Until the gate is open the gates protect both sides equally. Once the gate is open both are equally exposed. Defender advantages consist of
1. Scattered, easily destroyed large laser turrets with large laser cool-downs able to fire two beams once, at only one intruder. Then there is a four second cool-down and by the time that is up the turret is usually destroyed.
2. Drop ships arriving with reinforcements will fire medium lasers for 5 points of damage at any hostile mechs standing around on the drop pad.
3. Drop pads for reinforcements are closer than those for attackers. However this 'advantage' has drawbacks. If that landing pad is overrun, then the four reinforcement mechs will often arrive one at a time, dropped smack dab in the middle of the waiting hostiles, enveloped in 360 degree fire before they even hit the tarmac. If the attackers invest one drop pad (usually the closest to their chosen gate) they'll harvest 33% of the defenders' forces, one overwhelmed mech at a time. Naturally, unless they have their wits about them, the defenders will be using cover on the other side of the base unwittingly letting themselves quickly be outnumbered.
It takes more time for attacking reinforcements to reach the battle, but on the other hand they have that time to organize and regroup. Defender pads are hot, often overrun by hostiles, and the poor pilots dropping into the middle of a swarm of reds drop right out in the open, one at a time, and survive hardly long enough to acquire a target (and if they ar taking SRMs to the face even that is challenging.
Recommend that drop ship AI pilots should show a just a bit of intelligence and prefer to drop their reinforcements only at a landing zone which is under friendly control.
It isn't as if the defenders were in entrenched or fortifide, which is what that 3:1 assault odds requirement assumes. If the defenders position themselves, then as soon as they see which gate is under attack they will have to reposition or let the lance at that gate face the three lances of the attackers anyway. All the attacker has to do is have a fast light at the other two gates pecking away at the generator and turret to keep the defenders split among approach vectors.
Once the real target gate is down they have a temporary 3:1 advantage over the defenders there, and usually it is that lance who spawns at the nearest drop pad so once they are cleared, three or so mechs encircle (enfilade) the landing pad while the rest hold off any counterattack. The attacker eliminates the down lance every time they drop from the drop ship, one at a time, and surrounded.
Edited by OriginalTibs, 09 February 2015 - 07:34 AM.
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Xavier, on 05 January 2015 - 08:06 AM, said:
