Rework the power node system lighting
aeroripper
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
This game has such a great lighting engine, it should be shown off more:
1) When the power goes out, the room will stay pitch black until power is repaired. If there is alien fauna, it will subtly light the room.
2) Add another function to the 'power surge' ability (since it rarely gets used anyways). It would enable you to add emergency power to an unlit room for a price. The commander just clicks on the broken power node with power surge to enable emergency lighting forever in that room until the power is restored and its cycle is reset. The current power surge cinematic would play while the room is powering up with the emergency lighting.
It adds a lot of atmosphere to the game, and would be an interesting gameplay mechanic. Still waiting for the alien structures/infestation to actually transform a room with bioluminescence, but that's probably a ways off.
1) When the power goes out, the room will stay pitch black until power is repaired. If there is alien fauna, it will subtly light the room.
2) Add another function to the 'power surge' ability (since it rarely gets used anyways). It would enable you to add emergency power to an unlit room for a price. The commander just clicks on the broken power node with power surge to enable emergency lighting forever in that room until the power is restored and its cycle is reset. The current power surge cinematic would play while the room is powering up with the emergency lighting.
It adds a lot of atmosphere to the game, and would be an interesting gameplay mechanic. Still waiting for the alien structures/infestation to actually transform a room with bioluminescence, but that's probably a ways off.
Comments
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=130391092
Would like to see emergency lighting still play a role somehow, if the implementation was like above, the transition from full lighting to emergency would have to be instantaneous since there's probably only maybe 5 seconds before it goes to 0%. Could be a superior effect to the current implementation, as most of the time marines clear the skulk from the power before it dies, but everybody understands they need to get the power repaired now b/c of emergency lighting.
If that doesn't work well, then maybe the power pack used for turrets also enables emergency power in the room if power surge is a no go? Anyways something to think about, I will make a video tomorrow night demonstrating the change when I have more time.
All in all it's a very awesome change that I'd love to see make it to the live build. The game looks so amazing when it actually uses the dynamic lightning engine to the fullest like this.
And, y'know, there's a cheesy tie-in with the whole "shadow" skulk thing in Reinforced.
would make taking out the power in certain choke points more of a thing to do instead of skipping it (or so I think)
The general idea definitely needs to supported.
+1
The point of the temporary darkness is for this only, to give a short offensive advantage (defensive if marines are just entering the room) in order to strike confusion, allowing them to quickly kill the marines. (or in the case of the short defensive advantage, sneak attack the intruding marines)
PROs
1) It adds much to the atmosphere, primarily on marines.
2) Makes alien dark vision useful
3) Fantastic looking shadows, which are far more noticeable now. Flashlight, exo floodlight, MAC light?, and commander scan become more valuable. The 'lighting up' effect on commander scan wasn't really useful in vanilla game.
4) Marines tend to want to move out together more often in pitch black rooms
5) Added tension
CONs
1) It's ugly in places, and not all maps look as good in the dark. Mineshaft for the most part looks the best, while Biodome looks the worst.
2) Certain smoke cinematics, and always on texture lights look out of place. Not sure if the latter is really fixable.
3) Rooms were clearly designed around having some form of lighting all the time. Some rooms look great in pitch black (ns2_veil in hallway from pipline >>> c12) and others not so much (any room in biodome). Some textures look like they have full bright on in the dark.
4) It looks like halloween overdose.
Overall, there would need to be some reworking of alien structures and chambers to make them appear more bio-luminescent in the dark. Would love to see a wider color pallette than just orange for the aliens. The infestation needs a dull green color underneath to make it appear alive, and it would be nice to see more pinks/blues/and greens in a darkened alien base. It should look otherworldly walking into an alien pitch black base to differentiate it from the clean, powered rooms. Some good reference material would be deep sea bioluminescent videos:
I also made a quick video demonstrating the change:
While it may be giving aliens a bit of an advantage, it finally makes one of the engine's major features stand out and gameplay relevant: full dynamic lighting.
It also adds even more awareness to what territory may be considered "contested".
Full light/no infestation = marine territory.
Darkness/no infestation OR full light/with infestation = contested by both sides.
Darkness/with infestation = alien territory.
Things like alien vision and flashlights become meaningful, scans and Exo headlights can support the infantry to see in the darkness. Besides that marines can probably still see the red dots on their minimap and go all like "aliens nearby".
And if that's still not enough, you can still consider to add throwable flares as fourth grenade type to temporarily light up rooms in red light with sparks and maybe some minor fire damage (similar to a Welder) for anything that touches the flare directly.
Otherwise, a destroyed node = emergency lighting
Built/unsocketed node = full light
Once infestation recedes from an unsocketed/destroyed power node, emergency lighting returns.
This way, aliens still get a massive advantage from pitch black, but marines don't need to get the power all the way up to get rid of that advantage.
This also avoids having to tie lighting to the hp of the powernode, as well as allows alien start, and alien controlled areas have a definite alien advantage, while marine controlled areas are clearly visible and give the marines their sight advantage (brightness of light may need to be increased to make it a marine advantage)
Watching that video, marines are sure gonna need flares!
The game win +1000 in charisma and immersion but as Marines it clearly will be far far more difficult to fight skilled skulks/fades/leark in a totally dark room. However I think the idea should be not thrown in the trash, what about making it a khammander feature ? If you cyst the node or make a shift in the room you can activate the capacity to disable all lights during 10-15sc vs 5 res, cool defense mechanic), or on the opposite, make the marines commander able to reactivate the lights in the room during 30sc vs 3/5 res ?
What i *always* envisioned for NS2.
If the darkness is too powerful for Aliens, perhaps a prudent solution would be to give the Marines a purchasable Nightvision option. 3-5 res or so to use it.