Not bad. At least they would not hit the win button that easily early on. Even though they could target the battery with spit but that requires line of sight and would give marines a little more time to react. It would make forward bases a bit more interesting too. Though I imagine it might be a bit difficult to take out arcs if the com just places sentries all around them once deployed and marines turtle protecting the sentries killing anything that get close to the battery. Though spit and spikes should be able to take it out along with other suicidal skulks willing to give their lives to take out the battery. Would need a lot of testing but the idea is good.
Maybe balance the sentry's capability against the number and fire rate of the Gorge. So each Bile Bomb basically gets it's own HP and one Sentry is enough to destroy one Bile Bomb in about 0.25 - 0.5 second. So against multiple Gorges, you might require to have the Sentries placed in a way that more than one can shoot at the incoming Bile Bombs to effectively stop them. A Khamm supporting with Drifter Enzyme might be enough as well to out-bile the Sentries if the Gorge is close enough (point blank, where it can be stopped by other marines easily) so that the Bile Bombs need less time to reach their target.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited January 2013
<!--quoteo(post=2067252:date=Jan 27 2013, 01:39 PM:name=SeeVee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SeeVee @ Jan 27 2013, 01:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067252"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If it's not going to shoot them down totally, maybe have them make the bile bomb less effective as it get hits by the sentries in mid air.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How about instead of popping the bile bombs, the turret fire slows them down so they can't fly as far?
It's not really a hard counter anyway. A Skulk can go with the Gorge and take the turret down that is looking at the trajectory of the Bile Bomb. A Fade or Onos can occupy the Sentries completely so that Bile Bombs can be thrown in to destroy them quickly. Turrets protect basically against one or two lone Gorges, but that's it.
I agree that bilebombing turrets is currently too easy for a lone gorge and there should be some way to make this tougher. However, I think this solution would only lead to frustration for the aliens, since it would make strategies like the one I described in this <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/ns2/comments/16j2t7/interesting_marine_strategy_in_brazilian_servers/" target="_blank">r/ns2 thread</a> viable.
The strategy is basically a marine sentry-MAC rush to lock down tech points while the aliens still don't have access to bilebomb. I've seen it work a few times in pubs and it is immensely frustrating when you are on the alien team and the marines pull it off, because all you can do is wait while the marines slowly lock you down in the starting hive and slowly kill you off with unupgraded weapons and armor. The conclusion of the reddit thread was that this will probably only work with poor alien teams, which is confirmed by my experience. As soon as bilebomb is researched, this whole strategy turns into a gigantic waste of res for the marines.
However, if bilebomb is countered by sentries, the aliens would have no way out against a good early marine game usign this strategy, turning the match into aliens vs sentries/MACs. And, like Flayra said in the reddit thread, they definitely don't want the game to turn into this.
I think the asymmetry between bilebomb/GLs and sentries/whips should stay in the game. Bilebomb is the only good structure killer available for the aliens from early til mid game, so if BB is countered, they are left with no viable options to take down a nest of sentries being welded by MACs and supported by a marine or two. On the marine side, once the comm realizes the GLs are not cutting it, he still has ARCs and Exos as options to take down the alien defenses. Not to mention that whips cost 15 res per pop and need a few crags to make them stand a few LMG mags, while a full sentry nest only costs 20 res.
I think one possible fix for this whole problem would be to remove the sentry battery maximum radius. Maybe turn the battery into a sentry targeting computer that acquires targets throughout the room for the sentries (each independently powered by its own inbuilt battery, to keep them separated from the power node system). That way, the sentries could be placed farther apart and the battery/"targeting computer" could be hidden off in a corner to prevent instant bile kills.
I guess this would make the "targeting computer" somewhat like an observatory, so maybe the sentry targeting could simply be an upgradeable tech for each obs, like whip bombard, which would give the obs the ability to support 3 sentries in its own room and target aliens within its sight radius.
An alien team would have to be pretty poor for this to work. A rush of skulks could take the battery down quickly. Or failing that, get in the sentries blind spot (almost all placements have them) and systematically take down the MACs (both counters require no marine presents in the area).
Besides, that's why I said make it an upgrade from the Robotics Factory (Advanced Projectile Targeting - XX res\2nd Comm) so it becomes a mid-late game upgrade.
Bilebomb should still kill sentries if the sentries are busy with a skulk / fade / onos etc. Umbra should also help bilebomb get through should this be implemented.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
its a cool idea, but bile is a good counter to sentries - so this would kinda ruin that.
tbh i dont really think bilebomb needs a counter like this. gorge is pretty defenseless on his own as it is, you can't climb walls or anything, so attacking is always risky
Bullets stopping liquid balls? Not realistic. How about arcs exploding the shit out of them
Not realistic. lol
Also Bile Bombs are like balloons. If you actually think liquid can travel through the air in the perfect sphere like that then I don't really think you are the authority on reality.
Bullets stopping liquid balls? Not realistic. How about arcs exploding the shit out of them
Not realistic. lol
Also Bile Bombs are like balloons. If you actually think liquid can travel through the air in the perfect sphere like that then I don't really think you are the authority on reality.
