The Robot Factory
peregrinus
Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
<div class="IPBDescription">What else might it build?</div>The robot factory will build the ARC siege weapon, why not more?
- A non-combat caretaker robot (ground based) that will automatically go around near a comm chair doing repairs to whatever is built in nearby radius. Repairs slower than macs. Something under attack is not going to benefit by being repaired at the same time from this caretakerbot because the repair speed is too slow. It is designed to slowly repair damaged stuff over a longer period.
- The lightbot: send the little lightbot into a dark room for a floodlight effect. Very fragile, like a moving lightbulb.
- Anti-Infestation bot: send it to the edge of an infested area and it will slowly eat away at the edges of a DI.
- CamBot: a hovering security camera. Send it to an area you want to protect and it will hover in a spot and detect any moving visible lifeforms and shine a blue spotlight on them which will track them as they move within line of sight. There are tracking beams put out and when they are broken by an alien the spotlight and and alarm is triggered. It is to aid marines in tracking and killing the aliens near a base.
- A non-combat caretaker robot (ground based) that will automatically go around near a comm chair doing repairs to whatever is built in nearby radius. Repairs slower than macs. Something under attack is not going to benefit by being repaired at the same time from this caretakerbot because the repair speed is too slow. It is designed to slowly repair damaged stuff over a longer period.
- The lightbot: send the little lightbot into a dark room for a floodlight effect. Very fragile, like a moving lightbulb.
- Anti-Infestation bot: send it to the edge of an infested area and it will slowly eat away at the edges of a DI.
- CamBot: a hovering security camera. Send it to an area you want to protect and it will hover in a spot and detect any moving visible lifeforms and shine a blue spotlight on them which will track them as they move within line of sight. There are tracking beams put out and when they are broken by an alien the spotlight and and alarm is triggered. It is to aid marines in tracking and killing the aliens near a base.
Comments
* caretakerbot is a little to crag-like in my oppinion and it would free the marinecommander of one of his most importand dities: to maintain the base.
* lightbot
I like the idea for the marineteam to have a flying bulp. But atm there a lightbot would be pretty useless because it just stays dark for 5 seconds. But if they increase the time of darkness (<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=112499" target="_blank">see discussion here</a>) a lightbot would be great
* anti-infestation-bot
Lets see how the DI works in the game. Maybe the bot isn't necessary
* cambot
A good Idea i think.
I'm sure, the cambot would be destroyed as soon as he shines the light on the aliens.
but as long as it is cheap (3 carbon or maybe 20 energy of the comchair) it should come in handy
(In one of my last games (I was alien) the marine commander used some MACs hidden in the ceiling to observ a techpoint)
* caretakerbot is a little to crag-like in my oppinion and it would free the marinecommander of one of his most importand dities: to maintain the base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dislike having to do silly busywork when it can easily be automated.
Personally I would like this to be a feature of MACs and simply give the option to build a heavier, tougher, landbound version of the mac.
Also combine it with the lightbot idea, so that you can send it with marines to help illuminate an area, make the spotlight targetable so you can point it at a place or direction. I don't really think a glorified torch merits an entirely separate unit.
<b>LightBot:</b>
OK instead of a unit controlled by the commander....since its a quite fragile it might not be worth the commanders time, so how about making the lightbot purchasable from the armory and a marine can carry it on him. The commander would have to research that upgrade from the robot factory though.
When marines get somewhere dark he can activate the bot and it will whizz up into the air and act as a floodlight over an area directed by an individual marine (bright light, but only over a 30 degree angle or similar).
Hovering in the air, skulks and fades wont be able to get at it, unless the roof is low or the bot is near a wall. Lerk spikes, gorge spit and hydra spikes could take it out - maybe 3 hits needed and with each hit it gets dimmer until it smashes.
Marines can only carry one at a time, and its not so cheap that they could run back to the armory and buy a new one each time it goes out.
<b>CamBot:</b>
Could also be purchased by marines. I like that idea better actually. It would be more expensive than LightBot, and like LightBot it could hover, send out a cool blue energy beam that sweeps the room as the robot rotates (so aliens have a chance to avoid it). If aliens get touched by the beam they i) have been detected and appear on marine radar ii) become the target of CamBots light beam which continues to track the alien lighting it up for all to see, and iii) sets off a sound alarm which alerts marines (the game needs to use sound more).
