MACS have a lower rate of welding and can be easily taken out. Requires a robo factory which early game would drain the tres plus tres for the actual MAC itself on top of all the tres cost this mod brings to marines. In addition MACS take time to build, micromanagement when moving the thing to it's destination and even when it does weld marines it does so slowly one at a time. The AI is not that great other than follow and weld which will obviously not keep all marines welded. On higher player servers it would be even more chaos with more people needing welds. So these things are not reliable. And welders at 5 pres are just a huge pres sink for marines considering they will not win every battle and lose them as the game goes forward. I am not completely objected to the mechanic change but you also have to be fair to removing that glaring pres sink. ScardyBob also said it best:
The original thread had an entire argument with MACS as well so this is as far as I will go discussing it outside of the armory thread since Sewlek created it to keep this one clean of the armory talk.
That is an interesting idea to be sure. The problem I see is how to communicate this to the average player (hidden numbers and all that). It would be a confusing change without some sort of visual indicator on the armory to let them know that it provides "more" than an armory that is elsewhere.
At present the armory will show a flashing red cross if you are damaged - as a means to indicate that this structure will 'heal' you. Change that so there are two possible icons, one is the red cross as it is now (health only) and the other is a red cross alongside a silver shield (to represent health and armor). I think people will put two-and-two together quick enough.
I was referring to lerk w/ celerity, I wouldn't say it increases the skill for it, he just becomes so fast that tracking a marine back and forth with bites becomes difficult because you're traveling at such a high speed when you simply want to be biting/180 flapping and going for another bite, I'm not saying decrease it an insane amount, just a little bit so we have more control. I feel like I'm in a flee mode instead of trying to be aggressive lol
@Locklear , that would be great I've hated the tracers since they were introduced. I get the point of them is to show where a lerk is shooting from, but I personally didn't have trouble finding a lerk and it blocks your POV. Same with a MAC set to follow/weld on you, they just float around in your face
MACS have a lower rate of welding and can be easily taken out. Requires a robo factory which early game would drain the tres plus tres for the actual MAC itself on top of all the tres cost this mod brings to marines. In addition MACS take time to build, micromanagement when moving the thing to it's destination and even when it does weld marines it does so slowly one at a time. The AI is not that great other than follow and weld which will obviously not keep all marines welded. On higher player servers it would be even more chaos with more people needing welds. So these things are not reliable. And welders at 5 pres are just a huge pres sink for marines considering they will not win every battle and lose them as the game goes forward. I am not completely objected to the mechanic change but you also have to be fair to removing that glaring pres sink. ScardyBob also said it best:
The original thread had an entire argument with MACS as well so this is as far as I will go discussing it outside of the armory thread since Sewlek created it to keep this one clean of the armory talk.
It may be easy to take out MACs, but it's just as easy to replace them. Otherwise you might as well discuss a permanent armor healing upgrade for the Armory, which is not what this change was aiming to do.
I was merely naming a way to get armor healing in your base that people were worried about, not something to replace the need to have Welders instead of relying on a forward Armory. MACs do a fine job at getting you back to full, it's not that much slower than a default Armory, just that one MAC can't weld all guys at the same time and you might want to get a second one if you feel the need for it. Or keep using Welders. Added benefits of MACs are that they also keep your base repaired.
There isn't much micromanagement involved in them after all. And if you assign the Follow & Weld to the Armory, the MAC will keep all guys coming towards it healed up and then returns. I don't see a problem with the AI anywhere.
Lower Welder cost to 3 pres, that's fine.
It might be a good idea to have the population limit scale with the player count of the server as well, though. More players mean more MACs that are needed, more enemies who can just outnumber any Sentry nest that you place and more Gorges that can outheal a few ARCs in a Hive assault.
Disagree with the others as i really like the change in lerk speed finally, it helps make up for it's HP/Cost disproportions i believe, and gives more breathing room and ability for evasion and thus surviving / added viability. The downside is that it definitely increases the skill requirement to play it, since dodging and tracking a marine with spikes becomes that much more difficult.
