Do The Marines Have A Tech Tree?
Chopper_Dave1
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Seriously, do they?</div> <i>Once again, I must say that I LOVE NS, do not wish to leave it for the reasons I describe below, cannot make my own game, etc. This is constructive criticism and a topic for discussion, nothing more. Feel free to flame, but not in such a manner that it contradicts my above statement. Thanks. </i>
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So I got to thinking about the RTS aspect of Natural Selection today, and I came to a somewhat disparaging conclusion about the marine team: they don't *really* have much of a tech tree to speak of. The aliens, however, have quite a complex tech tree, which comes into effect constantly during the gameplay and make it more fun for the players.
In your typical RTS, you have a ton of units and strategies to choose from. The beautiful thing is that, in the well-designed RTS's, you won't ever get every single unit you can possibly produce on the battlefield. For example, when you play as the Humans in Warcraft 3, you have a few choices: you can spend your money to produce a massive amount of solders and buy them upgrades, you can spend your money on a massive army of riflemen and to buy them upgrades, you can spend your money on researching magic quickly and buying a ton of sorceresses, you can invest all of it in training high-level heroes, you can use it to quickly expand into nearby goldmines, you can save up for the costly but effective knights, etc. The thing is, in a game against a decent player, you can only research so many things and put them in action - or else you'll get smashed under the foot of your opponent. The best commanders produce as careful a mix of units as their time and resources allow.
Now, before you guys rant at me about my definition of a "tech tree," consider this: is the marine team's technology really split off into different branches, like a tree? Or is it more of a linear thing, with the same things always coming in the exact same order, every single game? The aliens do have a tech tree: they can either choose to invest in sensory, defense, or movement upgrades. This choice plays a huge part in how the alien game is played, and creates both new advantages and disadvantages for the alien team (problem now is that most everyone goes D>M>S, but that should be fixed in 1.1 hopefully). But the marine team always, and I do mean ALWAYS, has to follow the same build order, simply by the game's design: infantry portal, armory, observatory, phase gate, advanced armory, arms lab, prototype lab (insert a turret factory, if your marines can't handle defense by themselves). I see this as quite off-putting for the marines (especially the commander), as they are the team who has the commander, yet have less of a complex tech tree than the supposedly "deathmatchy" aliens.
In fact, usually the only difference in how a marine team plays is how they choose to take a hive: by siege cannon, by phase gate infantry rush, by jetbo commandos, or by a massive group of HA's with HMG's and GL's. While this does help to keep things interesting for the commanders, I think the game needs some definite restructuring on the marines' part. As a commander, I do NOT want to get all the technology by the end of the game. I want to have multiple technology paths I can take, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and I do NOT want to have the luxury of being able to research all such tech and still win against a competent alien team.
For the sake of example, here are some ideas using conventional TSA weaponry:
Rather than having an all-encompassing advanced armory and arms lab, stratefy the weapons a little bit. Have a structure - I'll call it the Heavy Weapons Lab - be required along with the advanced armory. At the HWL, you could choose to research (much like you do JP's and HA's) either the HMG or the Grenade Launhcer, but not both at the same time. Also at the HWL, have researchable upgrades for the specific guns (rather than the one-size-fits-all upgrades of the arms lab, which should be nixed). These upgrades, maybe weighing in at 20, 30, and 40 res in the typical level 1-2-3 order, would make that specific gun *much* more powerful (unlike the barely noticable upgrades in this version).
Also, the game could have a Light Weapons Lab. Buying this would automatically upgrade the damage done by the player's default LMG, and shotguns would become available only upon buying this structure (again, after some research). Like its sister, the HWL, the LWL can research gun-specific upgrades for the LMG and the shotgun, making either gun more powerful.
Also new to the mix could be the Defense Lab, which would be where defense mechanisms would be researched. The defense lab would allow for marine armor upgrades to be researched, as well as building upgrades to make the marine buildings take more punishment from the aliens. At level 3, the armor could perhaps do electrical damage to the any aliens trying melee combat!
