Can any engine handle that many stuff aside from the battlefiled engine, i mean sure one or two buggys or what ever but a whole armada? thats more bf

Also i would like to see more chambers

Can't really complain on imagination, though large scale battles in outdoor environments is more or less impossible for them I think. They are a modding team, going for the real thing. Time, money and license is rough to get, and especially if you want something in the ways of Battle Field except it's much more balancing to do regarding two totally different lifeforms. Oh, and RTS and FPS into a mix. I would go crazy if I had demands that big.

But heck, I'll keep on dreaming. UWE ROxxOR!!!

My ideas

Squad leaders:
Marine commanders need to break up their marines into squads of 5 at most. One man is designated squad leader. The main commander will issue orders directly to the squad leaders and the squad leaders will execute the orders at their discretion.

Advanced Voice Communications:
Voice interface between com and the marines will need to be cleaned up so you can only hear orders that are meant for you. Everyone has at 2 voice keys, one to speak locally, and one to speak on the Radio.

Local voice, only local people near you will hear you
Radio, everyone will hear you.
The commander is always on the Radio.

For aliens, a static mumbly sound is played to alert them to nearby marines, but since its assumed aliens don't know english, they can't spy on marine voice coms.

This should solve any voice traffic problems in extremely large games.

Gameplay:
Overhaul the Res-node and hive room gameplay type.

Aliens start with 1 Hive and must feed it to grow in power. Instead of resource nodes. Resources must be harvested by Gorges by sucking the raw nanite sludge directly from the nozzles and delivering it to the hive in person. This is how Aliens greatly differ from Marines who still rely on Resource Towers to extract the resources.

The gorges should be the marines primary targets, the other alien lifeforms need to protect the gorges.

As the hive consumes more resources, it grows bigger, has more health and can support larger lifeforms. Aliens no longer use resources directly, except gorges which can still use them to build structures instead of feeding the hive.

Larger Lifeforms are granted to players who are the most efficeint, have the best score. Like in CO You gain EXP by killing marines but your choices of using this EXP is very limited until you grow your hive out bigger.

You can start a new hive after your first hive has reached a certain size. Any additional hives only grant more abilities/attacks and upgrade chambers. These hives can be grown too, but it isn't nessesary unless your first hive, which you grew to support Onos gets destroyed, and all you have left is your 2nd hive which can only support skulks and gorges.

Resource Nodes:
Res nodes generate only a very limited supply of resources after a set time interval, but over time, it can add up to significant amounts. At Game start, all nodes already contain 25 res, a gorge can suck that out very quickly and run it to his hive, but if you suckle on it longer, the rate will be very slow as the node regenerates. This forces expansion. The nodes further out which haven't been tapped can generate and store hundreds of resources.

Marine res towers draw resources out of nodes only at the node's generation rate, marines can't touch the res overflow with their default res tower. Marine res tower will cost 10 res, but they can be upgraded for 5 res to pump out res at double the rate, which will eventually use up all of the overflow after time. This short boost doesn't last forever though.

If a gorge dies while carrying a lot of res, all of it is lost. This can provide a huge risk to suckle a 100 overflowed res node by a single gorge who gets killed with his mouth still on the hole.


The cost of feeding the hive can be balanced based on how much res the marines need to tech up to keep pace with the Aliens. If both teams control 5 nodes, they will have equal resources, and equaly viable weapons against each other.

A gorge can draw out 50 res from 2 nodes and lay down 5 OCs right away, but then, the marines will be 2 extra nodes worth ahead in the tech tree.

Onos, fades, lerk, gorges will be free once the Alien hive is big enough, the key to balance is to find out how fast it takes to grow a hive compared to the equivalent marine tech. And if the marines kill the main hive, the aliens are stuck at skulks and gorges if they even had a 2nd smaller hive until they can grow it up.

If a Large hive capable of supporting Onos dies, all of those Onos will have a ping of death until another hive is grown to support them, or they die.


