Depletion packs (Marine weapon)

posenman · February 2010

Hey guys,

Ive had this idea for a while now. Now its time to spit it out, please bear over with me :)

What ive been thinking is, since aliens are all organic, you could technically develop some kind of biological weapon that weakens structures for example.

So ive been having an idea of depletion packs. Its some kind of syringe where you stab an alien structure and disable it for x amount of time. Be it resource tower or a sensory chamber or what not.

Of course the structures should look like the air drains out them, sort of like they get depleted, all strength is taken away and they just lie there on the floor untill they recover.

For balance issues, maybe it should be a late-game tech.

Well thats basically it, please tell me what you think.

posenman · February 2010

Oh, and the more you use it, the more resistant/faster recovering the structures become ;)

Hybridclaw · February 2010

I don't think it makes too much sense to use something like this.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just inject poison in to the structure to kill it?

Same think goes for the alien team, why not just release an infectious virus to kill off all the humans?

It does fit into to the game's theme of escalation though, where each team is trying to get increasingly more powerful weapons.

posenman · February 2010

Another thought is have it work like the Wrench from Opposing force. You have to "charge" it -By charge i mean quickly analyse where to inject- and tbh this analasys timer should be interuptable so it could actually work against aliens themselves but not be imba.

posenman · February 2010

Why not make a Win Button... :)

I just thought this would make for an interesting game element :) I would love to run around ninjaing structures

Hybridclaw · February 2010

It would make more sense to have it packaged into a dart gun, but that would be over powered.

A weapon a able to instantly disable an alien structure seems much more powerful than anything the aliens have. Of course if bile bomb could kill marine structures and damage heavy armor in NS2, then I'll be happy.

:)

posenman · February 2010

Well your right about the dart gun. But then we could talk success rate. I guess the aliens have more and less armored parts. Without getting into the whole hitbox thingie, you could just say there is a x% chance of successfull injection.. If a dart gun was ever to be implemented :)

Imagine having an onos running towards you, first shot fails.. second shot fails.. as it gets closer and closer, the 3rd shot is a success and the onos falls to the ground and slides toward you. This is when you really start running, it will be up in a sec.

But its just quick ideas, i dont know how they fit in with the overall design and vision of the game. The biological aspect could be explored and give very rewarding gameplay though.

Make it an expansion, whatever.. :)

Hybridclaw · February 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (posenman @ Feb 13 2010, 05:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1752990"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Imagine having an onos running towards you, first shot fails.. second shot fails.. as it gets closer and closer, the 3rd shot is a success and the onos falls to the ground and slides toward you. This is when you really start running.</div>
That could be a little over powered.

*A side note on being overpowered*
Why not just inject the dynamic infestation causing the entire alien team to be temporarily disabled?
:)

Kickchon · February 2010

I'd like to point out that random elements are bad in an FPS in my opinion.

Either it works and the target which was hit is angry because his opponent was lucky,
or it does not work and the utilizer is angry because "it freaking never works if you need it to".

Once more: Being able to decide an encounter by luck has no place in an FPS.

posenman · February 2010

I beg to differ. The hitboxes in counter-strike and the recoil of weapons.... I mean if your statement would be true, no one would be spraying and spraying in this game, although it is the most commonly used tactic. But its all relative, if a player expects to have 100% hits and you alter it for one reason or another to make it hit less.. i think ragequits at worst would ensue. People would stop playing. With the right kind of implementation random can be good, it can be exciting.

Kickchon · February 2010

In fact this is one of the reasons i don't like counter-strike that much. If I aim correctly I want to hit. Though the recoil is random but in a quite limited way, so "controlling" it is somehow a skill in itself.
This randomness you describe is controllable by refraining from spray-and-pray.

This mechanic obviously is meant to keep you from spraying and everyone accepts it that way. However imaging your first shot would magically not hit the point you aimed at without being able to do something about it. The game would disappear because luck can determine the outcome.

By the way, how often do you say "Oh he had luck when he sprayed like that." IMO the random recoil is not fun. It however increases realism in the game.

I don't see how the randomness increases the excitment factor of a game. ;)

monopolowa · February 2010

This doesn't really fit the Marines' style. Typically it's the aliens that have the disables (umbra, web, etc.) while the marines focus on increasing their own power (HMG, W3, jetpacks, etc.)

Could be interesting if parasite or some other alien ability could temporarily disable marine structures (perhaps for a small res cost)

Chris0132 · February 2010

While this specific idea might not be very useful, the idea of having a charged knife attack that you can use on structures to cause them to experience steady health loss (rather than having to repeatedly knife them to death) would be useful, say it injects nanomachines or something into it which kills it slowly, you could also use it on aliens I guess but it should be really hard to hit moving enemies with.

Jiriki · February 2010

Actually this is a nice idea.

It would be fun to disable hives, meaning they would stop spawning aliens for a while and disable their extra "hive abilities". This could be a nice tactical trick to get an edge in late game where marines on defense. I don't see any use against chambers or RT's though apart from maybe disabling all the chambers in the hive at the same time to kill lifeforms.

Meh it'd be fun to see 4 fades raping a base and then 2 marines disabling 2 hives at the same time making fades lose both link and meta, "bam fades down".

Depletion packs (Marine weapon)

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