It's a shame everyone migrated to this thread when the other one was made first, especially when this one is mostly just moaning without proper solutions, but I'll post my suggestions here too because I really believe this would be the best choice of action for the sentry. I'll also shorten it so you guys can stomach it all in one go.
Actual post here if you want the full details: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121010" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=121010</a>
<u><b>My Solution</b></u>
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.
Sentries are so weak. They've never been really useful anyway. This latest "we don't want aliens to fear sentries"-nerf lifted the already insulting sentries right to the plain silly level. You uwe guys really need to step back and look at this with fresh eyes.
No commander is ever going to use these metal things that point and sometimes shoot a wall.
Allow sentries to fire at aliens and make them fairly strong at that. Aliens are fast, can blink and walk on ceilings. Surely THEY can adjust gameplay tactics instead of you weakening marines. Stop balancing everything to a mush and allow some dynamics.
I would prefer sentries to not be strong. They allow turtling (I hate turtling) and they are absolutely not fun to play against when alien when they are like that.
One strategy I absolutely adore in TF2 is to use the Mini-Sentries aggressively. Often times I would put the sentry in some corner, wait for a heavy to come past and engage. While the heavy is occupied, I get behind him and feed him full of shotgun shells in the back. Chances are the sentry dies, but I kill the Heavy. It is more involving and more enjoyable. If the sentry dies, I place a new one relatively painlessly. This is because I have a well hidden dispenser keeping me well supplied.
Mini-sentries allow you to dish out the damage you couldn't do alone making you a very strong threat. On their own sentries do not do much, and are knocked down easily. If you use a Mini-sentry like a normal sentry i.e. use it next to the dispenser as an area denial weapon, you will die horribly.
The sentury needs to be renamed if it is to remain an offensive unit, as sentury means guard. Or changed back into a defensive unit, like it should be in the 1st place. I haven't even seen them used yet and I've played around 8 hours this patch, its ridiculous.
Both of those are farm more limited then sentries. Not to mention one of the reasons sentry spam was problematic was because aliens are primarily melee.
<!--quoteo(post=1976652:date=Sep 13 2012, 01:20 AM:name=Know pain)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Know pain @ Sep 13 2012, 01:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976652"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You don’t use a stationary object for an offensive movement, turrets are meant to kill life forms and arcs are meant to kill structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> +1, pretty much how i feel about the change
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
<!--quoteo(post=1976325:date=Sep 13 2012, 12:50 AM:name=Daphisto)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Daphisto @ Sep 13 2012, 12:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976325"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like the idea of a hard cap on turrets, whether it is X per robot factory or X per Command Center. Buff them a bit and they should be good to go.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Could be both, 1 per cstation, 3 per robo, and remove the tech requires from sentries to require a robo
Sentries got nerfed way down due to farming being a problem, just about the time that bilebomb got perfect for blowing out sentry farms. Put them back to where they were 10-ish builds ago, and see if there's really a big issue anymore; right now, they're just an enormous amount of trez wasted except in the incredibly niche area of ninja hive kill, a strategy that really strikes me as "not fun for most of the players" in most instances. Bunch of marines rush the hive? That's cool. One marine (or hell, a few MACs) slips in and builds a ton of stuff quickly and the hive dies? Not really all that cool.
An idea that just popped up... Why not have Sentries that are like Mines, but only the Comm may drop them in proximity of the Robotics Factory. A Marine equips himself with the dropped Sentry (it then becomes strapped to his back). The Marine selects the Sentry like any other weapon and places it as a Gorge would place a Hydra (although only on floors and with the line-of-sight indicated). The placed Sentry needs to be activated (a Marine holds down <i>use</i>, just like building a structure, and gets scored for it). The Comm is the one that gets awarded for the Sentry kills, and the Comm can de-activate the Sentry, allowing an Marine to once again pick it up.
I'm imagining these Sentries to function without a power source and be quite effective against Alien players, but also expensive and perhaps requiring the Comm to supply them with ammo packs.
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dude thats brilliant about the ammo counter. It would work out rather like the armoury running out of energy. Except would be bullets. AND would prevent spam as MORE TURRETS = Less refill
Give the commander some sort of ammo counter UI and a rate that bullets are being refilled (like a green arrow next to the counter if bullets are going in faster than out. red arrow down if going out faster than in. A grey line if par. (think the stock market arrows))
BUT u HAVE to un-nerf them. Make them fairly decent per turret and a PROPPER INVESTMENT
Change the firing to that very cool blue constant fire rate thing that is shown in the Exo trailer give them a very big boom sound not that currently rather pathetic sound.
