A different way of thinking about infestation
Agiel
Join Date: 2006-11-14 Member: 58605Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Subnautica Playtester
Join Date: 2006-11-14 Member: 58605Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Subnautica Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">And moving focus from drifters to structures</div>A crazy thought hit me the other day. What if, instead of thinking about infestation as creep in Starcraft, we started thinking of it as bridges in Netstorm? Those of you familiar with Netstorm can skip the following paragraph. For the rest of you, here's the first good video I could find:
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Basically, you build bridges to connect your island to geysers scattered around the map so you can collect resources. You then use the resources to research and build various cannons and defenses to combat your opponent. In addition to resources, structures need a certain amount of generators within range (there's sun, wind, rain and thunder energy). When you build something, energy flows from nearby generators to create a ghost image of the structure, a spark (for lack of a better word) is then created at the closest workshop and travels across the bridges towards the intended location where the structure is finally spawned.
So, how does all of this relate to Natural Selection 2? Well, drifters are boring, so instead of micromanaging drifters I propose we put more focus on micromanaging infestation and structures. The alien tech tree would obviously need a slight overhaul in order for this to work and additional structures would have to be added to make things more interesting, but I'll try to explain what it would look like with what we currently have.
First off (and this is probably a separate issue but I'll say it here anyway), I think the interface should be "globalized", like the marine interface. So you'd always have access to cysts no matter what you have selected. Hive energy should be placed in a single pool so you start with a cap of say 100 energy and an income of 1, and each additional hive adds 50%.
Now, you start by placing a chamber to choose an alignment as usual, except you pick it from a global menu. A pheromone cloud appears where you place it and a drifter is automatically spawned free of charge and moves towards the cloud where it turns into the chamber. The same goes for the first harvester but you would have to create a line of cysts because the drifter (or pheromones?) can't travel outside the infestation. Shells require 1 <i>defensive energy</i>, so you would have to place it near a crag, veils require 1 <i>sensory</i> so you need a nearby shade etc. Whips just need <i>energy</i> so you could place it near any chamber. As you build these you would see a pheromone cloud or ripple in the infestation moving from each of the required chambers towards the intended location.
To expand on this, the crag, shade and shift could be stripped of their abilities and instead we would have one chamber per ability. An umbra chamber could for example require 2 <i>defensive</i>, cloak could require 1 <i>sensory</i> and 1 <i>defensive</i>, phantasm 1 <i>sensory</i> and 1 <i>movement</i> and so on. This way we would get more of an ecosystem on alien controlled territory. Entering alien territory would be more like entering a forest with all the different chambers all over. The commander would have more to do, yet without the tediousness of babysitting drifters. Cutting cyst lines would become more important since nothing can be built without a connection to a hive.
<b>tl;dr:</b> Move focus from drifters to structures by making drifters AI-controlled and have them spawn automatically at the closest hive when placing structures. In addition to resources make structures require "energy" which can only flow through infestation from nearby crags, shades and shifts. To make things more interesting, move abilities to separate structures requiring different amounts and kinds of energy as you go up the tech tree.
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Basically, you build bridges to connect your island to geysers scattered around the map so you can collect resources. You then use the resources to research and build various cannons and defenses to combat your opponent. In addition to resources, structures need a certain amount of generators within range (there's sun, wind, rain and thunder energy). When you build something, energy flows from nearby generators to create a ghost image of the structure, a spark (for lack of a better word) is then created at the closest workshop and travels across the bridges towards the intended location where the structure is finally spawned.
So, how does all of this relate to Natural Selection 2? Well, drifters are boring, so instead of micromanaging drifters I propose we put more focus on micromanaging infestation and structures. The alien tech tree would obviously need a slight overhaul in order for this to work and additional structures would have to be added to make things more interesting, but I'll try to explain what it would look like with what we currently have.
First off (and this is probably a separate issue but I'll say it here anyway), I think the interface should be "globalized", like the marine interface. So you'd always have access to cysts no matter what you have selected. Hive energy should be placed in a single pool so you start with a cap of say 100 energy and an income of 1, and each additional hive adds 50%.
Now, you start by placing a chamber to choose an alignment as usual, except you pick it from a global menu. A pheromone cloud appears where you place it and a drifter is automatically spawned free of charge and moves towards the cloud where it turns into the chamber. The same goes for the first harvester but you would have to create a line of cysts because the drifter (or pheromones?) can't travel outside the infestation. Shells require 1 <i>defensive energy</i>, so you would have to place it near a crag, veils require 1 <i>sensory</i> so you need a nearby shade etc. Whips just need <i>energy</i> so you could place it near any chamber. As you build these you would see a pheromone cloud or ripple in the infestation moving from each of the required chambers towards the intended location.
To expand on this, the crag, shade and shift could be stripped of their abilities and instead we would have one chamber per ability. An umbra chamber could for example require 2 <i>defensive</i>, cloak could require 1 <i>sensory</i> and 1 <i>defensive</i>, phantasm 1 <i>sensory</i> and 1 <i>movement</i> and so on. This way we would get more of an ecosystem on alien controlled territory. Entering alien territory would be more like entering a forest with all the different chambers all over. The commander would have more to do, yet without the tediousness of babysitting drifters. Cutting cyst lines would become more important since nothing can be built without a connection to a hive.
<b>tl;dr:</b> Move focus from drifters to structures by making drifters AI-controlled and have them spawn automatically at the closest hive when placing structures. In addition to resources make structures require "energy" which can only flow through infestation from nearby crags, shades and shifts. To make things more interesting, move abilities to separate structures requiring different amounts and kinds of energy as you go up the tech tree.