Healing Turret

[AKA The Titan]

What Dark said. Baserape is hardly an issue unless your team is incompetent, considering mobile invs aren't tied into the power grid. Burying just one mobile inv behind D basically guarantees infinite additional invs and turrets. And don't say chameleon will help, when you can stack bwalls on the inv to protect it, and spam pussycats everywhere to prevent the chameleon pack from even working (lol.)

D is just too powerful (SPECIFICALLY THE LASER TURRET), forcing the entire anni meta to be built around it (is tribes a team-based shooter or a tower defense game?).

It takes just one person with the right scripts to completely shut down an offense. It takes ~5 seconds to destroy crates/ffs with the pbeam, ~7.5 to destroy bwalls/jumpads/plats. A typical stack has a jumpad and 2 plats, so 15 seconds to expose the turrets. This is vs. how much time needed to drop all the deployables and set them up from an inv? It's even more time when you factor in having to actually cross the map to get to the turrets in the first place, nevermind fighting off constantly respawning ammodumpers, the giant glowing tracer telling the enemy where you are, getting sniped by the enemy builder's railgun, etc...

Every other method of destroying D is significantly worse, with the next best being pitching the D (can't pitch jumpads, ffs are fragile, you're completely defenseless while doing it,) followed by a massive dropoff to chameleon explosives (only 5 with no practical way to reload, 15 second delay, extremely obvious and can be disarmed, can't even destroy 1 bwall, turrets shoot you through jamming because of motion sensor, cham pack shut down by pussycats) grenade spamming, plasma/shotgun spamming, and in dead last, the baby nuke (explosions completely ineffectual against sunken D, ridiculously long reload, 4 rounds (lol))

So really, the last thing Anni needs is a way for D setting to be even more hands-off by giving turret stacks the ability to fix themselves.

[perrinoia]

I agree with Frank Gallagher, up there.

[AnniDv6]

I agree. If you have any suggestions for fixing the current d-stack please post them

[Azul]

Honestly, solving a defense isn't that cumbersome, but I can see how the newer players and/or OK KNIGHTS could find it very difficult to solve.

My suggestions are a couple of compromises -

Necro Ghost Pack is the same but drains your health 20% more per second, BUT
Anything the flag stand touches is instantly destroyed - nothing can be placed on the flag stand

Jumpads, blast walls, and destroyable platforms health decreased by 50%, BUT
Certain deployable turrets health is increased by 50% (Deployable Plasma, Fusion, Irradiation, Rocket, Nuke, Shock, Ion, Flame)

As it stands, every turret except laser and vortex is wildly underused. That's because a few plasma bolts takes out almost everything.

[KILROY]

Easy, bring it back to Anni basic's, limit the amount of defense that can be placed and stacked, lower the power limit on all weapons and armors to bring it back to Team Warfare, Not Turret Warfare. Again, this is what I've been relaying for over 2 years about this mod. I said the amount of changes would start to kill it, and that is exactly what it is doing, and finally now, players are starting to see it. What this needs is more client side maps to bring changes to the game, not upgrading and creating new weapons, and increasing everything to the point where all you do is set and repair D and sit back and watch the show the whole map. Players are tired of playing the same rotation of maps all the time. After so long, they need something new due to them already using the same ski routes, attack, and defense routines over, and over, and over. It get's tiresome, repetitive, and boring. Introducing new client side maps will make the game interesting again, due to not everyone knowing the map. I've noticed the LT server has been getting as many as 18 players in it sometimes, but even they are complaining about map rotations, and playing the same maps over, and over, and over. They even want something new.

So it's easy, bring the game back to basics in where your team has to play the game, not the defenses, and introduce new maps every so often so the regular rotation of maps doesn't get boring to play. I've even seen where the actual base game of Tribes was fun to play due to it not being played for a very long time. Why? Because it was something different to do in the game and it wasn't the same rotation of the same game being played over, and over, and over. (Yes, I'm typing this many times, why? Cause it is annoying, isn't it? That's what's annoying in game now.)

There's other mod's available to play, but I don't see anyone playing them, which is sad. It's something different to do. Something I haven't seen anyone do with any Tribes map, is NOT make a CTF map, maybe make a Capture and Hold map, or a map that you have to capture an objective in order to gain an advantage in the game, let's say....capture an objective to be able to get access to a base with an inventory station to be able to change armors, and grab D to deploy it. Depending on the size of the map, you could also bring back air ships again to use in game. You could also make a CTF map that has Capture and Hold points in the map to gain an objective against the opposing team.

[perrinoia]

1) Classic annihilation damage scale

• Particle beam should be able to destroy any barrier with one 100% charged shot.
• 5 Chameleon grenades should be equivalent to one suicide det pack.

2) Rewrite power functions from scratch

• Reintroduce portable generators and deployable solar panels, maybe drop ships.
• Require all deployable turrets to be deployed within range of an active generator.

3) Fix Necro energy glitch or change beacon ability.

[AKA The Titan]

1) Classic annihilation damage scale

• Particle beam should be able to destroy any barrier with one 100% charged shot.
• 5 Chameleon grenades should be equivalent to one suicide det pack.

