If you think in NS1 that marines could turtle against 3 hive aliens you are horribly mistaken. Even on maps designed for turtling (siege maps), marines could only at best hold out for 10-15 minutes against 3 hive aliens, and thats having usually 20+ turrets and an entire team of JP hmgs with 8-10 rts. Also, marines always needed to hold a second 'tech point' to prevent aliens from getting the third hive, because of what would happen if they did...
People should stop judging either game on evidence from random public games where there was horrible skill and/or knowledge imbalances.
In NS1 getting three hives was actually an advantage. You got:
xeno, which didn't suck as much in NS1
web, which was great at supporting base attacks
primal scream, which made everyone attack faster (still in NS2 as enzyme, but the commander isn't as connected to the battle as a lerk)
acid rocket, which was hugely effective at breaking turtles
charge, which did massive damage unlike its NS2 counterpart
Plus you got sensory upgrades, which means you got focus which made fades extremely powerful and stopped skulks from being irrelevant at the end of games.
In other words, having three hives made it fully possible to break turtles, and marines needed to act quickly in order to stop the aliens from reaching critical mass and winning the game. What do you get from three hives in NS2?
xeno, which sucks
umbra, which is helpful but requires coordination to be truly effective
vortex, which is completely worthless
stomp, which makes onos a little better in combat but isn't really needed
And then you get cloaking and slience, neither of which is that useful for the late game.
That's the main problem in NS2 - the aliens are perfectly capable of being competitive on two hives and the only truly worthwhile advantage of a third is the ability to drop onos eggs. This means that breaking turtles become really difficult for the aliens, and it also means that aliens need to spend much less to be competitive with the marines (but this is another balance problem entirely). If the third hive was actually necessary for the aliens to win, not only would res requirements be more equal, but it would also mean that marine turtling would be solved because aliens would be powerful enough to break it. It would also give the marines a viable reason to secure a second tech point, thus preventing any marine tech from needing to be linked to TPs.
The new jetpack seems to function as a one direction per use, so if you want to change your direction you need to hit jump/fuel again and then you're able to turn
Feels alright, I do understand it from the balance perspective
The skulk bhop seems to have been modified, it doesn't feel too great now, a few times ago it was fast, smooth, and accelerated momentum just by walljumping, now the acceleration is slower, and it requires "upward/downward" wall jumping, so to get that little "boost" per jump you need to look upward after the jump, it just doesn't feel as good/fun. However in combat I'm noticing I can now do wall bouncing off walls to 180 back to my target much quicker
As stated before I didn't like the decreased range of onos gore, thought it was toned down too much, but if it's going to stay like that, then I wouldn't mind that celerity speed boost he was getting before which also seems to be taken away (plus he still cannot crouch jump I believe, which can cause stuck issues)
umm nothing else is coming to mind right now, also haven't played an actual match of it in a while
The skulk bhop seems to have been modified, it doesn't feel too great now, a few times ago it was fast, smooth, and accelerated momentum just by walljumping, now the acceleration is slower, and it requires "upward/downward" wall jumping, so to get that little "boost" per jump you need to look upward after the jump, it just doesn't feel as good/fun. However in combat I'm noticing I can now do wall bouncing off walls to 180 back to my target much quicker
Movement does feel a little different, but you can still easily bhop/walljump around the map smoothly I'm finding. I like the walljump change, it seems to have a little more "oumphh" behind it and you can raise your angle a bit more without losing speed so it's more useful in combat.
Has fade adren useage been changed? Found myself running out of it rather quickly, though I may have just been heavy on the finger those games.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Finally had a few matches on BT today.
If you have comms/khams who know how the BT mod works you can see much more diverse strategies these days. I like that.
* Now it isnt a 'lets get weapons 1 after armor 1' always mentality. Some push for JP which adds damage in another way. (following that lifeform running away for example)
* Skulk Walljump/hop seems better then what is on live. You can feel the speed increase, making it more obvious to new players.
* More abilities due to biomass on 1 hive making 1 hive fights also more interesting.
All in all I found the mod quite enjoyable. May say perhaps even more then the live version of ns2 at the moment.
