Server Size / Egg Drop Rate

sleeping

So I am curious if yall took into consideration the factor of egg drop rate to active players?

I run a 24 player server and currently aliens HAVE to upgrade the first hive immediately to a Shift hive in order to drop a shift and spam more eggs. While marines can have 2-3 IP portals and are good to go the entire game. Marines are spawning non stop while aliens without shifts are stuck waiting 1-2 minutes between spawns. This is forcing every game to go the same way or end in failure, which I strongly suspect and hope was not yalls intent.

This results in many games where marines are able to turtle inside their base for hours because they can spawn with a quickness, while aliens get pushed back and the hive downed before they can even get one re-spawn.

I am not saying aliens cannot win, I am not saying marines are over powered. I am simply pointing out the fact that aliens egg spawns need to be looked at in terms of server population and properly adjusted so that large servers are not forced to go one path every time.

Techercizer

This is a good point. If egg count doesn't scale with players, it should. I'd like to see a starting egg count of twice the number of players on the team, with egg generation scaled to player numbers.

rantology

afaik the egg generation by the hive(s) does scale with player count. Starting eggs I don't know though, that may be a good point.

SpaceJew

<!--quoteo(post=2023586:date=Nov 14 2012, 02:43 PM:name=sleeping)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sleeping @ Nov 14 2012, 02:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2023586"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So I am curious if yall took into consideration the factor of egg drop rate to active players?

I run a 24 player server and currently aliens HAVE to upgrade the first hive immediately to a Shift hive in order to drop a shift and spam more eggs. While marines can have 2-3 IP portals and are good to go the entire game. Marines are spawning non stop while aliens without shifts are stuck waiting 1-2 minutes between spawns. This is forcing every game to go the same way or end in failure, which I strongly suspect and hope was not yalls intent.

This results in many games where marines are able to turtle inside their base for hours because they can spawn with a quickness, while aliens get pushed back and the hive downed before they can even get one re-spawn.

I am not saying aliens cannot win, I am not saying marines are over powered. I am simply pointing out the fact that aliens egg spawns need to be looked at in terms of server population and properly adjusted so that large servers are not forced to go one path every time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


That's actually a pretty good point, but it's not the only reason to go Shift hive first. It's simply the best early game. Especially when you can actually put the shift somewhere other than your hive to spawn those eggs.

This sounds like something that might need to be taken up with the mod community, although UWE should probably take a look at it given that there are <i>tons</i> of 24 person maps.

Know pain

In beta this came up several times and was contested but the egg regen was lowered by 25% at some point. This was deemed fine but the largest servers were an 8v8 up to a max of 12v12. As this game has gone live servers are starting up at 16v16 and even larger.

I’ve played many a 32 slot servers and generally found that aliens tend to be egg locked at about the 90 second mark. Furthermore many times the shift is a must and aliens tend to spend more on eggs than everything else combined. This runs into another problem, it takes what the aliens can do out and what they have to do. There goes strategy and the fun of aliens out the window into a lava pit.

Know pain

Any more thoughts?

HeatSurge

Unfortunately, it's a fact of the game that marines have a cheap way to increase their spawn rates indefinitely (you can make 6+ IPs around a single chair), while aliens are stuck with some X spawn rate for eggs and they can't do anything about it, except to research shifts and make more eggs that way.

It would be extremely and utterly cool if you could just spawn eggs around the hive like you can with a shift (even if they have to be paid for, it would be SOMETHING). Alternatively, it would also be extremely cool to have some kind of ability you can research, like "double the egg spawn rate at this hive for 15 res" (kinda like making another infantry portal next to a chair).

Yet another "solution" is to not increase alien spawn rates but disable marines' ability to make multiple IPs around chairs, and have the chair come with one IP included and cost 30 res (for the pair).

Then again, this has huge implications for competitive play, because the alien egg spawn is tuned so low to disable the repeated alien base rushes on maps like veil, which were happening a lot during the tournaments before release.

I remember the changelog had something like "- decreased egg spawn rate to control zerg rush of doom, thanks <some community member name which I forgot>". Yeah, thanks. Now shift or fast second hive is a must on higher player count servers...

_Necro_

I think a pretty and asymmetric solution for this problem could be the follow: (Independent from having a dynamical egg-generation and maybe even player-number-bound respawn times.)

<b>Instead of having the active abilities of shifts to create eggs, give this ability to every hive. (Price: 1Tres remains) While the marines invest 15res one time to get another IP, the alien com needs to drop eggs if needed, over the whole match. The shifts active ability changes to "Teleport eggs to shift". (The eggs will be teleported from a hive to the shift. Price: 1TRes) So its viability for creating preferred forward-spawns isn't lost.
To keep the option for marines to kill all eggs in a hive, the ability of spawning eggs could only be activate-able when no marine is in the perimeter of the hive.</b>

Pros:<ul><li>alien spawn system scales better to bigger games.</li><li>shift hive first together with early second hive strategies getting less mandatory.</li><li>egg locking by aggressive skulk play isn't an instant-loss, but costs team res.</li><li>egg locking while rushing a hive remains possible.</li><li>the ability of placing forward shifts to get aliens a spawner near the action remains.</li><li>the ability of teleporting eggs fits the shift better than respawning eggs.</li></ul>

TimMc

<!--quoteo(post=2024406:date=Nov 15 2012, 04:59 AM:name=HeatSurge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (HeatSurge @ Nov 15 2012, 04:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024406"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would be extremely and utterly cool if you could just spawn eggs around the hive like you can with a shift (even if they have to be paid for, it would be SOMETHING). Alternatively, it would also be extremely cool to have some kind of ability you can research, like "double the egg spawn rate at this hive for 15 res" (kinda like making another infantry portal next to a chair).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I would like this. Just make it so the upgraded egg spawn speed is removed when marines are attacking. It should always be feasible to shoot the eggs when assaulting the hive.

MaximumSquid

<u><b>sleeping:</b></u>

I'm trying to make <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv3ocf_229-shift-rush-tram#.UKSNXMW5CM8" target="_blank">3 shift play</a> popular right now. . .

It could solve a lot of issues