But to answer the tracers question: Because it makes phantom /silence useless and removes one playstyle from the small hand of cards the Lerk has to play: That silent, distant harasser you spend time trying to find. Arguably not the most effective employment but its definitely one method that i've seen tie up time and energy from a squad.
What all this means is, its adding to it's harassing role as well as viability in regards to survival, but to compensate it's combat effectiveness would have to be pulled back a bit. (Like how spores is made T3, with a supporting ability as Umbra T2)
With these changes the lerk accelerates faster, has a higher combat speed AND has more HP thanks to biomass. What disproportion exists currently other than that Lerk is overpowered in vanilla already?
The only thing a lerk needs to harass is a grouping of shotgunners. All other targets can simply be killed by a lerk with relative ease by biting and dodging.
Tracers have been a mega buff for lerks also because you can't actually see exactly where a harassing lerk is when they're shooting directly at your face. Try aiming through tracers. Then add another lerk in the mix and how are marines supposed to see anything ????
As for spores, I don't see them as a critical component of what makes a lerk combat effective. They're handy but the game is often already decided thanks to lerk earlier efforts without spores.
Also now lerks will come out earlier due to the RFD rule being changed.
Finally, lerk bite poison applies regardless of which melee cone you hit with thus rewarding poor lerk aiming with way too much damage (and also continues to damage after a medpack is picked up). In fact, I would have all stepped melee cones removed from the game.
One bug that is currently left in the mod: Shadowstep and Boneshield icons appear twice in the Biomass tree, which confuses players and commanders easily.
Could we maybe try out some Xenocide adjustments in the mod?
-After successfully dieing from your own Xenocide, the respawn time should be decreased a bit.
-Deaths from your own Xenocide explosion should not be counted on the scoreboard.
-[Optional] Xenocide gets a slight buff for every free trait slot on a Skulk. So you may decide to not get Carapace, Celerity and Phantom but instead as vanilla Skulk, which makes you easier to stop by marines but would in return benefit in a better Xenocide payoff for your risky move. It could be a small buff to damage, range, respawn time reduction, structure damage or arming time.
Giving Xenocide a .25 second activation time instead of the 2 second would be all it really needs for a buff.
The other stuff is alright but damn the skill is weird to work with.
That seems too much. Marines still should have a chance to kill a Skulk that is just waiting for them to go by and then blows up without much of a fight. Besides that you should have a chance to switch away from the skill in case of accidentally triggering it.
Well .25 might be too much, but the massive delay doesn't really add much but unneeded grief. The best thing I've heard about it, if you can guarantee a xenocide in 2 seconds, you could have escaped instead and been more useful somewhere else.
Currently Aliens have no splash attacks on two hives that would allow them to attack a fortified base. The fact that Bilebomb has been nerfed makes it hard to push as well. The last thing in stalemates is that Aliens can not spam Whips to do Whip Rushes. Two Hives can't do a damn on larger player servers. Also Bone Shield for Onos is still mostly useless, and there has yet to be a case where Bone Shield makes up for the amount of base health/armor they lost. I understand that they got nerfed since they can be bought on two hives, but I would rather have Whip Rushes and Spores for these large servers.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
i disagree that lack of spores are hurting anyone. as a marine you are happy to be able to see further than 3 meters, and new players as lerk wont constantly get themselve killed because they think they need to fly into a group of marines now.
also, spores were so easy to dodge and their damage is not that big of an argument. however, since i consider spores being annoying, but also think their damage radius being too low, i moved them to tier 3 and buffed them a bit.
you have now umbra earlier which is arguably more useful to break turtles
while i do agree that spores effect to impair vision is really annoying, i still believe the 'crop dusting' method is horrible. it relies so much on marines having an inability to aim, and it literally requires no skill other than making a couple of 180 turns while holding down the mouse button.
the extra control from ranged method spores allows for greater strategy and improvisation, instead of just bumbling around under the marine's nose. for example there are marines coming to destroy nanogrid, you might be able to delay them by spraying spores into the adjoining corridor - without risk of losing 30 res for nothing.
i know it makes lerks a bit stronger, as you can essentially deploy spores without having to stick your head in a tumble dryer. but i'm willing to accept that for a chance of making spores a more intelligent ability.