* Lerk seems a bit off on the speeds though. It feels wrong.
* swapping blink and shadowstep seems ok, especailly with 1 CC JP. Took me a while but I definitely see the value in the change.
* onos gore seems a little to less range at the moment. It has huge tusks, I expect it to hit stuff.
* the resource x10 change is, for me, the hardest part to get used to. I understand why it is changed, but it feels very off.
Well done so far sewlek. I hope to see much of it live.
* onos gore seems a little to less range at the moment. It has huge tusks, I expect it to hit stuff.
* the resource x10 change is, for me, the hardest part to get used to. I understand why it is changed, but it feels very off.
The Gore range nerf was needed, though. Some areas would look like they were out of range of the Onos according to it's model while it was still able to frag you with it's tele-horn.
The x10 change is there so finer tweaks to the res costs can be made without having to use decimals.
I noticed that all weapon and armor levels seem to be available on 1 CC now…
So marines can get their entire tech on 1 CC now, which makes it even harder to break turtles since you can't deny any stuff by taking out other bases. So given a base trade situation, marines will never really feel urged to go back to save their base if they have the chance to kill a Hive instead. Killing the Hive makes aliens weaker and sets them back by a fair amount of res (Biomass cost included). Marines will still be able to operate fine from a single base.
Don't think I like that change.
The Supply increase is barely a reason to get another CC currently, since marines will hardly run out of their 100 starting Supply at the current prices during normal gameplay. Really would have liked to see a system where additional Arms Lab upgrades also cost additional Supply.
Anyway, that being said:
marine
- reduced armslab health/armor to 1700/50 (was 2200/225)
alien
- allow aliens to change upgrades
- reduce hive build time to 120 seconds (was 180)
- reduce hive cost to 350
I can see the Arms Lab change trying to somewhat compensate for the critic point mentioned above, so aliens can try to end turtles by targeting the Arms Lab.
Still not really convinced. Marines were continuing to turtle for about 10 minutes in a game today. We had a massive amount of Onos, Fades and Lerks, but marines just kept sitting in Sub Sector and were spamming the entry ways with the buffed GLs and thus prevented any Gorge or forward base from getting even close.
Alien upgrade change is welcomed.
But the Hive change in combination with the increased starting cash makes insta-dropping a Hive really a no-brainer. It already was before and criticized here, but now it's getting a bit ridiculous. In vanilla is insta-dropping a second Hive a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Now that would probably only apply for dropping two Hives at once.
I am a bit lost on what the reason for this change was. Perhaps the cost reduction to make up for the fact that you need to invest more Biomass again later and thus losing a Hive is already costly enough. But then such a cost decrease would rather call for something to offset it instead of adding yet another buff that makes alien expansion harder to deny for marines.
Gorges are already healing stuff up faster than in vanilla, so why reduce the build time even more? If the above mentioned additional Biomass investment was indeed a reason for the cost decrease, then perhaps make it so that Hives have less HP/armor by default and gain more when they get their Biomass upgraded. So marines can take those growing Hives down easier and the amount of effort to kill a Hive is more in line with how much the Hive is actually worth.
Also, I feel like the GL buff is a bit overdone. I am a bit worried that you often swing the full nerf/buff bat at once instead of approaching things one at a time.
Since you have the ability to update this mod so often and instantly, why not tweak things in more graceful steps?
Now we have
- GL cost decrease
- GL ammo increase
- Whip nerf in it's ability to be a proper defense against GLs.
Those GL guys turtling in the marine base could just kill our forward Crag base regardless of the Whip that I placed there. And since grandes explode nearly instantly now after getting whipped, you are not only forced to put your whips far out in the front to be an actual protection for stuff around it but also take away any punishment that was involved for an overzealous GL spammer. Now he can keep trying to spam his nades until the whip eventually dies from falloff damage instead of forcing him and his comrades to clear the whip out first.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I understand why the res is 10x, I only stated it feels weird. I do understand it allows for fine tune.
Onos was really that to big on range? Hahaha, guess im to used to the way it is on live now.
As for a turtle problem.. I do not see it.
