What Would It Take To Make ...

matso · December 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">... sensory a good choice?</div> I'd like to ask Kharaa players what changes you would like to see made to sensory in order to make it a possible and sensible choice as first or second upgrade.

I've outlined my opinion in <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=15596' target='_blank'>Making sensory make sense</a>, but the suggestions/ideas forums flushes quite fast.

Hozart1 · December 2002

Hi, I'm Hozart and I'm new to the forum, I pretty good at NS and I've played both sides. Well, here's my suggestions.

What I think would make sensory chambers useful would be that:

1. When the "Enemy Approachs" voice symbols, then on the hive sight you should see another blip, green maybe, saying that "Sensory chamber spots an enemy", along with revealing yellow blips of enemies within range.
2. Make it so that the above would only be for those with "Adv. Hivesight", thus, make advance hive sight more useful.
3. Make scent of fear actually tell you the exact health of your enemies.
4. And cloaking should leave you partially cloaked while moving, only with level 3 upgrade.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment, this is my 1st post, but I've been playing NS for a while now.

Pod · December 2002

cloacking should be normal when walking (ie your visible) but you shouldnt appear on motion trackers

Hozart1 · December 2002

Then there should be a way besides trial-and-error to know if the marines have motion tracking. (any suggestions?)

SoulSkorpion · December 2002

I can't really think of anything which would make sensory better to get earlier on than defense, because the benefits of sensory chambers are only useful in the endgame. Parasiting\spotting enemies using towers isn't important in the early stages since the skulks are doing just that. Scent of fear isn't necessary beacuse the skulks should be parasiting, and because the enemies aren't moving around that much. Cloaking isn't as useful to skulks as carapace or celerity are. And of course enhanced hivesight does very little.

If anything, I'd like to see enhanced hivesight replaced with something. I can think of a few ideas, but this isn't really the forum for them.

rebo · December 2002

The only thing that will make Sensory anything other than worthless is abilities that exceed the crapace / adrenaline combo. Problem is nothing can touch that right now.

relsan · December 2002

sensory chambers should SHOOT parasites and have the most hit points.

cloak should start out making aliens totally invisible and then allow them to move cloaked longer distances with each upgrade.

make these changes and D > M > S will go out the window.

Sirus · December 2002

the problem is that a defense chamber is so damn effective, and movement chambers are great midgame.

emc256 · December 2002

The advantage sensory chambers should give us is... well... sense.
To many, that advantage is quite small. Its "sensing" ability is wayyy too limited.

In addition to making it see thru walls, add enemies and buildings to hivesight,

-mark whether objects are building or marine at 2 chambers
-enhanced coordination at 3 chambers: when alien goes to sense chamber and uses it, aliens can see an overhead view of whole map, like commander mode but with adjustable height - and shows all aliens + everything chmaber detects

possibly permanently know where all marines are at all times at 3 chambers?

hmm...

Elric · December 2002

It does see through walls. Test it. The range isn't exactly puny either (about the distance of a well lobbed grenade). Much bigger than that would be godly since they are so cheap to build. What *is* annoying is that it starts giving alerts before it can actually put the marines on hivesight or will include buildings into the alarm trigger (buildings don't exactly approach =p). I would love for people to use and understand the sensory chamber ability more, with one at each key choke point (~3-4 a map mostly), the aliens have a decent maphack going.

Mradyfist · December 2002

I think that having sensory chambers shoot parasites (even if it's not very fast) would be a great idea, since then you might actually have some parasited marines later on in the game, when nobody's playing skulk.

Elric · December 2002

That would be overpowered. They're on hivesight as long as they're near it. That is plenty. One SC should not give the aliens a permenant maphack. IMO, they should just ditch the parasite attach of the SC entirely, it's original ability is good on its own (it'd have to be with that weird parasite thing now).

Error404 · December 2002

Increasing their amour points, they make great protection!!!! Sensory Chamber = Armoured Wall.

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Zevensoft · December 2002

Motion Tracking = Permanent Marine Wallhack.

I say the problem isn't the sense chambers themselves, but the upgrades they offer.

Adv. Hive Sight: This is useless. Nobody ever uses it. All it does is lag the client more, and every level is exactly the same.
Scent Of Fear: It doesn't show the health of marines, a marine could have lost only 1 health and be shown as an orange circle.
Cloaking: Most used, but useless against turrets and motion tracking.

Now some suggestions to improve the upgrades:
Adv. Hive Sight: Gives the alien the sensory abilities of a sensory chamber, or perhaps abilities as good as the Motion Tracking for marines.
Scent Of Fear: 'Fear' can also be from a marine standing around by himself with just a LMG. Maybe make it assess the situation of a marine first before deciding whether or not they are scared.
Cloaking: Make it use energy when moving, but stay cloaked while there is still energy. This would require a button to activate it though, or perhaps make it so you can move as much as you want while cloaked, but as soon as you attack, it turns off.

