Limiting Turret Farms Without Crippling Outposts.
Woodstock_the_Lerk
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 19008Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 19008Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">My attempt</div> Some brainstorming here:
There needs to be a limiting factor on how much this stuff can ACTUALLY fire continuously... fixing the armory/gl issue won't help much, as a few nade launchers are PLENTY of spam to keep gorges and lerks at bay. TF's could acquire an ammo capacity. Once the TF runs dry, comm has to spend res *AND* time researching/producing ammunition in the factory, which supplies all turrets it controls (more on that later). What I'm getting at here is something which will induce a vulnerable downtime or instate an "upkeep" cost to turret farms. This would provide aliens a way to starve marines down faster and not face an endless stream of bullets that cost absolutely nothing except a down payment.
For example: Mr. Commando <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> has an outpost in hive A. He has a res node and TF protected by 6 turrets. Turret factory has a nice little counter on it indicating that it currently holds 1000 bullets. Over the course of the game this outpost would probably never need resupply unless the aliens engaged it with "drainer tactics" trying to get the TF to run dry. (This would hardly turn out as a viable alternative, as any alien force which could drain a TF with only 6 turrets on it would either A. be able to decimate the outpost in the usual fashion or B. be wasting a substantial amount of time with an underpowered force which leaves them out of the action elsewhere. IF, however, the TF does get low, the commander simply resupplies the factory during a lull in the attacks (factory and res node are still electrified). This costs him 30 res (5/turret) and 30 seconds (also 5/turret) and nets him the SAME amount of bullets in the factory regardless of how many turrets it controls. Thus, a small turret outpost has a modest ammo consumption rate and also has a meager cost/downtime for supply.
Fast forward to endgame turret farm: Mr. Die-hard Comm <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo--> once again has a TF with turrets. This time, however, its a last-stand plethora of turrets. Now, the action is furious; the spam is going, the welders are buzzing, and the turrets are going nuts. Commander takes a peek at his TF's rapidly depleting supply, glances at the resupply button, and starts to sweat. The button reads: "Resupply ammunition: 1000 bullets. Cost: 80 res, 1 min 20 seconds." <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> He knows he's in trouble now. In a short while it's gonna be over a minute of his HA HMG 'rines and GL spammers versus half a team of angry, leaping explodoskulks scattering his marines from their precious armory while oni charge, hurdling the turret barricade and engaging in mortal combat while remaining skulks, gorges, and fades tear down turrets that are helpless to defend themselves. The gorges hurl a few bile bombs towards the back of the base to clear the backup layout of mines and we see much progress towards a defeated marine team. Even if the marines fend off the attack, you just spent the equivalent of several new equipped marines to keep that farm going (and probably lost a few existing marines and a LOT of turrets).
Now, on to covering gaps: TF overlap would have to be removed. Overlap of the green circles of influence turns red and no turrets can activate in that region. This is to prevent using a backup TF to circumvent the resupply system. This would also encourage more planning in factory placement since if you wanted two separate farms in base they would have to be placed away from each other and would hamper placement of turrets in general (especially near entrances, since the circular control region is gonna fall short somewhere unless the TF is a dedicated front-liner, which is BB bait). Turrets which are tied to a factory that is recycled become useless and must be recycled/destroyed to prevent building new factories to circumvent resupply.
Two tfacs/farms in base (for each entrance probably, due to overlap restrictions) makes the vulnerability quite a bit less, but all those useless turrets attached to the resupplying factory are still blocking bullets from the active ones, making them pretty easy skulk/gorge bait if oni keep the marines occupied. Regardless, 1 res node can't support a farm very long at all at 5 res/turret and pretty soon its back to aliens and marines mano a mano.
Last note: 1000 bullets would be replaced by something which supplies your usual hive lockdown setup for a moderate game, but gets sucked dry by last-stand turret walls. Just something I made up.
The idea is to leave your usual outposts intact while making fortresses very costly and vulnerable. Whatcha think?
