Unstable Warpgates

“This is not a decision we take lightly, we know now that travel through these unstable warpgates leads to abnormal behaviors and higher rates of pattern incoherence syndrome.

All corpsman are directed to pay special attention to the mental health of our forces, especially in combat areas reliant on an unstable warpgate.”

- Dispatch from the office of Colonel Everhart, 5th Division Chief Medical Officer The Unstable Warpgates system is a mechanic that reduces the number of bases kept 'online' so long as the population on the appropriate continent is below a certain threshold.

Continents with unstable warpgates have the majority of their bases turned 'offline' preventing them from being captured, removing them from the lattice system, assigning them a 'neutral' status, and disabling the ability for any players to spawn on any appropriate spawn locations within those hexes.

Stabilization States
There are three tiers of stabilization for a continent's warpgates, dependent on the total population on that continent or the time that has elapsed since the continent unlocked. Each consecutive stage will turn additional bases online until the continent is fully stabilized.

Unstable
Upon unlocking, continents begin with their warpgates fully unstable. In this state, the continent's lattice is arranged to focus on the center of the map, with the lattice from all three warpgates leading directly to the center base(s), and potentially their satellites.

Continents remain unstable until 3 hours have passed since the continent unlocked, so long as their total population does not cross 100 players in the meantime, and will become partially stabilized once either condition is met.

Partial
Continents with unstable warpgates that remain as such for over 3 hours, or that host over 100 players at any given time will become partially stabilized. Partially stabilized continents enable all bases around the rim of the map, while also leaving the lattice links at the center of the map online.

Continents can remain partially stabilized until 5 hours have passed since the continent unlocked, so long as their total population does not cross 350 players in the meantime, and will become fully stabilized once either condition is met.

Full
Full stabilization is the natural configuration of a continent. The entire continent's lattice system is enabled and all bases are online.

Once fully stabilized, continents remain as such until locked through an alert.

Unstable Alerts
Unstable Alerts are a variant of the normal Meltdown Alerts that happen on fully stabilized continents.

The premise of an Unstable Alert is the same, a faction must own the highest percentage territory on that continent once the listed timer has elapsed to win the alert, locking the continent in their name.

Unlike normal meltdown alerts, unstable meltdown alerts enable additional bases on certain continents to give players more choices. Generally, these alerts will expand the radius of the center lattice region by one base. Once an unstable alert has begun, the continent's stabilization level is locked and time passing or additional players warping to the continent will not progress the stabilization of that continent any further.

The rewards for unstable alerts are the same in most regards, except in relation to outfit resources, wherein outfits that own bases will only receive two ticks of that bases' resource for a victory, rather than the expected five as on a fully stabilized continent.

History

 * February 8, 2018 Update (The Unstable Update)
 * Added to the game.
 * Newly opened continents will be put in an “unstable” state where the majority of territories will remain offline until population reaches a certain threshold. For the time being, Unstable continents will also automatically go online after two hours so that off-peak times of day still have an opportunity to rotate the continent. While in an unstable state…
 * HIVEs cannot be placed.
 * Meltdown alerts cannot be triggered, meaning that the continent cannot be locked in this state.
 * Many regions become disconnected from the lattice and made uncapturable.
 * Disabled regions can still be traversed, and the terminals remain hackable.
 * A population of more than 96 players will cause the Warpgates to stabilize.
 * These regions will also automatically stabilize after two hours unstable. This functionality may change in the future.
 * The intent of this system is to...
 * Increase fight density on off continents, or during off-peak hours.
 * Mitigate the "free" Meltdown wins taking place on off continents.
 * Give palyers in queue for main continents an alternative to waiting in VR zones.
 * April 5, 2018 Update (Advanced Specialization Update)
 * Continent Control now longer appears in the TAB menu while Warp Gates are unstable.
 * June 12, 2018 Update (Construction Reconstructed)
 * Updated the Unstable Warpgates map icon.
 * April 25, 2019 Update (A New Soldier)
 * Unstable Warpgates no longer use the alert system to stabilize itself, it instead happens immediately once the triggers are met.
 * When a new continent opens, it will remain in an unstable state, checking the population every 2 minutes.
 * Stability states now have three tiers: unstable single-lane (as it was prior to this update,) unstable double lane (new to this update,) and fully stabilized.
 * These changes should ensure continents with adequate populations are quickly stabilized to help move players around the map, along with the Spawn System Revamp below, and Join Combat changes coming at a later date.
 * June 6, 2019 Update
 * Unstable Warpgates icon now persists on the map header through all levels of Unstable Warpgates, instead of only the first.
 * February 9, 2021 Update (Outfit Wars Returns)
 * Continents no longer stabilize until there are 500 active players on a continent (up from 333.) Additional tuning may need to occur, but the intention is to prevent low-pop continents from rotating too quickly.
 * If unstable population requirements aren't met, continents now auto-stabilize after 5 hours, instead of 2 hours.
 * March 25, 2021 Update (Outfit Wars Championships)
 * Amerish, Esamir, Hossin, and Indar now have a "partially" stabilized state that creates additional territory lanes along the rim of the continent, in addition to the path in the center.
 * "Partial" stabilization occurs at 100 players on the continent, or after 3 hours have passed.
 * "Full" stabilization occurs at 350 players on the continent, or after 5 hours have passed.
 * The intention behind these changes is to increase fight density on off-continents and during low-pop hours, and prevent ghost-capping of off continents. Previous changes went too far in this regard, and the partial stabilization state will allow for more combat areas.
 * March 31, 2021 Update / March 31, 2021 Update (PS4 EU&US)
 * Addressed an issue where continents wouldn't attempt to stabilize when populations grew too rapidly. This issue was worked around on PC last week. All continents will now flow through the single-lane, multi-lane, and fully stabilized states as intended. Populations noted from last week's update are below.
 * "Partial" stabilization occurs at 100 players on the continent, or after 3 hours have passed.
 * "Full" stabilization occurs at 350 players on the continent, or after 5 hours have passed.