OK.

DCs = MCs now, fantastic.

SCs need something. Yes, while perhaps the most powerful chamber, they're also absolutely the most counterable. A good comm will get at least a 2nd obs when he knows SC, and often MT, and front-line Obs.

But thats innate to the SC game. The main problem, to me, is healing the hive. Especially on maps like Nancy, with great siegeability, its not that the aliens cant counter a siege; even with an obs, you can still do hella damage with focus and scent (and obviously lifeforms).

No. To me, the main weakness of SC is healing the hive. With MC, you have adren gorges. WIth DC, well, those DCs are healing powerhouses.

What can we do about this? Well, what if an SC shortened the amount of time that Scan worked for? There are two ways of doing this. Before i explain them, keep in mind that SC radius is 750, Scan radius is 800, scan duration is 10 seconds, siege rate of fire is 1 shot every 4 seconds.

(option 1): If the point of the scan (the very middle) is within an SC radius, the scan's lifespan is lowered.

(option 2): If a hive or chamber or alien is within an SC radius, it can re-cloak sooner.

The time change would be either 2 or 3 seconds. The choice matters quite a bit. Scans only last 10 seconds; sieges fire every 4. If the sieges were aimed perfectly, they could get off exactly 3 siege volleys in one scan (at 8 seconds), but then only 2 in the next. If it was 7 seconds, they would only ever get off 2 volleys.

Since siege cannons are constantly turning while not firing, there is almost always turn time required before they fire. Good commanders know they only have a 2 second leeway between scans (from when the first one dies to when you need the next one) to achieve the optimal 3 sieges per scan. Turning time is what eats this up. If your scan dies and the sieges turn, they can be facing the opposite way pretty quickly.

So basically, the effect of the new SC on sieges would be a significant reduction in the effectiveness of scanning. The commanders would need more obs or more sieges, but thats just to show that the new SC would not itself be nerfing the marines, just making it harder. It might even make it worthwhile to drop decoy OCs in the hive, to take away the hits from the hive, because they'd last longer in this system.

It would also encourage spotting of the hive. When marines are sieging SC only aliens, they generally just put up an obs, and sit by the sieges laughing. With a fairly drastic reduction in scan effectiveness, they would be more likely to be pressured into rushing in, making for better gameplay.

The theoretical concept behind the change makes sense too. How come sensories are so subordinate to scans? The two counter each other. It would be ridiculous for scans to not decloak things. But why not have it where the actual cloaking *chambers* reduce the effect nearby?

Of all the suggestions ive ever had, I think this one has the most potential .

Thoughts?

..Devs?

I don't think it would really be that much of a hit to marines, spotting the hive is fairly easy and it only takes one marine at a time to do it, and most times marines are spawn camping the aliens as they appear to get more R4k, so most of the games I play in there are always marines inside the hive during a siege unless there are a considerable number of OCs in the hive (which is usually why we're lossing since some retard gorge felt that 8 OCs in hive would be more useful then 2 RTs and a Hive...but still) so I don't feel that this is a huge buff to Alien SC

on the other hand its kinda cool and why not add it.

I think the real thing is that maybe SC isn't the most viable option for an early game first hive chamber, which is fine...not every Upgrade is a viable early game marine upgrade...like Electrifying the MS RT in the first minute of gameplay isn't really the best COA but we aren't making game changes to make it more usefull... some Chambers are better for a first hive and some are better for a second hive.

This wouldn't help vs marines that rush the building hive and just kill the sc, what they should do vs sc anyway, because no healing is provided by dc or adren-gorges and a siege would be just a waste of time and res.
Moreover it would become to good once there are dcs/mcs and scs in hives and would render siege rather useless.

SC is just a different chamber, and it doesn't need a change, just because it doesn't help to keep the hive hp up. It has other benefits therefore.

Imho the only problem with sc is, that it usually gets destroyed, if it was scanned once, because every marine can remember the sc's position by watching the minimap.
I suggest that sc isn't visible on the minimap at all, thus you have to scan as a comm and need marines there, too, who spot the uncloaked sc in order to destroy it.
This would improve scs a little bit in another direction and even more scs in vents give you multiple opportunities to surprise the enemy unless the comm guesses the sc and drops an obs nearby or sends jps in the mid-game to kill it.

You could even take this further and make scs hide everything within range on the minimap.
This way comms couldn't just scan for a possible hive, if sc is in there, but he has to send a marine and then scan to let the marine check for uncloacked structures.
This would also help ambushing aliens in the hive room with sc, because scan + minimap doesn't screw their ambush off, but maybe this would be too good then.

