Alternative Start Idea

Discussion in 'Scenarios' started by zztong, Jan 4, 2018.

  1. zztong

    zztong Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Messages:
    249
    Likes Received:
    269
    I had an idea a while back that I doubt I'll get time to develop, but that I thought I might mention it here in case somebody might find it useful.

    When I first started playing EGS, approaching and assaulting a POI on foot was both viable and fun. You would have to really work to evade the shots by the external turrets, often approaching the POI at an oblique angle, altering your direction, jump heights as well as changing between moving and sprinting. Eventually, the anti-ship turrets improved to where this became suicide, and now folks soften up POIs first with SVs and HVs.

    But could we lengthen the starting part of the game with some alternative POI designs that catered to a foot-soldier assault? If you started in an environment where the POIs were largely built to defend their exterior with Sentry Guns and Soldiers, instead of anti-ship weaponry, you could have a foot soldier setting.

    And, if you restricted the POI designs to components built from only commodity materials (Cu, Fe, Si, Stone - Concrete Walls, Not Iron), you could perhaps make it such that the PC acquires only enough for a one-way exit from the environment to an environment more like what you start in today that would lead to the full HV/SV/CV progression.

    I think this is possible, or close to possible, today. You can certainly make the POIs in this manner and create a scenario where the PC starts with some basic foot-soldier equipment. Maybe you'd have to start on Akua's Moon, do the foot-soldier thing, collect enough for a very simple SV, then you could relocate to Akua. (Or Masperon, or some other planet.) I mention Akua's moon because currently once you clear Akua and head to the moon, the moon's POIs don't really challenge you, so the moon (to me) looks ripe for an alternative start.

    Anyways, if that provides some fuel for thought, then cool.
     
    #1
    SacredGlade likes this.
  2. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2017
    Messages:
    632
    Likes Received:
    1,980
    I'd say it's possible now- that's not really different from how Shadows of Starlight starts off
     
    #2
    zztong likes this.
  3. Sparrowhawk65

    Sparrowhawk65 Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2017
    Messages:
    65
    Likes Received:
    160
    I remember a POI maybe 6 months ago that had a small blind spot. I think a radar blocked one area. I was like, "Woohoo!!!"
     
    #3
  4. Spirit_OK

    Spirit_OK Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    133
    Most enemy POIs have turrets from 2-3 sides only, and turrets can't shoot you up close, so it is a viable tactic to rush in on a motorcycle with decent evasive maneuring. You can go all commando as soon as you have obtained a measly hundred rifle ammo and enough prometium for a stack of C4 :)
     
    #4
  5. Kaeser

    Kaeser Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
    Messages:
    1,739
    Likes Received:
    2,458
    I posted this a wile back in some other thread, you can't do it all anymore, the bug was corrected but the approach method is basically the same...

    How to take out a drone base with nothing but a pistol and a bike....

    https://plays.tv/s/LMi9iqk6dPnC
     
    #5
    Captain Jack II likes this.
  6. Captain Jack II

    Captain Jack II Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2016
    Messages:
    783
    Likes Received:
    1,268
    I beg to differ. In the old days sure, but now some POI walls are impervious to explosives, so you can't just get in close and blow a hole. Not to mention troop transports, drop ships, and constant drone spawning will eat you alive.

    To make ground troops viable again, the first thing that needs tweaking is the cheese that allows for players to just hang out in their SV/HV/CV and bombard a base from just beyond the base's effective range and then shoot out the core with those same ships. Bases need the ability to deploy scary surface to air weaponry and/or challenging air support.

    as for the OP, I can definitely see a scenario like that, but I'd like to see foot soldering have a place even after the space ship stage.
     
    #6
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2018
    Brimstone and Sofianinho like this.
  7. Spirit_OK

    Spirit_OK Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    133
    Well, I talk from the experience - did took Radar tower on foot in my recent playthrough a week ago (medium difficulty). Little hide-and-seek around POI corners lures drones to rifle's effective range, and blast packs are for doors, not for blocks! I'm yet to find a POI without doors. When inside, you are relatively safe and may advance at your own pace.

    Space marines may become eligible if we'd have some heavy power armour that survives orbital drops and resists anti-ground weaponry on par with hardened steel. I laid down my vision in another suggestion topic: https://empyriononline.com/threads/mecha-vessel-mv-idea.35343/#post-209708

    All this talk makes me contemplate about combat multipurpose motorcycles as well..
     