There has to be a CAP on the rate at which the ammo can refil. Perhaps 2 batteries max refil rate that does not match maximum constant sustained fire. This will render turrets useless in constant pressure.
Turrets fire lots of rounds very fast for asthetic effect but damage ratio compared to the ammount that hit would be modrate. Higher alien life forms such as Onos will make toast of them. So PERHAPS stomp could disable them again... maybe im half debating on that one :P
please increse their range at current its useslss sad to say.
THIS WOULD:
Prevents spam unless that team have a ridiculus ammount resources by which time u can expect that team have basically won so thats is not a problem.
Makes turrets actually useful for defence and pushing lines forward.
THIS ALSO would not render a turret completely uselss if the replenisher was destoryed by a sneeky skulk but insted very vunrable depending on its remaning ammo count.
Funny enough, that was the exact same scene I had in my mind when I was writing that post. Just goes to show how much of an inspiration Aliens was to Natural Selection.
They have to be an investment and used as such that they are perhaps an alternative to choosing armour upgrades, or perhaps JPs. For this to occur in clan matches (which will translate to public servers) they NEED to be really powerful. But so expensive that they do not get spammed.
I actually love the above idea, but the idea of many being used to be more powerful will still lead to spam.
Also if they are more powerful when you have lots then the amount of ammo will be inconsequential, as they will kill the life forms before they run out of ammo. However, I would be interested to see this idea.
I was also thinking yesterday about how you could have adjustable turrets based on their 'FOV'. Once placed and given a direction, their power scales with the FOV you set. So a minimum of 30 degrees would be really powerful but vulnerable from rear attack, whilst setting a FOV of perhaps 360 would make them weaker.
Therefore in rooms they would be weaker, but in corridors they could be really potent. I think this would work better, along with your idea of ammo regeneration instead of a battery.
Also, it would find good use in publics, as well as clan matches!
What if when you tuned the FOV of the sentry, their precision would be tuned? As if when it is 30 degrees, the rotation servos are tightened and more controlled and accurate, maybe being a bit slower in turn rate, but when the FOV is upped to maybe 70 or something, they lighten up, and therefore turn faster, but can miss by overcompensation and slip factor.
Would distance be affected by this too? 10 degrees being snipe capable while 90 degrees is more close-range?
IMO, it feels strange how the Sentry and Battery can be built on infestation, even though it helps with the anti-structure role. If anything should be placeable on DI, it would be Mines... plunk down a trio and be ready for Skulk onslaught!
It's just silly how infrequent Sentries acquire targets and how low damage they deal when/if they do.
I seem to recall in earlier builds you could adjust the spread degree for a sentry so it would track a smaller area. I imagine that became very difficult for aliens to breach because that feature soon disappeared. Now in 219 you can't even re-adjust the direction a sentry scans in after it's dropped.
Make them cheap. Make them disposable, Make them moderately powerful and make them squishy.
This means one will tear apart a skulk that isn't paying attention to his surroundings, whittle down lerks and fades that remain in its LoS for an extended period of time, and chip away at a onos's hp.
This will give them their Niche as purely supporting with possible kill utility, while keeping very simple yet effective drawbacks. Drawbacks being they're destroyed in a handful of bites or a single onos ram. And if someone bunches them together (Sentry spam) 2-3 bilebombs and blam large amounts of Marines TRES gone in a matter of seconds.
Make them cost iunno, 3-9 res each? it needs to be cheap enough that they're disposable but expensive enough to really hurt the economy for spamming them.
They do need to be quickly buildable though, Like marine with nanoconstruct speed.
<!--quoteo(post=1977406:date=Sep 14 2012, 06:33 AM:name=Krovakon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Krovakon @ Sep 14 2012, 06:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1977406"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Make them cheap. Make them disposable, Make them moderately powerful and make them squishy.
This means one will tear apart a skulk that isn't paying attention to his surroundings, whittle down lerks and fades that remain in its LoS for an extended period of time, and chip away at a onos's hp.