Hell, even the prototype lab could have some upgrades of its own. For example, there could be 3 levels of research for jetpacks and heavy armor. Each level might give the jetpack more fuel capacity; unupgraded, a jetpacker might only be able to fly for a second or two, at level 3, he could hover indefinitely as he does now! Heavy armor could be researched, giving speed and protection upgrades with each level. At level three, a HA might be able to run as fast as a normal marine!
Under this system, the marines basically have 4 branches to choose from: light weapons, heavy weapons, defense, and special technology. Commanders could choose to research exclusively in one and pump themselves up to level 3 (perhaps buying two of the same structure to speed up the process), or they could choose to dabble a little bit in each branch to create a someone weak but balanced force. This would make the game infinitely more fun for both teams involved with these kind of options. As an alien, you might have to prepare for constant early rushes, if the commander decides to invest in light weapons upgrades. Or you might have to prepare for some heavy opposition once the marines start packing fully upgraded HMG's. Or you might have to deal with a team that invests solely in defense, using well-padded marines and buildings to slowly expand their way to victoty. Or you might have to deal with special teams of jetpackers hovering around your hive. More likely, you'll have to deal with a combination of 2 or even 3 of the above. But as an alien, you'll never have to deal with ALL of them until the end of a game ending in marine victory (much like as a marine, you'll never see aliens with all 3 upgrade towers unless they have 3 hives and thus win the game). This would really keep the game exciting, with both teams choosing which tech paths they want to take and bouncing their strengths and weaknesses against each other.
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/soapbox
Do you guys think the marine's tech tree is seriously lacking, and holding the game back? Do you think I'm neglecting the FPS aspect of NS a little too much? Do you think I'm just a plain idiot? Please voice your opinion on the matter, I'd love to hear it.
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So I got to thinking about the RTS aspect of Natural Selection today, and I came to a somewhat disparaging conclusion about the marine team: they don't *really* have much of a tech tree to speak of. The aliens, however, have quite a complex tech tree, which comes into effect constantly during the gameplay and make it more fun for the players.
In your typical RTS, you have a ton of units and strategies to choose from. The beautiful thing is that, in the well-designed RTS's, you won't ever get every single unit you can possibly produce on the battlefield. For example, when you play as the Humans in Warcraft 3, you have a few choices: you can spend your money to produce a massive amount of solders and buy them upgrades, you can spend your money on a massive army of riflemen and to buy them upgrades, you can spend your money on researching magic quickly and buying a ton of sorceresses, you can invest all of it in training high-level heroes, you can use it to quickly expand into nearby goldmines, you can save up for the costly but effective knights, etc. The thing is, in a game against a decent player, you can only research so many things and put them in action - or else you'll get smashed under the foot of your opponent. The best commanders produce as careful a mix of units as their time and resources allow.
Now, before you guys rant at me about my definition of a "tech tree," consider this: is the marine team's technology really split off into different branches, like a tree? Or is it more of a linear thing, with the same things always coming in the exact same order, every single game? The aliens do have a tech tree: they can either choose to invest in sensory, defense, or movement upgrades. This choice plays a huge part in how the alien game is played, and creates both new advantages and disadvantages for the alien team (problem now is that most everyone goes D>M>S, but that should be fixed in 1.1 hopefully). But the marine team always, and I do mean ALWAYS, has to follow the same build order, simply by the game's design: infantry portal, armory, observatory, phase gate, advanced armory, arms lab, prototype lab (insert a turret factory, if your marines can't handle defense by themselves). I see this as quite off-putting for the marines (especially the commander), as they are the team who has the commander, yet have less of a complex tech tree than the supposedly "deathmatchy" aliens.
In fact, usually the only difference in how a marine team plays is how they choose to take a hive: by siege cannon, by phase gate infantry rush, by jetbo commandos, or by a massive group of HA's with HMG's and GL's. While this does help to keep things interesting for the commanders, I think the game needs some definite restructuring on the marines' part. As a commander, I do NOT want to get all the technology by the end of the game. I want to have multiple technology paths I can take, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and I do NOT want to have the luxury of being able to research all such tech and still win against a competent alien team.
