Agreed, good ideas, but to really make people want to switch, more useful abilities would probably be better than making the chambers themselves better.
I'd say have the Sensory Chamber cloak nearby chambers, but not itself. A sensor sweep would reveal all chambers, for balance. Resource nodes should never be cloaked - that's a bit too drastic.
The other option would be to have the sensory cloak itself, no other structures, and parasite marines as they come into its LOS. One parasite per marine, so it doesn't turn into an Offense Chamber. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Movement chambers should increase the function of chambers or aliens near to them, but not both. Faster firing OCs, faster healing DCs, quicker 'adrenaline' regeneration for nearby aliens.. etc, etc. And using them would teleport you to the nearest hive, not another Movement Chamber.
Someone mentioned changing the defense chambers so that they only heal nearby aliens and themselves. That might not be a bad idea, and would put the DC's in -front- of the other chambers as a sort of shield. All other chambers would slowly regenerate themselves, or would require a gorge to heal them.
<!--QuoteBegin--Scarface121+Jan 27 2003, 06:06 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Scarface121 @ Jan 27 2003, 06:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Agreed, good ideas, but to really make people want to switch, more useful abilities would probably be better than making the chambers themselves better. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Thats only part of it. Chamber upgrades as well as chamber abilities needs to be made equally good. Only making chamber upgrades better isn't good enough. Chamber abilities needs to be tweaked too.
Also, I don't know whats the big fuss about carapace. I know its good but you know what? You can actually live even _longer_ and kill even _more_ marines with silence or celerity if you would just bother to test them and learn to play with them. I bet if you take celerity in the next 10 games you will kill as much marines with it as with carapace. What people don't understand is that different upgrades need different tactics. Thats the whole point of upgrades: having options on deciding how you are going to aproach the marines. Nothing is more freaky as a marine than skulk with cloaking. They are not used to that kind of thing and after dying two or three times because of invisible skulks they simply refuse to leave the base until they get upgrades. Think about it. If you have 6skulks in your team with invisibility waiting on marine paths(if we assume there is two paths) nothing is going to get past those skulks if they just move their position from time to time and camp patiently. In the meanwhile gorges can do anything they want because marines have been isolated into their base. Even if the whole marine teams rushes and manages to get through most of them are probably dead. Players of NS fail to adapt to situations. Next time someone build sensory or movement first, dont whine about it but suggest to other skulks that they could actually try some other tactic than just rushing towards marines and hoping your carapace lasts.
The problem with cloaking is not the lack of efficiency or usefulness, but the fact that it leaves skulks with little base cracking ability. Already, skulks with carapace have tons of trouble taking out forward bases and groups of marines. With cloaking, it's even harder. The skulks biggest weakness is their lack of base assault ability, and that is a weakness you cannot afford to have.
For example, last game I played, we had cloaking. I was ambushing marines left and right, and I got more kills like that than I would with carapace. However, we had an extremely difficult time taking out any organized marine party, and they eventually were able to get siege and secure both our hives while we could do nothing about it. We had tons of res, so we got tons of lerks. However, a lerk without carapace dies in like 3 bullets, so we still couldn't take down their forward bases.
It's not that cloaking is not effective, but the fact that it leaves your team totally defenseless against the marines biggest strength, forward building.
Jesus Voogru, you realize that you could create a whole new mod in the time it takes to modify this one? <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Yes, having cloaking makes you somewhat less able at "base cracking", but consider that if you are doing your job well as a cloaked skulk, the marines will have a very hard time actually making a forward base. Besides, if you really need that "cracking" ability, then get Defense as your second hive chamber.
I think that all of the people saying that skulks are worthless without carapace need to learn some new tactics, and that if you are using silence and cloaking well, you won't need to worry about cracking bases so much until you have carapace anyway, unless you mean the main marine base, which you don't need to desolate in the first 10 minutes anyway.
Carapace just caters more to the "charge and hope I bite them before my health runs out" approach. It can be very useful, but that's not the only way to handle marines. Try it more than one or two games and see...
