Routing Spire

So about the new routing spire. As it now stands on PTS, the place-able object looks like that of a jump-pad. I will assume for now that its model is still a work-in-progress. (I think devs said so somewhere, such as a livestream) For how small it is, it would be invisible in the shallow swamps on Hossin, making one very hard to find and destroy. This is provided it can even be placed in the water, which I didn't get a chance to test as Hossin locked as I logged in PTS. I'm assuming it would work, however.

Beyond this, you can place this spawn pad anywhere on the map provided the location is relatively flat. 3400 meters away from the spire seems to be no problem. So the problem is this:

You can place a Silo, a Routing Spire, and whatever else in a nice hidden spot close to your warpgate. Then you just haul that routing unit with you and your ESF or whatever to where you wish to put it. On top of a flat space on a super tall tree in Hossin? Sure, that'll work. On top of those blinking towers at most bases? Works too, as there's a small space at the edge that it can be placed on, even though it hangs off a bit. Ammo towers at normal bases have a small and very obscure spot that it can be put on as well that almost nobody would see, right in the top-center.

I've only played around with it on low graphics settings but ultra textures, so I can't say for sure whether it's more noticeable on high "Graphics Quality" or not. If it isn't, then these "pads" are going to be extremely easy to hide and even harder to find, when you're wondering where your enemies that don't have a spawn beacon are coming from.

I like the idea of the routing spire spawn, I really do. It's just, it needs to be more visible. I just know that right now, holy heck is it going to get a lot of abuse come tomorrow's update. The one thing stopping it from getting too crazy is the restriction of 100 meters to spawn on it for the public. For the maker or squad, I think it's 1000 meters? Could be less, I dunno.

Just thought I'd share my concerns, as many likely will post-update.

These routing pads are going to fundamentally change the way we all play Planetside 2, and I don't think people realize just how much. I was initially surprised about how little attention these got when first announced, but mark my words - there will be a LOT of noise about these in the coming days. If they are allowed to be placed right inside of a point room, then DBG has just thrown the balance completely into the hands of the attacking team. We shall see very soon.

Indeed they can be placed there. Even inside your own spawn room, even though it's pointless. For example, you can gateshield diffuse a sunderer or flash into an AMP station [A] point, and then put the router spawn point in there. Anyone within 100 meters of it can spawn, or squad members within like 600 or so. Don't quote me on that last part, but it's from when I tested when the router was first added to PTS, not from my tests earlier today.

Because of how it works, even lag-switchers who glitch into terrain or buildings will be able to place them there. It's an impending problem, anyhow.

I'm just thinking about there being like 6 of these scattered around a small base with a couple in the point room, plus Sundies.. you'll never be able to overcome that as the defending team. These routing pads are seriously going to fundamentally change the way the game plays out.. I'm afraid it just made taking bases muuuuch easier. We're going to need to have dedicated player-made-base hunters flying around at all times killing anything that even remotely looks like a base being built... kill EVERY ANT you see, lol.

Yeah, I agree. It could get like that. Obviously it would have to be 6 separate silos and routing spires, as each base can only have 1 built at a time, with just 1 router (the spawn pad) placed somewhere. That's at least as far as I know. Not many people play on the PTS to test that with, such as if 2 people can place and use routers separately at the same base. So far, dying and then re-deploying onto a Router is about the same spawn delay as a spawn tube, to be exact. Had both up on PTS and the spawn bars were the same.

Just think of there being a routing pad down in B point of the Crown.. I mean, that's totally ridiculous.

There could possibly be more than one spire at a player-made-base, but how about just a bunch of hastily thrown together bases without much more than a silo and the spire.. these could go up (be built) exceedingly fast and would require the defending team to search them all out just to get rid of them in the event that the actual pad(s) were too protected inside of the defenders base - for example inside of the point room along with 35 attackers (who just happen to be respawning on said pad lol).

Do you think having a "Router Base" kind of indication on the continent map akin to HIVEs would be a good idea in this situation? The thing is that the routing spire is vulnerable to small-arms fire like a module, so it's possible that it goes down easy. Assuming people lazily put up these 'bases' to use as routers alone, taking out their spires shouldn't be too hard. That's of course if we know where these bases are, thus going to my previous point, of whether or not they should be marked on the map for all to see.

I think some who like the idea of their router base being hidden from prying eyes would see that as 'anti-fun', but it may be crucial to game balance. They for sure can't 4th faction to destroy your router, but they can still find it, so there's that.