For the sake of example, here are some ideas using conventional TSA weaponry:
Rather than having an all-encompassing advanced armory and arms lab, stratefy the weapons a little bit. Have a structure - I'll call it the Heavy Weapons Lab - be required along with the advanced armory. At the HWL, you could choose to research (much like you do JP's and HA's) either the HMG or the Grenade Launhcer, but not both at the same time. Also at the HWL, have researchable upgrades for the specific guns (rather than the one-size-fits-all upgrades of the arms lab, which should be nixed). These upgrades, maybe weighing in at 20, 30, and 40 res in the typical level 1-2-3 order, would make that specific gun *much* more powerful (unlike the barely noticable upgrades in this version).
Also, the game could have a Light Weapons Lab. Buying this would automatically upgrade the damage done by the player's default LMG, and shotguns would become available only upon buying this structure (again, after some research). Like its sister, the HWL, the LWL can research gun-specific upgrades for the LMG and the shotgun, making either gun more powerful.
Also new to the mix could be the Defense Lab, which would be where defense mechanisms would be researched. The defense lab would allow for marine armor upgrades to be researched, as well as building upgrades to make the marine buildings take more punishment from the aliens. At level 3, the armor could perhaps do electrical damage to the any aliens trying melee combat!
Hell, even the prototype lab could have some upgrades of its own. For example, there could be 3 levels of research for jetpacks and heavy armor. Each level might give the jetpack more fuel capacity; unupgraded, a jetpacker might only be able to fly for a second or two, at level 3, he could hover indefinitely as he does now! Heavy armor could be researched, giving speed and protection upgrades with each level. At level three, a HA might be able to run as fast as a normal marine!
Under this system, the marines basically have 4 branches to choose from: light weapons, heavy weapons, defense, and special technology. Commanders could choose to research exclusively in one and pump themselves up to level 3 (perhaps buying two of the same structure to speed up the process), or they could choose to dabble a little bit in each branch to create a someone weak but balanced force. This would make the game infinitely more fun for both teams involved with these kind of options. As an alien, you might have to prepare for constant early rushes, if the commander decides to invest in light weapons upgrades. Or you might have to prepare for some heavy opposition once the marines start packing fully upgraded HMG's. Or you might have to deal with a team that invests solely in defense, using well-padded marines and buildings to slowly expand their way to victoty. Or you might have to deal with special teams of jetpackers hovering around your hive. More likely, you'll have to deal with a combination of 2 or even 3 of the above. But as an alien, you'll never have to deal with ALL of them until the end of a game ending in marine victory (much like as a marine, you'll never see aliens with all 3 upgrade towers unless they have 3 hives and thus win the game). This would really keep the game exciting, with both teams choosing which tech paths they want to take and bouncing their strengths and weaknesses against each other.
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/soapbox
Do you guys think the marine's tech tree is seriously lacking, and holding the game back? Do you think I'm neglecting the FPS aspect of NS a little too much? Do you think I'm just a plain idiot? Please voice your opinion on the matter, I'd love to hear it.
Comments
Better that they admit you'll eventually have all the tech and just make it a decision of what tech when and then put the effort into making the game stratigicly diverse through other means.
BlueGhost
To balance this out, the weapons or armor could be upgraded, like Dave suggested. Or new features could be introduced, like some sort of "portable mini-cannon" that takes several seconds to rechard and has very limited ammo (ugh, maybe too much like an awp).
In any event, along with an updated tech tree, maybe something could be added to help level the playing field between marine and alien late game.
Besides, it's a known (and often complained about fact) that aliens generally don't get full tech (i.e. 3 hives), but marines usually do. I think the fault isn't in the aliens' design, but rather in the marines. So I say give them a lot of tech (carefully balanced by playtesters, of course), which in turn can never be fully researched in a game against a decent alien team. Well, I should say that it CAN all be reseached - but liek in most RTS's, you'll have no money left to actually BUY your upgraded equipment, and the aliens will overrun your fully-upgraded arse with some well-evolved fades =).
