There seems to be a lack of awareness concerning Power Surge

CrushaK

The ability has been in the game for quite a while by now. And yet so many marine commanders seem to be completely unaware of it and the strategic options associated with it.

Often marines lose the base power to a surprise alien rush, but most commanders lose their cool about it and send the team on foot to reclaim the base.

I've even seen this in top comp games: aliens disable a forward PG (in the Neck) after fighting about 10 minutes to break through that siege of their base by killing the power while marines are on the other side of the map (in System Waypointing at another PG) in the meanwhile.
A Robotics Factory was built on the marine side, yet the marine commander sends all marines on foot back to that PG, rather than surging it for a moment.

But likewise seem aliens completely unaware of the Power Surge as well because they opted to ignore that troublesome PG after killing the power, figuring that there was no immediate danger associated with it in the aftermath.



Not even talking about using it offensively to rapidly get a forward position up in a critical moment and building the Power Node after the reinforcements arrived.

Just think of all the countless options you have when you lost the power in a base:
- Power Surge an Observatory to surprise the aliens with an unexpected beacon.
- Power Surge an IP to reinforce a base immediately after losing it, instead of having everyone spawn at the second base.
- Power Surge a PG to enable the team to reinforce it quickly.
- Power Surge a Robotics Factory to produce MACs that can repair the Power Node and base if the enemy retreated already or there is a marine around to provide cover.
- Power Surge an Armory to provide the arrived reinforcements with support while retaking the base.
- Power Surge the Arms Lab so your troops don't get picked off immediately by arriving aliens.
- Power Surge a Proto Lab and insta-drop an Exo for the lulz.

aeroripper

I've used it a number of times and it is pretty handy. I think its odd that you need a robotics factory to use it, which is typically the limiting factor why I don't use it very often. When the power goes out in your base, that usually means your robo factory is also unpowered which means no power surge. I rarely put an extra one outside my main base, unless I happen to be sieging somewhere locally. I would rather see it moved to research on the command station like nano shield currently is tbh. Although ever since even nano-shield was moved to the CC, I've seen it used much less than it was before 250. Move both to the armory? :P

CrushaK

The thing with Nanoshield is probably that you usually forget about being there until you actually feel the need to use it - but then it takes very long for it to research, plus it being so expensive. By the time you can actually use it, the acute need for it is long gone again. It is basically something that requires a lot of foresight, but you usually don't have any spare res for it in the early game for that kind of foresight.

I think it's good that Power Surge is tied to the Robotics Factory because it means that you can prevent marines from using it instead of always having to fear that they can still power one thing in their base after having it researched.

current1y

Never seen it once used in a pub game.

Side1Bu2Rnz9

current1y wrote: »

Never seen it once used in a pub game.

I've seen it used, but very rarely and mostly just to bring a dead obs back to life for one final beacon. I've used it to power up a phase gate on maps like veil where it seems the aliens rushing nano will go straight for the power node and ignore the phase gate.

Desther

Robo builds pretty fast. You can start building it even after the power goes down in your distant base and still have a chance to save it by repowering the pg.

Mouse

A decent part of its lack of use is that it's not the most obvious of abilities. You don't have to research it, it just quietly appears on every structure once you have a robo.

AWhite

Like nanoshield its one of those things thats handy if its around. I like the idea of using it to phase into a room that has no power for ambushes, going to keep that in mind for second hive snipes...

kk20

I only played pubs and i saw it a few times. I had no idea it existed or how it worked. It sure pissed me off when i ninja gorged the power only to find a beacon taking place afterwards!

Vetinari

The problem with powering pgs in pubs is to get the ppl to go through the pg. Herding cats squared.

I always research nanoshield, though. It's awesome, in most marine-skulk fights it's way more helpful than medpacks.

elodea

i hate to be that guy but..

remove powersurge, remove powernodes. Game becomes better.

hakenspit

elodea wrote: »

i hate to be that guy but..

remove powersurge, remove powernodes. Game becomes better.

The first one yes..the second no.

They removed power packs because no one really used them and they seemed unintuitive...yet they get rehashed as "power surge"?
I dont see that they do anything but make it harder for aliens to break a marine base/turtle.

Removing powernode would similarly make it harder for aliens to take down a base.

I would say remove the cyst/infestation mechanic before you consider removing the powernodes.

_Necro_

Unchain buildings from power
Reduce power nodes to "light switches" = battlefield modifier.
Decrease health of power nodes drastically.
A skulk should be able to kill a power node in 3-5 seconds.
A marine should be able to repair a power node in 3-5 seconds.

Ghosthree3

Really shouldn't remove an ability because people are too stupid to use it.

elodea

hakenspit wrote: »

elodea wrote: »

i hate to be that guy but..

remove powersurge, remove powernodes. Game becomes better.

The first one yes..the second no.