i disagree that lack of spores are hurting anyone. as a marine you are happy to be able to see further than 3 meters, and new players as lerk wont constantly get themselve killed because they think they need to fly into a group of marines now.
also, spores were so easy to dodge and their damage is not that big of an argument. however, since i consider spores being annoying, but also think their damage radius being too low, i moved them to tier 3 and buffed them a bit.
you have now umbra earlier which is arguably more useful to break turtles
Hey love how that sounds, but just one request
Any chance you can make spores to bite transition immediate, for example every single other alien ability (minus xenocide) is instant, besides spores. Sort of like a marine swapping from rifle to pistol or etc, so I'm asking if we can get the transition to be immediate, so if I can bite someone, immediately spore behind me, then turn around and bite again. It will make them much more useful in combat and add some skill thought into it imo.
And I'm sure you understand what I wrote but if not, like this
I'm on bite, hit 2 to change to spores, no delay can begin sporing after I hit 2, then can immediately go back to bite and repeat
Also Bone Shield for Onos is still mostly useless, and there has yet to be a case where Bone Shield makes up for the amount of base health/armor they lost. I understand that they got nerfed since they can be bought on two hives, but I would rather have Whip Rushes and Spores for these large servers.
Depends on where Onos are supposed to be in the future. Should the be the meaty game ender or receive a similar nerf as the Exos here? If the latter is the case, then I don't see the 75 res investment warranted in them anymore (I bet the 75 res Onos couldn't really take a single 60 res Exo head on anymore). But a cost reduction of the Onos would clutch with the intended role and viability compared to the Fade and the general stepping between lifeforms, so it kind of needs a little buff again to be worth that investment.
Because contrary to what the Exo does to aliens, an Onos on the field is not really a frustration for the marines that would ruin their fun because it can be killed pretty easily by a group of marines who get to damage it before it can kill them. A strong Onos opens new tactical gameplay choices for countering it. An Exo with MAC support rather limits alien choices than extending them.
i disagree that lack of spores are hurting anyone. as a marine you are happy to be able to see further than 3 meters, and new players as lerk wont constantly get themselve killed because they think they need to fly into a group of marines now.
also, spores were so easy to dodge and their damage is not that big of an argument. however, since i consider spores being annoying, but also think their damage radius being too low, i moved them to tier 3 and buffed them a bit.
you have now umbra earlier which is arguably more useful to break turtles
does that also mean the energy requirements for the two abilities swap with the tier swap ( i.e. umbra needing less energy as its earlier on and spores being the higher drain)?
Had some nice full server today with up to 8 vs 8.
As expected, new alien commanders had the usual trouble with
-wondering why they could not upgrade the trait structure and were asking us if we could equip the trait.
-not knowing that the structures stack.
-not realizing that Gorge Tunnels are a prerequisite for Bile Bomb now because they are both for the Gorge.
Some found the Skulk movement slippery, but that may just be because they are not used to it.
One thing everyone agreed on was that the Fade was a major problem in this mod (and Lerks to a lesser extent, being more agile and so on). We had a player from Archaea on as well and he expressed his concern that the Fade is pretty much useless before Shadowstep in this mod (due to being very slow) and unstoppable once it got Shadowstep because you can impossibly track it with your rifle if it warps around like it had lag.
I doubt it's possible to make any adequate judgement about the other balance factors in this mod as long as Fades are in this state.
We had a player from Archaea on as well and he expressed his concern that the Fade is pretty much useless before Shadowstep in this mod (due to being very slow) and unstoppable once it got Shadowstep because you can impossibly track it with your rifle if it warps around like it had lag
To be fair that archaea dude nearly solo'd my fade on more than once occasion last night, only thing that let me live was the increased health from biomass
We had a player from Archaea on as well and he expressed his concern that the Fade is pretty much useless before Shadowstep in this mod (due to being very slow) and unstoppable once it got Shadowstep because you can impossibly track it with your rifle if it warps around like it had lag
To be fair that archaea dude nearly solo'd my fade on more than once occasion last night, only thing that let me live was the increased health from biomass
On a more serious note, I don't really like any of the movement changes.