Though, I would settle for more diversity in the what-technology-and-when department. More strategy, in any form, is always good.
Heavy weapons + defence
Light weapons + defence
Heavy weapons + Specific Prototypes
Light weapons + Heavy weapons + little defence
Prototype specific + defence + light weapons
Prototype specific + defence + specialized heavy weapons
General upgrade galore, as much done as possible = quick + flexable but weak team
yeah, but like BlueGhost said, some of the choices would be seen as "optimal" and would be choosen much more than the others and it would slowly OR quickly fall into a D>M>S setup.
but it's still sweet. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
really sweet game and had 1000's, and i mean 1000's of units! sweeter thing is that you'd "put the peices together" from the feilds of "weapons", "chassis", and "propulsion".
hence, from 400+ research topics/upgrades you were able to create a very diverse army of completly custom tanks that were almost always unique from the enemy tanks. you could have mortar, machine gun, rail gun, and even rocket launcher and missile batteries as weapons, on chassis that had superior armor, less weight, decreased cool-down (increase in RoF), better speed, flying abilities, AA-abilities, superior mobility, repairing ability, and the list goes on, and on... not to mention there was a "cyborg" outfited with every weapon in-game to bolster the ranks of the already swollen and unique army.
best thing was that you never were able to finish the tech tree completly because by the time you reached the most bad-arsed chassis, weapon, and propulsion you'd spent WELL OVER 10+ hours and over a couple billion in resources.
NS does this to some extent with its dropable weapons, HA, JP, Shottie, HMG, etc. you could form a fast and strong attack scout with a jet pack and shottie, or a heavy assualt unit with 10 people with all HA/HMG/GL with welders. and with this idea, it'd be just like WZ2100, with all the customization. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
-edit- i was just associating something with NS, dont bite my butt off.
Examples:
Rush maps - small maps with very limited resources where the game is all in early game tactics. For NS maybe a few 6vs6 person maps.
Island maps - emphasis on air units or transports. I don't know how this would translate into NS, but maybe there could be the box jump puzzle spaces from the original half-life.
"BIG" maps - Something like a BGH
A big problem with NS is that most people that play regularly have memorized every little hiding place/vent in the map and the "optimal" strategies have been figured out. A regular update of new maps/different play modes would greatly add to this mod.
And while the current build order seems to be inf/armour/obs/phase thats not the only tech
you can upgrade armoury first for quick hmgs
or choose adv labs first then quick jp
etc
the phase build is from 1.03 and has to do with holding 2 hives almost guarantees victory no matter how much res the other teams has and isn't (or shouldn't) be the case anymore.
For example, I always drop an infantry portal, then an armory, then a observatory, then mines, then a few resource nodes, then a phase in our base and in whtever hive we happen to have control of (there's alawys one the aliens leave open). Then I upgrade the armory, build an arms lab, then build a prototype lab, then research jetpacks.
It usually works quite well, but it does get extremely boring after a while. Sometimes I actually hope that aliens will somehow screw up my main base or something so that I'll have something different to do.
With that being said, D>M>S isn't so much an alien problem (though in some ways it is, sensory = meh) as it is a marine problem. Since marines always have predictable guns and armor, always get jetpacks and HMG's at a predictable time, and always attack (siege) in predictable places, D>M>S just works best to counter that particular build order of the marine "tech tree."
But what if there was a Light Weapons Lab, and marines built it right off the bat and got their LMG's fully upgraded? Then, your fully carapaced skulks wouldn't be able to last long under marine fire, and you might choose to deviate and use other towers. Maybe you could use movement and get celerity to make you faster and harder to hit with those upgraded gun, or silence so that you can sneak up on the marines. Better yet, you could get sensory so that you could get cloaked and always have the surprise on the well-equiped, but poorly defended (having spent all that money upgrading LMG's, they won't have put much into getting defense upgrades). If marines plop down the early bucks for some nicer armor and better defended structures, you might need to get defense so that you can survive long enough to get multiple hits on a marine, or the movement so you'll have enough energy to take down a lone reource node by yourself.
