It makes sense. After all, doesn't the Techtrope say that the Observatory is necessary for proper aiming of the quantum nanite magic black worm hole portal thing?

Yes this is a very good idea especially obs is like paper. It would support bit more base def beacuse pg after all bit too powerful. and you can alays make more obs´s i usualy end up in 3 obs if the game is even bit marine sided

That's the worst Idea I have ever heard of.... lol
It doesnt even make any sense.

Yes you research phase gate technology at the obs but you research stuff at school too. If your school blows up do you forget what you researched???
Ummm... No, no you don't. I think marines should keep all the technology they research. And I think you can't build phase gates if your obs is down so what more do you want?? It's bad enough that aliens can use phase gates but marines cant use MC's...

Hey here's an idea for you lets just start every alien off as Onos with full upgrades and lower marines Hit Points to 10. That would be GREAT huh?!?

God think before you waste my time. I spent 3 minutes reading your post and then replying to it. Thats 3 whole minutes of my life I will never get back... Hope your happy.

Maybe that one fade was hacking yesterday then, I havent actually tried it because whenever I see a phase gate I just try to kill it. Point is why would you need obs for a phase gate to function?? I can understand why you do for Motion Tracking because that is something that happens in real-time. Phase gates are built structures completely seperate from the obs. Anyways say all you want but apparently they dev's agree with me ... Know why??

Because PG's work when the Obs is down. The aliens do not need any additional help in their systematic romping of marines.

I really like the idea - it would add a neat strategy to the game. Kill off the marine's obs, and then take a hive back without fear of reinforcements phasing in.

I see, no I didnt read the backstory quoted. So then yeah I guess it makes sense but it would dwarf marines even more than they are now. As I stated before the aliens really don't need any help in their systematic romping of marines. If the dev's do decide to implement such an Idea I would like to see the obs become a little bit stronger because as it is now it is one the marines weakest structures and very easily destroyed.

Again no one answer the question.... so ill say it yet again!!

Why do we need to dwarf the marines any further things are already unbalanced for them as it is. So how does this idea improve the ENTERTAINMENT level of the GAME NS. ??

Wow, I have never seen or experienced anything that showed that me that... But if you say so. The thing is opinions are like butt holes... Everyone has one and they all stink.

Mine is that Marines are dwarfed as it is and there is no reason to dwarf them any further thats all I am saying


EDIT: Oh By the way you say that OBS is required otherwise your matter would be strewn across the map. Well it's very easy to argue that after "researching" Phase Tech at the observatory all the technology you require to Phase is built into the Phase Gate Platforms.

This arguement can go back forth and all day so I don't think I am going to continue it anymore....

Thanks GG

Maniac, you really need to think before you post.

/me likes the suggestion

I'm ambivalent as far as the suggestion is concerned balance-wise, but from what I understand of phase gates, the observatory should only be necessary to build new phase gates, because once they're built, those areas essentially have a spatial link between them which is maintained by the energy of the phase gate itself. Mind you, this isn't figuring from the backstory, but a knowledge of how such a thing would work if it were real, so what I'm saying may or may not have any bearing on the argument whatsoever.

Hi, my name is Bob, and I know more than you do about a made up technology, so my idea makes sense because the gorilla had sex with the donkey, so hah!


Who cares about the background story, 101% of NS makes no logical sense anyway.

edit: oh right, my two cents. this sounds good. destroying the arms lab negatates all upgrades, killing the armory makes you have to upgrade it again, and the obs motion tracking is shut down when the obs dies. Makes sense to me to just follow suit.

Um... Wow.

I can almost read the mods telling me to be nice already.

Great idea, and for those who think its bs, its called a tech tree. For anyone who plays starcraft (Best way I can think of to explain it) If one lower structure is in the zero quantity, you cant build another of a structure that has that as a prerequisite, even if you researched or have one already.

Wrong thread, my bad.

I'm not against it. That should be enough of an incentive to defend your bases and outposts properly... a careful comm would drop several obs , and ask his marines to defend them if certain alien players relentlessly attack them.

When you want to prevent , say , a HA train from defending their main base , you have to attack the PG and the obs if it's the marine start. With this suggestion , you'd only need to attack the obs , regardless of the location of their base.

Hmm after reading everyones stories i too belive this should be incorporated...
Like the story goes No Obs No Pg!

Lower the cost for the Obs and this will be fine.