<b>Caretakerbot:</b>
A ground based tank like MAC sounds good. It can be controlled by commander or set to automatic. Automatic mode will have it roll around the base and conduct repairs. It could be electrified against alien attacks, doing some damage if bitten/clawed at. A yellow r2d2? It doesn't replace the commanders base defense role because first of all the caretakerbot cant fight, it repairs very slowly so in emergency situations its useless.
Can the exo suit be operated unmanned by the commander? :D That would be amazing! The commander could build the exo suit and then have it walk to the front line so marines can jump in :DDD
no, but as far i understand the exo can be deployed as stationary defense with more firepower, i guess the marine can just hop out of it
hiho,
CamBot is a good idea. The Lightbot maybe too! But i think there shouldn´t be so many "MACs" /Bots because then the marine player can go AFK and let the Bots do all the work for the marine team.
I mean Bots which helps to save a room are good. But if you have a bot for all that important stuff which should marines do it would be boring to play as a marine.
edit: Maybe marine should control this bots instead of the commander. So one player gets a controller for controlling this bots.
Default mode, the beam sweeps the room
<img src="http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/6061/cambot1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8876/cambot2.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/4725/cambot3.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/5270/ns22011011221432913.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
When alarm is triggered
<img src="http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/3823/cambot4.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Yes, two sweeping beams... or one, I dont know which is best. I'm afraid that two would be distracting. If 4 marines all want to put scanners in the same room that means 8 beams and a damn headache XD
The beams wont pass through materials either, or covering the entire floor to roof height, so skulks could climb up into areas where the beam isn't sweeping.
The marine who purchases the bot will decide where it is deployed and the direction of the beam (low/medium/high) so it gives marine side some added (optional) strategy. I also imagine the bot can be recalled by it's owner when he stands below the bot, allowing the player to take it to a new area. That will be important because people will need to practice using it and see which areas it works best in.
It should have a sounded alarm, though obviously not so loud that it covers alien sounds. There will be the red light that tracks the alien who broke the blue beam, the flashing light on top of the bot, alien showing up on all marine and commander minimap.
The one thing I'm not sure about is the red beam: what will happen when 3 aliens come into an alarmed room together? Probably the bot should only track the alien that first broke the beam, and if that alien dies, or is out of sight for more than 10 seconds, it will revert to the scanning blue beam and wait until the next alien is detected. The 10 second waiting period is needed or else it could give everyone an epileptic fit when an alien runs in and out of sight quickly. Instead the red beam will stay at the last spotted location, and wait for the alien to move again. E.g. a skulk runs behind a crate - the red beam will stay on the crate for 10 seconds, and the red beam will somehow be more alert to the fact an enemy is nearby.
I should have probably looked at example of alarmed robots in other video games before writing this lol. The sentry guns in Half Life 2 might be a good example: they also scan at an angle; when they detect an enemy they switch to alert mode and fire; when the enemy is out of sight they stay in alert mode and sweep more rapidly don't they?
What I like about this idea, besides the coolness of blue lasers sweeping a room and marines having their own personal robots, is that it increases the degree to which marines and aliens can control rooms. It isn't 100% control versus 0% control. We already have this with the powernodes which take away some but not all marine control when theyre killed, and dynamic infestation will add to this also.
<img src="http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6809/74449649.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2319/41675568.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
scanning mode - the marine who buys the bot will be able to decide the scanning program (sweep, targeted, high/medium/low height)
<img src="http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/8136/81748643.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
alert mode - the red beams track aliens and the alarm flash to get marines attention
<img src="http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1795/82319734.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
The marine who buys one will need 10 seconds or so to activate it, you will see the lights turn on, then it will ask for your commands before whizzing up into the air :D
<img src="http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/8858/class1soldiers2.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
We could just make the eye thing an upgrade for the normal mac... and a toggle button to enter => Transformer style :P
After motion tracking, it gets a bit less usfull.
An interesting twist on this could be done by only allowing one special function per MAC. So, if one is upgraded to be an alarm bot, then it can no longer weld or repair. There are a ton of different ways the general idea of this thread can be applied to the MACs to give Commanders some more decisions to make and new tools to work with.
<img src="http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/yukitaro_snowbot2.JPG" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/06d01049_1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/02/2-9-07-yuki-taro.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Some kind of mobile minelayer might be interesting, though.
something like motorbikes, quadbikes or a mini tank could be cool, but i guess they would detract from the tense atmosphere of running to an area down dark, claustrophobic hallways. plus, once you get phase gates up they would become useless.