Urban Outposts

[Hayoo]

Details forthcoming.

Urban Outposts control the territory they exist in. This territory -

• blocks enemy HART pods from dropping
• Collects resources to increase your Empire's Tech Level.
• Acts as a supply line conduit for AMSs so that they don't use up NTU energy.
• Offers Radar coverage above a certain altitude
• Provides backup power for destroyed generators
• Can provide territory intrusion alerts if a monitoring station emplacement is constructed in the territory.
• Act as as a communications conduit for commanders.

I'll be posting the summaries that I gave on PSU and the OF, as well as detailed info on each type of structure and how it fits into current gameplay.


Note = the No Baggage sign means No Supply at that location (i.e. only provides up to Agile Armor, Medium Assault gear, and Support equipment). The % signs on the towers represent the NTU levels that govern supply when 'cut off' from friendly territory.

[Hayoo]

Added in-progress Urban Outpost concept map. Still a ways to go.

[bwzman]

looks good so far.

[DviddLeff]

Like the ideas, really want to see "light-bases" like the early, bases with no walls screenshots.

[Hayoo]

Graphics showing how the lattice and zones work with sea gates.

Sea gates provide more environments to fight in and more options for taking over a planet.

[DviddLeff]

Hmm, never been too keen on Naval stuff, but I can see how this would work, and could work well.

I just dont know about naval gates, post bending.

Still, makes as much sense as the gates we have currently.

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by DviddLeff@Sep 13 2004, 06:56 PM
Still, makes as much sense as the gates we have currently.

That's what I figured. Really the drive for naval combat is to diversify the combat experience and create unexpected avenues of attack and defense. Having large assault craft or carriers off shore acting as landing pads and a heavy-armored AMS has its appeals.

By creating sea zones on each planet to take over, you complete the experience of full Planety Assaults: Control the Land, Control the Skies, Control the Seas.

I envision a Bundled-Cert relationship between Land, Space, and Sea by lumping certs together, like Transport or Tank/Cruiser, so that players can seamlessly go from piloting a landing craft to a beach and then head topside to pilot a shuttle between station assaults. Naturally specialization would require more certs, so that we could actually develop several niches within Planetside to create an experience like none other. :)

[DviddLeff]

Yeah, having a fleet of ships arrive through a Sea warpgate, and begin shelling a base while sending out fighters from a carrier would be very cool indeed.

[Erodice]

Originally posted by DviddLeff@Sep 14 2004, 12:10 AM
Yeah, having a fleet of ships arrive through a Sea warpgate, and begin shelling a base while sending out fighters from a carrier would be very cool indeed.

then the Mag riders hover up from behind and kill all the ships :ph43r:

[Hayoo]

Magriders wouldn't be capable of traveling too far out beyond the coast. Landmass not close enough to facilitate use of their hovering capability and all that. Plus ships would have stronger armor to offset their slow acceleration.

[piolet68654]

any idea on what these outposts might look like i could create some paints of em'

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by piolet68654@Jan 17 2005, 08:09 PM
any idea on what these outposts might look like i could create some paints of em'

This makes me wish I'd already scanned in all my sketches. :( Argh! Why is the day only 24 hours long?!! Why? I'll have to sqeeze that into my schedule. It's a mad house, a mad house I tell you!

Anyway, imagine driving down a county road and hitting the 'downtown' area of a small town. Kinda like that, with buildings of one or two stories on either side of the highway with alleyways between them. Where there are no roads, the bulidings are in a loose cluster. Some buildings are empty of anything useful but scenic items, while others serve unique purposes like being a Medical station, the Maglev terminal, etc.

The most important (and argueably the largest) building, however, is the Supply Depot which has a control console or admin console for capturing the territory.

This supply depot is a one or two story building with a courtyard large enough for a Galaxy landing pad. It also has a garage door for acquisition of vehicles stored at a base's repair silo. Air vehicles rise up through the garage's ceiling bay doors.

