Upgrading Hives!
f3rret
Join Date: 2002-05-29 Member: 686Members
Join Date: 2002-05-29 Member: 686Members
<div class="IPBDescription">I think I'm on to something here!</div> How does this sound:
Instead of building 3 hives, the aliens just have to have 3 LEVELS of hive.... They could upgrade their main hive twice, or expand to one, and upgrade the main one, or expand to all 3.
Yes, some aliens are faster than humans, and yes, they could make it to a hive that is being attacked faster than a human could make it to base. But the humans have 1 base to defend, and the aliens have 3... I think this would be more fair.
All we have to do is find the appropriate resource cost for upgrading a hive, and you're set! No more whining about having to un-camp one of your bases, because you won't need it!
Marines can build a command center anywhere, and the aliens have 3 locations where they COULD build a hive. They could build a backup one, or they could just stick with one.
Having 3 locations where the hive could be is still cool... it will make the marines think a bit.
Sound like a good idea?
Instead of building 3 hives, the aliens just have to have 3 LEVELS of hive.... They could upgrade their main hive twice, or expand to one, and upgrade the main one, or expand to all 3.
Yes, some aliens are faster than humans, and yes, they could make it to a hive that is being attacked faster than a human could make it to base. But the humans have 1 base to defend, and the aliens have 3... I think this would be more fair.
All we have to do is find the appropriate resource cost for upgrading a hive, and you're set! No more whining about having to un-camp one of your bases, because you won't need it!
Marines can build a command center anywhere, and the aliens have 3 locations where they COULD build a hive. They could build a backup one, or they could just stick with one.
Having 3 locations where the hive could be is still cool... it will make the marines think a bit.
Sound like a good idea?
Comments
Seriously though, what's the point of making the aliens build in, and defend 3 different places?
Can I put this in my sig for a week or so? It makes me laugh so hard! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Can I put this in my sig for a week or so? It makes me laugh so hard! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
sorry, typo, meant heavy armor, it's 12:15 am here, bit tired. I do that alot in the forums.
Once you make a second hive both hives (or just the orignal) becmoes a level two hive. Nothing different except if you lose your additional hive your original is still level two. This way all of the aliens do not become weaker, and there is a chance that the aliens can recover and go back toward rebuilding the second hive.
Same concept for the third hive. mus have both hives up, and then the orignal becmoes a level 3 hive etc...
Just a thought.
1. When confined to only one hive, Alien forces are extremely weak against Marine sentry forces.
2. Marine commands will often seal off the other two hives and thus pretty much doom the aliens from the start.
Admittedly, if the aliens are good players, they'll be able to prevent the marines from being able to do this. However, they have to find the marines first. It's actually pretty easy to get up two or three turrets, even early in the game, and that's all it really takes to stave off an alien invasion when there's only Skulks and Gorges to go up against.
Combine this with the technology problem. Marines can stick in a small area their command room, arms lab, proto lab, observatory, ect. Then surround that with alot of turrets and they're pretty well gaurented to keep the highest technology weapons/ect for the rest of the game. There are a few other considerations, but it basically breaks down to this: Aliens need to hold three areas across the map to retain maximum potency and they spawn between three randomly. Marines just need to hold one area, which all of the marines spawn from. Throw in the sentry and siege turrets, and the marines have a very nice defencive advantage.
An obvious solution is to give the aliens the same advantage the marines have, being able to put all their technology in one well armed place everybody spawns from. That's what the original poster is suggesting.
Yet, I would like a different solution, since the idea of upgrading a single hive three times because it makes for a less interesting game.
Going back to the original problem, I'm thinking some other solutions would be:
* Give aliens with one hive more effective means of removing marine turrets when they only have one hive.
* Prevent marine sentry or siege turrets from being deployed within firing range of an alien hive location.
* Allow aliens to retain technology gained from hives for a some time after they're destroyed in order to compensate for the technology imbalance.
Regarding the last thing, I had a bit of a brainstorm:
Base alien weapon presense on the existance of movement, sensory, and defencive chambers - if you have all three you get all three extra attacks regardless of how many hives you hold? Thus, the marines can remove the alien's extra attacks provided they're able to destroy all of the alien chambers of a given type. In order to create incentive to drop extra hives, you can keep the creation of additional defencive structures or the ability to evolve into higher life forms on the number of hives you hold. Then of course there's that all important spawn rate - three hives spawn players three times faster.
for those of u who dont know PONG is the International Standard of Grenade Launcher Sound or ISGL for short.
How many hive do the aliens have in the film aliens? 1
Ok so maybe when they take over earth they spread and split into lots, which brings me back to the point of:
"Hey whats this button do???" *presses the big red button*
Ok so maybe when they take over earth they spread and split into lots<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This isn't Aliens.
And 'turret farms' in a hive are definitely a base. Maybe not in the standard sense, but any marine team that simply throws down turrets and a factory is just asking the aliens to retake that room. (REMEMBER: Resource bug.)
One good thing that could change, would be to not allow structures within a radius of hive locations (or just hives that are up), much like the creep in starcraft. Not being able to build because maybe the bacterium is too strong in this area and the nanobots can't fight back.
However, I thinkt hey should still be able to make all three hives. But upgrading all three hives doesn't give a 4th upgrade, 5th, 6th etc. It just gives them a hive to flee to if one id destroyed. It adds more to the infestion.
It's ok if you did; I did too!
Just today playing as Kharaa on Eclipse (albeit with a few playtesters, and the rest were generally smart people) we came back from 1 hive, to 3 hives. See, when a team of Marines starts to fortify a base, you just need to get there as QUICK as you can with EVERY alien.
They had the Eclipse Command Hive turreted to hell. We were in Computer Core, and they were just starting to fortify the Maintenance Access hive. As soon as someone yelled that they were starting to build, around 5 or 6 skulks poured into the room and tore their phase gate apart. Then moved onto the Marines, their tfactory, their nozzle, etc, in the next few runs on their fledgling outpost. They could never get back to the Hive in time to get their buildings up because we knocked their phase gate down so quickly. When they finally did get back to the Hive, they found Fades waiting for them. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
I guess what I'm saying is although aliens lack a commander, they still require some semblance of coordination to win. It's not impossible to come back from 1 Hive and even win the game(we trashed 'em in the end).
broken down:
1 hive upgraded= gorges with babblers, skulks with xenocide..
2 hives both upgraded= fade with bile bomb
3 hives no upgrades= same as before
Because lets face it if you dont have 2 hives and working on the third by the times the marines have ha/hmg its all over. Alien comebacks are extremely hard compaired to marine comebacks which consist of simply killing 1 hive.