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Possible exploits and ways to prevent them


CalenLoki

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Yep. If digging by anti-mater weapons is possible and not overly expensive, then yes, it's an viable counter to underground bases.

Any base in fact. It means that you can come at night, make sure that there is nobody at the base. Then use "dig with weapons" to make tunnel leading past all the defences, straight into wall that protects some important part of the base (TU, FFU, Spawn-room). Then trigger FFU timer, and when it's done simply blow one wall and get in.

Only base immune from that would be one that doesn't use any terrain for protection, so all the space stations.

 

There was a really nice game, the original Ace of Spades (before Jagex bought the rights). It was shooter with voxel terrain. Main mode was capture the flag. The game flow was really immersive, despite shitty graphics, due to true WWI trench war feel.

But if map was deep enough to dig tunnels deeper than ~2 blocks below the surface, the whole game became hide and seek tunnel-rats. You could dig straight under enemy flag, without defenders having chance to detect you. All the trenches and bunkers were worthless. That wasn't problem on maps that heavily restricted digging tunnels (by being too shallow, either partially (moats, rivers) or completely)

 

Thus I'm against easy tunnel digging within enemy base. It fixes some problems, but create way too many new ones.

 

Sneaky underground base is IMO completely valid and fair strategy, because once it's detected it can be taken by mining tunnels around defences (no TU).

 

Thanks for the quotes Setzar - it shows that NQ are aware of potential OPness of underground facilities. I'm not convinced by the proposed ways to make it more difficult. Neither really hinder deep underground storage in any way. Unless the "requiring costly cartridges to operate" apply to TU.

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Ultimately i think @CalenLoki you are making way to many assumptions on how the dispenser/links work. Most everything else you have mentioned comes at a pretty large cost if you cant move resources to your base easily:

 

Assumption 1) Links are not distance locked. There is zero reason to suspect this applies to dispensers. Dispensers are being shown as a control unit not a transport unit. A dispenser dispenses things it doesnt teleport them. If they wanted them to be transporter units they would make them that or make another element that does that. As of now there is no reason to suspect that a link between storage and dispenser can go over long distances, or that such a link exists(is there a video showing a dispenser linked to anything?). The only links that appear to not be distance locked are data links/fuel links, but no confirmation on that. However there is a distinct different between those links and what you are saying the dispenser unit can do. Take the fuel link, allows the engine to use the fuel in the tank. We have never been shown an engine that has storage on it and fuel tanks has been shown in several ship building videos as required(engines blink without the connection in tutorial video). This means when you link an engine to a fuel tank the resource doesn't move its simply consumed by the engine.You cannot transport fuel from the surface to an underground base using an engine, you can only consume the fuel on the surface with an engine underground. So best case you would be able to maybe craft using your dispenser or storage up top if you linked it to a crafting table or w/e underground.

 

Assumption 2) No area damage. Your entire kill room concept is predicated on there not being any area damage in the game. If there is i can use the corner to get a 1v1, 1v2 on your turrets. If your turrets are close to each other i may be able to target one with a missile/explosive and damage everything in a radius around it including things i cant see and cant see me. If they are spread out to avoid this i cant see how you can assure anything more then a 1v1, 1v2. There has been some talk about targeting something will do area damage around it in an interview JC did but combat in general is almost all theoretical at this point so you have to make a lot of assumptions to say if a kill style room will work at all.

 

And lastly something that has been pointed out by others, is you are limiting your own ship use to whatever can fit in your base. If your ship can get through so can mine. I'm not saying an underground base wont be very beneficial. It probably will be, i just don't think its gunna be nearly as game breakingly good as you make it out to be. At the very least i think it will come at a large cost of convenience.

 

 

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En français,

 

Sa base, ce ne sera plus une base mais un cercueil. La meilleure base, ce seront tes amis. Joue avec tes amis et tes ennemis

 

En Anglais (translate google)

 

 

Its base, it will not be a base but a coffin. The best base will be your friends. Play with your friends and your enemies

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Sorry, I haven’t gotten very far... but if someone digs a hole they probably aren’t going to be purchasing a territory unit for every tile going down.  I guess the question is, how deep does a tile extend?