Its not like replacing a 15 res building is that difficult unless your base was zerg rushed, but, then, turrets may be useful again or mining would be employed more on the common NS Player servers.

The thing about marines is, it doesn't matter if you lose an important building just once or twice, its not like it costs as much for example, any chamber or hive for the Khaara (going gorge is bad enough for the team, replacing chambers is vital in a slow res game. . . lose the hive which is Arms Lab and Obs in a nice combo is your painful death). Only Proto is an exception.

*sigh*,ok scrims are not PUB games. SO dont compare this topic to scrims please. In reality aliens DO win more then marines because of the lack of skill it takes to be an alien. You either drop buildings or go keep attacking and horde res. MARINES however are almost litteraly twice as complicated. marines have to LISTEN to one person (commander), things take time to research, we require MORE res then aliens to win, and so on. IN conclusion, marines win mostly because its a SCRIM game, its balanced team + skilled team, + team that listens, ON BOTH SIDES (aliens & marines), I however kind of like this idea if implemented a different way.

Ok say you lose obs and you still have 1 phase gate present somewhere on the map. You dont lose the ability to drop pg's UNLESS you lose all pg's.

I think it makes sense to make this change. However, I hope that unchained chambers is put in, which would require multiple observatories to counter SC networks anyway, which would mean that the observatory cost would have to be lowered, and this idea wouldn't matter at all. Basically, I think it's a good idea, but hopefully it won't matter in the end because of other changes.

Two thumbs up to this idea.

--Scythe--

IMO its a valid suggestion, but it would be overkill...

Because the obs is already very important to marine strategies, it decloaks aliens, it provides scans and it gives the distress beacon, not to mention the tech it unlocks. Killing all marine observatories is already a very good tactic and shouldnt be made more powerful.

I have played Natural-Selection since it first came out. Originally the Marines had a supreme advantage of aliens due to the fast one with marine with an hmg and a jet-pack could take down a hive easily and the fact that Offense Chambers couldn't shoot anything that wasn't standing still for like 8000 minutes. Alot of the problems from the original game have been fixed and yes the game is more balanced now than it was before, but from every single game I have played a strong alien team has a better chance of winning.

The only real advantage I see in marines is that one that 1.) they can turret farm, however, this is not really an advantage because aliens can do this with offense chambers and unlike the marines whom if you take down the turret factory all the turrets stop working. 2.) Is siege, if aliens had some form of this marines wouldn't be at such immense advantage as you all seem to feel they are. The only thing I have noticed that when marines win the game the game ends quickly, but when aliens win, it sometimes takes a long time for fortified marines to die. This is due to the fact that if marines can't rush through an alien defense they simply siege it all and sometimes kill a few aliens in the process.

This is the ONLY unbalance towards marines that I have seen, I do not feel HMG's are too strong or HA too powerful. There should either be an alien form of siege or just remove it from marines. That way marine basing and turret farming wouldn't be such a strong force.

Let me tell you an example of game I played yesterday as an Alien:

We as aliens fought back the marines, then took two of our hives and had a very nice resource flow, however during the game the marines had collected plenty of resources and were giving out HA's and HMG's like it was christmas. So we said ok, lets rush the main marine base and take out the pashe gate, then whack all their upgrades. We did this successfully but refusing to die the marines moved to our last hive that they still had undercontrol and dropped 3 Turret Factories in there and sat behind the thusly built turrets with HMG's and GL's, and even LMG's. Now the light armors werent a problem because you can simply spore them, but the Heavies were, the only way to into the hive is a long corridor so the marines, and their turrets had plenty of time to plug us full of lead before we could even get close.

Now reverse the situation, what would the marines do if they encoutered such a base built by aliens?? They would GL spam it and Siege it. Which is why i think the Aliens should be allowed "some" form of siege. I have more faith as a marine commander to let sieges take out hives then I do my own marines...

I like the idea. Thumbs up. Doesn't the background story say the obs is the anchor point or the phase gates?

Here's a thought, first, increase the hit points of the obs to make it harder to kill (it is very fragile now) and increase its cost slightly

and, should it go down, phases still operate, but no longer are able to direct the matter to specific places.
*feeling evil*
So instead the marine would appear randomly around the map (maybe for simplicity's sake have 4 or 5 points where they could end up per map)

Thus they could appear in an alien hive, or a long way away from everything.

Or they could end up near where they wanted to be.

