Outpost Experience

[Maloch Octavia]

I've never really been involved in the Op side of things, but today, I have, and lots.

So I have found one recurring experience..

The Secure UG Rule, is shit.

The small team of peeps that we had going around, clearing up after someone else had Ninja'd almost the entire map, found one recurring thing..
If someone was determined enough, you could never hack that last layer, because they'd just hide in the UG, and pop out at random times, attack a bit, and dive back inside, heal, rinse and repeat.

Now, you ub3r tanks might go, "What's the problem?"

Well, not everyone is capped, or ub3r, and some of us are just breaching that range, and some of us choose different styles of play, meaning we're not effective as insta-kill beasts.

We were a group of Droners. :)

Now, we managed to hurt them, but for the love of us, we couldn't kill the bastards. I'm sure many of you have had this problem, where unless the numbers are thick enough to simply cover the Hacker in bodies, and even then, a Stealther could get to him, you're going to be stuffed.

Surely there is a better way around this?

I'm going to go away and think of one.......

Also, this 3 Hack Rule, it hasn't changed a thing, save for the fact you need to talk to two other people now. It should be 3 hacks from three people in the same Clan. Not Freelancer. Yes, it removes an 'Rp' aspect, but for once, I feel it's one that needs to go. It can be abused far too much.

[Shadow Dancer]

You just made me think of an idea. It would be cool if when hacknet comes, 2 hackers could fight each other in hacknet for control of the op. Obviously one of the hackers has to be from the owning clan.



Ok anyways, yea I don't like the secure UG rule either. I don't like the UG at all. I thought it was a great idea at first to teleport into the UG. But I see now that's bad. First of all, the clan can just keep coming in and out of the UG as many time as they want. Secondly, sometimes you're just asking for death when you zone up to the surface due to lengthy syncs sometimes.

[winnoc]

Dude, just get someone to barrel or moonie the ug. A reveler or rhino works great too :-)

It's like this: Two revelers at ug, fully buffed ppu comes up, and he's dead before he can say "oh shit".
As for protecting the hacker, get a ppu on him and cast true sight in the hackroom.

[MkVenner]

there a group of droners mate :p, that is one viable way to stop this agreed, but it is a problem, and they are gunna need a different solution

[YoDa-UK]

The secure UG rule is the biggest pile of do do KK have come up with in the outpost war system, it creates all sorts of problems, the people attacking moan about those defending UG zoning, and the people in the UG moan about being barreled and debuffed before they even have fully synced. Lets not forget IF they zone, fatals you know.

I reckon they should never have put this in, but they had the right intention, they wanted a safe area for the defending clan to GR into, but this isn't the answer, a better answer would be to place a gate in the entrance to the op, it could be a energy gate that needs hacking or just destroying.

I think it would be like this,

Attacks > Gate > Turrets/Defenders / Hackterm = own the outpost.

What this means is the attackers first have to get by the gate, which gives the defenders a clan msg alarm, defenders get inside the op if they are fast enough to defend, attackers then have to kill the defenders, without all this UG rubbish "god knows why there is a UG anyway other than a city com"

So once the gate is gone the fight is on, like the old days, AoE and all that fun, remember the point being the defenders have a advantage, only slight but its there. The advantage being here that they are truely defending inside the outpost, the attackers gotta get in and that means taking out the defending owners.

once that is done the terminal is hacked, and maybe a different system there too, maybe the hacknet system could be used, who knows.

But one thing rings true, I hate the UG thing, from both sides of it.

[Selendor]

I'll play Devils Advocate - anything that encourages op owners to come to defend their op is a good thing. Would you rather conquer the map with no fighting?

People want a fight more than anything in this game. The UG helps this. Also, hasn't the turret spamming been slightly reduced? If an OP team of just droners is losing its hacker each time then to me thats a tactical problem.

[garyu69]

I'd like to see a change to the hacking process (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=93852)


As a bunch of Spies i think you need to re-evaluate your tactics. 3 Spies can easily take an OP, but they cannot take one in 10 minutes. It takes time and patience.

Take hack one, stealth out find safe spot, launch drone, clear up any resistance.
Once the area seems clear or they have given up, send Spy 2 in to do the same while Covering dones prepare to attack.
Repeat for spy 3 too and then move into UG for beers and food.

mission successful

[winnoc]

The Gate thing would be nice, however, Once the gate is hacked, the allarm should go off, and the gate would only open up after two more minutes, so the defenders have time to gr into the ug and take postitions.
Maybe you should be able to place a turret next to the hackpad at the gate.

The underground should be just a bunch of stairs to go down. And all hackterminals should be in the underground.

This would make for spectacular fighting, as you would have to push through to the ug. Reinforcements can only arrive in from the GR once the gate is opened (hack + two minutes). However, the owners of the op can gr in without SI. This would be to prevent people from constantly gring back into the ug. So once the gate is open, and the enemy forces push through to the underground, reinforcements are comming in from the outside, no longer from the inside, meaning the few defenders are cut off.


