Unchain the chambers/upgrades for NS2
locallyunscene
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">and other related ideas</div><a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=101056&hl=" target="_blank">This</a> is not a new idea, but I think has been a while and could be discussed again, especially in the context of NS2.
Unchain the chambers:
leave the number upgrades hive dependent, but allow any and all chambers to be dropped
The bad:<ul><li> Reduces an RTS hard counter. Team that picks sensory gives up on it when res control is down and rines are dropping obs everywhere.</li></ul>The good(for competitive):<ul><li> Chamber selection and placement can be more dynamic(I know this word is overused, but it's the right word here)</li></ul>The good(for casual):<ul><li> Individual players have more control over what upgrades are available</li><li> No one has to be chastised for dropping the "wrong" chamber</li></ul>
Corollary <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104534&hl=" target="_blank">idea</a>:
Allow kharaa to regestate and change upgrades.
Unchain the chambers:
leave the number upgrades hive dependent, but allow any and all chambers to be dropped
The bad:<ul><li> Reduces an RTS hard counter. Team that picks sensory gives up on it when res control is down and rines are dropping obs everywhere.</li></ul>The good(for competitive):<ul><li> Chamber selection and placement can be more dynamic(I know this word is overused, but it's the right word here)</li></ul>The good(for casual):<ul><li> Individual players have more control over what upgrades are available</li><li> No one has to be chastised for dropping the "wrong" chamber</li></ul>
Corollary <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104534&hl=" target="_blank">idea</a>:
Allow kharaa to regestate and change upgrades.
Comments
One can always tune the ressource costs for chambers and whatsoever to balance this suggestion.
If unchaining chambers is really too much, one could still find some kind of compromise like, for example, make an additional type of chamber available, when another hive is dropped instead of finished building.
Oh just got a good idea and I will write it down. We discussed that the alien commander should be dependant on his team to make it the opposite of the marine commander, I think if "teching" works like this for the alien commander we can also make this true for tech trees:
- lets say the alien commander wants to upgrade an improved focus, what he needs is a given number of sensory towers build by his gorges he uses their energy or something like that (maybe it can refresh over time, or it even destroys the towers in the process or or or anything is possible <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> ) and purchases an upgrade with those 3 sensory chambers, he isn't allowed to buy another sensory upgrade with those lets say 3 chambers ...
Don't make the upgrades too expensive or the whole map will be spammed with chambers. In addition a lets say sensory chamber can parasite passing marines or giving a vision for a short time on level one, if the alien comm upgrades it he can add a little stealth radius or go from scent of fear vision to auto parasiting marines in line of sight, next would be parasiting without line of sight and little stealth for buildings only and so on (additionally you can make these tech trees dependant on the number of hives you have) so the alien commander customizes the buildings and chooses an overall strategy but he relies on the gorges and other lifeforms to be able to execute the things he wants, or better said, the team controls what the commander is "allowed" to do ...
Just got that idea when I read through all this here I hope you like it, its a bit clustered and might seem unclear but please take your time to read it carefully I feel that this is a quite nice idea .... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Greetings 1mannARMEE
EDIT: .trixX. said that the current upgrading is to restrictive and he doesn't want to die all the time to get new upgrades, so you can't really adept to some special situations
Taking .trixX. post into consideration to solve this problem its quite simple:
You are allowed to go into a larval stadium to upgrade on any given time, but you will have to pay extra ressources if you already posses one upgrade on the same slot (to stop abuses, lets say first upgrade 0 ress evolve time 0 seconds // changing same upgrade so second upgrade: 2 ressources 5 seconds evolve time // third: 4 ressources 10 seconds evolve time)...
Just wanted to add that <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
One thing I like about ns is that you have to make a choice about what chamber to use. If you go dcs second, that's what you'll be using. The whole thing with SC, is it lets you cloak (which can pwn early game) so that you can get the second hive up.
I'm not that surprised. I think it will fit better with NS2 because of the kharaa commander. Also, I'm not advocating for multiple upgrades w/o multiple hives, just the ability to regestate upgrades. IE: a skulk gets cara, then someone drops mc's and he drops cara for celerity. So yes, 10 res to get cloak, but not cloak + cel + cara with one hive.
I like this idea. Especially if it gets the alien commander involved somehow.
It could be possible to drop all chambers at any time, but early game chambers would be weaker than in NS1. Alien chambers would need to be upgraded in order to make their abilities more powerful.
Each chamber could have "energy" like the marine obs does in NS1. This energy is pooled between similar chambers at an increasing rate the more chambers you have. (max rate at 3 chambers) The alien commander can use this energy for upgrades or special abilities and has separate abilities and energy pools for each type of chamber. (kind of like different resources in a typical RTS game)
As the aliens get more hives, the abilities can either get stronger, new abilities/upgrades become available, or both.
The alien commander must decide whether to use this energy to upgrade alien abilities(cloaking/celerity/etc.) or to use other chamber or spell like abilities to help his team.
Aliens still use normal map resources to build structures and change lifeforms, but upgrades are in the hands of the alien commander. So while the alien players can decide which chambers to build first, the commander decides whilch chambers will have the strongest abilities.
When I have time later, maybe I'll post something more thoughtful.
