Article: Marines, And Their Lack Of Strategy
Chopper_Dave1
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Observations and suggestions</div> **Edited for spelling and terminology**
Right, before I start, just want to make a few things clear for the griefers and naysayers of the forum:
- I consider this an article, with the former part of it describing what I see as a problem in NS and a latter what I propose as a solution. Don't take it an an idea post - I just don't like to complain about something without offering a possible solution.
- By NO means do I intend for the ideas mentioned in this thread to be implemented in 1.1. If anything, this is 1.2 - 1.3 material.
- This thread is me describing a problem and a possible solution, all put forward in order to possibly inspire better ideas and improve on NS. I do not suggest that things should be "my way or the highway", so to speak.
- The system suggested later in this thread is not based on the current resources system. If it is to be implemented, resource collection will have to be changed a bit as well. However, resources are not the point of this thread. Therefore, any resource prices refered to in this thread are PURELY hypothetical, and only used to distinguish price range (i.e. equipment A is more expensive than equipment B).
- For the love of whatever higher being you believe in, <b>PLEASE</b> don't tell me to go make my own game, that marines are not supposed to be reskinned versions of the Kharaa, or other bullcrap like that. It's not constructive, creative, or desired. Either tell me its a good article, a good set of ideas, how the ideas can be improved upon, or where they're fundamentally wrong, or don't tell me anything at all.
Alright, now that the covering of my arse is out of the way, on with the actual thread.
There has been some talk in the beta forums about how the NS system is much more leaning toward the FPS aspect than the RTS aspect, and quite frankly I agree with them. There really isn't much strategy in NS besides build order and territory conquering, which really isn't too different from most other games. In fact, I would even venture to say that CS and NS are highly comparable - the team that wins is the team that spends its resources getting the right equipment, and the one that best predicts what part of the map the other team is trying to secure. It's very rock, paper, and scissors. That's all fine and good, but I want NS to be more RTS-like than that.
The "vanilla marines vs the vanilla skulks" comprises a great part of the game in 1.04. The team is taking a step in the right direcion by opening up the alien tech tree in 1.1 - now aliens have much more choice in their strategy. However, the marines are getting owned pretty hard in 1.1, or at least by all accounts that I have heard from playtester acquaintances. The problem: aliens have a countering system, while the marines do not. This is especially strange to me, since the marines are the ones with the commander!
Let me illustrate this point for you. The aliens have an incredible amount of options when it comes with dealing with the marines. If the marines lock down two hives, then the alien team can respond by gorging, taking the maps resources, and wiping the marines down with onos. If the marines opt for early motion tracking, aliens can instantly counter that by getting cloaking. If the marines get upgraded ammunition, the aliens can get carapace. If the marines are turtling a base and a hive, the aliens can get lerks with umbra and gorges with bilebomb. Etc etc etc.
Meanwhile, marines have a very, VERY restrictive countering system. Aliens rush level 3 carapace? Then it's going to be another 105 resources and around 5 minutes or so before level 2 weapons come in, and that's if it's rushed. Aliens went for the early Onos? Then its going to be another 70 resources and 2 minutes before the jetpack (the offical counter) is purchased and done, and another 3 minutes and 60 resources before HMGs are purchasable, not to mention the prices for actually distributing the equipment. Marines have to rely on a lot of prediction and quite a bit of luck if they hope to beat a decent alien team in 1.1.
So there's your problem with NS 1.1, as I see it. How we move in to "Suggestions and Ideas" territory.
In the early game, aliens have quite a bit of choice in how they go about teching, both individually and team-wise. First of all, they have access to all evolutions right off the bat, and can choose when to evolve provided they have the resources. Secondly, by building an upgrade chamber, they have access to further evolutions, which can give them a distinct edge over vanilla marines. Thirdly, these upgrade chamber evolutions are very easily switched around - all it takes is one death, and aliens can easily and quickly switch their upgrade set to compensate for whatever the marines are doing. For example, if aliens have movement and defense chambers, and know the marines have rushed ammo upgrades but neglected armor, they can switch out their Carapace-Adrenaline set for a Celerity-Redemption set and IMMEDIATELY negate the effects of the marine upgrades. This is quite unfair to the marines, if you ask me.
