Commanders and commanding
PedoKuma
Join Date: 2011-01-10 Member: 76968Members
Join Date: 2011-01-10 Member: 76968Members
<div class="IPBDescription">(and a bit of gorges and rines' roles)</div>I know the game is still in beta-test and it needs balance and a lot of things before finale release, but, I'm playing NS2 since I bought it in build 159 or 160 and I usually play as commander cause I really like it and every time I play, it feels like the commanding side of the game still needs lot of work to be fun and balanced so here are a few ideas I had (don't know if it has already be posted or if it's planned to be added nevertheless I read lot of threads on the forum, note that I could have take some ideas from people here, and I didn't find anything on it or I do not remember).
<u><b>1°) The Zoom.</b></u>
I hope you've already played RTS game. And if you did, I think you noticed there is something which is very important to have a good vision off the game in RTS view : The ZOOM.
IMO, NS2 would be greater with a zoom in RTS mod, like, for example, Savage II (A RTS/TPS game) that let you zoom in the battle to use casts on people fighting in a big melee, and one zoom out/zoom in later you are in your base, building some useful structures and then come back on the fight... That would also be great to be able to zoom out like in Supreme commander and have a strategic view of the battlefield like this <a href="http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1899/1206543125.jpg" target="_blank">view</a>, but maybe i dream. And last thing, as NS2 is a 3D RTS (as majority of them are only in2d and do not need to go up or down between floors of the map, I would like to be able to scroll up and down in the map, because, some objects block your line of sight of the map (maybe combine zooming and scrolling up/down would be a good idea).
<u><b>2°) The Alien commander </b></u>
-first little thing I'd like, it would be better clues to see that someone is commanding in the hive. I think a new color for the core of the hive when someone is in or an umbra would be kewl, or a least good (as you can easily see if there is a rine commander but not in kharaas' team and <i>I</i> (you?) usually want to jump in the hive but when come nearby you see you came here for nothing :/ .
-Here it is also, IMO, some things that could let the commander commands but have funnier gorges to play: limit amount of drifters built by hive, and allow gorges to be mobile builders.
I explain : limit the amount of drifters to 2 or 3 (I'd say, 3 for the main hive and 2 for tech points) and reduce their build rate to 1 a minute (maybe 2) would allow the commander to require team's assistance for some tasks but could still build missing harvesters/new expansion alone if needed. Also, if he needs to build, he could ask gorge in the area to go where he wants to build, put a ghost of the building and when a gorge begin to build (maybe "spitting" ?) amount of resources is used and the building don't grow alone, just with a gorge. I also think, if the gorge is killed/kicked or if he goes away, comm. still can put a drifter on the ghost/non finished building, that would require a "enter in this building and evolve" order for drifter AI (In my imagination it would be like, when you have selected a drifter and that you put your mouse on the building, your usual cursor become something like "An arrow pointing in a door" cursor and if you right click it, your drifter automatically goes, that would also allow you to <b>repair</b> with drifters, maybe a cool feature ?). By the way, building rate of the drifters would be like 2.5 times faster than a single gorge.
<u><b>
3°) The Rine commander
</b></u>
-As for the kharaas' side, I think having a max amount of macs would add more teamplay. But, not like the other side, to keep asymmetry, I would let 4 macs per CS/CC and add a small store in the CS (and NOT in the armory) that allow marines to buy building tools (like a futuristic wrench or a small bionic hand full of tools) for something like 5 plasma, they would drop their axe (HAAAAX !?) (hey men, I know my english is far to be perfect, my dictionary tells me that it's not "axe" but "ax",I always saw it was "axe" like in "fire axe", could one of you tell me the one is right please ?) and they wouldn't be able to buy better weapons (maybe let them buy the FT as it's a support fire weapon but no ST/NL/...). They would be able to build faster than macs (also forgot to tell you guys that the normal rines wouldn't be able to build eheh) and they would need to hold their tool in hand instead of a fire weapon (add teamplay since they would need fire cover from their squad).Also, the build rate of the engineers and the macs, I think, could be the same.
-also add collision to macs (and I know you'll add it later) and a max amount of mac/engineers or rines building at the same thing.
<u><b>4°) Both side commander</b></u>
-a little thing : Add building time for peons in normal mode (as it's in cheats 1 mod but maybe with a longer time like 4/8/10/12 seconds, it's grow up as you have more peons.), and maybe also change the "MAC research complete" message to a "MAC Building complete" or else, and, to make the early game faster add one peon in each spawn of both teams ; and I think, put 0 energy in the CS/hive when the game begin or the half price of the peon (as i suggested before, a cost of 60 energy points for a MAC/drifter with 1 EP/second => Put 30/120 energy in the CS/hive.).
