Over-pop and planetary bonuses

If you change the speed change the speed of a bullet it will take longer for the bullet to arrive at enemy, if the enemy has faster bullets and starts shooting at the same time as you, his bullets will hit you earlier than your bullets him. If you change the speed of your bullets so that they're faster than your enemies bullets, your bullets will hit him earlier. A predicable result.

If you decrease the speed of a galaxy, it will take longer to arrive at the destination. Evading enemy fire will also become harder. Predictable results

If you increase the jumpt height with 900% , Infantry will be able to acces places they couldn't before, jumping would become a more effective way of evading enemy fire. Predictable results

@Demigan from page3, post#45:

I can't see this working as intended. If you're outpopped enemies will most likely shoot you before you can counter the enemy vehicle / aircraft, otherwise it'd be too easy to pull that off. Enemy config, like shield / barricade on a Sunderer, would change the amounts of resources required to destroy resources unless bypassing game mechanics.
Usually 2x C4 doesn't differentiate between a MBT, non-armored Sunderer, Lightning or MAX as target, despite them all costing different amounts of nanites, so how would a resources to destroy resources concept be valueable, yet in a fitting way ?

This would just lead to infil spamming as no other class can avoid enemies being scattered around a base as good as an infil can. As only kills count towards the timer a 2v1 or worse situation, which is likely within a base full of enemies, would mean dying faster and not achieving a kill most likely, except if using infil's bolt action rifle.

Why do vehicles or aircraft not count towards the timer while they require more effort than generic infantry ?

There isn't any good solution to keep numbers even. Either you limit access and have a line of people ready, waiting to fill empty ranks of the faction they want to play but in the meantime they can't or you've to force players to swap teams to do this.

Slow-mo on whoever outnumbers, as per best idea I could come up with, would work without player balance but be arbitrary.

This wouldn't happen. There'd be no more bonuses to take with you on other continents, as mentioned, and neither would they stack, as currently.

I already told you "how"

Nanites

It's a part of the solution. Currently vehicles are incredible force-multipliers that give the Zerglings an even easier time.
C4 is one utility AV weapon, and it isn't well designed. It's currently a necessary evil because of how it works, but why on earth would all other utility AV weapons function the same?
For example: Let's introduce a LAW for Heavies. Can fire several shots in quick succession, is discarded afterwards, each shot costs nanites. This could be best used against MBT's and Lightnings, but less capable against softer armor targets or special vehicles like the Sunderer.
A Thumper for the LA, each grenade again costing nanites. Since it fires a lot of grenades it would cost little per grenade compared to the LAW for example. Best against soft targets like Harassers but with teamwork can be good against harder targets.
Visible Laser designator for Infiltrator. Costs resources to call in an artillery shell/artillery rocket. Could potentially be guided to the target if it's on the move. Visible laser make the Infil easy to spot when in use, artillery weapon could have warnings, tell-tale sounds, light trails and indicators to show it's on it's way if necessary. And it could easily have a low agility so the amount of guiding needed is big and you are likely in need of leading the target rather than continuously painting it.

Again, just examples, and each weapon can have specific targets they are good against and specific targets they are bad against. The main idea would be to give different working AV weapons to each class with different ranges, ease-of-use and power.

Considering that the average player is already KD centric, why isn't this happening already? Both boosting your KD and trying to stall the timer through attrition would work the same. Except ofcourse that the timer is time-bound, and taking your sweet time as an infiltrator avoiding people is a sure-fire way to get too few kills.

Here's the sentence again:
"When you outpop your opponents 2:1 each kill for the zerglings will take 1 second off the timer (assuming they are attacking) while each kill of the underpopped team would add 3 seconds to the timer, and vehicles/aircraft add/subtract more from the timer."

So vehicles and aircraft would count for more, because as you say they require more effort.

Could you tell me why you thought I said the opposite? Because this happens all the time, people completely thinking I said the opposite despite it being clear in the text.