There needs to be a limiting factor on how much this stuff can ACTUALLY fire continuously... fixing the armory/gl issue won't help much, as a few nade launchers are PLENTY of spam to keep gorges and lerks at bay. TF's could acquire an ammo capacity. Once the TF runs dry, comm has to spend res *AND* time researching/producing ammunition in the factory, which supplies all turrets it controls (more on that later). What I'm getting at here is something which will induce a vulnerable downtime or instate an "upkeep" cost to turret farms. This would provide aliens a way to starve marines down faster and not face an endless stream of bullets that cost absolutely nothing except a down payment.
For example: Mr. Commando <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> has an outpost in hive A. He has a res node and TF protected by 6 turrets. Turret factory has a nice little counter on it indicating that it currently holds 1000 bullets. Over the course of the game this outpost would probably never need resupply unless the aliens engaged it with "drainer tactics" trying to get the TF to run dry. (This would hardly turn out as a viable alternative, as any alien force which could drain a TF with only 6 turrets on it would either A. be able to decimate the outpost in the usual fashion or B. be wasting a substantial amount of time with an underpowered force which leaves them out of the action elsewhere. IF, however, the TF does get low, the commander simply resupplies the factory during a lull in the attacks (factory and res node are still electrified). This costs him 30 res (5/turret) and 30 seconds (also 5/turret) and nets him the SAME amount of bullets in the factory regardless of how many turrets it controls. Thus, a small turret outpost has a modest ammo consumption rate and also has a meager cost/downtime for supply.
Fast forward to endgame turret farm: Mr. Die-hard Comm <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo--> once again has a TF with turrets. This time, however, its a last-stand plethora of turrets. Now, the action is furious; the spam is going, the welders are buzzing, and the turrets are going nuts. Commander takes a peek at his TF's rapidly depleting supply, glances at the resupply button, and starts to sweat. The button reads: "Resupply ammunition: 1000 bullets. Cost: 80 res, 1 min 20 seconds." <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> He knows he's in trouble now. In a short while it's gonna be over a minute of his HA HMG 'rines and GL spammers versus half a team of angry, leaping explodoskulks scattering his marines from their precious armory while oni charge, hurdling the turret barricade and engaging in mortal combat while remaining skulks, gorges, and fades tear down turrets that are helpless to defend themselves. The gorges hurl a few bile bombs towards the back of the base to clear the backup layout of mines and we see much progress towards a defeated marine team. Even if the marines fend off the attack, you just spent the equivalent of several new equipped marines to keep that farm going (and probably lost a few existing marines and a LOT of turrets).
Now, on to covering gaps: TF overlap would have to be removed. Overlap of the green circles of influence turns red and no turrets can activate in that region. This is to prevent using a backup TF to circumvent the resupply system. This would also encourage more planning in factory placement since if you wanted two separate farms in base they would have to be placed away from each other and would hamper placement of turrets in general (especially near entrances, since the circular control region is gonna fall short somewhere unless the TF is a dedicated front-liner, which is BB bait). Turrets which are tied to a factory that is recycled become useless and must be recycled/destroyed to prevent building new factories to circumvent resupply.
Two tfacs/farms in base (for each entrance probably, due to overlap restrictions) makes the vulnerability quite a bit less, but all those useless turrets attached to the resupplying factory are still blocking bullets from the active ones, making them pretty easy skulk/gorge bait if oni keep the marines occupied. Regardless, 1 res node can't support a farm very long at all at 5 res/turret and pretty soon its back to aliens and marines mano a mano.
Last note: 1000 bullets would be replaced by something which supplies your usual hive lockdown setup for a moderate game, but gets sucked dry by last-stand turret walls. Just something I made up.
The idea is to leave your usual outposts intact while making fortresses very costly and vulnerable. Whatcha think?