The buildings can be squarish, faceted, or whatever to match the continent, empire, or cookie-cutter base look.

[Hayoo]

Ok, I rushed the scans. These are the only sketches I can find at the moment, I have cleaner ones elsewhere but I'll have to look later. Caution: these sketches are 10 second thumbnails used to jot down ideas, they're not Da Vinci by any stretch. View at your own risk. Yes, my handwriting sucks like Paris Hilton. :P











This next one is big, meant to conceptualize what types of roles each structure could have (I even flirted with silly stuff like sports courts, parks, civilian garages, etc.):

http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/urb6_big.jpg

[Pyrotechnic]

Already on it in 3D, it started when I made that "it'll only be about 12 tri's" post in the Urban thread on the OF's, I just had to try it, but it's looking more like 600 tri's <_<. It's still a lot less then the caverns though.

[Hayoo]

I should make a correction in that the admin console that allows capture of the territory is only in the Supply Depot if there is not another free building in the outpost cluster. This shakes up gameplay a little as an attacker will have to storm both buildings.

Where there is space I also wanted a low wall separating the outpost cluster in half with one side (west?) having a ledge to stand on facing, say, south. And on the other side of the road or bridge, an east wall with a ledge facing north. I might have to sketch that.

[Pyrotechnic]

Don't know if it's anything like what you had in mind, but again, I started making stuff before I'd seen the pictures :D:

Concept 1

The lighting on the cross section pic is a bit manky ;),

[Hayoo]

Awesome, Pyro. :)

That's pretty much what I had in mind for the building shells. Cosmetic feataures and widgets and whatnot can be added on the outside or inside later to match more closely the current facilities.

Also some buildings would be bridged together over the road to create kind of an overpass. The medical center would have a landing pad on top for quick dustoffs.

There's dozens of combinations that can be made to make each outpost unique and random so that you never quite know which floor of the medical center that the terminals or storage are on, etc.

[piolet68654]

omg the battle scenes are going through my head Vangards crawling down the street confronting bunkered down TR *slap* *stop playing PS piolet*
pics in progress
heres what i got so far its not much but A start

its solsar so i gave it some nice tiled roofs to fit in maybe they should make cookie cutter buildings (about 15 or 20) for each climate

[piolet68654]

improving

added maglev and working on supply city hall (right)

[Hayoo]

Nice graphics, piolet. And the bridge is a good touch. :) Couple things though:

a) the maglev as it's designed is actually above-ground like a monorail. This is so we don't run into the problem of having to cross over any tracks. Also there aren't any tracks to speak of, but supports spaced every so often along a route like so:









b ) I've designed the Supply Depot garage so that you can get ground or air vehicles from your "storage" panel when accessing the terminal. Ground units pop up from the terminal like usual and then exit through the door as you have shown, much like a techplant. Air vehicles however, pop up from the terminal, then rise through retracting doors in the roof. Thought that would look cool from the air or the ground.

[piolet68654]

WOW
(i'll perfect maglev stations on my cold climate sketch)
ok here's
i have perfected my shadow method
#1

#2

not much of a difference though

[Hayoo]

Geez, Piolet, that's a pretty good scenic shot you set up, with a facility in the distance and everything! :) Very nice.

LOL. I just noticed the date on my supply depot graphic. I made that a year ago almost to the day! :P

[Pyrotechnic]

Wow, nice work Piolet. Any chance you could clear up your sketches Hayoo?, then I can start making some models of what you imagine.

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by Pyrotechnic@Jan 18 2005, 11:44 PM
Wow, nice work Piolet. Any chance you could clear up your sketches Hayoo?, then I can start making some models of what you imagine.

I'll see what I can do, but it may be a week or so as the next few days are kinda tight. Plus I haven't had time to finalize a layout for the supply depot, like where the doors would be, how many rooms or hallways or gantries, etc.

The Maglev station is about the clearest design I have right now (the waiting room area resembles the HART areas). I'll have to sit down with my sketchpad again and flesh everything out more. B)

[Pyrotechnic]

NP, I'd rather wait and get the good stuff than rush you and get the not so good stuff.