The fade is fine as it is in vanilla. I see how the whole inclusion of bunnyhopping would call for a rework, but the current one is awful. Fades are simply way too slow. Blink is too slow and seemingly slows momentum gained from hopping and the near-instant teleport of shadowstep is insanely confusing for both the fade and the marines. Vanilla NS2 has fluid fade movement, this feels like an alpha in comparison.
The lerk is, plain and simple, too fast. Tone it down.
In general, the bunnyhopping substitute either needs to reworked into actual bunnyhopping or left out entirely. As it is now, it's too easy to gain speed and too frustrating to lose it due to no or low air control. At the very least, increase air control and/or decrease the penalty for bumping into stuff.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
thanks for the input, ill work more on the fade. i also had the feeling that the fade is too slow, but to tanky (with biomass) now. i liked the more fragile and faster fade more
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited April 2013
Fade movement in vanilla is already pretty satisfying. Chaining shadow steps with single (or double hops for more maneuverability at speed loss) and chaining it. Using ctrl to get under props and ceilings and maintain speed.
Having the ability to gain and maintain a lot of speed while navigating the map is essential to fade imo, it's already done in vanilla well with shadow step. Playing the mod it felt lacking, glad you're looking at it! : D
Shadowstep needs a much higher energy cost (like ~30) to balance out the pure evasion of the ability. I wouldnt nerf the fades HP too quickly, as the fade is going to be moving in a much more predictable pattern with blink as the primary movement mechanic, but I do agree that blink should be improved as the mechanic to move around the map as fade (more like an NS1 style blink) and not just blink once then hop. There was massive skill potential in the old NS1 fade as bhoping the blink jump effect perfectly granted a massive speed increase.
Agree on the energy cost. A Fade with Shadowstep is basically never running out of energy to use it (and that Fade was not even using Adrenaline). Whereas you almost instantly deplete your energy by using Blink.
Some recent changes in the mod that haven't been mentioned yet:
marine
- marines now always see when something is damaged (yellow wrench icon)
- added an icon to marines nameplate when carrying a welder
- arms lab no longer requires an armory
- extractors and command stations can now be parasited
alien
- increased drifter cost to 5 (was 3)
- reduce drifter cloud costs to 1 (was 2)
The marine changes will probably help teamplay a bit and will prompt more marines to repair stuff or to buy a welder in general.
The Arms Lab requirement change probably helps in situations where you could not build an Armory because you exceeded the supply cap or when one of your bases got rushed, the Armory destroyed and your goal is to just rebuild the Arms Lab as soon as possible.
I doubt that parasite change will have any meaningful impact on the game. Aliens will relay information about those fixed buildings like RTs and CCs to their team as soon as they see them, so there is not much benefit in parasiting them unless you think you will die before finishing it off and want to let the khammander keep an eye on that structure's HP. Plus it's one of those hidden numbers thing where it won't be clear to players why they can parasite those two structures but none of the other ones.
Parasiting situational structures like forward Armories, PGs or Observatories to notify your team of them would probably be a lot more useful than fixed structures like RTs and CCs who will always be in the same place. If the concern is that aliens would then constantly parasite entire bases just to keep informed about them, maybe make it so that the parasite will die off five seconds after the structure has been welded so it's counterable.
Indifferent about the Drifter change. Makes scouting the map in the early game even harder (since it already relies on a Shade Hive) and expensive. But I can see where you are coming from since the Drifter gained a lot of utility in this mod that would make it more valuable than the old 3 res investment.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
the idea was to reward keeping your drifters alive (cheap abilities, more expensive drifters) and also prevent drifter spam to some degree. ideally i would like to see not more than 5 drifters at any time, but this number depends on the map size. the next ns2 patch will feature some improvements to commander selection (double click select will now select all units which are actually on screen, and not randomly discard some) and jump to hotgroup (bind drifter to 1, press 1 to select, press 1 again to move view to the hotgroup), which should make controlling units easier
i disagree that lack of spores are hurting anyone. as a marine you are happy to be able to see further than 3 meters, and new players as lerk wont constantly get themselve killed because they think they need to fly into a group of marines now.
also, spores were so easy to dodge and their damage is not that big of an argument. however, since i consider spores being annoying, but also think their damage radius being too low, i moved them to tier 3 and buffed them a bit.
you have now umbra earlier which is arguably more useful to break turtles
I don't get it.
