray they can escape the base in-time, or Die.
A bio-lab, Defense holds, OS fires, they can't leave, so the entire lab Dies, both sides respawn, and the defense is rushed by the enemy -- flip side: A bio-lab, Defense is failing, OS fires, they can't leave, so the entire lab dies, points are rushed, and defense retakes it.
Normal bases: Lattice base is targeted, all defenders either die, or die to the enemy fire, Spawn camp begins as Enemies drop after the blast clears out every possible defender.

How about PMB's? Oh, it fires into the lattice, but has no motive at all, to be defended by allies around, or be positioned anywhere were it benefits allies that aren't the Builders: Only as close as the Cannon needs to be, to erase a spawn-room.

Rather than force allies to go to the PMB's, nestled in locations that have no practical, nor tactical advantage, and are only there to boost the ****-off factor of attacking them..
And makes any enemy, have to go attack the AI defenses, then unliving walls, and pain-fields, with the least player interaction for the profit of a Builder... Who has no motive to build anywhere near anything useful.
The inverse actually.

You make the PMB's, useful to EVERYONE ELSE, not just the Builders..
Make them motivated & DESIGNED to help EVERYONE not just the Builders.
An OS firing into a Lattice base, doesn't achieve this... It makes the Builders dictate the lattice, and they still build as far as away as possible, with no actual help that isn't a Side-effect on them nuking an entire base for Certs.

We don't need, Builders to pop up, and go "The game now must be played my way, as I say so"
That's essentially, making everyone else regulated as the little minions in a Tower-Defense game.
As the Builders have no motive, to place or use their constructions to the benefit of Allied fights..
They have only the motive just to **** others for profit, as that is how the construction system is designed..
It's all about supporting the Builder's constructs, the Builder's defenses, The Builder more respawn options, and giving the Builder guns to Kill others.
They is not any deployable, in the construction system who's purpose is to actually help the team over the Builder.
Any use of them to help the team, is a side-effect of those people happening to be near the PMB, that has every motive to be as far away from the lattice, and any fights it could help, as possible.

Hell, the most team-work related construction objects?
Their purpose is to send allies to the Builder, to help the Builder, not allow the Builder to send help to Allies..
The Defenses are to protect the PMB core, not defend an area near it.
The Modules aid only the Builder's systems, or help the Builder.
There is no motive in the Construction system to be near any tactical location, even if the no-deploy zones for Construction was smaller, There is more profit in being far away, if you can't glitch the Lattice Bases with proper invulnerable walls, to shield your PMB to make a Better farm for the Builder.

A OS, a siege weapon originally, to fire into the Lattice.
This either feeds the Builder, and a side-effect, scrambles any attack & defense on that lattice base, or forces People into the Builder's grinder..
It benefits the Builder over anyone else..
There is no Construction Object, that actually motivates anyone to build it closer to allied fights, to help allies, over Kill enemies for the boon of the Builder..
Every object is designed to Kill, force others into a Grinder, Support the Builder, or help the Builder..
None are Help THE ******* ALLIES, that expected to care about a PMB, that doesn't have any tools to support them, that aren't death Lasers that Kill every sod in the area... ally or enemy, at that.

If we put bonuses onto PMB's, without ensuring their best profitable motive to build PMB's, is at close to the lattice as possible, to Support Allies as the best money maker..
We reinforce the PMB's, that are as far away from helping their team, as possible, making their Self-serving PMB's stronger, and buffing the Lone-wolf builders that don't actually help allies, more than the Builders wanting to reinforce Allied Defenses on the lattice bases & the builders trying to help Siege the lattice...
The Builder helping their Team, with the intent of helping of their Team, would profit less than the Builders as far away as possible..
So, we ensure All profit is in helping Allies with Constructions..
Not that Profit is in Being as far away as possible, as a Meat Grinder, that shoots Spawn-rooms for extra kills.

That is WHY, we don't let OC's fire into Spawn rooms.
You further the profit game of Isolated PMB's, built solely for the Builder, not at all for the Team.

Sorry mean at your own valk... Wasn't trying to make a how too thing but ya.

I almost didn't respond to you because you clearly didn't read anything I wrote last time. IT's frustrating, I listed a selection of ways to both make it more worthwhile for players to attack a PMB and to make it less OP/frequent that PMBs could use their superweapon on a Lattice base.

