Perhaps instead of a linear progression, why don't we have biomass unlock a tech slot that that the kham chose with lifeform ability to fill it with. So 1 biomass = 1 tech slot for 1 ability.
That way if the kham wants to research vortex on biomass level 1 for whatever reason, he can do just that. Then xeno on the second biomass.
Going further with this idea, perhaps the kham can research an ability multiple times filling up additional biomass level slots. Leap for example, the kham researches it on biomass level 1 and level 2 with each additional research of leap increases the abilities power such as the leap's distance and speed increase.
This will give the kham the decision capabilities to decide which tech he wants and when, while still having to secure additional hives for the additional 3 biomass. Along with the second idea of which tech to boost with additional biomass at the expense of giving up other tech in the long run.
Yup, that's pretty much what I suggested, barring the separate levels taking up separate slots. I think it's got potential.
Might be too strong if you could research additional levels without separate biomass slots. Unless each one's res cost increase similar to marine's armor/weapon tech. Worth testing though.
Xeno level 3 might make the ability useful for once.
It's not a bad idea but problematic for the simple fact of having skulks with leap at biomass 1. Not really going to work well with early game marines.
It's not a bad idea but problematic for the simple fact of having skulks with leap at biomass 1. Not really going to work well with early game marines.
If we go by scaling lifeform tech, early game leap can have a less impact on the game if level 1 leap wasn't nearly as strong as the current leap. Then level two being the current leap's strength and level 3 leap being an overall upgrade.
Forget about levels of leap and other abilities that can be handled in the background just by linking to the number of biomass upgrades. That was my point about scaling.
1 biomass per ability. Abilities not locked. Abilities' effectiveness scale by biomass number. Everything else is then tweaking values to balance.
Not sure a scaled down version of leap isn't still going to be too powerful honestly. I mean, I like what you're saying in theory I just think that's going to make early game aliens too strong. Leap with the new skulk movement is really amazing. Then of course you also get into the "well how scaled down should they be and will they still even be effective at that level". It's alot of question marks.
It sounds good on paper, but is a really huge load of balancing work to do.
Making Xeno or Leap viable on Biomass1 and scaling them to usefulness in the late game at Biomass 6 or 9 is really difficult. And it doesn't get easier if you think of all the 9 abilities that need to be individually tweaked to 12 levels of biomass.
What to do with gorge tunnels? How do they scale? Others are easier: Vortex -> duration; Spores -> AOE; and so on.
Also a problem you shouldn't underestimate is, that this would be hidden modifiers. If you see a leaping skulk now, you know what you have to deal with. With your system you never know what to adapt to as marines.
Don't get me wrong. I like how this idea sounds. But the required work and the possible cons make me undecided if it is worth trying.
Requiring crags/shifts/shades to research specific abilities to me makes NO sense. Why should a specific ability be associated with one of the three tech structures? It's confusing and unintuitive, too.
An alternative if scaling and balancing proves too difficult is to have a requirement for biomass levels for each ability, but not limit this as is currently the case to each ability requiring a different biomass level. So biomass 4 opens up say 3 new abilities that you can research. I'm more in favour of an open system though.
Going back to my open scalable system; not everything necessarily needs to scale. Gorge tunnels, for example, don't need to scale as taking up a biomass slot very early in the game with tunnels means you can't necessarily get something else nice on 1 hive. Or maybe scale their pres or research cost instead, though this is a less elegant solution. Or scale their HP/armour.
Leap I would envisage as needing a nerf if available at 1 hive (make it lower acceleration and less far leaped). Perhaps on 10-12 biomass you could start including a bit of damage on the leap (God I loved those days in NS1 where leap did insane damage to HA marines ).
There would be an awful lot of balancing and testing to do, but hey isn't that what the BT mod is for? Trying this stuff out.
At the minute it's arbitrary and unintuitive with the way abilities are hard fixed to specific biomass levels (vortex and xeno being good examples of why this is bad), and also fixed strangely to being researched on non-hive structures.
Requiring crags/shifts/shades to research specific abilities to me makes NO sense.
It allows faster teching as you can research multiple techs at once instead of waiting for one to finish. You'll be building crag and shift in all games anyway.
@kalakuja
Point taken about being able to research multiple techs at once, but it's still a strange assignment of abilities to structures. Also it breeds confusion: do these abilities stay with the team if that specific structure is destroyed, or only disappear when the biomass level is reduced? Surely doing research on the hive makes more sense, and if you want multiple researches at once, allow them to be done on individual hives (maybe add a cost to doing a second or third concurrent research?).
Requiring crags/shifts/shades to research specific abilities to me makes NO sense. Why should a specific ability be associated with one of the three tech structures? It's confusing and unintuitive, too.
An alternative if scaling and balancing proves too difficult is to have a requirement for biomass levels for each ability, but not limit this as is currently the case to each ability requiring a different biomass level. So biomass 4 opens up say 3 new abilities that you can research. I'm more in favour of an open system though.
Going back to my open scalable system; not everything necessarily needs to scale. Gorge tunnels, for example, don't need to scale as taking up a biomass slot very early in the game with tunnels means you can't necessarily get something else nice on 1 hive. Or maybe scale their pres or research cost instead, though this is a less elegant solution. Or scale their HP/armour.