Now I make a suggestion for all chamber balance and upgrade balance:
Defence chamber Abilities: Heals nearby kharaas and chambers Upgrades: -Carapace, aliens get better armor -Regeneration, aliens heal themselves -Redemption, aliens return to hive if they are badly injured
Movement chamber Abilities: Offence chambers nearby shoot faster(one mov chamber affects 2off chambers) and kharaas can get "adrenaline boost" by using the movement chamber. Adrenaline boost lasts from 15seconds to 45secs depending on howmany movement chambers there are near. 1(15secs),2(30secs) and 3(45secs). More than three chambers won't do any good in this matter. "Adrenaline boost" makes kharaas adrenaline last longer, make melee attack more powerful and make kharaas faster. These boosts are not cumulative with primal scream and celerity. You can still "blink" from hive to hive but you must have one operational movement chamber. "Blinking" happens by using the hive itself. Upgrades: -Celerity, speeds up alien movement -Silence, 1st lvl, no running sounds, 2nd lvl 50% melee attack sound, 3rd lvl renders motion tracking useles -Adrenaline, power bar(yellow) comes up faster
Sensory chamber Abilities: Cloaks itself and nearby khraas if they use it and stay still. Parasites marines from 7m distance. Parasite makes offence chambers aim marines better(thus you can use these effectively with offence chambers). Cannot be targeted by siege unless commander scanner sweaps it. Also if it has under 75% of its hp it will become visible.(I thought about cloaking other chambers but it would be quite useless as off chambers would give their position up in a sec.) Upgrades: -Hunting scent, makes kharaa an ultimate hunter: marines glow, they leave heatmarks -which disappear slowly- on the ground when they move which makes it easy for kharaa to track them down. Also kharaas smell(see in hive sight) the badly injured(under 65hp) enemies in certain area around them. -Cloaking, makes kharaas 90% transparent. With 3rd level cloaking kharaas can move around slowly(at marine crouching speed) -Pheromone of fear, when something inflicts damage to kharaa it emits pheromones in to air which tricks human brains to see illusionary kharaas. The alien becomes blurry and 30%transparent and depending on the level of this upgrade additional illusion kharaas appear around the one using this upgrade. Marines find it hard to target the alien using this.
There should be a limit of secondary chambers per area. Thus WoL's wouldn't be any worse than they are now, they just would be more diverse: fast shooting, healing and good aiming. I would suggest 8secondary chamber/ area.
And btw, all of those wasn't originally my ideas, im just bringing many good ideas up here. What do you think about those? Would atleast make sensory and movement better in early games. Especially I like the Hunting scent, would make kharaas much more like primitive beasts that they are supposed to be <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well in a legal sense, what Voogru is doing is copyright infringement, but Flayra doesn't seem to mind (I certainly would mind a perversion of my game for the benefit of n00bs), but anyway....
Those ideas are incredibly unbalancing. The only way that these would make sense would be to AT LEAST DOUBLE the cost of the chambers. AT LEAST. Right now, you have to mow down wall after wall of o chamers and d chambers, now you'll also have movement chambers and sensory towers to put up with too, thus bringing us back to the 'wall of lame' problem.
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Jan 27 2003, 08:52 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Jan 27 2003, 08:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Those ideas are incredibly unbalancing. The only way that these would make sense would be to AT LEAST DOUBLE the cost of the chambers. AT LEAST. Right now, you have to mow down wall after wall of o chamers and d chambers, now you'll also have movement chambers and sensory towers to put up with too, thus bringing us back to the 'wall of lame' problem. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Im not sure if you are talking to me but I assume you are. There are already WoL problems. Its basicly the same for the marines if there is 8off+8def or 4off+20def because anyway you have to use siege, gl or hmg. What I forgot to add to my post was that there would be a limit of secondary chamber per area. Thus WoL's wouldn't be any worse than they are now, they just would be more diverse: fast shooting, healing and good aiming. I would suggest 8secondary chamber/area.
However, I'm not entirely sure if it is copyright infringement - I'm guessing it depends a lot on how its implemented. But, as you said, Flay seems happy with it, and its not as if he can sue for lost income.
Movement and sensory, when +used, "crank" their abilities for a short period of time.
