Searched 'slow' and nada...

At the moment the only reinforcement property the MC has is topping up Aliens adrenaline which, I agree, is very undervalued. However I also think that there needs to be something about the MC that might convince a Gorge to make it his first chamber choice. The two other chambers do something to reinforce locations (structure regen and cloak) but the MC only remotely reinforces 3 possible map locations. Maybe it might be good if you could lay down some MCs strategically somewhere to slow Marines progress, it could work if:

- Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal movement speed (JPs too?)
- Marines within MC AoE jump 1/? their normal height
- Marines within MC AoE have sensitivity reduced to ?%
- Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal RoF (catalyst counters this)
- Structures within MC AoE are built at 1/? speed

N.B. Remember that the MC Area of Effect (AoE) would be unchanged.

I'd like to have C&C on each point and if one has too many flaws I'll scrub it off the list. Here is my reasoning...

Slower Marine movement combined with a reduced jumping height and reduced turning ability could be used to great effect. I can foresee some criticisms as the Marines are already fairly slow but I'll wait and see your opinions on that. And yes, HA trains would suck MCs could be used very strategically to create a bubble where Marines would suddenly slow down so Gorges would have that much extra time to call their buds back to defend. It would also nerf JPs circling the Hive (maybe a bad thing). The main advantage I saw was putting them in areas of high traffic (or on the way to the Hives) to try and put some ambush back into the game. If a scout spots a convey inbound to a Hive then others further back will wait next to an MC for the ambush. I love a good ambush!

If MCs slowed the Rate of Fire (RoF) they'd be great to stick in high traffic areas, especially around corners so that Marines would just walk into the bubble and reach for their guns only to find they were firing too slowly to take down the pesky Lerk who was gassing them from the vent. Obviously they'd be a great Hive defence (I fear this change might push Commanders to depend too much on Sieges to take down Hives), and you might even see Gorges spamming MCs outside the MS to aid the Aliens on the base attack.

With buildings taking longer to complete well placed MCs could slow the Marine resflow in the early game, making it a viable first chamber (omah gees!). They would make ninja PGs take just that lil' bit longer and would slow down the construction of siege bases. They would create some real problems for Marines, slowing down their rocket expansion rate and evening it up a bit in the Aliens favour.

Please do comment, flame if you really hate it that much. I just wanna see what peoples reactions are and what could be improved. Of course the ? that you see in the suggestion points is subject to interpretation, if you'd like Movement in MC AoE to be reduced to 1% (?) etc. then say so! All I want is opinions at the moment, I'll update this post as things get tailored.

Afterall, 18287 heads are better than one!

Way to make MC the most godly overpowered chamber of all times.

1. The sensitivty thing will not work at all because smart epople will have a bind to change their sensitivty once they know they're in an MC field.

2. The ROF chance is like giving aliens permanent umbra. DCs at least only heal a static 10hp. This would be overpowered

3. Marines can barely jump high enough to reach certain areas. (I can imagine that Waste handling might be impossible to get into from one side)

4. Buildings build slower can be considered. It is good for anti-ninja PGs.

5. Slowing marines down by a percentage. That's a possibility. Just remember that ever since past 1.04, marine can't BUNNYHOP.

If you put all of these abilities into the MC, it will be GODLY. At most, you would choose one of either 4. or 5. from my list.

I think MCs are already good enough. DCs are just surrogates for gorges. MCs will take you instantly to one of the three most valuble and important areas in the game. I always throw down an MC if there is an area that is seeing a lot of action and is being lamed up. Extra healing spray/acid rocket/bile bomb/spores/umbra is often worth the 10 res.

The only reason MCs aren't first isn't because MCs are weak, it's because regen is too strong.

But regen is needed to combat lvl3 Marine weapons.

An alien team can survive without RT's, they can't without hives therefore this one simple fact places hives in a higher pecking order.. But RT's are very important for the oportunity to win. Hives just ensure survival.

As for the initial idea, I agree with MeatShield.... Potentially 4 or 5..

But wouldn't a marine in the air be able to take additional advantage of the lack of air speed restriction to be able to increase their turning air speed?

I think giving the MC's a radius where buildings build rate is slower would be a boon for the Aliens.


Its hard to stop those PG's from going up when they build so quickly.

Well that particular suggestion was adapted from the 'nobuild' MC suggestion which I found to be one of the best ideas to date. As I said before the ? could be anything so to vote for nobuild, well then it would be 0/1 build speed and not 1/0, but you get the picture.

What do you think's better: nobuild or slowbuild?

