11-11-2009, 01:23 PM
Vllad Wrote:Most importantly the map has to be big enough that mobile spawn units are required to push or destroy a front. If someone can just run back from another base in two minutes there is no need for the mobile spawn concept.
Actually, as long as the defenders can spawn in the base, then attackers will need a mobile spawn, even if the bases are close together.
e.g., in Planetside you could own the tower and assault the base from there, which was only maybe a 60 second run away or less, but spawning and running for 60 seconds to reach the battle is still a sizable disadvantage compared to defenders who spawn inside their base and join the battle immediately. Every good base fight in Planetside required the mobile spawn to eventually be inside the walls of the target base so that attackers would have the same run time as defenders.
I want large maps and mobile spawns mainly for the variety it should create. Planetside ended up with a LOT of wasted space. Since the mobile spawns were fast movers, you'd just bypass all the intervening terrain, so 90% of your combat time was spent within a small radius around one base or another, which tended to make fights a little "samey". There were interesting terrain features that might have made for some good battles in the open but usually you'd just be quickly driving through them.
My idea for a mobile spawn in a sci-fi game:
* Slow moving (e.g., a little slower than regular infantry run speed)
* Can spawn infantry while moving
* BFR-style shield to protect it against air and ground attacks by vehicles
* Anti-air / anti-vehicle cannon to help cover nearby infantry against enemy vehicles
* Most vulnerable to enemy infantry, who can simply walk inside the shield and attack it with anti-vehicle explosives
* "Sphere of influence" that disables other mobile spawns that get too close
* When spheres overlap:
a) if near an enemy base, the one furthest from the enemy base has its spawner disabled
b) if near a friendly base, the one furthest from the friendly base has its spawner disabled
c) If the spawner is enabled, the vehicle can "park", which makes its spawner override the previous two rules
The idea is to make the mobile spawner something that has to gradually approach the target, and if there are multiple ones in play, there is a reasonably intuitive mechanic for how they behave. (Planetside only had rule "c" -- you had to park it to spawn there -- but I don't think that idea meshes well with my idea that they should be slow moving, and they must be slow moving if we want these open field battles to take place.)
I think the value of the BFR in Planetside was that it fixed the broken circle. Prior to the BFR, vehicles beat infantry, end of story. You really just didn't want to be in the open as Planetside infantry. The quicker you can spawn and get inside the target base, the better. BFRs made it more rock-paper-scissors. BFRs beat vehicles but infantry beat BFRs. One infantry hotdropping on you from a plane could kick your ass, but you could hold off three Vanguards from overrunning your own infantry.
I think maybe originally the designers wanted the circle to be "Plane beats vehicle, vehicle beats infantry, infantry beats plane" but it ended up with planes just being another vehicle that was good at killing infantry.
So I don't think we necessarily need "the BFR", but we need that model. If vehicles are generally better than infantry, then infantry needs a supporting object which is generally better than vehicles but is itself susceptible to infantry.