Leap I would envisage as needing a nerf if available at 1 hive (make it lower acceleration and less far leaped). Perhaps on 10-12 biomass you could start including a bit of damage on the leap (God I loved those days in NS1 where leap did insane damage to HA marines ).
There would be an awful lot of balancing and testing to do, but hey isn't that what the BT mod is for? Trying this stuff out.
At the minute it's arbitrary and unintuitive with the way abilities are hard fixed to specific biomass levels (vortex and xeno being good examples of why this is bad), and also fixed strangely to being researched on non-hive structures.
It only makes no sense to you because the patch is barely a week old at this point. Buffs are now also associated with structures, just as they were in NS1. It's not exactly a giant leap that now abilities are too. In a months time it's going to be old hat and "sense" isn't going to have any part in this discussion.
Requiring crags/shifts/shades to research specific abilities to me makes NO sense. Why should a specific ability be associated with one of the three tech structures? It's confusing and unintuitive, too.
To my understanding this was done in order to enable abilities to be researched without forcing a previous ability to be researched. For example, you can research xeno without first getting leap. There was a problem with the way the hive UI was laid out meaning this wasn't feasible on the hive itself. Or something.
The reason is for them to scale with the marine w upgrades and then limit armor tec for aliens so that creg hive path is less critical. Before you were basically forced to have 1 of your 2 hives be creg or you will not survive W3. The biomass system mitigates this issue a bit and thus tries to make it so that you have more options in your tech path when being limited to a 2 hive standoff.
Comments
That way if the kham wants to research vortex on biomass level 1 for whatever reason, he can do just that. Then xeno on the second biomass.
Going further with this idea, perhaps the kham can research an ability multiple times filling up additional biomass level slots. Leap for example, the kham researches it on biomass level 1 and level 2 with each additional research of leap increases the abilities power such as the leap's distance and speed increase.
This will give the kham the decision capabilities to decide which tech he wants and when, while still having to secure additional hives for the additional 3 biomass. Along with the second idea of which tech to boost with additional biomass at the expense of giving up other tech in the long run.
Might be too strong if you could research additional levels without separate biomass slots. Unless each one's res cost increase similar to marine's armor/weapon tech. Worth testing though.
Xeno level 3 might make the ability useful for once.
If we go by scaling lifeform tech, early game leap can have a less impact on the game if level 1 leap wasn't nearly as strong as the current leap. Then level two being the current leap's strength and level 3 leap being an overall upgrade.
1 biomass per ability. Abilities not locked. Abilities' effectiveness scale by biomass number. Everything else is then tweaking values to balance.
Making Xeno or Leap viable on Biomass1 and scaling them to usefulness in the late game at Biomass 6 or 9 is really difficult. And it doesn't get easier if you think of all the 9 abilities that need to be individually tweaked to 12 levels of biomass.
What to do with gorge tunnels? How do they scale? Others are easier: Vortex -> duration; Spores -> AOE; and so on.
Also a problem you shouldn't underestimate is, that this would be hidden modifiers. If you see a leaping skulk now, you know what you have to deal with. With your system you never know what to adapt to as marines.
Don't get me wrong. I like how this idea sounds. But the required work and the possible cons make me undecided if it is worth trying.
An alternative if scaling and balancing proves too difficult is to have a requirement for biomass levels for each ability, but not limit this as is currently the case to each ability requiring a different biomass level. So biomass 4 opens up say 3 new abilities that you can research. I'm more in favour of an open system though.
Going back to my open scalable system; not everything necessarily needs to scale. Gorge tunnels, for example, don't need to scale as taking up a biomass slot very early in the game with tunnels means you can't necessarily get something else nice on 1 hive. Or maybe scale their pres or research cost instead, though this is a less elegant solution. Or scale their HP/armour.
Leap I would envisage as needing a nerf if available at 1 hive (make it lower acceleration and less far leaped). Perhaps on 10-12 biomass you could start including a bit of damage on the leap (God I loved those days in NS1 where leap did insane damage to HA marines
There would be an awful lot of balancing and testing to do, but hey isn't that what the BT mod is for? Trying this stuff out.
At the minute it's arbitrary and unintuitive with the way abilities are hard fixed to specific biomass levels (vortex and xeno being good examples of why this is bad), and also fixed strangely to being researched on non-hive structures.
Point taken about being able to research multiple techs at once, but it's still a strange assignment of abilities to structures. Also it breeds confusion: do these abilities stay with the team if that specific structure is destroyed, or only disappear when the biomass level is reduced? Surely doing research on the hive makes more sense, and if you want multiple researches at once, allow them to be done on individual hives (maybe add a cost to doing a second or third concurrent research?).
It only makes no sense to you because the patch is barely a week old at this point. Buffs are now also associated with structures, just as they were in NS1. It's not exactly a giant leap that now abilities are too. In a months time it's going to be old hat and "sense" isn't going to have any part in this discussion.
How so? How has biomass introduced more strategies than the previous method?
To my understanding this was done in order to enable abilities to be researched without forcing a previous ability to be researched. For example, you can research xeno without first getting leap. There was a problem with the way the hive UI was laid out meaning this wasn't feasible on the hive itself. Or something.