PlanetSide 2: Fortification (PC Update)

Or just not have that pop up when you are not holding a module.

2. Turrets.

3. Dissipation Module.

4. Heavy Repair Module.

5. Vehicle/Air spawns.

6. Recon Spire.

7. Backup spawn-points (Tube, Re birthing Chamber, Router, Sunderer, Ant, Galaxy).

8. Mines (Anti infantry, anti vehicle).

9. Engineer Spitfire Turret (mostly for the sound alert).

10. Mix up not building command center which can be ANT cheesed - build separate vehicle pad that is gated in with shield exit.

11. Play in a squad (and have them rage over your recon spire spamming their screen but maybe someone will help).

The building system has become useless. Explain to me WHY I should now create my own database? Why would I need to defend my allies' base? What will it give me? That's right - nothing but wasted time and humiliation from the enemy. Previously, a random player, seeing a fight next to an allied base, could appear in it and slowly shoot at the enemies from behind a one-sided shield, and even if he was new to the game, he could kill someone and get fun. For the builders, the point of creating a base was to support the allies with artillery fire and orbital strikes, or to direct artillery fire at the enemy base. Its base made it possible to effectively destroy enemies.

There is also no more killing field, and no more turret automation. This means that the base ceases to be self-sufficient, it can no longer hold out for even a couple of minutes, even against a single stalker. This means that if the owner is away on business, or goes to direct his artillery, his base will be turned off before he has time to press U and resurrect in it. Previously, the original, well-thought-out building configuration allowed us to win a little time to return and repel the assault. Now this is not. And even if you have time to return, you will return and play the same way as everywhere else, because there are no additional means of protection at the base.

And now there are no one-sided shields on buildings - which means that a beginner can no longer safely practice shooting. Because that way he can stand up to the old players. Who shoot in the head in a quarter of a second, like cowboys from a holster. And in an open firefight with no advantage, a new player in my base will be humiliated in the same way as in any other place. So why would a newbie spawn in my base? He can go anywhere in the world and be just as humiliated there.

The only advantage that the base gives the player defending it over the attacker is the ability to sit in the turret. Which, as we know, any tank can easily destroy in a one-on-one firefight, due to the fact that the tank can maneuver, dodging shots, but the turret cannot.Thus, the base turned from an interesting tool that allows you to change the gameplay, turned into just a location with a new wall configuration. Although, we should thank the developers for the fact that they shifted their work - creating locations for a shootout - to the players. The players at least understand what the game level should look like. And the developers do not understand, judging by the design of the Oshur towers they made. Just compare the design of Biolab as a shootout game level made by the old devs with the tower on the Oshur continent added by the new devs.

Basically anything that made Base Building Special got thrown out of the window
Give us back:
-Pain Spire
-Ai Module for turret
-One way Shields

A lot of the update is really cool. I wish we had more unique features though in the new buildings other than just compressing everything into one shell (command center).

I think the removal of AI also hurts the game play, bases are bastions in territory conquest, without AI or better turrets it seems better to just use NPC bases.

Between the loss of AI and weak turrets, it's almost as bad as the changes made to the MAX to weaken it beyond use.

My thought would be to poll your long time players before making major changes instead of dropping huge updates that could potentially backfire or at least cause some unhappiness.

My 2 cents...

Is 'Helping Hand' bugged? I have tried everything - Repairing vehicles, deployables etc and I'm still sitting at 0 progress no matter what I do.

The walls are decaying and taking damage by themselves, even though sky shield and fortress shield the orbital strike destroyed our base. The new modules are not very good and removing AI modules make defending base kinda sh**. few modules could be used on new buildings but other than that this update is buggy and ruined huge part of the game for me and my friends. If the AI modules won´t come back and there will still be bugs then i won´t be coming back, sorry :/

Excavion Cleanup site is such a glow-up from Mirror Bay. So far it's been a very enjoyable place for infantry fights, meshing together long and short range combat with underwater and grounded gunplay pretty well, with some room left for construction to breathe, and for vehicles to fight each other.

I was worried that the place would become HESH hell because of the heights surrounding the capture points, but due to the lattice layout, it's uncommon that a tank can stay at a spot safe from other vehicles, to rain down on infantry, which itself has plenty of cover, from the surrounding buildings, to the water itself. Or at least, not much more frequent than on most other facilities.

It can be a bit overwhelming pushing some spots or trying to deploy a sundy at prime time, but after almost two weeks fighting there, I think it serves its purpose as a central base very well. My congratulations to the devs for that!



Construction itself has been pretty fun, with much more grounded gameplay, and less planning/"building a base 40 minutes in advance" type of stuff. Modules make things simpler and faster, compared to the previous system, where so much thought had to be dedicated to modules placement, that it was hard to focus on anything else going on. I've been enjoying having infantry fights at my and other player's bases as well. The barrier for entry and passive Cortium drain makes for a much more approachable gameplay too, and overall I keep seeing much more players run around playerbases trying to help and even fight off attackers, rather than just being here because they have no other option.