Plus if you didn't know it had gone down, a whole squad of marines might go through before you had time to figure it out, sending them all over the place.

Story line or not, implementing this causes issues. Right now there are 4 ways for marines to respond to a base attack:

1) Commander beacons
2) If a phase gate is at Location A where the marines are and base has a phase gate, marines can take the phase gate from Location A back to base to fend off the attack.
3) The Commander drops an Observatory in the field, and the marines either phase back or he beacons from there.
4) The marines walk back to base (Normally the very last this that marines want to do).

So this idea allows aliens to pretty much eliminate not only Option 1, as they can now, but option 2. This makes base ridiculously vulnerable to alien attack, far more so than it is now. Option 3 is very expensive for most teams, since it's currently 35 resources to do this (Build an Obs then beacon). This idea is workable, but if implemented, the Observatory cost should be lowered to compensate.

wow, today is a good day on the forums, I've read a lot of good ideas for once so this is just great

I really like this idea, I could see this being a way for aliens to combat having their hives locked down with phases to reinforce the farms , so I think that would add a lot to the gameplay

the phasegate is very powerful when used right so I think it should have the obligation of having the obs

O.o I fail to see why people are making such a big deal of this, I mena it's not like youd ever see every observatory on the map be destroyed at the same time unless the marines are already on the brink of death anyway, and if the marine eteam is relying that heavily on phaseing, then it's not going to kill them to toss up an extra observatory or two in a few other defended posts.


I hardly think this is such a huge blow to the marines simply because of how rarely it would be seen, it hardly seems like it would be of any use at all

" aw crap the yhave phase gate, I know lets search the entire map, including well inside marine controlled teritory for every observatory they have and destroy those!"

.... horribly horribly inefficient, and it hardly seems like a single alien would be able to drop every observatory as most likely at least one or more of them are going to be defended by turrents and at least a minor alotment of marine support, all thrown in with the sheer amount of time looking all over for every one of them makes this a near useless tactic, so why not throw it in, it's neat and cool if it ever happens, but if it does it's purely because the commander is an idiot, or he gambled and lost, and if thats the case well hey, the cards just weren't with you that time

I think this should go in. Because marines have 'the best & the most' defensive equipment(turrets, elec, mines. Do you need more?), and most other upgrades are shut off when the building they were researched in is destroyed.
EDIT: Eh, Omniblade, marines usually only have the one observatory...

this is a very good idea and might help balance the game abit more than it is at the moment would allow aliens to beat rushes into their hives with the trusty PG.

just lowering the cost of the obs would allow this to be implemented better and not nerf the marines to much

I disagree, it may seem logical that a PG needs an OBS which controls the flow of matter, but I think it will be an unfair disadvantage if an rushing the base is not forced to destroy both the PG and the OBS but just the OBS.
Think of it, even if the health of the OBS gets doubled, it only takes ~10 attacks of the rhino to kill the OBS, and this is a bit too short in my opinion.

i like this idea,
what i like even more is the idea stated by AlmightyNu ^_^
marines should be sent to random locations, or just gibbed on the spot...
and yea, make obs more expensive, but also stronger, maybe a longer build time too
maybe from 1700hp to 2500 hp?

on a sidenote: maniac, i'm sorry but i think many forum goers here will agree that marines are advantageous in most games due...
how often do you see aliens make a huge comeback from losing 2 hives? not very often
now, how often have you seen aliens get 3 hives, take out all marine outposts, then end up losing because the marines had full upgrades, and turtled for a HA train? i've seen it plenty
how effective are 3rd hive abilities? near useless
how effective are HAs and JPs? a competant squad is near invincible
how effective are OCs in an actual offensive situation? crappy unless the marines have no upgrades or weapons
how effective are seiges in an offensive situation? goodbye hive
so unless you are playing 4 v 4 games, where res is grossly in favor of the aliens, marines will usually win (unless they are really disorganized)

btw, whenever you say "dwarfing" the marines, i picture a stubby little marine with a bushy white beard and a pointy helmet XD

I think this idea should be tried out. As Omniblade said:

Beacon usually takes about as long as it takes to take down half the HP of a Obs.

Also ive rarely seen more than 1 obs used at a time. And if they have the resources to field two obs, then they are probably winning a lot to the point where alien comeback aint gonna happen.

Has anyone noticed that in the other subforum there is a thread exactly like this one?