Oh, you also clearly ignored where I talked about the possibility of an OS shield over major bases to further limit the ability for an OS to unduly influence a battle.

Let's play a game, we'll make OS Uplinks able to shoot into Lattice bases. But we'll give every base a destructible OS Shield generator.

We'll make OS Uplinks need to be a collaborative effort with One player placing the foundations and then two other players needed to place the 2nd and 3rd part before completion, each phase will take 5 minutes build time for a minimum construction time of 15 minutes during which time it's highly vulnerable.

Pulling the targeting dart gun costs the player all 750 Nanites forcing them to be frugal with their resources. Remember, if you have to respawn (even by redeploying) you lose the targeting gun.

The weapon takes 5 hours to charge up between shots.

The act of firing the OS Uplink drains 40k Cortium form the silo, meaning that it leaves the base vulnerable and in need of immediate resupply as potential attackers would be able to interdict the supply runs.

When firing the target marker appears on the map for a full minute before the shot actually fires.


Now, I hope you can agree with me that the weapon as I've described it is almost as worthless as it is in its present state. A minimum of 5.25 hours between construction initiated and the first shot being fired. In a game where the continent can be locked in 0.75 hours, there's a VERY good chance you'd never fire one shot let alone two and bases are still protected unless you first bring down their shields.

So, the game is this, what changes do you think would be reasonable to bring the OS to a point that it is reasonably usable but still balanced?

I've tried being very reasonable with my suggestions but you ignore them pretending that asymmetric warfare is automatically a bad thing.
Hell, you might as well be complaining that a Sniper versus a Carbine is one-sided or a HESH tank versus an infiltrator.

The entire point of the PMB system was to encourage players to explore and fight on parts of the map that were normally too far from the Lattice Lines.

See you have a point here but you keep mixing the reasonable bits in with the BS where you ignored my suggestions.
How about making a Capture Point Module, essentially a Vehicle Capture point that links to the base in the Hex it's built in. In a 1 point base there become 2 points, in a 3 point base 4. These could take the generator slot in a base instead of a Hive or OS and force hostiles to assault ad capture/destroy the module in order to make good progress capturing the facility.

And please don't gripe that player made bases are built in defencible locations, I ask you to look at almost every castle ever built and see if you can spot a trend.

Besides I bet the reason they put the no build zones in in the first place was to prevent builders fortifying Lattice bases to obscene levels. Imagine A tower base's turrets run by AI modules with walls and skyshields choking off lines of attack.

Because one OS shot every 30 minutes or so on each continent would be TOTALLY game breaking? As opposed to how it is now where Every single OS ever built is worthless.

The other day some Buddies and I sprung up a 100% Hive in VS territory, it ran for maybe 40 minutes. It The AI towers were reduced in the first 5-10 minutes after the VS brought up 2 Magriders We lost Sunderes and pulled more, we pulled Lightning's to hold them off but we fell. Finally, with only the inner courtyard remaining and the Silo down to 40% capacity after they cut our ANT runs, they hit us with an OS of their own and ended it.

If OS Uplinks were able to shoot into bases I guarantee you they'd be hit with that kind of fervour as soon as they were detected. And if they needed to charge for an hour or more there'd be almost no chance for them to get a shot off.

Again, you clearly never read my suggestions for significantly boosting xp gained for destroying/fighting near PMBs.
And I've already addressed a possible tool that a PMB could use to held a Lattice base's defenders. Additionally, I've suggested in other threads that adding a HEAT, AP and HESH varients of the Glaive and allowing them to be linked in an artilarry barage would allow for further support from PMBs Possibly targeted by Squad leader Command tools (on a cooldown between uses and must be within range of the PMB).

You could even make it so that the OS strike is done in a similar way but needs a platoon leader to fire it. Although this would need controls against griefing.

Lone-Wolf builders don't support Lattice bases because they CAN'T help lattice bases. They have the Glaive IPC and the OS Uplink. I honestly don't know if the IPC can shoot into Lattice bases but even if it can it's worthless.

If a single builder could build up to three towers but could select between three of one type, to one of each then you'd see a lot more builders helping nearer bases, If I could drop 3 AT Turrets with AI modules on a ridge line then hell yes, I'd do that. But I can't and worse neither AA nor AI weapons have a turret version so they stand out like a sore thumb demanding to be shot by the first powerful enemy to waltz by.

