It sounds like we will be able to craft armor/weapons mods to pump 5 with little/no risk involved, just a cost. This is great and I have (like many) been awaiting this for some time.

But the first item that draws my attention as becoming a problem is Hazmat armor coupled with medics ability resist.
I will explain.

Hazmat provides a base of 25% resistance to fire, ice, electric, and virulent.
The resistance ability allows for a 100% immunity to physical, virulent, sonic, electric, and ice.

So the experienced Hazmat wearer/crafter focuses on building up laser and fire resists. Emp can not kill a biological target so there is little to no concern about buffing this resist.

A player (with the new crafting) could potentially craft a pump 5 fire resist on to all 5 pieces of armor, resulting in 5×10% resist = 50% from armor and 25% from Hazmat skill. This can further be augmented by adding a fire resist to pump 5 on a weapon which equals an additional 25% resist, for a total of 100% inherent resistance to fire. Without using any skill this can be achieved for up to all four Hazmat resists.

For laser the same could be achieved, 5 pumps resist on each piece of armor + pump 5 resist on any weapon = 75% resist. If all of this is used in concert, which I can tell is already being looked at, and closely achieved via the current crafting system. I see a major problem.
A player in PvP with 100% immunity to 6 damage types and 75% to laser (emp is omitted because it can not kill).
Not all classes have access to potent laser weapons, and at any rate only 25% of the damage dealt is absorbed, that is easily repaired or mitigated by a friendly laser reflect buff.

I make a lot of assumptions about the functionality of the upcoming crafting, but I think this issue could easily become a game breaking mechanic because if a player goes to that length(which I would NOT doubt), they become almost completely invincible.

I am at a loss for any ideas to resolve the issue though.

Ed sat in his cave and he wondered. He couldn’t remember what had happened. He had been fighting and then… BAM He was down, and his squadmates were all dead. Had he killed them? He knew he had problems with his temper, but he couldn’t see having done something like that. He couldn’t remember. He thought back to what he could remember…

He came back to consciousness slowly. He couldn’t remember what had happened… he had been in a foxhole with his two friends from basic and then… he had woken here… wherever here was. He moved his head cautiously and voices came to his ears.
“He’s lucky to be alive, after so long without adequate oxygen his brain SHOULD have shut down.”
“Scans do show brain damage, Doctor.”
“I know that medic, but we need every soldier…” he opened his eyes and saw the comforting signs of an AFS infirmary. He saw two figures walking towards his cot and he winced as pain shot through his head.
“You had us worried soldier.” The older one was clad in white bio armor. Looking up at him, Ed winced a bit but controlled it.
“Doc… What happened?” The doc grimaced.
“Your foxhole was struck by a high yield blast. It knocked you unconscious.”
“There weren’t any Bane on that side of the river.”
“No there weren’t… You were hit in a blue on blue.” The doc was all professional now, with just a minor hint of a grimace.
“A what?” He had never heard that term.
“An AFS ranger dropped air support directly on your foxhole.”
“No! John, Mickey! What…” he tried to get up and his head immediately swam. His stomach also rebelled and the medic grabbed a bin just in time. When he was done, the Doc continued.
“I’m sorry soldier. You were the only survivor.” Black rage boiled in his veins at those words.
“Who did it?” Both of the docs took a step back at the sheer power of his voice. Ed sat up, barely noticing the pain now. He managed to get his feet onto the floor before the docs responded.
“Whoa, where do you think you are going? You wouldn’t make five steps.”
“I’ll kill the bastard.” Ed stopped short at the Doc’s sad look.
“You’re too late. A sniper got him less than a minute after he dropped on you.”
Ed shook his head and never even saw the floor come up to meet him.

<6 months later>
“WE CAN’T HOLD THEM!” the private in the screamed into her comm as the Bane assault wave crashed into her trench. Thrax, hunters howlers, caretakers, lightbenders and linkers all poured through the gap that had been held by two of her friends. Until the bane grenade had reduced them to ash, that is. She poured a torrent of fire into the mass of enemy but it was hopeless, and she knew it. The next trench was over 50 meters north, she and her fellows would be cut down before they made it halfway. So she decided to sell herself as dearly as she could, took a knee and fired aimed shots. She killed several before a thunderous impact behind her threw her into the wall of the trench. She sat there stunned as she saw the Kael that had pounded the ground so hard as to send seismic tremors through it raise its claw for a deathstrike. Then it paused, seemed almost to growl in bafflement and collapsed. Then she heard it. Maniacal laughter, human, male and getting closer. A figure in blood red graviton armor leaped over the huge carcass and into the trench. The grenadier, that’s what he had to be, switched weapons quickly and immediately opened fire. Literally. His flamethrower seemed like the very fires of hell and his laugh… It was a toss up which scared the Thrax more, the fire or the laughter. They broke and ran, and he chased them… right out of the trench. The private slumped back and shared a disbelieving look with the remains of her squad.
That guy is insane…

