Proposed Flamethrower Changes
Champlo0
Join Date: 2012-04-17 Member: 150617Members
Join Date: 2012-04-17 Member: 150617Members
Here's a compilation of all the buffs I believe the flamethrower needs and a short basis for the buff in question
<ul><li><i>Flamethrowers moved to regular armory and now cost 15 Tres to research along with a 20 pres cost</i>
Flamethrowers are not a game-ending weapon in any way, so they don't need to be in advanced armory. The 20 pres cost is for their primary use as a utility and also the fact that you must give up your primary weapon to use it. The earlier availability of flamethrowers also increases the paths of the tech tree that marines can immediately take thus increasing the skill ceiling for commanders.
</li><li><i>Dynamic Fire: When an alien structure is burned on infestation the surrounding infestation is burned, slowly igniting the surrounding structures at the lowest rate of burn. Fire spreads at a rate of 0.5 meters per second. Aliens engulfed in the fire will also be dealt the same damage but will not spread fire. Alien buildings cannot be placed in the fire. Fire will not proactively spread through additional infestation by igniting additional structures.</i>
This dynamic fire addition would allow marines to do heavy damage to a cyst line or harass an unattended gorge garden. Speaking of gorges...
</li><li><i>Gorges are required to extinguish the dynamic fire. Once a gorge healextinguishes an area of infestation it is immune to becoming reignited for 3 seconds.</i>
Further increases the importance of gorges and provides a subsequent counter for harassment by flamethrowers.
</li><li><i>Any alien structure on fire will not function actively (aside from hives). This means that whips and hydras and buildings like that will not be usable, however passive structures like upgrades will still function.</i>
I'm fairly sure this already happens but I included this to be certain.
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited by fire are slowed by 10%</i>
To give flamethrowers more utility against non-structures
(EDIT)</li><li><i>Alien commander can extinguish fire by misting</i>
To give an alternate method of igniting fires.
(END EDIT)
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited only see red static when using alien vision</i>
Just something that would be cool. Not really important.
</li><li><i>All spores connected to an ignited spore will be burnt. Unconnected spores will be unaffected. Will ignite aliens but not structures engulfed. The fire will spread fairly quickly, about 2m/sec.</i>
To clarify, this could be avoided by tapping spore instead of holding it down as lerk. This would decrease the effectiveness of spores if an alien was attacking a marine group with a flamethrower.
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited take 10% extra damage on their armor. Does not affect health</i>
To further increase the effectiveness of flamethrowers against aliens.
(EDIT:CLARIFICATION)</li><li><i>Aliens on fire can remove fire by remaining still for 5 seconds in infestation</i>
Just wanted to clarify this or make this change if it is not already present in the game. Would be silly if you had to find a gorge to stop fire.
(END EDIT)</li></ul>
The most important suggestions are at the beginning of the list, the rest of the suggestions are relatively less important in no particular order. I think that these implementations are necessary because flamethrowers are currently nearly useless. This improvements would make flamethrowers more practical in groups while keeping to their role of support weapons. To highlight my reasons for these changes:
Getting a flamethrower removes your primary weapon as a marine. Thats one less gun firing on aliens which often times is dire. Getting a flamethrower is currently the most expensive endeavor for a marine, for just a barely useful support weapon. To compensate for this the support nature of the weapon needs improvement and its cost needs to be decreased to improve its viability.
<ul><li><i>Flamethrowers moved to regular armory and now cost 15 Tres to research along with a 20 pres cost</i>
Flamethrowers are not a game-ending weapon in any way, so they don't need to be in advanced armory. The 20 pres cost is for their primary use as a utility and also the fact that you must give up your primary weapon to use it. The earlier availability of flamethrowers also increases the paths of the tech tree that marines can immediately take thus increasing the skill ceiling for commanders.
</li><li><i>Dynamic Fire: When an alien structure is burned on infestation the surrounding infestation is burned, slowly igniting the surrounding structures at the lowest rate of burn. Fire spreads at a rate of 0.5 meters per second. Aliens engulfed in the fire will also be dealt the same damage but will not spread fire. Alien buildings cannot be placed in the fire. Fire will not proactively spread through additional infestation by igniting additional structures.</i>
This dynamic fire addition would allow marines to do heavy damage to a cyst line or harass an unattended gorge garden. Speaking of gorges...
</li><li><i>Gorges are required to extinguish the dynamic fire. Once a gorge healextinguishes an area of infestation it is immune to becoming reignited for 3 seconds.</i>
Further increases the importance of gorges and provides a subsequent counter for harassment by flamethrowers.
</li><li><i>Any alien structure on fire will not function actively (aside from hives). This means that whips and hydras and buildings like that will not be usable, however passive structures like upgrades will still function.</i>
I'm fairly sure this already happens but I included this to be certain.
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited by fire are slowed by 10%</i>
To give flamethrowers more utility against non-structures
(EDIT)</li><li><i>Alien commander can extinguish fire by misting</i>
To give an alternate method of igniting fires.
(END EDIT)
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited only see red static when using alien vision</i>
Just something that would be cool. Not really important.
</li><li><i>All spores connected to an ignited spore will be burnt. Unconnected spores will be unaffected. Will ignite aliens but not structures engulfed. The fire will spread fairly quickly, about 2m/sec.</i>
To clarify, this could be avoided by tapping spore instead of holding it down as lerk. This would decrease the effectiveness of spores if an alien was attacking a marine group with a flamethrower.
</li><li><i>Aliens ignited take 10% extra damage on their armor. Does not affect health</i>
To further increase the effectiveness of flamethrowers against aliens.
(EDIT:CLARIFICATION)</li><li><i>Aliens on fire can remove fire by remaining still for 5 seconds in infestation</i>
Just wanted to clarify this or make this change if it is not already present in the game. Would be silly if you had to find a gorge to stop fire.
(END EDIT)</li></ul>
The most important suggestions are at the beginning of the list, the rest of the suggestions are relatively less important in no particular order. I think that these implementations are necessary because flamethrowers are currently nearly useless. This improvements would make flamethrowers more practical in groups while keeping to their role of support weapons. To highlight my reasons for these changes:
Getting a flamethrower removes your primary weapon as a marine. Thats one less gun firing on aliens which often times is dire. Getting a flamethrower is currently the most expensive endeavor for a marine, for just a barely useful support weapon. To compensate for this the support nature of the weapon needs improvement and its cost needs to be decreased to improve its viability.
Comments
It takes away from it because it's useless as a "higher-tech" weapon. There's nothing higher-tech about a weapon that doesn't even properly perform its job. The dynamic fire also spread pretty slow, and could spread slower if needed. It's not an amazing base-killer because a flamethrower marine isn't just going to walk up to the alien base and start burning everything because he's going to get slaughtered. The marine needs to be in a group to do actual work unless the aliens leave something unprotected which they should be punishable for already. I thought about allowing nutrient mist to extinguish the fire but it sounds a little silly cause of the "nutrient" aspect. Nonetheless I'll add it as an edit since you've raised a point.
droping it to normal armory and lowering the cost + widening the abilitys is a good idea.
btw. if you ever wonder why you are unable to kill anything with the flamer, see the beginning of my thread <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=118207&view=findpost&p=1931793" target="_blank">here</a>
Can you elaborate? Did the fire spread infinitely?