If there's one thing we can take away from the update, though, it's that construction will definitely gain some (if but temporary) popularity. (Routing Spire, Orbital strike anywhere, Flail, etc.)

I share your concerns and would propose a few changes to alleviate the problem:

1) Replace router spawn model with Elysium spawn tube model or similar to restrict placement and increase visibility.

2) Make it so Router Spires can only power router spawns within the same faction's territory as the spire itself. This means people won't be able to tuck away router spires in their warpgate regions and then create spawn points at a faraway enemy base. Instead, you'd have to build your spire within enemy territory to make it viable. This makes spires more exposed and riskier to use and maintain. It also makes sense lore-wise and keeps the world's rules consistent, since the router needs to have actual access to the lattice lane of the enemy faction in order to move soldiers around within it. (Otherwise moving matrices around is super easy and can be done with a block of metal and a cortium crystal, meaning we've been totally ******** this whole time fighting for lattice links from facilities.)

3) Put a map icon on the Spires which becomes visible on the map when you're close enough to it (even if you are an enemy). Similar to how silo's show up on the map when you are close enough, but also working for enemies.

4) Limit the functional distance between a Spire and Spawn to something. 500 metres? 750? This way you don't get something on the other end of the map so directly affecting your battle, and you can instead hunt it down and destroy it if you're not too late and if the enemy decided to leave it unguarded and amass on the control point of the base. This is also immersion-friendly as you have the sense that you are still a part of the same battle when you go hunting for that Spire, instead of having to completely leave it and go 10 bases across the map.

5) Make the deployable spawns only usable within the no-deploy or no-building areas of a base. Matches lore as you re-route the enemy's lattice information and feed your own matrices into it. Also, linking the spawn to the lattice network would require immense power (otherwise the whole lattice system is useless and makes no lore sense since we can make our own super easy and cheap lattice links). Needs some testing, but should work fine on pretty much every base while keeping the intended use of the router spawn, without making it a sunderer or dropship alternative. (Hand crafted no-deploy zones would work soooooo well with this. When are we getting those?)

This should help with the issues this new system causes while still keeping it as a viable part of the meta. If you see any issues with the proposal, please point them out so we can work towards a proper solution.

You notice that maintaining easy to destroy constructed bases need to be good for something? If they are worse than sundies in all aspects, why should anyone use those Routing Spires?

I don't see the problem right now. Larger groups usually have medics with them and medics revive faster than any spawnpad. Once the medics are down(outnumbered) you usually have the same situation that you see at a biolab when the respawn generator is destroyed and you got a sunderer down below: You port in and get farmed.
Then we have to see how long those pads survive. I mean if 2 AV grens or a C4 would be enough to kill them then they won't survive any serious fight. And let's not forget: You first need to build a silo, the spire and then place the pad. On the way to the destination of that pad there is a good chance that you get killed(anyone who ever tried to use the glaive or orbital knows how often that happens)...so you better build a spawn tube and vehicle pad on top of that. Unless you want to run out of cortium in no time you likely need around 20k+...which in turn means that unless you find a large cortium field you gonna likely need 10-15 minutes of preparation. Hell, you could have capped the base twice before your preparations are done.
They may change some fights, but in most cases I think they won't change anything.

In the current state I don't think that PCBs will be used as roadblocks(wouldn't work in most areas anyway). They are only useful as vehicle-zergspawn(no idea why anyone would mine cortium so others can spam away tho)...or as longterm project to deal with some case of stalemate(then the pad and the orbital may come in handy).

Valid points, Pacster3. Though it's still a silly and broken mechanic until they make it look like an actual part of the game by getting rid of the crazy placement locations and the way it totally ruins the whole reasoning behind matrices and lattice links. I still stand behind my suggestions and believe they would be better than things currently are.

Don't forget you can't place a sunderer on a tree/antenna (without magic and lots of time unbothered).

Those obvious exploits(especially the antenna ones) got to go anyway. I think there are only very few trees that actually would matter...Hossin excluded(but there they belong to the special gameplay). And those are usually easier to reach for those that want to destroy the spawn.

Aye, this is big. I'm sure people are going to come up with ways to exploit. We'll see.

