Post by magnifiscent on Jan 27, 2014 14:01:07 GMT -8
With the upcoming changes the vehicle spawn, I wanted to have a discussion about updating our galaxy tactics a bit.
For those of you not aware, the most recent game update is going to allow squad members to spawn in a vehicle owned by another squad member. This is not like squad-only AMS. This allows dead squad mates to spawn directly into the empty passenger seats in vehicles owned by a squad member. That means galaxies in the air are squad-based mobile spawn points.
Currently our galaxies are used as essentially one-ff delivery methods for a platoon crash. Most people ditch them during the fight after troops are delivered. With the new changes, these galaxies retain their value as a spawn point for the squad. Galaxies will become a possible focal point for the entire squad's spawning ability.
This adds a new dynamic for our respawning behavior - respawn waves.
Those of you who have played other shooters or even Chivalry: Medieval Warfare have seen wave spawning. Instead of a continuous trickle of respawning players, you get cool-down periods with large waves of people coming in together. Planetside is about nothing if not about spawn pressure - especially in those hard-fought grindy infantry fights. The max crash and gal drop were both tactics developed to use wave attacks to overwhelm defenses rather than trickle slowly in.
Since a Galaxy cannot safely hover over an area, it will need to make looping passes over a target area, meaning there will periods of people gathering in the galaxy as they respawn to be released at the same time over the target. Making the galaxies focuses for spawn points is going to give a nice new edge for organized groups (such as ourselves) to continue to make coordinated wave attacks after that first drop.
This change will also make it easier to coordinate a new tactic - Galaxy bombs.
The galaxy bomb has been mentioned before but we've yet to really use it. Skywatch used one a week or two ago during ops and met with some surprisingly good results. We dropped a 5 man team in the midst of some vehicles that were camping an air tower and destroyed 4-5 tanks quickly.
A galaxy with 11 heavy assaults with dumbfire launchers could unload on top of a tank column and destroy several tanks in the span of moments relieving the pressure of a siege. Assuming the galaxy survives, that group could wipe shortly after and be back in the galaxy for another drop or quick deployment somewhere else. For little to no investment in resources we could take down half a dozen or more main battle tanks, lightnings, skyguards, or sunderers representing a significant resource loss for the enemy team as well as reducing their fire power in the target area.
We already use embedded galaxies within the units to move ourselves around. What I'd like to try once this change hits the live server is using a single squad (spec-ops/competitive players) that will adopt these galaxy-centric tactics to see how effective they are and what can be accomplished with them.
Skywatch could handle escort for the galaxies and I'd like to get our battle galaxy up during more operation nights. Giving our downed pilots a way to spawn directly on our battle galaxy is a fantastic way to put burster maxes or small galaxy bombs precisely where we need them using pilots who are on cool down.
For those of you not aware, the most recent game update is going to allow squad members to spawn in a vehicle owned by another squad member. This is not like squad-only AMS. This allows dead squad mates to spawn directly into the empty passenger seats in vehicles owned by a squad member. That means galaxies in the air are squad-based mobile spawn points.
Currently our galaxies are used as essentially one-ff delivery methods for a platoon crash. Most people ditch them during the fight after troops are delivered. With the new changes, these galaxies retain their value as a spawn point for the squad. Galaxies will become a possible focal point for the entire squad's spawning ability.
This adds a new dynamic for our respawning behavior - respawn waves.
Those of you who have played other shooters or even Chivalry: Medieval Warfare have seen wave spawning. Instead of a continuous trickle of respawning players, you get cool-down periods with large waves of people coming in together. Planetside is about nothing if not about spawn pressure - especially in those hard-fought grindy infantry fights. The max crash and gal drop were both tactics developed to use wave attacks to overwhelm defenses rather than trickle slowly in.
Since a Galaxy cannot safely hover over an area, it will need to make looping passes over a target area, meaning there will periods of people gathering in the galaxy as they respawn to be released at the same time over the target. Making the galaxies focuses for spawn points is going to give a nice new edge for organized groups (such as ourselves) to continue to make coordinated wave attacks after that first drop.
This change will also make it easier to coordinate a new tactic - Galaxy bombs.
The galaxy bomb has been mentioned before but we've yet to really use it. Skywatch used one a week or two ago during ops and met with some surprisingly good results. We dropped a 5 man team in the midst of some vehicles that were camping an air tower and destroyed 4-5 tanks quickly.
A galaxy with 11 heavy assaults with dumbfire launchers could unload on top of a tank column and destroy several tanks in the span of moments relieving the pressure of a siege. Assuming the galaxy survives, that group could wipe shortly after and be back in the galaxy for another drop or quick deployment somewhere else. For little to no investment in resources we could take down half a dozen or more main battle tanks, lightnings, skyguards, or sunderers representing a significant resource loss for the enemy team as well as reducing their fire power in the target area.
We already use embedded galaxies within the units to move ourselves around. What I'd like to try once this change hits the live server is using a single squad (spec-ops/competitive players) that will adopt these galaxy-centric tactics to see how effective they are and what can be accomplished with them.
Skywatch could handle escort for the galaxies and I'd like to get our battle galaxy up during more operation nights. Giving our downed pilots a way to spawn directly on our battle galaxy is a fantastic way to put burster maxes or small galaxy bombs precisely where we need them using pilots who are on cool down.
