Offense Chambers
RyoOhki
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
<div class="IPBDescription">A waste of resources</div> It's a bold statement to be sure. But I feel it is justified.
Offense chambers have to be the single most useless thing at the alien's disposal. Heck, I would prefer pheremones to these pitiful creations. First of all a fairly hefty res cost: 10, which early in the game (the only time I might add when they are useful) makes them costly investments. Secondly, woeful health. You can't leave an OC by itself, because the poor thing won't last 2 clips of lmg fire. Bang, 10 res gone. Thirdly, inability to hit anything! No matter where you place an OC, odds are that either the marines will snipe it from long range or they will position themselves so they can hit the OC but the OC can't hit them.
Nothing has changed from 1.04 to 2.01 with regards to OCs: you still need 6+ at a locations just to keep the marines at bay and you still must have DCs nearby to heal them. Honestly why bother putting up OCs? They're obselete 3 minutes into a game and soak up valuable resources that can be better spent elsewhere: evolution chambers, higher lifeforms, res nodes and hives. I've simply had it with OCs being worthless!
I believe three things need to happen to OCs: 1. Drop the res cost slightly. 2. Increase their HP. 3. Make it impossible for a marine to shoot an OC without being hit by the OC.
Sorry for the rant. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that OCs really arn't worth putting down.
Offense chambers have to be the single most useless thing at the alien's disposal. Heck, I would prefer pheremones to these pitiful creations. First of all a fairly hefty res cost: 10, which early in the game (the only time I might add when they are useful) makes them costly investments. Secondly, woeful health. You can't leave an OC by itself, because the poor thing won't last 2 clips of lmg fire. Bang, 10 res gone. Thirdly, inability to hit anything! No matter where you place an OC, odds are that either the marines will snipe it from long range or they will position themselves so they can hit the OC but the OC can't hit them.
Nothing has changed from 1.04 to 2.01 with regards to OCs: you still need 6+ at a locations just to keep the marines at bay and you still must have DCs nearby to heal them. Honestly why bother putting up OCs? They're obselete 3 minutes into a game and soak up valuable resources that can be better spent elsewhere: evolution chambers, higher lifeforms, res nodes and hives. I've simply had it with OCs being worthless!
I believe three things need to happen to OCs: 1. Drop the res cost slightly. 2. Increase their HP. 3. Make it impossible for a marine to shoot an OC without being hit by the OC.
Sorry for the rant. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that OCs really arn't worth putting down.
Comments
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sign me in ^^
The rest of the time, I don't drop many unless I intend to STAY IN THE AREA. Why? Because OCs aren't for turtling, they're not for turret rushes, they're a stopgap security measure. IMHO they're meant to be weaker than turrets, because aliens aren't meant to revolve around a turtling defensive strategy.
Boosting OCs would only encourage aliens to take a slack approach to the game - pushing with skulks just long enough to build up 6 OC then moving to the next area. I don't see that as a fun alien strat, or a fun thing for marines to counter. I'll agree OCs aren't entirely perfect, but from the POV that they're deterrents and not killers, I have to say I think they do their job satisfactorily.
I think the OC res cost could use a tiny reduction to 8 or 9 res but other than that they're good for acting as a speedbump or early warning but if you want to actually stop anything bar a proper assault you can go mad with OCs and DCs to block off chokepoints too ^^
- Alien support
- DCs to make sure they don't die in 10 seconds
- They protect something really worth protecting
In my oppinion, OC's need to be changed, as they are severly broken right now.
Make them:
- 5 res a piece
- 550 max hp
- Deals 50 per shot
- Build time is faster because it's less HP
If this were done, it would fix a number of problems:
- These OC's would be better with support, unlike OC's today. OC's today placed outside of DC's or hive usually results in little protection offered by the OC. If a gorge with 10 res and a skulk want to set up a good defense against 3 marines somewhere outside of the hive, it would never work. Why?
The gorge would waste his 10 res on an OC. The marines charge in, killing the skulk, killing the gorge (all without medspam in this case), and then killing the OC once the live elements are dead.
If the OC's only cost 5, then what would happen is that two OC's would be placed down, protected by both skulk and gorge. If the marines choose to charge in, they would feel 100 damage per OC attack, which will kill a marine very quickly. They might get the gorge or the skulk, but the point is, the marine attack would be held back.