Oh calm yourself down, liquid surface tension exists and makes liquids behave like that. Water in free fall or zero-g.... and some liquids do it more than others. And absolutely no one said they are balloons. Even if it was a 'water ballon', the water would hit the target bullets or no. Conservation of momentum.
Welcome to reality.
Anyways my argument for arcs: turrets are countered by bile, not the other way around. Applying this change would leave turrets largely uncountered. Here arcs would play new active role on defense. Just an option to consider
While i can understand where you are coming from, i dont think it is very feasible, because marines would be able to lock themselfs down to much. Also if u would give sentries the ability to hit bile bomb: How do you explain that marines cant hit them?
Bullets stopping liquid balls? Not realistic. How about arcs exploding the shit out of them
Not realistic. lol
Also Bile Bombs are like balloons. If you actually think liquid can travel through the air in the perfect sphere like that then I don't really think you are the authority on reality.
Oh calm yourself down, liquid surface tension exists and makes liquids behave like that. Water in free fall or zero-g.... and some liquids do it more than others. And absolutely no one said they are balloons. Even if it was a 'water ballon', the water would hit the target bullets or no. Conservation of momentum.
Welcome to reality.
Anyways my argument for arcs: turrets are countered by bile, not the other way around. Applying this change would leave turrets largely uncountered. Here arcs would play new active role on defense. Just an option to consider
[COMPLETELYSINCEREAPOLOGY]Why didn't you specify we were talking about how water would travel in a zero g vacuum. Man, I was so wrong. Please accept my apology.[/OBVIOUS-SARCASM]
Comments
Sentries are so weak that any other alien can kill them. Having them anti-bile would be nice.
its some protection versus res. Like shoving this near your main base power node.
I like the idea.. marines get more breathing room and kharaa have some more fun for the challenge rather then blind bombing.
I like this idea nonetheless.
How about instead of popping the bile bombs, the turret fire slows them down so they can't fly as far?
Maybe the sentries would require another upgrade to allow them to shoot down bile.
The strategy is basically a marine sentry-MAC rush to lock down tech points while the aliens still don't have access to bilebomb. I've seen it work a few times in pubs and it is immensely frustrating when you are on the alien team and the marines pull it off, because all you can do is wait while the marines slowly lock you down in the starting hive and slowly kill you off with unupgraded weapons and armor. The conclusion of the reddit thread was that this will probably only work with poor alien teams, which is confirmed by my experience. As soon as bilebomb is researched, this whole strategy turns into a gigantic waste of res for the marines.
However, if bilebomb is countered by sentries, the aliens would have no way out against a good early marine game usign this strategy, turning the match into aliens vs sentries/MACs. And, like Flayra said in the reddit thread, they definitely don't want the game to turn into this.
I think the asymmetry between bilebomb/GLs and sentries/whips should stay in the game. Bilebomb is the only good structure killer available for the aliens from early til mid game, so if BB is countered, they are left with no viable options to take down a nest of sentries being welded by MACs and supported by a marine or two. On the marine side, once the comm realizes the GLs are not cutting it, he still has ARCs and Exos as options to take down the alien defenses. Not to mention that whips cost 15 res per pop and need a few crags to make them stand a few LMG mags, while a full sentry nest only costs 20 res.
I think one possible fix for this whole problem would be to remove the sentry battery maximum radius. Maybe turn the battery into a sentry targeting computer that acquires targets throughout the room for the sentries (each independently powered by its own inbuilt battery, to keep them separated from the power node system). That way, the sentries could be placed farther apart and the battery/"targeting computer" could be hidden off in a corner to prevent instant bile kills.
I guess this would make the "targeting computer" somewhat like an observatory, so maybe the sentry targeting could simply be an upgradeable tech for each obs, like whip bombard, which would give the obs the ability to support 3 sentries in its own room and target aliens within its sight radius.
Besides, that's why I said make it an upgrade from the Robotics Factory (Advanced Projectile Targeting - XX res\2nd Comm) so it becomes a mid-late game upgrade.
tbh i dont really think bilebomb needs a counter like this. gorge is pretty defenseless on his own as it is, you can't climb walls or anything, so attacking is always risky
Not realistic. lol
Also Bile Bombs are like balloons. If you actually think liquid can travel through the air in the perfect sphere like that then I don't really think you are the authority on reality.
Oh calm yourself down, liquid surface tension exists and makes liquids behave like that. Water in free fall or zero-g.... and some liquids do it more than others. And absolutely no one said they are balloons. Even if it was a 'water ballon', the water would hit the target bullets or no. Conservation of momentum.
Welcome to reality.
Anyways my argument for arcs: turrets are countered by bile, not the other way around. Applying this change would leave turrets largely uncountered. Here arcs would play new active role on defense. Just an option to consider
[COMPLETELYSINCEREAPOLOGY]Why didn't you specify we were talking about how water would travel in a zero g vacuum. Man, I was so wrong. Please accept my apology.[/OBVIOUS-SARCASM]