By the same standard, Marine techs up the same way, and if you destroy an armslab which full upgrades, they lose all of that investment and have to start over.

um just my opinion, but i think alines and gorgie rez sucking should be a optional extra, not the law of the land, to much time would be lsot and to many players useign this tactic, plus its down right boring sorry, and jsut about every thing eles you said has been said, except the voice traffic flow, and you have soem great ideas there

You might think gorging and sucking resources is boring, but lots of people enjoy this kind of menial labor. Plus, you get to be the rabbit the marines are hunting.

thats fine thats your opinion i would enjoy it also, but it need to be a optional exra to much time is lost from geting form the node to the hive or from the node to the point were you want to drop structures and then back again, so it really needs to be a optional extra

i dont know if i can find the thread but aparently this has already been tested and found as i said boring, seek out the god zunni, his guidance will set you strait

all of this craziness scares me.. i like ns the way it is.. direct port.. maybe some cool little tweaks? i'm pretty content...

It sure would be nice to get some feedback from the developers in threads like these.

unless they will be making ns2 a mmofps it dont think a subcription would be a good idea. i mean look at joint ops:tr it can support 100 player per server and theres no subcription fee. and if they did have 100player servers there would probubly be a need for multiple comms, and i dont think the devs like that idea.
and also does anyone remeber planetside? its not doing too well right now...
----
PH34l2 7H3 GORGE!! errrrr.....skulk

subscription games are dieing fast, people just play them to clock them other to complete them, they have a very very small playe base after that point and its usaly jsut regular vets willing to use the place as a fun chatting ground, i dont liek the subscription idea sorry

how ever i have a few rough sketches ill continue working on today and post htem a little latter with my thoughts and ideas

Why did you web this forum?

its was mentioend on the first or second page, the mods liked the idea of what if there was a ns2, what would it be and what would it be like

the only games i buy are half-life related.. i know that the mods will be top notch and theyll keep me from needing to buy anymore games, so i would never pay for NS2. ns source will be enough for me.. sorry unknown worlds entertainment!

I dunno... there's something about doin' the "Starship Troopers" scenario for NS2 that just doesn't yank my chain at all...

NS to me is all about corridors, metal, plasticrete, and kharaa infestation...

not extensive landscapes and kilometers of battlefield...

that doesn't mean I wouldn't like a "Starship Troopers"-like game ... just means that ain't what I would expect from NS...

of course, this is all pre-pubescent talk and I guess I'll just shut up now and wait until I've had an inkling of what NS2 is going to be like...

i want twelve foot high grass feilds in some parts of a few maps, thats would so rock, yes i want a lot of play to be done inside also thngs like cave networks meet drop ship bases (think jarasic park and raptors)

eg you drop a comand station its got 3 doors to it 2 can be locked then you drop say, i dont know a mess hall, and barracks, and they have the option to join them to the command station or thro tunnels or what not, add to the tunnels to exstend arms/ wings of the base in said direction get elbows and things

so ya have a com and some oen can click on the ip and beam me up scottie and be a orbital com, heck they may not want a orbital com, they may want there drop ship mother or core, to be the only thing ,they may not want to fire a command station on top of it purely for stealth reasons they may want to run, 25 k's that direction and start there base so ther emain base doesnt get found

na i arnt fussed if a map is on karra home worlds, but i wuld like to see both sides race from planet to planet, landing at the same time, and exspanding for its control

each races drop ship lands in a random location, on said planet/map

max water maps, high top and peak planets with lava cores, ice planets, dust planets, planets with mulit suns and or moons, with random day night cycles

current ns is in bases ships what ever, and its by far not random, its got hardly any randomness to it, if ns2 was out side as i am sort of discribing working towards
and al lthis randomality was thrown in, man you could have heaps of fun

imagine, and one remeber tiberian sun, its a C&C game, by west wood now owned by some other company no ones heard of that havent made a game yet

any way tiberian sun had a very good random map genarator, now if this item was included, man you could have so serious fun

