Sentry Improvements
Digits
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165683Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165683Members
<div class="IPBDescription">An idea to the improvements of sentries</div>I myself, am a bad soldier, a very bad soldier. My aim is terrible; and for that, I forthright here and now that this entire thing is from the perspective (most of the time)
of a commander. Now; to focus a lot more on depth of the subject, I'm talking fairly heavy on the Sentry side. By this I mean that, in no offense to the creators at all, the
sentry is about as useful as a man who has been subjected to so much physical trauma his body has become that of a vegetable and he eats through a bloody tube. No offense
to anyone who knows someone like that, I'm simply stating, that in full-earnest those people in that state can't really do much.
Personally I'm not asking for anything, but I'm suggesting that the turrets have their aim greatly improved, because I've noticed the aim on them is out of whack. We're in the
future here and I'd like to think by now we have fairly decent auto-targetting systems and automated weaponry. As a commander I watch my Sentries get smashed by skulks because they can't seem to hit a damn thing that isn't standing completely still or as big as an Onos. This leaves Lerks, Fades and Skulkers to the joy of kicking in the Sentry Battery and rendering all of the resources into those forfeit. Which is saying a decent amount because a game run with two equally, and good, teams is usually a very heavy stale mate for a good ten or so minutes where defense on either one side can become the deciding factor between of the game. Just as the fact that the most aggressive team in the first five minutes of the game can decide the winning factor, though, as I've noticed the better and better players you game with the more-so that theory becomes invalid.
The game is heavily focused on competitive team-based combat at taking down the opposing force, but as a commander, I can see there are constraints on all teams. Especially the Marines. A good team of aliens keeps the pressure heavy on Marines, meaning they're heavily confined to defense and slow pushes during early-to-mid game, because while phase-gates are efficient ways and methods of transport they lose out when the power is shut down and such on. Not to mention when the humans are pushing an alien hive or base its doubted there is a phase-gate close enough for them to drop back into and continue defending. This is because if they turn around or try backing up, they walk slower, or expose themselves to attack from the defending aliens. If they go through the phase in time, the aliens simply take out the forward base and push them right back to where they started, that leaves the human team at a disadvantage, especially when the alien team usually consists of a heavy amount of Skulks using Celerity and have the ability to travel across the map in less then a minute or two giving them map-dominance and allowing them to engage Marine bases with ease to force the human team to then pull back their assault and lose or even their ground again.
Sentries can be used to defend the humans bases or posts but to be fully honest they can't hit for crap. As a commander I watch Skulks run circles around the damn things or Fades all together ignore the damn things. Onos of course could careless about it because they'll just run in and take the bullets and smash the power-box and run back out to fully regenerate and be back before enough Marines arrive to repair or put up a new box. Or hell; before any MACs can finish building the damn box, and give the Onos-player an extra robot to smash before he breaks the rest of the base with his two or three Skulks and a gorge that accompanied him for the party-crashing fun.
My idea to this is that Sentries be improved to have a much better aim. Allowing them to hit Skulks and Lerks much more proficiently, Fades can still get past them with that Blink, and to keep the rage that players might have in saying its too over-powered I'll leave the whole blinking thing out because I'm not even going to get into that. This'd really give the Marines, and the Commander, a bit of lee-way on assaulting the Aliens, they'd of course still have to watch their asses because the Sentries aren't the most sturdy things but they'd still have a bit of power and bone behind them to hold back a alien-rush meant to force the humans backwards and into a turtle-state again.
To balance out the fact the Sentry would now have a staggering-good aim, I'd say that instead of them simply heaving an unlimited amount of ammo, they can now run dry. This would mean that one ball-sy marine would need to either get some sort of Ammo-box type item from the armory, or perhaps dropped by the Commander, and take it to the dry Sentry to re-load it and bring it back into action. This means that Skulks can still door-way run or go along the walls to empty out the sentries, or since mid-game they usually have a load of eggs and fast spawns, simply charge the turrets until they take out the power box or the sentries go dry. It'd add another level of complexity to base-defense and still give humans a two to three minute extra on base pushing. (Also, to all those people who want to argue with full-Onos or Exosuit teams that push for a win, I'm going to say that I hate playing in games that do that because I think its silly that the entire team can be in Exosuits or the entire team can be Onos)
As a last idea; I'd suggest giving turrets back their 360 degree-spin coverage like the original Natural Selection, but limit the power-box's ability to two turrets. Both because with the idea of better aiming, three can be a bit too over-powered, and because I feel its silly that we have advanced technology but we can't create rotary systems that allow for a 360 degree toggle. Thanks for reading; have a nice one, all!
of a commander. Now; to focus a lot more on depth of the subject, I'm talking fairly heavy on the Sentry side. By this I mean that, in no offense to the creators at all, the
sentry is about as useful as a man who has been subjected to so much physical trauma his body has become that of a vegetable and he eats through a bloody tube. No offense
to anyone who knows someone like that, I'm simply stating, that in full-earnest those people in that state can't really do much.