Having specific branches for the marines to venture down would not only make things for interesting for the marines, but more interesting for the aliens as well. With any hope, it'd also alieviate the D>M>S/Jetpack+HMG syndrome the community has right now.
no tech tree?
Marines however, don't have this kind of large choices. They can decide to tech in certain order, but none of their choices compare to the one of gorge choosing upgrade branch for each of his team members. Equivalent of this would be that because one marine did something, commander is no longer able go for certain tech, unless he does something before it. Neither fits the team's profile. Aliens are supposed to be individuals and restricting their personal upgrades just because their gorge did certain thing, doesn't support that idea. However, commander <u>is</u> supposed to be the puppetmaster who chooses the way marines do things. It should be about difficult choices.
Am I completely lost here? Isn't it commander who is supposed to be faced with "choosing the chamber"?
I for one would like to see what a new weapon balance would do. Giving weapons certain weaknesses that can be overcome only by supporting them with other weapons. For example: dropping HMG:s rate of fire and upping its damage. This way shotguns would be welcome addition to them when enemies want to come up close. A couple of new weapons wouldn't hurt either.
I don't think the marine tech tree should be much more complex than it is right now, but I feel it should be tweaked a lot. Making tech tree considerably more complex does treat NS a bit too much as an RTS, while it is essentially a mix of both RTS and FPS. Your suggestion isn't bad at all and I can see its possibilities. For an RTS/FPS it makes things a bit too hard, at least all the different buildings should be rethought.
NS could be however tweaked without drastic changes to support more the importance of commander's choices and team's ability to fulfill their job. First and most natural place to start would be marine equipment. By making the commander think about how to equip his squads instead of just giving em hmg:s, jetpacks, HA and an occasional grenade launcher, there would already a lot more choices. My suggestion of new weapon system for marines can be found here, if you are interested: <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=21042&hl=all%20marine%20weapons&st=15' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...20weapons&st=15</a>
About the Kharaa tech tree not being in line with the idea of individualism, I have only one suggestion: Make all chambers and upgrades available from the start, but limit the number of possible upgrades to the number of active hives. A more detailed and in-depth view of the system can be found here: <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=21842' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...=ST&f=5&t=21842</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I've already stated that the problem basically lies in how the marine's tech tree is under-developed, and in how the other upgrades are slightly weaker than the defense tower's. Since the marines nearly always follow the same build order with little to no variation, the aliens are almost forced to follow their build order to counter it. Give marines a larger tech tree (and aliens some slightly more effective Movement/Sensory abilities), and you'll start to see variations in gameplay and more games that don't play exactly the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do realise that marines teching up usually the same way has it's share of making d-m-s the way to go for aliens. I've however still hard time believing that upgrade system that has an upgrade as powerful as carapace can ever become completely balanced. Also, defensive chambers healing other chambers and aliens make them <u>never</u> come as the last upgrade chamber. So the choices for the first two chambers would never be movement and sensory. Actually, def chamber healing other structures practically forces you to build it as the first chamber. Otherwise, aliens are crucially vulnerable to marine rushes against their hive.
Moreover, the point I was trying to make was that it is in my opinion fundamentally wrong that the side that promotes individualism, should have the tech tree that is decided for every player by one, single gorge. Upgrades are individual, they are picked by the alien itself, not given from the guy above like with marines. However, this wonderful freedom receives a kick in the knee, when it is gorges who say what other players can upgrade.
All chambers must be buildable from the start. All upgrades must be available from the start, either as 3 level 1 upgrades or 1 level 3 upgrade. I would advice for the latter. It's not actually that big a change. It provides aliens with more options and more choices. This becomes especially crucial, if your idea of varying marine tech goes through. How are the aliens supposed to react to marines' choice of tech, if they have already chosen their first upgrade branch?
-Driftwood-: Have you ever played an RTS? Better yet, have you ever played a Blizzard RTS?
An open tech tree is in fact harder to command with than a restricted tech tree. With a properly balanced open tech tree, a commander has a few upgrade options to choose from in the early game, then apply those upgrades in the mid-tp-late game. It takes careful planning to choose just the right amount of upgrades, or else you'll never have the money to put them to use.