I agree, there isn't a solution to keep the numbers even nor should there be. PS2 is about not having limits. So what needs to change is the enjoyment you can have while underpopped. While there are people who enjoy it as-is, most players don't. So the system and mechanics need changing so players do enjoy being outpopped, which is a natural thing in the PS2 universe.

I would rather turn it around: Speed up the respawn of the outpopped players. Punishing players for outpopping the opponents is a bad thing, especially because you have no control over other people. If you enjoy a nice balanced fight and redeployside dumps a ton of players on your base, you aren't going to enjoy a sudden lengthy respawn for something you didn't do. But what you can do is reward players for sticking around even if the pops suddenly swing away from your favor, as much as faster spawning when outpopped can be considered a reward. Let's keep it at "positive change to make your life a bit easier when outnumbered".

Ah, ok. I misunderstood then.
It would change how continents are played, and would make Esamir much more a vehicle continent again... It could work. Especially since I don't agree with rewards for locking a continent. The act of locking should be your reward through enjoyable gameplay, not having something passively locked somewhere give you rewards.

You have listed "what", not "why".

Because alot of logic and physics also apply in PS2.

What are the physics?

this may have been mentioned already but one way i can think of is giving the faction with a pop disadvantage maybe a nanite generation bonus ... it may be a bit far fetched but say both sides use every option available the side that's underpoped would be able to spawn more vehicles and maxes or have more access to consumables .. kinda may be ballancing out the numberadvantage of the opponent that way .. that or reduce nanitecosts equal to how big the gap of players between factions is

According to the lore, ps2 is based in our universe, which means that Auraxis as the same physical laws as we do. All the laws of thermodynamics, conservation of matter etc...

In reality, the only thing different would probably be the planet's gravity. Other than that, nothing else, this is why I'm having a hard time understanding your question.

The bottom line though, is that ps2 is just a game. It does not need to be based 100% in reality. The only thing the players can ask of ps2 is that it'd be fun to play.

That's probably the best option. It won't give anyone an advantage in a 1v1 but it would definitely help the overall battle. Plus, it's easy to implement and it wouldn't cause DBG to lose any subscriptions. I still think under-pop XP could be at least doubled from where it is now though.

It's a start, but it won't solve the problem. Even if you gave players infinite resources it wouldn't instantly make it enjoyable to be cooped up in the spawn, or have to spawn a vehicle at a previous base, hope no one is camping it already (which will happen quickly if players can reliably get kills/vehicle kill XP from camping it) and hope enough other players will also spawn to help you kill off enough enemy vehicles. And if you are outpopped you usually have the amount of time it takes to capture the base to pull this off, and for most bases that's not a lot of time.

In that case, any changes to things that opeate under the auspices of those physics should obey the physical laws, and not the whims of Candylanders...yes?

The problem is exploiting the afflicted as a method of self-expression. Is this person still doing it?

I'd like to take the time to point out the change in your demeanor, and why no one takes you seriously.

By that same argument, things in the game that are defined by arbitrary systems can be changed no matter how much we as player wish, correct?

Things like magazine capacity and ammunition pool, not bound by carriage or pocket size.
Things like weapon class, not bound by standardized or sensible regulations.
Things like bullet velocity, not bound by propellant or reactive force.
Things like rate of fire, not bound by heat accumulation.
Things like cone of fire, totally unhinged from the laws of common sense in the first place.
Things like individual bullet damage ...
Things like resistance values ...

I can design a system that scales down to the saltpeter exploding with a specific amount of force that creates a specific moment of pressurized gaseous release that pushes a metal object of certain scale and mass and cross-section along and out of a metal tube to cross an expanse of an equally gaseous environment of a certain atmospheric pressure and collide with an armored material that ... No matter how deep you go, there would be numbers within my power to change that wouldn't violate any of the systems but whose outcome would also change, and not always in ways you would desire.

