Defensive walls are probably the most controversial feature in Perpetuum we have ever had so far. On one hand they are supposed to bring more sand into the sandbox and provide passive defense for whatever you want to defend. On the other hand, many of you have voiced your concerns that it also greatly hinders everyday small-scale PvP warfare, which is hurting the game on a global level.

The first introduction of walls went not without issues and we have learnt the hard way that too much freedom can be bad. Based on player feedback, the majority of you think there is still too much freedom regarding wall placement.

Initially we didn't want to restrict the building of walls to outpost owners, because we didn't want to shut out the rest of our players from using them. Nevertheless, it seems walls are primarily used for outpost and SAP defense, so we decided to reconsider that stance.

Wall placement belts around outposts

In our next patch (planned for March 9), we will restrict wall placement to a fixed belt area around outposts. It's a belt because the 1000m inner no-build limit from outposts still remains, but there will be an outer limit of 3000m as well. The picture on the right should help you imagine it better. As you can see, some of the teleports' no-build areas also take their share. (Update: the image has been modified to include SAP areas too - thanks for the notice Arga.)

Another change is that only the outpost's owning corporation can build walls, and only around the owned outpost. Of course in case of an ownership change, the old walls won't fall down, but only the new owner will be able to place new ones. Unfortunately this also has a negative effect, namely that allied corporations can't help you placing walls around your outpost until we do a proper alliance feature. (Contrary to popular belief, we didn't abandon or deny an alliance feature at all, we just didn't get around implementing one yet.)

It's important to note that currently deployed walls won't be affected in any way by this, as long as you keep repairing them, they will stay there. However you won't be able to place any new wall units outside of the allowed areas.

And lastly, to steer things back towards the next part of the PBS series: yes, you will be able to build walls around player-built bases as well, but only around a certain "occupation" area of your own buildings.

Commence cheering/grumbling.

Comments for this post

1 Gremrod

Well done.

2 Jelan

Just remove the damn things and re-introduce when you've figured out what their role is rather than continually pissing around with them!

3 Mark Zima

Why these futile attempts at making them work? They contradict the very idea of sculpted islands and meaningful terrain.

Make some real PBS-linked hub-supported walls. (And maybe allow building them on beta as part of outpost-pbs unification.)

4 Arga

Really? What is there to defend on an outpost on beta? And you can't wall off SAP's.

Also, probes without walls are useless, and putting a probe 3k from an outpost is also useless.

On gamma, this would make sense, becuase the outpost is attackable. On beta, all you've done is negated the use of walls to create choke points, because a few, not a majority (did you take a vote?) voiced some concerns.

5 Winnetou

Great!

6 Gremrod

@Arga and Mark,

I agree it seems the walls are better suited for the PBS system.

7 Line

Walls only in this patch?

8 Arga

This is not going to promote small scale pvp, the corporations using walls to prevent PVP aren't going to magically now undock and fight. If they can't maintain a certain level of security on beta, they will just leave beta.

At least behind walls, they were there, even if elusive. Now roamers can freely move about and find ... nothing at all.

9 Arga

Please add in the no-build zones around SAP's to your graphic to better disply the very limited space that can be built in within this band.

10 Arga

Just to be clear, in the forum post on building a band, I supported this idea, but not at 1-3k, that band is too small. I also supported only corp memembers putting down tiles.

The band has to be closer to 5k. Probes only work in choke points, and only behind walls. 3K is not far enough to allow defenders to respond, nor to find suitable choke points on the terrain (since you can't make them in beta).

11 Tamas Vitez

I feel like a beta tester who pays to test the new features, way to go....

12 Celebro

This is what you should have done in the first place with walls. Better late than never, great job Devs.

13 Celebro

@Tamas: feels like you are playing your first MMO

14 MoBIoS

There is hope,yet:
"..until we do a proper alliance feature."

Didn´t the Dev´s clearly state in an interview, that they´re not interested in alliance features, wich furnaced the "popular belief even more? Whatever, I am glad they reconsidered:
"...(Contrary to popular belief, we didn't abandon or deny an alliance feature at all, we just didn't get around implementing one yet.)"

15 MoBIoS

And I agree with Arga´s post. With the playerbase we have at the moment, at least those walls gave some security, to dwell on beta.

16 Sundial

So outposts will have a 3000m safety blanked around their recources, but if you want to venture outside of that you will need to use scouts/proximity probes.

Sounds like a fine change to me which makes some outposts more desireable than others.

