Emergency power routing

Mindstorm

A lot of people have been discussing power node's lately. They say that with gorge bile-bombing and what not it's just a "win button". I believe power nodes are a weakness but just because there is not fail save. They work fine now but some sort of "reserve" should be in place. Some suggest batteries for this purpose with different mechanics, I however do not believe that power-packs or emergency batteries are a good solution because this would mainly increase turtle time and overall round times.

A good solution in my opinion would be "Emergency power routing", and this is how I suggest it could work:
At every techpoint a "Induction station" can be build. Wireless power transfer can occur between induction stations.
Example:
A team owns 2 techpoints A and B and a induction station is present at both of them. Power gets destroyed at techpoint A. The commander can select the induction station at techpoint B and press "Revert power to techpoint A". Power in techpoint B will go down and will be routed to techpoint A. Because induction causes losses only the IP's, Obs and pg's get powered.

This would mean that a base can be saved when a power outage occurs. But because power needs to be diverted I believe it would not be "op". Also notice that I say PG's also get power from this .This means that a marine team with 3 techpoints occupied can still pg.

To further increase balance (hence something to be tested in matches) the following could be altered (none of then are mandatory of course):
-Buildings which receive power from a induction station.
-TRes for enabling (and maybe even disabling) power transfer.
-Induction stations needs to be researched before it can be placed (maybe even at prototype lab).
-After a induction station is build it needs to be set to "supplier" or "receiver" for TRes.

So what do you guys think?

Angelusz

There should be a short delay, so the aliens get "some" downtime from killing a node, but I like it otherwise. Makes me think back to star trek.. "Divert power to the forward shields!"

Gamerkatze

i could also be possible to make the transfer go over nearby power nodes. so you need a working power node connection between the techpoints to make it work. the powernodes could glow brighter (because of higher load ?!) so aliens have a clear indication that the power node is transporting power to somewhere.

Melancor

I want to say "beta is over"... but let me put it this way:

Bile Bomb is meant to be very dangerous. ARCs are too. You DO have the option to call a distress beacon.

In my opinion, marines should learn from their mistakes and change their strategy, rather than wanting to change the engine to their advantage ("balance")

Mindstorm

Melancor wrote: »

I want to say "beta is over"... but let me put it this way:

Bile Bomb is meant to be very dangerous. ARCs are too. You DO have the option to call a distress beacon.

In my opinion, marines should learn from their mistakes and change their strategy, rather than wanting to change the engine to their advantage ("balance")

My "suggestion" is not a "engine change" in order to provide more wins. I know bilebomb is dangerous and I do not want a single thing changed in that.

Batteries got removed because they seemed misplaced, a base being taken down by 2 gorgies is also misplaced. I rarely see a hive go down because of a 2 rine shotgun eglock (or whatever else) do you? I just feels misplaced that aliens have a 1-structure-kill-base-wipe function.
Batteries where misplaced because they also increased turtles and what not. This does not because it needs 2 techpoints.

Anyway again please don't start stating that bilebomb is dangerous and arcs are and whatever other discussion you want to have. Just comment why you think my suggestion would work or not.

Kalabalana

I miss batteries, ninjaing phase gates will never be the same, but charlies decision to remove them is better for what NS2 is supposed to be, imo

Wake

Mindstorm wrote: »

So what do you guys think?

Too complicated ...
... And I have a feeling I am glad I won't be a coder on that one

MaLuS

I don't see a problem with this as long as the power itself would have down time (which it would due to commander needing to route the power) but i think the down time should be the same as the time taken before your able to repair a power node, this should also be the same time needed for the receiver to initiate the transfer which would give the aliens a few seconds from power loss to kill the receiver which in turn would only give time for 1 beacon (bare in mind this would strand your team until power is restored giving time for aliens to attack the other tech point) or phasing in a small assault squad with limited time to deal with the situation. This would very much be a snap decision tactic so you'd have to make the right call or it would definitely cost you the game or save it.

dragonmith

Fixing of the commander interface would need to happen before that, but it does bring in some interesting ideas, sell everything or reroute power and try to hold on. It might also be (if I read your idea correctly @Mindstorm) a good reason for marines to hold more than two techpoints.

However, it could lessen or even remove the consequence of overextending with forces and would remove the reward of a well-played ninja gorge (one of the only defences against a strong marine push).

ryanmcaleese

first of all I think marine comm interface needs to be fixed with more of a warning.
second I think it should be possible to upgrade power nodes so they have like 50% more health - this way gives time to respond to multiple gorge rush

OutlawDr

This is not a new idea, but and much simpler fail save could involve the extractor.

The idea is once the powernode goes down, emergency lights turn on, and the extractor takes over powering structures. However the extractor has a limited capacity, and can not power everything, such as: the extractor itself doesn't produce res during this time (its 'using' the res to power the room), all research is paused, phase gates go down, obs goes down, ect. But structure like the CC, armory, and IP are up and running. This way it allows the marines to still save the base, but at a disadvantage. Taking down the extractor powers everything down, and should be game over man for that base.