Alien Commander Abilities
schkorpio
I can mspaint Join Date: 2003-05-23 Member: 16635Members
I can mspaint Join Date: 2003-05-23 Member: 16635Members
<div class="IPBDescription">a positive thread about the alien commander mode</div>well now that the forum has atleast 3 anti alien commander threads i thought i would start with a positive one <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> (if you don't like the alien commander please don't post negatively here, there are other threads for that).
Post your ideas here for what abilities you think the alien commander should have? explain as much you like.
I've got a few :
<!--coloro:#00BFFF--><span style="color:#00BFFF"><!--/coloro-->1. Pheromone waypointing - the alien commander can draw a line made of pheromones from the commander view which if an alien player follows they will get a bonus while on that line, either speed, faster health regen, more armour while on the line, adrenaline regen, faster cloaking, etc the list goes on, perhaps it could be determined by the lifeform, the abilities you have selected, or even the commander could choose the bonus effect, or it might be tied to which chambers you have selected.
2. Painting Dynamic infestation. - the alien commander can use their own adrenaline bar to encourage the infestation to grow, or to block hallways etc.
3. Tentacles Sprouting from walls and floors - this would be either a charge up ability or cost res, but the commander could cause some tentactles to come out of a floor or walls, to stop marines from retrieting or to force them to go a certain way - unless they have a flamer or GL to deal with the tentacles.
4. Perhaps the type of lifeform, the abilities you have would determine what commanding options are availabe - if you are a fade and you enter the hive, the abilities are more destruction based, where as if you are a gorge your abilites are more support based. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Post your ideas here for what abilities you think the alien commander should have? explain as much you like.
I've got a few :
<!--coloro:#00BFFF--><span style="color:#00BFFF"><!--/coloro-->1. Pheromone waypointing - the alien commander can draw a line made of pheromones from the commander view which if an alien player follows they will get a bonus while on that line, either speed, faster health regen, more armour while on the line, adrenaline regen, faster cloaking, etc the list goes on, perhaps it could be determined by the lifeform, the abilities you have selected, or even the commander could choose the bonus effect, or it might be tied to which chambers you have selected.
2. Painting Dynamic infestation. - the alien commander can use their own adrenaline bar to encourage the infestation to grow, or to block hallways etc.
3. Tentacles Sprouting from walls and floors - this would be either a charge up ability or cost res, but the commander could cause some tentactles to come out of a floor or walls, to stop marines from retrieting or to force them to go a certain way - unless they have a flamer or GL to deal with the tentacles.
4. Perhaps the type of lifeform, the abilities you have would determine what commanding options are availabe - if you are a fade and you enter the hive, the abilities are more destruction based, where as if you are a gorge your abilites are more support based. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Comments
1) I like pheremone waypointing but I think a bit of depth could be added. Initial waypointing only in infested space (you know the infestation works like fast conductance nerves and then releases pheremones, or a sound since it is faster). Later on sensory organ buildings could increase coverage into nanite infested areas (this would increase the importance of infestation * WHY DO I KEEP TYPING CREEP D: *). These messages could range from "enemy approaching from here, to attack here, marine hiding here, fade come here, skulks run away from here, etc. This could be coupled with an automatic "colony under attack" with a marker on the hud locating any attack on the DI, this might make ninja rines more cautions about shotting at random in DI areas.
2) I think that the dynamic infestation should grow at a constant rate per number of controlled hives, when a marine is killed in an infested area the DI will increase more rapidly as he is metabolized by dividing bacteria. When an alien dies in an infested area the DI could also grow. I think too much control over DI might cause problems, but I also think it could make for some really creepy situations for the marines. Maybe the Acomm could direct where the DI should grow the fastest (if DI grows at a specific number of units/time the Acomm can allocate them to where they would be most effective, eg one strat would be to direct it all in 1 direction and make a run for MS, but then the Acomm would be blind in all other passageways and in danger of attacks from alternate routs, this would have the advantage of making the marines feel like they were combating a living entity as opposed to a gimmick).
A crit on 3) This seems a little involved and could get very very irritating for the marines which is not good for gameplay, besides, if it can become tentacles why cant it just morph skulks out of every wall?
A crit on 4) I think that the way the Acomm works in theory does not jive with the reality of gameplay, so having a "player" subsumed into the hive doesnt mean that they are still the lifeform they started out as, but that they are now in fact the hive itself. In theory someone could pick "hive" as their lifeform, but for gameplay purposes having a player be subsumed into the hive works better and is more noob friendly.
5) While we know that defense chambers etc. are an important part of the current alien strat, it is concieveable that an Acomm could simply choose areas of DI which would take on special properties (differentiating into a specialized cell type, but losing its ability to divide, thus making it more vulnerable) such as emitting clouds of healing bacteria but being more vulnerable to weapon fire, or maybe an area that would emit spore clouds like lerks have currently. This might help to add some variety to the appearance of the DI and could also be incorporated into the "rez 4 DI" idea proposed, with a limit on total specialized DI (since it cant continue to divide as it has differentiated) relative to the total DI present (some tweaking could find the best balance for this).
6) Another idea would be to let each hive have its own Acomm with jurisdiction over its own DI growth, this may just be stupid since one possible DI mechanic would be that there has to be some DI in a hive room before a hive can be built (giving the rines a special incentive to prevent DI growth towards other hives). This could still function if gorges could be chambers that accelerated DI growth speed in a certain area, or simply give the Acomm more total units growth/time, but a localized and constant effect might work better. Of course it could also all be pure crap.
7) Another idea might be to have the Acomm do battle with the marine station systems to take them offline in DI areas or sensory extension areas. This may seem silly (since there may not even be station systems) but as the number of hives increases and the number of Acomms available increases, this becomes a viable strategy since the second hive (clearly this is assuming multiple Acomms) player can fight the systems and manage the DI growth rate (basically infrastructure) while the other carries out attack coordination. I realize that problems might arise when there are multiple Acomms, but if there was a way to split jurisdiction of tasks by hive then as the number of hives increased the total "power" of the alien thinking machine would also increase. For the marines, this could have an amazing effect on how hard they would have to fight in order to overcome the much better coordinated aliens. This scheme might also mean that 3 hive aliens wouldnt have to be so much stronger (like they do right now), but it would also make Acomming very important. If the total number of "things" an Acomm can do are split dynamically between Acomms then if an extra lifeform was more important that processing power at a given time, the other hives would simply absorb the lost capacity and reallocate it again if someone hopped in to the previous vacated hive.
So I tossed a few DI related ideas in too, hopefully they make sense in relation to how they could function with the Acomm.
I like a lot of these ideas, especially number 4. It would encourage more than one commander and fit the alien play style better.
(i may have just missunderstood his wording)
(i may have just missunderstood his wording)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What he means is the portal like tunnes that were talked about in an earlier podcast. Such that the tunnel is shorter then the direct through the wall path. You cant do it in our universe, wihtout wormholes, but it can be done in the half life 2 engine.
edit: got beat to the explanation.
lol just had a picture of a fade getting into a hive and ten blinking the hive around the map , trasporting the hive between hive locations <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />