This is the thread for talking about things like ripping out Acid Rocket and replacing it with a fuzzy pink bunny that cause the marine's hearts to explode with love.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that cloaking on fade is pretty useless. How about changing it, so once you are cloaked (by standing still) you'll not uncloak until you start moving faster than normal movement speed (and not: faster than walking speed).

With his movement speed he is at least fast enough to follow rines unseen

This has been brought up before, but how about a better acid rocket?

It's pretty much useless now. As a Hive-3 ability it should be better for cracking base defense in order to shorten the end game.

yeah, throw my vote in with beef up Acid rocket

keep it a high rate fire and low damage, but boost the splash range I think would be the funnest

I don't know that increased splash range would help the acid rocket much. It would only really help with hitting more people in a heavy train, when it really needs to help an area where the aliens are weaker, like ending the game faster when the marines turtle in their base.

heh, I'd be all for nuking acid rocket and keeping the marines as the ranged attackers.

The fade doesn't exactly need a ranged weapon, it has blink to get it where it needs to go, whereas a gorge obviously doesn't, so spit with him makes sense.

Perhaps giving him some sort of tanky close range advancement would be more beneficial and would see the fade use his fourth ability while continuing the flying-ninja style thing it has going.

No ideas come to mind directly, but I'm pretty sure someone out there has a good one =)


More seperation between the Frontiersment and Kharaa would always be a welcome change, to keep the teams different. As long as marines are ranged technology, and aliens are close-quarters evolution, it'll keep the game going =D

I don't like AR. I would argue removing it all togather, but marines have the best melee weapon in the game- the shotgun.

So lets see what role AR is ment to fill....
Third hive and on an advanced lifeform, so it's end game and close to the top of the alien tech tree. That says to me Base Buster and/or uber personal killer
So we can eithre 1)beef up AR 2)replace AR 3)switch AR with another ability
We could beef it up with a straight damage increase, with an altered damage increase to break structures faster, or with an insane R0F.
Switching AR with another more suitable base breaking attack would basicaly lock us into v1.04 fade and gorges that just won't die. Weakens alien mid game so probably not a good choice
Making up a new ability could prove the most flexable route, but removing AR would be like taking away the gorges web. People may not like it or use it, but they are use to it being there.

Lots of choices, but i would through my chips in with an alerted AR that looked more like a Super Bile Bomb. It would be simular to the BB of v1.04, but have a flatter trajectory. Good damage to marines, and extra damage to structures, but wouldn't have the range or speed of the current AR.

Morph and Grab are the best replacement abilities by far , imho.

Morph would be a bit complicated to implement , but the TFC spy can have 10 different appearances so it won't be impossible. Disguising as an armory , the ultimate humper punishment... It would add atmosphere and excitement to NS , that is an aging game.

Grab may have some cosmetic issues , like Lerk Lift , but it would suit the Fade's terrorist role very nicely. Its human shield part would work differently depending on the Friendly Fire settings , though the ability's overall effectiveness won't be affected.

Both combined would make the Fade less of a blink/swipe brute , and more of a terror agent.

i really really dislike that morph grab idea. it strikes me as to much work to impliment and no real gain in effectiveness.

Acid Rocket: 50 damage at least(if not 60-70, it is hive three), and make it deal blast damage. As an endgame weapon, its chief purpose is base breaking. A hive 3 weapon should not be the most useless ability in the game.

Blink: The current Blink robs the Fade of all its atmosphere. Something needs to be done to bring it closer to what is was supposed to be, IMHO. I would rather have the old teleportation blink back(provided it was fixed) than the Leap 2.0 that we have now.

My idea: Rework Blink so that you have to hold down the button as a constant effect, and significantly lower the energy cost to make that feasible(i.e. you hold down the button and Blink moves you forward, but you can control yourself sort of like Lerk gliding). Give the Fade 90-100% cloaking while he is actively blinking, with the old Blink particle effect at the place he starts. Alter the Blink sound so that it is completely non-directional. This version of Blink would give the Fade its atmosphere back in spades, without sacrificing the functionality of the current blink.

I like the blink idea. It'd keep the original storyline of the fade's body being destroyed and rebuilt at a new location by the bacterium, while still letting you control it really well and not having all the stuck issues with entites and soforth. =D

Morph 'n grab aren't such good ideas, purely because they'd do the same thing devour does - cause in-house rules about retrying/f4ing and the likes. Simple damage dealing weapons without possessing people are the way.

my understanding is that AR is now basicly intended to crack a turtled marine base, so why not just increase the damage to buildings and give it like a .5 five second stun( like you just took a basket ball sized projectile to the gut) and eliminate its area damage for marines.