Elric · December 2002

I'd be happier if SoF had different colors for different percentage ranges like green being 75-99, blue 50-75, orange 25-50 and 0-25 being that wonderfully crimson blood red. Then it would work like it describes in the manual so you know which marine is the easiest to knock out first. I like hivesight for its ability to see grenades and turrets in dark areas from long ways off but I do agree it still isn't exactly the most awe enspiring upgrade of the 9.

dumbo · December 2002

After reading through the list of suggestions, I still wouldn't want sensory.

As far as I am concerned:

chamber #1 + chamber #2 = able to retake a hive with fades/lerks/skulks

Carapace, regeneration and redemption are all useful in attacking a defended area.
Celerity and adrenaline are useful in attacking a defended area.

NOTHING from sensory is even remotely useful.
On top of that, the sensory towers aren't really useful either.

There should be 'something' in sensory that would help an assault:
Abilities that might be worth it:
- 'radar cloak', uses endurance but makes you e.g. 10x less likely to be hit by turrets
- 'phase', the ability to jump through a wall

Tower abilities:
- able to 'break' phase gates within a certain range (make them not work, or decrease the chances of being able to phase to that location etc.)
- cloaks everything except webs within a very short range, o-towers stay cloaked even when firing (kharaa become visible as normal)

Error404 · December 2002

I still think that the best use for sensory chambers is to make a 'wall of lame', if sensory chambers had increased armour points and were immune to seige attacks, I might consider it as a first upgrade. It would slow down marine expansion, and basically be a pain in the backside for marines to move around the map.

SoulSkorpion · December 2002

I'd like to see Sensory chambers gain the ability to shoot parasites <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'>

Btw, it doesn't MATTER that SoF kicks in if a marine's only lost one hp. The point in SoF is that it makes every weapon behave like parasite, so that you can fight better. Say you're a melee fade; you'd graze them with an acid rocket so that they're easier to track if you have to duck around a corner or something. SoF is to get your enemies to show up on hivesight rather than to find the weak ones.

Driftwood · December 2002

First of all, make Sensory chamber shoot parasites. But also give it the ability to launch a weaker version of Lerk's spores around it when a marine comes too close.

This doesn't really fit in the image of a sensory chamber as it would make it essentially a defense weapon. However, there are a couple of things a spore emitting sensory chamber could do in early game.
a) A perfect partner for resource towers. Marines couldn't knife either to death and would be forced to attack it with their lmg:s. Also, instead of a 'tower under attack', skulks would see exactly where the attacking marines are and if the tower falls, they would stay parasited.
b) Deny access from marines to certain areas or at least make them pay for their entry. A gorge in an empty hivesite is much more secure if the incoming marines have to either gun the sensory and get probably parasited or jump past it and get parasited plus hurt.

I think this would really make choosing the sensory as the first chamber viable. Skulks wouldn't have carapace or celerity/silence, but they would have enemies that are more confined in early game and more probably parasited. Cloak would be useful for taking down parasited marines. Also, a spore emitting sensory chamber could be the answer to stopping an early marine rush.

This does however make the midgame still very problematic. Defensives are a must as the second chamber, so Fades and Lerks would be severely handicapped. However, with sensories first, it could be more probable that the aliens even got two hives. Also misuse of the sensory chamber could be a problem as many sensories at a doorway would be an instadeath for the marine walking through. Maybe the number of sensories in an area should be more limited than defensives and offensives.3 or 4 maybe? Even with that, it might be too easy to make a small hallway unpassable for marines with three sensory chambers just behind a corner.

All in all, I think I'm on to something here. It would raise a lot of new problems, but it would also make it viable to build the chambers in any order you want. Like someone pointed out, there should never be the best way to build the chambers, but several ways that each have their own strenghts and weaknesses.

Logo · December 2002

This may seem like an odd idea but if sensorys need upgrade (which they pretty much do) what if they gave a tally of all the abilities and buildings marines had... not where just what so like a list of:
5 Turrets
2 Infantry portals
1 siege cannon

level 2 weapons
level 2 armor

In this way you could judge what the enemy had and what he might be doing providing you with more of an ability to react (for example if you see a phase gate early you know it's probably near a hive).

-----
Another possiblity would be a scambling effect causing the commander to not be able issue orders to an affected area (or possibly not be able to drop health/ammo.

death1 · December 2002

maybe i heard wrong/remember incorrectly... do siege cannons target sensory chambers first? if so, you could build sensory chambers as siege decoys, buying some extra time before the hive starts melting

-d$

Mirsha · December 2002

I posted some suggestions to the other thread in the suggestions forum as I do belive suggestions should go there rather than in the strategy. The crux of my suggestions is that sensor chambers should make siege cannos miss so their shots scatter and I did a big long post explaining how in my opinion this would make for a better game.

KMGor · December 2002

Enhanced hive sight: If you have this, when you see someone on your hive sight who has it, it will say in text how many enemies he can see and if they have HA or not. That would be immensely useful.

What Would It Take To Make ...

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