<Some time later>
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Ed braced even harder under the stare of the base commander.
Commander Randolph was not a bad woman, but she was hard. And at the moment she was madder than a wet hen. “Well?”
“I… I don’t know Commander.”
“You don’t know… You don’t know? You knocked down a 5 meter section of my wall and you don’t know what happened?”
“I… I don’t remember…” His utterly baffled tone shook the woman. She had expected a lot of things when the man responsible for the damage to her LZ had been led in front of her, but not this. His voice was almost childlike in its innocence. It was filled with worry and fear. He really didn’t know…
“What DO you remember?” This time she was almost kind, and the grenadier grimaced.
“They were calling for help… I was too far away… I… I don’t know what happened next.
“According to the reports, you charged into a group of Thrax. You hit them so hard one of them went completely through the metal of my wall. You catterbombs which killed several more and brought down more of my wall. Then you burned several of them down and chased the others away. Then you collapsed.” The huge man in front of her shook his head in bafflement. She was bemused, and a little worried, both for this brave man and about what he might do.
“Soldier, you need help.”
“Commander, no, please… don’t send me to the docs… please… They can’t help me.” The raw terror in his voice shook the woman. When she replied it was kind.
“Soldier, you can’t keep going this way. You can’t.”
“I… I know…” Then he straightened. “Better to die for something ma’am. Than live like this.” She shook her head. She sighed.
“Palisades needs reinforcements. I want you on the next dropship out.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Thank you for saving my outpost.” Ed nodded slightly and turned towards the dropship pad. Commander Randolph watched him go, bemused and sad. What have we come to? That man is a child inside…

Ed looked up from his musings and looked around. The cave he had taken shelter in hadn’t changed but something had. When he and his team had been posted with Commander Jaxon, he had not expected to survive a day. Everyone knew he was a kamikaze. Even the ones who seemed to like him stayed away. That hurt, a bit. But it also made him glad that he wouldn’t be responsible for their deaths. But when they were on approach to their drop site their ship had been hit and crashed. They had been cut off and surrounded quickly. He had looked at the NCO and waved her and the rest back. Then he had charged. An endless moment later, he had been the only thing standing in the area. And his heart fell as he saw the broken bodies of his team. He had screamed in hopeless rage and run. He hadn’t been running away though. He had been hunting. The Thrax were terrified of this apparition in battered red armor. Kaels, howlers, officers, snipers, caretakers, all fell before him. Nothing could stand in his way. Finally he had run out of targets. And he had sat down in a cave to think. But now… He closed his eyes and listened. A sound of a deep sigh came to him from nearby. But he kept his eyes closed. Maybe whoever it was would finally end his pain.

“No.” the voice was like nothing he had ever heard.
“Please. I can’t live like this.” It came out a wail.
“You did not kill your comrades. Young one, you avenged them.”
“I… I don’t remember…”
“See what I have seen young one.” With that, something touched him on the head and he saw…

He winced as he saw the scene. His team waiting in cover for the next Bane attack. His charge to try and break them out of the encirclement. His devastation of the Bane and the arrival of a stalker. It was unaffected by his flamethrower and his team charged to his support. He watched in horror as they fell one by one until only he was left standing. He watched as the last team member attached an EMP bomb to the mechanoid monstrosity before falling. He watched as the bomb went off and blew the mech into scrap. He saw himself screaming, cursing, burning all the remaining Bane into ash, before falling unconscious. He came back to himself.

