Anything planned for infestation?

killer monkey

I was just looking through old NS2 development videos and stumbled on the infestation prototyping video. The video made me wonder if the current infestation is final in either aesthetics, or gameplay. I also wanted to know what happened to the ideas on that video. So is infestation final the way it is, or is there some improvements coming?

Wisp

I'd like to voice my support for future improvements to infestation. I don't think it has reached its potential aesthetically or in terms of gameplay. This could be a really great feature of NS2 that currently feels rather bland.

aeroripper

Agreed. I always envisioned little infestation vines reaching out along the walls to fortify areas that have been held for a long time with existing infestation. Also more infestation that covers the ceiling and walls, and turns off lights and computer terminals.

There is probably more pressing concerns to work on first though.

Ghosthree3

Dynamic vines off infestation would probably make a lot of peoples cpus commit suicide.

Scorpion9908

Improvements to infestation. +1

killer monkey

Honestly if we could have tendrils connecting cysts and having flora and little micro fauna running around and growing. Obviously as cinematics so AI wouldn't need to be written

IronHorse

Mod makers ASSSSEMMMMMMMBLE!!

killer monkey

So does that mean no on the official side of things

wopwop

killer monkey wrote: »

Honestly if we could have tendrils connecting cysts and having flora and little micro fauna running around and growing. Obviously as cinematics so AI wouldn't need to be written

That kind of ground clutter can usually put quite some stress on hardware.
I think they should first grant solid performance, then venutre into making things pretty.

Mestaritonttu

I want khamm rupture ability to be replaced by "parasitic eruption" which launches the infestation on a nearby marine encasing him in a see-thru plastic goo-bag kinda thing and then slowly melting the marine into a skeleton. Marines would be prompted a whack-a-mole(cyst) type a game to beat with the axe to survive. :ar!

The vines sound good. Maybe a biomass level 9 ability to grab nearby marines and tear open their stomachs in a flurry of intestines. Nearby aliens would be healed if they kept biting (feeding) at the spray of entrails. ) *nom nom nom nom*

Aesthetic improvements? ....meeeeh.

IronHorse

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131949/rework-the-power-node-system-lighting#latest

CrushaK

Ghosthree3 wrote: »

Dynamic vines off infestation would probably make a lot of peoples cpus commit suicide.

Rather the memory, I am afraid.

I once experimented a bit in a mod that tripled the number of blobs in detailed infestation (while making the blobs themselves smaller). The result looked nice, but the memory consumption went up by 1 GB due to that…

olandx

.

Blarney_Stone

I don't think UWE's ever found a happy medium for infestation, to be honest. At first it had a fairly massive effect on gameplay (marines couldnt build on it, gave the alien commander "hivesight" of them, and I believe it gave aliens health/speed bonuses at some point?) but it was honestly more of a nuisance than a truly exciting, dynamic feature. Then when sewlek took over, its role became more and more reduced, which brings us to where it is now: an inoffensive, but fairly bland feature that has little impact on gameplay other than forcing the alien commander to wait a couple seconds before dropping structures. I think it's possible for infestation to be an interesting part of the game, but I don't think we've discovered what that is yet. In its current form, though, it's fine - maybe not as exciting as it could be, but certainly by no means a problem.

As far as aesthetics go, meh... I play with minimal infestation anyway because I have a non-government computer and like framerates above 20.

Electr0

killer monkey wrote: »

Honestly if we could have tendrils connecting cysts and having flora and little micro fauna running around and growing. Obviously as cinematics so AI wouldn't need to be written

That would be nice, even just having static plants mixed in would be cool, i thought the current form of infestation was a last minute addition before release? It always seemed so with the big blobs and tacky look, hopefully it does get some improvement before they stop doing content updates, because im pretty sure the current infestation was not what they envisioned.

killer monkey

Electr0 wrote: »

killer monkey wrote: »

Honestly if we could have tendrils connecting cysts and having flora and little micro fauna running around and growing. Obviously as cinematics so AI wouldn't need to be written

That would be nice, even just having static plants mixed in would be cool, i thought the current form of infestation was a last minute addition before release? It always seemed so with the big blobs and tacky look, hopefully it does get some improvement before they stop doing content updates, because im pretty sure the current infestation was not what they envisioned.

They could even reuse the one that are inside a gorge tunnel

Nordic

CrushaK wrote: »

Ghosthree3 wrote: »

Dynamic vines off infestation would probably make a lot of peoples cpus commit suicide.

Rather the memory, I am afraid.

I once experimented a bit in a mod that tripled the number of blobs in detailed infestation (while making the blobs themselves smaller). The result looked nice, but the memory consumption went up by 1 GB due to that…

I wish there was an option for something like that for those of us with more memory available.

Jekt

Jekt wrote: »

So since release, minimal infestation has looked like this.

Streaks and barcode like infestation textures cover every surface. There's been a few threads about some servers that have had an infestation bug causing it to look like this.

