So somewhere in the Mapping Guidelines, it explains how the marine team should be spending the first couple minutes exploring and discovering the hive location. We all know that that is BS, because any good comm can simply place a waypoint, or drop an ammopack, or just listen for spawning, and know the hive within 2 seconds.

You'd think that the first two would be fixed by a simple change in the code. Why do you need to put a waypoint or meds specifically on the hive? This suggestion is for the third one; the comm listening. The guidelines explain that the comm can listen to a room and potentially be able to give his marines warning before they come in, but he can only see what his marines see (unless he scans). How about you make a small, cheap upgrade somewhere, say on the Obs or maybe even just on the CC itself, called Acoustic Interfacing, which lets the comm hear into rooms as such. But before this cheap upgrade is bought, he cant hear outside of his marine's proximities, and hence fixes one of the early game issues.

I don't know if this idea will pan out too well, but maybe it could be considered for NS2, where everything is being built from the ground up (sorta). That way, a potential carry-over bug could be alleviated right from the get-go.

Eh, that upgrade wouldn't work since only one Euro commander uses sound to tell his team where skulks are. I mean I do it on extreme occasion, but it's not something I see any commander needing.

Generally less exact idea of the starting hive might turn out to be interesting. The good thing is that the start game would be slightly more variable and aliens could play interesting decoys. The bad thing is that you can't really have your marines look for the hive for the first one and a half minutes when facing an organized alien team. I'd say this is NS:S stuff.


Skulks are only a small part of the sound game. Its easy to listen out lifeforms, res towers, gestations and other useful stuff. I'd be doomed if I couldn't listen/waypoint the alien rt count. Most of the baserushes can be countered with smart listening too.

you can call the hive based on the number of skulks at first contact (the first point where marines spot skulks) what direction theyre coming from and how fast they got there.

its an experience call, but it makes no diff the result is the same.

If the skulks are smart they aren't going to rush into first contact. Now there isn't any point hiding since the commander can tell the hive in seconds anyway.

Where do you send pressure/capping?

Isn't that sorta the point?

It takes skill and knowledge of the game to be able to figgure out something like that.

Listening for the hive? All you have to know is that you CAN do it.

If the comm couldnt place a wp on the hive, or not drop an ammopack where the hive is, or listen to the sounds, then he WOULD have to rely on his marines. And yes, most good rushing marines can tell the hive immediately. Its the main reason why i always rush the far side of the map when i skulk, to off-set that.

If an organized alien team actually decided to counter this early-warning, it could work very well. But the waypoints and ammopack and listening abilities all make that pointless.

Does that euro comm happen to be me? Cause not you just wasted a comment. >_<

I use bloody everything to get info, and that includes sound. And you can be damned right I'll use it.

I think this idea deserves a thumbs up, but the thing is is that I dunno if it is possible to remove the waypoint and meds on hive exploit. You'd think the devs would release a patch for it awhile back (or include it in 3.2) if it were possible. Though I think the idea of no sound would make a great idea .

PS: I also remember reading somewhere that the exploit of meds and waypoints might be a error in the engine and thats why they haven't fixed it yet... Not sure if it's true because I'm working off of old rusty memory.