So, in order to possibly give the marines more flexibility in the strategy department, here's what could be done:
Implement BASIC marine classes. And when I say basic, I do mean it. Here's your choices for marine classes: long range, short range, and siege. The only difference between the classes? Price, and guns.
Marines all start off as vanilla, LMG-wielding marines, as they do now. However, once the armory goes up, the commander has a bevy of options as to what his minions can be. Basically, clicking on the armory itself pulls up a little menu where the name, and class, of each marine on the team is displayed. Clicking on the class of a particular marine opens up up a scroll down sort of menu, where the commander can choose 1 of 3 options: long, short, siege. Whichever the commander chooses is what the player will spawn as next time he dies. Now on to the differences between classes:
Long range would be your standard marine with an LMG. Obviously, everyone is automatically assigned to this class at the beginning of the game. A person with the LMG is equally effective against structures and players. A commander will probably want most of his players to be long-range, as they are effective in a variety of situations. A long range class, for example's sake, would cost 1 res per spawn.
Short range would start off with a shotgun. This shotgun would be weaker than the current one to prevent absolute ownage, but would still be quite a bit more effective than the LMG. Shotgunners are especially effective against players, especially of the melee variety (read: skulks + fades), but do little damage to structures. Keeping with the example, shotgunners would cost 3 res per spawn.
Siege classes would start off the marine with a flamethrower. Now I know Flay doesn't want to implement these unless he can get volumetric, but I really don't think anyone would mind if they weren't. Anyways, the siege class would be weak against players, but strong against structures. Siege players could also use their weapon to "spam" and support teammates, i.e. spray and pray a doorway and cook any aliens that try to come through. The flamethrower would still be mostly ineffective in actual fighting scenarios, however, because of it's slow movement and range, and because the player would burn himself if he moved into his own flames <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->. Siege players have the most destructive weapons, but require quite a bit of support to survive. These guys would cost 5 resources to spawn.
The commander, in times of crisis, can still drop guns for the marines to pick up. They would just be more expensive. For example, a shotgun would cost 6 resources, and an LMG 3. So, it's better to plan ahead and get your marines to spawn with the guns - but if you have 5 skulks chewing on your main base, might as well get as many shotguns out there as possible to kill the things.
Now each of these basic classes is subject to an upgrade. The commander can research HMG's for the long-range class, flachette cannons for the short-range class (shoots a spread of superheated metal shrapnel, basically an uber-shotgun), and grenade launchers for the siege classes.
In order to make things fair for the alien team, getting the weapon upgrade would require two things: first, the commander would have to choose "research upgrade" from the armory. In other words, the advanced armory upgrade is nixed, and instead you can research "advanced long range," "advanced short range," or "advanced siege." Once that finishes, you can drop the respective guns. In order to get players to spawn with the guns, you have to build a specialized spawn (which would be easily distinguishable from the rest): e.g. an HMG'er spawn. Once the spawn is available, the commander can choose to spawn players with the better guns (for a higher price than the basic class of course, but not as high as dropping the guns). It's a bit complex, but it would allow for the aliens to sabotage marine technology by chewing on the specialized spawns, which is an important element for a lot of NS players.
Finally, the commander can still further customize his team by distributing welders, heavy armors, and jetpacks, as well as upgrading weapons and armor (all still with their respective research cycles).
Basically, my suggested system allows for a few things:
- Gives the commander more options for his strategies, while leaving plenty of room for skill. A player with a superb amount of skill, for example, might be able to use the flamethrower as a much more offensive weapon than it is intended (just as a skilled player in 1.1 can use a grenade launcher to destroy aliens by the dozens, with the proper aiming skills).
-Marines now have counters to the basic alien upgrades and classes, while the aliens still retain their counters to marine strategies and technology. So if aliens choose to rely too much on skulks with carapace, they'll get owned if the marine commander wises up and starts spawning the right balance of LMG'ers and shotgunners. Likewise, if a marine commander invests solely in shotgunners, not only will he be draining his resources more quickly, but he will leave his team very susceptable to lerk spikes and offensive chambers. And that's just the early game.
