Thought I'd bang on about a base besides the Crown. As it stands Crossroads is one of the most important bases on the map. Half of this is physical location and half is psychological (after all, the base itself doesn't obstruct movement anywhere). Its a major staging area between Southeast and Southwest, as soon as the SW faction owns it, Tawrich comes under threat. When the SE faction owns it they protect Tawrich and start punching into the SW heartland of Xenotech/Regent & Snake Ravine/Vanu Archives. It also a major staging centre against Ti Alloys and the Crown. Unfortunately as a base it is easily surrounded due to its ludicrous positioning with hills surrounding it for tanks to sit up on shelling it. It might be interesting if the base became a real "must capture". What I'd like to see is the Crossroads turned into a mini-version of Splitpeak Pass on Amerish. I'm trying to think of the best way to do this to make the place a tiny bit tougher and a lot more interesting to take without altering terrain/topology, making too much work, too tough to crack or turning it into another major SCU-based installation. Splitpeak Pass is interesting because its a fairly complex base where several separate fights can happen inside it. It is also raised making it tough (like the Crown but not quite as demented) and its in a reasonable good geographic location. I'm thinking some additions of Splitpeak style vehicle shields w/ gens and outer turrets walls (also like Splitpeak/Amp stations) and some extra buildings between those walls and the main base. Mainly something to break up the rise between Crossroads and Xenotech. Place these walls out a bit to shield the main facility from tank camping but also give the enemy a toehold. They would be a secondary fighting position, the run would be just long enough that it would be worth having a defensive sundy out by the wall and the main tower itself couldn't given overwhelming fire support to the wall. Include a few new extra buildings on the inside of the outer walls to give the enemy a toehold that they need to be dug out of and attacking infantry have some cover. Leave the northern side and the capture points as they are now. They are already on a highly defendable rise and probably shouldn't become moreso. Walls and vehicle screens could also be added to the downside between Crossroads and Tawrich to break up that giant expanse a bit and make the attack more layered. Take out wall first, get toehold, then move onto tower. Just some initial thoughts. Bad idea? More/better suggestions? The objective is to recreate Splitpeak Pass on Indar without an extreme rebuild.
Never really heard this debate going in this direction.... IMO if the SE can easily get crossroads consistently then they deserve to have a short lived steamroll. Maybe its easier for your race or your server, but when the crossroads have a decent defensive force it was always very tedious to crack.
The idea is that is becomes difficult, to remove the tedium, to make it somewhere worth holding once you've captured it. It acts as a gateway between two areas. It is important, and should reflect that.
Besides The Crown and Zurvan Amp Station, Crossroads is one of the most fought over bases on Indar, Miller. I agree about making it harder to take though because when tanks get on those hills there is nothing you can do to take them out unless there are some 1337 pilots around.