 

edit:

tiles are based off the surface, there’s no owning a tile under a tile and whatnot.  Makes sense ;).  Even better news for us who wish to infiltrate a base.

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50 minutes ago, Hades said:

Sorry, I haven’t gotten very far... but if someone digs a hole they probably aren’t going to be purchasing a territory unit for every tile going down.  I guess the question is, how deep does a tile extend?

 

at around 4:30, shows ownership of the tile as a whole not a layer of it.

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42 minutes ago, ostris said:

 

at around 4:30, shows ownership of the tile as a whole not a layer of it.

In either case, you can dig from the side until you hit the bottom.  I assume you’re talking about around 4:30 mark?  I was under the impression we could dig further than that, but they also stated there will be a limit on how far down we can go.  So who knows :).  

 

However, this is even better news for it means you can’t own territory under the limits of a tile.  For the dedicated, you can attack from under.

 

There is no debate the tile goes down further than it is horizontal, but my point stands... Recon the area, mark how long it takes to enter/exit the base.  Make judgements on how far down there base is, and dig from the side.  Then start using some explosives ;)

 

There’s always the choice of starting out with explosives... of course 

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2 minutes ago, Hades said:

In either case, you can dig from the side until you hit the bottom.  I assume you’re talking about around 4 minute mark?  I was under the impression we could dig further than that, but they also stated there will be a limit on how far down we can go.  So who knows :).

 

There is no debate the tile goes down further than it is horizontal, but my point stands... Recon the area, mark how long it takes to enter/exit the base.  Make judgements on how far down there base is, and dig from the side.

for sure

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Yes, indeed it's mostly based on my assumptions. But there is very limited amount of possible combinations of "construct combat with localised damage" and "aim&fire". If you have some other assumptions about how it'll work, please share.

19 hours ago, ostris said:

is there a video showing a dispenser linked to anything?

Here, around minute 4. "dispenser will get item from the container"

I can't find again the video where they showed decoration pipes and said "they are not needed for anything to function". My assumption about unlimited range is based on that.

 

19 hours ago, ostris said:

Assumption 2) No area damage. Your entire kill room concept is predicated on there not being any area damage in the game. If there is i can use the corner to get a 1v1, 1v2 on your turrets. If your turrets are close to each other i may be able to target one with a missile/explosive and damage everything in a radius around it including things i cant see and cant see me. If they are spread out to avoid this i cant see how you can assure anything more then a 1v1, 1v2. There has been some talk about targeting something will do area damage around it in an interview JC did but combat in general is almost all theoretical at this point so you have to make a lot of assumptions to say if a kill style room will work at all.

With a bit of simple geometry in designing such base, you'd still be at severe disadvantage.

I modified my previous picture a little bit to illustrate it. Red line shows line of fire of each of levels of guns. By sticking your gun turret around that corner, you can indeed limit of guns you're fighting against: at least 12:1, or if we take into account that you turret most likely will shoot from the middle part and have some width: 24:1.

Underground exploit3.jpg

If there is area damage, defenders can use it to their advantage as well - shooting at the walls right next to the ship.

We're talking about actively protected base, not off-line AI. Unless we prevent placing TCU or FUU deep underground - which would allow either digging around or attacking offline.

Same for weapons that can go around corners (i.e. guided missiles). Unless they can follow very complicated pattern and have excellent turn radius - then they could be shoot by the fleet waiting outside. Of course if they are immune to any CIWS. But I wouldn't call battle where you don't even see your opponents very interesting.

 

Do you have link to that vid interview? Only thing I've heard about CvC is that it's gonna be lock&fire (so pretty much AI-aimed).


@HadesThe tile AFAIK goes from the top of build-able area to the bottom. So kind of column.

Making TCU not protect things deep underground is and interesting idea - a step further from preventing placement of TCU to be placed there. That would lead to any deep mining operation or base being much harder to protect from side-intercepting.

Should the protection depth stay relative to constant level, or average surface level? First leads to making mountains very defensible (more rock over your head), second may be quite complicated, when large org decide to dig out one hex completely. (~1000m*1000m/50m3/s=200.000s/m so 55 work hours per m of depth).

Or maybe simple bubble TU?

 

I'll add it to first post, despite it being far from what devs showed us about area protection.