This is the greatest bug I've seen. It should be a feature.

Ghosthree3

Rip b235 minimal infestation which had no duct tape texture.

_Necro_

More infestation on the ceilings should be easily achievable by changing the bounding box (of the infestation of a cyst) from a sphere to a cylinder.

Another huge improvement would be to change the infestation-blop generator. Instead of using random numbers to position the blops around the cyst, it should be an deterministic algorithm. The parameters would be the position of the cyst and from that it would calculate where the blops have to be around the cyst. Choosing the right algorithm will make it look random, like it is now. But with the BIG advantage that every client sees the blops on the same position. Making them usable as visual cover.

ezekel

I remember in one of the official builds minimal infestation was bland BUT it filled the entire area, now it's just spots here and there; was this change intentional (I'd assume performance wise?)

_Necro_

This change came with the rework of the infestation system. The blops are created at random points around the cyst. Minimal infestation does the same but with textures instead of blops to decrease polygon amount.

The old cystem before this change just had one big texture with its center at the cyst.

ablueman

Just put a middle value for infestation. Minimal if you run an old pc. Max if you want infestation and vines etc and have the computer to run it. And the middle value "medium infestation" for what it currently is.

Just my 2c

Neoken

I'd just like the rich infestation to be a bit less bubbly, that's the only thing keeping me from enabling it.

SeeVee

As a feature it would be good for people to be able to activate a simple re-texture of infested rooms for the really crap PC owners. For peeps with med spec pc's have the infestation look like it does now but maybe not move and breathe like it does to help keep their FPS down. For folks like myself with a rocket rig I'd like to even have infestation drips coming off of the ceilings etc.

YEAH BABY!

Ironman

Infestation is a core part of the game, however it's value has been severely reduced. It comes to the point where its actually hindering the aliens then adding any value.

The original adoptation of the Cyst idea has esentially been....perverted. The original idea and workings of the Cyst was perfect, but all its hard work was taken away.

1) Cysts is suppose to emanate the influence of the Alien threat, the original idea of the game, Alien infestation, Aliens taking over.

2) Infestation should be seen as a threat, not an annoyance.

3) Cysts cost money, Anything that costs money in the game should have value

Moving forward.
In order to drop a structure, it must be supported by infestation. However if the infestation is nutralized the supported structures die.

You also have to wait for a Cyst to grow in order to be able to drop a structure.

Problems: 1 Cyst is weak, Cyst costs Money, Cyst is slow to grow and spread, Cyst has area restriction and automatically kills another Cyst placed near by.


Scenario: Aliens take over part of map, Alien Commander decides to strategicly place support structure, however he has to wait for the cyst to grow.
By the time the Cyst is grown, Marines are back in that zone and the Alien commander is either unable to drop support structure, or b) has a structure finally building only to be killed, with potential loss of drifter.

Scenario2: Aliens are trying to maintain expansion of res nodes, Marine team kills cyst, harvestor is slowly dying. The Alien commander in panic drops a cyst, then accidently drops a second cyst to close causing the chain to break, and then the res node dies.

This has to be the most frustrating thing to witness, especially as an egg evolving into groge to heal the rt, only to see a res node die to slow cyst expansion.


-I would like to see the following considered

1) Cyst Infestation speed increased
2) Auto Kill Cyst by another cyst removed
3) Add value to infestation; Movment Speed Increase, Hive Sight, Healing, dapen sound of movement, Block Marine structures

Wheeee

the auto kill cyst was implemented to prevent cyst spamming which dropped fps by half or more late game, all of those other ideas were already tried and it led to aliens being OP and effective turtling.

Ironman

Well, sounds like the game was getting performance drops due to to many objects in the map. So its not just due to Cyst Spamming, as Hydra limit was placed too *internal cry* haha.

As it been considered to have a max cyst count for a map? So you can still place a number of cysts in a single room while still maintaining performance. The auto kill cysts is a frustrating mechanic.

Also, I find myself often using mist on my cysts to speed them up so I can drop my first res node.

Neoken

Mist only speeds up maturation, not it's building speed.

RMJ

Everytime im down in that tunnel the gorge can make.

Thats how i wish infestation looked. You know like it was actually the aliens version of nature and plants, with stuff sticking out.

1dominator1

To agree with ironman, I have long felt that infestation has become more of a ball and chain for the aliens than any sort of serious feature with quantifiable advantages. Now that marines can build on it I feel it is even more so the case, all it seems to do is suck up resources, limit alien expansion, make defending your harvesters more difficult, and add busywork for the commander who has to manage and maintain the cyst chain in the face of marine harassment. This was not the original vision of infestation, I recall it being imagined as a very integral part of alien map control and something that would create concrete divisions between alien and marine territory.

P.S. I hate the autokill, it is very annoying. I hope it will one day be removed when optimization has rendered it unnecessary.