[Suggestion] PS2 Tech Plant - complete redesign

Just food for thought. Worked this up over the last two days in boredom.


(click to enlarge)



FLOOR 0 (GROUND LEVEL)

Main features:

• Shielded vehicle pad with fortified bunkers
• V-Pad Shield Generator behind first line of defense
• Lobby with Lobby Bunker
• 6 (to 8) ways in, 3 ways up
• Segmented floor plan:
  • Bunker areas (1st line of defense)
  • Lobby area (2nd line of defense)
  • V-pad area (2nd line of defense)
  • V-pad Shield Gen area (3rd line of defense)

Losing the ground level to enemy forces is quite likely with this amount of entrances. However, a good defense can win each section back one at a time. Defense of the V-Pad results in defense of the Shield Generator. This means that infiltrators might have a better chance of reaching the gen than jetpacks, taking back part of their saboteur niche role. This shield generator should be possible to blow up by setting several explosive charges (4 to 6 total, should require one infil to make two runs to set enough charges). Repairs should take one engineer about 120 seconds*.

*Being so close to the invading fight, it is rather inexcusable to not check this area regularly for sabotage attempts. So if it gets blown up, it's your problem for letting enemies pass through.

Shielded infantry windows around the v-pad exit allow for clearing of the outer shield so vehicles can exit the shield more safely. (Inside-Outside Transition zone).

Losing the lobby means losing control of the equipment terminals and thus causes a bit of attrition to the defender. If you manage to capture the room with the terminals intact, infiltrators should be able to hack into them, providing the assailant with new resources.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Infils should not TAKE OVER equipment terminals from defenders. Equipment terminals should primarily benefit the defender logistically and should have anti-virals that undo hacks in time. Infils should simply open them up for temporary use by the assaulting force. Preferably not all players can hack open terminals for character uniqueness and ensuring that by taking out specific players you can deny the assaulting force access to your terminals.

The bunkers also provide a way to slowly fight your way out, next to defending your ground level entry points. Note that the shield walls as depicted in the first image have been left out for schematic simplification purposes. These are however needed to allow indoor-outdoor infantry play to be more gradual. Transition zones between types of combat are needed to mitigate the effect of heavy hardware that can be used outdoors to camp.

6 to 8 entrances (not counting the leg-tower stairs) should provide sufficient ways to break in, if not by a big assault group, then by infiltrators. It should also provide sufficient exits to not be camped too much.

FLOOR 1 (MEDICAL BAY LEVEL)



Main Features:

• Medical Bay and facilities
• Lobby and V-Pad walkways
• 4 ways to get in (including 2 Leg-Tower stairwells)
• V-Pad External Overwatch area (covered battlements)
• Segmented floor plan:
  • Med-Bay area and stairs up
  • Vehicle Pad Hall and stairs down
  • Upper lobby

This floor is connected strongly to the lower level. The stair provides the main choke point which can be bypassed either by taking the lobby and using the stairs to the leg-towers and then the walkways, or by using Jetpacks to reach the upper areas (of the lobby and v-pad, or directly to the external areas).

The medical bay holds facilities for defenders without medics or engineers to heal up and repair their MAX units. This process is slower than using actual medics. These facilities can be opened up for temporary use by the enemy through infiltrators with hacking tools.

FLOOR 2 (MAIN GENERATOR LEVEL)



Main Features:

• Kitchen/cantine spawn exit
• Main Generator
• One double stair up
• One stair down
• Two entrances to external walkways
• Segmented areas:
  • Living Quarters (Armory / Kitchen / Cantine / Toilets?)
  • Stairs hub (X shaped crossfire)
  • Main Generator

On this level there are two more entrances to the keep, seemingly close to an exit from the spawns, but ending up opposite of it near the other stair well section that leads upstairs. On that same opposite side an enclosed area containing the main generator room can be found.

The spawns have one pair of exits on this level through the armory which holds two equipment terminals. It connects to a couple of living quarter rooms: the kitchen and cantine. In this version, the armory (being connected to the spawnroom) is shielded with two shield doors.

The generator room has two entrances, a splitting entrypoint on floor 2. The Main Generator can thus be held by a relatively small group covering the two entrances to the generator. Generator holds could become a viable tactic again, not just by going ahead of the chain, but also by gal dropping from upstairs since it is relatively close to the top floor.