It's hard to point out what makes things work so well, but I've just had a lot of fun building, and I think it's the case for a lot of players, including some who had not touched construction before. The barrier for entry being reduced, and the reduction of the unnecessarily high skill ceiling to build a cheesy unbreakable base, are both very welcome.

If there's anything I'm looking forward to most, it would be flail changes. Its ability to deal damage to buildings and infantry that are covered by a skyshield, are especially frustrating.

That being said, I did praise Excavion a lot, but it does suffer from the same main issue that the rest of Oshur bases have: they're simply designed for less players than they often get. There can really be a lot of fun to be had, but going around Excavion at prime time, can be just as annoying as a Trident/Interlink spawn room stalemate. There is room to go around, but outside the water, with little cover, it's still easy to get overwhelmed by vehicles and infiltrators while moving between objectives, unless you're one of those yourself. I still think it's an improvement from Mirror Bay, but this issue seems to be a common theme on a few Oshur bases. Maybe the fun low-pop fights that we can get, is worth the tradeoff.

so i took a bit more time with playing around with the new construction update

first positive thing:
addition of the trainingmission to offer players the neccessary basic assets of a forwardstaging outpost ... which should be like the main objective of PMBs imho ....

annnnnnnnnnnddd that´s realy it ...



now the negatives (prepare for wall of text) :

many bugged structures
most noteably
solidwalls taking damage for no appearant reason, moduleslots being placed too low which makes sloting modules needlesly difficult

Sunderer garage also taking damage for no appearant reason

Glaive (known issue) just simply doesn´t work and as such is a waste of certs

assets like f.e. the vehicleterminal, Glaive and Flail have the issue where for some unknown reason you can´t easily access the terminal .. on the vehicle you may as well have to stand on the spawnplatform risking suicide ...

lack of oneway shields makes deploying any defensive structure with windows questionable because you can already be easily shelled with hesh spam ...
bunkers, rampartwalls, pillbox and infantrytower NEED structureshields back


also it should be again possible to place the elysiumtube within the sunderergarage, pillbox and Infantrytower
these structures already have a rediciulously high cert unlockcost on the level of the commandcenter and Rebirthingcenter
that they have no reason to be this inflexible in use ...


speaking of costs: the addition of the various new walls while in it self nice (i suppose) makes it undesireable to unlock them for their certcost of 1000 to 1500 certs and limited use same with the adjusted cost of defensive turrets now especialy with the lack of the AI module and the fact that you stll can only place one of each of them ...


having to place both the repairmodule and durabilitymodule on about every asset within the PMB is a MASSIVE hassle and needlesly timecounsumeing as well the additon of time limited modules which just should consume an increased cortiumrate instead .. this needs to be reworked


the idea here should be that PBM structures unsuported by modules should still have a level of baselinedurability to be able to survive a raiding attempt by say a single harrasser or tankduo supported by a Ammosunderer when defended by a handfull of players .. ..
using modules such as the heavy repair module, AI module, stuctureshield module etc. while significantly increasing the surviveability/performance of a PMB should also increase the need to maintain its operation through a significant enough cortiumdrain


what imho also needs to be adjusted are the cortiumcosts for offensive vehicles and aircraft such as Harrasers, tanks and esf
spawning a lightning f.e. should cost around a 1000 cortium, ESF imho even up to 1500 cortium considering a silo can storage 50k cortium ... where as supportive vehicles such as ANTs, sunderers and valkeries should remain cheap ...


lets talk about how attacking a PMB should look like:
a player building a PMB of course wants it to be as impenetrable as possible
still a PMB NEEDS to have specifc weaknesses and vulnerability ... obviously the most direct answer attacking it would be a classic Command and Conquer-esque Tankrush with a mix of AP and HESH/HEAT, a Flail or OSU Firebase rush (flail being more likely) ...
or a Commandostyle infantrygroup but not just with cortiombombs placed into moduleslots (someone feel free to tell me how effective cortiumbombs now are)
imho it should be possible to overload certain coreassets such as the Cortiumsilo (make that one even detonate in a nuke also when destroying it with a cortiumbomb), commandcenter, rebirthingcenter, Flail, Glaive, OSU ...
also PMB assets should have propper vulnerability to Infantry AV weapons such as C4, AV manaturrets and launchers, rockletlauncher, AMRs, explosive crossbow and mines ..
cortiumbomb and tunnelwormmodules imo should also be available from infantryterminals in Latticebases ...

finally a thread where people point out my pain. These builders are absolutely right. Whilst there is something good with the update and you can chose from more defense buildings especially walls and it was a good idea to make some bases drilled with extra kortium the building of bases is overall weak. It makes no sense to build and defend something when the attacker does take less or the same effort to conquer it. Whats the point of strenghtening a position? In real war you need 3 attackers against 1 defender to push down a strenghtened position. In this game you just need some flail idiots and your ******.

seriously: a destroyable base in the nowhere (otherwise you cant construct) is just shot down by tanks. at least if a zerg comes.
Therefore I know the concept of this game is that overpop always shall win. usually 60% is a safe win even noobs against pros BUT
Fortifications make only sense if they are not overwhelmed by an even amount of attackers but demand 2-3 times the amount of attackers than defenders. and that they make it a 1:1 balance is just making it entirely useless.