- It would be possible to setup two OC's in an area to give ample warning against rambo marines. Let's say a marine runs into one OC now: They run by, maybe with medspam, most likely without. The OC's purpose is ruined; it wouldn't warn the alien team of anything. Whereas with my system, if a marine runs into two OC's (this would be equivilent to one OC of the old system), then the marine/comm faces a tough desicion: Waste up to 10+ res to get by the OC's without alerting the alien team, or just gun them down really fast (550 hp = one LMG clip with lv. 1 uprade to kill). However, it would alert the alien team. Prelimary warning systems made by aliens right now just don't work, it's <b>way</b> too expensive to even think of such a thing. 10 res for a crappy OC which won't even kill a single marine or cause them to use a single medpack vs. a DC, MC, or SC? Please, there is no contest here on what to use.
If the marines move in a group, they will most of the time obliterate the OC wall from afar if they are placed poorly. For example, in pumping station, someone placed a bunch of OCs in the corner on the side farthest from the RT. A group of marines just sniped with their LMGs and it was toast.
Also, you do not ever want a group of marines to freely move around on your turf without knowing so OCs help.
<!--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-->- 5 res a piece
- 550 max hp
- Deals 50 per shot
- Build time is faster because it's less HP<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Isn't that just a 1100 HP OC that does 100 damage? :=p I think the old OC HP value was somewhere around 1100 too.
8 O chambers and two defense chambers: 100 res
Time for early game units to crack turrets: Probably somewhere around 3+ minutes of suicidal rushing.
Time for early units to crack O chambers: Probably somewhere around 1.5 minutes of hidden LMG fire, or 1 minute of shotgun suicide rush.
Time for midgame units to crack turrets: Probably somewhere around 1.5+ minutes of suicidal rushing.
Time for midgame units to crack O chambers: Probably somewhere around 30 seconds of hidden HMG / Level 2 LMG fire.
Time for endgame units to crack turrets: Probably somewhere around 30 seconds of suicidal rushing.
Time for endgame units to crack O chambers: Probably somewhere around 1-2 seconds of hidden Level 3 HMG / Grenade fire.
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Oh but wait, it's a lot harder for aliens to get the 100 res then it is for the commander... shouldn't O chambers be more useful then? This makes no sense...
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Oh and Zerg, then tell us how to properly place an OC so that it can't be sniped and is still effective. Oh wait, that only happens at the bottom of elevators and doors like the rotating door.
Now show me how turrets can be sniped.
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Now one more thing: The marines have the following anti-structure tools at their disposal:
1) The shotgun. Early game 1.04 bilebomb for the marines. Three shots takes down an OC (Or is it two now?). Massive anti-structure weapon, also kills early game aliens in one hit. So balanced, don't you agree?
2) Grenade Launcher. Late game structure blaster. Also makes base defense against beaten aliens a piece of cake. It ONLY harms you, so just spam it among your base structures, or your buddy marines, and those aliens go *POP* with absoutely no skill required!
3) Siege. Blast those already useless O chambers through walls! Do the marines even NEED this anymore?
Alien anti-structure options:
1) Bilebomb. Midgame, very very very short ranged. No where near as powerful as the grenade launcher because the gorge needs to expose himself and can easilly be killed, umbra or not. Also doesn't harm marines. Could roughly be compared to suicidal shotgun rushing, except the marine structures have VASTLY more hitpoints then any alien ones, and furthermore, it doesn't hurt marines and can only be used briefly before your stamina is gone. Becomes completely obsolete if the marines have a grenade launcher, or just a whole bunch of guns pointing at the gorge, and if their base is built a ways away.
2) Onos. Honestly...
In listing the alien anti-structure weapons, you forgot to include
a) Skulk bite. Kills marines AND structures at extremely fast rates, for 0 res! Add 2 res for regen, and undefended turrets drop very quickly.
b) Lerk Spikes. Kills structures rather slowly, but gives you that "snipe without being in harms way" feeling you want.
c) Fade slash. Slightly more powerful than skulk bite, and attached to a far more resilient body.
d) Acid Rocket. With adrenaline, gives you a much quicker "sniping" weapon.
