Evolutions are unchained, chambers should be to considering there are specific situations in which one of the three chambers would be very handy for the alien team.

If upgrades were unchained as well... you could have the first hive = one upgrade, 2nd = 2, 3 = 3. (one of each type of course)

Or if upgrades are unable to be unchained... you could have a voting system in place to vote what the empty hive should be (empty being a built hive with no chambers attached to it).

IMO if you were to unchain chambers you should seriously consider unchaining abilities as well, its pretty odd that the alien team thats based around evolution is so confined in what buildings and upgrades it can chose to build and use.

Added: the idea is that the hives improve the ALIENS themselves, like marine upgrades improve marine armor and weapondry. The buildings shouldn't be linked to the number of hives you have. Keep in mind... the alien team still needs 3 Chambers to get lvl 3 of that type of upgrade. It will add flexability so aliens can drop the chambers they need out in the field... and also get the upgrades they need for certian classes. Hives will still be important for limiting the NUMBER of upgrades the aliens can chose... and the abilities the aliens have.


If you have a problem with my idea, post something constructive like pointing out flaws and/or benifits.


Edit: Related topic Here

After much discussion with Trevelyan to figure what he was talking about..

He has a valid idea...

I support this like a pair of old suspenders support pants..

I agree that chambers should be unchained. It would create a very interesting kind of gameplay I think.

Upgrades would still be handled by the number of hives the aliens have. Without that, aliens have no incentive at all to spend huge amounts of res into an extra hive, while they could just bunker up and go fade/onos.

The way upgrades would progress would be liek the following.

Aliens have one hive, a gorge build a defense chamber and a movement chamber. All aliens can now choose to use a movement upgrade or a defense upgrade as their 'first upgrade'. Then the gorge builds a sensory chamber and another hive. If an alien chose a defense upgrade, he can now choose to get a movement or a sensory upgrade. The last upgrade type that is left automattically goes to the last hive.

This way, aliens can have a more personal upgrade schedule, and chances would be big that every alien has a different set of upgrades (alien 1 goes DMS, while alien 2 prefers SDM, etc.). This upgrade schedule would stick with each individual alien for the rest of the game, so they'd still have to consider their upgrade order because they'll be stuck with it for the rest of the game.

I like the play aliens fare more then marine, so don't think i'm some rine trying to under power alliens, but I say no to this idea

BEcause he can!!!1

Anyway, I really think unchaining the upgrades themself would screw up gameplay. The second hive would probably be important still for stomp, bilebomb, leap, etc.. but the third hive would be a real joke (that's if there isn't a huge boost in 3 hive abilities with B4).

Anyway, hive importance has made a huge drop from B1 to B3, and hive lockdowns have become less common. Alot of people say think that was bad, since it took away alot of confrontation, and changed the game more into a race the restowers.
Offcourse that can be discussed about, but basically I think it'd make hives a little bit too useless. I could see the chamber unchaining happen, because it basically adds a little more diversion in strategy while still laying a large focus on hives because of the upgrades. When you take the upgrades away as well, the only factor becomes the extra abilities... Taking down a hive would be more of a neccesary task than an accomplishment for the marines.

Trying it wouldnt hurt. Ns is in beta after all. It might make NS fun again and less linear.

You should be able to build a certain amount of chambers for each hive.

For example, if its 3. then you can choose 2 dcs and 1 mc. So your fade can regen fast enough but gets a little bit of adrenaline so he can manage out in the feild a little better. Or if you want 2 mc and 1 sc your skulks get silence and cloaking and scare the **** out of marines. Plus the rines would need to guess alot more for wut chambers u got, your could have all 3!

I still think unchaining upgrades would be a bad idea... but testing it wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe I'm completely wrong.

Just did a search and this came up

I like two ideas:

1. Any chambers can be placed but the number of evolutions you select depend on hive e.g.
1 Hive = 1 from Dc, MC or SC
2 Hives = 2 from DC, MC and SC
3 Hives = All

2. If any chambers can be built maybe limit one type to an area (e.g. there are chambers of other types nearby). Then you couldn't cloak hidden dc nests or have nice health/adrenaline pockets.

-Meto

xenocide would always be chosen at the second hive and it would make the game over in no time. i dont think abilities shoudl be undound

lol, hives are still important cause of how they affect the ARMOR!


But still, I REALLY like this idea! I'd LOVE to go lvl 1 cloaking, lvl 2 regen at first hive!