Bad thing is, hunters wouldn't be able to use the OP for buying at yo's

[phunqe]

I'd like to see a change to the hacking process (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=93852)

I like the "Hack 3". Basically, as it is now all the 3 hacks are too easy to access. I mean would you seriously have your mainframe of an OP out in the open? :)

Last hack should be in a bunker, in the back :p

[Scikar]

The whole point of the UG is that the owning clan can get to their OP safely and defend it. The intention is that the owners should defend, unlike the old days when you took an OP, then waited for the owners to come and attack it while you setup turrets etc.

First we had people camping in the UG while the hackers started, so the owners GR in to find themselves shot in the back. Now they can't go into the UG, so they just camp the UG access instead, and the result is little different. My comp seems to have issues zoning through areas like that, and the last few OPs I've tried to help defending have been the same pattern - zone up, by the time I synch in I've been antibuffed and have half HP vs a whole clan of holy buffed enemies. Not much of a fight.

Gates are IMPERATIVE. We really do need them. We need a timed delay - OP taking begins by hacking the gate system. A successful hack starts a 5-10 minute timer, after which the gate will deactivate. The owning clan gets a warning after the hack, so they know they have 10 minutes to set up. The UG should be completely removed, and the owning clan should be GRd to the hack room (or other suitable part of the OP, but in the OP zone itself). There they can set up turrets and take up defensive positions, ideally there should be positions to fight from here so they can attempt to weaken the attackers before the gate shuts down. After the timer expires, the fight takes place. The battle continues until the owning clan successfully rehacks the gate restarting it, or the attacking clan hacks the hackterm, and then rehacks the gate for themselves.

No hopping between zones, no waiting underground after losing the OP, no logging off inside the UG to log on later when retaking the OP.

[Candaman]

i can think of a happy medium where it solves pretty much most the problems

The first prob Turrets still being spammed so after first hack turrets cannot be placed

After second hack the ug becomes open to all and after 3rd hack the op is taken

[seraphian]

so your little group of pure droners can't take an OP?

Not to offend you or anything, but big frigging deal. Neocron was meant to require a range of skills, any group of just a single type of player is going to have trouble taking an OP, you don't hear a group of 6 tanks whining: "we held that OP and slaughtered the defenders, but couldn't hack the damn thing, OMFG take out hackterms, and replace them with a control flag"

I cannot thing of any single class and specialty that could or should be able to single-handedly take an OP, without other classes helping.

[Candaman]

so your little group of pure droners can't take an OP?

Not to offend you or anything, but big frigging deal. Neocron was meant to require a range of skills, any group of just a single type of player is going to have trouble taking an OP, you don't hear a group of 6 tanks whining: "we held that OP and slaughtered the defenders, but couldn't hack the damn thing, OMFG take out hackterms, and replace them with a control flag"

I cannot thing of any single class and specialty that could or should be able to single-handedly take an OP, without other classes helping.

Are u saying that a single class should be unable to take a op cus that is bs a set of droners have all the skills combat and hacking y should they not be able to

[Maloch Octavia]

so your little group of pure droners can't take an OP?

Mind telling me why not?

So our chosen combat technique is Drones.. How is that different from being Pistol, Rifle or HC? If anything this required greater skill, as we had to be closer, had less chance of retaliation whilst we were hacking (Two hits we'd be dead) had to rely on a dodgy control system to protect our colleagues whilst in the Op, but other than that, between us all, had a more varied selection of skills than a lot of people that go Op fighting.

We didn't have PPU's or APU's, but we would quite happily have won, had they not continually ran back down into the UG

Before any comments are made, I watched an Op fight with BD against FA, and BD, with their massive range of skills, had th exact same problem.

So shush, and widen your horizions.

[Heavyporker]

wouldnt a brace of punishers laying continous fire on the UG entrance stop this?

[Carinth]

Ops need two things, an advanced warning to the clan so they have time to stop what they're doing and rush to a gr, and a way to get into your op that won't be camped. At first it was the GR, which enemies camped, then it was the UG, which enemies camped, now it's the UG Entrance, which enemies camp. For a fun fight, the defenders need to arrive in their op unmolested, provided they show up in time. Lots of steps have been made to give advantage to defenders, but we're still a long ways off. Often the first warning you get is Hack layer 1 already gone. You'll be lucky to get there in time for layer 2 with a decent sized force. Im my experience defenders usualy arrive just in time for Hack layer 3 and loss of the op. That is if the hackers are good. Even with turrets, they only give a lil bit of extra time. Enough to arrive at say Hack level 2. A really well trained op taking team would have your turrets damaged and everyone in place so that within a few minutes 4 turrets are destroyed and hack level 1 has been done. That's where the advanced warning is needed. We should know before our op is even occupied, that it is under attack.