This will give them their Niche as purely supporting with possible kill utility, while keeping very simple yet effective drawbacks. Drawbacks being they're destroyed in a handful of bites or a single onos ram. And if someone bunches them together (Sentry spam) 2-3 bilebombs and blam large amounts of Marines TRES gone in a matter of seconds.
Make them cost iunno, 3-9 res each? it needs to be cheap enough that they're disposable but expensive enough to really hurt the economy for spamming them.
They do need to be quickly buildable though, Like marine with nanoconstruct speed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I honestly haven't seen sentrys work as a a worthwhile purchasable unit from their implementation, and they are still broken. We have already seen this sort of implementation.
There are several big issues with sentrys being this way, and that is you either have to have them cheap and useless which leads to spam. Or they are more expensive but more powerful, which means people spam them on public servers to lock down rooms. This totally ruins the PVP aspect of the game. Because of the cost, clanners never bother with them when they could be getting armour, or JPs or weapons. Spending 15/10 res on something that will sit in a hallway and be destroyed really easily is a waste of time, and they only fill the role of pub server lock downs, which as we have mentioned is a MASSIVE frustration. No one wants to spend 80 Tres on turrets in a clan match so they can turtle in base for the whole game and tech up slowly.
The big issue with spam is well, is the randomness of placement. They are placed simply because they can be effective in numbers, they are not positioned well because they actually have a tactical/strategic role in their positioning in the map.
For them to be useful (imo) and not ruin the PVP gameplay, they have to be 'harassment' in rooms and 'deadly efficient' in corridors. They have to address alien movement as well. What I mean is that aliens success in maps in their mobility. If marines can lock off areas of the map, or corridors that force aliens to take a longer routes, then sentrys could sort of be the 'anti-pg'. Instead of enabling better movement for marines to counter alien movement, they hinder movement for aliens.
Power or accuracy based on FOV would work really well, and combined with the battery system Charlie came up with (I prefer Blasphemy's idea of ammo regen because it would prevent turtling at end games, as ammo would run out on rushes) it would force positioning to be more considered.
If you spent [15-20] tres on a 'tough' regen unit, and then placed a weak [5-8] tres sentry scanning 360 degrees of your base, it would be weak but effective at detering aliens. Or at least weaken them enough to allow marines to fight them off without being killed. If the sentry is destroyed, it is not too expensive to re buy one.
You also don't have to spam them, because it cover 360.
If you do the same but then focus it down a corridor at 30/35 degrees, then it will be useless to rear attack but blitz aliens trying to come in the front. This will force them to take longer routes to take out the sentry (especially early game) and this is what will take the pressure off marines who want to focus on taking routes through the map. Or strategically blocking certain routes for aliens to move down whilst they push other areas.
I really see only methods like this scoring well competitively, because it might actually be worth purchasing them if it prevents alien movement through certain areas of the map or forcing them to take longer routes to take an RT or the sentry itself.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
<!--quoteo(post=1976613:date=Sep 13 2012, 09:44 AM:name=Blasphemy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Blasphemy @ Sep 13 2012, 09:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976613"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's a shame everyone migrated to this thread when the other one was made first, especially when this one is mostly just moaning without proper solutions, but I'll post my suggestions here too because I really believe this would be the best choice of action for the sentry. I'll also shorten it so you guys can stomach it all in one go.
Actual post here if you want the full details: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121010" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=121010</a>
<u><b>My Solution</b></u>
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Smells like copy posting! oh wait, you added stuff, oopsies. Great idea, took mine and uwes and put the good stuff together, Fantastico!
Yea there are definatly a few DAMN good ideas comming from this thread. I just hope that the team see and take it all in :( :D D: :( :( <--- unsure faces
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
<!--quoteo(post=1976341:date=Sep 13 2012, 01:31 AM:name=Kopikat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kopikat @ Sep 13 2012, 01:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1976341"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Best remove Hydras and Whips then.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> +1 Any of the turretremoval######s that want to keep hydras and whips need to be shot With a turret prefferably. WHy does one side get effective defense structures and the other does not? I dun geddit.
For the love of god, sentries were fine about 10+ builds ago, before UWE decided to absolutely trash them simply because SENTRYSPAM (Individual sentries however were fine, you don't fix spam by gimping the unit itself) was an issue. Vortex disables them, power nodes disable them, lerk gas obstructs them, bilebomb WRECKS them, onos stomp disables them....
