Connected gorge tunnels need a green outline
aeroripper
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Comments
Just like Phase Gates.
Nobody hides Phase Gates like this.
Some people do. We call those people "jerks".
Aww that's too bad, hope it can still get put in sometime, as gorges could use a green outline too.
Have a new room structure called the Tunnel HUB. When a gorge drops a tunnel entrance, it creates a gorge tunnel that leads to the HUB which connects to other gorge tunnels. Therefor gorges dont need to drop multiple tunnel entrances at a hive location and you wont get unfinished tunnels.
An underground network of tunnels, awesome.
because gorge tunnels can easily be destroyed unlike phasegates?
That would definetely be cool; thought probably hard to make.
Does the Spark Engine allows dynamic mapping ?
Could be nice, though I can already see the problem of not knowing which branch leads where.
The relatively minor complaints are easy enough to solve.
Tunnels are supposed to be different from phase gates, mainly in that they connect two points only. There's a reason marines can use them: tunnels are predictable and usually easy to defend. 'The hub idea' would make them a stupidly inferior version of phase gates and turn the awareness and strategical options of "there's a marine in the tunnel to x" into a helpless "four exos in the hub gg".
The only way you could balance this is if marines weren't able to use tunnels anymore, which in turn would take away the most interesting thing about them as well as the only thing that stops them from being straight up PG equivalents.
gorge tunnels now : tunnel entrance -> tunnel structure -> tunnel exit
gorge tunnels with hub : tunnel entrance -> tunnel structure -> hub -> tunnel structure -> exit
the -> represent teleports, so you would teleport into a gorge tunnel (like how it is now) then teleport into the HUB structure (easy enough to implement) where there would be several sphincters on the walls with destinations clearly visible.
gorges can still collapse their tunnels, infact it would be easier than it is now where you have to drop both entrance and exit again in order to collapse your tunnel, and then you have a new useless tunnel with entrance and exit next to each other.
it would require a little work to design the room, coding isn't really an issue.
We already see tunnel networks all the time in game. There is normally a hub which is a hive location where all the tunnel entrances are, and this is why we have this thread, because there are too many tunnel entrances, some of which aren't completed tunnels, and its just a mess. As long as gorge tunnels dont instantly teleport units from point A to B, then theres no problem of them being the same as phase gates.
i would argue that the way we have them now they are inferior to phase gates.
Marines and EXO's already take armor damage whilst inside tunnels
There are a number of things that can be done if it turns out your fears are correct
*aliens could have permanent umbra whilst inside the tunnels,
*aliens could get a movement buff
*marines could take both armor and health damage when inside the hub
*prevent welding when inside tunnels (dunno about this though)
well, im sure none of this would change your mind, you seem to be locked into your opinions, its just a pity you made up your mind so fast without ever trying to think about it. Im not the one who came up with this idea though, i stole it from the Ideas forum, where it seemed really popular.
That said, none of your attempts at fixing the problem work in context of keeping balance and the element of fun in tact, because judging by your ideas, you don't seem to understand the actual problem. Balancing gorge tunnels around marines being able to use them is not so much about what happens when marines have entered a gorge tunnel, it's about making it a huge risk and hardly ever viable for them to actually enter one. Here's a very simple scenario illustrating what I'm talking about:
Exos rush Hive 1 and kill it. There's a gorge tunnel inside...
Now, with the current implementation, they would never ever enter that unless they're stupid. The risk of the gorge being alive and relocating their tunnel while the marines are inside is too high. And if they do enter it, aliens know exactly what's coming and from where.
With the hub, it would either be a gamble to guess where the marines will re-appear depending on how many entrances there are, or require an impossible amount of timing and teamwork to destroy the right tunnel at the right time.
The current gorge tunnels add a great element to the game and offer some needed convenience for aliens as well as some interesting possibilities for marines, with the right balance between risk and reward and just about the right amount of teamwork required to effectively use, defend, or attack with them.
The hub would add a form of Russian Roulette to the game. No thanks.
Say there are two finished tunnels in the map (4 tunnel entrances). Going through any entrance takes you to the hub. The hub will also have 4 entrances. There is no distinction between entrance/exit in NS2, so what side of the room does the hub generate the tunnels on? You'd think the "exits" would be on the opposite side of the room, but what does "exit" mean? The 2nd tunnel that was built by the gorge? What if he built them backwards (first near marine base, second in hive)?
Then, if you're inside the hub when a third gorge builds another entrance (or two), the hub instance will have to generate another entrance/exit on the fly? Dynamic mesh generation? Or just have an end that gets extended in a rudimentary way? Without that you will have players stuck inside an old hub instance. And what if a gorge destroys their tunnels? Do they just go dark in the hub, or do they disappear completely? Etc.
And how do you know which tunnel goes where? I don't think you can show it on the map with the way they're set up. We will have to hover over each door and read a tooltip...