I really liked your idea at first psykoman, but I kept thinking about it, and if sc's never showed up on minimap it would become almost impossible to remove them (like sc's up in furnace on origin, or powersilo on nothing, or sc's in vents that require jp's. Thats too powerfull. And if they protected everything against scan it would be ridiculous, because everytime you scanned and didn't find anything you would have no idea if there was actually nothing there, or an sc and 10 skulks.

The best way to protect against sc is either hunting down the network or building field obs' (which is devastating to cloakers, espeicially in a siege). I think the most practical thing to do would be raise obs cost to 20 instead of 15. it doesn't impact early game or non sc-first playstyle that much (like doing wierd things to scan or sc-second(sc second would be totally pwn if chambers blocked scan on the minimap, etc), but it has an appreciable impact on countering sc's (base obs + 2 field obs = 15 extra res). maybe combine that with reducing the max energy an obs starts with, or lowering the recharge rate.

SC won't protect vs scan, because you still uncloak.
Marines just have to really watch for aliens and cover while the obs goes up instead of looking at the minimap and having easy game.
But as I said, this would maybe still be too powerful, although I really like the thing with the minimap hidden hive.

Regarding the first part of my idea, you could be right that it will be too hard for marines then, but you have to keep in mind that a nearby obs also shows the mt-like blips of structures and aliens, which means you can at least guess that this blip behind the wall or up there is a sc.
You just have to scan the area and if the marines can't see the uncloaked sc because of its position you build an obs to get the blip and locate it.

SCs will always be weak to scanning. Thats the whole purpose of scanning. Im simply saying that SCs need a slight buff; 3 seconds less of visibility, not just for the chamber but also for any aliens wanting to be cloaked by it (likely for its defense), can mean all the difference in the world.

BUT... still the *biggest* issue is hives being sieged. Current SC first aliens are helpless. You cant use the argument that 'marines will just run into the hive anyways', because that is far from true. If marines hole up in the siege area with an obs, the aliens have to be fully on the offensive with really only Focus, against marines fully on the defensive.

If SCs lowered the utility of scanning, marines would have that much more need to push in. Generally, marines pushing in give not only better gameplay, but also much better chances for SC aliens to take them out. The marines run past the Obs range, they run around corners rather than camp hallways, and aliens get the benefits of hive heal, safer gorge heal, and actual cloaking.

With the better advantage for killing the marines, the aliens would likely get more kills, and then the marines would have thinner defense at the sieges. IMO, these aspects combined would give SC just enough of a boost (though maybe they could still use a bit more) to finally be an equal first choice chamber.

And especially keep in mind, that every aspect i just talked about, isnt there in the current 3.2 sc first. Aliens just get ripped apart in sieges.

You know, sometimes you deserve to lose without any hope of a magical comeback. If you have 1 hive, no lifeforms, and you are being sieged -- maybe that's one of those times.

I kinda like the idea of SC's decreasing the scan time, the SC's do need a little buff. Of course there probably will need some balancing and tweaking of times, but good idea.

You're missing the point. This could be the siege in the second hive going up; a much more critical moment than the final hive smackdown.

Consider any 1 hive siege. Aliens currently have a FAR better chance if they have MC or DC. Its actually in their power to counter the damage inflicted. With SC, there is no way. You have to be completely on the offensive, and you pretty much cant change the timeframe without simply allocating more gorges. With DC, you dont even need gorges, and with MC, a single gorge can heal about 2x as fast as an unupgraded gorge after the initial minute.

Compound that with the fact that SC is the weakest offensive chamber when there's an obs at the location being attacked, and I hope you can see my point

Just want to address this one; just because devs don't actively post in every thread doesn't mean the viewpoints and opinions are ignored. Asking for dev feedback is something everyone usually does, but there's no dev with enough time to give "personal attention" to every suggestion posted

And very often, the pros and cons of an idea is addressed of others.

So are there any cons to this potential SC boost? I think we've all agreed that SCs need SOMETHING. It shouldnt be that 'some chambers just arent meant for first hive', because up until now, its always been that *only one chamber has been meant for first hive*. It was DCs for a long time, then MCs for a long time, and we finally have DC or MC first as fully equal. If SC could be modified to be relatively equal... it would simply be awesome.

I agree that MC and DC are roughly on par at the moment for first chamber value and that SC are a little behind.

Out of the two options, I think option 2 is best. Both ideas of worthy of testing anyhow.

sc's help the hives by early detection. It's a different play style you have to follow, and therefore I like how they are and should be kept the same.

MCs and DCs are great when marines are IN / seiging the hive. SCs try to prevent that from ever happening.

Different chambers, different strengths and weaknesses, different play styles. Although the idea proposed is solid I think there should be no change.

The 'early warning' is only a part of the SC game; and a fairly small part at that.

The two ways for this: scent or an SC nearby. Both are great. But take Mother Interface in Nancy as an example. An SC there would be pretty risky, but doable; not only is it a siege location, but its also the direct first room from MS, perhaps the 2nd/3rd most followed route. Marines will be in there regardless of early warning. Scent too, many players dont use this as much as they should, mainly because of the huge advantages cloaking gives you (and to some extent, focus).

Sieges will happen regardless of first chamber; they're used i'd say 2/3rds of the times that marines take out hives. This also includes when the 2nd hive is going up, which could be considered the most critical moment in the majority of NS rounds (though perhaps not as much in 3.2).

SC only, in these situations, imo are simply too weak to be balanced against the other two, as first chambers.

A player in any RTS has a chance to come back. Except in NS the chance is very low. A bad choice in chamber should not mark a team for defeat. I think any team should have the ability of a comeback. Unless the aliens are being overrun by HA/HMG, etc. Also what about a drop to their cost would that make them quicker to obtain and more of the map to be cloaked.

I am not saying SC provides the same benefit as a first hive chamber.


I am saying it provides a weaker benefit, but thats how it should be. It's a tougher first hive chamber, but it is a better in field chamber than dc. It is a balanced chamber when you look at the bigger picture. (you can argue being better in the field for skulks means marines never even get to your hive...you see where I am going with this?)

I dunno, i'd disagree with this. SC, while giving the best offensive option (cloak), is also the absolutely most counterable chamber. A single scan makes cloak completely useless. With a decent comm who has the smarts to get a second obs and scan often enough, cloak is severely degraded.

Also, MC/DCs have very significant 'field' utility, its just that most pubbers dont make use of it. Even now, people drop 3 dcs together in the hive, or one in each hive. IMO, while thats great for healing the hive, you should always have at least one DC in a forward location, protected in a vent or something. The way they heal now, you can give your team a serious advantage through a well-placed forward healing station. Also, a single DC with 2 OCs makes a rather formidable WOL.

MCs are perhaps the least offensively viable, since they rely completely on energy-dependent aliens being nearby. Lerks especially can make use of a forward MC to become far more efficient in battle, and Gorges as well (though less for battle and more for support).

SCs, again, provide perhaps the best, but also the most counterable. An SC is awesome for cloaking, but a single scan ruins it and wipes it out.



Going back to the topic of this thread; if the SCs gained a boost, like shortening the life of nearby Scans, it would still have all the same unique and interesting features of SC, but would become far more balanced, and a lot more viable as a first chamber. They need a boost. But, the optimal boost would be one that didnt change the SC game, helped with healing the hive/protecting the hive, and was still balanced.

If sc was about to become a proper starting chamber, I'd consider changing it a lot. For the marines its not a great fun trying to fight the invisible enemy. It depends too much on the comm to be fun in the public. As for the alien game some like it, I personally hate it. It makes skulking simple cloak, sneak, frag, repeat routine instead of using various movement methods and teamwork.

I'm a big fan of aggressive killer tempo gameplay so those are just my views, but I'd still consider the whole sc since most often its either a great overrun or miserable defeat, not a balanced round. Getting more of the tech tree into good use is always a good thing though.

Bacillus I don't know what you are thinking but sens promotes teamwork just as much as ANY other chamber.

Now I understand this may seem at first a bit tenuos, I urge you to try and see my point of view before thinking its a load of crap.

Cloaking can act like silence or redemption. Focus can act like celerity or regen. SoF can act like adren or carapace.

Take a few minutes to think of the styles of play / roles on your team in relation to the upgrades and your current situation and you will see all three chambers are balanced. It's just that so many people are used to one style of play, and see that one of the three chambers are ill-suited to that style so complain the chamber should be changed.

I remain adamant that SC is just as good a starting chamber as the other two, its just that you can't play the same TYPE of game you are used to that works well with MC and almost equally well with DCs.

I encourage people to think about specific situations as examples rather than just handing them over on a silver platter which usually just leads to more argumentation than actual consideration.

You're right Micro. But you're also missing a very big point. You cant directly counter MCs and DCs. Sure, you can get Motion, which helps you know that a cel skulk is gonna whip around the corner, but its not a direct counter. Sure, you can get damage upgrades to help with cara, but its not a direct counter (skulks will still have 40% more hp with when you have d3 than if you had d3 and they didnt have cara).