Por exemplo:
A skulk with lvl 3 celerity +uses a movement chamber, and for a while (5-10 secs) has <b> 60% </b> increased speed.
You could make cranked cloaking cloak the skulk a bit While It Is Moving (not invisible, but tough to see).
These would make base cracking possible, in my opinion.
Defense chambers would either not get this ability (even MORE powerful carapace!?!) or have some other thing (maybe +using them triggers an umbra field).
EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe?
EDIT #2: Ooh! ooh! Make the "cranks" cost resources to the alien using them, and... Make sensories <b>disable voice comm, text messaging and comm alerts ("turrets are firing") in a given area.</b>
<!--QuoteBegin--[PONY]Dizzle+Jan 27 2003, 08:59 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ([PONY]Dizzle @ Jan 27 2003, 08:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> How about this for making other chambers better:
Movement and sensory, when +used, "crank" their abilities for a short period of time.
EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe?
EDIT #2: Ooh! ooh! Make the "cranks" cost resources to the alien using them, and... Make sensories disable voice comm, text messaging and comm alerts ("turrets are firing") in a given area. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Read my post about +use abilities
I can't imagine a weapon that counters invisibility so maybe no more weps? The ones we have kills aliens pretty nicely. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't like the idea for +use boosts to cost res. Also Im not very keen on the idea of making com mode worse.
At first I thought your ideas were bad, but I thought about it and I actually like all of them. Nevertheless, a limit should be put on the ROF increase to OCs from MCs. Perhaps only double? If they fired 500% faster, marines wouldn't stand a chance VS. more than 2 OCs.
Hmm well I definitely don't agree on your optional suggestions, in my opinion they'd give the aliens far too much of an advantage [unless the marines were provided with a similar "cloaking" feature].
I'd like Sensory Chambers to do something like your suggested Movement Chamber "slow-down" to marines - the Sensory Chambers could induce a sort of "drunk" affect, like the concussion grenade from TeamFortress.
I might give the sensory towers a longer "range" on their parasite ability... maybe something along the lines of making it an O tower armed with parasite?
In terms of making the area unscannable, keep in mind that your sense tower is also invisible... this would make sieging a lamewall backed up with a sense tower nearly impossible, because nothing could spot it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Consider making it so that *aliens* within it's radius are invisible (as well as itself)? Or maybe, an alien who hits USE on the sense tower goes invisible...
I <b>really</b> like these ideas, such as area cloaking and having the MC's slow Marine movement. Not only would they make these Chambers more popular, they would lead to some cool and relatively easy graphical effect such as cloaked structures and I imagine some sort of sludge like substance surrounding the MC's impeding the Marines movemet. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between making these 2 Chambers viable for being built first, and overpowering the structures and giving the Aliens a huge advantage, and I think these suggestions might have crossed it. I think they would be great, but would require some Alien nerfing/Marine buffing to compensate.
Otherwise great ideas though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<!--QuoteBegin--[PONY]Dizzle+Jan 27 2003, 03:59 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ([PONY]Dizzle @ Jan 27 2003, 03:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Why? The only time the aliens can have all three of the upgrades would be if they held all three hives, at which time the game is over anyhow.
The main reason to change these things is to make other chamber orders rather than DMS useful.
So when you look at all these nice abilities, do consider that the also means that there will be no healing outside of hives and the aliens will be dying in half the time or less.
And the cloaking makes sense, i dont see how suddenly marines could or should gain cloaking, the aliens have that biotechnology, the marines dont, i dont see why their towers shouldnthave similar ability.. Maybe give them partial cloaking at first see how it works out in test, then if its still not up, make it full.. wouldnt be long till the emplacements position is known anyway.
This stuff imo, makes sense.
Wouldnt be unbalancing i think.. after all, you gotta take note that that is 1 less defense tower, or offense tower, that the cloaking/movement is taking the place of.