JP and exo cost res. If its a turtle it means 1 rt. So that will eventually solve itself.
Now you got a turtle with w1/a1 as its 1 cc and should end even faster.
The marines ability to turtle late-game is a bit frustrating atm.
It would probably be more tolerable if my FPS wasn't a slide show in those situations, though. In the game CrushaK is talking about I was getting ~15fps in sub-sector with so much going on within the area.
Now you got a turtle with w1/a1 as its 1 cc and should end even faster.
That is no longer the case. As I mentioned in my post, the CC restriction seems to be lifted entirely. So marines CAN get all upgrades to the maximum on 1 CC and keep turtling. They don't get any weaker if aliens take out the second CC. If marines built a lot of IPs before, they can fend aliens off for a long time to come.
Regarding the alien upgrade change, there should be a cooldown on switching upgrades (visible on the evo menu) to prevent swapping between regen and cara constantly. This was the original reason for removing the ability to change and it will still need to be addressed.
Also all tech on 1 CC will be fine if and when alien T3 abilities become more menacing. That and I think exos will still need to be toned down further in the damage department for this to not become stupid.
Oh, I was assuming you were only able to switch upgrades near a Hive. That would be the easiest solution, since you would get the regeneration from the Hive already.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
unfortunately i cant update the mod currently so i have no way to improve the situation (something i intended to tweak this weekend). maybe i need to re-publish the mod, something in the steam work shop seems to be corrupt
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
OOh.. you can tech w3/a3 with 1 cc at the moment?
I was still asuming it wasnt possible.
Also I did notice GL seem very powerful in turtles at the moment, although that may be due to w3.
I disagree a bit on aliens more menacing = it ok for marines to have all ups still.
But I havent had chance to play it loads so im going on this weekend.
Things like this generally come from inexperience to coordinate a final attack
Well, yeah. It was a pub, it was on Mineshaft with them in the South base so they have a massive defensive advantage, and this mod currently gives them A3/W3/Exos/JP's on one base. It is not a surprise it was hell to push. However Sewlek is currently attempting to fix it so it should not be an issue.
Don't really understand why hives needed to become cheaper, at the very least starting resources should go down as now one can drop a second hive + 2 harvesters at the start. Surely we can all agree that is a bit overkill? It's really a nobrainer for aliens to drop a second hive at the start, with how much more map control that enables...
Also, I really like that you got rid of 3rd CC requirements for marines, but for it to really work aliens should scale a little higher on the third/fourth hive especially. (Maybe 4 hives could give a huge bonus to help end games?) And I reckon there wouldn't be any harm to putting A/W3 on 2 CCs, it's just the 3rd CC requirement that is ridiculous imo.
I dont mind W3/A3 on 2 CC's, but that wont fix the problem that is Exos for turtles. Thats a problem which needs to be fixed via major changes to how exos work overall (greater mobility, drastically less DPS, less HP).
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
Lerk cannot be heard when gliding by marines, but the lerk itself makes a wooshing (only just noticed it today) sound when it flies only audible to the player. Perhaps the lerk should be heard when gliding where the faster it goes the louder the wooshing sound it makes.
Noticed biomass now gives a bit more health per level (5 for lerk, didn't check for other life forms). Would it be possible to have biomass increase more for a higher hive biomass level rather than just a flat rate. For example 1 hive on biomass 3 would give more health than 1 hive on biomass 2 and another on biomass 1, even though they both give an effective biomass of 3.
- increased exo mobility and reduce damage output by ~20%
- xenocide cant be cancelled anymore
- when dying by xenocide, skulk respawn time is reduce by 6 seconds
- changed stomp to affect marines in a radius rather than being a shockwave
- stomp overheats causes miniguns to overheat
I like the sound of the stomp changes, should help break those pesky turtles.
I suppose with stomp being so far down the alien tech, there's not a whole lot of harm in having it affect exos to some extent. Outright overheating them may be a bit crazy though, but we'll see. I wonder if it would be do-able to dodge stomp as an exo using upward thrusters. One would think the short delay on it would prevent it from being used effectively to dodge stomp, but I've never tried.