-When the aliens start getting advanced technology from their 2nd hive, marines will also have an ace or two up their sleeves. For example, aliens will now have blink, bilebomb, and a 2nd upgrade chamber, while marines might have flachette cannons, HMG's, and heavy armor.
-The strategy is still in the commander's hands. A lot of suggestions related to making marines more strategic take power away from the commander and allow marines to choose their classes, (too) much like the aliens. My suggestion still leaves all the power to the commander.
Alright, flame away.
Right, before I start, just want to make a few things clear for the griefers and naysayers of the forum:
- I consider this an article, with the former part of it describing what I see as a problem in NS and a latter what I propose as a solution. Don't take it an an idea post - I just don't like to complain about something without offering a possible solution.
- By NO means do I intend for the ideas mentioned in this thread to be implemented in 1.1. If anything, this is 1.2 - 1.3 material.
- This thread is me describing a problem and a possible solution, all put forward in order to possibly inspire better ideas and improve on NS. I do not suggest that things should be "my way or the highway", so to speak.
- The system suggested later in this thread is not based on the current resources system. If it is to be implemented, resource collection will have to be changed a bit as well. However, resources are not the point of this thread. Therefore, any resource prices refered to in this thread are PURELY hypothetical, and only used to distinguish price range (i.e. equipment A is more expensive than equipment B).
- For the love of whatever higher being you believe in, <b>PLEASE</b> don't tell me to go make my own game, that marines are not supposed to be reskinned versions of the Kharaa, or other bullcrap like that. It's not constructive, creative, or desired. Either tell me its a good article, a good set of ideas, how the ideas can be improved upon, or where they're fundamentally wrong, or don't tell me anything at all.
Alright, now that the covering of my arse is out of the way, on with the actual thread.
There has been some talk in the beta forums about how the NS system is much more leaning toward the FPS aspect than the RTS aspect, and quite frankly I agree with them. There really isn't much strategy in NS besides build order and territory conquering, which really isn't too different from most other games. In fact, I would even venture to say that CS and NS are highly comparable - the team that wins is the team that spends its resources getting the right equipment, and the one that best predicts what part of the map the other team is trying to secure. It's very rock, paper, and scissors. That's all fine and good, but I want NS to be more RTS-like than that.
The "vanilla marines vs the vanilla skulks" comprises a great part of the game in 1.04. The team is taking a step in the right direcion by opening up the alien tech tree in 1.1 - now aliens have much more choice in their strategy. However, the marines are getting owned pretty hard in 1.1, or at least by all accounts that I have heard from playtester acquaintances. The problem: aliens have a countering system, while the marines do not. This is especially strange to me, since the marines are the ones with the commander!
Let me illustrate this point for you. The aliens have an incredible amount of options when it comes with dealing with the marines. If the marines lock down two hives, then the alien team can respond by gorging, taking the maps resources, and wiping the marines down with onos. If the marines opt for early motion tracking, aliens can instantly counter that by getting cloaking. If the marines get upgraded ammunition, the aliens can get carapace. If the marines are turtling a base and a hive, the aliens can get lerks with umbra and gorges with bilebomb. Etc etc etc.
Meanwhile, marines have a very, VERY restrictive countering system. Aliens rush level 3 carapace? Then it's going to be another 105 resources and around 5 minutes or so before level 2 weapons come in, and that's if it's rushed. Aliens went for the early Onos? Then its going to be another 70 resources and 2 minutes before the jetpack (the offical counter) is purchased and done, and another 3 minutes and 60 resources before HMGs are purchasable, not to mention the prices for actually distributing the equipment. Marines have to rely on a lot of prediction and quite a bit of luck if they hope to beat a decent alien team in 1.1.
So there's your problem with NS 1.1, as I see it. How we move in to "Suggestions and Ideas" territory.