I dont see how unbalaning it is in the face of <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> or <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo-->
a)Should cloak itself 100% and be 'unseen' by marines unless they walk right into it. This would allow for 'tactical placement' of sensory chambers in areas to monitor Marine movements. The sensory chamber would light up any nearby Marines on 'hive sight'. (none of that 'the enemy approaches' stuff)
b)-Should provide a counter to motion tracking in the chamber's area of influence. So, a sensory chamber in a key 'ambush location' would allow aliens to remain unseen and thus this would make up for the lack of carapace. (Which means you die FAST - so getting the jump on marines would be critical to make up for this)
c)-Although optional, what would really sell me on Sensory first would be that it could cloak OCs and resource nodes. (Cloak area would depend on the number of chambers nearby)
2.Movement: a)-Causes nearby enemies to slow to 'walk' speed in the MC's area of influence. This would allow a compensation for the lack of carapace, giving skulks a chance to take them out easier.
b)-Makes nearby OCs to fire at a faster rate, as defined by the number of chambers nearby. (1 MC=33% increase 2 MC=66% increase, 3 MC=100% increase or double speed)
c)-Although optional, what would really sell me on Movement first would be if the MC caused an alien RT to output resources at an increased rate. (Similar to what was noted above) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1abc) Yea I agree, must decide range of area of influence however.
2.a)Yea. GREAT idea imo... b)Nay. Not so much anyway, mebbe +50%. c)Nay. Too good.
Hey, i'm all for jacking the marines up if the aliens get jacked up... it'd just be cool to see some other options become viable <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I tend to agree with the 'base cracking' point. I too tried a game that had Sensory dropped first and it was EXTREMELY difficult to assault marine encampments.
Perhaps part of the problem is carapace itself. It's just too important since aliens are too weak without it. That tells me that perhaps DCs aren't the problem. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way.
What if we DUMPED carapace all together and instead give the aliens the inherant bonus that carapace provides. So all aliens have the benefit of level 3 carapace all the time. Then you give the D chamber a new skill for aliens. Perhaps a 'heal' skill that would allow an alien to heal OTHER aliens by holding down the use key. Would only be half as good as gorge's heal.
Now before people have a knee-jerk reaction to this, let's look at the result. With carapace gone from the skill tree, the defence chamber loses all of its early game charm. Sure it's handy to have it to heal other chambers, but for a FIRST chamber the only real reason people get a DC is for carapace, NOT for the benefit to surrounding chambers. (since no one builds OCs before they drop the second hive anyway - and with the first hive starting at full health, there is no concern there either)
So now Movement or Sensory become viable first chambers, depending on how the aliens want to play it.
More marine damage? I really don't think it's necessary. Remember, we're talking about 1.04 carapace, NOT the old carapace. Even when there are 3 DCs up, I still have no problem killing skulks, and I get killed plenty as well.
Like I said, since people automatically grab carapace form the very beginning, it's like carapace is part of the game ANYWAY. I know as a marine I expect and assume that all aliens have it, so it's not like it would change my gameplay.
The key would be that we could not give the DC anything 'good' to replace it. Thats why I suggested a 'heal' ability since that would be fairly innocuous. If the marines don't need a damage boost to battle carapace aliens now, then why give them a boost if it is incorporated into the aliens permanently?
If anything, should any one alien be 'too tough' then they could be individually balanced. Which would actually be easier in terms of calculations since they wouldn't have to factor in carapace anymore.
I was thinking like 1 point or so, there is that early time where the skulks have nothing to do but rush the base. The only things marines had going for them early was the fact that skulks didn't have carapace. Now they would have lvl 3 carapace right out of the blocks, it may wind up with more 2 min games.
Bah, this topic didn't get locked? That doesn't make much sense since it was the same as so many others yet they didn't say "But I also want to hear what YOU think." Well aside from the biased forum mods, I love the ideas.
ATM there is no reason to do anything but DMS, this could easily change that.
<!--QuoteBegin--*Dread*+Jan 27 2003, 03:50 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (*Dread* @ Jan 27 2003, 03:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> (I thought about cloaking other chambers but it would be quite useless as off chambers would give their position up in a sec.) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> It shoud cloak other chambers, perfect for making a secret Defense Chamber areas (for healing) or surprise attack squadrons of Offense Chambers for umm... fun <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
The other option would be to have the sensory cloak itself, no other structures, and parasite marines as they come into its LOS. One parasite per marine, so it doesn't turn into an Offense Chamber. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Movement chambers should increase the function of chambers or aliens near to them, but not both. Faster firing OCs, faster healing DCs, quicker 'adrenaline' regeneration for nearby aliens.. etc, etc. And using them would teleport you to the nearest hive, not another Movement Chamber.
