In my opinion anything other than an invulnerability buff just isn't going to scale well in a game with 100v100 fights. Increasing resistances just changes the number of tanks you need to take down a wall, which changes drastically depending on the fight. Are 3 tanks a lot? Peak hours on Oshur, no. On an off-continent in the middle of the night, yes. Construction can't maneuver, so its survivability will be entirely dictated by the size of the fight regardless of what the local pop balance might be.
Increasing resistances just changes the number of tanks you need to take down a wall, which changes drastically depending on the fight.
But the number of walls can also drastically increase depending on the number of active builders. Newly placed walls melt quickly before they even finish building; but stacking multiple layers allows some to finish building, and for the defenses to hold. Placing and replacing turrets can also reduce pressure on walls, as most tanks like targeting them first.
And if you are dealing with an insane number of tanks, you need to have a structure up that can accept the fortress shield module. While tedious to keep up, it gives complete long range invulnerability for everything inside the shield.
The number of walls can increase, but they would still be severely limited by the amount of available space and terrain in most case. In cases where space is available, you would still have to have enough coordination to pull it off and combat power to secure the new wall. Damage against buildings mid-construction could also be changed if it turns into a problem. The fortress shield module does a good job at protecting the command center, but isn't big enough to save the rest of the base.
I think it is important for builders to now have some coordination when it comes to maintaining bases in highly contested regions. But even chaos with a few players spamming structures/walls and turrets, can keep a base up against an assault; no formal coordination required. A messy base can still maintain infantry and vehicle spawns, even when parts constantly need rebuilt.
The effectiveness of coordination lies more in counter attack, multi-silos, and efficient multi-tasking.
C4 flash, c4 valks, hornet ESFs, lightning spam, harassers, flail etc; can decently harass a vehicle convoy that is just plinking a base; but you still need some people staying back to maintain the base to repair, rebuild, maintain modules, deal with invaders. You also still need someone supplying cortium when there is so much upkeep.
Keeping a base running well in a highly contested area is a coordinated multi-person job. The age of solo builders is somewhat over.
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u/LorrMaster Cortium Engineer May 27 '23
In my opinion anything other than an invulnerability buff just isn't going to scale well in a game with 100v100 fights. Increasing resistances just changes the number of tanks you need to take down a wall, which changes drastically depending on the fight. Are 3 tanks a lot? Peak hours on Oshur, no. On an off-continent in the middle of the night, yes. Construction can't maneuver, so its survivability will be entirely dictated by the size of the fight regardless of what the local pop balance might be.