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.
<!--quoteo(post=1978206:date=Sep 15 2012, 04:39 PM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 15 2012, 04:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1978206"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For the love of god, sentries were fine about 10+ builds ago, before UWE decided to absolutely trashthem simply because SENTRYSPAM (Individual sentries however were fine, you don't fix spam by gimping the unit itself) was an issue. Vortex disables them, power nodes disable them, lerk gas obstructs them, bilebomb WRECKS them, onos stomp disables them....
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Exactly. Come on UW.
I think it would be fine to beef up the turrets health and armor (take as much damage as an IP or Phaste Gate) but limit the amount of turrets per power node or power pack to 1. That way you have to be strategic and choose just one path for the sentry to cover. Either a long hallway or sensitive structures.
I <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WuYCrcZLe4&feature=share&list=UUFE8ucN8fPERZMsCnEo_1nw" target="_blank">posted this video</a> in the other 219 Sentry thread.
My conclusion is that they definitely could work to kill hives, I just don't think that should be their role. I do like how they are testing unconventional things.
<!--quoteo(post=1978333:date=Sep 15 2012, 07:09 PM:name=Mr R0YB0T 0)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mr R0YB0T 0 @ Sep 15 2012, 07:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1978333"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I posted this video[/url] in the other 219 Sentry thread.
My conclusion is that they definitely could work to kill hives, I just don't think that should be their role. I do like how they are testing unconventional things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Heres what I see being a problem with that idea, in larger games say 12v12 it becomes hard to sneak into a hive and build things. While this is by no means impossbile I can only see this working early game. As soon as bile bomb comes out those things are gone in a flash. Although I don't see UW fixing this right now cause niether the turret or the arc is being used as the primary siege weapon, it's the exo. 2 or 3 duel exos can waste a hive in 7 to 10 seconds.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
<!--quoteo(post=1978206:date=Sep 16 2012, 01:39 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 16 2012, 01:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1978206"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For the love of god, sentries were fine about 10+ builds ago, before UWE decided to absolutely trash them simply because SENTRYSPAM (Individual sentries however were fine, you don't fix spam by gimping the unit itself) was an issue. Vortex disables them, power nodes disable them, lerk gas obstructs them, bilebomb WRECKS them, onos stomp disables them....
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Also +1 But make them more expensive and slightly reduce the hp from what it was, to like 800/200 or something (as opposed to 1400/200 which is what it was)
Just to any Uwe'er whos looking, the only reason turtling was so effective was because of MARINES SPAWNING TOO FAST. ALiens can organise yeah, but they can kill them yeah, but unless power goes down, the marines survive, they need a wave too, smaller than aliens, but a wave plawks.
Comments
Actual post here if you want the full details: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121010" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=121010</a>
<u><b>My Solution</b></u>
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.
No commander is ever going to use these metal things that point and sometimes shoot a wall.
Allow sentries to fire at aliens and make them fairly strong at that. Aliens are fast, can blink and walk on ceilings. Surely THEY can adjust gameplay tactics instead of you weakening marines. Stop balancing everything to a mush and allow some dynamics.
One strategy I absolutely adore in TF2 is to use the Mini-Sentries aggressively. Often times I would put the sentry in some corner, wait for a heavy to come past and engage. While the heavy is occupied, I get behind him and feed him full of shotgun shells in the back. Chances are the sentry dies, but I kill the Heavy. It is more involving and more enjoyable. If the sentry dies, I place a new one relatively painlessly. This is because I have a well hidden dispenser keeping me well supplied.
Mini-sentries allow you to dish out the damage you couldn't do alone making you a very strong threat. On their own sentries do not do much, and are knocked down easily. If you use a Mini-sentry like a normal sentry i.e. use it next to the dispenser as an area denial weapon, you will die horribly.
Both of those are farm more limited then sentries. Not to mention one of the reasons sentry spam was problematic was because aliens are primarily melee.
+1, pretty much how i feel about the change
Could be both, 1 per cstation, 3 per robo, and remove the tech requires from sentries to require a robo
I'm imagining these Sentries to function without a power source and be quite effective against Alien players, but also expensive and perhaps requiring the Comm to supply them with ammo packs.
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dude thats brilliant about the ammo counter. It would work out rather like the armoury running out of energy. Except would be bullets. AND would prevent spam as MORE TURRETS = Less refill
Give the commander some sort of ammo counter UI and a rate that bullets are being refilled (like a green arrow next to the counter if bullets are going in faster than out. red arrow down if going out faster than in. A grey line if par. (think the stock market arrows))
BUT u HAVE to un-nerf them. Make them fairly decent per turret and a PROPPER INVESTMENT
Change the firing to that very cool blue constant fire rate thing that is shown in the Exo trailer give them a very big boom sound not that currently rather pathetic sound.
There has to be a CAP on the rate at which the ammo can refil. Perhaps 2 batteries max refil rate that does not match maximum constant sustained fire. This will render turrets useless in constant pressure.
Turrets fire lots of rounds very fast for asthetic effect but damage ratio compared to the ammount that hit would be modrate. Higher alien life forms such as Onos will make toast of them. So PERHAPS stomp could disable them again... maybe im half debating on that one :P
please increse their range at current its useslss sad to say.
THIS WOULD:
Prevents spam unless that team have a ridiculus ammount resources by which time u can expect that team have basically won so thats is not a problem.
Makes turrets actually useful for defence and pushing lines forward.
THIS ALSO would not render a turret completely uselss if the replenisher was destoryed by a sneeky skulk but insted very vunrable depending on its remaning ammo count.
Also made me think of this :P
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGE_h4jBBXc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGE_h4jBBXc</a>
I actually love the above idea, but the idea of many being used to be more powerful will still lead to spam.
Also if they are more powerful when you have lots then the amount of ammo will be inconsequential, as they will kill the life forms before they run out of ammo. However, I would be interested to see this idea.
I was also thinking yesterday about how you could have adjustable turrets based on their 'FOV'. Once placed and given a direction, their power scales with the FOV you set. So a minimum of 30 degrees would be really powerful but vulnerable from rear attack, whilst setting a FOV of perhaps 360 would make them weaker.
Therefore in rooms they would be weaker, but in corridors they could be really potent. I think this would work better, along with your idea of ammo regeneration instead of a battery.
Also, it would find good use in publics, as well as clan matches!
Would distance be affected by this too? 10 degrees being snipe capable while 90 degrees is more close-range?
It's just silly how infrequent Sentries acquire targets and how low damage they deal when/if they do.
This means one will tear apart a skulk that isn't paying attention to his surroundings, whittle down lerks and fades that remain in its LoS for an extended period of time, and chip away at a onos's hp.
This will give them their Niche as purely supporting with possible kill utility, while keeping very simple yet effective drawbacks.
Drawbacks being they're destroyed in a handful of bites or a single onos ram. And if someone bunches them together (Sentry spam) 2-3 bilebombs and blam large amounts of Marines TRES gone in a matter of seconds.
Make them cost iunno, 3-9 res each? it needs to be cheap enough that they're disposable but expensive enough to really hurt the economy for spamming them.
They do need to be quickly buildable though, Like marine with nanoconstruct speed.
This means one will tear apart a skulk that isn't paying attention to his surroundings, whittle down lerks and fades that remain in its LoS for an extended period of time, and chip away at a onos's hp.
This will give them their Niche as purely supporting with possible kill utility, while keeping very simple yet effective drawbacks.
Drawbacks being they're destroyed in a handful of bites or a single onos ram. And if someone bunches them together (Sentry spam) 2-3 bilebombs and blam large amounts of Marines TRES gone in a matter of seconds.
Make them cost iunno, 3-9 res each? it needs to be cheap enough that they're disposable but expensive enough to really hurt the economy for spamming them.
They do need to be quickly buildable though, Like marine with nanoconstruct speed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I honestly haven't seen sentrys work as a a worthwhile purchasable unit from their implementation, and they are still broken. We have already seen this sort of implementation.
There are several big issues with sentrys being this way, and that is you either have to have them cheap and useless which leads to spam. Or they are more expensive but more powerful, which means people spam them on public servers to lock down rooms. This totally ruins the PVP aspect of the game. Because of the cost, clanners never bother with them when they could be getting armour, or JPs or weapons. Spending 15/10 res on something that will sit in a hallway and be destroyed really easily is a waste of time, and they only fill the role of pub server lock downs, which as we have mentioned is a MASSIVE frustration. No one wants to spend 80 Tres on turrets in a clan match so they can turtle in base for the whole game and tech up slowly.
The big issue with spam is well, is the randomness of placement. They are placed simply because they can be effective in numbers, they are not positioned well because they actually have a tactical/strategic role in their positioning in the map.
For them to be useful (imo) and not ruin the PVP gameplay, they have to be 'harassment' in rooms and 'deadly efficient' in corridors. They have to address alien movement as well. What I mean is that aliens success in maps in their mobility. If marines can lock off areas of the map, or corridors that force aliens to take a longer routes, then sentrys could sort of be the 'anti-pg'. Instead of enabling better movement for marines to counter alien movement, they hinder movement for aliens.
Power or accuracy based on FOV would work really well, and combined with the battery system Charlie came up with (I prefer Blasphemy's idea of ammo regen because it would prevent turtling at end games, as ammo would run out on rushes) it would force positioning to be more considered.
If you spent [15-20] tres on a 'tough' regen unit, and then placed a weak [5-8] tres sentry scanning 360 degrees of your base, it would be weak but effective at detering aliens. Or at least weaken them enough to allow marines to fight them off without being killed. If the sentry is destroyed, it is not too expensive to re buy one.
You also don't have to spam them, because it cover 360.
If you do the same but then focus it down a corridor at 30/35 degrees, then it will be useless to rear attack but blitz aliens trying to come in the front. This will force them to take longer routes to take out the sentry (especially early game) and this is what will take the pressure off marines who want to focus on taking routes through the map. Or strategically blocking certain routes for aliens to move down whilst they push other areas.
I really see only methods like this scoring well competitively, because it might actually be worth purchasing them if it prevents alien movement through certain areas of the map or forcing them to take longer routes to take an RT or the sentry itself.
Actual post here if you want the full details: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121010" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=121010</a>
<u><b>My Solution</b></u>
Keep the battery and drop the DOT. Make the Battery an ammo dispenser that gradually replenishes Sentry ammo reservoirs at a fixed rate.
One battery could keep one sentry firing decently, but will still run out of ammo under extended fire. Two batteries could keep one sentry firing indefinitely, but would be a priority target for the Aliens. Two sentries to one battery would do more damage a lot quicker, but would use up more ammo faster.
Make the price of Sentries fairly cheap (5-8). Make the Batteries fairly expensive (15-20). Sentries are dandy but if there isn't ammo available, they are useless. Sentries can be spammed as much as they want. They will not last a siege, but they will be able to deal with a lone harasser or two. Batteries would be the restricting variable which makes it so turtling would be a very expensive option.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Smells like copy posting!
oh wait, you added stuff, oopsies.
Great idea, took mine and uwes and put the good stuff together, Fantastico!
+1
Any of the turretremoval######s that want to keep hydras and whips need to be shot
With a turret prefferably.
WHy does one side get effective defense structures and the other does not? I dun geddit.
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. Come on UW.
My conclusion is that they definitely could work to kill hives, I just don't think that should be their role.
I do like how they are testing unconventional things.
Alien-structure-whip............attacks marines and marine structures
Marines-structure-turret.......attacks alien structures
Marines-structure-arc...........attacks alien structures
um, so what do marines have for anti-infantry warfare?
My conclusion is that they definitely could work to kill hives, I just don't think that should be their role.
I do like how they are testing unconventional things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Heres what I see being a problem with that idea, in larger games say 12v12 it becomes hard to sneak into a hive and build things. While this is by no means impossbile I can only see this working early game. As soon as bile bomb comes out those things are gone in a flash. Although I don't see UW fixing this right now cause niether the turret or the arc is being used as the primary siege weapon, it's the exo. 2 or 3 duel exos can waste a hive in 7 to 10 seconds.
What more could you possibly want? Can we stop this ridiculous circus and actually put them back to where they were, i.e as a useful defensive tool to support marine defensive play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Also +1
But make them more expensive and slightly reduce the hp from what it was, to like 800/200 or something (as opposed to 1400/200 which is what it was)
Just to any Uwe'er whos looking, the only reason turtling was so effective was because of MARINES SPAWNING TOO FAST.
ALiens can organise yeah, but they can kill them yeah, but unless power goes down, the marines survive, they need a wave too, smaller than aliens, but a wave plawks.