Someone mentioned changing the defense chambers so that they only heal nearby aliens and themselves. That might not be a bad idea, and would put the DC's in -front- of the other chambers as a sort of shield. All other chambers would slowly regenerate themselves, or would require a gorge to heal them.
Thats only part of it. Chamber upgrades as well as chamber abilities needs to be made equally good. Only making chamber upgrades better isn't good enough. Chamber abilities needs to be tweaked too.
Also, I don't know whats the big fuss about carapace. I know its good but you know what? You can actually live even _longer_ and kill even _more_ marines with silence or celerity if you would just bother to test them and learn to play with them. I bet if you take celerity in the next 10 games you will kill as much marines with it as with carapace. What people don't understand is that different upgrades need different tactics. Thats the whole point of upgrades: having options on deciding how you are going to aproach the marines. Nothing is more freaky as a marine than skulk with cloaking. They are not used to that kind of thing and after dying two or three times because of invisible skulks they simply refuse to leave the base until they get upgrades. Think about it. If you have 6skulks in your team with invisibility waiting on marine paths(if we assume there is two paths) nothing is going to get past those skulks if they just move their position from time to time and camp patiently. In the meanwhile gorges can do anything they want because marines have been isolated into their base. Even if the whole marine teams rushes and manages to get through most of them are probably dead. Players of NS fail to adapt to situations. Next time someone build sensory or movement first, dont whine about it but suggest to other skulks that they could actually try some other tactic than just rushing towards marines and hoping your carapace lasts.
For example, last game I played, we had cloaking. I was ambushing marines left and right, and I got more kills like that than I would with carapace. However, we had an extremely difficult time taking out any organized marine party, and they eventually were able to get siege and secure both our hives while we could do nothing about it. We had tons of res, so we got tons of lerks. However, a lerk without carapace dies in like 3 bullets, so we still couldn't take down their forward bases.
It's not that cloaking is not effective, but the fact that it leaves your team totally defenseless against the marines biggest strength, forward building.
I think that all of the people saying that skulks are worthless without carapace need to learn some new tactics, and that if you are using silence and cloaking well, you won't need to worry about cracking bases so much until you have carapace anyway, unless you mean the main marine base, which you don't need to desolate in the first 10 minutes anyway.
Carapace just caters more to the "charge and hope I bite them before my health runs out" approach. It can be very useful, but that's not the only way to handle marines. Try it more than one or two games and see...
Twilight
Defence chamber
Abilities: Heals nearby kharaas and chambers
Upgrades:
-Carapace, aliens get better armor
-Regeneration, aliens heal themselves
-Redemption, aliens return to hive if they are badly injured
Movement chamber
Abilities: Offence chambers nearby shoot faster(one mov chamber affects 2off chambers) and kharaas can get "adrenaline boost" by using the movement chamber. Adrenaline boost lasts from 15seconds to 45secs depending on howmany movement chambers there are near. 1(15secs),2(30secs) and 3(45secs). More than three chambers won't do any good in this matter. "Adrenaline boost" makes kharaas adrenaline last longer, make melee attack more powerful and make kharaas faster. These boosts are not cumulative with primal scream and celerity. You can still "blink" from hive to hive but you must have one operational movement chamber. "Blinking" happens by using the hive itself.
Upgrades:
-Celerity, speeds up alien movement
-Silence, 1st lvl, no running sounds, 2nd lvl 50% melee attack sound, 3rd lvl renders motion tracking useles
-Adrenaline, power bar(yellow) comes up faster
Sensory chamber
Abilities: Cloaks itself and nearby khraas if they use it and stay still. Parasites marines from 7m distance. Parasite makes offence chambers aim marines better(thus you can use these effectively with offence chambers). Cannot be targeted by siege unless commander scanner sweaps it. Also if it has under 75% of its hp it will become visible.(I thought about cloaking other chambers but it would be quite useless as off chambers would give their position up in a sec.)