With jumpjets getting a boost in air time and manuverability and with marines getting this technology faster and cheaper than ever, I think there's a big gaping hole in the Kharaa jump jetting countering department. You scream lerk, but how many novice lerks, can counter a novice jper in the first 30 secs? How about 1 minute? Worse yet, there are way more people better with a jp than being a lerk, so you're stuck sitting pretty for a whole minute while your hive goes down to 50 perecent before a lucky bite from a skulk manages to take him down. How about web you say? All you need is a few gls, or one jp+welder guy to clear a room before you can go to work on the hive again. Good luck to any gorge trying to put webs back up during that rampage.

Ensnare Idea
I suggest that the 3rd hive ability for the Fades be filled with some sort of jper counter weapon. An ensnare weapon like that of WC3. Essentially a 'net gun' if you will. I know this idea has been suggested before, I'm just re-telling you how it would work in NS. Fades will use this range attack primarily to ground jump jetters (or immobilize regular marines) for a short period of time. The target may still shoot and pivot, but will be stuck to the ground or wall. Yes, if caught up in the air the fall may kill him, but such a case will be rare because of ensnare's slow speed.

I kind of like the hook idea.

So, heres my fade with attacks and such (quite a few changes):

Slash: 85 damage. RoF: 1.1/second. Uses 6% energy.

Blink: Completely reworked for the following: The fade can go through walls (the fade instantly appears on the other side of the wall, no traveling through empty space. Also, the fade cannot leave through walls that have no other walls on the other side). Uses 10% energy/second. The fade will gain 260 units/second instantly, + 150 units/second of speed every second while blink is being held down. Blink can also be used while strafing. So, if blink is held down for just 5 seconds, the fade will be 860 units/second faster than it's normal speed. 10 seconds and the fade is going 2000 units/second (the fastest speed possible, I believe in the game). This makes the fade much better at quickly coming in to a group of marines, but makes it worse at leaving. This makes the fade's hook more powerful.

Hook: The fade's acid rocket launcher will extend until it hits a marine or object, at a rate of 1300 units/second (using 40% energy/second while extending, so that if something is too far away it will not work). It will pull the marine toward the fade and 1250 units/second. It can also be used to ltravel like blink, by pulling the fade toward a wall, structure, etc (there are advantages and disadvantages to this).

Acid Rocket: Very slight ark added (2 times 1.04 lerk-spikes ark). Acid Rocket energy cost lowered to 8%. RoF raised to 1.25/second. Damage raised to 60. Acid rocket also does blast damage. This isn't overpowered--it's hive 3, it should be powerful.

whatever they do they can't get rid of AR.

I once commanded a game where we relocated to land pad and managed to get 8 elected TFs surronding a elected Rt with an armor to climb the boxes with the IPs and CC on them

this fortress of death managed to take down 5 onos that all attacked at the same time (with the aid of some HMGs we manged to save for) and the only thing that could possible break my electric fortress of doom was acid rocket... so yeah if you want to get rid of the only skill that can break heavly turtled bases then go rigth ahead and GG marines

Since elect TF was developed, I've only seen that happen once. And in my game they only manged to electrify 6 TFs [(10x6)+(30x6)] + 45 in HMGs + 150 Base RELOCATE = 435res. Lerk with umbra two onos and one gorge took out the 5 rines at base.

If you used more than 435 res for turtling, consider your situation the EXCEPTION.

I think the hook idea is more realistic than blink so I guess I'll take my shot:

Smood's Fade:

Attacks:

1) Slash (Same as before)

2) Hook (Sends the acid rocket appendage out only for a certain range. If it hits the wall, it stops extending and it latches on to that wall. Then the fade is pulled toward where the hook was and it is able to stay there. If the hook hits a marine, the marine is pulled toward the fade.) Besides, it makes sense other than "nanites" on why a 300 or so pound creature can "fly" to areas without wings. It would also let the fades appendage to be used which would make it look more interesting.

3) Metabolize (Same as before)

4) Acid Rocket (It would be like bile bomb except for a few KEY features. The first is that it would do more damage to marine armor than marine health. The second is that it would do NO splash, but it would do more damage to one structure, that way it does not make bilebomb useless. Bilebomb would do less damage to one structure, but if there are multiple structures, bilebomb would be better as it does splash damage and AR would be good at a single target. This way AR works best against single targets (TF, Arms Lab, Armory), while Bilebomb is better at multiple clustered targets (very tight bases). AR would have energy increased although...

Have acid rocket's splash "stick" to marines and structures; the goop will conintue to damage whatever it sticks to and it can be stacked with other rockets from any number of fades. Can be removed via weild.

yeah damage over time would be nice!
i mean its an ACID rocket

or how about this:
no base dmg but 10dmg over x sec and cumulative!
it would melt away the rines nice and slowly

Fade is currently the Kharaa's one man army. So much of the Kharaa game depends on the fade it's ridiculous.