Would also be nice of gas went back to blocking sentries (helps against turtling too), with sentries no longer being capped to a battery but instead just capped per room and/or to the build cap.
Lastly, xenocide was amazing against last base turtles with marines not having A3, if A3 doesn't become 2 CCs it would be nice if the damage was buffed. I really don't see how that could be a bad thing, by the time xenocide comes out marines almost always have A3 and the ability is practically useless.
A more logical change to Stomp would probably if it could actually throw the Exo off it's feet balance and thus prevent it from turning all the way around, giving the Onos a chance to get behind the Exo but allowing the Exo to still keep firing and aiming in a limited cone (by rotating the upper part of it) from it's last direction.
Interesting to see the changes to alien expansion cost:
- Hives cost now 500 res
- Biomass 2 upgrade costs 200 res again
- Biomass 3 upgrade costs 550 (!) res now
I hope that includes an HP buff for Hives with each Biomass upgrade, though. Otherwise you are looking at massive economical hits when losing a Hive (1250 res, aka a tres Fade + Onos in vanilla), not even counting structures around it like 600 additional res in trait structures (if all nine are there, this could be as well a total of 1800) and ~375 res in chamber structures if there is one of each kind.
A fully teched up alien base would be worth ~3500 res, assuming everything is in that one base. If you distribute the trait structures evenly on 3 Hives, you would still be looking at ~2300 res in a base.
Even if marines lose their main base with all the common structures there, then that is just
150 res Command Station
200 res Infantry Portal (x2)
100 res Armory (+250 res Advanced upgrade)
150 res Observatory
150 res Phase Gate
200 res Arms Lab
150 res Robotics Factory (+100 res ARC upgrade)
400 res Prototype Lab
So their fully teched up base with everything that they could need would only cost 2050 res.
This goes a bit against this whole "the alien economy is more efficient than the marine one; marines need to hold more RTs than aliens to be on the same level" kind of thing.
You may argue that Biomass counts as upgrades already and that I left those out on the marine side, but I was only going for investments that could be lost again in the above calculation.
Ok, let's include upgrades on both sides (correct me if I am wrong on some of the alien upgrades, the prices changes quite often:
Aliens:
150 res for Hive specialization (x3) // I know, these are actually losable too and should count to the first calculation instead
100 res Gorge Tunnels
150 res Bile Bomb
200 res Leap
250 res Umbra
250 res Shadowstep
250 res Boneshield
150 res Xenocide
250 res Spores
150 res Vortex
250 res Stomp
2450 res in upgrades
You need to consider though that aliens need at least 3 Hives to get all that tech, so that would be 2x 1250 res in addition to the fully teched up base in the first calculation.
Marines:
150 res Mines
200 res Shotguns
150 res Grenade Launchers
200 res Flamethrowers
150 res Nanoshield
200 res Nanoarmor
200 res W1/A1 (x2)
300 res W2/A2 (x2)
400 res W3/A3 (x2)
200 res Jetpacks
200 res Exosuits
200 res Dualminigun
3450 res in upgrades
So not only do aliens have more losable res on the field but they also need to invest more res and hold more territory to reach their full tech level compared to marines.
I am not suggesting that the Hive cost increase is bad. But shouldn't marines get some more cost increases then as well, since there have been more of a cost reduction on their side thus far?
Why does everyone want impairment visually or movement based.. Stomp has a smaller radius now so you basically need to get quite close to hit it.. The exo can move quite a bit faster so it adds some skill to the equation. Considering stomp is tier 3 I think it has the right to be slightly overpowered. You can bite and not cancel xeno so it should still be useful against even A3, and Im pretty sure spores still disrupt sentries.
As for the resource comparisions they are meaningless... Aliens could take 10x the resources that marines need and it wouldnt matter, its all about the balance in the end. In the balance mod it was still to easy to get some basics as alien commander and then just spew nonestop fade eggs, this is an attempt (i think) to stop that from being so easy. An alien commander that gets every single research is one thats just wasting res oftentimes. Most comms I see place way too many support structures, and/or dont think the positions through very well. It results in a lot of wasted resources and time.