In the early game, aliens have quite a bit of choice in how they go about teching, both individually and team-wise. First of all, they have access to all evolutions right off the bat, and can choose when to evolve provided they have the resources. Secondly, by building an upgrade chamber, they have access to further evolutions, which can give them a distinct edge over vanilla marines. Thirdly, these upgrade chamber evolutions are very easily switched around - all it takes is one death, and aliens can easily and quickly switch their upgrade set to compensate for whatever the marines are doing. For example, if aliens have movement and defense chambers, and know the marines have rushed ammo upgrades but neglected armor, they can switch out their Carapace-Adrenaline set for a Celerity-Redemption set and IMMEDIATELY negate the effects of the marine upgrades. This is quite unfair to the marines, if you ask me.
So, in order to possibly give the marines more flexibility in the strategy department, here's what could be done:
Implement BASIC marine classes. And when I say basic, I do mean it. Here's your choices for marine classes: long range, short range, and siege. The only difference between the classes? Price, and guns.
Marines all start off as vanilla, LMG-wielding marines, as they do now. However, once the armory goes up, the commander has a bevy of options as to what his minions can be. Basically, clicking on the armory itself pulls up a little menu where the name, and class, of each marine on the team is displayed. Clicking on the class of a particular marine opens up up a scroll down sort of menu, where the commander can choose 1 of 3 options: long, short, siege. Whichever the commander chooses is what the player will spawn as next time he dies. Now on to the differences between classes:
Long range would be your standard marine with an LMG. Obviously, everyone is automatically assigned to this class at the beginning of the game. A person with the LMG is equally effective against structures and players. A commander will probably want most of his players to be long-range, as they are effective in a variety of situations. A long range class, for example's sake, would cost 1 res per spawn.
Short range would start off with a shotgun. This shotgun would be weaker than the current one to prevent absolute ownage, but would still be quite a bit more effective than the LMG. Shotgunners are especially effective against players, especially of the melee variety (read: skulks + fades), but do little damage to structures. Keeping with the example, shotgunners would cost 3 res per spawn.
Siege classes would start off the marine with a flamethrower. Now I know Flay doesn't want to implement these unless he can get volumetric, but I really don't think anyone would mind if they weren't. Anyways, the siege class would be weak against players, but strong against structures. Siege players could also use their weapon to "spam" and support teammates, i.e. spray and pray a doorway and cook any aliens that try to come through. The flamethrower would still be mostly ineffective in actual fighting scenarios, however, because of it's slow movement and range, and because the player would burn himself if he moved into his own flames <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->. Siege players have the most destructive weapons, but require quite a bit of support to survive. These guys would cost 5 resources to spawn.
The commander, in times of crisis, can still drop guns for the marines to pick up. They would just be more expensive. For example, a shotgun would cost 6 resources, and an LMG 3. So, it's better to plan ahead and get your marines to spawn with the guns - but if you have 5 skulks chewing on your main base, might as well get as many shotguns out there as possible to kill the things.
Now each of these basic classes is subject to an upgrade. The commander can research HMG's for the long-range class, flachette cannons for the short-range class (shoots a spread of superheated metal shrapnel, basically an uber-shotgun), and grenade launchers for the siege classes.
In order to make things fair for the alien team, getting the weapon upgrade would require two things: first, the commander would have to choose "research upgrade" from the armory. In other words, the advanced armory upgrade is nixed, and instead you can research "advanced long range," "advanced short range," or "advanced siege." Once that finishes, you can drop the respective guns. In order to get players to spawn with the guns, you have to build a specialized spawn (which would be easily distinguishable from the rest): e.g. an HMG'er spawn. Once the spawn is available, the commander can choose to spawn players with the better guns (for a higher price than the basic class of course, but not as high as dropping the guns). It's a bit complex, but it would allow for the aliens to sabotage marine technology by chewing on the specialized spawns, which is an important element for a lot of NS players.
Finally, the commander can still further customize his team by distributing welders, heavy armors, and jetpacks, as well as upgrading weapons and armor (all still with their respective research cycles).