“I…”
“You did not kill your friends. You knew what they were doing, you begged them to leave you. They would not. They would not leave you to die alone.”
“So they died.” He was crying now, and rocked back and forth. Small arms encircled him and a new voice came to his ears.
“You are not to blame.”
“Why couldn’t they have let me die… I’m a monster…” The arms didn’t let go.
“No. No you are not. You have a problem, but you know it. And you can beat this. I know you can Ed.” He stiffened.
“How do you know my name?” he looked around at the tiny figure in bio armor that held him.
“We have been looking for you ever since the assault teams departed.” He shook his head again.
“We?” Another figure, this one in stealth armor, came up beside them and took his helmet off. Ed looked at the torqueshell rifle the man was cradling and nodded. “You tracked me.”
“Uh… actually…” the medic was scanning his wounds now and clucking to herself, but she stilled at the sniper’s words.
“What?”
“As soon as we got here, we were told exactly where you were.” Huh?
“How?” The sniper looked over Ed’s shoulder and smiled. Ed followed his gaze and froze. His mouth dropped open. The Eloh smiled.
“You are not to blame for what happened, child of Earth, and we can help you.”
“You… you can make me better?” Ed’s voice was small.
“It is quite possible. My name is Sara,…” The medic finished binding his wounds with medimechs and stood up. “this is Gerin” the sniper nodded silently. “And we could use your help.”
Ed couldn’t take his eyes off the unearthly beauty of the Eloh. The Eloh smiled at him again and vanished.
“You… You want my help?”
“No.” the sniper replied. “We need your help and want you to join us.”
“You trust me, not to hurt… anyone…”
“Anyone who doesn’t deserve it, yes.”
“I’m yours. Use me, or throw me away. It doesn’t matter.” The medic glared at him.
“Yes it does. You matter. You have a problem, we will help you with it. We don’t need another casualty, we need a brother.”
“A…” The last person who had called him that had been John in boot camp. Who had died a meaningless death in a meaningless skirmish on an unknown planet who knew how far from home.
“A brother.” The medic repeated and she hugged the huge man tight.
“A brother.” the sniper came and laid a hand on Ed’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.
“A brother.” Ed agreed and grinned his first real grin in a long time.

I only had two crashes through all the fights. One was related to putting down a WP and the other was rezing at the hospital. Considering the amount of time spent and the newness of the map, I found these few crashes very acceptable.

Now for the analysis.

First off, the defenders have an obvious advantage. Two very heavy shields, a central spawn point and the relatively simple task of shooting anyone that sneaks in before they capture the point. The capturing itself takes longer than normal, as is apparent by the fact the standard capture sounds and animation run out well before the CP is taken.

If you have a good team on defense it is very, very hard to get through the shields, let alone capture the base. This makes sense because, after all, the defenders put a lot of prestige into purchasing the CP in the first place.

Of course the map as a few oddities. The most apparent to everyone is that the defending team can spawn inside the red bases at any time. Anyone on the blue team can easily flank a red assault and destroy a sniper line from behind. I understand the need for this if the rez point inside the base is killed, but before that happens it’s just odd.

Now the second major oddity is something I can see why they put it in, but think it needs some refinement. With the two shields a defending team can insure victory by simply splitting in two and watching both sides. At least that’s the theory. The destroyable force fields are present on the upper deck (anyone who played the old wargames map should remember those guys). A single commando vet with RB can use the turrets to zip up to the second floor and take out a force field. From there they can drop a squad WP inside the enemy base or simply take the capture point while the defending squad watches the big shields.

Now I can understand why they did this. Often CoCP matches devolved into a stalemate where the assaulting team kills defenders that exit the base, while defenders easily keep the assaulting team from destroying the main shields. With the upper deck force fields as a weak point, the defending team has to keep on their toes. They can’t simply camp the front and back doors and wait out the clock.

However, they really need some work. The upper deck force fields (the blue ones if you’ve been on the map) have a tiny fraction of the health of the main shield doors (the big red ones), and no noticeable regen. Using rushing blow to get to the second level almost guarantees the red team will breach the base.

Personally, I’d make three recommendations for the map.

• 1) The blue team shouldn’t be able to use the red spawn points/WPs until after the medic inside the base is dead. When they are forbidden from spawning inside their base, they should then naturally be able to spawn at the red points, but not before.

• 2) Rework the turrets. Using rushing blow to get to the second level is far too attractive as there is little to be risked. Walking along the upper level quickly takes you out of the firing zone of the turret. (and for those of you already whining at RB, the second level can be jumped onto from ground level as well - it’s an equal opportunity entrance if you work at it). My suggestion is make the turrets stronger, or add a set of inner turrets that will put a crimp in the attackers plan.
• 3) Reorganize the shield relationships. As the CoCP map currently stands, its almost silly to go after the main shields. They regen very quickly, there are defenders swarming over them, and they have a very large pool of health. Meanwhile the blue force fields on the upper deck fall incredibly easy - a single player can do it in a matter of seconds. The fact they have little heath, low regen, and sit between high trafic areas makes other lines of assault terribly inefficient. For my suggestion of reorganizing I have two major thoughts:
  • a) Leave the blue shilds as they are, but raise the outer turrets so the infiltrator is constantly under fire, Additionally, add a warning system to the defending team (for the upper deck force fields only). A ping on the map or a quick text message saying the north/south upper walls are under attack. This way you can reduce the chances of a red player sneaking inside the base completely undetected.

  • b) Make the blue force fields on the upper deck untargetable, but also decrease the regen on the main gates. This way a red team can successfully use hit and run tactics against a superior force without it being futile against the shield’s natural regen. To mitigate the fact that the red shields will do down more often, reduce the respawn timer on them.