    #7
  8. zztong

    zztong Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Messages:
    249
    Likes Received:
    269
    If the game were intending to be like Starship Troopers, then I'd expect the foot soldier assault on the external portion of POIs to be viable for the entire game. As it stands, I only see it as viable at the start of a game during a survival aspect, and when assaulting the internals of a POI.

    You can today make POIs that have a patrolled perimeter and external sentry guns. A few minor extensions to this and a pre-HV/SV starting environment could be quite fun. Razor wire and land mine would make for interesting obsticles for a trooper that "jumps" across the battlefield. You could have lighter and heavier sentry guns.

    In the older versions when you could stage a jump-trooper assault, what made it possible was the slow shots from the POI's big guns. You would change your velocity and heading and throw off their aim. That doesn't work with all of the POI's anti-ship weaponry anymore.

    Interestingly, some designers have put POI big guns inside of POI. I ran into a couple in the Drone Base on Masperon recently. I don't think that's cool. This is why folks are blowing holes in POI and driving around within them using HVs or just blowing the crap out of them with an SV until you can see the Core.
     
    #8
  9. Spirit_OK

    Spirit_OK Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    133
    Isn't it the best practice to defend your big guns from damage with some kind of a gun emplacement? Today only AA turrets/launchers stay in the open and still are they camouflaged.

    What can liven things a bit is a smoke grenade - a big cloud of smoke will then alert POI to your presence but block line of sight. IRL tanks and light armor have those smoke mortars for a reason :) Or the radioactive fog (maybe artificial, from promethium dust) should dampen sensors and cause damage to the outside electronics, giving you a window of opportunity to sneak in while turrets are blind.

    There can be a lot of other suggestions for the land warrior - stealth suits, kamikaze drones, starving POI by blocading, laser designators and Tactical Nuke From Orbit, essentially that's pushing all Battlefield and Arma features to Empyrion. I don't mind :)

    Edit: some misspellings corrected.
     
    #9
  10. piddlefoot

    piddlefoot Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2015
    Messages:
    1,849
    Likes Received:
    1,615
    You mean a great big cloud of lag !
    With everything else being rendered, volumetric smokers are gunna chop it up real good.

    I recon, once a player has been inside the 500m range of an armed POI, a little beep beep beep starts in your cockpit, of an anti SV / HV heat seeking missile of the lethal variety trying to get a target lock on you, if it does, kiss yo butt goodbye.

    Would stop knee jerk attacks from behind rocks or lumps of terrain, up shoot down sort of thing.

    Give the POIs real heat seekers.

    Make it harder not easier.

    Attacking on foot was never intended and isn't realistic in any way, a simple 30 cal on a heat sensor will kill you in a real battlefield if you were stupid enough to just run up to an enemy artillery position or the like.

    We haven't even touched on what some of todays drones can do to you from a very long distance.

    Running up to POIs should be a thing of the past really.
     
    #10
  11. Spirit_OK

    Spirit_OK Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    133
    That is the exact scenario where you should have both stealth suit AND kamikaze drones, preferrably packed with thermite! But you have a point here - maybe the POI really should have some indirect fire means to flush out campers and trenchers, a mortar or a guiding missile pod. Dodging basic lasers is easy and non-entertaining, give us more threats to overcome!

    I'd also like the hacking tool to force open locked doors, EMP device to silently shut spawners, skulljack to break ID chips from patrolling Zirax before impersonating one to get inside.. and of course the katana :) Silent assassin should also be the viable playstyle, not only Rambo ;)
     
    #11
  12. zztong

    zztong Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Messages:
    249
    Likes Received:
    269
    Sort of. There are certainly reasons why running across a battlefield has been a bad idea since around WW1 or perhaps the US Civil War. But depending on your Science Fiction choices, it can fit the genre. Starship Troopers (book, not movies) dropped a few highly capable and highly equipped soldiers.

    But my original suggestion wasn't so much about making an infantry soldier viable throughout the entire game. It was more about how if certain select infantry-specific POI environments were crafted with the idea that their exteriors could be assaulted by a lone survivor then they would be appropriate for the early game.