So drop metabolize from the fade. This immediately forces it to rely on other aliens (notably the gorge) if it wants to stay effective.

Give fade a high-energy spit-like shot from the shoulder "gun" that paralyzes.

Thus fade owns groups of two-three, but against larger groups either dies or has to run before too much damage is done.

Naturally if fade is weakened in this way other aliens will need to receive a corresponding buff. (See Onos)

Also, if AR doesn't have blast damage right now.. why not?

Really what we need, I don't care how it's done, is:

Remove metabolize

Nerf fade-earlygame

Buff fade-endgame


So, my idea (below, just had to post it again ) works for this. Blink is nerfed. But, if used properly, it is buffed. Like, you can go through walls, you can go very fast, etc.

Nice um repost... Your hook idea is good enough to replace blink period. Instead of nanites that it uses to propell through the air at high speeds... The fades acid rocket limb should be used as a hook to grab onto walls to go places fast, don't you think it makes sense? Also if it grabs a marine he would be moved to the fades location.

make AR a charge ability. By that I mean you click attack and it fires a Acid Rocket. Hold the attack key and your enery slowly reduces as the fade gathers more and more acid into its "thingy" release attack for a much larger much more powerful acid rocket.

I have another idea!


From the manual (not really, I'm just adding this to the backstory ).

"That d**n fade kept throwing those F**king spores at us. It hurt so bad I felt as if I would die. I managed to make it out alive...as you can see. But here's the story.

So, we're anticipating the aliens to attack anytime soon. Our commander had never been in the heat of combat, and had a hard time. So, he's telling us these f**king aliens have 1 hive, right? So, he starts taking his time, researching armor, etc. Well, a fade pops up. Expecting him to blink at us, we (a group of 11) form a tight, compact circle. The fade just walks toward us, so we shoot him, right? Not smart. The fade just launches the same stuff we saw on the lerk earlier on...only we watched our health go down from 100 to 50 in just a second. We never saw it coming. We quickly realized they had 3 hives and unloaded everything we had..."


So, here's another fade.

Swipe: 85 damage. RoF: 1.1/second.

Blink: RoF: 20/second. Multiplies the fade's speed by 4. Uses 5% energy/blink.

Acid Rocket: RoF: 1/second. Does 40 damage. Also does blast damage. Uses 10% energy.

Spores: Much like the lerk's spores. A darker green. uses energy while being held down. Uses 30% energy/second. The sporecould will move 700 units forward, and 300 units outward/upward. Any marine inside will take 47 damage/second (remember, charge does 320 damage/second). The spores will last for 7 seconds after deployed.

Sorry, I just really like this idea and had to include it.

Replace current metabolize with the beta 1.1 metabolize. Beta 1.1 metabolize activated an ability where 80% of incoming damage was converted to energy, making the fade nearly invincible for a short period of time. I don't know all the specifics of how it worked, seeing as it was during a closed beta and was cut from the changelog before release. The code is probably lying around somewhere.

Here's my take on how it would work:

• Activating Metabolize drains your energy 100%, and converts 80% of incoming damage to energy (ie a 10 damage shot will result in 2 damage, plus 8 adrenaline points).
• Energy does not regenerate as usual.
• Using attacks drains energy as usual.
• If energy maxes out, metabolize effect will end.
• After 10-20 seconds, metabolize effect ends regardless of situation. (energy begins regenerating as usual).

Let's look at this new feature in a combat situation, with analysis of different marine reactions.

• Fade knows that there are enemies around the corner.
• Fade activates metabolize and runs out at enemies. His energy bar is at 0%.
• Enemies react:
  • Enemies fire at Fade with LMGs, giving Fade moderate amounts of energy. Fade attacks enemies, his swipes/blink/ARs draining energy as usual.
    • Fade attacks frequently, keeping energy bar balanced (energy expended for attacks cancels out incoming energy from incoming fire).
    • Fade attacks infrequently, gaining energy from incoming fire quickly.
  • Enemies fire at Fade with HMGs, giving Fade large amounts of energy.
    • Fade attacks with ferocity to keep energy bar balanced.
    • Fade attacks, but energy bar is replenished quickly. Metabolize ends, Fade recieves 100% damage from incoming fire.
    • Fade continues assault and eventually dies from 20% damage.
    • Fade attacks briefly and flees before energy bar replenishes.
  • Enemies do not fire at Fade.
    • Fade recieves no incoming energy and is unable to attack. Leaves scene in disgrace.

I believe this would be very interesting compared to the boring metabolize that we currently have. New tactics and playing styles will be combined with an unconventional weapon. Very good imo.

I actually kinda like that rework of Meta.
Kinda of this zen warrior thing going on.

