Cysts and Infestation Generation
|strofix|
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Create contrast between active and inactive cysts</div>Many players consider aliens rapid and unaided expansion to be a major contributing factor to the 60% win rate they enjoy at the moment. I think its important to try and slow down the expansion of infestation, as well as making it somewhat easier for the marines to cull. I also think that the cyst system is an excellent opportunity to restore the early game gorge to its former glory.
So here is my suggestion: Create 3 distinct modes for cysts
<u><b>1. Disconnected</b></u>
Disconnected nodes will act similarly to how they currently do, and will look the same as well (dark, unlit cysts). The only difference will be that a disconnected node will always suffer damage, regardless of how many nodes their are around it, and a disconnected node will always have its surrounding infestation recede, regardless of how many nodes there are around it.
This means that cutting a cyst chain won't result in a location being cleared of infestation any faster, but it means that the entire area covered by the disconnected chain will have its infestation slowly recede simultaneously.
<u><b>1. Connected</b></u>
A connected cyst would be any cyst in range (within the typical orange radius we currently have) of another connected cyst. A connected cyst would have a faint, lit glow to it, but would not generate infestation. It would slowly have its health increase, and would not lose health over time, but it would not generate infestation until it became an infested cyst.
What this means is that an alien commander can still have actions to perform, even though he is not actively and rapidly spreading infestation throughout the map.
<u><b>1. Infested</b></u>
An infested cyst is a cyst which is connected and which lies on infestation. An infested cyst would glow bright orange, and would spread infestation at the rate that cysts currently do. The spread of infestation would be relative to the cysts maturity, however.
This creates a dynamic where connected cyst chains, placed by the commander, slowly become connected cyst chains over time, as the infestation spreads to surrounding cysts. This creates a relatively slow moving wave front of infestation towards the commanders target. Commanders can choose to go the cost effective route, placing cysts as far apart as possible, or he can go the more costly but faster route of placing cysts closer to one another in order to sooner become infested.
<u><b>Where the gorge comes in</b></u>
In this system, the gorge would be able to increase the spread of infestation from an infested cyst by heal spraying it. This would allow a gorge increase the speed of the infestation wave, and allow the commander to build at remote locations faster. However, the gorge would not be required, it would merely be preferable to have at least one. I think a change like this would allow the cooldown on placing cysts to be removed as well (maybe).
So here is my suggestion: Create 3 distinct modes for cysts
<u><b>1. Disconnected</b></u>
Disconnected nodes will act similarly to how they currently do, and will look the same as well (dark, unlit cysts). The only difference will be that a disconnected node will always suffer damage, regardless of how many nodes their are around it, and a disconnected node will always have its surrounding infestation recede, regardless of how many nodes there are around it.
This means that cutting a cyst chain won't result in a location being cleared of infestation any faster, but it means that the entire area covered by the disconnected chain will have its infestation slowly recede simultaneously.
<u><b>1. Connected</b></u>
A connected cyst would be any cyst in range (within the typical orange radius we currently have) of another connected cyst. A connected cyst would have a faint, lit glow to it, but would not generate infestation. It would slowly have its health increase, and would not lose health over time, but it would not generate infestation until it became an infested cyst.
What this means is that an alien commander can still have actions to perform, even though he is not actively and rapidly spreading infestation throughout the map.
<u><b>1. Infested</b></u>
An infested cyst is a cyst which is connected and which lies on infestation. An infested cyst would glow bright orange, and would spread infestation at the rate that cysts currently do. The spread of infestation would be relative to the cysts maturity, however.
This creates a dynamic where connected cyst chains, placed by the commander, slowly become connected cyst chains over time, as the infestation spreads to surrounding cysts. This creates a relatively slow moving wave front of infestation towards the commanders target. Commanders can choose to go the cost effective route, placing cysts as far apart as possible, or he can go the more costly but faster route of placing cysts closer to one another in order to sooner become infested.
<u><b>Where the gorge comes in</b></u>
In this system, the gorge would be able to increase the spread of infestation from an infested cyst by heal spraying it. This would allow a gorge increase the speed of the infestation wave, and allow the commander to build at remote locations faster. However, the gorge would not be required, it would merely be preferable to have at least one. I think a change like this would allow the cooldown on placing cysts to be removed as well (maybe).
Comments
What would be more interesting instead of your proposal of "connected" cysts, would be to reduce the growth rate proportionally to the amount of cysts needing to grow.
Let's say every hive has a fixed nutrient output, that can only sustain for example 5 cysts at their maximum growing rate then every cyst requiring groth after those 5 would put stress on the hive reducing the amount of nutrient allocated to each cyst needing to grow.
For example if you start with a hive and plant 10 cysts then you would have a growth rate reduced by half.
Of course you would have to assume that the hive would have enough nutrient to sustain a completed cyst without it influencing on the max nutrient output since a full grown cyst doen't spread any more infestation.
This would give the khammander a bigger challenge on how placing their cysts and gorges would become more important because let's say in late game you have 2 hives that are both connected to the cyst system and both have an nutrient output that has been upgraded to 25 each. Nonetheless, aliens are being attacked on 3 fronts:
- first hive is being disconnected from the system because of an attack
- a cyst chain of 20 has been cut in a strategic location
-and some soldiers are damaging 7 cysts on another area
at that point reconnecting the interrupted cyst chain would put a stress on the single hive because 28 cysts would have to grow and groth rate would have been diminished. The best choice would be to reconnect the hive first then rebuild the interrupted cyst chain. And of course gorges would be a big help at increasing infestion and groth rate taking of the load from the hive.
If you want to take this concept even further you can also add a nutrient flow counter to harvesters and making them equal to 5 cysts for example. All of the above, coupled to hive nutrient output upgrades and a nutrient flow gridline for the khammander, equivalent to the powergridline for the commander, would make the gameplay for the alien khammander more challenging because more micromanagement woud be required and it would increase alien dependance.
But I think they should be introduced step by step. Because I fear, that this changes could be overkill and drag the balance heavily in favor to marines. Just imagine one marine that actively tries to exploit this system. He alone could set the aliens so much behind in the first minutes, that the game would be essentially over for them.
But anyway. More things to do for the kham are never bad.
Disconnected nodes will act similarly to how they currently do, and will look the same as well (dark, unlit cysts). The only difference will be that a disconnected node will always suffer damage, regardless of how many nodes their are around it, and a disconnected node will always have its surrounding infestation recede, regardless of how many nodes there are around it.
This means that cutting a cyst chain won't result in a location being cleared of infestation any faster, but it means that the entire area covered by the disconnected chain will have its infestation slowly recede simultaneously.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I once thought of a change similar to this myself. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work due to a very large issue it would create. Already marines ninja their way into a hive and kill the starting cyst (the one connecting the chain to the hive) in order to halt alien expansion. It's very annoying and very effective at temporarilly stopping the spread of alien territory. If the marines simply had to hold that point for ~40 seconds (or however long it takes for the cyst to die. This is just an estimate) in order to destroy ALL of the cysts in the map, it would be very very difficult for aliens to re-expand and save their nodes. The problem would be compounded once flamethrowers and/or jetpacks come into play and the mobility and cyst-killing power of marines is boosted.