Why not just fix spores so they work correctly instead of tossing them to a rarely researched state at T3 ??..
Not that i don't love having Umbra earlier as it fits the support role more...
But putting spores to T3 removes the Lerk's area denial role when its most needed: before the T3 time frame.
Area denial is something most who don't play Lerk often forget, something that is very important to it's role, and something that absolutely does not have to contain the downsides you mentioned: marines not seeing in front of their face OR new players getting themselves killed because they fly overhead. (which would better to fix anyways, as mentioned above.)
I'd rather you threw poison bite to T3 as some insane poison bite ability*, where it would better suit the lerk when it's HP is better scaled late game and suited to encounter marines at melee distance and thus making this class way easier to balance and overall less frustrating?
This would make Spikes primary fire again (instead of melee, which is odd in comparison to any other alien class, marine, or any game, where primary fire is long range, and melee is secondary attack) *Until you were within melee range and it would automatically bite a typical low dmg bite, similar to how the Onos gores until a structure is in front of them then it auto smashes.
This ofc makes fixed spores secondary.
To me fixed spores would be:
Medium range
Fired out in front of you at a ~30 degree angle for visual feedback that's never existed
Covering the lerk's ingress now
Which now allows you to finally lessen it's Opacity and not block marine's view.
Comments
MACS have a lower rate of welding and can be easily taken out. Requires a robo factory which early game would drain the tres plus tres for the actual MAC itself on top of all the tres cost this mod brings to marines. In addition MACS take time to build, micromanagement when moving the thing to it's destination and even when it does weld marines it does so slowly one at a time. The AI is not that great other than follow and weld which will obviously not keep all marines welded. On higher player servers it would be even more chaos with more people needing welds. So these things are not reliable. And welders at 5 pres are just a huge pres sink for marines considering they will not win every battle and lose them as the game goes forward. I am not completely objected to the mechanic change but you also have to be fair to removing that glaring pres sink. ScardyBob also said it best:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2090124/#Comment_2090124
The original thread had an entire argument with MACS as well so this is as far as I will go discussing it outside of the armory thread since Sewlek created it to keep this one clean of the armory talk.
So visually impairing it drives me up a wall.
@Locklear , that would be great I've hated the tracers since they were introduced. I get the point of them is to show where a lerk is shooting from, but I personally didn't have trouble finding a lerk and it blocks your POV. Same with a MAC set to follow/weld on you, they just float around in your face
It may be easy to take out MACs, but it's just as easy to replace them. Otherwise you might as well discuss a permanent armor healing upgrade for the Armory, which is not what this change was aiming to do.
I was merely naming a way to get armor healing in your base that people were worried about, not something to replace the need to have Welders instead of relying on a forward Armory. MACs do a fine job at getting you back to full, it's not that much slower than a default Armory, just that one MAC can't weld all guys at the same time and you might want to get a second one if you feel the need for it. Or keep using Welders. Added benefits of MACs are that they also keep your base repaired.
There isn't much micromanagement involved in them after all. And if you assign the Follow & Weld to the Armory, the MAC will keep all guys coming towards it healed up and then returns. I don't see a problem with the AI anywhere.
Lower Welder cost to 3 pres, that's fine.
It might be a good idea to have the population limit scale with the player count of the server as well, though. More players mean more MACs that are needed, more enemies who can just outnumber any Sentry nest that you place and more Gorges that can outheal a few ARCs in a Hive assault.
With these changes the lerk accelerates faster, has a higher combat speed AND has more HP thanks to biomass. What disproportion exists currently other than that Lerk is overpowered in vanilla already?
The only thing a lerk needs to harass is a grouping of shotgunners. All other targets can simply be killed by a lerk with relative ease by biting and dodging.
Tracers have been a mega buff for lerks also because you can't actually see exactly where a harassing lerk is when they're shooting directly at your face. Try aiming through tracers. Then add another lerk in the mix and how are marines supposed to see anything ????