I thought the idea was that level of upgrade is still based upon how many chambers you have. The suggestion is that you can build any chambers from hive 1, but only get as many upgrades as you have hives.

The 'you get 3 levels worth of upgrade' from each hive idea has been discussed numerous times before.

I find the idea quite fascinating. We would have silenced skulks a lot more often, but the fact that DCs could also be dropped means that the higher lifeforms arent nerfed. It would potentially lead to more tactical variablity on the Alien's part (who currently only seem to have one real tactic)

Howerver, the downside in my opinionis that it makes Alien stratergy risk free. Currently, going sensory or even movement first is a considerable gamble for the Aliens (so is defense actually, but people rarely see it that way). In this situation the only risk the Aliens ever face is losing a valuable higher tier life form.

In contrast large number of the potnetial marine stratergies are high risk. In fact, creeping map control (the same as the Aliens only stratergy) is the only one that isnt. All the rushes relocates and lockdowns carry a considerable risk.

Umm, no I want Alien tactics to be more interesting - making the path less rigid and 'by the numbers' would enhance this. Yes, marine upgrades carry no risk, but the concept of tech rushing, or hive lockdown, or shotgun rush, or particuarly the relocate all carry a huge risk for the marine team. Nothing, save the choice of first chamber is anything like as much of a gamble.

Great idea, but the chambers would still cost res, so its mor eprobably that the teams would chose to build 3 def chambers for the earli on fades, that spending res on building dcs and mcs, only for pleasure al individual likes

sorry about my earlier post, i didnt realize you were talking about the add ons, not the alien abilities themselves.

If you allow aliens to take 2 levels of one chamber and 1 of another then you run in to issues as this means that they have to be able to place all the types of chambers on the map.

I prefer the 1 hive 1 upgrade idea more but if you wanted to do this then maybe you'd have to define a primary upgrade per hive (first built like it is now) and only those chambers function on the map.

Meto

Bumbp - not sure wehteher I like this idea still, but am intrigued to see more discussion on it.

unchaining chambers +

each 100% build hive +1 ability / each destroyed hive -1 ability


= suggested nomerous times, but still supported by me.

I am in favor of unchaining completely in whatever form it takes. Aliens have the iniate power to evolve. You see how much better the game got when lifeforms where unchained from hives.

Its a pitty because 95% of the games are the same for aliens...DC, MC, SC.....the ability to pick and choose your abilities based on the situation at hand would make for FAR more interesting gameplay.

I'm in favour of it, and I always have been.

Another alternative would be to allow aliens to get 1 of each upgrade per hive...BUT, to benefit from this, you need 3 (or more) of each chamber PER hive to get the upgrades for it. So for example, you have 2 hives and you want cara and regen, you'd need 6 DCs down to do so. Ditto for other chambers. Granted, this MAY make them too powerful, but the cost offset kinda balances it...Not to mention it'd increase choices for paths and get rid of the need for DMS (ie. choice between a hive and more upgrades.) Besides, tweaking of values and such is always a possibility. It'd also fix the whole multiple upgrade continuity error of Combat.

Just a random, tiredness enduced brainfart.

i like the idea of having 3 of any kind of chambers. It would help a lot for aliens. As he said, fades needing adren etc, it can come in handy to have 2 of 1 thing and 1 of another. I agree to at LEAST have this tested. i mean, after all, we ARE in a beta

The system I always thought was the simplest and logical way to implement is all upgrades are possible (one from each chamber, assuming the chambers are built) and the upgrades operate at tier X (being the number of hives present)
Example

1 hive. You may build 1 of each chamber and choose 1 of any of the upgrades. However the upgrade only functions like you have 1 chamber, no matter how many you built. (carapace for skulk gives 16armor)

2 Hives. You may have 2 of any chamber now, any extra chambers you built with 1 hive 'kick in' and now start to function. You can pick 2 upgrades now. A skulk could get carapace and cloak for instance. They operate as tier 2 upgrades, a skulks armor would be 23

etc

But what good is level 1 silence, redemption, or sof?

yea... that idea just limits the aliens even more so then the current system.

Again, i fail to see where the original idea goes wrong. if you can build the DCs/MC/SCs you should be able to chose any upgrade you would like... but only one. Again, why get the 2nd hive then? So you get a new ability for all aliens and a 2nd upgrade to chose... the only difference is aliens get to build SCs and still have their regen and DC/MCs.

People in this thread have some excellent points and ideas regarding this issue.

Count me as another NS player who is sick and tired of DC->MC->SC.