But, cloaking, the main ability of SCs (and the only ability of the chamber itself), is absolutely and completely countered for 10 seconds with a scan. You can play with cloak all you want; a scan or an obs will completely remove the ability, for a certain region, for a certain time.

This could be seen as an argument in favour of Scent (i dont think focus is as useful unless you're a higher life form, or have leap). Scent cant be countered. But, the lack of scent can be countered; parasites. Yes, Alien Motion Tracking is awesome, but when its your only upgrade (i.e. you're choosing Scent over Cara or Cel, by choosing SC first), compared to Marines who, once they have MT, have it innately all the time (and hence aren't foregoing other upgrades aside from the res spent), scent itself becomes less attractive.

But frankly i like how SCs are right now. I just think they need a boost, specifically one to help them defend against sieges; because currently, they provide extremely minimal siege defense compared to the other chambers. If the boost to SCs could also boost the general SC game slightly, that would be a great balancer. Hence, the idea for lessening the length of Scans

Make the chamber fun, then balance it. SC's make rambo'ing rewarding = a very bad thing for teamplay.

Like, make cloak give 95% transparency, and instead of cloaking everything around them, sc's increase cloak by 5% AND push scan back like Stix said.

if you want to make sc fun then remove cloaking

As cool as it is to have a game with 100% cloaking, I don't think its a good thing. 100% cloak MUST have a hard counter, because its a hard counter to everything else. if cloaking were only 90-95%, then scan could just function normally(without decloaking) by showing the skulks on minimap.

But, then gamma tweaks and such make cloaking nearly worthless anyways, so I guess i'm pro removing cloaking. or make it like in the old days where if you move it goes away, lol. then you can still have the novelty of cloaking, it just wont be worth a damn except for buildings and hiding gorges. and of course the occasional stealth onos just for lols.

Gamma tweaks etc were the reason cloak BECAME 100%. You cant pull those anymore. Even with 1 SC, once that blue bar is full, you have 100%.

yah I missed a "would" between "such" and "make".

*UPDATE!*

What if, instead of these mentioned changes, +useing an SC 'resets' it, and everything recloaks? That would definitely hold off sieges, and it could significantly alter the SC gameplay. Imagine running into a room, having the comm ping, only to see the SC for a second right as a skulk hits it; they both start recloaking, you probably kill the skulk, but then you have no idea who else might be around.

A comm (and any marines watching the map) would still know where the SCs are, but scans would suddenly not be the total-domination-counter to cloaking.

While I do think SC again could use a buff, I don't like how messy and badly organized this idea is.

Do you even read, smood?

Look at the post above you, first off. Thats a pretty 'nonmessy' SC boost; simply +use the sc to recloak. Maybe a cooldown of 10 seconds. Would definitely help with siege, and help a bit with regular SC use.

The original idea was for SCs to counter scans, by lowering their lifespan. How the hell is that messy?

Or are you just saying that because i try to flesh out my ideas, and hence write a bit longer in my posts?

Er, you talk about how the weakness of the SC is that it doesn't help heal the hive.

Then you turn it into about scanning.

The first option... well, scanning to "dodge SCs" sounds messy. I'd prefer a more solid and simpler solution to this.

And the second option, while I think the idea of aliens cloaking sooner could work in the same way you regenerate energy faster from a MC, how would structures regenerate sooner? SCs are the only way structures cloak anyways...

The second idea, with +using the SC, would recloak everything around it, including structures.

Yes, SCs cant help heal the hive, so either of these ideas (which both counter scan) would make it so that less siege damage is actually applied to the hive, and hence there is less healing required. Scanning would still be an option. But the new 'anti-sc siege tactic' would be to have marines run in, find the SC, and kill it ASAP. Which is what a decent comm does against DCs right now, anyways, unless its too hot or theres too many.

SCs still need to be placed on the ground, and aliens still need to +use them to activate them, so the gorge would likely be on the ground beside it. SCs would still need good anti-siege placement (behind the hive) like any other chamber. It would turn the current sc-only-aliens-being-dominated siege moments into much more dynamic, fast-paced, interesting, and fun battles.

Why isn't heal and spit of the gorge switched??
This way a focus gorge could heal a hive under (siege-)attack better and the issue about sc not helping to heal the hive would be gone.

Thats... actually a pretty good idea.

Personally i love focus spit. Same damage as a lerkbite, infinite shots, keep energy up for healing, and still infinite range.

But focus heal huh. That actually would solve the hive heal issue, and it wouldn't really affect the rest of the healspray game.

I guess the question is, would focus only work on heal, or work on both?

Focus is supposed to always affect only the #1 weapon for each alien class. Maybe spit and heal should actually be switch? A zero-hive gorge loses his heal ability currently, only having spit, which i kinda like. But I seriously doubt anyone would mind having this switch occur, given the benefits, when the only real change would be to the focus gorge spit and the zero-hive survival game.

Good points. I have to admit I like this idea. It give the aliens a counter to the rather inexpensive observatory.



vote yes



PS: Phase this idea to the I&S forum?

I kind of like this idea, although I think I would change it to: Seiges will have a 25% miss chance when shooting at something near the SC. And perhaps aliens within range of an SC only get decloaked to 80% cloaking when scanned, instead of 0% cloaked.

how about when structures/lifeforms are in the SC radius, they will be cloaked and not appear on the minimap. however, if a scan is performed and at least 1 marine is nearby, all structs/lifeforms within scan range and his visual radius would appear on everyone marine's minimap,

if no scan is conducted, then the structures will only appear on the minimap of the marine in visual radius if it is decloaked for whatever reason- the other marines will not have it appear on their minimaps unless they come within visual range of it while it is uncloaked.

Cool idea. So SCs and cloaked structs would still be on the marines minimap, but not in sight, only for the marine actually doing the viewing? That has potential.

thanks, and yes. and this only applies to alien structures in range of a SC. uncloaked structures not in range, would appear on everyones minimap under the same conditions we currently have.

but when they are in range of the SC, they will only appear on a marine's minimap while the structure is uncloacked AND while it is in his visual range-- but it will only appear on HIS minimap. the other marines would also have to be in visual range (while its decloaked) of it for it to display on their own minimaps

and yes, i think this is a terrific idea and i wonder how any devs feel about it

that was exactly the first thing i thought about improving scs since theyre very powerful in early game and help pushing back the marines very hard.
However, simply switching the slot would gorges allow to prolonge public games unbelievably long because they can heal themselves and they dont need dcs to do so
so you should either make focus an exception for gorge or just make healing useless with 0 hive

Its not that cloak is ultimate to kill marines, a lerk taking away the rines armor and focus skulks ambushing within a short range kills the rines,too, even when the area has been scanned because marines cant always fire or hit fast/good enough to kill the skulks before they place 1 hit.

if the marines are too close to your second hive you should consider not dropping it and kill their resflow while fades are killing the cappers and lerks cost res or make marines easy targets.

so, i think making healspray stronger would be worth thinking about and scs only seem to be weak because you cant play your "normal" mc/dc tactics with it.

Totally disagree. All chambers take different tactics. But, with SC, even if you have really good tactics, the BIGGEST one is completely counterable, i.e. cloaking. No matter what you do with cloaking, a simple obs being dropped, or a simple scan, completely nullifies it all and theres nothing aliens can do about it.

Another tactic, Focus, is imo useless without for skulk without leap. Yes, it works well if you're near an SC (assuming theres no scan, again), or if the armor is low from gassing, but even then, without celerity or any other upgrade but focus, getting to the marine for that solo bite will be difficult.

The last tactic of SC is having a player or two with Scent. Totally uncounterable... but it provides slightly more benefit from when your team is parasiting a lot. If your team parasites, then most of those ninjas wont make it anywhere anyways.

But the biggest problem of SC, imo, has nothing to do with these offensive tactics. It has to do with defensive ones, HIVE defense tactics. You just can't heal the hive. Sieges will happen no matter what, you cant say that ONLY with SC, that if you lose the siege location then you deserve to lose the hive. Thats horribly unfair compared to the other chambers, and far moreso when the majority of chamber benefits can be nullified by a single scan in the siege location.


The only conclusion all this leads me to is that SC needs a boost, perhaps overall, but especially in hive heal / siege defense.

I think switching healspray to slot one is a good idea but it would take a lot of other balance changes that aren't worth it this late in the game's lifecycle. I don't think you'd want a twice as effective heal/harm of players, nor would you want gorges to be able to heal spray themselves with no hive.

the zero-hive situation is the only area of concern for the spray/spit switch. And frankly, i dont think we need to worry about balance when it comes to an alien with NO HIVES.

Pubs dragging on? It happens regardless. If you really want to combat that, then make chambers die when the last hive goes down (since dc heals). And its kinda fun finding that last poor gorge, especially if you HA-welder rush him.