The mere fact that all of these weapons can be used against marines as well as buildings doesn't prevent them from being effective anti-building weapons, any more than the fact that you can shoot skulks with a shotgun kept it off of your anti-structure list.
There's me blinking over defences and using my fraction of a second aerial time to find a spot for maximum cover and then having to land in it and manouver carefully so I take as little fire as possible while mr GL just aims in my rough direction and fires 3 rounds off -.-
Same goes for attacking a crowd of marines.
I can understand and Im quite happy that marine bullets don't harm other marines or marine buildings but since when was concussion and shrapnel FF intelligent? Ignoring facts for it just being a game, it still seems incredibly cheap that against a team who's main set of attacks revolve around melee you can just put a couple of explosives at the feet of your team and the enemy have to retreat while your comrades sit completely unharmed in a giant ball of flames o.O
Did I mention I hate grenade launchers? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
The argument has been made that they cost too much but at the same time there is no turret factory required, so they can be build anywhere, without the over head cost of additional structures, which makes them cheaper then turrets.
Especially when marines can be killed by mines.
Oh well.
I personally would LOVE for the marines to have a few disadvantages to the Wall of Death; Have the grenades hurt fellow teammates, like mines do (Both explode - what's the difference?), and have them damage marine buildings as well.
Even though the idea of"nanotechnology preventing damage" is neat, if that technology can render itself impervious to the concussive blast of a grenade, it can certainly do the same for a fade swipe, skulk bite, or lerk spike. If that technology can also suddenly creature complex structures like RTs on the spot, then why not oxygen? It would be a big help for those annoying lerk spores. It could also create a layer of base substance, reducing or eliminating the effects of acid. That same nanotechnology could also detect and remove foreign bodies; Hence, a counter to the parasite.
Hence, I propose an idea: Make the marines completely invincible.
If gorge plus skulk get destroyed while building an OC, then tough nuts for trying to build it and getting caught.
Turrets and factories are an outright dumb comparison to an OC - the OC doesnt need a tf, doesn't need to be in a radius of anything. Unlike the marine turret. And lets not forget that 90 percent of rine tfarms have massive holes that allow you to rape the tf for zero loss. Compare that with the 90 percent of OCs that are placed in dumb places that allow marines to snipe them.
On the sniping note - so what if the rine can shoot it without getting shot back? Its not meant to kill him, its mean to slow him - and thats what it's doing. While he's shooting it, messages are blaring through the alien teams ears, and they can then KILL the rine while the OC heals itself.
Really, some of this stuff I shouldn't even have to point out.
wrong, your thinking alien res points are the same as marine res, marine res is is given about 10x faster
a gorge building by itself has 25 res to start with, if it goes gorge out the gate it will take that gorge aprox 3 min to build 5 oc's, if a marine team did the same and spent all money on turrets it could make aproxamtly 35 turrets off 1 rt, try it if u dont belive me.
and your all forgetting turrets can be upgraded , 10 level 3 turrets can kill an onos quite fast, less then a min, depending on what upgrade, 10 oc's cant kill 1 ha guy...
dont think thats a fare trade...
agree oc's == worthless
at least 1.04 ocs' had more hp... were a usefull wall
Now in 2.01, with more Onii around, it's not practical to create the 1.04 style WOL since it would severely hinder them, and with the newfound love of commanders, the grenade launcher, becoming more common, they are being dropped.
But as it's been stated abundantly int his thread already, OC's aren't meant to be impenetrable, just as the turrets aren't, they're supposed to be a hinderance to the other team, and they succeed in doing that fantastically. More people need to learn to place them properly. Such as around corners. While that was a very good tactic for surprising marines, now it's become their downfall since marines now just strafe from around the corner, empty a clip and strafe back taking minimal damage. Try placing them in corridors with little to no alcoves or hiding spots, while the marine may still have distance, the lack of accuracy in the lmg / shotty will be a great advantage to the OC.
So in short, guys, stop relying on the OC to do all the work, they're not an invicible form of defence, just as the turret isn't and just as the OC was back in 1.04. Just try to learn to place them well so they'll do maximum damage and create maximum hinderance and they're perfectly fine. Also, never post OC's alone, that's a kinda stupid idea, 2-3 is enough to seal off an entrance and do significant damage to a single marine or possibly even more.
OC's would hit a Marine everytime in 2.0 and everybody bitched.
Flayra reduced the accuracy in 2.01, everybody bitched.
Try using the damn structures more tactically instead of just plunking one in the middle of a room where twenty Marines can shoot at it without being damaged. The idea of OC's is to have a suprise element. That element is much more enhanced when Sensory is in play however, being the 3rd favorite chamber amongst most people, it doesn't happen that often. If the Alien team is working together, many resource nodes can be capped in the beginning of the game and then 2 or 3 people can perma-Gorge and basically just put of defense everywhere.
The idea of OC's and Marine Turrets are to slow down the opposing team. You can't expect every OC or every Marine Turret to kill ANYTHING that passes by.
I also disagree with the opening statement. OC's are VERY VERY different than 1.04. Those spit balls they used to shoot? Haha! Now those never hit anything. With the spikes the OC's shoot now, they will hit any Marine within it's range with fairly good accuracy.
Give it a rest and think of new ways to place down OC's.
Just some thoughts-
Lowering the price of OCs will make it tougher for marines to Slash and Burn (SnB)*.
*<i>Popular and effective marine strategy. Rushing to build RTs and speed tech while the bulk of marine force kill alien RTs to deny them of resources and spread their forces thin</i>
At opening game you can gorge and put up 2 OCs (26 res) or an RT/OC (33 res) pretty darn quickly.
A delay tactic to counter SnB is to bottleneck the marines somewhere with OCs. At 8 res/OC you could bottleneck much quicker and with more OCs. If 2 gorges can get 4 OCs right outside MS they can healspray support OCs/Skulk hit-and-runners from within' spitting distance. They would have no choice but to assault with a large force... this would mean less marines scouring the map for nodes and alien RTs.
As gorge:
-With 1 OC and Spit/Healspray I feel I got a pretty good chance of taking out a single marine, prolly not too confident against 2 marines
-With 2 OCs and Spit/Healspray I feel pretty confident against 2-3 marines
-With 4 OCs I'd feel pretty secure
Perhaps instead of bottlenecking aliens try to maximize security for whatever RTs they have, allowing more time for skulks to hunt marines and less time re-routing to save an RT under attack. An RT/2 OCs (41 res) can probably fend off a 1-2 marines or delay a sizable marine force. At opening game you could immediately take and hold 2 RTs with RT/2 OCs (3 gorges to do it quickly) before assaulting marine RTs.
It'll be much harder for 1-2 marines to sneak behind the front lines and slash your RTs, they will be forced to use more men to hunt RTs, meaning there won't be as many marines elsewhere on the map. Meanwhile you can aggress with skulks, take down marine RTs, and continue to build RT/2 OC combos. Building Tfac/sieges so early in the game would take away from upgrades; this would probably force marines to invest in SGs much sooner to take out OCs further delaying any quick teching.
At 8 res/OC I speculate expansion will be much tougher for the marines if the alien team works together and do not rezwhore. Early OCs up against lvl 0 armour marines could be decisive in delaying marine expansion, perhaps leaving them no option but to travel in a big squad with constant medspam attention, taking 1 RT at a time. This might make it easier for aliens to curb or weaken the SnB which requires smaller squads (2-3 marines) to aggress multiple unprotected alien RTs, build and protect their own RTs.
Ever seen gorgs healign OC walls?Invulnerable to LMG fire.Totally.1 gorg healing an OC can heal up 2,3 marines worth of LMG fire unless they synchronzie their fire.
Early OC walls with gorg support at one of their base exits is simply so damaging to the marines that they have a much higher chance of losing.Skulks also use the OC walls as diversions.Marine shoot the OC,reload and the skulk/s go over the OC and bite the hapless marines.
if you place oc's the right way so that they will crossfire... its awsome <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
-example
place them on the railings in holoroom, anti-jp + anti lights <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
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I have to agree here. We're not allowed to suggest non-"gritty" weapons, but the marines have a magical boom cannon that shoots through walls. Is this really needed anymore? Nothing gritty about siege guns.
Stick that in your mouse and smoke it devs....