Flare Gun: Purchasable Pistol Alternative

Bad Mojo

<div class="IPBDescription">But the maps need to be darker first</div>One thing I feel is missing from the Armory buy menu is a buyable replacement for the pistol/secondary slot.

Another thing that has been pointed out is that the maps in general are way too brightly lit, and no matter where skulks may choose to hide on walls or ceilings, they are completely visible to a marine that bothers to look. The lighting on these maps needs some character, too add to the immersion and atmosphere of the game. When rooms are at normal or default lighting, there should still be dark shadows in some if not all of the corners and other niches that are not close to light sources. In addition, the emergency lighting either needs to be removes or toned down to give aliens more of an advantage in rooms without power, and making protecting nodes that much more important for marines.

If changes like these are made, it would make a flare gun a viable and useful tool for marines to check dark areas for skulks or primarily for lighting up unpowered rooms. The flares should be reasonably generous in amount and fairly long lasting, since you're giving up a significant amount of firepower in the pistol. 30-45 second duration for one flare, maybe 10 total with the gun?

TimMc

+1 I like the idea. Very cool, although not sure how useful considering rooms are light red when power is down. You think the flare will be a white light?

Bad Mojo

<!--quoteo(post=2016185:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:18 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Nov 8 2012, 08:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016185"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->+1 I like the idea. Very cool, although not sure how useful considering rooms are light red when power is down. You think the flare will be a white light?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

As I said, the red emergency lighting shoul dbe removed or toned down, to the point where a deployable light source would become viable. I would imagine a flare being red but it could be white, doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Bloodshot12

I like this idea. NS1 was pretty dark itself, and it lent to the atmosphere (in fact, a lot of NS1's maps were darker than NS2's with EMERGENCY lighting) so this goes along with that

Avs

I don't like this idea because the flashlight exists. I feel most players will skip spending resources on a flaregun since the pistol is already a very useful accurate weapon in general, and is important to a marine as a sidearm.

Darker rooms might create more atmosphere for the game...but I think players will still opt out on spending resources on a flare gun and stick to flashlights. Powernodes are already a problem in the current meta.

Blindga

I don't want to shoot down this idea outright, because it does seem pretty nifty, but I have to agree with Avs. We have flashlights. An exosuit's lamp can pierce darkness all the way across a room. A marine's flashlight only has slightly less range as of right now.

But I do think that darkness needs to be more prevalent in gameplay strategies, and that maps need to be darker. As it is right now, emergency lights take away an extremely useful alien advantage for no reason.

nsguy

I agree that the emergency power lights should be on from the start. It gives the aliens a slight advantage at the beginning of the game which would be very useful considering how weak they are at the start. It's also logical and cool :D

As for the flares, there are already flashlights. There's no point making rooms dark so that flares can be introduced. What will happen is that marines will be able to light up the entire room easily thus giving them an advantage over using the flashlight and will just spam them so that they can see any aliens.

Bad Mojo

Well you guys are actually probably right. As far as flashlights go, they are more than adequate for situations where it is extremely dark. I highly enjoy the few seconds I get to spend playing Doom 3 when a power node is taken out and literally the only thing you can see is the circle where your flashlight is pointed.

For some reason I didn't even think about flashlights when I started the thread. I was considering the "need" for an alternative to the pistol, and it was one of the first ideas that came to mind. Either way, I think the lighting of the maps is an issue on it's own that needs to be looked at.

schkorpio

<!--quoteo(post=2016202:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:30 PM:name=Bloodshot12)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bloodshot12 @ Nov 9 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016202"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like this idea. NS1 was pretty dark itself, and it lent to the atmosphere (in fact, a lot of NS1's maps were darker than NS2's with EMERGENCY lighting) so this goes along with that<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

huh? ns1 was mega bright - what are smoking? :)

<!--quoteo(post=2016202:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:30 PM:name=)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ( @ Nov 9 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016202"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->no matter where skulks may choose to hide on walls or ceilings, they are completely visible to a marine that bothers to look<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

thats kind of the idea of this game, as was with ns1. its not a dark game like AvP, aliens are meant to scount and ambush, instead of twiddling their thumbs in the dark until something comes along.

but i mean you can use cloaking for that style of play if sneaking is your thing.

ChaosXBeing

Well I understand your point was to make an alternative to the pistol, but an idea I came up with for a mod I'm working on literally an hour ago was a slot 4 flare that can be dropped by marines. Of course it'd require the backup power to be toned down a lot, like you said, and marines do have flashlights, but being able to light up a room as you're trying to get the power back online or hold back an alien push seems like a pretty cool idea to me. They wouldn't be expensive of course, maybe 5 res for two or three, and burn for maybe 30 seconds or so, just enough to restore the power or repel the alien rush.

It allows the aliens to have a bigger advantage in the dark, but gives the marines a way of fighting back as well.