Basically, my suggested system allows for a few things:
- Gives the commander more options for his strategies, while leaving plenty of room for skill. A player with a superb amount of skill, for example, might be able to use the flamethrower as a much more offensive weapon than it is intended (just as a skilled player in 1.1 can use a grenade launcher to destroy aliens by the dozens, with the proper aiming skills).
-Marines now have counters to the basic alien upgrades and classes, while the aliens still retain their counters to marine strategies and technology. So if aliens choose to rely too much on skulks with carapace, they'll get owned if the marine commander wises up and starts spawning the right balance of LMG'ers and shotgunners. Likewise, if a marine commander invests solely in shotgunners, not only will he be draining his resources more quickly, but he will leave his team very susceptable to lerk spikes and offensive chambers. And that's just the early game.
-When the aliens start getting advanced technology from their 2nd hive, marines will also have an ace or two up their sleeves. For example, aliens will now have blink, bilebomb, and a 2nd upgrade chamber, while marines might have flachette cannons, HMG's, and heavy armor.
-The strategy is still in the commander's hands. A lot of suggestions related to making marines more strategic take power away from the commander and allow marines to choose their classes, (too) much like the aliens. My suggestion still leaves all the power to the commander.
Alright, flame away.
Comments
Could I get a moderator to fix that for me? Lol.
Now, we have to see before doing any brainstorming on how enhance the RTS aspect, what system limitations we have, before adding the flamethrower for example.
I cannot help to add, that Driftwood ideas should be read too:
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=23352' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...=ST&f=5&t=23352</a>
Regards,
Draco
I completly agree that the marine's side of the game is too first person shooter. some of the things that could also improve the RTS aspect of the game is to slow it down. snap-fps-"skillz" arn't needed in a 45-90 minute game. last i heard games are going along the lines of half of what i said. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> ( <b>< 30</b> minutes)
granted, it'd be a somewhat steeper learning curve, and if NS is as "fast" when this is supposedly put in; players will freak. when you have: critical decision making, many paths to choose from, and a short time limit players will: tend to make the wrong choice, get so "shaken" they cannot play the commander job any more, or just plain quit.
again though, 2 thumbs up.
PS: I dont care if the flame thrower isn't volumetric... if it could solve a critical ballance issue (with or without volumetric) i'd want it anyways. gameplay > realism if its for ballance.
Now can we stop talking about price, costs, and money as though NS had a "c" replacing its first letter? *Shudders*
Hey! I know that setinfo. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
One thing to expand on your idea is to allow the commander to drop special ammunition packs. These packs wouldn't contain additional ammo when picked up, instead they would give different <i>types</i> of ammunition. So you could have FMJ rounds (basically what we have now), AP rounds to punch through armor and say phospherous ammo to counter regen (like how rolls cant regen fire damage in AD&D). That way a good commander can customise his marines so they can counter whatever they happen to be up against.
Plus it would involve developing more useful a skill than, say, bunnyhopping.
My only request would be to have the players choose their class, not the commander. It might ok for clan matches where the comm knows his team well, but I'd hate to be in a pub when the comm lumps me as siege when I know I am far better as a long range marine.
This could use the same armory method, where a menu appears when the marine uses the armory and gives him the option of changing class, which sticks through respawns unless he changes again. Only thing here of course is managing cost, for the comm might not suddenly want his team wasting res all going siege <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
But working this stuff out is easy if the idea meets with Flay's approval.
M
Obviously a phrase in standard english usage, but it always makes me think of Duke Nukem <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Once again, great ideas <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
anything more to say? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Part of the beauty of the idea is that the shotgun and flamethrower really don't cost THAT much more than the LMG. So a good commander should be able to figure out who's good with what weapon in the pubs without wasting too much money, then apply that knowledge to suit up everyone to the team's best interests.
It would be really great to be able to spawn as something else that was different, but not exactly better. See TFC: All the classes are different, but one isn't "better" then another. Classes that get abused have limits on them.
I also approve of a commander-mode menu that has a list of marines: It would be helpful.
