ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1843221:date=Apr 29 2011, 02:46 PM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Apr 29 2011, 02:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1843221"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Someone else a while ago also recommended automatic DI trails to building Alien RTs. That way you can grab more RTs and they can sustain their DI patches, and it provides places to spread DI from. You still need to build it up, but it provides a scalable way to quickly get DI out onto the map and then you have the strategix choices of where to spread to next.
But yeah, also auto-scaling could be nice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the better approach would be to not base it around size at all.
Scaling with map size is just going to get ridiculous when you have maps any smaller than tram and potentially very large maps as well, and it doesn't address the problem of how to stop rooms being really easy to take over.
If your patches are scaled really big, you are going to end up with it being possible to colonise a room with three or four patches, whereas on a small map it would take ages, this isn't balanced.
So don't bother with the size nonesense, instead add a limiting factor into the gameplay of both sides.
As some suggestions off the top of my head, say you cannot spread DI more than X distance from a hive, that way DI is limited by resources because to spread it further you need to build another hive. Ideally this would also be include auto-growth of DI so you don't have to do the whole silly patching thing at all, but that's optional. It brings it in line with alien expansion speed as a whole, and you can control both quite easily.
Similarly, give marines the ability to block DI growth with their CCs, CCs would kill/prevent the growth of DI in any room they are placed in, giving marine bases some proof against DI. Possibly link it to CC level, level 1 would just do it in a small area around the CC, level 2 does it in the area the CC's powernode covers (i.e the room the CC is in) and 3 could do it for a short distance outside the room.
Hives could use a similar mechanic, level 1 hive would infest the room it's in, level 2 hive would partway outside the room it's in, and level 3 hive infests the room it's in and all adjacent rooms.
It would require more work on the part of the mapper to realistically separate and link rooms together, taking into account vents and odd room structure, but it should be doable, and it scales perfectly with map size, as bigger maps would simply take longer to infest due to it requring more money and resources to build the hives.
In the event you have rooms that are too far away to be infested by a hive, allow the aliens to build an infestation node, which spreads infestation around it, and when upgraded to a mature node, infests the entire room it's in. They'd be relatively expensive but quite hard to kill, but they would be killable with guns.
As a counterpoint to this, marine powernodes can be upgraded to block infestation growth in their area, so marines have a way to control it outside of their CCs.
This also helps to prevent marines from needing to burn infestation constantly, they would only really need to do it if they want to use a room that's next to a hive (connected by vent or corridor mind you so this could potentially be a lot of rooms) and also they could do it if there is an infestation node hidden away somewhere like that big vent in the western section of tram.
Seems like a much more interesting and better implementation than 'make patches bigger or smaller'
*shrug* Bigger maps should mean games take longer (and support more players), if DI doesn't spread as fast (relative to the size of the map), that'll make the game take longer. There's nothing wrong with it.
However, a lot of people are operating under the assumption that the current discrete DI patch <b>prototype</b> (which is used to test the effects of DI on gameplay) is the final spreading mechanic. I've been operating under the assumption that DI will eventually match the continuous 'mesh' approach in the tech demo - spreads on its own, and can be accelerated/guided by the comm.
Comments
But yeah, also auto-scaling could be nice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think auto-scaling is necessary for DI to work.
Scaling with map size is just going to get ridiculous when you have maps any smaller than tram and potentially very large maps as well, and it doesn't address the problem of how to stop rooms being really easy to take over.
If your patches are scaled really big, you are going to end up with it being possible to colonise a room with three or four patches, whereas on a small map it would take ages, this isn't balanced.
So don't bother with the size nonesense, instead add a limiting factor into the gameplay of both sides.
As some suggestions off the top of my head, say you cannot spread DI more than X distance from a hive, that way DI is limited by resources because to spread it further you need to build another hive. Ideally this would also be include auto-growth of DI so you don't have to do the whole silly patching thing at all, but that's optional. It brings it in line with alien expansion speed as a whole, and you can control both quite easily.
Similarly, give marines the ability to block DI growth with their CCs, CCs would kill/prevent the growth of DI in any room they are placed in, giving marine bases some proof against DI. Possibly link it to CC level, level 1 would just do it in a small area around the CC, level 2 does it in the area the CC's powernode covers (i.e the room the CC is in) and 3 could do it for a short distance outside the room.
Hives could use a similar mechanic, level 1 hive would infest the room it's in, level 2 hive would partway outside the room it's in, and level 3 hive infests the room it's in and all adjacent rooms.
It would require more work on the part of the mapper to realistically separate and link rooms together, taking into account vents and odd room structure, but it should be doable, and it scales perfectly with map size, as bigger maps would simply take longer to infest due to it requring more money and resources to build the hives.
In the event you have rooms that are too far away to be infested by a hive, allow the aliens to build an infestation node, which spreads infestation around it, and when upgraded to a mature node, infests the entire room it's in. They'd be relatively expensive but quite hard to kill, but they would be killable with guns.
As a counterpoint to this, marine powernodes can be upgraded to block infestation growth in their area, so marines have a way to control it outside of their CCs.
This also helps to prevent marines from needing to burn infestation constantly, they would only really need to do it if they want to use a room that's next to a hive (connected by vent or corridor mind you so this could potentially be a lot of rooms) and also they could do it if there is an infestation node hidden away somewhere like that big vent in the western section of tram.
Seems like a much more interesting and better implementation than 'make patches bigger or smaller'
However, a lot of people are operating under the assumption that the current discrete DI patch <b>prototype</b> (which is used to test the effects of DI on gameplay) is the final spreading mechanic. I've been operating under the assumption that DI will eventually match the continuous 'mesh' approach in the tech demo - spreads on its own, and can be accelerated/guided by the comm.