8. Do you feel equipment spam is a problem and if so what are your thoughts on possible solutions for littered uplinks and stacked nanohives?
by The Council of Planetary Management (CPM)

Use of equipment is obviously encouraged but abuse of any system to the point where itGÇÖs detrimental to gameplay is obviously a problem. So, yeah, itGÇÖs definitely an issue. WeGÇÖd like to approach the problem by first increasing the PG/CPU costs along with role-specific skills that reduce those costs to discourage mass fitting of drop uplinks and nanohives, and put them back into the hands of the specialists. Eventually, weGÇÖd want to introduce the ability for the enemy to hack a piece of equipment and take ownership of it (to encourage smarter placement of equipment instead of dumping dozens in plain sight) and have War Barge-fired EMP strikes that destroy all equipment over a very large area.

Will fire this thread over to him in an email. :)

@Aeon

I've never, ever placed a lag bomb, spammed uplinks, etc, etc.

I have, however, affixed 6 REs to the front of a LAV, swapped suits at a supply depot, then affixed 6 more REs to the front of the same LAV. I do this out of necessity, to lessen the odds of my suicide being fruitless ... it only takes a flick of the wrist for a derpaderp tanker to flip on a hardener and foil my holy mission.

Anyhow, would the proposed method for fixing equipment spam prevent me from successfully suicide bombing a tanks? If so, perhaps you could ask Remnant to give us some decent A/V while you're at it? No one really enjoys being a suicide bomber, but no one really enjoys those all-too-frequent matches featuring multiple tanks.

No one really enjoys being a suicide bomber

I understand there's a significant level of crystal balling here as we [the community] don't know any details pertaining to what changes will take place, but after some time to consider my words, I feel it needs to be said.

Please proceed with caution on this, I beg you. Equipment Spam covers a wide variety of symptoms ranging from general in-battle strategy to frame-rate drops, among other things. It is important to not simply view this as the result of laxxed fittings on equipment items and while I'd rather not commit the logical fallacy of a 'slippery slope' argument, logic would dictate that regardless of the fitting costs, if a player wants to spam the item they're going to do it no matter what.

At the moment a large part of the issue, I (and others) feel, is that the problem revolves around the ability to set a pre-determined suit for the purpose and simply switch it out at a supply depot after dropping off multiple types of the same piece of equipment. Increasing the fitting costs won't hamper this much, I feel, due to the fact that the suit's sole purpose is to put down the equipment - no other. There would be no reason to fit other modules or high-grade weaponry if it meant being able to perform the same task as before.

While my fears may be premature, my concern is solely revolving around the ideal that increasing resource costs may very well downgrade the intended usability by other roles and restrict it to a more narrow field that still is capable of being used in the same problem areas.

That's all I have to say, thank you.

How about instead of working ways to get rid of large amounts of equipment at once (EMP'S), how about we just put a time limit on how long the equipment can be out before it self-destructs?

It would help lessen the spam, as equipment would self-regulate itself, and would encourage logi's to carry around the equipment and deploy it when NEEDED, not just willy nilly.

Exceptions to the rules would be Spawn Links and Remotes. They have a purpose in being dropped, and as such would be exempt of "being left too long".

How do you guys feel about this?

How about experimenting with simply restricting each logi suit to different equipment types in each slot, and making it a requirement that all equipment slots have to be filled (on Logi suits). Admittedly, if close to a supply depot it wouldn't prevent players returning to switch suits, but if they were intent on doing so, it would at least force them to not stray too far, effectively restricting their offensive capability.

Am a dedicated logi and I currently run a dedicated spawn suit with 2 x uplinks for the beginning of matches, but would be quite happy with this restriction.

Have also played a few matches where the frame rate was ridiculous - purely a result of the tactic of spamming the area around a supply depot with a solid bed of nanohives. If you drop equipment in the red-line, it 'pops' - how about possibly creating an area around supply depots where the same would happen if equipment was dropped (except remotes / proximity mines), and maybe also increasing the area of effect of the depots themselves to discourage the practice?

I think the best way to approach it is by limiting the drop suits maximum deployable equipment by the Max Active count of the best hive/uplink you currently have.

imo logis dont need a light weapon. if theyre doing their job, then theyll be too busy to shoot anything. logis should just have a side arm

Will fire this thread over to him in an email. :)

How about experimenting with simply restricting each logi suit to different equipment types in each slot, and making it a requirement that all equipment slots have to be filled (on Logi suits). Admittedly, if close to a supply depot it wouldn't prevent players returning to switch suits, but if they were intent on doing so, it would at least force them to not stray too far, effectively restricting their offensive capability.

Am a dedicated logi and I currently run a dedicated spawn suit with 2 x uplinks for the beginning of matches, but would be quite happy with this restriction.

Have also played a few matches where the frame rate was ridiculous - purely a result of the tactic of spamming the area around a supply depot with a solid bed of nanohives. If you drop equipment in the red-line, it 'pops' - how about possibly creating an area around supply depots where the same would happen if equipment was dropped (except remotes / proximity mines), and maybe also increasing the area of effect of the depots themselves to discourage the practice?

Will fire this thread over to him in an email. :)

Heres a thought. You know about how in EVE online theres time dilation if too many ships are in a system right? This is in an effort to help reduce lag. Well on a similar strain, if the number of equipment in a game exceeds a certain limit, why not have the effects disappear and be replaced with a simple blue ring? The sounds go away, and the pretty shimmer goes away until the numbers drop down below 75% of the maximum. (75% so that if they do all come back on at once it should help keep from lagging when they do turn back on).

This way you people dong have to spend hours totally thinking about how to "rebalance" equipment so that only specialist can use it. (which is curious to say anyway considering im pretty sure anyone who spams equipment is a specialist to begin with..... otherwise they wouldn't be in a logistics suit spamming proto equipment everywhere.....)

The problem is lag and the fix should address the root cause head on rather than dance around it. If it's the animation or sound effects, fix the code. Simplify them if that's the only way you know how to eliminate the lag.

Don't add complexity by creating a whole new set of rules with CPU consuming code to support them. That way lies more trouble.