When I commed a game I had full cara/celerity, bio 6 and leap/umbra/bile/tunnels/shadowstep on 4 rts at 12 minutes, with the 3rd hive already dropped. Given the normal 3 rts for aliens I dont think that the tech speed is too slow.
Why does everyone want impairment visually or movement based.. Stomp has a smaller radius now so you basically need to get quite close to hit it.. The exo can move quite a bit faster so it adds some skill to the equation. Considering stomp is tier 3 I think it has the right to be slightly overpowered. You can bite and not cancel xeno so it should still be useful against even A3, and Im pretty sure spores still disrupt sentries.
As for the resource comparisions they are meaningless... Aliens could take 10x the resources that marines need and it wouldnt matter, its all about the balance in the end. In the balance mod it was still to easy to get some basics as alien commander and then just spew nonestop fade eggs, this is an attempt (i think) to stop that from being so easy. An alien commander that gets every single research is one thats just wasting res oftentimes. Most comms I see place way too many support structures, and/or dont think the positions through very well. It results in a lot of wasted resources and time.
When I commed a game I had full cara/celerity, bio 6 and leap/umbra/bile/tunnels/shadowstep on 4 rts at 12 minutes, with the 3rd hive already dropped. Given the normal 3 rts for aliens I dont think that the tech speed is too slow.
I don't think the hive costs were necessarily off, I do think the starting resources at 750 was unnecessary. I'm not sure if dramatically slowing down alien tech expansion was needed, they already tech significantly slower than they do in vanilla. Now, one could argue that due to high skulk mobility, aliens have a definite advantage on map control and pressure that needs to be offset by even slower expansion, which is true, I'm just not sure if it needed to become even slower than what it was already at...
Also, if marines are going to stay on just 1 CC, with nothing on 2 CCs then I do believe there may be a significant problem with 5 CC maps. Aliens need only 3 hives, with a fourth hive not really doing anything for them, so that's technically one hive room unaccounted for. If we are serious about having aliens break 1 CC marine turtles, the most straightforward solution would be to give aliens a significant power advantage when on four hives over three.
What if for example the fourth hive enabled the aliens to slot another upgrade? (So for example regen and carapace + cele + phantom) Or what if it enabled an ability like focus? Etc etc I'm sure there's many ways to go about it.
Requiring 4 hives is bad (not all maps have 5 tech points). Theres no reason to make 4 hive aliens godlike when taking 3 hives is already what should be end game power. Currently 4 hives allows higher biomass (up to 12), which gives each alien more HP, which also helps, but isnt and shouldnt be a requirement. The starting resource increase offers greater flexibility in opening strats, and allows for a resource tower cost increase that doesnt drastically hurt early game alien expansion (but does curb marine expansion slightly). The goal is not to dramatically slow down alien teching (its not that much slower), but to make it more progressive. Ideally fades would start to pop before shadowstep is researched, basically it slows down the alien tech explosions. Before you could pop the second hive and get leap instantly, followed quickly by blink for your coming fade ball. Alien tech should be granular like marine tech.
Now we just need to curb equipment/lifeform explosions.
Comments
People should stop judging either game on evidence from random public games where there was horrible skill and/or knowledge imbalances.
xeno, which didn't suck as much in NS1
web, which was great at supporting base attacks
primal scream, which made everyone attack faster (still in NS2 as enzyme, but the commander isn't as connected to the battle as a lerk)
acid rocket, which was hugely effective at breaking turtles
charge, which did massive damage unlike its NS2 counterpart
Plus you got sensory upgrades, which means you got focus which made fades extremely powerful and stopped skulks from being irrelevant at the end of games.
In other words, having three hives made it fully possible to break turtles, and marines needed to act quickly in order to stop the aliens from reaching critical mass and winning the game. What do you get from three hives in NS2?
xeno, which sucks
umbra, which is helpful but requires coordination to be truly effective
vortex, which is completely worthless
stomp, which makes onos a little better in combat but isn't really needed
And then you get cloaking and slience, neither of which is that useful for the late game.