15 hours ago, Hades said:

There is no debate the tile goes down further than it is horizontal, but my point stands... Recon the area, mark how long it takes to enter/exit the base.  Make judgements on how far down there base is, and dig from the side.  Then start using some explosives ;)

I think I've seen somewhere that hexes are ~1km2, so around 500m radius. If we assume that base is built within 100-200m from optimal TU location, then you still have 400-300m to dig horizontally. That is assuming they don't have buffer zone, forcing you to repeat the process several times.

 

If there are anti-matter bombs, then it may work. It also means that you can ignore any defences of surface base, and simply dig tunnel from below. So only viable base defence would be ball floating inside underground cavern, with guns pointing in all directions.

Without anti-matter bombs digging with explosives require blowing up huge cone, thus resource usage grows to the power of cube of dug distance.

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@Calenloki Thats some good info. I guess we will just have to wait and see about distance between container/dispenser. I would hope they wouldnt give it very long range, it simply seems counter to the idea of the dispenser and very exploitable.

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Agree.

 

I'd love if they used system where you could physically lift whole containers with special ship element. Kind of huge mechanical arm that detach 1x1x2m container and attach it in designated spot. Dispenser (linked with trade unit) would have such designated spots on both sides: One for automated robots to bring goods from storage, one for customer.

Some conveyor belt system (for whole containers, not single items) could nicely improve that even more.

Kind of like in Astroneers - you can carry stuff in your backpack, but in the long run it's better to stick it into containers for faster management.

 

Large ships would have to be designed with corridors for smaller units to load and unload them. Which also means attackers could use small attack crafts for boarding.

 

While may sound like over-complicated, it would add tons of life to ship interiors, and tons of new engineering

 

Did I just de-railed my own thread?

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33 minutes ago, CalenLoki said:

Did I just de-railed my own thread?

You merely exploited a weakness in it!

 

NQ seems to be pretty set on the fact that they don't want anything to be 'indestructible' so if in the initial versions there are bases like these made I'd be willing to bet that they patch a fix for that pretty quickly.

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Having the tile be infinitely vertical means some tiles will have more “protected land” than others.  Granted, you could always build up.  But I honestly think there should be limits on TCUs.  Just my 2c, not a big deal either way 

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2 hours ago, Mysfit said:

You merely exploited a weakness in it!

 

NQ seems to be pretty set on the fact that they don't want anything to be 'indestructible' so if in the initial versions there are bases like these made I'd be willing to bet that they patch a fix for that pretty quickly.

I wouldn’t really say patch a fix, more so they’ll implement a shiny new bomb or weapon... something.  I highly doubt NQ will limit the players, moreso they’ll implement new features to balance things out.

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They will probably implement bombs but NQ stated no weapon of mass destruction ! So we still have no info on full weapons types and the type of damage and effects they will have on constructs or items in game at all ?

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@CalenLoki I think you are making a couple of assumptions about weapons that I think keeps you from accepting how they will likely solve the deep base problem.  The main assumption is that if a weapon is strong enough to dig easily then it must go through all built structures easily as well.  I don't think you will be right about this.  This goes back to the idea that if a nanoformer can mine hard materials quickly, then it should be able to atomize other people immediately.  It makes no sense to allow that for gameplay, and so won't likely be the way it works.  Sometimes reality would impede gameplay and you need to separate the game to make it more fun.  

 

2 easy solutions are giving dirt and low value rock less armor values than basic building materials so that it can be easily removed by weapons, or making weapons designed for this purpose.  A weapon example would be an explosive that when placed are positioned some distance underground before exploding (again would go through natural resources easily, but would be stopped by man-made defenses).  I mentioned before bunker buster missiles that exist today as an example of this second option before.  No weapon used in these examples should drop collectible resources however, so that mining is not affected.

 

Redesigning the protection systems seems like a much more dramatic change to solve a problem that could easily be solved in simple ways.

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Hmm, I suppose it’s just opinion... but I don’t think a territory unit should protect all your resources.  If you don’t have alterior protections in place (turrets, shields, barriers, etc)... an enemy should be able to dig those resources out.  Making the territory units limited in depth would alleviate the concern of arbitrarily protected resources.  I wouldn’t consider that broken whatsoever.