instead of selecting a map you would select a planet, onceselecting a planet a list of variables would come up, listing incrased or decreses percentages of said thing on said planet, eg karra could have 68%+ caves 45%+tunnels, 25%+ gorgies, water, lava bio life forums, what ever,

each planet would have its own texture sceam, this way, the amount of maps would be endless of course you would /could save said maps, but life forums starting areas, would be random, but would have a said distance they can land near eahc other or two close, of course there would be a variable ya could change along with the figures shown that the planet side comes with

so ya would get a list and slide bars, eg karra home world, could have 68%+ increase in tunnels, so you could slide the slider to 1%-100% increace in tunnels what ever you select before ya crate the map will be Xplus68%+

hum i should of used a up arrow for that any way the end result would be a unlimted amount of maps, endlessly pooring in, being saved, what ever

mappers would still play a important roll, the ywould work with a lot more figures than normal, and would get into the real nittie grittys like color schemes seting max high variables for hills, really altering the look

wait for some one to color schem it up like a jumping castle, and changes the gravity, hehe and calls it planet jump a lot

but ya get the point, could be cool

the wait wouldnt be any longer than steam is now *cough steam*

alien life cycle
you start out as a slow moving larva that has no attacks, but it can only be killed by explosives or seige cannons. then you choose to turn into ether a skulk, a gorge or a lerk. then after that you can turn into a fade or onos (or any other new life form)

baby fade/onos
the gestate time can be shorter for fade and onos but you hatch as a thing about the size of the egg you come from so it will actually look believelabe ^^ over time you grow to the full size of the fade/onos but before that you wont have as much health and armor (this is for realism, i forgot if the devs wanted realism or not)
---
hey cool im a drone now!!

hehe super sulk reserects this thread cheers, hehe drone, i need zunnie to start deleteing my posts so i stay dark queen

hum realisum, growing aliens, could work egging time could be shortaned a little while your left in this semi vonarable state

As it is right now, NS is fun, but NS2 like many of you showed, has alot of potential if it is ever made.

What I agree with is that there should be more lifeforms and more guns and more whatnot. As well as now you can weld things to walls and whatnot as well, that'll add a whole new dimension to the game, no longer will we have to put things on the ground, we can now place turrets and structures on walls and on the ceiling. That would add to the strategic side of the game as well.

New creatures would be nice, but as someone said, modular creatures would be even better, sort of like a real evolution, you evolve parts of the body, that concept has already been done on impossible creatures (it's a game if anyone ever heard of it, however, the gameplay is crap) as well as visible upgrades on marines and alines(all that is pretty easy with the new engine)

As for maps, my view of the matter is that it should still remain "indoors", however, I was thinking of more corridors with more branches and a few larger rooms (by which I mean cavernous spaces) to have them big fights.

As for buildings themselves, well, how about this for marines.

Command Chair: This could be replaced with a command bunker, which would be invoulnerable to lower tier life forms and would require a larger lifeform to kill it, same goes for the hives. So let's say to kill a hive, you would need POWERFUL weaponry to kill it. Let me explain.

First off, classify buildings into 2 groups. Light and heavy. Light buildings are killable by all weaponry and this, don't cost alot, heavy buildings, such as a command console (or should I say command bunker) are only destroyable by weapons that are classified as "siege" weaponry (I personally don't like the siege cannons in NS as they are unrealistic because they shoot though walls... but others might like them, that's not my concearn, I'm just shooting ideas). This would have the effect of prolonging games, people are already complaing that some games can last less than 5 minutes and that a single Jetpack with an HMG can kill a hive, which is pretty stupid in Combat servers.

Thus, only heavy firepower would kill heavy buildings, however, heavy would also cost more.

As for the Kharaa, they are a horde, so why not actually lower the spawn time and slightly lower (keeping in proportions of course) their health, that would, IMO give the effect of a horde and a never ending string of aliens comming at you if you are a marine.

And as much as I'd love to see 100 or 200 players, is it even feasable in the present source engine? I thought the max was 64. The Doom3 engine falls off as the multiplayer is crap when it comes to numbers of participants.

