A good picture, HD.

It is tough to balance this situation though. The game is based on WP. Equipment is one way to earn it and it requires the least effort.

From a programming viewpoint adding a limitation is much more difficult than designing the limitation in the beginning. And like many game development studios adding new things is always more interesting than redoing (limiting) older work.

It is just their nature.

True gut it can't be that difficult to limit items by type, nano hives are limited to a qty, not tier. It wouldn't take much more coding to work out that a maximum layer by an individual over an item, after all, they're half way there already with the coding.

Sorry if this drifts into the technical but A: you said 'it can't be that difficult' to a programmer and B: Because CCP/Shanghai .

IF we were talking about the code running on one machine, your PS3, then I would agree. But it isn't. It is running on 32 PS3s and there is some code running on the server.

They have a limit on how many vehicles are dropped into Ambush so we know they can do the basic work. And one would hope they could repeat it here. But, we are talking about something that is currently using a different protocol.

You have to ask the server to queue your vehicle with an RDS. One of the meanings of 'Team Quota Reached' is actually there are too many requests in that specific location. You can move to a less congested area and get your vehicle in quicker.

For equipment you alone decide when and where to drop your equipment. As does each an every Merc. So a function that used to happen only on a client now has to interface with the server. How that happens could be difficult, easy, in between or impossible. Currently all the client Has to tell the server is where the equipment landed (assuming it didn't blow up).

This is multi-tasking programming across a network with 16 possible conflicting clients. That is not a fall off the turnip truck and knock this code out type of a problem. Not that it couldn't be done mind you. But, as I mentioned previously, it is much easier to design the function with the limitation built in versus modifying an existing product to include the limitation now.

The vehicle limitation is only server side software. This would have to start communicating with the server to allow a Merc to deploy their equipment. I would not predict success for the first several attempts.

Don't take this to mean I don't understand your frustration with the current situation. I would love CCP/Shanghai to remove the audio and graphical effects from all the equipment. As a minimalist solution they could just put down just an Icon and a simple beep. That might even solve some of the lag issues that many mercs complain about.

Later, KR