[Earlydawn]

The modularity the buildings are taking brings me great happiness. They could be remote outposts, with only a supply depot and a watchtower, or a facility surrounded by the outposts for a "fortress in the city" feel. Prime example being the capitol.

[piolet68654]

thx
if you look up you can see most of the 1.5 hour project growing into what it is now
I cant wait until a new paint comes out :D
working on cold climate one with a proper maglev station/train possobly a more Military based installation with watch towers ect.

[Earlydawn]

Out of curiosity, how would an in-depth capture of one of the outposts work? Could you walk us through it? Nice illustrations all around, btw.

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by Earlydawn@Jan 20 2005, 12:32 PM
Out of curiosity, how would an in-depth capture of one of the outposts work? Could you walk us through it? Nice illustrations all around, btw.

There's two simple routes I've been considering:

1) A control or administration console in its own building (or in the Supply Depot if there are no other buildings for that territory) that anyone can run up to and hack with an REK.

2) An administration console that a Squad leader (or designated second in command) must run up to and initiate the surrender countdown of the outpost by accessing the desk terminal.


The first idea is familiar to everyone and easy to implement. The second idea turns convention on its head a little and makes the unit leaders the driving force of capturing territory.

No doubt players would complain that they can't capture territory if they aren't leading a squad...cause they want to be able to do everything in the game. Considering that capturing territory doesn't give you the continent or domination like capping the bases does, I think it's a fair change-up in gameplay. Plus I think it will get more people to squad up.

This page shows description of some of the buildings. Should provide some additional information:
http://www.planetside-idealab.com/idea_urbanareas.shtml

I'll try to find the original discussion I had on the old old PS forums for more details and musings.

[bwzman]

I have an idea, for every territory/outpost that you own that is adjacent to a facility you are trying to hack, it cuts the timer down, starting at 30 minutes for one adjacent territory, 25 for 2, 20 for 3, 15 for 4...and that's as low as it goes.

[piolet68654]

Originally posted by Hayoo(idealab site)@Jan 20 2005, 05:18 PM
Generator Building:


Generator Terminal - if this is hacked, it temporarily diables the radar, repair silo, heavy equipment from equipment terminals, ntu silo, and garage. Comes back online after timer. Hack indicator does not show up till a few minutes later.

Generator Core - if destroyed, same effect as hacking generator but elements stay down till repaired. Power-out indicator immediately shows up on map.

An urban area (a.k.a Outpost) does not require NTUs to function, only a working genrator and, for some equipment, a link back to a base or capitol.

does that mean the power from the bases supplys the outposts?
if so if the base is unpowered will that effect the linked outpost?

[Tiletron|Hyncharas]

Cos I don't plan on doing anything particularly "big" on mods at the moment (for commercial reasons), I can do some conceptualising for you, Hayoo, if your time is limited...

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by bwzman+Jan 20 2005, 06:18 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bwzman @ Jan 20 2005, 06:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I have an idea, for every territory/outpost that you own that is adjacent to a facility you are trying to hack, it cuts the timer down, starting at 30 minutes for one adjacent territory, 25 for 2, 20 for 3, 15 for 4...and that's as low as it goes. [/b]

30 min seems an awfully long time to capture something. A dynamic capture system would be cool I think, but there are other considerations for territories, such as invaders having a chance at making progress on a new continent. With a timer of 30min, that first territory would be extremely difficult to take.

Originally posted by piolet68654@Jan 20 2005, 08:04 PM

does that mean the power from the bases supplys the outposts?
if so if the base is unpowered will that effect the linked outpost?

They're independent of each other...unless the outpost or facility is being Headquartered by an Outfit that has bought the power grid upgrade, which allows the generator of an adjacent base or outpost to power the HQ location.