Allright, I know it's all chaotic, but there are some ideas in there, I'm not sure if it's all good, but I guess we all have our own ideas...

Allright, looks like it's time for me to get right back under the rock under which I've been hiding all this time....

Yeah it did!
Also, maybe Massive battles with vechiles and giant aliens (spidery things!)

-Sheepe

Like that thing in the Quake 4 demo... Or a Strider!

The dev time for much of this would be stupid for even a large team of devs let a lone a small/med one

HL2 wasn't made in a week.

it was maid ...... hmmmm ... i thought it sort of grew from something in that rifft maid in hl1

come on people we need to think of the basics of the "alien and humans" atmosphere, the current alien vision is great but wouldnt it be better as a heat vision base thing (hl2), and ah yes the classic and marine go to check on a dead skulk and it xenocides the percentage of this is game can be like 1/4 chance, so in a game a cocky marine who knifes your skulk body will pay! movement chambers should be like pee gees they should be able to go anywhere. What happened to the acidic blood? i see the fade has some sort of rope like attachment to it so if you cut it off acid hurts the marines and the fade slowly dies, we really need 1 long range based unit for the aliens, i jsut thought of this but wouldnt it be cool to be "upside down" when you are upside down in the game like you flip the view or something but i dont really like that but ill jsut leave it there. what would be great is like when u got past certain objects you get static in the voice com and the com will be like "soldier? soldier? !!!!!" *static* and to prevent this u would prolly build an obs. we need like something to protect the hive for the aliens but it would be weak. we also need to use the weilder to fix cameras to look for movement, a new alien lifeform oculd be something like a cross between a rolly polly and a snake, like its curls up to travel fast and uncurls to attack or something like that, what would be great is like a diesease that infexcts a marine and whover touchs him, its makes him hallucinate at first making him see things and hear things that are not their then a second stage of that where his vision start to blurr and he becomes visible on the hive sight and this last stag is optional: he xenocides. oh ya a good one, when marines kill the lasst hive and that cbeeping thing happens and it starts slowly killing the khara? ya you know what im talking about? well u should take that out and just make it elimination form there untill u kill the last alien, i mean many clans could make a turn around with this. i think im fresh out of ideas for now but ns is a great game keep working payce

i think an alien that fires the remains off its victums* at high speeds
would be pretty cool

personaly i think that when ns2 comes out it would be real cool if we had like 4 more types of alines and 5-6 more guns ( ie no weapon restrictions for hl1 engine)

First of all i had this idea BEFORE BF2 (or the demo) was out!

To help the work of the commander he needs assistents!
I mean the commander only should build stuff and give general commands like: "Save this Area!"
So, he need Subcommanders/Fieldcommanders/Squadleaders (however you want to call it). But there is still the problem: "Why should i follow such an idiot?! I make my own way!"
Let's work on this problem: First of all you have to SEE that this guy is going to save your ****. He needs a new (of cause stronger) armor and a new weapon. I had thought on a prototype blaster/laser weapon with self regenration energy(not to fast, only to have ammo when you need it, he not supposed to fight in the first way!). He must stay alive!
And now the DEAL you know if you kill an alien 2-3 res got to your comm. So if you have a leader this res go onto his personal res bank (in stead of weasting it to the comm). And combat like he can buy you weapons, med packs, ammo packs or make a personal distress bacon to spawn all *his* marines to his position. I thing he only needs 75 res as the maximum And if he has more it goes to the comm. The comm has less to do and can concentrate on more things because they are more independent. He 'donate' his subcomm's some res an he can be sure that the subcomm gaves the right persons the right equipment! And if the squad leader don't do what he want he edjects the leader and took his res! He can nominate a new one or the player vote for themselfs.
No more " MEADPACK! " or " AMMO! " or " GIMME A SHOTGUN! "screams to the comm he just make the plan and build the stuff. (But he can still give this things out!)