They removed power packs because no one really used them and they seemed unintuitive...yet they get rehashed as "power surge"?
I dont see that they do anything but make it harder for aliens to break a marine base/turtle.

Removing powernode would similarly make it harder for aliens to take down a base.

I would say remove the cyst/infestation mechanic before you consider removing the powernodes.

Powerpacks were actually great. They helped cover all the flaws in the powernode system - just like powersurge does. I used them and so did mostly everyone else, which is why they ended up being removed due to 'turtle' reasons. Read on.

If you need to have an 'I win button' in marine base to prevent impossible to break turtles, then you arn't designing the fundamentals in your game right in the first place. Imagine if you were playing protoss and you weren't allowed to overlap pylons. How stupid would that be?

You deal with turtle issues by.. dealing with those turtle issues. Common sense 101. Not slap in an incredibly volatile mechanic that lets be honest, is only in for the immersion kicks. The anti-turtle arguement is just there to 'justify' it so that we all feel smart.

Powernodes are just flawed. It only takes a little bit of thought and play time to realise why. If you want me to give more detailed explanation you can ask and i'd be happy to, but i don't want to tl;dr a topic that has already been done to death. There is no viable solution to fix the issues they bring to the table other than remove, or reduce powernode gameplay impact.

*Is it one of the bigger issues atm? Probably not. Is it an issue that could easily be dealt with though? I think so. Although, if powernodes don't get attention for certain non-gameplay reasons, I think unhooking powersurge from robo would be a good idea.

hakenspit

elodea wrote: »

hakenspit wrote: »

elodea wrote: »

i hate to be that guy but..

remove powersurge, remove powernodes. Game becomes better.

The first one yes..the second no.

They removed power packs because no one really used them and they seemed unintuitive...yet they get rehashed as "power surge"?
I dont see that they do anything but make it harder for aliens to break a marine base/turtle.

Removing powernode would similarly make it harder for aliens to take down a base.

I would say remove the cyst/infestation mechanic before you consider removing the powernodes.

Powerpacks were actually great. They helped cover all the flaws in the powernode system - just like powersurge does. I used them and so did mostly everyone else, which is why they ended up being removed due to 'turtle' reasons. Read on.

If you need to have an 'I win button' in marine base to prevent impossible to break turtles, then you arn't designing the fundamentals in your game right in the first place. Imagine if you were playing protoss and you weren't allowed to overlap pylons. How stupid would that be?

You deal with turtle issues by.. dealing with those turtle issues. Common sense 101. Not slap in an incredibly volatile mechanic that lets be honest, is only in for the immersion kicks. The anti-turtle arguement is just there to 'justify' it so that we all feel smart.

Powernodes are just flawed. It only takes a little bit of thought and play time to realise why. If you want me to give more detailed explanation you can ask and i'd be happy to, but i don't want to tl;dr a topic that has already been done to death. There is no viable solution to fix the issues they bring to the table other than remove, or reduce powernode gameplay impact.

*Is it one of the bigger issues atm? Probably not. Is it an issue that could easily be dealt with though? I think so. Although, if powernodes don't get attention for certain non-gameplay reasons, I think unhooking powersurge from robo would be a good idea.

I did like power nodes getting taken out and having marines still spawning with the old power packs...fighting in a darkened marine spawn offered aliens more of an advantage and made defending as a marine that much harder.
That this is no longer possible I do feel was a loss.

Once they made power on by default nodes were not in there for aesthetics at all....I mean FFS the alien spawn is lit up like a xmas tree.
How can you say the elements in there for aesthetics when , I am sure every one would agree, dark hives are better than brightly lit ones.
The only reason to keep power at all is that it offered a weak spot to the turtle situation (or so we were led to believe).
I was more pointing out the fact that people said similar about power packs when they were removed "no-one uses them that much".

Turtles were an issue in NS...they are an even bigger issue in NS2 (IMO) yet the obvious solutions such as limiting weapons and armour upgrades to be based on CC's held (as well as research costs) is an obvious solution thats been put up for while during the beta...yet ignored.


Whilst talking things that started as more aesthetics, lets not forget that infestation was originally simply aesthetics too....but instead of finding other options to the alien starting point res grab they linked building to being on infestation.
They then had to continue to find other ways to gimp alien res grabs as that did not solve things...so harvesters started at lower health.

The power node and infestation seem to have been kept/influence changed for the wrong reasons...what was very much about immersion/aesthetics morphed into game limiting elements.

amoral

powernodes power res and lights fully in a room. but all other structures at half efficiency. power packs in room bring it up to full. so you take down a node in base, ips warp in twice as long, phase gate cooldown twice as slow, beacon twice as slow, arms lab drops from 33 to 11, armory tick rate twice as long. power surge the phase or IP to get back to 100 percent efficiency. when node is out and pack is there red lights get activated, when no node and no pack, permanent blackout.

AurOn2

SHHH!
You'll spill the huge secret! :P