Tech Path evolving the Hive
CrushaK
Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">[a little bonus that adds to choice making]</div>Simple suggestion: let whatever you choose as Tech Path for a Hive have an impact on that particular Hive as well.
Crag Hive: gets some nice shell-ish overlay as texture on the Hive and has more durability due to higher maximum armor.
Shift Hive: gets more strutting to the ground or ceiling and has a slightly increased egg spawn rate.
Shade Hive: originally I thought about having the Hive cloaked without the requirement for a nearby Shade, but this is kinda pointless since Marines will find or counter it easily by using scans. Making it act like a Shade itself and cloak nearby stuff might be a bit OP since it can't be destroyed as quickly as a Shade. So maybe just give it a semi-transparent look and either have it create ink clouds around it upon taking damage or just deny enemies the ability to see it's health at any time. They have to guess when it's going down and may not take advantage of a nearly killed Hive.
If the Tech has an impact on the Hive, you actually still have a choice to make when building your fourth Hive.
Suggestion on Google Moderator: <a href="http://goo.gl/mod/JC78" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/mod/JC78</a>
Crag Hive: gets some nice shell-ish overlay as texture on the Hive and has more durability due to higher maximum armor.
Shift Hive: gets more strutting to the ground or ceiling and has a slightly increased egg spawn rate.
Shade Hive: originally I thought about having the Hive cloaked without the requirement for a nearby Shade, but this is kinda pointless since Marines will find or counter it easily by using scans. Making it act like a Shade itself and cloak nearby stuff might be a bit OP since it can't be destroyed as quickly as a Shade. So maybe just give it a semi-transparent look and either have it create ink clouds around it upon taking damage or just deny enemies the ability to see it's health at any time. They have to guess when it's going down and may not take advantage of a nearly killed Hive.
If the Tech has an impact on the Hive, you actually still have a choice to make when building your fourth Hive.
Suggestion on Google Moderator: <a href="http://goo.gl/mod/JC78" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/mod/JC78</a>
Comments
Naturally it needs to balanced properly.
There are alot of possibilities for this, and I'm sure the game developers can explore this further and make the different hives feel and look appropriately different!
<ul><li>Shift Hive: Increases maturation rate of structures in the hive room</li><li>Crag Hive: Gains a shock absorbing ability. (Can only take X amount of damage at once/during Y amount of time.)</li><li>Shade Hive: When taking damage, randomly plays the sounds of approaching aliens/hatching eggs/etc.</li></ul>
Not terribly happy with that Shade ability, but you get the idea.
Crag: Slightly increased armor on the hive, slightly increased healing rate for aliens near hive.
Shade: Emits a vision-impairing cloud (not blinding, just making it slightly harder to see) when attacked.
Shift: Aliens near hive will get slightly increased attack speed.
Also, each upgraded hive could provide the khammander with an ability that could be activated on a kharaa unit. Crag - increased armor for 10 seconds. Shade - invisibility for 3 seconds, not affected by obs, scans or attacking. Shift - increased attack speed for 5 seconds.
You might want to re-read the OP