If the Main Generator goes down, all benefits generated by and passing through this lattice link will stop being transfered, all terminals and shields in the base will also power down, although the shields will remain up for about a minute until the energy reserves in the separate generators is used up.


The two remaining leg-towers can be reached from this level's external walkways.


It is clear that this floor would be a major and I mean, MAJOR chokepoint, what with the routes all passing through the same hall. However, the chokepoint works both ways for attackers and defenders and taking one corridor can break control over another or a particular direction. Once control of the central area is gained, the Main Generator becomes an easy target. To prevent a deadlock here, it is advised to use a Galaxy drop on the upper level or have jetpack troops scale the walls on the outside.

As a sidenote, the idea of using living quarters is to make the world feel more real. Adding a Little Nublets room (toilets) somewhere near the cantine would add to the emersion that this is a real universe with people living and working in this environment.

FLOOR 3 (SPAWN ROOM LEVEL)



Main Features:

• Spawn Room
• Spawn Room Shield Generator
• Operations Terminal
• Segmented areas:
  • Spawn Room area (with Spawn Room Shield Generator)
  • Central stairwell (leading down)
  • Security Room area with stairwell (leading up)

The spawnroom has two exits on this floor, each leading by the Spawn Shield Generator. If this generator goes down, that's really your fault for not paying attention, because everyone passes by it. This generator can be destroyed with charges similar to the vehicle pad generator, the only difference is you need only two charges (it is much harder to reach and hold), but it also takes one engineer 120-150 seconds to repair. This to ensure that if an infiltrator is succesful, the effect is not immediately counteracted as in PS2 everyone can be an engineer. Once down, the spawn room is open for assault as the shields drop instantly. Spawn Tubes can then be destroyed by destroying the matrixing (base spawn binding) panels next to them. A painfield should remain active though to discourage camping, unless the Main Generator goes down, which also takes down the spawn room shields.

The Security Room is a new type of room, but houses a feature known to the later veterans: the Operations Terminal ("Main Terminal" in PS1). This terminal provides the squad, platoon and outfit leader with commands to send to his or her underlings, including such things as:

• Binding to (home) base; once players in the squad, platoon or outfit enter the Sphere Of Influence (SOI) of the base they are asked if they want to bind to the base so they can spawn here in the future.
• "Homebase Recall", which asks all players in the squad, platoon or outfit to deconstruct and spawn at this base
• "Warpgate Recall", which asks all players in the squad, platoon or outfit to deconstruct and spawn at the selected Broadcast Warpgate.

A new feature of the Operations Terminal would be allowing the player to monitor heavy fighting activity around the base, using fixed cams spread around the perimeter. Only areas under alert are shown on this monitor, for instance, if a generator is under attack, or there is heavy fighting in a particular area of the base that has a camera. This allows the player to see where he or she is needed most at that time.

Enemy infiltrators with a hacking tool can use this terminal to upload some subtle virals. Only one viral can be active at any time. The more impacting a viral, the sooner it gets detected and removed by the anti-virus system and the longer it takes before it can be used again.

• Black-Out virus: Cameras are temporarily disabled [5 minutes / 2 minutes downtime]
• Open Terminals: All base terminals are opened to the enemy for a prolonged period of time [5 minutes / 2 minutes downtime]
• Open Turrets: All base turrets are opened to the enemy for a short period of time [1,5 minutes / 5 minutes downtime]
• Radar Blackout: Spotting is not communicated between players (only personal spottings show) within the base SOI [30 seconds / 10 minutes downtime]

A radar blackout in PS1 was used standard to conceil all enemies, even those one spotted themselves. In fact, it even conceiled all allies, making it impossible to see where they went. It lasted many minutes and was continuously renewed, making fights very one sided (in favour of the attacker), as such it had the opposite effect of Interlink radar, but worse, because you could not coordinate anymore and lost all your radar situational awareness.

The Radar Blackout virus in PS2 should be used as a tactical, timed tool in coordination with an assault. For instance a Galaxy Drop.

Virals can be removed more swiftly by infiltrators of the faction that owns the base, provided the base is powered.

FLOOR 4 (CONTROL CONSOLE LEVEL)



Main Features:

• Aircraft terminals
• Airpad
• Four entry points of the keep at the CC level (2 from above, 2 near aircraft terminals)
• Segmented areas:
  • Air pad / external walkways
  • Air room / CC
  • Tech Labs / SOI HART Jammer Antenna Controls

The CC is left deliberately vulnerable to Galaxy Drops on either the rooftop or Airpad. It is somewhat incapsulated in a double ring, allowing to try for a hold by smaller groups, including Gal Drops.