Well, the problem here is that the Alien approach is simply the better one if you don't want to frustrate the players. They have complete control over the weapons they get. A teammate can only help you, he cannot restrict you (with the exception of a single Gorge locking the chamber order. Sensory first can be crippling, and that's not good either.)
Basically it's the same with Marines. Currently the Commander can help his teammates, but he cannot take weapons away from them. That's good. In your suggestion, he could take my LMG away, although I might want to keep it. Now I'm stuck with this flamethrower, making me practically defenseless in melee. I'm frustrated and quit.
Giving one player so much power over his teammates isn't good for public multiplayer.
I agree with your analysis of the problem, and your disclaimer should be at the start of every serious thread, but your proposed solution fell apart for me when you called the Marines "minions" of the Commander. Nobody wants to be a minion.
A) The marine should ultimatly choose his own fate.
B) Skill should be rewarded moreso than circumstance, unless that circumstance was set up by the commander.
Here is my old thread...
<!--QuoteBegin--Freemantle+--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Freemantle)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Alright, I finally get to post in this thread. I am no PT so everything I say here is based on my experiences in 1.04 and the posts of current playtesters.
<b>Marine FPS:</b> The human craves certian things in social interactions. One of the largest things is a feeling of being special. The human would do anything to believe that they are all special little snowflakes that will never be replicated. Unfortunatly, that often times isn't so.
So how does this apply to Natural Selection? In your typical public game, the commander has absolutly no idea what each of his marines are proficient at. Any weapon that would take skill (i.e. shotgun or welder in current 1.04) would need to be administered to a player who would use that weapon to his or her potential. The problem is that as soon as a commender drops a weapon, the entire marine team will bee-line toward the drop before actually looking at what it is. The marine side is so eager to break the monotony of the LMG, that an inexperienced player picks up the weapon, and the master is stuck with his LMG in hand.
In a majority of games, the commander will purchase weapon and armour upgrades instead of dropping weapons. He will soup up the vanilla loadout until they are sure they have won, then the Jetpack HMG comes down.
The problem with breaking the dull LMG combat is the fact that the commander has to shoulder all the responsability for talent-finding, and robbing the grunts from any feeling of skill besides not missing (which any snapperhead with an aimbot can pull off)
<b>Marine FPS/RTS Rework:</b>
Here is the point. Make weapons a researchable item for the commander, and allow the marines to get a GUI menu when they +use an armoury. This armoury gives the marine weapon choices, and three ammo quantity choices (light, medium, and heavy ammo quantity). With a quick ammo choice, it removes the need to hump the armoury.
Now your saying "WTH? Fr33 HMG! Onos!"
Hold on! It comes at a price like everything else! The price of the research is <b>much</b> higher than the price of the original weapon!
Shotgun: 40 Res - 90 seconds - Advanced Armoury Required
Welder: 20 Res - 30 seconds
Mines: 20 Res - 60 seconds
Grenade Launcher: 70 Res - 120 seconds - Arms Lab Required - Advanced Armoury Required
Heavy Machiene Gun - 100 Res - 180 seconds - Arms Lab Required - Advanced Armoury Required
Further "trick weapons" that would fill niches and skill gaps.
Dual Pistols* - 25 Res - 90 Seconds
Flame Thrower** - 70 Res - 180 Seconds - Advanced Armoury Required - Arms lab Required
Grenade*** - 50 Res - 180 seconds - Advanced Armoury
Nano Bomb **** - 100 Res - 180 seconds- Arms Lab Required - Advanced Armoury Required
Based off of current 1.04, these costs and times seem feasable. The HMG should have it's damage trimmed a bit, but other than that it should be okay.
<b> Explaining the "trick weapons":</b>
<u>Dual Pistols:</u> Not 2 pistols at once, but rather a pistol in each weapon slot. This is the equivalent of puting a larger clip on your pistol, but more flexable in the fact that you can throw the primary one and switch weapons as you wish. It is lightweight and caters to all of us who like the mobility and accuracy of the TSA pistol.
