A solution for the alien-spawn-problem an bigger servers.

_Necro_

<div class="IPBDescription">beside going always shift hive first.</div>Because it may not be seen in the other thread a few days ago:

On bigger servers aliens get egg-locked very fast. While some mechanic exists, that increases the spawn rate of eggs when more players are in the team, I think there is another thing that can be done. It will not change any existing game mechanic, but will be a solution that decreases the importance of the two strategies: "early second hive" or "early shift hive" in this cases.

<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 around a hive 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>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->On complete other news: What would be, if the long-demanded focus-upgrade wouldn't do double damage with half attack-speed, but would change the damage of the primary alien weapon from normal to heavy? (Heavy treats every armor point as 1 health while normal treats it as 2.) 4 Bites for Armor-level 3. This upgrade would give skulks the ability to 2-bite marines until armor-level 2 and would need a attack-speed reduction too for balance. (Also effective against exos.) It also would need to be in the craig-tech-tree, so you need to decide between more damage or more surviving.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->

twiliteblue

I'd like these two abilities to be combined: hive spawn egg, and shift batch egg spawn, into a hive ability which would spawn a large number of eggs with a moderate cost and cooldown, available by default.

Lofung

i would say just make eggs spawn faster. i thought all old 32 slots server does that? not quite sure i wasnt the admin

Davil

I was pretty sure the game already has a thing where it spawns eggs faster depending on the number of players.

I actually never notice an egg lock problem any worse on a 24 slot server than I do on a 12 slot server.

xxswatelitexx

Thats why you get shift hive first in larger servers

__Viking

I was actually thinking about this when I happened upon your thread. I agree with pretty much everything you've said, especially the fact that egg-teleport fits the nature of a shift more closely than simply creating eggs. I do however have one counterexample to one of your point regarding spawning of eggs while marines are near.

I played a game today in which we were egg locked from skulk death and 5+ marines rushed our <i>*only*</i> hive. Everybody thought it was over when the comm ninja dropped a shift in the room and spammed eggs so that the team of 11 could spawn all at once. We saved the hive and ended up winning the game. This only becomes a problem when you have only one hive. With two, you spawn eggs at the other, shift them over and everything's fine. When on only one hive, losing that ability to spawn eggs, even on a shift, <b><i>actually makes egg lock worse</i></b>. I do agree that the aliens should be able to be egg locked, so we have a problem on our hands.

CodeCowboy

+1

hakenspit

Something needs to change, if you dont go shift hive first and are not playing with good players you will get locked against even a half competant marine team.

I think 1 res per egg is too expensive though...perhapss 1 res for 3-5 egg clusters...after all if your dropping them marines are likely shooting them...aliens already spend enough res on cysts...this could simply cripple the side further.

Daworm

In a game the other day. 24 slot and we were egg-locked by a single marine in our main hive... as skulks all tried to do a marine base rush, at the same time a plucky marine made it to our base and sniped all the eggs.

We didn't have a faster spawn rate than when I've played on a 12 slot server.

I was lucky enough to spawn as my egg was out of sight of marine, jumped into hive, upgraded to shift and cysted away from spawn to build a shift.

We actually ended up winning that game too.

elodea

Did they reduce the scaling for egg spawnrate to player size? I remember playing 50p servers a few builds ago and the egg spawning was near perfect (not too hot, not too cold).

MaximumSquid

<u><b>_Necro_:</b></u>

Marine team often needs to drop more IPs on big servers

Why should aliens get their boost for free?
I also think that if your team is smart and isn't running into die constantly <i>(actually camping vents, cielings, etc)</i> you don't need a shift

_Necro_

Please read the whole post again. They get nothing for free. The opposite is true. While marines spent 15res one time for every additional IP, aliens need to spend 1res for every additional egg they drop. (In addition to the normal hive spawning eggs.) So if you drop more than 15 eggs, you payed more than marines do.

Again:
<b>Every hive gets the ability to spawn an egg for 1 tres.
The shift ability is changed to "Teleport egg from hive to shift". instead of creating eggs. (also 1 tres)
Hives with marines nearby can not spawn additional eggs.</b>