The CC capture method should be a pure timer in the order of 10-12 minutes. 15 minutes would be good too, but is likely too long to remain interesting in case of a ghost. 10-12 minutes is needed to attempt a resecure strike. One cannot try to defend something if one cannot reach it in time to defend it after all.

Recapture timers upon a hack (aside from the hacking time) should not exist or be in the order of 30 seconds. The side trying to capture should actively try to prevent these resecure attempts, not linger randomly about the base, knowing they won't lose much time even if they do lose the point. This increases the value of the point and creates a clear win/loss situation, where the defenders (usualy being outnumbered) and even lone people get a chance to thwart/outplay the zerg in one action. They will remember such moments far more brightly than if all effort and playing against all odds turned out to be useless (and I can tell you it often has at least for me been a huge demotivator to keep playing if anything I did was going to end up useless due to capture mechanics benefetting the derpiest side with the most players).

Ideally a tool should be used to hack, rather than proximity rules. The reason is proximity rules allows a player to not be preoccupied or even be aware or putting effort in the (re)capturing process. Proximity rules means that any person trying to thwart this recapture attempt does not get an increased chance. Let the player's allies protect the player hacking the CC. They should not only be thinking of kill-kill-kill, but kill-to-protect and deny/deter-enemy-access-to-area as well. This is afterall more varied and smarter (team)play and therefore more rewarding and satisfying due to not being more of the same, while getting the thanks and comrady from those you protected or helped on purpose rather than by accident because killing stuff helps.

It is also vulnerable to HART drops, obviously, but only when the antenna that jams the signals from the HART squad beacons is deactivated. The controls for this antenna are in the separate section that can only be reached from the outside. It is a bit harder to regain control of, but as long as it is under control, the top section of the base is only vulnerable to air strikes. As such, it is a major tactical objective which either infiltrators, jetpacks or air droppers can go for in order to create a new way into the base.

Please note that airborn spawning is too logistically zerg-friendly and should not be done. Convenience of organisation in this way is not fair to an outnumbered defender that has to protect many entry points and can't regain air control. It would be a cart blanche to win the base if you can just spawn troops in the air. At least having to collect and ferry them back and forth should be done to give defenders a bit of a break and the ability to succesfully deter an assault from above.

The Tech Labs are simply places to fight through where technology can be displayed.

FLOOR 5 (ROOFTOP LEVEL)



Main Features:

• Turrets
• Protective roofing from air strikes

The rooftop is accessible so that jetpackers can't stay out of reach and camp too much, but also provides alternative drop access points into the base and with four access points aircraft will have a harder time camping all walkway areas (including the lower ones).

The defense platform and roof turrets should provide mostly AA and AV protection. The lower level turrets might include some AI turrets, but should probably be mostly AV turrets.






Any thoughts on what the gameplay would be like, let me know.

And yes, there are a lot of intentional chokepoints for defenders to abuse against a numerically superior force. They seem smaller on this scale drawing than they would be in reality though. And yes, I would say that any zerg worth its salt should have individuals being able to break in here and use siege tactics and sabotage to kick the butts of a defending zerg. They'll have to try a bit harder than they're used to though.

For those TL;DR, I don't care. It's clearly not written for you, but for people with an actual deeper interest in level design. Just look at the images or something.

I do really like the details you've added in there like "kitchen" and "canteen". I'd love it if bases felt like bases that serve a purpose (besides being a place to fight over) and were more than just a series of empty rooms largely devoid of furniture or character.

I mean I'd love to enter a room, glance around, and think "oh, this must be the kitchen". Instead almost all PS2 rooms have some weird bench/couch things, what are possibly lockers, and some bizarre computer panels.

Plus of course more clutter in rooms would add to the tactical depth of play. Hiding in and clearing corners would be much more important than running into a room and shooting the first bright blue/red/purple thing you see.

Holy cr** this is ambitious! Love the drawings. Tell me how to draw good sh** like that.

Very cool idea. I never liked that there was so much unused potential when it came to tech plants. There's the big open space under the air pads and the vast emptiness that is the air pads, and this idea handles both those areas well.

