What I am referring to is cutting off territory from a nation's warpgate, this can be fleshed out much more and made into a more strategic option for players looking to take well defended facilities. What this will do: prompt players to cut off portions of the map and then capture cut off bases as their own. make capturing well defended but cut off bases easier add in additional mechanics to provide extra objectives at cut off bases Make hex style gameplay more fun and engaging What this will not do: Change playstyle to connected bases Changes to metagame overall So lets look at what happens when disconnecting territories from a nations warpgate. Disconnected territories no longer bring in resources Disconnected territories can get cut off from major facilities and lose their benefits and that's about it. So, what should be changed/added? The Shutdown Feature The warpgate should also be providing power to all connected territories to provide power to their facilities. This means that when they are cut off from the warpgate, after a time, certain terminals stop functioning. After 5min of being cut off, a facility's equipment and vehicle terminals become neutralized and can't be used (or hacked back to the owning nations advantage). After 10min of being cut off, a facility's defense mechanisms neutralise and can no longer be used (This means turrets) After 30min of being cut off, a large facility's generators power down and are unable to be put back online unless reconnected to the warpgate After 30min of being cut off, a facilities capture time is halved also as an option, if SCU's were to be brought back to outposts have them constantly shielded when connected to the warpgate, but when cut off, they should be vulnerable and able to be rigged to blow. Of course everything mentioned is prone to balancing to make it fair for everyone. The Isolation/Reconnection bonuses Taking isolated bases gives a minor experience boost when captured by opposing factions Small outpost: 400xp Medium outpost: 750xp Large facility: 1500xp This is to motivate players to cut off and capture rather than just straight capturing to promote strategy in gameplay. However, those that have been cutoff should also stand to gain something from helping reconnect their nations powerlines: Capturing a facility that reconnects the disconnected facilities offers a bonus scaling to the amount of facilities reconnected, something like a 100xp - 500xp bonus. When such facilites are being retaken they should ping up on enemy maps to promote fighting in those areas and give nations a chance to seize control of certain areas and bonuses. Amp station bonus Either scrap the turret cooldown bonus or keep it and add on top of that a bonus that increases the amount of time it takes for disconnected facilities to shutdown (This also means that such facilities dont have to be connected to the amp station in the first place to receive the bonus, so long as a nation controls an amp station). -- With such changes we might be seeing some fluidity in battles and other ways around dealing with enemies deeply entrenched in a specific area (Crown, I'm looking at you), outfits will gain tools to deal with enemies that are more numerous than them if they can successfully outmaneouvre and take surrounding bases. What do you all think? This should be flexible enough to tweak and adjust so it works both for defenders and attackers and yet adds in new gameplay elements that keep the game fresh and exciting!
You sir, put a lot of effort into this and I enjoyed the read very much. This post contains MANY good ideas. Ideas that would make me very happy to see implemented. Contrary to popular belief, weapon balance, pop balance, and server merges are not killing this game. Its the meta game and one of the easiest fixes to a small meta game approach would be to make cutting off territory MEAN something. I have been on Genudine while my entire faction, save a few isolated squads, are in alatum bio lab fighting while me and a select few are trying to push back out of our warp gate. This is definatly not ok. Your suggestions would help with the stalemates at biolabs and the crown. IMO the nail in the coffin would be after a certain amount of time, the XP gain would be 1/4 or normal so that isolated strongholds mean nothing without a connected warp gate. The warp gate should be the focus of the entire game. It should be the stating point and ending point. Keeping a territory connected should be a players top priority.
Thanks, I'm just trying to keep the hex system going since there's a lot of push from others to reinstate the lattice, which I'm pretty sure developers are not willing to revert to. I haven't lost faith in the hex system just yet, there are some pretty gnarly things u can do with it
