Prioritize Phase Gates
SnX
Join Date: 2013-01-17 Member: 180145Members, Reinforced - Gold
Join Date: 2013-01-17 Member: 180145Members, Reinforced - Gold
What do you think about this? It's been keeping me thinking for some time now 
A commander should be able to prioritize phase gates when having more then 2.
This will keep marines from phasing thru different gates when needed quickly somewhere. This could be OP but also could be an extra element for the commander to watch over, which again keeps the commander busy.
A commander should be able to prioritize phase gates when having more then 2.
This will keep marines from phasing thru different gates when needed quickly somewhere. This could be OP but also could be an extra element for the commander to watch over, which again keeps the commander busy.
Comments
I suppose you could make a script where if you trigger it, it constantly recycles structures bound to hotkeys
As this (and/or variations of it) has been a requested feature for some time now I wouldn't hold our breath that it will ever be implemented.
Overall, it would be a buff but I don't see it being OP really. Worst case scenario they put multiple disabled backup phases in one room and then power surge when the aliens go for power instead. That could make taking a base near impossible, until marines run out of reinforcements to send in anyway. Really though it wouldn't be much harder than assaulting a base with IPs/beacon, a bit cheaper but those other structures have additional benefits as well.
EDIT: @d0ped0g this is how you turn them on and off :P
I know you can recycle to turn them on and off. And I have done that on a few occasions (although tbh in the CC my head is probably too much in the clouds to do it as often as I should).
A feature that only requires one button press to turn them off and and stay off until you turn them back on again would be nice though. As I said, it's probably possible to make a script that could possibly do it via automating the recycle method using hotkeys, but that's too exploity for my tastes. I want a feature.
Frankly, when thinking about the micro involved in keeping phase gates in a recycle queue when a priority phase is required -> the only conclusion I can come to is that said micro doesn't really add anything all that interesting to the gameplay. May as well just automate the process and add it as a feature.
Some may call this easy-mode. However, I just think the alternative of keeping it manual is tedious and unnecessary. Although it was probably not anticipated that recycle would be used in this way (I guess it may have already for ns1 though - I can't remember that far back. Could recycle be cancelled in ns1?).
As cool and helpful this feature would be. (And I wished I had it quite often)
If it gets implemented, they need to implement a downside of this, too. Because otherwise, you could have a phasegate in every room.
So maybe a limit of phasegates of maybe 4? Or a really long time (2 to 3 minutes?) to power up and shutdown the gates. So phasegates to protect extractors don't work, because the extractor would be destroyed before the phasegate is online.
I think the downside is that you're spending 15 tres on a phase gate in every room. I dunno though, could be OP. I'm too tired to contemplate the ins and outs of it at the moment.
(I am talking about pub play, not comp.)
The idea that you could potentially plonk a phase gate in every room, and more or less instantly responding to threats sounds OP. However, the idea that you could get to that point, while still investing in phase gates, and have enough res to invest in enough tech/upgrades to deal with the threats as they grow seems farfetched.
E.g. if aliens get to fade, will you have shotguns and enough upgrades to deal with it. Because responding to it instantly isn't going to matter in this case.
After typing that out however, I realised that this assumes that said phase spam would be attempted early game. I guess you could get to the end game using conventional strategy, they use the excess res income you have already established on phase spam to ensure the victory. In this case an on off switch may in fact need an additional downside or something like a phase gate structure limit. Again, I'm too tired to think about this clearly though.
And you're right - it'd probably be more of a pub issue than a comp one.
Not allowing any control over gate priority makes the marines place less gates all around the map. If you want a strong phase network, you are basically capped at 3. If you go above 3, you increase the marine response time to an attack. This makes you think strategically where you want the gate to go. If the commander can micro the gates at any time, marines could have a gate in every room of the map and still be able to get around with a good commander.
1. Usually beacon is enough
2. It means that a bad comm could screw up the game even more than usual.
Unless someone can find a way to fix 2., then I'm going to disagree with this.
dont kill the view skill items a commander is able to use.
The issue I have with both suggestions is that both of them, yours and the OP, will be increase the defensive power more than needed for Marine bases. I am not disagreeing that they would not work out, it is just the balance aspect is funny. Phasegates being user unfriendly is a major thing that balances out Marine bases for the mid to late game and just buffing the user friendly does not consider how it will buff the Marines.
For the manner of how priority phasegate would work, I just don't care how it would be implemented as it does not need to be. If it was, I would imagine that the first phasegate blink will automatically go to the priority one and then every blink after would follow normal paths. Give it a ten second duration and it would work. Work mechanically, but not in balance. Marines have Beacon for that and it has built in weaknesses that are important. Hell, what was just said was basically already said in joshsss post but I added more.
The only thing that I could see to be done is make it so you can redraw the Phastegate path, as I can't see that being a serious buff. Then again, that is not really needed.
For the reason I've seemed so testy, this suggestion does not have any comments on balance. It just says, this is cool. Any suggestion that does not talk about the balance aspect should be ignored. *Edited part* Also, it is on the one that suggests the change to defend it and tell why it should be. If people that like the current method are a bit flippant, it is to be expected if there is not a strong case for the change for them to comment on.
Ultimately, right now, I don't really think it's a necessary change or even a desirable one. It does seem nice at first, but less nice when you do actually think about it. It could possibly be balanced with enough downsides, but because the feature isn't exactly necessary, I don't think it's really worth it ironing out the kinks.
Considering the downsides already listed - Simple phase gate limits could be established for example, but obviously comes with it's own disadvantage of adding arbitrary limits (which I guess is up to debate whether this is a significant disadvantage but if it's a disadvantage, and the feature it is allowing is not necessary, then there's less reason to include the feature at all). Cooldowns and powering up/off times could add downsides, but unless combined with phase limits may not, practically, be enough from keeping it OP - although that would require further reflection that is probably not worth it for me personally cause the feature isn't necessary and I don't really care that it's not included.
I would care if the feature were actually being considered by UWE because it would need to be thoroughly examined first and right now the concensus is - that it's OP - so yeah, would be a mistake at this point to include. Whilst the discussion has only really started in this particular thread, I assume the other threads on this subject have already picked the subject to death, so I trust that these threads covered everything, and that there's a reason that it's not in the game.
Anyway, ima edit out that back and forth to clean up the thread a little.