Unchain the chambers:
leave the number upgrades hive dependent, but allow any and all chambers to be dropped
The bad:<ul><li> Reduces an RTS hard counter. Team that picks sensory gives up on it when res control is down and rines are dropping obs everywhere.</li></ul>The good(for competitive):<ul><li> Chamber selection and placement can be more dynamic(I know this word is overused, but it's the right word here)</li></ul>The good(for casual):<ul><li> Individual players have more control over what upgrades are available</li><li> No one has to be chastised for dropping the "wrong" chamber</li></ul>Corollary <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104534&hl=" target="_blank">idea</a>:
Allow kharaa to regestate and change upgrades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Funny you bring this up, I actually suggested this almost 5 years ago with a similar idea regarding Alien tech. Here is the post. <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=65332" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...showtopic=65332</a>
Basically the premise would be to allow aliens to tech similarly to the marines, only being restricted by time and resources. Allowing that opening ended type teching would allow for more of a chess match rather than pure skill and at the same time allow the aliens to use those hive 3 weapons perhaps a little sooner.
Basic premise is this:
Allow the aliens to upgrade the current hive, OR build a new hive in a room of choosing. Also allow aliens to build tech chambers that would allow other aliens to "upgrade" their weapons for a cost.
For example. If a gorge dropped what we'll call an evolution chamber, which would allow me as a lerk to pay a res fee to evolve umbra. Since we are at hive 1, umbra would replace spores as my second weapon. If a gorge dropped a 2nd evolution chamber, I would be able to evolve primal scream instead of spores.
Now if the hive is upgraded or built as an expansion, I get access to an additional chamber upgrade as well as an additional weapon (i.e. I would get bite, spores AND umbra) and If I wanted to I could upgrade to primal scream for a res fee.
It was just food for thought, allowing aliens to spend that res they have at the end of the game and put it to something productive.
It could be possible to drop all chambers at any time, but early game chambers would be weaker than in NS1. Alien chambers would need to be upgraded in order to make their abilities more powerful.
Each chamber could have "energy" like the marine obs does in NS1. This energy is pooled between similar chambers at an increasing rate the more chambers you have. (max rate at 3 chambers) The alien commander can use this energy for upgrades or special abilities and has separate abilities and energy pools for each type of chamber. (kind of like different resources in a typical RTS game)
As the aliens get more hives, the abilities can either get stronger, new abilities/upgrades become available, or both.
The alien commander must decide whether to use this energy to upgrade alien abilities(cloaking/celerity/etc.) or to use other chamber or spell like abilities to help his team.
Aliens still use normal map resources to build structures and change lifeforms, but upgrades are in the hands of the alien commander. So while the alien players can decide which chambers to build first, the commander decides whilch chambers will have the strongest abilities.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Looks like someone understood what I was trying to say, thanks <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Sometimes my English skills totally fail <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
About the energy bar, I thought of it the same way like you have got it when you run around in NS1 it should work the same for an alien commander, it should be the extra resource for using global abilities, beside the normal tech tree that should depend on what your aliens on the ground provide for you...
Those evolution chambers you are talking about seem hard to balance ... if they are too cheap you can hide plenty of them somewhere, if they are too expensive or to big to be hidden, they get killed "easily" if they are too expensive the aliens lack their other abilities ... if you try to balance this by making the alien abilities weaker ... they will also suck in the end game so basically I do not like the idea... probably you could do it with the alien commander but that would be too similar to the marine commander and the aliens would be too dependant on their commander.
If you played Dawn of War ... the alien commander energy bar should be like the Dark Eldar energy for global abilities, but refreshes on their own ...
... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> I post again when I've got a clearer mind <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Basically the premise would be to allow aliens to tech similarly to the marines, only being restricted by time and resources. Allowing that opening ended type teching would allow for more of a chess match rather than pure skill and at the same time allow the aliens to use those hive 3 weapons perhaps a little sooner.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for that. I thought there was a better older post out there but I had the word "unchain" in my head and didn't know what else to search for.
The idea of swappable abilities really intrigues me. For some classes it seems natural. I could see the lerk onos and fade getting a real healthy boost out of this gameplay-wise. However leap xeno bile and web would all be swapped for spit and para without question.
I really hope hives are less location dependent because I think that would at least free up kharaa tech as you were suggesting.
Allow a Gorge to evolve in to a chamber himself. What I mean by that is, a Gorge could, instead of dropping an SC, evolve an SC on his back so he could act as a mobile chamber. The chamber wouldn't unlock the upgrades you get from solid chambers, but would still have the area of effect the chamber in question has. In this case, the Gorge would render all Kharaa around him invisible and light up all marines because of the SC upgrade.
Saying "evolve an SC on his back" isn't quite what I mean, so don't take it literally, that'd be tacky. Just that the Gorge's look would change a bit so you can look at him and go "oh, that gorge is a mobile SC, I'll go stand near him so I become invisible."
The idea of swappable abilities really intrigues me. For some classes it seems natural. I could see the lerk onos and fade getting a real healthy boost out of this gameplay-wise. However leap xeno bile and web would all be swapped for spit and para without question.
I really hope hives are less location dependent because I think that would at least free up kharaa tech as you were suggesting.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bare in mind, that was an idea designed for NS1, at the time I felt that it would significantly help the strategy side of the gameplay.
It would force more offensive as basically turret lockdowns would be useless without a marine defending them (lerk can evolve umbra for support, gorge can evolve bile bomb, all of which would have to sacrifice spores and heal spray respectively.
Of course all of this would happen with at the cost of resources to the aliens, and likewise would have to be balanced to make sure the aliens do not have the equivalent to the 1.04 Marine Rush.