-As I don't know other games that allow players to have several commanders in the same team, I don't know what it would really be in a real game with several CC/hive with commanders, since I didn't play a REAL NS2 game (with 32 players and all it means) but I've already been commanding and an idiot/Newbie jumped in the other CS and wasted team resources (like buying plasma upgrades on RT instead of building another RT ...) or moving the macs i putted here for some reason at the opposite side of the map, etc ... I know for the waste that the upgrade cancel button will be added but for the other part I would suggest to UWE to make the peons made in a first CS not being controlled by a commander in another CS <b>EXCEPT</b> if there is nobody inside the first CS. That would also prevent conflict bugs (when two or more comm. ask a single peon to move at the same time ...). And, cause it would be hard to see from which CS the peon you look at come, I suggest different models for peons. As someone already did in the forum, you could be able to select a skin in the server menu (or maybe add a "default" list, maybe with <!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->yellow mac<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->, <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->blue macs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->, and <!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->Mrs. Mac<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=112404&hl=" target="_blank">like here </a>; and for drifters it wouldn't be only a color modification, it would add arms/ears/snail eye/etc...) from one in a white list (to prevent black, or whatever color, MACS made to be difficult to see). Or maybe, but I don't like this idea, allow the players to choose 3 skins (or more for maps with more tech points for each team, after 3 it would be default skins like a MAC with a (1) on his back..., if the team gets more TP than it would usually could) and the first player who get in the CS put his skins for the round; or, but would require more code, make a "command request" button or command when you're in the RR (like j1c for rines, j2c for kharaas or jrc for random, <b>BTW, adding a join random, or the team with less player, command would be awesome (don't know if it already exist but didn't find it)</b>) and, if you're alone or if there is a kind of vote and you win it, you spawn INSIDE the CS/hive and you're skin are selected.
That's it, I think it's all but I may edit my post after your comments.
Thanks for reading, I hope you'll find my ideas good or you'll comment them.
If you didn't understand anything or if I wasn't (enough) clear, feel free to say it.
ps: wow, my first thread here and it's huge, sorry if I bored you.
<u><b>1°) The Zoom.</b></u>
I hope you've already played RTS game. And if you did, I think you noticed there is something which is very important to have a good vision off the game in RTS view : The ZOOM.
IMO, NS2 would be greater with a zoom in RTS mod, like, for example, Savage II (A RTS/TPS game) that let you zoom in the battle to use casts on people fighting in a big melee, and one zoom out/zoom in later you are in your base, building some useful structures and then come back on the fight... That would also be great to be able to zoom out like in Supreme commander and have a strategic view of the battlefield like this <a href="http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1899/1206543125.jpg" target="_blank">view</a>, but maybe i dream. And last thing, as NS2 is a 3D RTS (as majority of them are only in2d and do not need to go up or down between floors of the map, I would like to be able to scroll up and down in the map, because, some objects block your line of sight of the map (maybe combine zooming and scrolling up/down would be a good idea).
<u><b>2°) The Alien commander </b></u>
-first little thing I'd like, it would be better clues to see that someone is commanding in the hive. I think a new color for the core of the hive when someone is in or an umbra would be kewl, or a least good (as you can easily see if there is a rine commander but not in kharaas' team and <i>I</i> (you?) usually want to jump in the hive but when come nearby you see you came here for nothing :/ .
-Here it is also, IMO, some things that could let the commander commands but have funnier gorges to play: limit amount of drifters built by hive, and allow gorges to be mobile builders.
I explain : limit the amount of drifters to 2 or 3 (I'd say, 3 for the main hive and 2 for tech points) and reduce their build rate to 1 a minute (maybe 2) would allow the commander to require team's assistance for some tasks but could still build missing harvesters/new expansion alone if needed. Also, if he needs to build, he could ask gorge in the area to go where he wants to build, put a ghost of the building and when a gorge begin to build (maybe "spitting" ?) amount of resources is used and the building don't grow alone, just with a gorge. I also think, if the gorge is killed/kicked or if he goes away, comm. still can put a drifter on the ghost/non finished building, that would require a "enter in this building and evolve" order for drifter AI (In my imagination it would be like, when you have selected a drifter and that you put your mouse on the building, your usual cursor become something like "An arrow pointing in a door" cursor and if you right click it, your drifter automatically goes, that would also allow you to <b>repair</b> with drifters, maybe a cool feature ?). By the way, building rate of the drifters would be like 2.5 times faster than a single gorge.