Upgrades:
-Hunting scent, makes kharaa an ultimate hunter: marines glow, they leave heatmarks -which disappear slowly- on the ground when they move which makes it easy for kharaa to track them down. Also kharaas smell(see in hive sight) the badly injured(under 65hp) enemies in certain area around them.
-Cloaking, makes kharaas 90% transparent. With 3rd level cloaking kharaas can move around slowly(at marine crouching speed)
-Pheromone of fear, when something inflicts damage to kharaa it emits pheromones in to air which tricks human brains to see illusionary kharaas. The alien becomes blurry and 30%transparent and depending on the level of this upgrade additional illusion kharaas appear around the one using this upgrade. Marines find it hard to target the alien using this.
There should be a limit of secondary chambers per area. Thus WoL's wouldn't be any worse than they are now, they just would be more diverse: fast shooting, healing and good aiming. I would suggest 8secondary chamber/ area.
And btw, all of those wasn't originally my ideas, im just bringing many good ideas up here. What do you think about those? Would atleast make sensory and movement better in early games. Especially I like the Hunting scent, would make kharaas much more like primitive beasts that they are supposed to be <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Those ideas are incredibly unbalancing. The only way that these would make sense would be to AT LEAST DOUBLE the cost of the chambers. AT LEAST. Right now, you have to mow down wall after wall of o chamers and d chambers, now you'll also have movement chambers and sensory towers to put up with too, thus bringing us back to the 'wall of lame' problem.
Im not sure if you are talking to me but I assume you are. There are already WoL problems. Its basicly the same for the marines if there is 8off+8def or 4off+20def because anyway you have to use siege, gl or hmg. What I forgot to add to my post was that there would be a limit of secondary chamber per area. Thus WoL's wouldn't be any worse than they are now, they just would be more diverse: fast shooting, healing and good aiming. I would suggest 8secondary chamber/area.
However, I'm not entirely sure if it is copyright infringement - I'm guessing it depends a lot on how its implemented. But, as you said, Flay seems happy with it, and its not as if he can sue for lost income.
Movement and sensory, when +used, "crank" their abilities for a short period of time.
Por exemplo:
A skulk with lvl 3 celerity +uses a movement chamber, and for a while (5-10 secs) has <b> 60% </b> increased speed.
You could make cranked cloaking cloak the skulk a bit While It Is Moving (not invisible, but tough to see).
These would make base cracking possible, in my opinion.
Defense chambers would either not get this ability (even MORE powerful carapace!?!) or have some other thing (maybe +using them triggers an umbra field).
EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe?
EDIT #2: Ooh! ooh! Make the "cranks" cost resources to the alien using them, and... Make sensories <b>disable voice comm, text messaging and comm alerts ("turrets are firing") in a given area.</b>
Movement and sensory, when +used, "crank" their abilities for a short period of time.
EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe?
EDIT #2: Ooh! ooh! Make the "cranks" cost resources to the alien using them, and... Make sensories disable voice comm, text messaging and comm alerts ("turrets are firing") in a given area. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read my post about +use abilities
I can't imagine a weapon that counters invisibility so maybe no more weps? The ones we have kills aliens pretty nicely. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't like the idea for +use boosts to cost res. Also Im not very keen on the idea of making com mode worse.
Would definately add more emphasis on them, rather then the usual walls of cheese.
Woudl give emphasis to maybe switching out a defense of offense for a movement of sensory for sure.
I'd like Sensory Chambers to do something like your suggested Movement Chamber "slow-down" to marines - the Sensory Chambers could induce a sort of "drunk" affect, like the concussion grenade from TeamFortress.
In terms of making the area unscannable, keep in mind that your sense tower is also invisible... this would make sieging a lamewall backed up with a sense tower nearly impossible, because nothing could spot it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Consider making it so that *aliens* within it's radius are invisible (as well as itself)? Or maybe, an alien who hits USE on the sense tower goes invisible...
Otherwise great ideas though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
EDIT: Of course, marines would need something to counter this. Late-stage superweapons maybe?