 

Just because you have a base protecting your territory unit, doesn’t mean your resources below should be arbitrarily protected as well.  From digging/mining of course, everyone knows you can use explosives and weaponry no matter what, unless you’re in a safezone.

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1 hour ago, Felonu said:

@CalenLoki I think you are making a couple of assumptions about weapons that I think keeps you from accepting how they will likely solve the deep base problem.  The main assumption is that if a weapon is strong enough to dig easily then it must go through all built structures easily as well.  I don't think you will be right about this.  This goes back to the idea that if a nanoformer can mine hard materials quickly, then it should be able to atomize other people immediately.  It makes no sense to allow that for gameplay, and so won't likely be the way it works.  Sometimes reality would impede gameplay and you need to separate the game to make it more fun.  

 

2 easy solutions are giving dirt and low value rock less armor values than basic building materials so that it can be easily removed by weapons, or making weapons designed for this purpose.  A weapon example would be an explosive that when placed are positioned some distance underground before exploding (again would go through natural resources easily, but would be stopped by man-made defenses).  I mentioned before bunker buster missiles that exist today as an example of this second option before.  No weapon used in these examples should drop collectible resources however, so that mining is not affected.

 

Redesigning the protection systems seems like a much more dramatic change to solve a problem that could easily be solved in simple ways.

I stated that such "tunnel digging weapons" would make any surface base require under-side protection. Doesn't matter if it deal damage to constructs or not, all earth parts of fortifications became decorations: block line of sight for stationary guns, and you can just dig tunnel around defences. Thus removing it's only combat advantage advantage over hovering or space bases.


It also means that you can quickly destroy matter, which is really bad idea for persistent world.

 

Bunker busters doesn't dig - they send shock-wave that make tunnels ceiling break. And even when they are powerful enough to throw rocks out of the hole, they still make it conical shaped crater - thus you need depth^3 of explosives to reach something underground.

 

Making holes with weapons is something I'm ok with. Even big holes - looks super cool to see your BB cannon blow off peak of a mountain. But matter should stay in the world - be spread around by explosion. It's easy if you're blowing something that stuck out of terrain. It's hard when something is dug in.

 

And if there is no way to implement such matter-preservation system, I'd rather have terrain that is invulnerable to explosions.

 

IMO changing terrain protection system would be easier fix.

56 minutes ago, Hades said:

Hmm, I suppose it’s just opinion... but I don’t think a territory unit should protect all your resources.  If you don’t have alterior protections in place (turrets, shields, barriers, etc)... an enemy should be able to dig those resources out.  Making the territory units limited in depth would alleviate the concern of arbitrarily protected resources.  I wouldn’t consider that broken whatsoever.

 

Just because you have a base protecting your territory unit, doesn’t mean your resources below should be arbitrarily protected as well.  From digging/mining of course, everyone knows you can use explosives and weaponry no matter what, unless you’re in a safezone.

My main concerns regarding you idea are:

1. It makes any underground base exposed to off-line attacks, as TCU never reach there.

2. It feels arbitrary, when protection cuts off at certain depth.

 

Thus I'd rather have something that protects from digging within small radius (so you need to reach vein before setting up protection) And make TCU just prevent others from building bases on your land.

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1 hour ago, CalenLoki said:

I stated that such "tunnel digging weapons" would make any surface base require under-side protection. Doesn't matter if it deal damage to constructs or not, all earth parts of fortifications became decorations: block line of sight for stationary guns, and you can just dig tunnel around defences. Thus removing it's only combat advantage advantage over hovering or space bases.

 

What would be the problem with that?  I don't see any issues with the land not being a viable defense.

1 hour ago, CalenLoki said:

It also means that you can quickly destroy matter, which is really bad idea for persistent world.

As long as it doesn't destroy any faster than mining would in an unprotected area it wouldn't change anything significant.

 

1 hour ago, CalenLoki said:

Bunker busters doesn't dig - they send shock-wave that make tunnels ceiling break. And even when they are powerful enough to throw rocks out of the hole, they still make it conical shaped crater - thus you need depth^3 of explosives to reach something underground.

The don't "dig", but they have a delayed blast so they don't go off until they are underground.  They penetrate much further than the blast pattern.  This was only an example using what we have today that makes sense for the way the real world works though.  A weapon that is even more effective could exist in the game.