No, they should have never existed in the first place (under arbitrary values). Now that they do though, we need to be careful. Do we make the slide worse by demanding changes, or do we take what we have and change ourselves?

Since I have been here, the overwhelming majority of change posts are rooted in the poster's frustrations- not logic. Any mention of ownership is shouted down- why?

I don't understand. Please communicate more specifically.

there is only so much you can do against an overpop
as for spawncamping that can happen anyway and is a matter of basedesign providing save ways to leave a spawnpoint ..

i advise against adding statbonuses or timebonuses/penalties
on a overpopsituation as that might be abusable

i also don't think adding something like a VP modification would be fun for everybody .. as in the underpopped site may need less territory for a continent lock in some way ... again tendency for abuse ...


maybe adding bots as defenders on bases?

That's why instead of going against an overpop, you should design in favor of the outpopped.

Exactly, so providing safe exits is a part of fighting against overpop. It alone won't solve the problem either, but it will improve fighting against overpop and the fight in general.

How exactly would that be abused? Players leave the region so their allies respawn quicker? Not exactly a great system as it's better to have 2 people instead of one, since you have more uptime of players (thus less problems with overpop) and unless the respawn is cut in half it won't be more efficient.

Statbonuses could be abused by essentially driving into enemy territory. I like driving to an enemy biolab where the two other factions are fighting and killing players until both sides start complaining/guiding me to the other faction's assets in yell chat. Imagine if I got the XP bonus for 200:1 odds... Especially with the idea for basing the XP value on how much you are outpopped . 80 certs for a basic infantry kill! 360 certs for a scrapped MBT! Now imagine with 2 Extreme menace kills inside! Whohooooooo! If it goes to such extreme's I'll gladly outnumber myself! But only for as long as it takes to just buy everything I would want.
And it also offers some weird XP value's at the end of a fight. I would often pick a MAX just before the base flips, then as my allies have already redeployed out and are getting killed quickly, I'll have a massive XP bonus!
It will also encourage players to be dicks. Terminal camping will skyrocket because even if there's just 3 enemy guys there, you get triple XP! If the fight happens on the borders of the region your XP could easily increase tenfold!

"Oh my god guys, we are going to lose! But we have enough territory right now... Everybody log out!"
Server: "Hey, faction A suddenly has a low pop. Let's change the VP's to match. Faction A wins!".
Faction A logs back in. "That's what we call tactical superiority!"
Faction B+C: ...

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
I don't want bots. They would be a nightmare. Currently Spitfires already have to be designed to work on the server-side. These guys may seem to be looking in another direction but can still hit you because the server thinks it is looking in your direction.
Then if you solve that you open a whole other can of worms: How do you rate XP (I don't care if this completely ruins KD, KD is already worthless and should have been replaced with other stats already). So how do you do that with XP? How do you prevent easy farming? If the reward is worthless but the bots are capable of murdering players then it's going to suck fighting them, if it is worthwhile people will be abusing every AI flaw they can find.

Besides ofcourse the entire glory of PS2, at least before Spitties and Construction, was that every bullet and every death was caused by a player action. I can tolerate the Spitfire because it's role is more a warning system and bulletsponge and I can accept the turrets of bases to prevent too easy destruction of someone's work. But it shouldn't go further than that.

I can't accept player base turrets as they are. Checking an amp station to compare, the single base with the most turrets: Players are required to operate and repair everything. Now, comparing that to a player base: An AI module causes the turrets to attack all targets they're specialized against, ignoring the other kinds of targets, but still replacing players that'd be required to operate the turrets if they'd be treated like an amp station. A repair module takes the job a player placed Sunderer with area repair would do without costing nanites, just like the turrets. So an area repair module effect (that also grants damage immunity to hardened structues -> bunkers / walls) and force multipliers (different kinds of automated player base turrets) are granted at the cost of cortium while others have to bring the manpower to operate turrets / repair multiple things or pay nanites for that (area repair Sunderer).