17 Dazamin

Good change imo, might need further adjustment, but its unlikely to be worse than the current system :)

18 Baal

Good update, will stop the total wall-off, but I think the walls should be added with the big PBS launch, since that's when its really gonna be usefull. =)

19 Lupus Aurelius

Excellent change, still allows for OPs to have defensive structures, but terrain inbetween is open for movement

20 Kane Shafter

excellent will allow free roaming around the inner islands without running into continuall walls

21 Duma

This is a great change all around! :) Many thanks to the Devs for communicating this to the players before rolling it out. Now, fix the lag and lets get on with the pew pew :)

22 Allak Hazaam

Will Probes get increased AP now that you will no long be able to defend them with walls? They can still get neut'ed and if it is fixed, probes can be affected by interference modules so more AP would not make them overpowered... again. Alternatively, can the price of probes get a drastic drop so they are more disposable eg. the price of a wall maint. unit.

23 Allak Hazaam

instead of a 2km radius could the limit be based on the named sectors, and then just re-adjust the named sectors as needed such as the case with karapyth OP which is right on the boarder of the sectors and initia which is very small. This would have a better feel than an arbitrary number of kms from station and keep with a spirit of territorial defence.

24 Allak Hazaam

^^correction 2km band.

Can the band be increased by an outpost owner through the use of the aura system? or be based on the stability of the station eg. 2km band at 50 growing to 4km (for arguement sake) at 100? can graphical indicators on the terrain be added so that it is easier to know what is within the radius so it is not randomly guessing or an effect shows up which enables wall construction eg. like the OP ownership aura?

25 Dan

what about SAPs are you going to leave current limitations (500m radius restriction) or (that's what Im seeing right now on the picture) do you plan to remove it completely?

26 Qin Tzu

I have very little experience with walls, but I am disappointed with the move towards only the owning corporations of outposts being able to set them up. I was anticipating the idea of placing them when attacking an are near an outpost.

27 DEV Gargaj

"Didn´t the Dev´s clearly state in an interview, that they´re not interested in alliance features"

I think that's a misunderstanding: when you had the podcast roundtable, the question "do you need alliance features" was generally answered by the CEOs with "no, not at the moment", so we re-prioritized it. We never crossed it off the list completely.

28 Lonwolf

Good job dev's! In addition to pew pew, maybe some of us can do some artifact scanning as well. /wink

29 Exomorph

by Arga : "The band has to be closer to 5k. Probes only work in choke points, and only behind walls. 3K is not far enough to allow defenders to respond, nor to find suitable choke points on the terrain (since you can't make them in beta)."
In my opinion the 1-3km area is just fine to defend your outpost. If you want mining op than put out "defenseless" detection probes around tps and even 5-8km away from your outpost. The beta cannot be the surely free mining zone without any harming force from outside (like the Alsbale - Brightstone area nowadays). And don't forget how annoying is beta artifact scanning with walls everywhere, even when you have level 3 artifact just 30m on the other side of wall, where you can't go!
This is good job from DEVs, but i would like still more limitation on wall deploying on betas, couse this wall feature needed to be feature for gamma islands ...

30 Tux

. . . .mmmk

31 Shelts916

This is a great idea but I agree with arga it is simply too small and area.In answer to your statement Exomorph for some O/P's it wont be a problem as they are small and compact and already have npc walls there which are indestructable and can be easily incorporated into creating a suitable defense, but there are some o/p's which are open and can only use land marks as part of these defence's, most of which are outside of this 3km zone.

32 M Piquet

This is a Good Thing.

33 Arga

Thanks for updating the image.

Looking at the terrain, you can see there are some great choke points within 3km band. The only thing wrong with the picture, is its dependant on slope capacity.

Making a wall implies it has to stop all traffic, not just mechs. Meaning, if a light bot can go around the end of a wall, then it has effectively avoided your choke point. And light ewar bots are the ones your detectors will not pickup unless they are choked.

For those saying 3km provides plenty of protection, are the ones that are going to be 'attacking' not defending, so of course they're going to agree.

For those arguing that 5km would allow overlap, even at 3km, you can see there is already overlap between outposts, so technically that's not an issue, and there's no operational reason why 2 corps shouldn't be allowed to place wall tiles in the same areas.

34 Grazskin

I hope the devs add those 1k m - 3k m rigns on the map as a filter to turn on or off so you can see where you can put walls and plan accordingly.

just a thought

35 MrCeeJ

It seems that the probes will not be used for much of anything any more. Knowing that someone is within 3km of your outpost is not particularly vital info, if you were doing anything at all you would already know this.

Equally knowing that some random name blew up an un-walled probe on the other side of the map does not help much..

36 Ulviirala

All I have to say to that is http://www.abload.de/img/perpetuumyayh7lub.png

Thanks!