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why? The only time the aliens can have all three of the upgrades would be if they held all three hives, at which time the game is over anyhow.
The main reason to change these things is to make other chamber orders rather than DMS useful.
So when you look at all these nice abilities, do consider that the also means that there will be no healing outside of hives and the aliens will be dying in half the time or less.
Still think the marines need upgrading then?
And the cloaking makes sense, i dont see how suddenly marines could or should gain cloaking, the aliens have that biotechnology, the marines dont, i dont see why their towers shouldnthave similar ability.. Maybe give them partial cloaking at first see how it works out in test, then if its still not up, make it full.. wouldnt be long till the emplacements position is known anyway.
This stuff imo, makes sense.
Wouldnt be unbalancing i think.. after all, you gotta take note that that is 1 less defense tower, or offense tower, that the cloaking/movement is taking the place of.
I dont see how unbalaning it is in the face of <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> or <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo-->
a)Should cloak itself 100% and be 'unseen' by marines unless they walk right into it. This would allow for 'tactical placement' of sensory chambers in areas to monitor Marine movements. The sensory chamber would light up any nearby Marines on 'hive sight'. (none of that 'the enemy approaches' stuff)
b)-Should provide a counter to motion tracking in the chamber's area of influence. So, a sensory chamber in a key 'ambush location' would allow aliens to remain unseen and thus this would make up for the lack of carapace. (Which means you die FAST - so getting the jump on marines would be critical to make up for this)
c)-Although optional, what would really sell me on Sensory first would be that it could cloak OCs and resource nodes. (Cloak area would depend on the number of chambers nearby)
2.Movement:
a)-Causes nearby enemies to slow to 'walk' speed in the MC's area of influence. This would allow a compensation for the lack of carapace, giving skulks a chance to take them out easier.
b)-Makes nearby OCs to fire at a faster rate, as defined by the number of chambers nearby. (1 MC=33% increase 2 MC=66% increase, 3 MC=100% increase or double speed)
c)-Although optional, what would really sell me on Movement first would be if the MC caused an alien RT to output resources at an increased rate. (Similar to what was noted above) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1abc) Yea I agree, must decide range of area of influence however.
2.a)Yea. GREAT idea imo...
b)Nay. Not so much anyway, mebbe +50%.
c)Nay. Too good.
Perhaps part of the problem is carapace itself. It's just too important since aliens are too weak without it. That tells me that perhaps DCs aren't the problem. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way.
What if we DUMPED carapace all together and instead give the aliens the inherant bonus that carapace provides. So all aliens have the benefit of level 3 carapace all the time. Then you give the D chamber a new skill for aliens. Perhaps a 'heal' skill that would allow an alien to heal OTHER aliens by holding down the use key. Would only be half as good as gorge's heal.
Now before people have a knee-jerk reaction to this, let's look at the result. With carapace gone from the skill tree, the defence chamber loses all of its early game charm. Sure it's handy to have it to heal other chambers, but for a FIRST chamber the only real reason people get a DC is for carapace, NOT for the benefit to surrounding chambers. (since no one builds OCs before they drop the second hive anyway - and with the first hive starting at full health, there is no concern there either)
So now Movement or Sensory become viable first chambers, depending on how the aliens want to play it.
Thoughts?
Regards,
Savant
Like I said, since people automatically grab carapace form the very beginning, it's like carapace is part of the game ANYWAY. I know as a marine I expect and assume that all aliens have it, so it's not like it would change my gameplay.
The key would be that we could not give the DC anything 'good' to replace it. Thats why I suggested a 'heal' ability since that would be fairly innocuous. If the marines don't need a damage boost to battle carapace aliens now, then why give them a boost if it is incorporated into the aliens permanently?
If anything, should any one alien be 'too tough' then they could be individually balanced. Which would actually be easier in terms of calculations since they wouldn't have to factor in carapace anymore.
Regards,
Savant
ATM there is no reason to do anything but DMS, this could easily change that.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It shoud cloak other chambers, perfect for making a secret Defense Chamber areas (for healing) or surprise attack squadrons of Offense Chambers for umm... fun <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->