You know what I'm reminded of though? The O:MGF video's, where you basically see this guy going, "Well, basically, I'm reducing Memory consumption and lightening the engine load atm by removing various crates and making them all the same Block type, with the same textures, blah blah", and I thought wow... nice way to make the game more bland, but okay, if that's what needs to be done.

So basically, if my memory recollects it correctly (I can search for the vid if need be, GOT IT), they had to REDUCE some of unique and individual objects which "cluttered" exterior and interior area's around bases. I skipped the part before where he does some tile replication into one object, that's the same end result with less objects, that's cool.

So, we'll never get any convincing rooms with a variety of even impervious static objects, I believe.

Man, this was the 21st century. I was promised flying cars and stuff.

At the very least is it too much to ask for a kitchen that looks like a kitchen? Not even a messy kitchen.

Heck we can even reuse the existing objects. No need for special stuff. For example, shrink the lockers and install them in the walls up high. BAM, you've got kitchen cabinets. Take those long orange crates we see everywhere and resize them. Line a room with them. ZAP, you've got kitchen counters. I mean just by doing those few things alone you've already established that the room is some sort of workroom. Tool workshop, kitchen, whatever.

Then take some of the plants and bones in the game. Distribute them in piles, on top of crates, inside crates, just as if someone was preparing ingredients and suddenly had to go. Throw in some infantry knives lining the walls or sitting on the counters, and there you go. It should be clear that the place is a kitchen, and we didn't even have to "add" a new game object!

You can tell from the links in my signature that I can be very creative when it comes to repurposing in-game objects for new purposes. It can totally happen!

I really like it. I hope SOE takes a second to talk about it even if it is not on the current radar.

True enough, this reminds me of how they re-used the background Bushes in Super Mario and re-purposed them as the Clouds and just changed their colour. Although, due to the advanced graphical nature of this game by contrast... I think I might struggle to un-see miniature lockers and miniature exterior plants everywhere inside interior rooms? Hehe.

I won't write it off the idea right away though (although forgive some of the scepticism), no Sir, I welcome your creativity

Why would they design a sensible base?

I had to stop reading when I counted twenty new additions that were not just meshes and textures to the current game, and I only got halfway through floor 4. That alone means this will never see the light of day within realistic development time. It's ambitious, I'll give it that.

BUT. There are still two major concerns I would like to have addressed. They're both similar but have specific distinctions. The former was tailored to the spacing of the final base and the latter entails the design of the base we currently have in context to this new design.

1. The first is that you've walled everything off. There are no open spaces that are not openings to the floor below or broken up by stairs. (Actually, there's no distinction for railings in your diagram. Even the stairs look like they're walled-off.) What I mean is there is very little floor space. Even if I am being greedy in back-adding the size of individual Infantry, everything will be relatively cramped.
2. The second is that you've consolidated what was once a singificant sprawling region of just shy of a dozen reasonably spaced, if not underutilized, though half still with some purpose, buildings into a five layer sandwich that isn't even a hex in length or width. Ignoring the sarcasm I could invoke by saying "ant farm" (actually, it's more like the keep of a medieval castle), the base is now nothing more than a single tower. There's no reason for anything around it, save for maybe those extravagant base walls we possess.

Honestly I love it, the only thing I would change is putting the spawn room on the second level or the bottom level. Having it right under the control point seems...a little too close to the point for my taste.

Did you post this to Reddit? Might get more attention there.

The Control point is is the wrong place, it looks like a very easily defended spot with only 2 ways of reaching it, 1 if you're a not a LA. Once you take that position the only thing you have to defend is one stairway area since the two stairs are right next each other and 2 doors which only LA could reach. I would add a way for non LA defenders/attackers to get onto the "north" air pad via walkways or something so the attackers/defenders now have to worry about a force coming from the two doors onto the airpad rather than just the staircases up.

The SCU is also a bit silly since it's lower in the chain than the CC which you have to hold (at least with current game mechanics) for half of a capture time before you could trigger it, but unless you're just a hold-out force you should be already spawn camping the defenders to keep them away from the CC due to it's highly defensible position.

There is a lot more here than a just a "tech plant redesign" though, with several new mechanics introduced and changes to a lot of existing ones. Some of which is quite interesting but has nothing to do with tech plant redesign.

