Expansive Chamber System

xmaine

In NS1, chambers were the heart of alien strategy. They are great support assets to the team and allow aliens to customize their upgrades to suit their combative styles and what the situation is. Here are a few ideas on how to expand the system. Each chamber has its own tech tree. Feel free to criticize, add onto this idea, or expand it. Here are a few ideas of mine.

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Offense Colony- A bigger version of the Offense Chamber. It upgrades from the offense chamber. It has more health, does more damage, has tentacles for high damaging melee to prevent marines from getting up close.

Size:Big
Cost:High

Movement
Infestation Chamber- Allows dynamic infestation to start from that chamber so that the aliens dont have to wait for the hive's infestation to reach that area.

Size: Medium
Cost: Medium

Pulse Chamber- Disrupts the Commander. The effect has a small radius and the commander cannot drop medpacks, ammo, structures, or weapons.

Size: Big
Cost: Medium

Defense
Nullification Chamber- As long as the chamber is alive near a marine activated and controlled power grid area, the chamber temporarily disables the power grid for 8 seconds at 20 second intervals halting mining, upgrades, and research from that area.

Size: Medium
Cost: Medium

Acidic Chamber- Spawns thin, small, and oily strands that quickly regenerate and attach from wall to wall serving as a blockade. Marines cannot pass through as Aliens can easily pass through. If Marines touch the strands, they are hurt by high damaging acids.

Size: Very Big
Cost: High

Sensory
Parasite Chamber- Buildable on walls and ceilings. They harmlessly parasite marines that are in range as they walk by.

Size: Small
Cost: Medium

Vibration Chamber- Sends small subtle vibrations throughout that ships that are undetectable. It shows what the marines are upgrading and researching.

Size: Big
Cost: High

spellman23

Too much extra complexity and somewhat borken abilities.

No.

locallyunscene

Interesting ideas. I wonder if we'll see scouting, disruption, nullification chambers like you suggest.

ChocoZuma

<!--quoteo(post=1722204:date=Aug 12 2009, 01:36 PM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Aug 12 2009, 01:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1722204"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Too much extra complexity and somewhat borken abilities.

No.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It's not too complex. I think in this case the Alien Comm will do most of the upgrading/unlocking of the chambers anyway, the gorge just needs to find a good place to put them.

Some of the Chamber abilities are abit strange e.g. the Vibration Chamber, I dont think a chamber should be able to see what upgrades the rines are researching.

The rest sounds great. It will add abit more depth and create some chambers that can realy help out late game.

Maybe another branch on the offense tree. A pure melee chamber? With about a 1.5 to 2.5 skulk-length "reach"?

BadMouth

All these chambers sound very "offensive" to me, as in they need to be placed away from the hive and deep into enemy territory to be effective. With the exception of a few of your ideas, most of the chambers will not be able to last long if they are put into enemy territory. So I don't know how viable they really are since they need to be put into the front lines but most don't have sufficient self defence mechanisms.

Clueless_Sheep

I like the idea of being able to upgrade a chamber into something more, but i think the ideas you listed are kinda imbalanced.

"Pulse Chamber- Disrupts the Commander. The effect has a small radius and the commander cannot drop medpacks, ammo, structures, or weapons. "

for example, id just spam them all over a hive location, it would make it vertualy imposible for a marrine push, they would have to use a seige.

that said i did like the idea of an "infestation tower" i can see that adding a nice bit of tactical play into the game.

I think somthing like this would be good though, just not exactly as you sugested.

locallyunscene

<!--quoteo(post=1722247:date=Aug 12 2009, 01:26 PM:name=Clueless_Sheep)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Clueless_Sheep @ Aug 12 2009, 01:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1722247"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like the idea of being able to upgrade a chamber into something more, but i think the ideas you listed are kinda imbalanced.

"Pulse Chamber- Disrupts the Commander. The effect has a small radius and the commander cannot drop medpacks, ammo, structures, or weapons. "

for example, id just spam them all over a hive location, it would make it vertualy imposible for a marrine push, they would have to use a seige.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So they kharaa use an expensive(time + res) strat to force the marines to use an expensive(time+res) strat? That sounds balanced to me.

Mortos

Actually, this sounds like a major gameplay change, but, given a lot of thought to balance, this could in fact be a wonderful idea.

Sirot

I just dislike how much art assets it would require to implement this idea. It is 11 buildings total, that's way too much.

naughty_skulker

I like the idea of added depth to the whole hives system. Op has some sweet ideas too, I like the idea of having more hostile environments as a result and think it could work well with the visual infestation thing they got going.

Very cool, hope we see something like this in the final game.

xmaine

hopefully the devs would consider something like this. i hope to hear from them.

Sewlek

I like the idea of upgradeable chambers, could give the alien comm more strategic options

xmaine

Right now i dont like the idea of giving the gorge only 2 chambers to build (offense and defense).

xmaine

<!--quoteo(post=1722212:date=Aug 12 2009, 02:15 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Aug 12 2009, 02:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1722212"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Interesting ideas. I wonder if we'll see scouting, disruption, nullification chambers like you suggest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
maybe perhaps that one of the chambers would be able to disable marine hud.

yourbonesakin

I would love alien buildings being able to be upgraded, even it's just into more powerful version of the sub-building.

It would make OC's much more viable. Let's say a super-OC is twice as effective as a regular OC in all ways. Combining the HP of 2 OC's into one super-OC makes it harder to kill with blind GL spam or Siege Turret fire. In other words, it would make Kharaa chambers more resilient to AoE attacks with more resource expenditure.

It would be a trick to balance a "super-OC" or a "super-DC", but I think it would add a lot to the game in a lot of ways. First, you've got your increased amount of options for the alien builder, and appropriate increases in utility for greater expenditure of resources. Then you've got additional strategy coming into play. Alien builders would have to decide on whether to build multiple small chambers or one super-chamber. In relation, Marines would have differing tactics for the greater number of possible OC configurations (and by extension, greater configuration of all chambers that are upgradable). Dodging a super-OC's fire would be different from dodging multiple sub-OCs fire, super-OCs would have less sight and thus less area of effect, whereas multiple OCs have more sight, and thus more area of effect, etc. Alien builders would have to decide between spreading out resource expenditure around the map or concentrating it one area. Building multiple DCs around the map means more chance a Kharaa has of getting healed after a battle, but building a super-DC in a central location would mean faster healing time for well-coordinated Kharaa.

I go probably go on and on, and I would love to, but it's late.

I really hope this suggestion makes it into Alpha or Beta. Or maybe a fan could simply make a LUA construct that had a larger version of an OC's model and had better HP, Damage, and Rate of Fire statistics. That's a pretty simple solution.

xmaine

Yeah i was thinking that each chamber has its little own tech tree with branching buildings relating to that chamber so that the game would have more of an RTS feel.