As for spores, I don't see them as a critical component of what makes a lerk combat effective. They're handy but the game is often already decided thanks to lerk earlier efforts without spores.
Also now lerks will come out earlier due to the RFD rule being changed.
Finally, lerk bite poison applies regardless of which melee cone you hit with thus rewarding poor lerk aiming with way too much damage (and also continues to damage after a medpack is picked up). In fact, I would have all stepped melee cones removed from the game.
-After successfully dieing from your own Xenocide, the respawn time should be decreased a bit.
-Deaths from your own Xenocide explosion should not be counted on the scoreboard.
-[Optional] Xenocide gets a slight buff for every free trait slot on a Skulk. So you may decide to not get Carapace, Celerity and Phantom but instead as vanilla Skulk, which makes you easier to stop by marines but would in return benefit in a better Xenocide payoff for your risky move. It could be a small buff to damage, range, respawn time reduction, structure damage or arming time.
The other stuff is alright but damn the skill is weird to work with.
That seems too much. Marines still should have a chance to kill a Skulk that is just waiting for them to go by and then blows up without much of a fight. Besides that you should have a chance to switch away from the skill in case of accidentally triggering it.
Currently Aliens have no splash attacks on two hives that would allow them to attack a fortified base. The fact that Bilebomb has been nerfed makes it hard to push as well. The last thing in stalemates is that Aliens can not spam Whips to do Whip Rushes. Two Hives can't do a damn on larger player servers. Also Bone Shield for Onos is still mostly useless, and there has yet to be a case where Bone Shield makes up for the amount of base health/armor they lost. I understand that they got nerfed since they can be bought on two hives, but I would rather have Whip Rushes and Spores for these large servers.
also, spores were so easy to dodge and their damage is not that big of an argument. however, since i consider spores being annoying, but also think their damage radius being too low, i moved them to tier 3 and buffed them a bit.
you have now umbra earlier which is arguably more useful to break turtles
the extra control from ranged method spores allows for greater strategy and improvisation, instead of just bumbling around under the marine's nose. for example there are marines coming to destroy nanogrid, you might be able to delay them by spraying spores into the adjoining corridor - without risk of losing 30 res for nothing.
i know it makes lerks a bit stronger, as you can essentially deploy spores without having to stick your head in a tumble dryer. but i'm willing to accept that for a chance of making spores a more intelligent ability.
Hey love how that sounds, but just one request
Any chance you can make spores to bite transition immediate, for example every single other alien ability (minus xenocide) is instant, besides spores. Sort of like a marine swapping from rifle to pistol or etc, so I'm asking if we can get the transition to be immediate, so if I can bite someone, immediately spore behind me, then turn around and bite again. It will make them much more useful in combat and add some skill thought into it imo.
And I'm sure you understand what I wrote but if not, like this
I'm on bite, hit 2 to change to spores, no delay can begin sporing after I hit 2, then can immediately go back to bite and repeat
Depends on where Onos are supposed to be in the future. Should the be the meaty game ender or receive a similar nerf as the Exos here? If the latter is the case, then I don't see the 75 res investment warranted in them anymore (I bet the 75 res Onos couldn't really take a single 60 res Exo head on anymore). But a cost reduction of the Onos would clutch with the intended role and viability compared to the Fade and the general stepping between lifeforms, so it kind of needs a little buff again to be worth that investment.
Because contrary to what the Exo does to aliens, an Onos on the field is not really a frustration for the marines that would ruin their fun because it can be killed pretty easily by a group of marines who get to damage it before it can kill them. A strong Onos opens new tactical gameplay choices for countering it. An Exo with MAC support rather limits alien choices than extending them.
does that also mean the energy requirements for the two abilities swap with the tier swap ( i.e. umbra needing less energy as its earlier on and spores being the higher drain)?
As expected, new alien commanders had the usual trouble with
-wondering why they could not upgrade the trait structure and were asking us if we could equip the trait.
-not knowing that the structures stack.
-not realizing that Gorge Tunnels are a prerequisite for Bile Bomb now because they are both for the Gorge.