<u>Flame Thrower:</u> It is pointless without being volumetric. I believe Firestorm said that volumetric flamethrowers were possible on the Half Life engine, and that he created one for Crisis at Black Mesa. This weapon does low to medium damage (less damage than the LMG) but is capable of flushing out vent areas and breaching rooms. There would be no clip to this weapon, but ammo capacity would be very low. Useful against non-regenerating structures.
<u>Grenade:</u> Simple enough. Three hand grenades that occupy the secondary slot. Throw range is moderate, each grenade does about 70 damage at the epicenter, and wanes out in a decent radius. Low damage vs structures.
<u>Nano Bomb:</u> The epitomy of teamwork, this weapon occupies the primary slot of a soldiers loadout. The soldier must look at the ground when placing this bomb. He must keep holding the fire key and looking at the bomb on the ground as a progress bar fills. As he sits there, it plays sounds as he programs the device and re-route's nano hardlines to his location. the bomb glows brighter and brighter until the progress bar fills 50 seconds after placement. The room becomes very bright and an explosion blows the device apart and hunter/killer nano's pour out of every orifice, causing a stinkcloud like effect on the surrounding area, deconstructing kharra bacterium.
<b>Further Digression</b> Make the prototype lab a vehicle bay of sorts. If researched, the marine can +use the prototype lab to bring up a GUI menu for Jetpacks and Heavy armour. The marine can then request them. The commander will get a prompt saying "<i>Authorize Heavy Armour for Player X?</i>" If the commander clicks yes, the proto lab will slap Heavy armour on that marine (maybe with a sweet animation!) and the res for that HA will be consumed. Jetpacks work much the same way. To prevent annoyance, the marine will only be able to ask once each spawn. Why do this? So the right people get the right gear. Too often people who dont deserve Jetpack/HMG pick them up. Not that they shouldn't be able to play with them, but if the decision is crucial, let the commander call the shots.
Players need a symbol next to their name to signify the weapon they are carrying. This makes it easy for a commander to see his groups and send the right people in the right direction. The marines should also be able to tell what their comrades are carrying at a glance. Class based teamwork, without the rigidness of an actual class.
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Just think, if this ever got implemented it would do away with the infamous "OMG Comm Gim33 HMGGGGGGG!!!11"
In 1.1 marine tech has been reduced in price, therefore the whole point of this idea is gone. The marines should be able to adapt to some extent. While this probably isn't a perfect solution for what you believe to be a problem, I like the idea that marines aren't as adaptable as the aliens. The aliens are supposed to evolve to counter whatever the marines are doing, the marines however are stuck with their technology and they have to do the best they can with it.
Just to feed my curiosity for sterotypes - Are you by any chance Australian?
I don't think this idea would solve all the underlying problems though. Something should be done to make it more fun for the individual marine - hopefully the limited recoil system and locational damage that Flayra hinted at would help a lot.
Just to feed my curiosity for sterotypes - Are you by any chance Australian? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes he is, as his profile quite clearly states <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--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-->However, once the armory goes up, the commander has a bevy of options as to what his minions can be. Basically, clicking on the armory itself pulls up a little menu where the name, and class, of each marine on the team is displayed. Clicking on the class of a particular marine opens up up a scroll down sort of menu, where the commander can choose 1 of 3 options: long, short, siege. Whichever the commander chooses is what the player will spawn as next time he dies.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This puts even more strain on the commander. Can you imagine players screaming for the commander to change their class? Plus, some players would prefer to play a certain class (or are better at it). Simply put, this would likely create some hostility and would be too inconvenient. Alternative radical idea (in multiple parts):
<b>Marines can change class ala TFC.</b>
<b>Commander part</b>
I denote the bottom-right corner of the commander HUD as the "command card." Remove the equipment menu (weapons and armor drops) from the command card. When an armory is selected, its menu in the command card will display all the weapon icons.
Left-clicking on one of these button-icons will build the corresponding weapon. Now this won't be instantaneous - it would be similar to researching except the end product is not new tech but a weapon, and you could "research" it again. All the weapons are stored in a global bank for simplicity.
Right-clicking on the icon will recycle the corresponding weapon if there exists one in the bank. Again this is not instantanous and would be similar to recycling a building. Recycle commands are stored in the afore-mentioned queue.