This allows outfits to create mutually-defended fronts against gen attacks, so if the enemy drops the gen of an outpost HQ'd by Outfit A (who has the power grid upgrade), their equipment stays up cause they're drawing power from the base gen. If the enemy drops the gen of the base HQ'd by Outfit B (who also has the power upgrade), their equpiment stays up cause they're drawing power from the territory.

These upgrades (one of many attractive ones such as upgraded turrets or bunkers) still cost outfit points so this tactic won't be so common because Outfit A would probably opt to HQ at a backline TechPlant and put the powergrid upgrade there to safeguard against sabotage. But if outfits do band together to set up such a thing, then kudos to them for being coordinated and using teamwork in a selfless manner.

<!--QuoteBegin-Tiletron|Hyncharas@Jan 20 2005, 09:38 PM
Cos I don't plan on doing anything particularly "big" on mods at the moment (for commercial reasons), I can do some conceptualising for you, Hayoo, if your time is limited...[/quote]

Sure, that would be cool. Although I only have those few sketches up right now, I hope to scan more in later as guides. I haven't designed the outside shells of the buildings either, only conceptualized what roles each would play. So knock yourselves out. :)

[Pyrotechnic]

Sorry, got a bit carried away :rolleyes:: Garage Video

[bwzman]

Awesome! but you spelled Urban 'Uraban'...minor, and still an awesome concept!

[Hayoo]

Holy Crapolla, Pyro. :) Very cool. Oh, I know! How about showing an aircraft lifted on the vehicle pad and then rising through the retracted roof hatch! :D Ok, maybe that's asking too much. You guys always amaze me. I need to take a day off work and do nothing but blueprints. :)

[Pyrotechnic]

Damnit! I did it on the building concept as well but managed to change it before anyone noticed ;).

If I model an Aircraft then I'll do it, I used the ANT thingy because it's the only vehicle I really have (apart from an un finished Impreza and some UT2004 vehicles I made).

Thanks for the comments.

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by Pyrotechnic@Jan 23 2005, 08:29 AM
Damnit! I did it on the building concept as well but managed to change it before anyone noticed ;).

If I model an Aircraft then I'll do it, I used the ANT thingy because it's the only vehicle I really have (apart from an un finished Impreza and some UT2004 vehicles I made).

Thanks for the comments.

Heheh :) You really don't need to go out of your way, it looks great already. Plus I can already imagine how it'd look in 3D.

I think tonight I'll sit down and start laying out more floorplans, where terminals and access points are, etc. When I get my new computer in a few months I'll finally be able to install 3D Studio and help out.

[Pyrotechnic]

:) >>> (looking forward)

[piolet68654]

aw rite :)
here ya go (unfinished)
i call it "The Sunset Plains"
good maglev and a clock tower (with real auraxis time (press /time) on clocktower w/ nice sniper spots)

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE FOR REQUESTS!!!!
don't hesitate

[Hayoo]

Nice. :) The building seems a bit off proportion I think, but nice rendering (can't tell if that skeeter is directly above the building or off in the distance). I can't think of any requests at the moment. Still trying to pull together details for outposts and emplacements.

[Hayoo]

Supply Depot imagery:

Below are selected images from various games to give an idea of how I was conceptualizing the Supply Depot.

Exterior Shots:

[Hayoo]

Supply Depot imagery:

Interior Shots:

[Pyrotechnic]

Kind of a warehouse/outpost/garage/air traffic control tower type of building? Some nice shots there.

[piolet68654]

nice, C & C generals
see the pic below the one with GLA technicals (left) i know thats C & C, but is it a mod or somthing?

anyway nice concept some buildings a little too large but most seem like they would fit in quite well. :)

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by Pyrotechnic
nice, C & C generals
see the pic below the one with GLA technicals (left) i know thats C & C, but is it a mod or somthing?

anyway nice concept some buildings a little too large but most seem like they would fit in quite well. :)

Yeah, it's one of the Generals mods, either Act of War, Cold War Crisis, or Call to Arms. Can't remember. Wonderful designs they're doing.

