You should come n the show and discuss your ideas personally

Um, listening is. Did I hear that correctly, Jackal wants a return of LOS shared vision?

so basically he wants to remove the stealth aspect of this game

Not in the slightest. Basically he wanted the ability to mark a target for a few seconds (3-5 tops) so it would show up on squad tacnet. The target would have to be in the line of sight (i.e. reticule) of the observer to temporarily "paint" it.

Ton of great tactical usage for this such as spotting ambush points, enemy vehicles, sniper positions, ect.

yeah. . . you do remember what the game was like before, right?
It was kinda terrible for anyone that wanted to play the stealth game and reduced viability of flanking tactics.

How would you envision such a tool without inhibiting the tactical advantage of flanking &dampening and prevent rewarding dumb luck and ballerinas?

It seems you guys only noticed GÇ£Sky SpawningGÇ¥ when a Dev finally started talking about it, and you seem to have no idea of the origins of the idea.

GÇ£Sky SpawningGÇ¥ is a beachhead mechanic for when you donGÇÖt have assets such as an MCC, DCC, or CRU on the ground. Its drawback is that it takes longer to get back into the battle, and that anyone watching the sky will know approximately where you landed, but it also gives you more control over where you land. For this reason it may also be used if your ground spawn assets are being camped. It represents insertion from the Warbarge without any ground assets used. *

I donGÇÖt believe that Drop Uplinks should be powerful enough to transport a clone from obit. I believe that getting a ground based clone supply should be a prime strategic objective, in order to make Drop Uplinks functional.

As well as its use in Salvage Districts, this is also a very important component in giving players the ability to GÇ£RaidGÇ¥ player owned districts where they donGÇÖt have ground assets. Attempts to take a district would require an MCC, but the ability to raid enemy districts without the expense of an MCC to ware down defenses and impact them financially would add a lot to game play.

* Whether this is launching your suited clone directly from the Warbarge and simply waiting to upload your consciousness into it when it gets into the lower atmosphere, dropping you from a Dropship/RDV, or teleporting you into the atmosphere, is really a Roll Playing issue, and frankly I would be fine with any of these options.


Edit: I mostly listen to Biomass a couple days later as a recording, and this time it had me pulling my hair out. If I had been listening live I would have posted in your chat: GÇ£ItGÇÖs a Beachhead mechanic you idiots!GÇ¥ You guys just did not seem to GÇ£getGÇ¥ it. I have been pushing this for the last six months. It has a specific purpose, and is certainly not meant as a replacement for the spawn mechanics we have now.

It seems you guys only noticed GÇ£Sky SpawningGÇ¥ when a Dev finally started talking about it, and you seem to have no idea of the origins of the idea.

GÇ£Sky SpawningGÇ¥ is a beachhead mechanic for when you donGÇÖt have assets such as an MCC, DCC, or CRU on the ground. Its drawback is that it takes longer to get back into the battle, and that anyone watching the sky will know approximately where you landed, but it also gives you more control over where you land. For this reason it may also be used if your ground spawn assets are being camped. It represents insertion from the Warbarge without any ground assets used. *

I donGÇÖt believe that Drop Uplinks should be powerful enough to transport a clone from obit. I believe that getting a ground based clone supply should be a prime strategic objective, in order to make Drop Uplinks functional.

As well as its use in Salvage Districts, this is also a very important component in giving players the ability to GÇ£RaidGÇ¥ player owned districts where they donGÇÖt have ground assets. Attempts to take a district would require an MCC, but the ability to raid enemy districts without the expense of an MCC to ware down defenses and impact them financially would add a lot to game play.

* Whether this is launching your suited clone directly from the Warbarge and simply waiting to upload your consciousness into it when it gets into the lower atmosphere, dropping you from a Dropship/RDV, or teleporting you into the atmosphere, is really a Roll Playing issue, and frankly I would be fine with any of these options.


Edit: I mostly listen to Biomass a couple days later as a recording, and this time it had me pulling my hair out. If I had been listening live I would have posted in your chat: GÇ£ItGÇÖs a Beachhead mechanic you idiots!GÇ¥ You guys just did not seem to GÇ£getGÇ¥ it. I have been pushing this for the last six months. It has a specific purpose, and is certainly not meant as a replacement for the spawn mechanics we have now.

I am curious why you guys donGÇÖt like the Sky Spawn idea? I mean as in your specific reasons.

Are we thinking of it the same way? My vision of Sky Spawn is a 10 second spawn time, and then you spawn at or above a DropshipGÇÖs flight ceiling and spend another 10 to 15 seconds falling before you can get back into the battle. Since you will have to use inertial dampeners, which leave you vulnerable for a moment when you land, you will not want to land too near the fighting either. I see it as being slower than ground spawn, making capturing CRUGÇÖs an important strategic objective.

