PlanetSide: Facility Principles

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

I've spoken a little about this on both PSU and the Official Forums, so I will be putting it up here as well.

Now this section is to not only allow for more realistic warfare, but also the ability to broaden the control over a situation for both sides. For the first part I will talk about pre-capture benifits.

Now, if you've ever played the Command and Conquer series, you'll know that when bases are captured from the enemy, you also gain their technologies as well. In a game like PlanetSide where the Bases and Outposts are uniform, this would be a little difficult, but not impossible.

Basically it would work like this. Whenever a base is hacked, there is at any given moment a capture time it takes for the hack to be completed (for LLU bases it can also be between 5-10 minutes max). Suppose for a moment that until a base-hack is finished, players from the other two empires could not only acquire their weapons and equipment, but also the technology of the base undergoing the hack. This means their tanks, their weapons and ammo... their MAX Armour! To draw the line somewhere in this, I think that empires WOULD NOT have access to the others' BFRs (sorry), but they would be able to access their "sponson-weaponry" (the weapons that go on each arm).

In a nutshell, these abilites for empires would remain open until a base-hack is completed or resecured, then it would revert to normal operations. The same idea could be applied to towers as well, by adding a 5-minute hack time to capturing one of these.

Now I will talk about damage-constraints for facilities.

At this time, a facility is based on the principle that when a part of a base has been destroyed, it only damages that section... but, when the generators are down, nothing on th base can function until they are repaired. Let's talk about that for a moment.

Say that when the generators are damaged, there are power outtages that occur periodically, when forces at a base are respawning and buying vehicles during a battle. Terminals would maybe stop working for a couple of minutes, then work fine again. This means that the generators connect all the systems on a base together like any other form of power grid, so, damaging other parts might have some "interesting" side effects. For instance, the vehicle terminals are probably the most empire-specific parts of any base... let's say that when all vehicle terminals are destoryed, the turrets being on the same grid lose their IFF (Intelligent Friend-or-Foe) Recognition. This means that whenever a vehicle, aircraft or MAX Unit comes in range of the turrets - even if it is a friend - it is fired upon.

I hope I've made the explanations for these ideas as simple as possible for computer-wizkids here, and that you have your own views on how these ideas might be better or changed.

[piolet68654]

or how about when the power goes out at the base you got your vehicle from wont work until power link is restored

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

That doesn't really work all that well without problems. In the AGN broadcast, "Reflections", the information Marsman got about the limitless power cell was from SOE, and is not fiction outside the storyline.

[Redford Blade]

I didn't see that one. What was the power cell story?

[myrtar]

i the idea because it's always fun to use the enemies' weapons against them - and i ALWAYS tried to cap enemy CYs and factories in c&c.

however, it will further devalue the advanced hacker cert, by making jacking less of a sport.

To draw the line somewhere in this, I think that empires WOULD NOT have access to the others' BFRs (sorry), but they would be able to access their "sponson-weaponry" (the weapons that go on each arm).

i strongly agree with this, and have some easy reasoning, if you want:
the BFR pilots haven't attuned for the enemies' frames.


redford: it's an AGN broadcast.
http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...ndex.php?cat=2

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

Yeah, it's that exactly. Even though each BFR would be based from the same designs, it might be fair to assume that the biology for each of the empires would be different in some way, making other BFR-Frame technology incompatible.

As for the part about jacking, getting into an enemy vehicle only takes 30-45 seconds, so if you're behind enemy lines with no base or support, and someone leaves their vehicle unlocked... that's their mistake, not yours. There will always be instances like that, where hacking a base might be impossible for a while without a gate-connection, which means improvising only adds to the game's tension and fun.

[Earlydawn]

I say make hacking enemy terminals and procuring their equipment an Adv. Hacking Merit ability.

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

Well now, even if you can't acquire their own BFRs from bases, you can certainly hack them!

The following screenshots are taken from the event cuurently running on the test servers:

[EDIT] After being given a link to a free host who will allow me to show these pics remotely, here they are for your viewing pleasure, in case some of you do not want to save them to your HDD:

[Redford Blade]

Wow, I have this sudden urge to hack a VS aphelion. (I'm TR, btw)

Then, once I have a fiery red armored humanoid weapon, I'll go berserk while shouting German curses and taking ineffectual direct hits from Reavers and tanks, then get wasted by twelve Vanu Aphelions that won't seem to die.

(Props to anyone who gets this semi-subtle reference to a wonderful anime. C'mon, I know someone out there gets it.)

[evregade]

*cough* NGE *cough*

HAHAHA! Im not the only one who thinks that thing looks like an EVA!

[Redford Blade]

Good! I was worried no one would get it. Too bad there isn't a way to have hands in place of the guns, and be able to do incredible damage at point-blank range. At least the BFR shield is close to an AT field. And think of all the crazed 14-year-olds who play PS!

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

You may have noticed my avatar has also changed... this little gem I found in the 'PlanetSide Test' directory. On behalf of the AGN over these last two days, I have collected about 40 or so images of the mayhem during the BFR Event on the test server.

Expect them to be up on PSU with a report sometime this week!

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

The report I wrote for the AGN is now finally avaialable for viewing!

You can read it and see what was covered at the following link:

http://planetside-universe.com/artic...?article_id=67