Some found the Skulk movement slippery, but that may just be because they are not used to it.
One thing everyone agreed on was that the Fade was a major problem in this mod (and Lerks to a lesser extent, being more agile and so on). We had a player from Archaea on as well and he expressed his concern that the Fade is pretty much useless before Shadowstep in this mod (due to being very slow) and unstoppable once it got Shadowstep because you can impossibly track it with your rifle if it warps around like it had lag.
I doubt it's possible to make any adequate judgement about the other balance factors in this mod as long as Fades are in this state.
To be fair that archaea dude nearly solo'd my fade on more than once occasion last night, only thing that let me live was the increased health from biomass
B-B-B-Burn!
The fade is fine as it is in vanilla. I see how the whole inclusion of bunnyhopping would call for a rework, but the current one is awful. Fades are simply way too slow. Blink is too slow and seemingly slows momentum gained from hopping and the near-instant teleport of shadowstep is insanely confusing for both the fade and the marines. Vanilla NS2 has fluid fade movement, this feels like an alpha in comparison.
The lerk is, plain and simple, too fast. Tone it down.
In general, the bunnyhopping substitute either needs to reworked into actual bunnyhopping or left out entirely. As it is now, it's too easy to gain speed and too frustrating to lose it due to no or low air control. At the very least, increase air control and/or decrease the penalty for bumping into stuff.
Having the ability to gain and maintain a lot of speed while navigating the map is essential to fade imo, it's already done in vanilla well with shadow step. Playing the mod it felt lacking, glad you're looking at it! : D
The marine changes will probably help teamplay a bit and will prompt more marines to repair stuff or to buy a welder in general.
The Arms Lab requirement change probably helps in situations where you could not build an Armory because you exceeded the supply cap or when one of your bases got rushed, the Armory destroyed and your goal is to just rebuild the Arms Lab as soon as possible.
I doubt that parasite change will have any meaningful impact on the game. Aliens will relay information about those fixed buildings like RTs and CCs to their team as soon as they see them, so there is not much benefit in parasiting them unless you think you will die before finishing it off and want to let the khammander keep an eye on that structure's HP. Plus it's one of those hidden numbers thing where it won't be clear to players why they can parasite those two structures but none of the other ones.
Parasiting situational structures like forward Armories, PGs or Observatories to notify your team of them would probably be a lot more useful than fixed structures like RTs and CCs who will always be in the same place. If the concern is that aliens would then constantly parasite entire bases just to keep informed about them, maybe make it so that the parasite will die off five seconds after the structure has been welded so it's counterable.
Indifferent about the Drifter change. Makes scouting the map in the early game even harder (since it already relies on a Shade Hive) and expensive. But I can see where you are coming from since the Drifter gained a lot of utility in this mod that would make it more valuable than the old 3 res investment.
Why not just fix spores so they work correctly instead of tossing them to a rarely researched state at T3 ??..
Not that i don't love having Umbra earlier as it fits the support role more...
But putting spores to T3 removes the Lerk's area denial role when its most needed: before the T3 time frame.
Area denial is something most who don't play Lerk often forget, something that is very important to it's role, and something that absolutely does not have to contain the downsides you mentioned: marines not seeing in front of their face OR new players getting themselves killed because they fly overhead. (which would better to fix anyways, as mentioned above.)
I'd rather you threw poison bite to T3 as some insane poison bite ability*, where it would better suit the lerk when it's HP is better scaled late game and suited to encounter marines at melee distance and thus making this class way easier to balance and overall less frustrating?
This would make Spikes primary fire again (instead of melee, which is odd in comparison to any other alien class, marine, or any game, where primary fire is long range, and melee is secondary attack) *Until you were within melee range and it would automatically bite a typical low dmg bite, similar to how the Onos gores until a structure is in front of them then it auto smashes.
This ofc makes fixed spores secondary.
To me fixed spores would be:
Medium range Fired out in front of you at a ~30 degree angle for visual feedback that's never existed Covering the lerk's ingress now Which now allows you to finally lessen it's Opacity and not block marine's view.
In my head this fixes the Lerk in so many ways