That's the main problem in NS2 - the aliens are perfectly capable of being competitive on two hives and the only truly worthwhile advantage of a third is the ability to drop onos eggs. This means that breaking turtles become really difficult for the aliens, and it also means that aliens need to spend much less to be competitive with the marines (but this is another balance problem entirely). If the third hive was actually necessary for the aliens to win, not only would res requirements be more equal, but it would also mean that marine turtling would be solved because aliens would be powerful enough to break it. It would also give the marines a viable reason to secure a second tech point, thus preventing any marine tech from needing to be linked to TPs.
Feels alright, I do understand it from the balance perspective
The skulk bhop seems to have been modified, it doesn't feel too great now, a few times ago it was fast, smooth, and accelerated momentum just by walljumping, now the acceleration is slower, and it requires "upward/downward" wall jumping, so to get that little "boost" per jump you need to look upward after the jump, it just doesn't feel as good/fun. However in combat I'm noticing I can now do wall bouncing off walls to 180 back to my target much quicker
As stated before I didn't like the decreased range of onos gore, thought it was toned down too much, but if it's going to stay like that, then I wouldn't mind that celerity speed boost he was getting before which also seems to be taken away (plus he still cannot crouch jump I believe, which can cause stuck issues)
umm nothing else is coming to mind right now, also haven't played an actual match of it in a while
Movement does feel a little different, but you can still easily bhop/walljump around the map smoothly I'm finding. I like the walljump change, it seems to have a little more "oumphh" behind it and you can raise your angle a bit more without losing speed so it's more useful in combat.
Has fade adren useage been changed? Found myself running out of it rather quickly, though I may have just been heavy on the finger those games.
If you have comms/khams who know how the BT mod works you can see much more diverse strategies these days. I like that.
* Now it isnt a 'lets get weapons 1 after armor 1' always mentality. Some push for JP which adds damage in another way. (following that lifeform running away for example)
* Skulk Walljump/hop seems better then what is on live. You can feel the speed increase, making it more obvious to new players.
* More abilities due to biomass on 1 hive making 1 hive fights also more interesting.
All in all I found the mod quite enjoyable. May say perhaps even more then the live version of ns2 at the moment.
* Lerk seems a bit off on the speeds though. It feels wrong.
* swapping blink and shadowstep seems ok, especailly with 1 CC JP. Took me a while but I definitely see the value in the change.
* onos gore seems a little to less range at the moment. It has huge tusks, I expect it to hit stuff.
* the resource x10 change is, for me, the hardest part to get used to. I understand why it is changed, but it feels very off.
Well done so far sewlek. I hope to see much of it live.
The Gore range nerf was needed, though. Some areas would look like they were out of range of the Onos according to it's model while it was still able to frag you with it's tele-horn.
The x10 change is there so finer tweaks to the res costs can be made without having to use decimals.
I noticed that all weapon and armor levels seem to be available on 1 CC now…
So marines can get their entire tech on 1 CC now, which makes it even harder to break turtles since you can't deny any stuff by taking out other bases. So given a base trade situation, marines will never really feel urged to go back to save their base if they have the chance to kill a Hive instead. Killing the Hive makes aliens weaker and sets them back by a fair amount of res (Biomass cost included). Marines will still be able to operate fine from a single base.
Don't think I like that change.
The Supply increase is barely a reason to get another CC currently, since marines will hardly run out of their 100 starting Supply at the current prices during normal gameplay. Really would have liked to see a system where additional Arms Lab upgrades also cost additional Supply.
Anyway, that being said:
I can see the Arms Lab change trying to somewhat compensate for the critic point mentioned above, so aliens can try to end turtles by targeting the Arms Lab.
Still not really convinced. Marines were continuing to turtle for about 10 minutes in a game today. We had a massive amount of Onos, Fades and Lerks, but marines just kept sitting in Sub Sector and were spamming the entry ways with the buffed GLs and thus prevented any Gorge or forward base from getting even close.
Alien upgrade change is welcomed.
But the Hive change in combination with the increased starting cash makes insta-dropping a Hive really a no-brainer. It already was before and criticized here, but now it's getting a bit ridiculous. In vanilla is insta-dropping a second Hive a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Now that would probably only apply for dropping two Hives at once.