Comments
What we (IE my gaming group, normally confined to board games but no more muahahaa...anyway) are going to do is artificially limit turrets to 10, 8 and 6 per zone respectively. We'll see how TF's do against the aliens then and if it is a waste of res or not. Expect results...soon!
Maybe a stupid question: the aliens are restricted in the number of chambers they can put in one area. Why aren't marines restricted similarly with turrets?
Maybe a stupid question: the aliens are restricted in the number of chambers they can put in one area. Why aren't marines restricted similarly with turrets? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
My guess is that turrets in 1.04 were completely useless and I think they thought bilebomb was suitable enough as a counter.
They didn't realise that TF+Grenades is a REALLY nasty combination. Reducing the amount of turrets will solve the problem however with no need to touch the GL.
They ARE restricted. 50 total entities, I think, which includes mines. I always get confused as to what falls under the 50, but, eh, basic idea is there... Yes to cap, no to cap that you'll ever hit unless you really really like mines.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->They didn't realise that TF+Grenades is a REALLY nasty combination.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They did, I distinctly recall this being mentioned... However, I don't think anyone predicted the stupidity of pub players who choose to prolong a game with spam rather than try to find a way to conduct an offensive. That and alien teams which can't force conclusive results and give the 'rines time to build a game-delaying type of base.
Ok my point is that the aliens shouldnt let the marines secure an outpost and if they do they should work as a team to take that outpost back the problem is that in 1.04 u only needed 1 fade or even a skulk to take a turret farm down u now need a full team to work as one which is rarely seen tbh i dont see any issues with turrets their quite fine.
Edit: Jasp the problem is marine's bunkered up in their spawn with 1 res node. The aliens have won the game but can't get past the nade spam + insane turret farms in base to end the game. There's currently nothing wrong with marine outposts in a normal game, even with a large number of turrets.
No no, I think they underestimated the stupidity of pub players or the cleverness (evilness?) of some commanders.
The problem with alien teams is they do need to win fast, because marines can get the res to conduct a massive stalemate easily. The other thing is some comms are finding these stalemates=win. I've seen about 9-10 alien losses simply from giving up in sheer frustration.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Edit: Jasp the problem is marine's bunkered up in their spawn with 1 res node. The aliens have won the game but can't get past the nade spam + insane turret farms in base to end the game. There's currently nothing wrong with marine outposts in a normal game, even with a large number of turrets. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly, that has never been the point. You aren't going to do anything about GL spamming, which is what allows these turret farms to live. Without GL=my TF's go down easily. With 2-3 GLs=1 hour minimum to break it.
It is still too much effort for no real benefit. When all that needs to be done is set a turret limit, there is no need to make complicated changes that just make a commanders job overall that little bit harder.
The calculation could be made by comparing number of active TFs to number of active turrets. For example, you can do (Turrets - TFs). If that number's negative, any turret you place will cost five res. If that number's zero, any turret you place will cost 10 res (you have one turret for every TF already). If the number's positive some more gimmicking will have to take place, but I want to find out if the idea's possible before I bother to work out the calculations behind it.
This would mean that you could use a TF at base to build more efficiently across the map (still requiring a TF physically present there), but you're still costing more res than an original turret would've taken.
Ah, I forgot to add, additionally, it would make setting up light defenses the same or easier than before (two-turret = five less res, three-turret = the same amount of res). It's only when you really start whoring above three turrets that you begin to spend more (four turrets is really the max you need per TF to do much good and that would cost ten res more than normal).
The problem is this game was made for the clan matchs now as a clan they work as one as they want to win the round as such when they get bottled in with thier turrets and GLs the aliens are just gonna all rush in with carapace onos lerks and gorges and rip the place to bits but the pubbers take redemption and just run in and devour a marine i mean GROW UP for pity sake its sad anoyying and lame well IMO. If the aliens worked as one they would win..
People are still stuck in their 1.04 rut and think that 1 skulk can turn the tide of the game, got news for u not anymore.
TEAMWORK people TEAMWORK