[NS3] Precursors - a third race
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The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Given that NS was massively influenced by StarCraft, people have pretty much always been asking for a third race.
One idea is to use the Precursors, a race mentioned In Subnautica's story. http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Precursor_Race
Ideas
They'd be tall, skinny, individually weak, and have low hp. They'd also float, because aliens.
Instead of having weapons or lifeforms they'd use a variety of specialised remote controlled drones. Instead of being directly involved in combat, players would find somewhere to hide and then begin piloting a drone from first person. They would be able to have multiple drones, with each one occupying a weapon slot, and switch between them whenever they want. When a player is killed, all of their drones would go pop too.
The main field structure would be some sort of shield battery. Any player, structure or drone within range would receive a massive boost to their armour. Structures could be built outside of the range of a pylon, but the lack of armour would make them very squishy.
This would leave them with a play style that's heavily based around turtling and slow expansion.
- Terrans = Marines
- Zerg = Kharaa
- Protoss = ?
One idea is to use the Precursors, a race mentioned In Subnautica's story. http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Precursor_Race
The Precursor Race was a highly advanced and ancient space-faring alien race [..] searching for a cure for the Kharaa Bacterium. Most information surrounding them is currently unknown.
No Precursor has ever been seen, so nothing is known of their physical appearance. [But] it can be estimated that the Precursor race would have averaged between seven and eight feet in height.
[T]hey were an extremely advanced race - able to create advanced technology (such as teleportation devices, weapons capable of bringing down large ships, wirelessly powered biomechanical life forms capable teleporting at will, of etc.)
Ideas
They'd be tall, skinny, individually weak, and have low hp. They'd also float, because aliens.
Instead of having weapons or lifeforms they'd use a variety of specialised remote controlled drones. Instead of being directly involved in combat, players would find somewhere to hide and then begin piloting a drone from first person. They would be able to have multiple drones, with each one occupying a weapon slot, and switch between them whenever they want. When a player is killed, all of their drones would go pop too.
The main field structure would be some sort of shield battery. Any player, structure or drone within range would receive a massive boost to their armour. Structures could be built outside of the range of a pylon, but the lack of armour would make them very squishy.
This would leave them with a play style that's heavily based around turtling and slow expansion.
Comments
I think the third race should be a bit more inspired on protoss than what you described tbh.
At first I rly dislike the idea about a race designed for turtles and slow expansion. First you are starting of with limiting options by design. Second the fast gameplay of NS is one of the thingsa lot of players here enjoy and I think slowing it down would be a bad move for the franchise generally.
I think something that can be straight taken over is the shield used by protoss. Meaning 1 armor value that sucks up 100% of the damage and then we have hp below that which by no means can ever be regained if some of that is lost.
I also think it would make sense for all the playable "classes" to be some kind of organic mech. (similar to exos). We might be able to mix ns1 marines in here a bit meaning that those have to be dropped by commander. (or whatever else you can think of)
The main issue for me are the basic classes and how they are balanced with each other. Atm in skulk vs LMG we have melee vs range, mobility vs ...less mobility...
If we were to follow protoss foodsteps the basic class would be a melee class that is stronger than skulks. SC balanced that with numbers which is not possible in NS...
So basically thinking introducing just a third class to this triangle and make this work is a huge issue already that probably requires some rebalancing on marine and skulk side aswell.
From a financial/market point of view, yeah, the core mechanics of the game makes it fill only a small niche... but i would love to see it done anyway!
I guess if the persecuters would need to combine melee and range to be effectice it would be interesting to play as.
That's why I went for drone control as being their main mechanic. It'd allow them a lot of versatility in how they used ranged & melee. It'd also give them a unique approach to map control.
I disliked the drone mechanic in every game so far because you can take damage to your "real" body without getting a god feedback.
Similarly to the Fade from NS1 with acid rockets, but swap the damage a little.
In this instance, I don't think the drone gameplay would be very fun (I have to keep switching in between and leave my normal self vulnerable?), and turtle/slow-expansion is similar to marine-style territory control.
For the global expansion why not try something new and completly remove techpoints alltogether and replace them with small nest.
It would be like if you were trying to play marines with no gate, no CC, but could build IPs everywhere not requiring power nodes (maybe other kind of resources). Building would autobuild themselves once placed.
So you have more spawn location options and can build your base without restrictions at the cost of not having a real, strong, 'base'. That way that race will open a lot of strategy having a lot of liberty building wise.
Mainly dropping ideas here.