 

1 hour ago, CalenLoki said:

And if there is no way to implement such matter-preservation system, I'd rather have terrain that is invulnerable to explosions.

We'll have to see where it goes for this.  I would expect that the physics of preserving the matter would be too complex to have, and invulnerable terrain would be even worse than disappearing terrain for realism in my opinion.  

 

 

Edited by Felonu
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3 hours ago, Felonu said:

As long as it doesn't destroy any faster than mining would in an unprotected area it wouldn't change anything significant.

I hope that when you mine, you can't just destroy dirt/rock. Either store it in compressed form in boxes, or dump it back into world. And I hope that storage has nowhere close to Minecraft capacity, where you could store mountain worth of stone in single chest - so most people will just give the mined stones back to the world. Thus I hope for the same for guns. 

3 hours ago, Felonu said:

We'll have to see where it goes for this.  I would expect that the physics of preserving the matter would be too complex to have, and invulnerable terrain would be even worse than disappearing terrain for realism in my opinion.  

Shouldn't be that complicated - remove voxels, create few physical objects that don't affect anything other than themselves. Once they stop moving remove them and create voxels. Done.

 

I admit that I went a bit too far with invulnerable terrain. But at least damn hard to blow up.

 

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In regards to all this 'digging to attack a base' convo - how do we know a TCU's protective field doesn't extend underground just as it extends up into the air? And if it does extend down its likely it also extends down to the maximum level one can dig down. If this is how things evolve then digging into a base might be the slow way to attack once a TCU's shield is down.

 

It may however be a way to bypass 'kill boxes' built into a base entrance, once shield is down, by digging out of a corridor, around the kill box area, to find and continue down the base entrance.

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10 hours ago, CoreVamore said:

In regards to all this 'digging to attack a base' convo - how do we know a TCU's protective field doesn't extend underground just as it extends up into the air? And if it does extend down its likely it also extends down to the maximum level one can dig down. If this is how things evolve then digging into a base might be the slow way to attack once a TCU's shield is down.

 

It may however be a way to bypass 'kill boxes' built into a base entrance, once shield is down, by digging out of a corridor, around the kill box area, to find and continue down the base entrance.

It works in the whole zone. Its not that is doesnt work underground because some think that with all the space we have we have to raid every base we see.

And with that said i would like to see more positive community building ideas in the idea section and not yet another version of how to undermine the safezones.

I think this is now the 4th or 5th topic started this month in which you can read between the lines "how to undermine the working of the TU/STU", NQ didnt add these units for nothing. So calling the use of it an exploit, although between lines, is kinda the same as calling the use of fighters to go to space an exploit because "fill in any reason". 

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Thats not an exploid, thats a game mechanic.

Maybe one some people dont like, but still one.

Lets give an example.

 

A nuclear shelter that houses the government and national gold reserve deep underground is:

 

A-good thinking

B-exploit

 

 

And now some offical NQ texts to show it is not an exploit:

"A Territory Control Unit is the physical asset through which a player or organization can claim ownership of a tile. TCUs can be placed anywhere within a neutral territory, even underground; they just have to be within the boundaries of the territory (see above for territory boundaries). The creator of the TCU can then share its rights (to dig or build[1]) with anyone they choose, notably those in control of the territories around them, if they don't own those territories already. This centralization aspect is intended to encourage the growth of nation-states where a central defensible capital can be established to maintain control over several tiles at once. At this time, not much is known about the TU asset itself, other than it will be fairly expensive and difficult to construct, with some of the resources necessary available only outside of the Arkship's safe-zone."

 

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And then i guess you didnt even read this yet:

 

https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/07/24/territory-control/

One last very important point about territory tiles is the notion of “arkification”. Arkification is the process by which you could turn your territory into a non-PvP area, similar to the safe area around the Arkship. Arkified tiles would be incredibly powerful areas, as they cannot be hacked, conquered, destroyed or tampered with in any way. No need to say, this notion is a very sensitive gameplay aspect, and we have not yet decided precisely how and if it can be integrated in the game. Alternatives to it is simply to say that you can hide your stuff deep underground on a remote planet, or within the heavily guarded castle of your powerful organization. But these ideas are not totally safe.

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