I see Sky Spawn as a less efficient way of spawning for those who do not have the home field advantage. It would also be a fall back option if all the ground spawn points are being camped, and you donGÇÖt have a red line to spawn in.

I donGÇÖt have anything against dropping a CRU as a beachhead mechanic, but what if that CRU is camped or captured?

Well of course there are no Redlines in Salvage Districts. There are no teams in Salvage Districts to assigning a Redline to. I think in the case of Salvage Districts Sky Spawn is being considered as a way of avoiding spawn camping that you would get if everyone used a public CRU.

But the Sky Spawn mechanic would also allow raiding on Player Owned Districts, allowing outsiders to access the district, but giving the home field advantage solidly to the District Owners.

Granted you could do that by dropping a CRU from space as well, but that would change the nature of the battle as the side raiding the district would have to defend their CRU. That would be interesting too I suppose. Maybe have both options.

So far Sky Spawn and Droping a CRU from orbit are two proposals for getting clones from orbit down to the surface of the planet. I suppose a third option would be to be dropped off by a small landing craft of some sort. The most expensive option would be to move your clones and equipment to the surface by descending in an MCC but I donGÇÖt think most individuals will be able to afford an MCC, nor should they.

Do you have anything against Sky Spawn more specific than GÇ£I just donGÇÖt see the pointGÇ¥?

I agree with Pokey's point about a variety of spawn methodologies. I think this is a good optional one.

I think the idea of sky spawning works well in Salvage, because it is more of an open area, and you may not have a "side" to spawn on, or any pre-assembled spawn areas.

I would really rather see less uplinks in the game though, and more CRUs. I dislike uplinks from a lore standpoint, and I also dislike how they appear to make CRUs less relevant as strategic hold points.

1) Your ability to guide your self in the air is currently pretty limited and unless noticeably changed that it would provide only a minimum ability to control your landing point. If you change it too much then you essentially do a "flying squirrel" bit across large chunks of the map....if you did that then you don't need a beacon or uplink.

2) You would have to adjust the TacNet or visibility of enemy and friendly Icons so you can actually see and react to the combat situation on the ground. Again...without noticeable changes which weren't mentioned in any of the CCP posts by the time you MIGHT be able to visually identify and track enemy targets its probably too late given the speed of decent. I would also point out that it's generally easier to pick up the zerg group around a spawn point than it is to see the 1 to 3 guys in solid ambush positions...those are the guys that really camp a position.

For perspective, I do routinely HALO from max flight ceiling and there are some advantages but it is certainly not a slam dunk to fix spawn issues by any stretch.

My overall point is that sky spawn may have a place as an option but it is not at the stage where I could seriously consider that as the primary spawn mechanism for a game mode.

Alright I'll chime in.

I don't have an issue with multiple options when it comes to game mechanics. It comes down to two key things "How Easy is it to use this option?" and "How efficient is this option?" and these factors needs to be inversely related. In short, the easier it is and the less player interaction needed, the less efficient it should be. Purely NPC driven mechanics should be the last resort, most inefficient way to do anything and serve as a 'net' of sorts for situations where other methods fail.

1) Movement would need to be fairly limited, probably 25 meter radius at most away from the becon. You could force this limitation by giving limited time to move before your Inertial Dampeners auto deploy at a certain altitude.

2) I think becons should have a built in scanner to picks up enemies within a certain radius and streams that data to those dropping/ready to drop.

Ok, that Uplink thing has got to go! Sky Spawn should spawn you at a random location above the map and you should be able to drift about 100 m while free falling before you hit the ground.

I'm all about the sci-fi setting but teleporting dudes to several hundred meters above semi-arbitrary points just seems a bit laughable.

It's really just a matter of practicality. If you are there to salvage and the situation the tactical situation is unclear then just bring a dropship / RDV style vehicle in to kick guys out. If you are truly trying to execute a forced entry in a contested environment, i.e. the "beachead" then perhaps a rapid deployment method like sky spawning makes sense.

So we are using the most rapid / dynamic entry method into the Salvage game mode? Honestly just doesn't make sense.

I would rather select drop locations for Supply Depots and CRUs (not unlike 40K drop pods) and we pile out or use the aforementioned dropship. In the salvage mode Wolfman references you needing to set up your base and that's not a bad way to get a head start.

I'm not dismissing the sky spawn idea - it's got merit. However, it should be an option not the solution AND it needs a lot of work beyond the very rough concept that was noted.

Im going to have to disagree with you there. I think in most game modes, the location of your teammates and what assets they currently hold should have a lot of meaning. In game modes like Ambush? Sure, I'm fine with that. But I think randomly spawning somewhere in the map in say an objective based game mode isn't really good game design. At that point you're guaranteed to be spawned somewhere totally different from the rest of your team, even with 100m drift.

So for game modes like Ambush, sure, you can replace smart deploy with random skyspawn. But for everything else I want to see more player interaction in the process.