For example: In Warcraft as the humans (only race I play), I have a few options as far as tech trees go. I can opt for the more physical route, producing an army of footmen and riflemen and upgrading them fully. I can opt for the magical route, opting to produce and upgrade them fully. I could opt for the prototype route, producing building-demolishing steam tanks and gyrocopters. Or I could opt to go the big meanie route, which takes a lot of time to research and produce but ends up with a bunch of Knights and Grypon Riders which can quite readily kick much ****.
But if I'm playing as humans, and I try to fully upgrade my ground forces and my magical forces, I'll lose. Why? Because I'll never have enough money to buy the actual units. A fully upgraded group of 3 sorceresses and 4 soldiers, powerful as they may be, will not do much against an unupgraded horde or 30 enemy soldiers. If I do make it into the late game, however, my resource flow may be large enough so that I can start researching a 2nd branch of the tech tree...and my opponent may do this, as well.
I best remember a match I played against this one guy who used the Night Elves. I mass produced a bunch of fully-upgraded sorceresses, and he mass produced a bunch of huntresses (powerful ground-units). Well, magic > ground units, so needless to say I kicked his butt after a long fight. But I was still realing, and did not have a large enough force to attack his base. By the time I got my sorceress and soldiers back up to a good attack size, he had overrun my base with a horde of Dryads (relatively weak ground units which however have the powerful ability to resist all magic). Needless to say, I lost.
Now he won because he knew what upgrades to research and at what point to research them, and I relied solely on one upgrade and lost because of it.
Aliens have it easy right now; they can choose to get one upgrade tower, and it does all the work for them. No worries about balancing their resources so that the upgrades will actually be able to be used in a game condition, no worries that the upgrade will eventualy prove useless. And the alien upgrade towers actually *do* stuff, like heal other towers and transport aliens to other active hives.
The marines, as they should be, would need to rely on a good commander to win the game for them. Sure, there would definitely still be room for skill. But if the commander chooses to only concentrate on one upgrade building, then you better hope the aliens don't develop a good counter to that particular upgrade (and they will, given enoug time and a second hive). As a commander, you'll have to choose one upgrade to suffice the early game, and perhaps work on another upgrade by the mid-game. But if you spend too much tme upgrading and not enough time putting those upgrades to good use (what good is a fully upgraded HMG when you don't have the money to buy it, and when you do, the marine you give it to has almost no armor?). With any hope, the commander would now be able to affect the way the game is played, and a truly brilliant commander would be able to take the slack off of a marine team playing against a competent alien team.
In summation - I think the aliens are fine the way they are now, but need some better sensory/movement upgrades. Marine's, however, aren't truly fulfilling their game purpose; the commander is less of a puppet-master and more of a puppet (commander, drop me this! commander, get this building here!). I think my idea would help correct the marine problem.
I wish this etiquitte was true of the whole community, but unfortunately it is not. In the case of a n00b gorge deciding the whole teams' fate, I just think you should deal with it. The beauty of the alien system is that, honestly, the alien team should be able to function well enough in any game, no matter which chamber is built first.
Yes I have. However, NS isn't RTS and it most certainly isn't a Blizzard RTS. If it were an RTS, there would never be such a powerful all-around weapon as HMG.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Aliens have it easy right now; they can choose to get one upgrade tower, and it does all the work for them. No worries about balancing their resources so that the upgrades will actually be able to be used in a game condition, no worries that the upgrade will eventualy prove useless. And the alien upgrade towers actually *do* stuff, like heal other towers and transport aliens to other active hives.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How can this carefully balanced system of two sides trying to outwith each other technologically be implemented, when aliens tech depends on their hives? It would be similar if you could choose one technology branch per a map location you control in Warcraft. You choose as your first tech branch magic and your enemy counters with Dryads. In order to change your technology or even research another, you would have to conquer certain site on the other side of the map. Your enemy however doesn't suffer from this kind of penalties and is free to upgrade whatever he wants and whenever he wants. How can there be free technological competition when the rules are not the same for both parties? How are aliens supposed to be able to counter anything marines pull, when they would have to conquer a new hive in order to do that?