Things are treated highly differently while being nearly the same.

Bases themselves don't have an organic pattern because, as the game progress with construction in it so far shows, players mostly try to wall their base and make it inaccessible by building on hills, near the end of the map, somewhere deep down or with indestructible terrain covering their base.

Players try to minimize access to their bases and hide them away. That's not a construction system you're having in the game but excluded from it with it only being used as VP and victory cert generator and enemies only caring because of that, not because it's good gameplay or they enjoy that. Taking part in the hive system is like having to grab thorns to remove them.

Multiple things need to change for base construction, like it being more instant with construction but either with nanite costs despite costing cortium, a cooldown or both so that destruction doesn't allow immediate replacement from a 50k cortium silo or at least that costs limited nanites.
At the same time turrets, that keep a base in existance, need to be more tanky vs targets they're intended to counter. How many hits an AI turret takes from RPGs is already a good, tanky amount and the same tanky value should exist vs tanks for the AV turret but not in form of extra health but in form of extra armor so that the turret stays vulnerable to other kinds of damage sources but just gains armor vs targets it's intended to be effective against.
Hives should either be removed or receive a redesign to do something else. They're bad for the gameplay as the ways players try to hide away hive bases show.
AI and repair modules should be removed to have players take care, just like in the rest of the game, and shield modules should buff the "hardened structure" damage immunity as they're required to grant that other structures anyway along with extra shields.
Player bases should be allowed at strategic points instead of having huge circle areas around bases, not allowing to cut off roads and bridges or to start a base on a strategic position so that they can be part of the game.
A design pattern should be made that allows strucutes to connect to have some organic pattern while dealing with height issues in that way that there are parts on each strucure that can extend or retract, depending on terrain height.
Vehicle, aircraft and infantry gates should be a thing commonly found in player bases and eventually part of certain structures right from the start (or by making structures upgradeable) to make them less walled while, with a shield module, being capable to withstand ranged attacks despite the open entrances.
Large structures like bunkers can't currently be used to guard entrances because the line of sight they grant is bad and because they're producing that "too close to existing object" error a lot instead of allowing other base structure to connect to them, allowing them to add to the end of a wall instead of demaning a huge distance to it. They need a redesign for better view and usability as their roof is most often useless due to area damage up there that can't be evaded. An upgrade in form of an area damage dampening field or a simpler solution, like some actual protection on top, or just no accessible top but better firing points would help.
Players may be protected from infantry bullets but still receive area damage behind shields (at least from my experience) instead of being protected from that too or at least receiving less.
Ion Cannon and Orbital Strike should be operated from the map instead of with a dart in another clunky mechanic.
It's okay if these strike actual bases if we have actual siege vehicles in return instead of line of sight being constantly required for everything.

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Damn that was a wall of text !

One glorious issue with instant construction; When you are building.
Is it in the middle of a battle?
Can you even detect that realistically?
Having the buildings instantly build simply makes it quicker to build a massive base with less time for any part of it to be vulnerable.
The AV turret has a massive range, and if it could endure repeated heavy weapons... would make it better than a tank.
Which means infantry would have to attempt to outpace a repair module... or get closer, or try to shoot it, which one-shots them, or the AI turrets mulch them.

Comically the AI modules are there, due to in-often bases are attacked, etc.
Repair modules, so you don't have to manually repair every wall.

That's creative.

Question however: isn't there cort taps coming to PTS at some point, to change how bases work?
As if I recall it, the Cort taps come with drastic changes in cort consumption by PMBs.

if it's operated by a map, how do you ensure the bombardier isn't just spamming the map?
What about the physical dart? Does it drop from the sky then?
Does it have no interception method?
In which case, how do the Siege vehicles function?
Do they have set-up time? Do they have a slow speed? A fast speed?
Do they mulch bases by being there, or does it take proper use?

But interesting post.