Power Grid Ideas
DBladedPantz
Join Date: 2011-03-25 Member: 88483Members
Join Date: 2011-03-25 Member: 88483Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Bring Grid Relevance Back!</div>Long time forum reader, first time post. Here goes:
I've been thinking about the power grid as a function of territory control for awhile and as many of us seem to think, I believe it needs some serious revamping. That being said, I've thought about the conditions in which a room may be afflicted by the power/infestation (croach) dynamic and have broken the status of a room into four different scenarios that may be in play at any given time across a game map.
1) A room has no croach present and the power is off.
2) A room has croach present and the power is on.
3) A room has no croach present and the power is on.
4) A room has croach present and the power is off.
Given these 4 states, I was also thinking about how the power/croach dynamic is supposed to play out properly. The intended goal seems to insist that power and croach are counter to one another on some basic level. The croach being a natural opposite to power along with its ability to creep along the floor and corrupt its environment to better suit the needs of the aliens seems to imply it could also "infest" marine structures. To make this work, I believe we need to look at the 4 states a room goes through again.
In states 1 and 2, its technically a neutral position for both teams. Aliens that have croach present with the power on shouldn't suffer any more than the marine team that has no croach present and the power off. In state 3, this implies the marines are in direct control of the room with no alien presence while the exact opposite is implied with aliens loving an environment with no power and croach EVERWHERE.
I see two possible approaches to the croach and power dynamic that bring solvency to territory control.
The first approach is purely as a Resource Tower (RT)/ extractor dynamic insofar as how the croach and power would effect resource production for both teams. In a room that is in states 1 or 2, there is no implied control of the rooms, so any extractors/ RTs should produce resources at a normal rate. However, if we were to tip the scales of control in favor of one team or the other that team should see a boon in production at say, a 25% increase whereas the opposing team would suffer by halving their production rate. I.e. Assuming resource production was 4res/sec , if a room is in state 4, but marines had extractor(s) built previously, the extractor(s) would still run but at 50% efficiency (2res/sec), whereas any alien RTs would operate at 125% (5res/sec).
That being said, this argues that aliens should not have to tie their RTs to infestation and marine extractors should also not be tied to a room's given power grid. Both should have some principle of operating off of thermal heat to run of their own accord while power and croach would be necessary for all other buildings for both teams.
However it seems to me that just limits the implicated opposition power and croach have with one another. My second proposal is to make the given state of the croach and power in a room effect the health of team structures. This way, we bring back territory control in the form of how difficult, or how easy it would be to rush the location of a team and clear out their presence from the room for your own team's purposes. In this scenario, I would tie the increase or decrease in structure health to the four room states again and argue a similar increase or decrease in health. I.e. Marine buildings in a room in state 4 would have half their normal health whereas buildings in a room in state 3 (marine start) would be at 125%.
If a team gets control of a room, perhaps by turtling the marines start as an example, then they should see some sort of benefit by seeing the health of their structures increase to reflect a well fortified position. Similarly, any alien structures built in rooms that are full of croach and have the power turned off would be much harder to kill off if say a lone ranger from the marines went off into alien territory and tried to kill off the pustules that will spread croach.
Similarly, this supports offensive maneuvers: if the aliens were to invade a room controlled by marines by turning the power off and getting croach everywhere, they will be able to clear it out faster because the marine structures are both "infested" and in a powered off state. Whereas if the marines push into an alien controlled area by turning the power on, it should help facilitate negating the alien advantage by maybe negating the regenerative ability of the croach, and if the croach is cleared, should make all alien structures that are not already dead suffer their 50% health loss. If structures have been losing health because the croach was already cleared, we could just automatically subtract the 50% health from the structure's overall health pool instead of its current health pool.
All that being said, I cannot make my mind up if a combination of the two would also work as a third possibility. Thoughts on this long topic?
I've been thinking about the power grid as a function of territory control for awhile and as many of us seem to think, I believe it needs some serious revamping. That being said, I've thought about the conditions in which a room may be afflicted by the power/infestation (croach) dynamic and have broken the status of a room into four different scenarios that may be in play at any given time across a game map.
1) A room has no croach present and the power is off.
2) A room has croach present and the power is on.
3) A room has no croach present and the power is on.
4) A room has croach present and the power is off.
Given these 4 states, I was also thinking about how the power/croach dynamic is supposed to play out properly. The intended goal seems to insist that power and croach are counter to one another on some basic level. The croach being a natural opposite to power along with its ability to creep along the floor and corrupt its environment to better suit the needs of the aliens seems to imply it could also "infest" marine structures. To make this work, I believe we need to look at the 4 states a room goes through again.
