My take on TP2/figbees

[One-Man-Bucket]

Since everyone is posting their opinions about the matter I thought I'd join in.

The way I see it figbees are not the problem. The reason for the overwhelming popularity and high success rate of tp2/figbee ending is that it relies on ONE pilot - the scout who drops the probe - to do his job well. The next best thing is SBS, which requires 3-4 pilots to do their job right (add a few that will fail to sneak in to enemy sector to that). Compare this to a con push/htt run/bomb run which requires most of the team to pull off. Also, consider what happens when game size increases. You have 30 pilots at your disposal, and you only need ONE scout to pull off a good drop to win. I think we've all seen how sup is almost a must in large games.

Another perk for TP2 is that the defending team needs to have their whole team ready to launch and defend a base, thus not allowing them to make any kind of offensive maneuver of their own.

My solution: Add energy limit to the tp2 probe that allows 3-4 figbees per probe to rip in. This means that in a 15vs15 game the sup team would have to use 3-4 pilots to execute the probe drop (compare to sbs). While they sneak in/set up the sup teams defenses are weakened and open to a counterattack. Killing one of the probes before it activates still lets 75% of the figbees rip in which just might be enough. The defense would have to communicate and not all go rushing towards the same probe and the TP2 scouts would have to place the drops strategically far from eachother (adds time to set up, again compare to sbs). A TP2 successful drop pulled off by 4 skilled scouts would still net the same devastating effect as the current version of the strategy. It scales well, in larger games you need to sneak in more tp2 scouts to get the amount of figbees in that you need. The way I see it, allegiance is about teamwork and the amount of teamwork to pull of a sb run is the absolute minimum that should be required.


Bullet point summary
TP2 broken (too easy) because:
* it relies on one person instead of teamwork
* locks up all of non-sup team on defense

Energy cap on tp2 solves this because:
* the amount teamwork required to drop TP2 becomes comparable to everything else in the game
* setting up TP2 drains more good pilots from sup team defenses
* it scales well to different game sizes
* it adds another strategy aspect when setting up and defending against drops.


Unfortunately, people who knows more about core stuff than me informed me that the tp2 probe doesn't have an energy parameter (like sr scouts do), which means that to implement this we would need a code change. So I guess you can go ahead and close the thread, xerotov!

[Koln]

You could make for the energy parameter with the randomness that was before (as i have heard). It's not the same, but kind of.

However, i think that would not solve the problem but instead make tp2 almost useless. See the following: 5 scouts set up 5 tp2s and 15 people get ready to rip in. They all drop at once and the 15 fbs press rip in short succession. Now, the first 3 of them rip in and the other fail to rip (like to carriers) and need to wait another 10 seconds to rip to the other tp2, in which case the same happens. The result is that you get instead of 15 people ripping in you have 5 waves of 3 fbs delayed 10secs from the one before, which are far easier to kill.

That assuming that the server selects the right target to rip to every time and doesn't pick the tp2 without energy.

[notjarvis]

QUOTE (Koln @ Apr 22 2010, 02:36 PM) You could make for the energy parameter with the randomness that was before (as i have heard). It's not the same, but kind of.

Which would also be a code change.

This was pretty much discussed to death in this thread

[Koln]

QUOTE (notjarvis @ Apr 22 2010, 03:38 PM) Which would also be a code change.

This was pretty much discussed to death in this thread

It's a code change but it could be more like copy-paste .

[One-Man-Bucket]

QUOTE (Koln @ Apr 22 2010, 03:36 PM) misinformation

we tested this yesterday with SR scouts, and if one scout runs out of energy the fighter ripping in automatically rips to the other scout and rip is not aborted. Not a problem if a probe gets killed either, you can currently drop multiple tp2 probes in the same sector and if one gets killed the figbees end up at the other probe instead. No restart of rip required.

[pkk]

QUOTE (One-Man-Bucket @ Apr 22 2010, 03:08 PM) Unfortunately, people who knows more about core stuff than me informed me that the tp2 probe doesn't have an energy parameter (like sr scouts do), which means that to implement this we would need a code change. So I guess you can go ahead and close the thread, xerotov!

That idea is now 10 years old, but MS "fixed" TP2 with the random self-destruction.

[Freyja]

I like the idea, in general, though am concerned on three points.

1) Finding the sweet spot of energy that would also take into account regular/heavy bbrs, capships, and to a lesser extent sbs/htt.

2) Faction balance issues that may crop up.

3) One scout pilot with multiple tp2, of course this has it's own issues of possible delays because of having to reload tp2 in dispenser.

Side note, XRMs need fixing, sooner rather than later.

[SpaceJunk]

Is it possible that there are viable ways to counter FBs, but they are out of fashion?

Maybe it's a statistical aberration, but the all aleph drops I've joined recently were never met with prox or caltrops.

[Freyja]

Getting caltrop on aleph drop is kind of a bit impossible given the timing, although prox certainly should be on aleph.

[fuzzylunkin1]

You could move the relevant parts to the Dev forum too, you know . . . .