And here my second idea i already posted on the modNS forum.
A second hand grenade! It is a upgrade like the normal one but it works like a flashbang. It uncloaks aliens and it's bulidings, paralysis them (1-3 sec, depend on there lifeform) and let them fall of walls



And now some ideas for outdoor maps!

If there will be any outdoor maps aliens need to have an build in chameleon-effect. The don't need to be invisible but if the ground is green a yellow skulk is an easy target! A day/night cycle would be cool. On day marines can go out of there base and go hunting ( ) in the high grass.
And at the night you have to use you flashlight to see your shoes

Maybe the Hive don't spawn skulks but eggs! In the beginning there are many under it and if an skulk die he can spawn instandly back! but if there are no eggs the Hive have to spawn them directly!
A hivequeen would be cool too, I thought on the thing in the art topic! It can collect eggs from the Hive and spawn skulks through it! It has lots of health, can walk walls/ceilings. But it is slow has weak attacks and unlike the Hive it makes no 'ifestiation'(?) so the aliens around have no build in regen.

So your done! That's it!

if there will be big open areas in ns2 then the buildings should be made to...you know...look like buildings. it would reduce wide open space which we all know is an aliens worst nightmare AND it would be cooler because the marines could actually walk into them and do stuff (dont ask me what, for all i care they could be playing tennis in an ip-ish building )

and if a queen alien is made then it should be used only to walk around and find a good spot to lay down and mutate into a hive (or mabe just let a gorge do it) this would probably improve strategy for the game since marines never know EXACTLY were the 3 hives will be

A change to the Aliens vision would be awesome.
There is a mod called Hidden: Source out for HL2, and one of the characters - the 617 - has a wavey kind of heat vision.
It's look pretty cool for NS.

my favourite would have to be the ability to build barracades.


you know those pickupable objects in source? make a special one for ns that can be welded to each other so marines can use them to build little barricades and things, and give them Xhp that when bitten off they fall apart again.


i would like more than 1 basic unit, and when you spawn in you choose which basic unit you get to be (i would probably also make the gorge one of these)

i would suggest an ability for skulks to fake death but it would be useless since the marine would know it's just faking because no X killed X thing popped up.

i wouldn't mind the idea of subcommanders or multiple comms each with half of the marines assigned to his control, but that would only work with large games (teams of like 12+)

i belive faight death could be added, to sulks, make every thing look and feel exsackly right, jstu when the sulk unfaights it takes away the score, if hte rine happens to put extra rounds and damage in after the intial play dead timer(this timer allows sulk to take damage, but not beforced alive form the damage, any way if sulk dies dureing this period the score stays on, if he takes damage after this period hes auto pulled out of feign and the score is retracted till he is killed or what not

it appears a lot of us have the same ideas about ns 2

ok, i know that many people have suggested the squad leader, sergeant, etc-whatnot. i am suggesting a different variation b/c giving orders to all the sub-Comms and expecting them to relay those orders to your rines would get a little bit hectic and too complicated.

i think that as a commander as i suck. i think the thing that makes it hard is the leading your rines into battle and keeping them alive part of the whole deal. yet i have no problem with the tech tree part of the whole deal. (who does?)

so i think what if there were two Comm's? one which would be the more experienced and veteran comm and one which would deal with the tech tree.

the building comm would, of course, place all the buildings and whatnot and tell the rines to build them.

the combat comm would place the weapons and the med/cat-packs and the HA's/JP's. the combat comm would also regulate all the upgrades. basically anything that the individual rine would use to their advantage.

there is a problem, however: if one CC went down then they wouldnt be able to get upgrades or build buildings. the solution would be that the remaining Comm would be able to place the type of CC that has fallen.

a good idea having two commanders, a tactical commander and a logistics commander.

perhaps instead of thinking so small in terms of building sizes, there should be a large command station that can accomidate both commanders and all research structures. Think of the Empires mod where you can build entire buildings that you can walk around in and use interfaces.

You guys should create Starshiptroopers-like level designs where a command post is made that the marines defend and attack out of while the aliens would have an underground hive area that they defend and attack out of. If you haven't read the book for the movie then you should cause it's pretty cool... not to mention they have jumpjet infantry in them!