Developers Please Finish the Construction System, don't move on to the next content until this system is too bad for a builder to use on a daily basis. I don't want to do this whole routine for years and I don't want my bases to be piñata. Concerns are related to the departure of the game designer, because of which it is likely that the Construction System may remain in this state forever.

Even with the hotfix on durability modules, it doesn't really help anything survive. Like slapping a band-aid on a crack in a dam. While I appreciate the time put into making the changes, it really needs a balance pass.

The repair module *really* needs a buff.

- 0.5% per second -> 1% per second

I built a command center, put a repair module, durability module and a fire wall module. I sat on top of it and let it get hit by a viper lightning. (They didn't even have any upgrades on the viper) Given enough time and ammo, under 3 minutes without interference, the command center will be destroyed. The silo, even faster. If the repair module was 1% per minute, the structure could survive a solo attacker. It would also increase longevity in fights where there are more than 1 attackers. If this was the intention of the to make it easily destructible by one individual, you certainly hit the mark.

Take into consideration the vehicle gate having only one module slot. 0.5% will have it crumble to 1 lightning in under a minute. You can even mention the structures that don't have any slots, such as the bridge, vehicle ramps, infantry tunnel.

I plead to those behind the scenes to please listen to your loyal builder player base. We want nothing more than to create epic base battles with the tools you've granted us. We don't want to build paper mache, we want the real deal!

All structures need +1 module slot. Those structures that do not have slots must have at least 2 slots. Command Center, Rebirth Center needs an additional 2 slots. Also, all installed modules must be blocked for replacement by a non-base owner.

The normal repair module must be replaced with a heavy repair module without a time limit.

Fortress Shield needs to increase the radius by 30% so that the defenders have a field near the base that will allow respawning vehicles in the protected area and there will be space that will be used to repel the assault.

There is also still a problem with the fact that the bases are ignored by the allies, because of which the chance of a battle appearing on these bases is extremely low.

Pillbox and Infantry Tower need to be able to install two pieces per person. Rampart Wall needs to be made higher. Xiphos Anti-Personnel Tower must be removed, instead, give the opportunity to install another Spear Anti-Vehicle Tower. Hoplon Anti-Aircraft Phalanx Tower needs to give flak damage with projectiles that have an explosion radius.

All Silo Outpost radius zones need a level area without any rocks, trees or buildings. It also requires a ban on the placement of Silo in this area. The capture timer must be increased to a minimum of 2 minutes.

It is also necessary to reduce the NCZ, as it was written in your announcements about the Construction System.

You also need a module cell spire in which you could install an infantry terminal or a small Skywall. All new buildings need to increase the depth of the foundation due to their problematic installation, especially the Sunderer garage. Also, Sunderer Garage has a problem with vehicles bouncing on ramps, which can cause Lightning to simply not enter the ramp due to collision with an invisible ledge.

It would also be nice to be able to pull heavy vehicles from the Command Center for the full cost in nanites + the same cost in Cortium.

It would also be nice if you made a spire with a Silo radius that, when activated, would make structures invulnerable, just like the old Structure Shield module did. We also need a structure that would block Pocket OS in a certain radius until it is destroyed.

thats so many suggestions and if only half of them would be respected playing this game after the update could be worth again.
After all its FORTification and not NOOBification right?

No AI turrets really does suck, i loved base building, but, i mean, 1 dude can terribly defeat an entire base, they are completely inert now, as not enough people who want to / willing to actually man the gun other than the base owner.

1-2 insurgents.... base is completely toast.

I agree with pain spires being removed, then again, it would be very useful to have to destroy first then overload the module.

I wish one mobile skyshield module existed, because, for those still wanting flying protection, yet, do not want to build a massive megolithic fortress of butter. Think would be useful.

May also suggest turning that unhackeable base module, into a module that prevents hacking from any structure it is plugged into?

Would do wonders for 1 player having unlimited access to tanks/planes just by simply hacking the terminal, kinda sucks in that aspect really.

Wish cortium was consumed over time, it prevented bases being perma build the entire duration of the alert

BRING BACK AI MODULES PLEAASE

I just spent 12k certs on all these new awesome thing, and then, found out that they are butter, and worse, no way to defend. I wish I could get my certs back

I've been building again and the turrets with modules are pretty good IMO without AI. The Spear turret is the best, however I wish we could construct both the tall and short one at the same time.. The AA one needs more heat capacity.

I agree with you that the green terminal module should make vehicle pads unhackable until it's overloaded. Also think that we should have the old sky shield module .

Snipping Tool (gyazo.com)

This new 'solid wall' kinda removes the meaning of solid. It removes a lot of the utility a flat, solid wall offers. The new platform makes the wall more redundant and ruins the ability to airgap certain structures together.

The newly added platform to the back of the solid wall needs to be removed, or else we should change the name to a fat solid wall.

Completely agree, they could have just moved the module slots just a tiny bit more up and it would have been fine, everytime they were too low for me, it was just the tiniest smidgen too low.