The images are indeed on the big side, but they carry the idea across pretty well. We just need to scale it down some. Two or three Supply Depot buildings would be able to fit inside the width of a Dropship Center.

[Pyrotechnic]

Just reshaped the garage and added windows: Supply Depot Control Tower.

[piolet68654]

nice, now combine it to make the Super-Uber Supply Depot,
then you gotta skin em' :P

[Pyrotechnic]

It is skinned(ish) if you look reeeeeeeeal close you can see the texture I made to look like the base walls.

[piolet68654]

reeaaaaal, close... wait.... ahh... i see it :)
door isent skinned though :P (well maybe t is, oh well

[Pyrotechnic]

Nope door's just grey :D. I'm no good at 2D art, so the chances of me skinning them properly are about zippo. Someone else on the other hand...

[piolet68654]

Originally posted by Pyrotechnic@Jan 27 2005, 05:51 PM
Someone else on the other hand...

hmm, a good 2d artist, probobly skilled at paint.... how about Hayoo?

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by piolet68654+Jan 27 2005, 08:39 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (piolet68654 @ Jan 27 2005, 08:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Pyrotechnic@Jan 27 2005, 05:51 PM
Someone else on the other hand...

hmm, a good 2d artist, probobly skilled at paint.... how about Hayoo? [/b][/quote]
Oh you know I'd jump at the chance, but then that would mean dropping everything else to do it, and I've put off all these important tasks long enough as it is. :P I need to get cracking on all the stuff I mentioned in the News update.

[piolet68654]

Originally posted by Hayoo@Jan 25 2005, 09:27 PM

what should i do (a little off topic) (uninstall Halo PC & install C &C generals, and zero hour? or leave halo?

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by piolet68654@Jan 27 2005, 08:52 PM
what should i do (a little off topic) (uninstall Halo PC & install C &C generals, and zero hour? or leave halo?

Or (if you have the room) you can leave Halo on, and install CnC and Zero Hour anyway so that you can play the Halo CnC Generals Mod. :D

http://www.derelictstudios.net/halo/index.php

[piolet68654]

*downloads*
nice, now back to the subject

[Pyrotechnic]

Re-did the tower a bit (the co-ordinates weren't perfectly symetrical and it was driving me insane). Added some stairs and a sort of control center at the top.
Full
Cross-section

Done a bit more to the building too, added the over-pass and some more windows.
Full
Cross-section

[Hayoo]

Once again, Pyro, awesome work! :)

I need to finish Idealab's CD page so I can start showcasing you guys' works.

[piolet68654]

*ditto*
*psst, i think pyro is using preformence enhancing drugs* :D

[Pyrotechnic]

psst, i think pyro is using preformence enhancing drugs

Yeah, they're to try to counter this other highly addictive drug that's rather hard to come by, it's called 'Sleep'.

[Hayoo]

:lol:

[Kwintus5]

Hullo! (my second post... :P)

Nice and awsome pictures! And an even better video... =)

I would kiss ya if this get implented... (nvm)...

Greetzzz! And I really like the idea, the designs and all the others ideas! (stupid that I didn't noticed this site earlier)

Keep up the hard work!

Oh Hayoo, wot do you do for work? (if I may ask?) and how old are you? (if I may ask that to)

[Hayoo]

Originally posted by Kwintus5@Feb 2 2005, 10:10 AM
Hullo! (my second post... :P)

Nice and awsome pictures! And an even better video... =)

I would kiss ya if this get implented... (nvm)...

Greetzzz! And I really like the idea, the designs and all the others ideas! (stupid that I didn't noticed this site earlier)

Keep up the hard work!

Oh Hayoo, wot do you do for work? (if I may ask?) and how old are you? (if I may ask that to)

Thanks, Kwintus. :)

I'm a 27-year-old graphic artist/multimedia designer in Florida, USA.

[Pyrotechnic]

OOOOoooooOooooooOOOOOOOoOOooo, you're gonna love what I'm working on now :ph43r:. (not telling yet)