Welding Suggestion
JackBoCracken
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7928Members
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7928Members
I posted this in the suggestion forum but they bickered at me and told me to take it here (I don't really see why) but I'm going to do it anyway.
A lot of the vents in NS are weldable. This is good, and bad.
It'd be really nice if you could make it so once the far end was welded, the near end also automatically closed. Why?
Well, for one, it really sucks when a lerk zooms through your base and into the closed vent, where he morphs into a either a gorge (if there's room) and build a few defense towers inside the vent, or into a fade (or into a gorge and then into a fade).
After the three minutes or so it takes to gather the resources and evolve through all this, the marines have the wonderful experience of:
-Getting hit by acid rocket as soon as they spawn
-Getting hit by web as soon as they spawn
I know, I know, "You should have a grenade launcher to counter this."
Well, yeah. But on some vents, the grenades drop harmlessly down, or worse, bounce way down and around the corner. Mines don't work, and neither do jetpacks--it's a waste to send a marine up there when the fade really only has one place to aim in order to kill the marine.
Either way, it's a big drain on the marines to keep fighting and trying at the same time to rid their base of this perpetual annoyance.
At this point, I leave vents open so later in the game, a marine can go from behind to deal with such a nuisance. Which sort of defeats the purpose of welding vents in the first place.
A lot of the vents in NS are weldable. This is good, and bad.
It'd be really nice if you could make it so once the far end was welded, the near end also automatically closed. Why?
Well, for one, it really sucks when a lerk zooms through your base and into the closed vent, where he morphs into a either a gorge (if there's room) and build a few defense towers inside the vent, or into a fade (or into a gorge and then into a fade).
After the three minutes or so it takes to gather the resources and evolve through all this, the marines have the wonderful experience of:
-Getting hit by acid rocket as soon as they spawn
-Getting hit by web as soon as they spawn
I know, I know, "You should have a grenade launcher to counter this."
Well, yeah. But on some vents, the grenades drop harmlessly down, or worse, bounce way down and around the corner. Mines don't work, and neither do jetpacks--it's a waste to send a marine up there when the fade really only has one place to aim in order to kill the marine.
Either way, it's a big drain on the marines to keep fighting and trying at the same time to rid their base of this perpetual annoyance.
At this point, I leave vents open so later in the game, a marine can go from behind to deal with such a nuisance. Which sort of defeats the purpose of welding vents in the first place.
Comments
Originally I had planned for the Marine Start res to be down a stairwell and in a room, which would place the res point a good distance from the CC, making the Marine strategy for the main base a little different. However, I ended up putting the res across the room in a nook, and then the passage for the res made a total of 4 entrances to MS, which would probably have made it too hard for Marines to defend down the line, so I closed up the stairwell. Then, I thought of vents.
Now, I too though of the Fade, and how vents into MS can be a very annoying waste of time and ammo. I found an easy solution. I'm going to make the vent facing down, which means Fades can drop onto open ground (or Skulks or Lerks can race across MS and cause some trouble) but they CAN'T SPAM THE BASE. I could even put in an unbreakable grating in front of the opening, so they can see what they're jumping into, but not hit it 'till they take a risk. I like this idea. It rewards sneaky Aliens and alert Marines, which is what, IMO, NS is all about.
Oh yeah, there will probably be breakable, weldable gratings over the vents, just cuz they're fun.
Solutions?
Well, I suppose you could have buttons on the inside of vents, which open both ends simultaniously (and also close them, presumably). Be sure to have the buttons a small distance from the vent exit though, as aliens might be able to 'activate' the button through the wall otherwise.
Alternatively, you could trigger a trigger_hurt inside the vent and kill anything that gets trapped. Not the friendliest method, and you'd probably need some kind of visual to account for it, which, except in certain map cases, rules this idea out due to the HL limit in how much detail you can actually cram into one map. (Think of all the entities for each vent)
Oh, and of course you can always have a golden 3rd way out into a relatively harmless area, eg, a corridor, and leave this exit always open.
<u>Random Tip</u>
If you want to force someone out of a vent in your map for whatever reason, you can use an invisible func_door to push them out. Just be sure they can't get caught on anything. I dunno what you might use this for, but it's a trick for anyone who might need it.