I am a bit lost on what the reason for this change was. Perhaps the cost reduction to make up for the fact that you need to invest more Biomass again later and thus losing a Hive is already costly enough. But then such a cost decrease would rather call for something to offset it instead of adding yet another buff that makes alien expansion harder to deny for marines.
Gorges are already healing stuff up faster than in vanilla, so why reduce the build time even more? If the above mentioned additional Biomass investment was indeed a reason for the cost decrease, then perhaps make it so that Hives have less HP/armor by default and gain more when they get their Biomass upgraded. So marines can take those growing Hives down easier and the amount of effort to kill a Hive is more in line with how much the Hive is actually worth.
Also, I feel like the GL buff is a bit overdone. I am a bit worried that you often swing the full nerf/buff bat at once instead of approaching things one at a time.
Since you have the ability to update this mod so often and instantly, why not tweak things in more graceful steps?
Now we have
- GL cost decrease
- GL ammo increase
- Whip nerf in it's ability to be a proper defense against GLs.
Those GL guys turtling in the marine base could just kill our forward Crag base regardless of the Whip that I placed there. And since grandes explode nearly instantly now after getting whipped, you are not only forced to put your whips far out in the front to be an actual protection for stuff around it but also take away any punishment that was involved for an overzealous GL spammer. Now he can keep trying to spam his nades until the whip eventually dies from falloff damage instead of forcing him and his comrades to clear the whip out first.
Onos was really that to big on range? Hahaha, guess im to used to the way it is on live now.
As for a turtle problem.. I do not see it.
JP and exo cost res. If its a turtle it means 1 rt. So that will eventually solve itself.
Now you got a turtle with w1/a1 as its 1 cc and should end even faster.
It would probably be more tolerable if my FPS wasn't a slide show in those situations, though. In the game CrushaK is talking about I was getting ~15fps in sub-sector with so much going on within the area.
That is no longer the case. As I mentioned in my post, the CC restriction seems to be lifted entirely. So marines CAN get all upgrades to the maximum on 1 CC and keep turtling. They don't get any weaker if aliens take out the second CC. If marines built a lot of IPs before, they can fend aliens off for a long time to come.
Also all tech on 1 CC will be fine if and when alien T3 abilities become more menacing. That and I think exos will still need to be toned down further in the damage department for this to not become stupid.
Things like this generally come from inexperience to coordinate a final attack
I was still asuming it wasnt possible.
Also I did notice GL seem very powerful in turtles at the moment, although that may be due to w3.
I disagree a bit on aliens more menacing = it ok for marines to have all ups still.
But I havent had chance to play it loads so im going on this weekend.
Well, yeah. It was a pub, it was on Mineshaft with them in the South base so they have a massive defensive advantage, and this mod currently gives them A3/W3/Exos/JP's on one base. It is not a surprise it was hell to push. However Sewlek is currently attempting to fix it so it should not be an issue.
Also, I really like that you got rid of 3rd CC requirements for marines, but for it to really work aliens should scale a little higher on the third/fourth hive especially. (Maybe 4 hives could give a huge bonus to help end games?) And I reckon there wouldn't be any harm to putting A/W3 on 2 CCs, it's just the 3rd CC requirement that is ridiculous imo.
Noticed biomass now gives a bit more health per level (5 for lerk, didn't check for other life forms). Would it be possible to have biomass increase more for a higher hive biomass level rather than just a flat rate. For example 1 hive on biomass 3 would give more health than 1 hive on biomass 2 and another on biomass 1, even though they both give an effective biomass of 3.
I like the sound of the stomp changes, should help break those pesky turtles.
Would also be nice of gas went back to blocking sentries (helps against turtling too), with sentries no longer being capped to a battery but instead just capped per room and/or to the build cap.
Lastly, xenocide was amazing against last base turtles with marines not having A3, if A3 doesn't become 2 CCs it would be nice if the damage was buffed. I really don't see how that could be a bad thing, by the time xenocide comes out marines almost always have A3 and the ability is practically useless.