The whole thing sounds like a mess, unless I'm not visualising it properly. Maybe explain it more.
So I start as a skulk, and use this lifeform's better mobility to get to my desired spot (I can be there faster, use vents, and don't risk my pRes untill I'm finally where I want to build).
When feeling safe, I evolve into a gorge, and build the 1st half of the tunnel...so back at the hive, there won't be any confusion because of my unfinished gorge tunnel.
Ok I might die on my way back to the hive (where I need to build the 2nd half), but at least the most difficult part is done, preferrably in a sweet and surprising location.
Then back at the hive (after return, or respawn), 2nd half of the tunnel is build, and it's immeadiatly ready for use, without confusion for my team.
From a programming perspective it would probably be best to have a hardcoded limit in the number of entrances. Personally I doubt you'd need more then 6 total, maybe 8. That way you can model a hubroom as a rough hexagon or octagon. Players would enter the room from an orifice in the middle, that is not 2 way. From the middle, you would then have all the potential exits around you. Distance from the center to the exit(s) should be similar to the current tunnels.
Edit: just thought that having a limit on entrances/exits might lead to trolls using them up on you. While requiring a Gorge to place a tunnel point, it might be necessary to give the alien comm the ability to destroy them as well. Then you could have a troll comm, but that already has ways of being dealt with.
The exits would be similar to the current ones, only being available depending on number of tunnel exits currently dropped.
To tell what exit you want quickly as an alien, use a pheromones! Or in other words, colored haze/halos that would appear around an active exit. That same exit would be the same color on the minimap so you can quickly tell where to go. These identifying markers would NOT be visible to invading marine forces. While they can traverse the hub, they would be doing so blind, unless there are only two exits, in that case that's no different then the current implementation.
I'm on mobile atm, I'll try to mspaint my idea later.
MSPAINT Skills activate!
However inorder for this to be effective, it would have to be relitivly subtle when in normal vision and drastic color changes with hive vision. Now many people think there should me a downside to hivevision andd for them this would be OP I disagree and think this could simply add a layer to aliens...
AS far as the hub idea... Hub=bad... but allowing the kammander to shift connections of tunnels could bee used to increase efficency, to reconnect tunnels of dead gorges, and to redirect rines into traps...
I think giving kamms the ability to redirect tunnels would be amazing, it would give kamms somthing to do since they are kinda on auto pilot... a skilled kamm would be able to redirect tunnels at key moments foilling a rine push, or redirecting a lost onos... this could raise the skill ceiling for kamms, however for the begginer kamm tunnels would work as they currently do (sure this opens up the ability to troll, but if a troll iss in the hive its GG anyway)
I was thinking it would be easier if, rather than the commander researching gorge tunnels, he could just drop the hub entrance which would teleport people directly into the hub. Once the hub was built then gorges were allowed to drop the tunnel 'nodes'
something like this
That's what that hub looks like to me.
I'm pretty sure if any marine found any tunnel that connected to said hub, no one would shoot it anymore, but instead say "JACKPOT" and be very appreciative that one structure just gave the entire team access to their every base / place of tactical importance.
I'd stick to the OP's simple suggestion.
Hubs would be fun until they are discovered, giving the Marines quite an advantage. Sure, if the commander can re-direct tunnels it would be nice, but there are situations where he can't and it's GG. That and Rookie comms won't even know what Hit 'm. The only possibility would be that Gorges can build in Hubs, as well as Commanders(Building; Crags, and Shades) This could come out OP, but will ensure some sort of Guerrilla warfare and could balance the idea of ''Marines go all Jackpot'' - Or if only Gorges can build there, what would be OK with me.(Still problem for aliens)
Verdict; Don't. I think it'll come out to unbalanced. It could be a HUGE advantage to the Aliens or a ''Jackpot'' to the Marines. To OP's his comment; YES. That'll be great.
Cheers!
Well its rare for marines to use tunnels as it is now so ... it would be a good thing to encourage them to use them more :P As piratedave said, you can make the Tunnels as risky for marines as you want to make them (remember in star wars when the fleet admiral said "IT's A TRAP" ?
ill make a pic later showing what the ops suggestion would look like, i do agree that it would be better than what we have now, i hate jumping into a tunnel only to find out its not connected, or its the wrong tunnel. Anyways its up to UWE, im not sure if UWE would like outlines as they seem to be into their aesthetics, i know some people who absolutely hate outlines in video games (it all started with Red Alert 3 lol). Either way both suggestions are simple for UWE, the outline suggestion would take a few minutes, the HUB idea would take a weekend.
In my opinion i would prefer having tunnels in a network, it solves the issue of tunnel clutter around hives quite nicely, theres also times when marines destroy tunnel exits and the gorges that placed those tunnels are no longer a gorge to redrop them so we are left with all these unconnected tunnels.
I would add however, we need the location destinations to be clearly visible at a glance, i dont like having to hover over each tunnel for the destination to show up.