    Not all POIs need to be of such value that anti-HV/SV/CV weaponry was worth placing there. Right now, those POIs tend to be civilian so they're not even hostile. Or, those POIs tend to be wrecks of ships, with only a drone protecting them.

    Also, scenarios that focus on deploying a lone agent behind enemy lines are going to need POIs that don't involve the agent being disintegrated by a Plasma Cannon at 500m.
     
    #12
  13. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2017
    Messages:
    632
    Likes Received:
    1,980
    These are not to be mentioned...

    ;)

    To the original point, any strategist will tell you that there is no substitute for boots on the ground for holding terrain. If EGS were intended to be vehicle-only, it would be just yet another space combat sim. From Rico's Roughnecks to Colonial Marines to Imperial Stormtroopers, there are plenty of precedents for ground forces in sci-fi... and it will be something in RL eventually. Authorization and funding for a "US Space Force"- to be a branch of the Air Force in the sense that the Marines are part of the Navy- made it out of committee this summer but hasn't progressed further yet
     
    #13
  14. piddlefoot

    piddlefoot Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2015
    Messages:
    1,849
    Likes Received:
    1,615
    In any of the modern wars has America just sent troops at an enemy Artillery position in a war ?

    No they use overwhelming force, usually with tanks that can fire on the move, the first to do that, and that's if they cant blow it to bits with there air force.....

    The only real exception is special forces, but the game doesn't allow for enough special forces action yet, ie we cant hack doors to get in, and when in ANY POI even civilian one if you steal something they all should turn on you if one of them is in the line of sight and sees you steal something, you should then become an enemy of the state, but none of that's in yet so running straight up to POIs is really very sad state of affairs for the game its better now they have addressed it somewhat.
     
    #14
  15. zztong

    zztong Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Messages:
    249
    Likes Received:
    269
    Which wars do you consider to be modern?

    We did send light infantry against German 88s in WW2. I'm not as well read about later wars.

    But back to my main point... not all POIs are artillery positions. A modern missile silo, for instance, is protected by a light security force because they only anticipate light security challenges due to secure geographic location of the silo.
     
    #15
  16. Spirit_OK

    Spirit_OK Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    133
    Is the Civil War considered modern enough? There were huge losses from shrapnel fire at the battle of Gettysberg. Later artillery became so long-ranged that sending ground troops became a viable tactic - gun crew can't defend it by themselves for long.

    So what if anti-CV/SV/HV POIs that are not badass fortresses were more approachable by foot by design? Imagine Zirax at the command room telling turret operators to hold fire because of the cost of that plasma bolt or homing rocket. Meh, better move out and cut that pest down with good old light machinegun because plasma ammo don't grow on trees, y'know. And then they move out and you play one-man-army to your heart's desire. And that HV of yours lays covering fire from a safe distance from POI turrets, pretending to be a APC.

    But if you go nearby in a vehicle, then "beep-beep-beep-boom"©. No flight zone is called that for a reason. POIs are there for a reason also - to control valuable territories. As of now I can dodge them until the fuel runs out, they control nothing, just sit there..
     
    #16
  17. Hittlah

    Hittlah Ensign

    Joined:
    Jan 22, 2018
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Maybe not NUKE but Bombs in general would be cool And yeah a stealth suit would be GREAT! I think low tech and high tech Landmines low tech being triggered by anyone and High tech being triggered by Enemy factions and what ever else its set to.
    Land mines for HV's, or AA for SV's like how AA guns today shoot in front of an aircraft and the projectile explodes letting shrapnel hit the aircraft. video games don't like having shrapnel so this would just be an explosion in game but it would cover a large area of the Aircraft's surface causing damage to a larger area.
     
    #17
  18. piddlefoot

    piddlefoot Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2015
    Messages:
    1,849
    Likes Received:
    1,615
    Yea a crisis suit we asked for, and we got 3 different levels of armour suit so the devs did well there, a cloak booster would be nice though !

    Press a button and get 2 minutes of being invisible, then a slow recharge for it.

    I suggested it on the devs channel for you.

    Shrapnal would be awesome to see but CPU and GPU heavy so....
     
    #18
  19. Hittlah

    Hittlah Ensign

    Joined:
    Jan 22, 2018
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    I would like not being able to just detect people on the map, like atleast having to use radar to see where vehicles are but I would have to use my eyes. or thermal vision.
     
    #19

Share This Page