Stomp overheats the guns? Just 1 stomp? Sounds overpowered
Stomp works in a radius? Does this mean it affects jetpack marines? Could be interesting...
- Hives cost now 500 res
- Biomass 2 upgrade costs 200 res again
- Biomass 3 upgrade costs 550 (!) res now
I hope that includes an HP buff for Hives with each Biomass upgrade, though. Otherwise you are looking at massive economical hits when losing a Hive (1250 res, aka a tres Fade + Onos in vanilla), not even counting structures around it like 600 additional res in trait structures (if all nine are there, this could be as well a total of 1800) and ~375 res in chamber structures if there is one of each kind.
A fully teched up alien base would be worth ~3500 res, assuming everything is in that one base. If you distribute the trait structures evenly on 3 Hives, you would still be looking at ~2300 res in a base.
Even if marines lose their main base with all the common structures there, then that is just
150 res Command Station
200 res Infantry Portal (x2)
100 res Armory (+250 res Advanced upgrade)
150 res Observatory
150 res Phase Gate
200 res Arms Lab
150 res Robotics Factory (+100 res ARC upgrade)
400 res Prototype Lab
So their fully teched up base with everything that they could need would only cost 2050 res.
This goes a bit against this whole "the alien economy is more efficient than the marine one; marines need to hold more RTs than aliens to be on the same level" kind of thing.
You may argue that Biomass counts as upgrades already and that I left those out on the marine side, but I was only going for investments that could be lost again in the above calculation.
Ok, let's include upgrades on both sides (correct me if I am wrong on some of the alien upgrades, the prices changes quite often:
Aliens:
150 res for Hive specialization (x3) // I know, these are actually losable too and should count to the first calculation instead
100 res Gorge Tunnels
150 res Bile Bomb
200 res Leap
250 res Umbra
250 res Shadowstep
250 res Boneshield
150 res Xenocide
250 res Spores
150 res Vortex
250 res Stomp
2450 res in upgrades
You need to consider though that aliens need at least 3 Hives to get all that tech, so that would be 2x 1250 res in addition to the fully teched up base in the first calculation.
Marines:
150 res Mines
200 res Shotguns
150 res Grenade Launchers
200 res Flamethrowers
150 res Nanoshield
200 res Nanoarmor
200 res W1/A1 (x2)
300 res W2/A2 (x2)
400 res W3/A3 (x2)
200 res Jetpacks
200 res Exosuits
200 res Dualminigun
3450 res in upgrades
So not only do aliens have more losable res on the field but they also need to invest more res and hold more territory to reach their full tech level compared to marines.
I am not suggesting that the Hive cost increase is bad. But shouldn't marines get some more cost increases then as well, since there have been more of a cost reduction on their side thus far?
As for the resource comparisions they are meaningless... Aliens could take 10x the resources that marines need and it wouldnt matter, its all about the balance in the end. In the balance mod it was still to easy to get some basics as alien commander and then just spew nonestop fade eggs, this is an attempt (i think) to stop that from being so easy. An alien commander that gets every single research is one thats just wasting res oftentimes. Most comms I see place way too many support structures, and/or dont think the positions through very well. It results in a lot of wasted resources and time.
When I commed a game I had full cara/celerity, bio 6 and leap/umbra/bile/tunnels/shadowstep on 4 rts at 12 minutes, with the 3rd hive already dropped. Given the normal 3 rts for aliens I dont think that the tech speed is too slow.
But dad, I want poop on my screen.
Also, if marines are going to stay on just 1 CC, with nothing on 2 CCs then I do believe there may be a significant problem with 5 CC maps. Aliens need only 3 hives, with a fourth hive not really doing anything for them, so that's technically one hive room unaccounted for. If we are serious about having aliens break 1 CC marine turtles, the most straightforward solution would be to give aliens a significant power advantage when on four hives over three.
What if for example the fourth hive enabled the aliens to slot another upgrade? (So for example regen and carapace + cele + phantom) Or what if it enabled an ability like focus? Etc etc I'm sure there's many ways to go about it.
Now we just need to curb equipment/lifeform explosions.