For the hook idea, it sounds too.... ninja-y for me. I could see the advantages of camping a high ceiling then dropping on a group of unsuspecting marines, but the invisible warrior strikes more fear in my mind.

Another side thought- Meta isn't a very good ability in my mind. Spend time to heal yourself, whoopty do! I think moving Primal Scream to the fades Hive 2 spot, with a shorter range but same effects, would make the fade more fearsome. He would now be the head unit in assualts on marine outposts rather than a lone assasin. It promotes packing up, that's always good.

hmm...

a little modification for my idea (still unnoticed )

AR has two types of dmg
first one 50 dmg on impact
secondary the splash dmg which deals 50 dmg over x seconds to armor and buildings
also increase the splash radius...

again: its called ACID rocket!
would fit i think

i seem to have missed something with the hook idea... if u pull a rine toward u , and ur standing still.... doesnt that mean one dead fade?

I only have 2 words for Acid Rocket....

Blast damage

Double the structure damage, still as strong as it is right now against marines.

Of course, there's gonna be a small issue with turrets being easily torn down by it....but ti's a 3 hive abilit, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to do so.

As for the rest...I'd leave them as they are.

BTW, Windelkron, the 1.1 Metabolize was bugged due to the fact that sometimes you got stuck doing metabolize for some unknown reason, making the fade unable to attack until his adrenaline ran out. Sure you may be invincible most of the time, but I don't think it's worth reimplementing an ability that was quite bugged.

Adding "tankeblink" to the united fade-ability-changes-list.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...showtopic=80722

1. Swipe
2. Blink
3. Acid Rocket

4. Guilotine
Guilotine instantaneously uses up all the fades current energy and converts it into massive raw damage (enough to instantly kill a number of marines in front of him (range is about the same of healspray, maybe slightly larger).

However, after using this skill, a fades energy will not refill for a period of time, not even when near movement chambers. This leaves the fade incredibly vulnerable, since he can only run away after doing a guilotine, he cannot blink or even swipe.

Guilotine would be used like this:
- Fade gets in position.
- Fade presses fire (with the guilotine ability selected).
- Energy drains to zero and the fade hisses (much like with xenocide)
- Damage depending on energy when guilotine was used is dealt in an area before the fade (splash damage, like healspray).
- Marines die


Damage area:

XXXXX
OXXXX
XXXXX

O = fade
X = Damage dealt here

You should make acid rocket damage only armor so that it can support swipe like the rest of the fades abilities.

I say Acid Rocket needs more damage vs. Structures. Like maybe 1.5x the damage. Right now it takes like 500 acid rockets to take out a TF or PG.

For a Level 4 ability it's pretty lame...

Ok I think we are ready to have our first poll on this subject, BTW, all that will happen is good ideas will be marked as such bad ideas will be marked as such but they will all stay in the original thread, and all replies and posts will be removed. This way we can keep these threads under control..

I think what I'll start with is a poll for
Are you happy with Swipe? (don't respond more looking for feedback if people feel this is an appropriate way to handle this)

Yes
No up damage
no lessen damage
No special ability from thread (allows the alien to hold onto a marine )
No another special ability from thread (double-swipe every with swipe etc)
no replace with suggestion 1
no replace with suggestion 2

Then tally up the scores and alter the main post to reflect the results. Then remove that poll and insert another one.. etc etc..
Does this sound reasonable?

I am happy with swipe as it is, but I believe metabolize should be replaced with the aforementioned grab ability. Also, I think acid rocket should have a small effective radius but its damage against Marines should be increased very much so that it could kill a level 0 light Marine with 2-3 hits and it should do only half damage against structures - that's what bilebomb is for. Also, I think that blink should take a lot of energy and temporaliy make the Fade clip through everything except geometry, render it invisible, persist as long as +attack is held. This set of abilities would make the Fade much more stealthy and fun to play as and as a bonus would scare Marines. To balance this Fade health would have to be tuned down to about 250-125 or lower.

Swipe is fine as it is. It does what it's supposed to do and is balanced.

i dont think swipe is the problem...

better make a poll for this uber nerfed abilty acid rocket

Fade should have a new ability "polymorph" where it can turn into anything; such as a marine structure, a marine, an alien structure, or a map object like a crate or box.

Oh wait! I get it.. you're saying that's going to be the generic template for a series of polls?

So the first one might be: "Do you like swipe" and have the various answers, with the "suggestion 1" and "suggestion 2" being actually filled in in the poll itself.

Then the second one will be "Do you like blink?" and do the same type of thing.

Is that what you're getting at Zunni?

Well, the idea isn't complicated.

Your presentation just didn't make it clear that you were planning a bunch of polls and that was just an example of their format -- not an actual poll. We're not used to people asking us about how to design polls.

At any rate, that strikes me as just fine.