But... let's chill for now and see how this goes. There is also a possibility this might turn out to be a really fun addition to the game.

i'd imagine being able to place them anywhere is just an oversight on PTS,
every other construction unit needs to be placed in the area around the silo,
i can't imagine DBG really want us placing them all over capture points XD

Well yeah, you have to place the Spire itself around a silo, but the router unit you take from the spire can be placed basically anywhere on the map, no matter how far it is placed from the spire.

We took a base from TR on Connery this afternoon so freaking easy because we had 3 router spawns IN THE POINT ROOM!

It's absolutely ridiculous.


I've seen them already in the most crazy places, most notably up high, but the worst is right in the point rooms. Picture this - a large group holding a point room gets wiped by a huge defensive push with barely any time left on the cap timer.. that defensive push keeps going after it clears the room and it moves toward the outer parts of the base to finish what's left of the enemy off (kill the Sundies etc).. the point room is now empty and the cap timer is slowly going in the other direction.. none of the attacking team that was in the point room chose to respawn, they coordinated via squad/platoon comms and instead they stayed dead and waited.. they waited for the Stalker who has a router spawn in his back pocket and was hiding in the base waiting for the defensive push to pass by.. Stalker crouch walks into or right next to the point room and drops the router spawn.. BAM the entire attacking group is instantly inside of the point room again and takes the point since there was very little time left on the clock.

That's actually pretty tactically genius. From my use of it today, I've definitely noticed that it does indeed have its own icon on the minimap. It looks exactly like that of the teleporters' icons; an hourglass-looking icon. You'd know it when you see it. It shares faction colors as well, and is visible to the enemy on the minimap, so it is very easy to find.

That said, my previous suspicions of these being too easy to hide have been cleared-- once people actually figure out what the routers are, (many people asked me WTH the pads were today and I had to explain it over and over) they will be noticed and go down very quickly. Their main usage is definitely going to extend to how you described. A tactical counterpush by a stalker after a fight has supposedly been lost.

To my pleasant surprise though, it seems many random players have already caught on to it. They even look for routers in the spawn options and choose that above all. That, or they double-click the circular spawn icon as normal, much as you would a base or spawn tube.

Been enjoying using it so far, as it's actually a pretty fun addition to the game. Yes, it can still be put in cheap places, but it's still no cheaper than light assaults dropping from a valk at the height limit, so yeah. Fresh change of pace for now, and a ton more people building bases it's almost chaotic.

Yup, picked one up for myself last night!
Personally I'm loving it! I was hugely disappointed when they removed the ability to set up a defensive sunderer in an allied base
It felt like zergs became completely unstoppable, this gizmo once again fills the role!
If I could make one change though it would be to make them adhere to no deploy zones in enemy bases,
Because while they will be a great tool against the zerg, if one of those zerglings decides to bring one then you might as well go to a different base, you'll never fight your way to their spawn point (the capture point)

It's good for the game imo, today TR took a tech plant from NC with 50/50 pop, all because someone sneaked inside and dropped a router near point and we were able to get back inside and hold point. We still had a hell of a time holding point for 6 minutes but it gave us a chance. It's not hard to take them out or overcome them but it gives attackers a chance when taking large bases that we normally wouldn't have and I think that's good for the game. Before it was next to impossible to take a large base with even pop and that's just discouraging to players and platoon leaders.

I captured Advari biolab single handedly. A 2nd guy showed up in the last few seconds but I'm declaring it anyway: Single handed biolab capture.

I went there before warpgate stabilization. I put a router by the generator then went in to the SCU. When the warpgates stabilized I triggered the SCU and redployed out of the shield to the router. From the router I started the generator overloading. Shortly before it overloaded and the SCU blew I flipped all points.

Once points were flipped it caught attention. Had some 1:1 fighting, but the SCU blew pretty quickly. At that point **I had a spawn in the biolab and the owning enemy did not**.

Capped it.

Icing on cake: After the cap the SCU was down. I lost a 1:1 trying to get back to fix it. So I just spawned on the router again which was right by the gen. Fixed the gen to lock the guy in and recapped all points before getting back to the SCU.

Despite my previous story...

I think balance might actually be ok.

I had multiple failures trying to get a router in to someplace useful. The time to ferry one from a distant spire adds some balance. Dropping it on death adds balance as I lost more than a few trying to get them someplace. The 100m range is good. It forces it to be a *re*spawn device and not just a spawn device.

The best thing that balances though is the spawn timer. In many bases the existing Sunderers, base spawns, and beacons served the role better.

The need to tighten up the model on it though.. It's a tad cheesy looking.