2) Rewrite power functions from scratch

• Reintroduce portable generators and deployable solar panels, maybe drop ships.
• Require all deployable turrets to be deployed within range of an active generator.

3) Fix Necro energy glitch or change beacon ability.

Definitely agree with buffing the chameleon explosives. As things are now, it takes 25 of them to destroy one blast wall (provided it isn't sunken, of course.) At the very least, a full inventory of explosives should destroy one blast wall. The tradeoff should be that the builder disarm rate should be 100% (I don't know if the fail chance was ever removed.) This will at least force builders to keep a closer eye on their D, instead of letting it be set-and-forget. The other change that needs to be made is that the pussycat interference effect needs to be removed, since the chameleon pack is the only thing that allows chameleons to get in range of turrets to drop their explosives in the first place. This might help solve the "Blastside elevator shaft" problem. You know, place laser turret stacks on both sides of the shaft to instant kill anything that drops down and make pitching nigh impossible.

[AnniDv6]

@KILROY I agree with most of what you're saying, but the idea that if we were only to change X we would surely get players is really frustrating to read, especially when you really do have access to the numbers of players on charts and can see the real increases and decreases.

As you said there are already a huge amount of mods of every variation for this game that have zero players, but are extremely fun and would be amazing to play with even 10 people. If it was as easy to get or retain players on a 17 year old game as changing a few things in the mod it would be happening or those other amazing mods that already exist would be populated already so I really dislike this mentality. Yes we may get a few more players that already play this game to be more active on our server if we are lucky and hit the magic recipe which everyone seems to know a different version of, but getting real player numbers again is a pipe dream that doesn't have much to do with just the mod.

The game is older than some highschoolers and has not had support from the real developers for years now. That is and always will be the primary reason for the lack of players. We're talking 98% of the reason. Tribes is not Quake and did not have anything close to the amount of continued support, competition or publicity over the years that led to Quake and other older games having their community and player base today so long after release. That train left the station a long time ago for Tribes and will not be back unless something really big happens such as a remastered version by a new owner who buys the IP from Hirez or an entire team of people creating a remastered version like what is happening with Black Mesa Source or Skywind.

@perrinoia
I agree. Also Chameleon grenades should already be destroying blast walls when all five are used. If I make them much stronger one of them will be able to instantly lots of other things. Should a shielded heavy really die from one plastique? Bringing down the health of the blast walls would help this problem I guess.

[perrinoia]

Yes. A shielded heavy should be ripped to shreds by plastic explosives.

That's what they use to destroy tanks in movies... Plastic explosives in an oiled up sock, slapped on the side of a tank or near the treads.

Futuristic plastique explosives secretly placed by an infiltrator should definitely reek havoc.

[KILROY]

Death....I understand what you are saying, since I beta tested this game from day one. I'm probably the oldest player still playing this since some of these people were 12 yrs. old. I'm not saying this will bring players, but it might keep the current one's that are still playing, and just maybe bring some older players that quit the mod, like myself for over 2 yrs., back to playing it again. And I still support it with my donations even though I haven't been playing it. I do however, jump into observation and monitor the server for any wrong doings, like a few I caught that were HM'ing, or tk'ing their own teammates for fun, or destroying defenses on their own team to give the opposite team a better advantage.

The problem is what the current players that are still playing this are complaining about....the amount of overpowering defenses and armors in a mod that has been changing and only moving it's stat's up, not balancing. That is what everyone in the server and in the forums are complaining about. Perrinoia, just jumped back into the game and noticed it immediately, and then made a post on it. I've been relaying this for over 2 yrs. due to seeing the number of players drop from the mod due to the continuous changes to increase the armors, defenses, deployables stats, and being able to stack the amount of deployable cover you can use to cover your defenses. Set your defenses and watch the show is what most see Annihilation as now. In the LT server they are complaining about having to continuously keep playing the same maps over, and over, and over. No one is introducing any new maps, and we have people who still play this game that understand how to make maps.

All I'm saying is return the mod back to basics, so the game is being played again by the player, not the deployables that do all the work. As for developers, we have people right here in this forum that can make these type of changes, and have been doing so for years.

If it was as easy to get or retain players on a 17 year old game as changing a few things in the mod it would be happening or those other amazing mods that already exist would be populated already so I really dislike this mentality.

As for you relaying this about one's mindset on getting or retaining players. I understand this due to Dynamix walking out on a game they developed, but....they did do the right thing and gave it to the players to continue to use their creation, and thanks to bugs_ for purchasing the rights from them so he could host a main server so the players could continue. bugs_ also did an honorable thing by allowing others to host a main server, which he didn't have to do. He even still host his own individual server that no one uses: United States Base Unhappy Mod 3.0, and he plays in the LT server only, and never asks anyone why they don't use his server. I have to disagree with you...I think the Tribes Community was and is still very strong due to it still having a player base, and it's current developers. If it wasn't why is Midair being created? Because the company creating Midair see's the Tribes Community strong and by them creating a new version of the game, will allow it to continue. From day one I relayed that I'm a Triber for Life until the last server is no longer accessible, which will probably happen when Midair is released, but....

Here's a motto I like to use when thinking about Tribes and the company who saw something and decided to create Midair:

"Why do the best people die?" "When you are in a garden, which flowers do you pick? The best ones."