Flooding an area with a dozen uplinks has become a common strategy to guarantee territorial dominance of that location, and also creates a balance problem particularly in Domination. It can take forever clear out all the drop uplinks, and you would likely be killed by a newly spawned enemy before you could destroy all the uplinks. Some would suggest the use of flux grenades, but the area of effect isn't sufficient for eliminating multiple drop uplinks like 15 meters apart. Because of this, I believe drop uplinks should not be deployable within 100 meters of another friendly drop uplink. This would ensure that no spot is ridiculously covered in uplinks.

When you try to deploy a drop uplink, it should not deploy, and a message informing you of the proximity limit should appear on the screen to inform you. The alternative would be to have it deploy, but get immediately destroyed, but I imagine it would result in many unhappy mercs trying to set up their drop uplinks without any intent of abusing the system. If possible, players should be able to see a ring representing the 100 meter radius zone of friendly drop uplinks on their HUDs so they'll know where they can't drop their drop uplinks.

How about this:

Multiple uplinks within 20m of another disrupts and interferes with the wormhole tech of others within that radius, causing someone who spawns onto an uplink have a chance of spawning onto any other within 20m of that uplink.

Will still be abused in pubs, but in PC corps won't put down their spawns to luck. They could still spam a single spot which means spawn discrepencies will only be off by a few meters, but if one guy places one on the roof within that 20m radius... things get a little screwed up. :P

Hell, this could even be an equipment idea. Spawn redirector: placed within 20m of an enemy uplink, all spawns on that uplink are redirected to the redirector. Place it in a pit, or camp it knowing your enemies will be temporarily confused, and you're good to go. :D

If you are worried about diahrreah piles, carry flux grenades. They clean them up real pretty, and very easy.

Problem solved.

Next thread

Buzz off. Run a hundred meters in a heavy suit.

Go back to your idea machine and hit reset.

I agree that Uplink spam is a negative gameplay element, but I don't think such a massive nerf is required. Something as small as ten-twenty metres is enough to curtail ridiculous amounts of linkspam.

That is a completely unworkable proposition.

Take any map and see how many 100m radius circles you can pack on it.

Now look at the useless location that would place each uplink.


Go back and draw your first circle again putting the uplink in a useful place. Try to place the second one somewhere useful. If you manage that try for the third. Good luck.


Oh, and then realize a blueberry dropped the first in a horrible spot and now the entire area is locked out.

How about instead of limiting their placement, uplinks within some distance of each other will cause an increase in spawn time? That way you could spam uplinks but it will take forever for your team to actually spawn. Of course, the increased time would be shown on the spawn menu so mercs looking for a spawn point know the effect of the interference before they try to spawn. This would make it so people are unlikely to choose your uplink if you place it in a crowded area.

How about instead of limiting their placement, uplinks within some distance of each other will cause an increase in spawn time? That way you could spam uplinks but it will take forever for your team to actually spawn. Of course, the increased time would be shown on the spawn menu so mercs looking for a spawn point know the effect of the interference before they try to spawn. This would make it so people are unlikely to choose your uplink if you place it in a crowded area.