From what I hear, unchained chamber servers are "Horribly unbalanced". You'd be speaking a lot for your case if you can prove that unchained chambers can be balanced.

the problem lays surely in the marine players. think about that:

hive one, team scatters what should be placed first (pub) and so are 90 res blasted away (3 x 30 res for each chamber). this enables the skulks to get one of the higher priority upgrades, without caring about the team (for me would that be cloaking, adrenaline or silence (sometimes celerity), and regen or cara (redemp is useless when there are more then one wu 2 marines around)).

I mean - you have to play against cloaked or silenced skulks, while others are carapaced... you basicly have to research everything paralell (armor against focus, mt for cloakers, weapons against carapace, etc) while you have a multi-front fight against each type. its going to be more dangerous when the aliens get hive 2 since there are 9 possibilitys of combinations now, and then the old hive 3. noone cares about it...

thats the only problem, but it can be frustrating if you have tough enemys.

It's probably not going in, and if it does, it won't be for a LONG time... so stop whining for it

THREADCROMANCY!!!!
There are too many variants on the idea to just say "I agree" like that, so I'll just say that I agree with the idea of being able to build any chamber at any time(any time that you have enough res and are a gorge, that is), and being able to get 1 upgrade per hive. Not 1 level of an upgrade. The level would still depend on the amount of chambers in the same way it does now.
And you would still be unable to get two upgrades from the same chamber.

Redford, from what I heard aliens are winning around 60% of the time in those servers. Not bad at all.
And besides, most people agree that it will need further balancing, but it ought to go in to start with.

unchain the chambers r actually unbalanced, but it could easily b fixed by highering the costs to upgrade. mayb the first upgrade costs 6 res, the second costs 4 res and the last one costs 2 res. on this way skulks would think about getting cloaking this early twice.
and if u got bored of DC->MC->SC, y u not try to change it? SC->DC->MC also works nice with the current version, and u often win much earlier with SCs than with DCs first and its much easier to defend important locations with SCs.
i remember when 2.0 released and the new stuff got added to the SCs. the first 3 weeks everyone built SCs first, aliens had won very often. theres just one single problem; with DC u always have a small chance to win the game, if u have 1 or 2 hives - that doesnt matter. but if u got SC first, and u aint able to get/hold a 2nd hive(which is kinda hard with sc) u have lost. but if u aint able to get/hold a 2nd hive with SCs, u would also have lost with DCs. that my opinion. i would build SC more often than i do atm(whats nearly never) when the other noobs(80% of most servers) wouldnt flame around, and would try to play on+win instead.
u simply just need another tactic with SCs than with DCs, the most ppl just dont know how to use SCs and its abilities, but ppl who know how to know that SCs r the strongest 1st hive chambers ingame.
so far.. my opinion

Dear God...

*Imagines onos with carapace, regen, celerity, adren, SoF, and cloaking, with hive 3 abilities*

You can't even pull that off in CO. Sorry pehmolelu, but even for lower lifeforms that would overpower the game significantly.

almighty, u ever played ns? "if u have no idea - just shut the **** up"

unchaining the upgrades like he explained is a great idea

ps: ur argumentation is great. itll b written in our childs history books

I think the variant described by Align is the most commonly-accepted, and by far the most practical, and it is the one I support. One thing that Align's post doesn't clarify, though: The individual's upgrade order should stay unlocked, too - that is, with one hive, three Defence Chambers and three Movement Chambers, one could get Carapace in their first life, and Celerity instead when they respawn.

And, for the record, DMS sucks balls.

I like the 'one upgrade type per hive' idea the best. Silence skulk in range of sc chamber = win.

The idea that the power of the upgrade be linked to the number of hives seems interesting. I really want NS to be about aliens getting all three hives and then raping the marine team. If hive three weapons didn't suck, and all upgrades wear linked so they worked in some way 50~100% better than the current tier 3 upgrade, you could have a very quick end game. of course problems would arrise if upgrades could be take multiple times (Regen + Capa + Redem+ onos) x 2 = all kinds of wrong.

i think allowing all chambers to be dropped start of game would promote gorging. I could make some hella-nasty OC traps with both SCs and DCs at the start of the game.

I almost exclusively play on servers with the unchained plugin.
Regular NS is no fun for me anymore because the games are similar every time.

If there is anything that could kill NS imho, its DMS.

DMS makes the games predictable and predictable games are boring after just so much time.

You guys don't play tic tac toe anymore too aren't you?

Hope you get my point.

ya, i also got bored of the standard maps thats y i mostly play customs now (: