(ab)Using the alien spawn system
Typhon
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 1899Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 1899Members
Seen some play today of a smart strategy by marines. Aliens might call it an abuse though. Certainly was infuriating playing on the aliens.
The alien spawn system 'helpfully' preferentially spawns aliens at any hive that's under attack. So, when marines are pushing a hive, send one jp/shotty marine to the hive furthest away from the one you're attacking. Aliens are going to swarm at the hive under attack to defend it, and they're <u>only going to spawn at the hive under attack</u>. This leaves your lone wolf marine totally free reign to take out any structures he wants at the other hive. All he has to do is avoid damaging the other hive. Aliens, lacking any ability to move between hives quickly, have to run across the entire map in order to stop one marine from killing multiple upgrade structures in complete safety.
Our khammander even put whips up around the upgrades after the second or third time this happened. Didn't matter. Whips are useless defending structures against ranged marines.
Later, marines attacked one of our other hives, taking great care to <u>not attack the hive</u>. Built the phase, brought marines in, and attacked everything in the room except for the hive. By the time we had trudged across the map, all that was left was the hive itself. Then, they started attacking the hive, which would trigger spawns there, except they'd already killed all the eggs.
The preferential alien spawning was put in with good intentions, but I think its more abusable for the marines than helpful for the aliens.
Can we please get at least one of the following:
1. Ability to choose where you spawn as an alien
2. Ability to teleport between hives
3. Alien hive will be considered 'under attack' for spawning purposes if any structures within some radius of it are attacked, not just the hive
4. Defensive aliens structures that can hold off even a single marine
The alien spawn system 'helpfully' preferentially spawns aliens at any hive that's under attack. So, when marines are pushing a hive, send one jp/shotty marine to the hive furthest away from the one you're attacking. Aliens are going to swarm at the hive under attack to defend it, and they're <u>only going to spawn at the hive under attack</u>. This leaves your lone wolf marine totally free reign to take out any structures he wants at the other hive. All he has to do is avoid damaging the other hive. Aliens, lacking any ability to move between hives quickly, have to run across the entire map in order to stop one marine from killing multiple upgrade structures in complete safety.
Our khammander even put whips up around the upgrades after the second or third time this happened. Didn't matter. Whips are useless defending structures against ranged marines.
Later, marines attacked one of our other hives, taking great care to <u>not attack the hive</u>. Built the phase, brought marines in, and attacked everything in the room except for the hive. By the time we had trudged across the map, all that was left was the hive itself. Then, they started attacking the hive, which would trigger spawns there, except they'd already killed all the eggs.
The preferential alien spawning was put in with good intentions, but I think its more abusable for the marines than helpful for the aliens.
Can we please get at least one of the following:
1. Ability to choose where you spawn as an alien
2. Ability to teleport between hives
3. Alien hive will be considered 'under attack' for spawning purposes if any structures within some radius of it are attacked, not just the hive
4. Defensive aliens structures that can hold off even a single marine
Comments
1. Ability to choose where you spawn as an alien
2. Ability to teleport between hives
3. Alien hive will be considered 'under attack' for spawning purposes if any structures within some radius of it are attacked, not just the hive
4. Defensive aliens structures that can hold off even a single marine<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes please. <i>something</i>. the egg spawning system is so silly. it's situational where you want to spawn. even excluding this pretty awesome example of abusing the spawn system, you don't necessarily even always want to spawn at the hive under attack. sometimes you want to base trade or you're a gorge and you want to set up somewhere else. regardless, if it's situational in its usage, why are we not allowed to control this mechanic? it really doesn't make any sense.
Just choose the tech location/shift you want to spawn at and be added to the random egg or ip spawn queue.
Better idea, just spawn as a Kharaa ghost where you can land in proximity of the Hive to hatch. Implement that with soulcatcher 2000 with the upcoming soul catching net dlc and you have a great game waiting to happen.
The remnants are still there, when you die as alien and it shows your egg it prints right click to chose egg to spawn. You can actually switch eggs but the timer is so short that it is pretty much pointless.
This would be amazing.
The alien spawn system 'helpfully' preferentially spawns aliens at any hive that's under attack. So, when marines are pushing a hive, send one jp/shotty marine to the hive furthest away from the one you're attacking. Aliens are going to swarm at the hive under attack to defend it, and they're <u>only going to spawn at the hive under attack</u>. This leaves your lone wolf marine totally free reign to take out any structures he wants at the other hive. All he has to do is avoid damaging the other hive. Aliens, lacking any ability to move between hives quickly, have to run across the entire map in order to stop one marine from killing multiple upgrade structures in complete safety.
Our khammander even put whips up around the upgrades after the second or third time this happened. Didn't matter. Whips are useless defending structures against ranged marines.
Later, marines attacked one of our other hives, taking great care to <u>not attack the hive</u>. Built the phase, brought marines in, and attacked everything in the room except for the hive. By the time we had trudged across the map, all that was left was the hive itself. Then, they started attacking the hive, which would trigger spawns there, except they'd already killed all the eggs.
The preferential alien spawning was put in with good intentions, but I think its more abusable for the marines than helpful for the aliens.
Can we please get at least one of the following:
1. Ability to choose where you spawn as an alien
2. Ability to teleport between hives
3. Alien hive will be considered 'under attack' for spawning purposes if any structures within some radius of it are attacked, not just the hive
4. Defensive aliens structures that can hold off even a single marine<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This man is spot on! The alien respawn system IMO is just bad.
Agreed. At least at the evolving part. The alien should use the respawn-time to choose the evolutions of his next life.
But they shouldn't have to additionally choose their spawn egg. Instead I would love, if <b>the alien com had the ability to choose the primary spawn-location</b> (hive, shifts). This would give him at least some connection to the other aliens on the battlefield and it would allow for more tactics too.
Give spawn-location-choosing to the kham!
Reason:
Aliens spawn in waves, if I have 13 aliens and marines in TWO hives and I have to choose ONE spawn location I am going to be a pretty pissed off commander. If you give the choice to the aliens they can choose to spawn half half.
Also... I honestly don't think choosing spawns is something I want to have to spend my time doing as a commander. If you make it so I chose one location and everyone spawns there I am screwed if I want people to spawn in two places. If you make it specific enough to avoid this I end up spending too much time messing around with spawns.
This p.res sink would also help to get rid of the 'tech explosion' that is oh so undesired by UWE.