An armory can only build one thing at a time. Additional build commands sent to the armory after the first will be stored in a queue. Think of the consequences of this part: this would allow multiple armories to be viable - another strategic option.
The icons on the armory's menu will also have a small number superimposed on them (probably in the bottom-right hand corner of the icon). This number would represent the amount of the corresponding weapon in the bank.
LMGs and pistols are in infinite supply - they do not have to be built.
Prototype labs would work in the same matter - armor must be built.
<b>Marine spawning</b>
Now, how will marines take advantage of this? When they respawn in, they take a weapon from the global bank. The weapon they take depends on their class. Long ranged class would recieve the free LMGs. Short ranged class would receive shotguns. Long-ranged class would start off with the flamethrower. All classes would obtain the pistol for free.
When a player sets his class, he is actually choosing his preferred class. He will default to the long ranged class if weapons aren't available for his chosen class. However, the next time he respawns, if the weapon of his preferred class is available, he will spawn as that class.
<b>Using the armory/prot lab</b>
To get better weapons, the marine must walk up to the armory and "use" it. If there is a superior weapon (i.e. HMG > LMG) available for his class, he would receive it.
Getting armor (JPs and HAs) would be a bit more complicated since it would probably require a menu. Alternatively, a new prototype lab structure type can be added so that one type would produce/provide HAs while the other would produce/provide JPs. Or this could be integrated in the whole marine spawn with weapon idea, but that might make it too complicated. It's some food for thought.
Because "using" armories serves a new function, it would be awkward if using armories still gave you ammo. Instead, simply looking at the armory and getting within range should give you ammo.
This whole part may be abandoned if we go by your "specialized IP" idea, but that may be complicated because not everyone would want to spawn with an HMG or a GL. It would be complicated even further if armor was added into this spawn system.
<b>Countering newbie marine and lamer syndrome</b>
To prevent newbies from wasting too much res by picking the seige class and dying in seconds or seige marines from suiciding constantly, I suggest the following commander-independent system. If you waste or would waste more than 30 res within a minute via dying and spawning again, you would be forced to spawn as a long ranged class for a minute. The times and numbers may need to be tweaked.
A kickvote system should also be added get rid of lamers. However, I don't think that newbies should be penalized as much.
Allow me to make a few changes that I think would benefit:
Marines automatically start with LMG and pistol, as they do now. However, the armory allows for a few more things.
Clicking on the armory allows you to "research" weapons one at a time, a la pretty much every other RTS you can think of. It would be like Starcraft, you can only "produce" one weapon at a time, but can quae several more to be built afterward. Any weapon that is produced appears on one of the four sides of the armory, and can be picked up my marines. LMGs and pistols are 1 res, shotties 3, and flamethrowers 5, just for example.
In order to produce advanced weaponry, you would first have to have an armory. Then, you would have to build a separate, advanced armory. Once the advanced armory is up, you can choose to research 1 of the 3 weapons or produce if one if available. Just to make things not TOO slow, you can research and build at the same time (so if you have HMG, you can continue to produce as your research grenade launcher). Then you can produce those weapons at the advanced armory for a higher price (15, 18, 21, or something like that).
Dropping weapons around the armory is still a viable option, as well. The former production option allows for weapons to be produced slowly and one after the other, but for a cheaper price. However, for around double the price (like 7 for the shotgun, for example) the commander can instantly drop a gun around the armory as he does now. This would be useful for getting guns out quickly for a rush, or for quickly dishing out heat if it's needed to guard against an unsuspected alien attack.
The commander would be able to see what gun a person has next to their name in the TAB menu (like aliens can see player classes), so that he doesn't distribute too many of one type of gun out. Maybe there could be some sort of option which would allow the commander to <i>restrict</i> a person to a certain type of gun so that a bad player doesn't get his hands on a flamethrower, for example, but then again that would both be complex in practice and would impede on peoples' freedom of choice desire (which seems to be an issue with more people than I originally thought).
A good read and hopefully it'll catch a dev's eye.