Personally I'm not asking for anything, but I'm suggesting that the turrets have their aim greatly improved, because I've noticed the aim on them is out of whack. We're in the
future here and I'd like to think by now we have fairly decent auto-targetting systems and automated weaponry. As a commander I watch my Sentries get smashed by skulks because they can't seem to hit a damn thing that isn't standing completely still or as big as an Onos. This leaves Lerks, Fades and Skulkers to the joy of kicking in the Sentry Battery and rendering all of the resources into those forfeit. Which is saying a decent amount because a game run with two equally, and good, teams is usually a very heavy stale mate for a good ten or so minutes where defense on either one side can become the deciding factor between of the game. Just as the fact that the most aggressive team in the first five minutes of the game can decide the winning factor, though, as I've noticed the better and better players you game with the more-so that theory becomes invalid.
The game is heavily focused on competitive team-based combat at taking down the opposing force, but as a commander, I can see there are constraints on all teams. Especially the Marines. A good team of aliens keeps the pressure heavy on Marines, meaning they're heavily confined to defense and slow pushes during early-to-mid game, because while phase-gates are efficient ways and methods of transport they lose out when the power is shut down and such on. Not to mention when the humans are pushing an alien hive or base its doubted there is a phase-gate close enough for them to drop back into and continue defending. This is because if they turn around or try backing up, they walk slower, or expose themselves to attack from the defending aliens. If they go through the phase in time, the aliens simply take out the forward base and push them right back to where they started, that leaves the human team at a disadvantage, especially when the alien team usually consists of a heavy amount of Skulks using Celerity and have the ability to travel across the map in less then a minute or two giving them map-dominance and allowing them to engage Marine bases with ease to force the human team to then pull back their assault and lose or even their ground again.
Sentries can be used to defend the humans bases or posts but to be fully honest they can't hit for crap. As a commander I watch Skulks run circles around the damn things or Fades all together ignore the damn things. Onos of course could careless about it because they'll just run in and take the bullets and smash the power-box and run back out to fully regenerate and be back before enough Marines arrive to repair or put up a new box. Or hell; before any MACs can finish building the damn box, and give the Onos-player an extra robot to smash before he breaks the rest of the base with his two or three Skulks and a gorge that accompanied him for the party-crashing fun.
My idea to this is that Sentries be improved to have a much better aim. Allowing them to hit Skulks and Lerks much more proficiently, Fades can still get past them with that Blink, and to keep the rage that players might have in saying its too over-powered I'll leave the whole blinking thing out because I'm not even going to get into that. This'd really give the Marines, and the Commander, a bit of lee-way on assaulting the Aliens, they'd of course still have to watch their asses because the Sentries aren't the most sturdy things but they'd still have a bit of power and bone behind them to hold back a alien-rush meant to force the humans backwards and into a turtle-state again.
To balance out the fact the Sentry would now have a staggering-good aim, I'd say that instead of them simply heaving an unlimited amount of ammo, they can now run dry. This would mean that one ball-sy marine would need to either get some sort of Ammo-box type item from the armory, or perhaps dropped by the Commander, and take it to the dry Sentry to re-load it and bring it back into action. This means that Skulks can still door-way run or go along the walls to empty out the sentries, or since mid-game they usually have a load of eggs and fast spawns, simply charge the turrets until they take out the power box or the sentries go dry. It'd add another level of complexity to base-defense and still give humans a two to three minute extra on base pushing. (Also, to all those people who want to argue with full-Onos or Exosuit teams that push for a win, I'm going to say that I hate playing in games that do that because I think its silly that the entire team can be in Exosuits or the entire team can be Onos)
As a last idea; I'd suggest giving turrets back their 360 degree-spin coverage like the original Natural Selection, but limit the power-box's ability to two turrets. Both because with the idea of better aiming, three can be a bit too over-powered, and because I feel its silly that we have advanced technology but we can't create rotary systems that allow for a 360 degree toggle. Thanks for reading; have a nice one, all!
Comments
There's a limit of three per room and they have a limited FOV.
There is no spam...I've had no problem taking out Sentires as a Skulk. Just crawl on the ceiling and drop down on the battery or just smash the power node.
make them deadly but avoidable if you take the time to bypass.
As someone who has played alien from the first-person perspective as well, I'm able to note that I literally can run past most of them without celerity, or as Kopikat said I will just sit on the roof and fire down on the battery with my second-parasite attack. I also do agree, I'm not really pointing out anything about Onos, its completely fair they have the ability to roll in and stomp turrets, I'm simply saying early and mid-game when there is big-time Skulk rushes sentries really don't prove a very good hamper for the resources they cost. Hell; I watch one Skulk go in alone sometimes, take the turret, and then the rest of them poor in.