Cell-occupation-system against Basewalking

[Tirili]

Hi

Since I am tired of people basewalking into my base I am lobbying for basewalk invalidation.

Here's my Idea:

What I think is the core of the sickness of basewalking is that people can attack using defense buildings
like turrets, tesla coils or pillboxes etc.. This is totally in the contrary to the word "defense" in "defense buildings".

What about this:

Occupation ranking of cells
----------------------------

People can only place defense-buildings (pillbox, camo pillbox, turret, anti air gun, flame tower, tesla coil) in cells which they own.
Non-defense-buildings like power plants or even barracks should be possible to place everywhere as usually.

Each cell of the game map should hold its own occupation ranking and only the top-ranked player should be allowed to place defense-buildings in the cell.

Example for the occupation ranking cells:

Cell[tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab]1[tab][tab][tab]2[tab][tab][tab]3[tab][tab][tab]4[tab][tab][tab]5

Rank 1[tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab]Player3 Player2 Player4 nobody Player2
Rank 2[tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab]Player1 nobody Player1 nobody Player3
Rank 3[tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab]Player2 nobody nobody nobody Player1
...[tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab][tab]...[tab][tab]...[tab][tab]...[tab][tab]...[tab][tab]...
Rank number_of_players[tab][tab]Player4 nobody nobody nobody Player4

With each (non-defense-) building assembled by a player, he claims ownership of all cells in a certain radius and participates in the occupation ranking of these cells. The ranking is based on the time since when players are participating in the ranking. In cell 3 in the example Player4 has claimed occupation for a longer time than Player1. The other players don't have any non-defense-buildings placed in the cell's occupation radius.
As soon as a player loses all non-defense-buildings in the occupation radius of a cell he is taken off that cell's ranking list and can only join in again by building a non-defense-building in the nearby area, i.e. the occupation radius.

That's all.

This means that players will be allowed to place defense buildings on their home base, but they will have to struggle first before they can place defense buildings near their enemies.

This system creates a problem at king of the hill - like maps where it will be essential to be the first player arriving at strategically important sites and players who don't manage to arrive first will have a huge disadvantage. I hope this is the only disadvantage of this system.

What do you think?

[epice]

Just add the damn building radius around the ConYard like in C&C and Dune mods.

[Tirili]

Just add the damn building radius around the ConYard like in C&C and Dune mods.

That doesn't help against basewalking because the attacker can move his construction yard to the front.

[BaronOfStuff]

Yes, and risk losing it in the process if counter-attacked. A replacement MCV is also a heavy investment (time & money), unlike a string of Power Plants. A 'build radius' around the CY is the best way to stop cheap basewalking.

Your idea is still open to exploitation anyway; everyone will just adapt and change what they start throwing around during a basewalk.

[Scott_NZ]

I am actually against the idea of having this requirement. I'd really like this mod to be different from C&C and D2k in this aspect. This is a balance problem, which should be resolved with actual balancing and not hard base limits. It's power plants fueling the base walk, perhaps something balance-wise should be done to stop them.

[Matt]

You can base-walk with any cheap building. AFLD and HPAD make sense if you build up an air force anyway.

[BaronOfStuff]

I am actually against the idea of having this requirement. I'd really like this mod to be different from C&C and D2k in this aspect. This is a balance problem, which should be resolved with actual balancing and not hard base limits. It's power plants fueling the base walk, perhaps something balance-wise should be done to stop them.

Balance problem? It's an exploit that stems from teams being able to build chains from each others' structures, further made easier by having defensive structures on a separate tab to regular structures. As it stands, entire maps can be crossed in moments by a 4P team spamming PP's, with a whole set of Tesla Coils ready to be set down at a moment's notice. The only 'balancing' I can think of for this is to only allow defensive structures to be placed within a certain range of the CY; that way basewalking is far less of an offensive (and cheap) strategy -- a long chain of PP's can't do a fucking thing then.

[epice]

I still like my idea of building's leaving behind debris for a short time preventing players from building in that spot. Walkers would be stopped in their tracks as soon as one of their buildings gets destroyed and leaves being a pile of debris.

Yea sure they could build around the debris but you can hold them back by just blowing up more shit to crate more darbis, eventually they wont have a way around. A team of 4 players trying to basewalk would still be stopped when they simple cant place their buildings anymore.

Though at the end of the day, the ConYard build radius is the easiest thing to implement.

[BaronOfStuff]

The only (and critical) issue with your idea would be that defenders would be pretty fucked while fighting off an attack.

The build radius would be the best way to prevent cheap basewalking, even if it only affected defensive structures.

[Matt]

Psydev's initial idea was to have the C&C/D2k construction yard build restriction radius only effect defense buildings, but Sleipnir was against this because he thought it is confusing/inconsistent.

[BaronOfStuff]

What?! How is it confusing or inconsistent? They have their own separate tab and very obvious purposes! Defensive structures.

While it may* require some things (Missile Silo, Chronosphere, Iron Curtain) to be moved to the standard building palette, it seems like a very reasonable option to counter basewalks. If someone can come up with another choice on how to stop anyone from abusing this exploit then I'm all for a common vote on the matter or whatever, but the fact is that there really aren't many options on the table right now and basewalking is apparently becoming a persistent problem.

*I say 'may', because who builds an expensive and vulnerable Superweapon structure in the middle of nowhere?

[Scott_NZ]

The problem with basewalking is that it's heavily favoured over a lot of other strategies because it's too effective. Thus it's a balance problem. This whole thing will go away if you for example increase the build time for power plants to something like 20s or more, but I'm not sure anyone wants that. I already nerfed damage from defenses to main base structures, but apparently it's not enough.

[Matt]

Basewalking especially in the early game where you have no long-range weapons is unmatched. You immediately lose once the enemy approaches you.

[SoScared]

I still like my idea of building's leaving behind debris for a short time preventing players from building in that spot. Walkers would be stopped in their tracks as soon as one of their buildings gets destroyed and leaves being a pile of debris.

Yea sure they could build around the debris but you can hold them back by just blowing up more shit to crate more darbis, eventually they wont have a way around. A team of 4 players trying to basewalk would still be stopped when they simple cant place their buildings anymore.

This is the best suggestion I've seen on this forum evar. I only want to see basewalking attacks punished, not basewalking altogether.

**Another good alternative would be to add a 'build off ally con.yard' option like that of RA2 so that in team games you won't have teams basewalking off each others buildings except the con.yards.

[JOo]

Psydev's initial idea was to have the C&C/D2k construction yard build restriction radius only effect defense buildings, but Sleipnir was against this because he thought it is confusing/inconsistent.

absolutly , genius ... i like that idea !