So someone builds an OS, and the enemy to those Builders, has to survive a blast.
I like the Orbital Shield mechanic in Lattice Bases; But I have this grand bet, that it either will be the no-fire zone we have, be attacked easily from the outside (with no way to secure it properly), barely cover anything useful at all or be eliminated by the PMB's other tools - making it useless against said PMB's.
Since, we rarely ever get anything useful in the Lattice Base itself, but new tools in PMB's, my faith is also low on that shield.

The fact that an OSC has to fire less to be 'Less OP' says a lot about this weapon firing into Spawn-rooms killing everyone there.
If it didn't nuke Spawn-Rooms it would be lot less BS, as you couldn't force the entire base to respawn at once, from miles away.

So no, didn't ignore it.

---
Team-concept; much better than the lone-wolf ***-hole, who spams a dart till he nukes an entire spawn-room or Bio-lab.
--

Defendable Locations for PMB's: Where there is nothing useful to anyone else.
I agree PMB's have crap options in an open field, or anywhere near tactical locations for anyone but the build-team.
However, I'm still going to state how a 'easily defensible' location for a PMB, puts it where no ally has any logical reason to be near, and nothing near it is even vaulable, outside the old "I lock maps Generator", and "I'm a PMB Siege weapon used to defend PMBs" Laser cannon.
The grand difference between a Castle, and a PMB is quite simple: A Castle is actually located in a tactical position for holding territory, and is in a defensible position for the Garrisons to defend their lord's lands -- with fortifications to discourage & help defeat attackers.

A PMB is built where nothing of Value is near, in the most difficult to reach position possible, as far as they can help it from any position the enemy or allies would Value - To discourage attackers.

Yes, the no-build zones are essentially for that.
As having 3-10 Automated defensive turrets, and near invulnerable walls locking allied forces into the Lattice Base, shutting down all vehicle pads from use, and hiding repair-modules inside actually-invulnerable structures tends to be more exploitable than the terrain is.
Which is saying a lot.

One OS Shot per OS, that exterminates any defensive force straight to their spawn room, or nuking every enemy Sunderer & Enemy infantry across an entire base.
Reseting any Attack or Defense -- If your team was actually aware of the OS, when attacking, you'd be at the spawn-room door before they could even leave.
If defending: You just wiped every possible enemy location from the base, and essentially reset the clock.
There isn't an OSC Construction limit across the continent, it's per user.

A Lone-wolf infantry unit, tank, or even Aircraft is unable to wipe out several hundred users with a mouse-click -- after avoiding contact with any opposing player, and building in a remote location.
Each of those other lone-wolves, can't exterminate by themselves, entire coordinated groups across a massive stretch of land without exposing themselves to enemy fire.

How to help allies with construction (as limited as it is, due to design of PMB systems)
Create a Supply Zone between Bases if applicable, or closer (massive No-deploy zones are troublesome here)
Deploy a Defensive barricade or harassment position near an enemy base. (massive No-deploy zones are troublesome here)
The grand lack of ability to help others, is the design of the Objects themselves.

You can want to help the rest of the playerbase, but PMB tools are designed to aid the Builder not anyone else.
Which isn't the Builder's fault either.

Now the turrets:
The reason you can't have a Short version of an AI turret, is so you can't hide an AI turret behind a wall or cover, mulching any infantry that has to get inside the base to destroy the Repair-module keeping the Wall up, blockading all progress.
Can you imagine the sheer defensive power of a Short AI Turret, that has no blind spot under it, can't be targeted from outside, and is the perfect height to guard internal systems from the Infantry that have to get inside to hit the modules?

Which is why Tanks clear the turrets, infantry get in to destroy the modules..
If your best AI defense, that is automated was able to avoid this, you'd basically block the entire attack, if Walls stayed Invulnerable to fire in the effect of Repair Modules.
Which are happily glitched inside Bunkers with their only access point being inside terrain.

As well, to cover the Boosted EXP fields..
Unless that covers the entire hex, you basically just amplified the EXP gain of the builders feeding themselves cort..
Not actually support any allies who aren't in the build team.
Not to mention, being able to fire HESH or HEAT shells in a barrage pattern... over walls, just allows a Builder to better spam Explosive blasts than Lighting tanks do, at Spawn Rooms - expect without even a Player who could be shot at with return fire.