WHAT ABOUT IMPLEMENTING REAR BASES?
(6 votes, average 3.67 out of 5)
Written by KFS1   
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 08:34

This idea has been brought up in the Barracks a few times over the past couple of years: "Just think it would be a great way to make gameplay more dynamic.. If a town to the rear of a supplied frontline town is also supplied, why not give that town a fb to the adjacent frontline town? Think it would make for great open field tank battles... Gives the defending side a fighting chance at relibbing a camped town...
Maybe up the bde movement timers and make it so people would have to drive ms's and tanks in instead of being able to rotate a new bde in almost instantly and have full supply... Just a thought"


KFS1: Players have long asked about the ability to have/use defensive firebases - that is, an FB between two friendly towns to allow you to spawn armor etc from the next town back to assist in defending/liberating a front line town. We've had something that does pretty much that for quite a long time but it largely gets overlooked.

At first we introduced the "Fallback" system as a means of getting the hell out of dodge when your ABs are camped. It transfers ownership of the military facilities to your enemy bringing up your defensive firebases.

When we added TOEs, however, we also introduced the notion that a brigade can project FBs of its own, with a couple of limitations: The forward town must be frontline and must have no brigades in it.

I hear light bulbs going on, most of you know this as the "No-mans Land" system.

What we don't do is project FBs between two friendly towns with brigades in them. Apart from the fact that we feel this would excessively dilute the meaning of a brigade being in Town X, it also just has too many quirks and depends too much on players limiting themselves to the intent of the system. Take a moment to think about what it would be like if the enemy was attacking you with this kind of FB setup...

If your brigade is sitting in Town X and is camped to heck, get the OIC or HC to pull the brigade out and make the town a no-mans town. Unlike doing a fallback, you don't hand anything to the enemy and you don't lose any of your supply in the retreat.

We did discuss the possibility of turning on an FB from TownY to TownX when TownX has an AO on it, but we don't want to discourage the placement of counter-AOs. (Infact, we're trying to figure out how to encourage the HCs to place counter AOs instead of tossing them someplace else on the map when they're worried system might place one).

I believe what players are actually asking for here, though, is the ability to use the TownY->TownX FB when my brigade is in TownX.

The problem there is largely presentation. If you're in a brigade at TownY, it shows the TownY->TownX FB as open (if it doesn't, then you create the possibility that a player driving past the FB sees it as closed on the map and wonders WTF is going on with the server).

There would also be an inter-office war over whether or not these defensive FBs should be destroyable. If they are destroyable, that creates the situation where you go to spawn at the FB only to find its closed but there is an enemy FB on the link. Players already get confused when they see this, and the producers are likely to insist on a better way this is presented before tying more features onto it. On the other hand, the coders are likely to argue that tying more features onto it will make it more commonly seen and thus less confusing.

 

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Comments (9)
1 Tuesday, 13 July 2010 09:50
catfive
Having a virtually limitless rear line supply available means a constant stream of reinforcements turning every town into a stalingrad in EU or US prime.

timers or supply or number of divs would need addressing too /imo
2 Tuesday, 13 July 2010 13:55
david06
Good explanation Rats, this clears up my question earlier. Still, I wish that players were more amenable to pulling out brigades; Camping sucks and the no-mans-land battles are fun.
3 Tuesday, 13 July 2010 17:13
kc23
Defense has WAY to many advantages as it is. No fricken way.
4 Tuesday, 13 July 2010 21:48
RabidX
how about the ability for HC to "set up FBs"instead of predetermined ones.By that I mean they should work in the same way as a MSP except they have to be further distances away (say 3-6k out of town)and a certain distance from the rear town
5 Wednesday, 14 July 2010 02:56
Lufttank
@catfive
I dont think the intention here is supplying frontline town through rear FB from a brigade of rear town. Instead, rear FB will have the supplies of the brigade(s) in frontline town, which is already under attack. So, no endless supply.
6 Wednesday, 14 July 2010 04:06
RedRebel
I think you're overcomplicating it a bit. Try:

Defensive FB between a rear town and a frontline town that has AO. FB is invulnerable until AO over. No teleporting brigades into or out of AOd town. Reinforcements have to use the FB from rear town.
7 Monday, 19 July 2010 08:49
pittpete
Getting HC to pull a brigade out of a camp is easier said then done.
By the time it gets done, all the decent equipment is gone.A lot of people arent willing to take the responsibility/blame of losing a town
8 Monday, 19 July 2010 23:42
Wally
I say this is a bad idea.
9 Saturday, 24 July 2010 05:44
lungar
Key is buried away at the end where ksf1 says "the ability to use the TownY->TownX FB when my brigade is in TownX."

TOwnY ---> ---> ---> [can use fb] ---> TownX+My Brigadfe

So you don't have to fallback to spawn there.