NS isn't a Blizzard RTS. Rather than developing new technological branches for commander to choose from, I would like to see more teamwork rewarding weapon balance and overall equipment. If NS is to become a teching competition, Kharaa must have only one hive and new upgrades must be researched in the same fashion as with marines. And that would be rather boring.
I haven't had problems with gorge's going their own way lately, since d-m-s seems to be the way even newbies want to lay their chambers.
My point though wasn't about a newbie laying down a sensory, but the fact that 2/3 of the upgrades are unavailable. Even after 2 hives there are 3 upgrades that will probably never see play in that match. I don't really see a reason why it should have to be like this. If alien can pick as many upgrades as the team has hives, nothing would stop all upgrades being available at 1 hive. Yes, aliens wouldn't be confined to just the 3 upgrades and there wouldn't be a technological branch that all aliens would follow. Well, boo-hoo. Alien technological advancement is already tied too much to controlling hives, this is one thing where it definitely shouldn't have to be like that.
The point behind the alien system is that it does most of your tech-work for you - instead of conquering resources in order to go down certain tech trees, the aliens conquer resources in order to put up a hive that does all the work for them. The counter-balance is that they have to take control of 3 specific locations.
Of course, the aliens have one innate strength going for them: mobility. This allows them to get to all 3 hives quickly and effectively, so they can get those 3 hives.
Aliens are going to get to hives in most games - in fact, they are meant to. That means aliens are going to get around 2/3 their possible tech tree at mid-game. Marines, on the other hand, rely on the commander to get their tech. And currently, the aliens are able to get full tech shortly after the aliens get 2 hives. 2/3 tech vs full tech? Sure, it's balanced as it is right now, but it isn't very interesting. Under my system, marines will get around 1/3 tech at about the same time aliens get 1/3 tech, though by different means. And marines wil get around 2/3 tech at the same time aliens get 2/3 tech, though again by different means. And by the time either team gets full tech, one will be in a position to win and the other in a position to lose.
Whereas your system gives full tech to the aliens right off the bat, while marines are still struggling to get jetpacks. ALiens would be able to respond to every situation in the early gaem because they would have full upgrades - and that isn't very interesting.
My system would allow aliens to pick one upgrade until they have 2 hives. Granted, alien could pick a new upgrade every time he dies, but that's it. Alien early game is in my opinion too weak when compared to marine early game. In order to desperately make things more even, aliens push for level 3 carapace since it is the only thing that is something of a counter to skilled marines. Good marine will land those 9 bullets on you whether you have celerity or not. Look at clanmatches, how often do aliens win them?
Interesting in my suggestion would be the composition of the alien team. Would they all go carapaced skulks or would they for example organize a couple of skulks to fight their own guerrilla war as cloaked skulks while others keep the pressure on the marines with the assist of carapace? It would allow variation and the possibility of actually reacting to different strategies.
Where we seem to have our biggest differences is alien ability to counter marine technology. You seem to think it isn't a problem that just to change their technology or acquire new one, aliens have to conquer a new hive. I feel it is limiting the possibilities.
About the argument of alien tech building itself... I don't really understand. It is exactly the same situation as with marines. You can go for the hive and not resources but then you have the technology but not big enough resource income to put that tech to work. Marine weapons can be picked up. Meaning that 25 res HMG can be used over and over again. 54 res Fade is spent the moment he dies. Resources are very crucial to aliens, more crucial than to marines since marines seem to get along with just 3 nodes - marine spawn, hive 1 and hive 2.
I'm not going to argue about this any more. I see your original point, but i feel it doesn't fit in the NS. This thing about alien tech vs. marine tech doesn't seem to advance in any way. If you wish to reply, I will try to do so also. However, I'm content at leaving this here. Let's agree that we disagree?
dont ever constitute the genre of RTS on a blizzard rts. They killed the genere.
the ns teach tree.
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