I think that NSS should draw together anything possible from Starship Troopers over Starcraft (Broodwars) to Battlefield.

- A weak, hurtable Siegetank that needs to be defended but strikes as much Fear as the current Siegecannon,
- Artillerybugs that fart out massive Doom,
- biological Transports for Aliens like the Overlords

etc etc.

I don't care if it will be blatantly ripped off or not, it just needs to make fun in the end. And be fair, of course.

yeah more like 6 years


I'm all for the big out door battles, but only if it starts at and/or leads to tight corridor battles like the classic NS. Like you could start at a facility on a desert planet (cough dune cough) (for some reason im picturing the beach/car levels from hl2) anyway, you start in a facility, build your IP's unlock the armoury - cause it would be a huge room/ weapons cache instead of a cylinder, while another group of marines start accessing res nodes inside the facility and fend off skulks and lerks.
After your primary buildings are built some marines jump into 4 wheel drives and tear appart the sand dunes to capture some more res nodes at broken down near by facilities - (pitch black movie) Mean while the commander is researching. Eventually this leads to upgraded marines and machines vs bigger and harder aliens.
While this huge open area battle rages, smaller squads of marines both jetpack squads and heavy squads try to infiltrate the hives and have small stand off's with the distraction of the big battle in the background. These hives again would be in run down facilities and factories, mines or underground - again similar to old ns maps, but of course much more atmospheric, thanks to HDR and beams of sunlight comming through bullet holes or your aliens 2 and 3 type corridors. It woudlnt have to be realistic horror, infact i'd rather it would be more of your anime (e.g. appleseed) style.
Anyway perhaps small groups of marines manage to take out a hive or two in the background by using great tactics and strategy the last hive could be taken out an orbital bombardment or ion cannon or something that will look really great on my new 20" monitor lol.

my opinion of the two comms.. it sounds freaking awsome., but what if you need more people on the ground? or there isnt enough players for two coms? simple fix. make one Comm chair with two seats. like most fighter justs . logistics sits above the other or something. that way one come can easiey (with a binded key) switch back and forth if he/she was the only commander. I like all of the ideas on War, and larger number supports; but you have to remember that there will still be 8 man servers running in someones basement. If you make the game to large were will the fun be for those players.

An idea for mappers is to look at makeing multiple versions of maps. like BF2. if your map is on a 16 man server make it the proper size for 16 men. but if that group upgrades to 32 man server then have make an expanded version to fit the people. one flaw with NS now is if you and 3 freinds are playing in a ns_ map youll never find each other. the maps are far to large.
'
just ideas.

- The current maps thath is human enviroment based is really good but i think we should have in NS2 Alien enviroment maps too.
- Vehicles and things like thath will be good, but need to be huge maps to make any sense to have it.

If we ever had 2 comms, the 2nd comm would be bored out of his mind, or would simply just waste more res than he should.

we should just implement this to increase the rage levels between comms

I would like to see more a more militarized looking marine, as if the they had just underwent a rearmament plan after encountering the aliens. They could also have a more veteranized look, with killcounts painted on their armor, military caps or berets, rolled up sleeves, and maybe even scars on their body or smoking cigars. Freshmeat marines can choose to have a cleaner untouched look.

They could even have their own dropships and other vehicles (although they would merely serve as map props for gameplay purposes, though i wouldn't mind using a light vehicle of some sort).

Maps could take place in locations closer to urban centres, rather than the isolated research stations and spaceships from before. It would be cool to also see entire infested jungles which the marines have to fight in, sorta like 'Nam in space. (Vehicles can work here).

Maybe even the ability to call in orbital/air strikes?

OKAY so 2 summarize for everybody most of you guys say you want a more planetside game maybe a couple of servers that change with whoever is winnin the fight?... with brand new alien species weapons rines?

uuhh the whole natural selection idea/game is a lot like starship troopers.... i dont think this will change that fact any more or less...