Gal Drops and taking out the SOI antenna so you can hot drop on top. So a Gal Drop (or other aircraft drop) is three ways. Fourth is using a spawn beacon to land on top.

An extra route outside from below to top would be an option, but would likely require one of those anti-grav lifts due to the size of the stairs needed. I generally don't like those.




I'm not entirely sure, but you seem to have overlooked the existence of the Main Generator (a concept not existent in current PS2, but crucial in PS1), which if blown stops players from spawning (as well as killing all other facilities of the base). In this design, it is fairly easy to use bypass routes to get to it, or a Gal Drop on one of the side entrances.

Attackers will now have to make a choice: blow the gen and though it gets the defenders out, you will be sitting ducks for a while without working terminals, or try to hold or push hard enough to blow the spawn shields and kill just the spawns (which can be done by a strike force too). Camping becomes a huge risk, so you'd rather get rid of them, which should be relatively hard to do through a SCU.

But in fact, coming in and holding the CC or going for one of the higher positioned generators, would be fairly easy to do with a (double) Gal Drop depending on opposition present, as most defenders would be downstairs, rather than upstairs.

The CC is in a very defensible position, as it should be. Why should it be somewhere where you can reach with say two fingers stuck up your nose? That only leads to farming of defenders by attackers. In this situation attackers have ample ways to disable a defense. The CC is however vulnerable to air based invasions (including to reinforcements of the owner). Note that the capture system also changes in my setup to be more like PS1 (just a bit shorter), where you need just a single effective strike from defenders to undo the capture. It is approximately as far as the PS1 CC. So leaving it out in the open would not work with that capture/secure system. The one holding has to dig in.

Trust me in saying that this not only creates more hectic fighting and adrenaline, but it also provides more satisfaction, especially to small groups that try to take a place, but can hold against superior numbers, as well as defenders who get the opportunity to beat larger forces by either finding a weakspot in a large group's defense and taking the CC in a resecure drop, or bringing the gen/spawns back online and then taking back the CC in an all or nothing push/respawn/push/respawn fight.

I don't suggest using current SCU mechanics (those are ridiculous and only exist because of the separation of spawn room from being anywhere near an objective, meaning that defending an objective leaves the spawn room super vulnerable to camping/destruction if there was no automated stalling rule). See the description I gave of the spawn shield and main generator.

A solo infiltrator could try to blow it well before the CC is even looked at. Chances are he would have to be good though to actually kill the spawn tubes themselves given the amount of potential spawners. More likely he would try to free the way and time his or her attack with an incoming Gal Drop (this is one of the things I did in PS1 anyway to great effect - and yes, spawns were that close to gen and CC with over 100 people spawning in a base too). In fact, they were even harder to get to most the time in PS1, so I'm quite sure this would work.

(Don't overestimate the presence of numbers in a defense, 90% is not in the right position to defend an objective and half of the 10% are either incompetent, distracted or afk).

It has everything to do with tech plant redesign really. Capture systems, spawn systems and SOI systems are part of base defensiveness and determine how much time you need and how many options you have. Things like opening or taking over terminals entirely is logistics. Logistics is everything in games like this.

Just look at jetpacks and their impact on 360 degrees defense design: it's completely obsolete. You need a 1080 degrees defense design to keep jetpacks out.


Just look at what "redeployside" means and what impact it has on the effectiveness of a design.

Nah. I'm not really a fan of reddit.

Why can't we get the same level of attention and thinking put to use on BIO LABS??
They're the ones that need it for crying out loud...

I'm getting the feeling I'll have to do it myself at this rate.

Wait....that's a real base ?

You mean with a control console not in the middle of an empty giant room with some walls randomly put there for cover ?

A base with depth and detail ?

With spawns actually INSIDE THE BASE ????

Madness.

That much work done and only 7 likes. That's Forumside for you

Actually...

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...o-dome-base-design-revision-revisited.209082/

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=52204




Been there, done that.

Okay I guess that answers my issues with the ground surrounding it. Which really is the biggest issue I have I suppose. ...Though it still feels like more could be fleshed out inside the actual dome too, particularly close to it's center ceiling which is dead space even for light assaults (kinda goes for Tech plants too ... but not amp stations, Amp stations are FINE, no touchy)

As always i cringe when i read your base design suggestions.
Not because i dislike them, completely the opposite, i cringe thinking how good this game could have been instead of a TDM on a larger scale.