Advanced Observatory
inFamous Design
Join Date: 2011-10-16 Member: 127667Members
Join Date: 2011-10-16 Member: 127667Members
<div class="IPBDescription">New type of observatory</div>I was thinking as a commander it is always a pain to have to having to constantly scan certain areas you currently have control over and waste precious observatory energy. So I was thinking of having a new kind of observatory that would constantly scan an area and detect any enemy movements, structures, or cloaked things.
You might think this is over powered but there are easy ways of balancing things:
1) Make the new observatory only able to just scan the current radius and do nothing else
2) Make it cost a lot
3) Make it take longer to build
4) Make it have less health
5) Make it make sounds so it is obvious one is placed (only to aliens maybe?)
6) Make it temporary, last longer than single scans, but have it have a bigger radius
These are all possible ideas for balancing the new observatory to make it balanced in many different cases. I'm not saying make the new observatory use all of those changes, rather just using a few of them.
What do you guys think?
Over powered, useless, or needed.
You might think this is over powered but there are easy ways of balancing things:
1) Make the new observatory only able to just scan the current radius and do nothing else
2) Make it cost a lot
3) Make it take longer to build
4) Make it have less health
5) Make it make sounds so it is obvious one is placed (only to aliens maybe?)
6) Make it temporary, last longer than single scans, but have it have a bigger radius
These are all possible ideas for balancing the new observatory to make it balanced in many different cases. I'm not saying make the new observatory use all of those changes, rather just using a few of them.
What do you guys think?
Over powered, useless, or needed.
Comments
It's also not op, as marines would have to actually hold the area to build a dectector (meaning it would have to be firmly in their territory), and aliens could easy find and destroy it if they took control of the area (unless it was well hidden, of course, but the aliens can do the same thing with the shade -- and that hides whole hives, rather than just detect cloaked enemies).
However, I think detectors should do a scan every 5-10 seconds or so -- like a radar display. That way there's still a <i>possibility</i> that aliens could sneak past it, but they would have to move very quickly, and as a single unit. And even then, they might not make it, as they have no indication of when the dectector actually makes a scan.
I also think they should become more expensive the more you build. I mentioned adding an upkeep cost to buildings in a previous <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115231" target="_blank">post</a>. Basically, the idea is that the more of a single type of structure you build, the more it costs to build additional structures of that same type. I think you would need such an upkeep cost for detectors, to keep the marines from just sticking them all over the place, and making it impossible for aliens to cloak.
Or the ability for the observatory to automatically scan an area every so often could be added.
It's not the observatory that is doing the scanning, it is a completely separate structure -- a detector -- that must be built by marines in the area they want to scan. The detector is extremely fragile, and is easily destroyed by aliens (1 or 2 hits).
The area of the scan would be very limited. It would not cover a whole room. It would have something like a 10 foot diameter, so it could only be used to watch major pathways.
And, as I mentioned previously, the scan would <i>not</i> be constant. The detector would run a scan every 5-10 seconds or so (could be changed to longer intervals if need be). It's like a security camera that takes pictures every 10 minutes, rather than a live feed that provides constant coverage.
The area of the scan would be very limited. It would not cover a whole room. It would have something like a 10 foot diameter, so it could only be used to watch major pathways.
And, as I mentioned previously, the scan would <i>not</i> be constant. The detector would run a scan every 5-10 seconds or so (could be changed to longer intervals if need be). It's like a security camera that takes pictures every 10 minutes, rather than a live feed that provides constant coverage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was referring to what Hybridclaw said. Sorry I should have quoted him.
I thought he was talking about how the observatory would scan the current area as well as other far away scans