<u><b>
3°) The Rine commander
</b></u>
-As for the kharaas' side, I think having a max amount of macs would add more teamplay. But, not like the other side, to keep asymmetry, I would let 4 macs per CS/CC and add a small store in the CS (and NOT in the armory) that allow marines to buy building tools (like a futuristic wrench or a small bionic hand full of tools) for something like 5 plasma, they would drop their axe (HAAAAX !?) (hey men, I know my english is far to be perfect, my dictionary tells me that it's not "axe" but "ax",I always saw it was "axe" like in "fire axe", could one of you tell me the one is right please ?) and they wouldn't be able to buy better weapons (maybe let them buy the FT as it's a support fire weapon but no ST/NL/...). They would be able to build faster than macs (also forgot to tell you guys that the normal rines wouldn't be able to build eheh) and they would need to hold their tool in hand instead of a fire weapon (add teamplay since they would need fire cover from their squad).Also, the build rate of the engineers and the macs, I think, could be the same.
-also add collision to macs (and I know you'll add it later) and a max amount of mac/engineers or rines building at the same thing.
<u><b>4°) Both side commander</b></u>
-a little thing : Add building time for peons in normal mode (as it's in cheats 1 mod but maybe with a longer time like 4/8/10/12 seconds, it's grow up as you have more peons.), and maybe also change the "MAC research complete" message to a "MAC Building complete" or else, and, to make the early game faster add one peon in each spawn of both teams ; and I think, put 0 energy in the CS/hive when the game begin or the half price of the peon (as i suggested before, a cost of 60 energy points for a MAC/drifter with 1 EP/second => Put 30/120 energy in the CS/hive.).
-As I don't know other games that allow players to have several commanders in the same team, I don't know what it would really be in a real game with several CC/hive with commanders, since I didn't play a REAL NS2 game (with 32 players and all it means) but I've already been commanding and an idiot/Newbie jumped in the other CS and wasted team resources (like buying plasma upgrades on RT instead of building another RT ...) or moving the macs i putted here for some reason at the opposite side of the map, etc ... I know for the waste that the upgrade cancel button will be added but for the other part I would suggest to UWE to make the peons made in a first CS not being controlled by a commander in another CS <b>EXCEPT</b> if there is nobody inside the first CS. That would also prevent conflict bugs (when two or more comm. ask a single peon to move at the same time ...). And, cause it would be hard to see from which CS the peon you look at come, I suggest different models for peons. As someone already did in the forum, you could be able to select a skin in the server menu (or maybe add a "default" list, maybe with <!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->yellow mac<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->, <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->blue macs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->, and <!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->Mrs. Mac<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=112404&hl=" target="_blank">like here </a>; and for drifters it wouldn't be only a color modification, it would add arms/ears/snail eye/etc...) from one in a white list (to prevent black, or whatever color, MACS made to be difficult to see). Or maybe, but I don't like this idea, allow the players to choose 3 skins (or more for maps with more tech points for each team, after 3 it would be default skins like a MAC with a (1) on his back..., if the team gets more TP than it would usually could) and the first player who get in the CS put his skins for the round; or, but would require more code, make a "command request" button or command when you're in the RR (like j1c for rines, j2c for kharaas or jrc for random, <b>BTW, adding a join random, or the team with less player, command would be awesome (don't know if it already exist but didn't find it)</b>) and, if you're alone or if there is a kind of vote and you win it, you spawn INSIDE the CS/hive and you're skin are selected.
That's it, I think it's all but I may edit my post after your comments.
Thanks for reading, I hope you'll find my ideas good or you'll comment them.
If you didn't understand anything or if I wasn't (enough) clear, feel free to say it.
ps: wow, my first thread here and it's huge, sorry if I bored you.
Comments
As for the content:
- Better commander interface would be helpful (zoom and rotate are badly needed)
- Also like a better visual indicator of a hive being occupied
- I'd rather gorges be able to speed up the build rate (with their healing spray) than take over the feature
- Having macs/drifters be free, but with a max per hive/cs is a good idea
As for the MAC stack problem, I want to suggest that MAC's have a limited duration (Drifters are okay, since they become the building and die after a flare). It'll provide less incentive to waste all of a Command Station's energy on MACs all at once, knowing they'll disappear roughly the same time later.