Power node mood improvements.
Temphage
Join Date: 2009-10-28 Member: 69158Members
Join Date: 2009-10-28 Member: 69158Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Khamm vs. Comm.</div>The one thing that IMMEDIATELY bothered me about the game was the lighting of the maps. Gone are the dark areas like Hera's bowels, most of the maps (to be fair I haven't played all of them) are extremely brightly lit rooms without places to hide. The other thing that annoyed me was the fact that since there's no power node built, the hive rooms themselves remain cheery and bright, and the only way to activate the emergency lighting is to destroy a built node.
I'm gonna toss these out here, tell me what you think.
- Unsecured rooms are 'neutral'. All lighting is in a low-power state. Say, every other light is turned off. This makes the room lit, but somewhat dim, giving aliens attack opportunities and marines areas of light.
- Once the marines secure a power node, all the lighting turns on, and everything is beautiful and bright and cheery. In other words, there's no mistaking it for a secured room and the lighting favors the marines defensively.
- When a power node is destroyed, the emergency lighting turns on as normal. By the way, I would kindly ask that the brightness of the lighting be toned down some, or increase the duration of the blackout.
- Allow aliens to infest destroyed or otherwise unused power nodes. Either by allowing the Gorge to infest it or the Khamm to have a cyst connection, an infested power node serves as just a giant glut of infestation marines have to hack through to resecure a node. Serves no other benefit to aliens, aside from the fact that any room with an infested power node has faulty emergency lighting. The lighting itself becomes much more dim, some of the lights start flickering and malfunctioning. Perhaps the Gorge can build it himself without a cyst connection, but if there is a cyst connection, the infestation automatically clogs the power node for the aliens? That way the hive would naturally become dark and dim and moody as ######.
- It would also be nice if infestation could spread to the ceiling and into vents more easily, and add more effects such as water dripping, fog, and ambient noise.
I'm gonna toss these out here, tell me what you think.
- Unsecured rooms are 'neutral'. All lighting is in a low-power state. Say, every other light is turned off. This makes the room lit, but somewhat dim, giving aliens attack opportunities and marines areas of light.
- Once the marines secure a power node, all the lighting turns on, and everything is beautiful and bright and cheery. In other words, there's no mistaking it for a secured room and the lighting favors the marines defensively.
- When a power node is destroyed, the emergency lighting turns on as normal. By the way, I would kindly ask that the brightness of the lighting be toned down some, or increase the duration of the blackout.
- Allow aliens to infest destroyed or otherwise unused power nodes. Either by allowing the Gorge to infest it or the Khamm to have a cyst connection, an infested power node serves as just a giant glut of infestation marines have to hack through to resecure a node. Serves no other benefit to aliens, aside from the fact that any room with an infested power node has faulty emergency lighting. The lighting itself becomes much more dim, some of the lights start flickering and malfunctioning. Perhaps the Gorge can build it himself without a cyst connection, but if there is a cyst connection, the infestation automatically clogs the power node for the aliens? That way the hive would naturally become dark and dim and moody as ######.
- It would also be nice if infestation could spread to the ceiling and into vents more easily, and add more effects such as water dripping, fog, and ambient noise.
Comments
-All rooms with unsocketed powernodes should be on emergency power.
-All rooms with a destroyed powernode should be on emergency power unless the power nodes has been covered in infestation, at which point the room should go pitch black.
-All rooms with socketed and built power nodes should have full lighting and power even if covered in infestation.
You just don't see enough dark rooms. Marines don't even bother building the power in most hallways so that it will just stay lit.
-All rooms with unsocketed powernodes should be on emergency power.
-All rooms with a destroyed powernode should be on emergency power unless the power nodes has been covered in infestation, at which point the room should go pitch black.
-All rooms with socketed and built power nodes should have full lighting and power even if covered in infestation.
You just don't see enough dark rooms. Marines don't even bother building the power in most hallways so that it will just stay lit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
Marines didn't build power? They don't get lights. The infestation idea is great though, where it'd affect the lights further past the point of emergency power. Course, in limited scope people would holler about balance, but then again Marines get to lighten up entire areas of the map with full view of everything, and from the start many portions of a map remain lit because of the stupid previous-node-needed mechanic.
-All rooms with unsocketed powernodes should be on emergency power.
-All rooms with a destroyed powernode should be on emergency power unless the power nodes has been covered in infestation, at which point the room should go pitch black.
-All rooms with socketed and built power nodes should have full lighting and power even if covered in infestation.
You just don't see enough dark rooms. Marines don't even bother building the power in most hallways so that it will just stay lit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only reason I want to stray away from the emergency power thing being default lighting is because it just seems a little silly to me. Most of the areas of the maps - especially at start - really aren't destroyed or anything... they're just unoccupied. So in the absence, the power shuts down to a standby state, similar to an office building after everyone's gone home.
Seeing as how some maps (Mineshaft) start with like 4 power nodes already captured, you could start some areas in emergency lighting.
But we are agreed, the current mechanic isn't all it could be :)
My personal preference is the following:
* Unbuilt is lower lighting/flickering/pulsing
* Infested unbuilt is Emergency (alternatively own color scheme like Green)
* Broken is Emergency (Red)
* Powered is full lighting (whites and blues)
Enforcing pitch black as a permanent state is too large of an advantage for Aliens. Not to mention map navigation.
The other option posutlated has been only certain lights are on for unbuilt state. Enough for basic navigation and seeing the features of the room. But pwoering the room turns on all the lights and lights all the little corners.