SAP's need defending, not outposts. Without PBS there's noting to fortify or defend except operating on the island.

I agree, walls slow down roams and ninjas, which is what walls are for. As defense, they totally suck because you have to leave a gap in them to get in and out. Non-collision mechanics means 1 missing piece in a wall is all you need to breach it.

I suppose the real question is, what is Perp PVP about?

As for walling off mining spots, the balance of encounters with indy operations has alwasy been skewed in favor of the attackers. Forcing miners to 'hug' the outposts, have multiple accounts (eyes) and highly limiting thier productivity (making it too risky for anything but epitron).

Probes alone don't help. Without walls to funnel attackers past probes, once a masked bot knows where the probes are, they can easily bypass them; meaning probes can't be trusted as eyes and are worthless.

Limiting walls to castle fortification resets the beta experience right back to the same thing as no walls or probes.

The point that seems to be missed here is walls gives players a sense of ownership over the island they are choosing to occupy. Walls/probes make beta places where corps can actually live and work, which is one of the stated goals of I 2.0 and allow them to secure the area.

It simply can't be both ways, in the same area. Either an area is roaming PVP or its territory war. Roaming has been a big part of the game until now, simply BECAUSE there was no way to slow it down. And SAP's were loot-pinta's that 1 or 2 high EP players could slip in, snag the can, and slip back out. If roaming PVP is to be the ONLY type of PVP, then just remove outposts all together. Or rearchitect some islands to be pro-roam, and some islands to be territory warfare, but history has already shown that unchecked roaming makes USING a beta island so difficult that it burns players out.

tl;dr - Its alwasy darkest before the dawn. Walls/probes are part of a developing territory and roaming PVP game that simply can't be rolled out turn-key, because we keep demanding new things and to see progress. It would be good to not over-react to how ugly the primer coat is, and wait to see the finished paint job. Unlike the first iteration of probes, walls are not game breaking, but they are game changers.

I have to agree with arga...

i wanted to build my great wall..... but then te cost totaled 120mill & i made a far shorter wall

on a personal note im enjoying walls from a slightly more aesthetic POV.
I enjoy using wall block as sort of Highway markers & if i do say so my self they do look cool have em in long promenades.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ?

I accept that walls may well make more sense with PBS, but I almost think the wall system would make more sense with the old intrusion system, with a big squad fighting their way to the Outpost with the defenders falling back through the defences (Maybe this is what PBS attacks will be like). To be clear I quite like the idea of walls, but if definitely think they need adjusting.

Intrusion 2.0 was supposed to be a move away from that style of play (I quite liked the big battles myself, the timers not so much), more fluid with stability going up and down as gangs hit SAPs. Stability 100 OPs were supposed to be a rare thing (They weren't). Then you add walls + probes which are very much an anti roam device. They stop you getting anywhere quickly, and to be even slightly fast you need a sequer full of bombs following you. You're also fairly likely to get spotted by a probe so it won't be a surprise. So what happens when you get near an outpost? Everyone is docked, maybe theres an undefended SAP to take \o/. The point is, Intrusions were specifically changed to suit a more small gang roaming style of play, large battles rarely happen now, whats the point? The enemy bring too many to a SAP, just dock up they can only drop a few points off it. If you make it too hard for people to roam, whats left?

Basically, theres very little reason to fight as it is, SAPs aren't that important individually, maybe there will be more indy guys on Islands, but they'll be much harder to get to and aren't likely to fight back too much. Crazy idea, but I think you should have to defend your stuff, not have walls and probes to do it for you. Or alternatively, if everythings gonna be behind walls with an early warning system for intruders, maybe there should be something worth fighting for behind it, fewer SAPs but each one has more of an impact on stability maybe? Intrusion 3.11 for Roam Groups

Wow, some of the arguements and accusations of lazyness here is just epic.

What involves more effort here:

A) 1 time spamming of walls, with occasional review for punctures, making it almost impossible for anyone to get beyond immediate entry to an island, with probes at strategic locations that ping everytime a hostile gets near it

B) Constantly having scouts out, or detectors, and a ready defense force to respond to any incusion of hostiles on the island in question, and having to pay attention the whole time you are out doing any activity on beta?

It's astonding that so many who in the past claimed to be pvpers and want to have "good fights" now want to hide behind walls and be totally safe, with no risk, farming and mining on beta.  Another "easy button", and yes it is easy.  It's expensive and takes time, but once that time and expense has been done, it's a simple and and cheap to maintain.

It's a good indication, when people resort to ad hominem attacks and insults to argue their points.  An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument..  It's a pretty good indication that those resorting to it have little or no valid points to add to the arguement.

PS- keep posting in yellow Dan, it suits you, you are defineately "yellow", so concerned to be able to hide behind your maze of walls and not actually have to work to defend your territory.

Wallspam is bad, m'kay?

Trying to work a route through beta islands, only to discover that your ingate is completely walled off from the rest of the island (I'm looking at you Urria Bellil) is kind of heartbreaking.

Defensive structures are fine, I'm okay with that, and they open up some really interesting PvP avenues (in my head, I'm already constructing switchbacks and mazes), but walls should not be allowed to cut off all access to an island. Regardless of whether or not these walls can be breached, regardless of whether or not breaching them requires a fleet of sequers stuffed to the brim with plasma bombs, they need to have some limit to their maximum length, and free standing (i.e. non PBS attached) walls should be breachable in some way by an ordinary mech gang without the need for siege weaponry.

Either that, or give me a gorram jump button.

Mechs are enough to get through walls... Dunno about Tyrannos... but Kains can cut through walls like through (niani)butter, Artemis has it a bit harder.

well trained and t4 fit yagel and arbalests can do it too.

i have a question for those who have used them already:

Bombs AoE damage - does it have LoS and if yes, is it calculated from the floating part ?
I just wondereing if they hit only the first row of a wall, or everthing in their range.

Agree with this completely, perhaps walls wouldn't be quite so annoying if the supposed answer wasn't 1) A giant pain in the arse to take with you. And 2) Quite expensive for new players / corps particularly. Although to be fair, plated sequers are quite literally tha bomb!!!

Just wondering how you manage this when walls are non-targetable?

Note about bombs: if they are buffed they'll be abused in other areas so walls themelves need changes, not bombs.

Uh, someone has blocked my path
8 Minutes later

total cost of the experiment: ~300K NIC, most of it Ammo.
According the whining it would need 6 plasmabombs to get through all three walls. They had enough hitpoints to sustain 1 bomb and the distance was bigger then the explosion radius of Bombs

Disclaimer: no bombs have been exploited, and no NPC have been harmed or killed for this experiment

Egil asks for anti-decay. Whatever you do walls will regrow in the end. With no work for defender and constant drain for attacker. Same with gates. Wallspam will become even more viable since it won't block spammers.