In states 1 and 2, its technically a neutral position for both teams. Aliens that have croach present with the power on shouldn't suffer any more than the marine team that has no croach present and the power off. In state 3, this implies the marines are in direct control of the room with no alien presence while the exact opposite is implied with aliens loving an environment with no power and croach EVERWHERE.
I see two possible approaches to the croach and power dynamic that bring solvency to territory control.
The first approach is purely as a Resource Tower (RT)/ extractor dynamic insofar as how the croach and power would effect resource production for both teams. In a room that is in states 1 or 2, there is no implied control of the rooms, so any extractors/ RTs should produce resources at a normal rate. However, if we were to tip the scales of control in favor of one team or the other that team should see a boon in production at say, a 25% increase whereas the opposing team would suffer by halving their production rate. I.e. Assuming resource production was 4res/sec , if a room is in state 4, but marines had extractor(s) built previously, the extractor(s) would still run but at 50% efficiency (2res/sec), whereas any alien RTs would operate at 125% (5res/sec).
That being said, this argues that aliens should not have to tie their RTs to infestation and marine extractors should also not be tied to a room's given power grid. Both should have some principle of operating off of thermal heat to run of their own accord while power and croach would be necessary for all other buildings for both teams.
However it seems to me that just limits the implicated opposition power and croach have with one another. My second proposal is to make the given state of the croach and power in a room effect the health of team structures. This way, we bring back territory control in the form of how difficult, or how easy it would be to rush the location of a team and clear out their presence from the room for your own team's purposes. In this scenario, I would tie the increase or decrease in structure health to the four room states again and argue a similar increase or decrease in health. I.e. Marine buildings in a room in state 4 would have half their normal health whereas buildings in a room in state 3 (marine start) would be at 125%.
If a team gets control of a room, perhaps by turtling the marines start as an example, then they should see some sort of benefit by seeing the health of their structures increase to reflect a well fortified position. Similarly, any alien structures built in rooms that are full of croach and have the power turned off would be much harder to kill off if say a lone ranger from the marines went off into alien territory and tried to kill off the pustules that will spread croach.
Similarly, this supports offensive maneuvers: if the aliens were to invade a room controlled by marines by turning the power off and getting croach everywhere, they will be able to clear it out faster because the marine structures are both "infested" and in a powered off state. Whereas if the marines push into an alien controlled area by turning the power on, it should help facilitate negating the alien advantage by maybe negating the regenerative ability of the croach, and if the croach is cleared, should make all alien structures that are not already dead suffer their 50% health loss. If structures have been losing health because the croach was already cleared, we could just automatically subtract the 50% health from the structure's overall health pool instead of its current health pool.
All that being said, I cannot make my mind up if a combination of the two would also work as a third possibility. Thoughts on this long topic?
Comments
back to the topic:
I don't reallt see the point in your modifications to income and health. It's also a kind of "invisible" modifier. Since it's based on the amount of Infestation (with capital letter because i'm proud of the word) in the room. So let's say a tiny drop of Infestation lingers around the doorstep, looking kind of innocent, but it still saps away 10% health or income.
back to the topic:
I don't reallt see the point in your modifications to income and health. It's also a kind of "invisible" modifier. Since it's based on the amount of Infestation (with capital letter because i'm proud of the word) in the room. So let's say a tiny drop of Infestation lingers around the doorstep, looking kind of innocent, but it still saps away 10% health or income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed.
There needs to be more elements that encourage getting rid of creep / destroying power nodes; but adding penalties is too extreme.
When Powered, Marine Commander and Ground units can operate it normally. When Unpowered, the door defaults to an Opened state and as such cannot be Welded shut.
This would <strike>not</strike> bring some clarity to territorial control via Power vs. Infestation, but also present further incentive for welding doors shut.
However I can see this tipping the favour of each game to the Kharaa, as they are at best a better offensive side when compared to the Marines. Thus giving us a problem much akin to what RFK is doing at the moment.
Fortifying positions is a big no no in my opinion, as it encourages what some would call "strategic turtling".
This would (in my opinion) create very predictable games and therefore remove any elements of apprehension and tension when entering knowingly uncontested parts of the map.
This would make the multiplayer quite boring and repetitive, something we don't want.
To summarise, I quite like your idea of scaled areas. But I would not like to see battles of fortification if you catch my drift.
When Powered, Marine Commander and Ground units can operate it normally. When Unpowered, the door defaults to an Opened state and as such cannot be Welded shut.
This would not bring some clarity to territorial control via Power vs. Infestation, but also present further incentive for welding doors shut.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And perhaps have certain air ducts require infestation to pry open.