Aliens: Making the most of your ability to eat power nodes

DJ Splendid

This means damaging them to near-destruction, but not completely. When marines come in, pop it and enjoy the ambush.
Dark for you, too? True, but the marines are covered in little lights, besides, you'll presumably have your hive sight in later builds so lets start as we mean to go on!

On big maps, it's probably still worth completely destroying the ones a long way from Marine Start to hinder ninja builds by MACs who sneak past the front lines.

Feha

It is also often good to get a node to 1% at rine base (lerk often ninja it well), then when all teammates retreated/healed or are ready in some other way, pop it and enjoy the chaos that happens when 4 aliens spread around in the room, going for whatever their target is. Almost a sure win, as they need power to respawn.

Chris0132

Yeah I'd kinda like this to be averted somehow. Having a room go from perfectly fine to nonfunctional in one bite is kinda sillly. You could have it cut to red lights at about 30% so that marines know the node needs repairing, then cut structure power and go black at 0.

Hakujin

You mean the klaxon and yellow flashing light isnt enough warning at 30%

PseudoKnight

<!--quoteo(post=1811061:date=Nov 26 2010, 09:43 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 26 2010, 09:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1811061"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah I'd kinda like this to be averted somehow. Having a room go from perfectly fine to nonfunctional in one bite is kinda sillly. You could have it cut to red lights at about 30% so that marines know the node needs repairing, then cut structure power and go black at 0.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->There was talk about having things flicker at a certain point when they're being chomped on, which is great, but that black out is one of the more exciting additions into NS. It should be preserved.

McGlaspie

The lights are affected anytime a power node is damaged; however, they only mildly pulsate and if there is anything else going on the effect is really easy to miss. Imo, the effect should be more pronounced and only start to happen after a node drops below 85%. This seems like the best of both worlds to me.

SN.Wolf

I think the audio,warning light as well as the area lights flickering are good enough but, Commander needs a warning at command central that a node is under attack anywhere they have structures powered by then. As far as the infantry portal power, it should have a 30 second battery back up after power goes down or at least the observatory should have enough reserve power left in it for a single final beacon.

Maybe the game needs GIANT dehumidifiers to suck the moisture from oozing alien structures...lol.

The power grid is painful to keep track of in a full on game but if the comm neglects troops he can check them for a weld every 30 seconds. Hopefully the portable power nodes will alleviate this issue, we shall see.

Chris0132

<!--quoteo(post=1811073:date=Nov 27 2010, 05:25 AM:name=Hakujin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hakujin @ Nov 27 2010, 05:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1811073"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You mean the klaxon and yellow flashing light isnt enough warning at 30%<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Not if you aren't looking at it no.

Power nodes are usually not in the middle of a room, if you are coming into a room, you probably can't see the power node from where you are.

Chris0132

<!--quoteo(post=1811080:date=Nov 27 2010, 06:13 AM:name=PseudoKnight)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PseudoKnight @ Nov 27 2010, 06:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1811080"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There was talk about having things flicker at a certain point when they're being chomped on, which is great, but that black out is one of the more exciting additions into NS. It should be preserved.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Yeah, I said it would go black at 0, at 30% the lights go red or simply dim a lot to indicate the node is nearly dead, then at 0 it cuts the lights entirely for a while, and then fades in to emergency lights later.

Basically add room effects at different damage levels, not just when it's being attacked. So you can see the node health by the state of the room.