I'd probably opt for slowbuild as the value can be tweaked from version to version without too much disruption, it also doesn't completely rule out a ninja PG (if the Marine had to walk into the Hive to down an MC or two then the surprise party effect would kinda be ruined).

Are we agreed that the first 3 suggestions are impractical? (in which case I'll strike them from the list).

2) I think the slower fire rate could be changed with a slower reload rate - the marines would be able to fight off aliens just as effectively, as long as they reload more strategically, and the alien counterassault isn't too ferocious

5) Marines move slow enough as it is (except jetpacks) If this went in I'd say it should only affect JPs

4) buildings built more slowly sounds good. MCs would be placed closer to siege points instead of right in front of the hive


1) no, this can be countered with scripting, and would just anger everyone who doesn't script

3) this would restrict marine mobility immensely, because certain objects are designed to be just the right height for a crouch jump

Out of order, and the last two are pretty much repeating what other people said, but I think 2, 4, and 5 could be considered

Slowbuild is definitely better, because ninja PGs should still be possible...they add an element of uncertainty to the game, rather than making everything static and predictable.

With nobuild the marines would still try for ninja pgs every once in a while, but they'd try looking for gaps in the nobuild zone

Besides, if the marines drop structures in the nobuild zone, its a complete waste of res if they can't build at all...and if you fix this by making it a no-drop zone, the comm can easily find blind spots in your mc network



Another idea would be to prevent medspam within MC range, or lower the rate it can be dropped at...(and before you flame me for this idea, keep in mind the range can be adjusted for balance, as well as the rate of medspam - you could still get the one medpack to stay alive, but no spam) This could also be countered by dropping an armory at your forward base for health/ammo

I'll be honest; I don't particularly like your ideas. Defense chambers and sensory chambers both have positive effects on the nearby aliens and alien structures, they don't interfere with Marines. So, if I were going to buff MCs to make them viable for first Hive construction, I'd do this:

-Give non-stackable celerity and adrenaline to any alien within the MC's radius but allow aliens that already have those traits to feel the effects (twice as effective).
-Make all OCs within the MC's radius fire faster, stackable up to 4. 15% faster for 1 MC, 30% for 2, 45% for 3, and 60% for 4.
-Give DC's in the area of effect a non-stackable 10% heal rate increase.
-Give SC's in the area of effect a non-stackable 50% decrease in the amount of time it takes for nearby aliens to become cloaked.

Feedback please.

- any pack drop rate throttled down (no ammo/health/cat pack spam in mc range - suggested: only able to drop one pack in 1.5 secs, and each kind counts for it self)
- heavily decreased build speed for enemys (to give you a small chance when half the marine team stands at your door with hmgs and the other half builds sieges as if there would be no tomorrow)
- enemy moving speed decreased

also, the travelling has already to be fixed!
(to sad that others are dumb and go for def - speed is the only way to hold rines off your grounds...)

The other chambers have a chance at being dropped first. Its going to usually be DC first, but SC can be used if you are feeling risky.

But the MC is totally not worth going for first. There should be something to make it worth dropping first.

The slow-build idea is so far the newest idea, and I think with tweaking it would work to give the MC a good chance at being a viable first chamber, but its not enough.

if you have a good skulk team you can place mc first, cause to celerity are they more invulnerable with tripple regen and double carapace...

also is the idea of decreased sensetivity quite bad - its way to overpowering when it is decreased to much

Kobayashi, you have some good ideas... but this one... sorry just I don't think so.

*vote no* - Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal movement speed (JPs too?)
*vote no* - Marines within MC AoE jump 1/? their normal height
*vote no* - Marines within MC AoE have sensitivity reduced to ?%
*vote no*- Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal RoF (catalyst counters this)
*vote no* - Structures within MC AoE are built at 1/? speed


I hope you were joking on those last three. Playing with my mouse sensitivity is BAD, no bad isn't descriptive enough: evil and annoying to a point where many hundred NS people will leave. Slowed RoF and reduced building rates for in range? Are you kidding? Imao, just *ack!* no. Talk about unbalancing. Wow.

Sorry if I'm comming of as mean here but for many gameplay reason this just isn't a good set of ideas. I'm sure you'll have great ideas in the future but this one just fails.

Chambers generally affect the aliens and alien buildings, not the marine items.

So adjust the ideas based on this.

I'd say have it give a (slight) speed boost (but not RoF boost) to aliens within range.
Have it increase the speed of "ticks" of regen chambers and OCs.
Have it increase the range of sensory chambers slightly.
If you want to go wild, have it give a slight speed boost to alien building as well.

FIRST PAGE HAS BEEN EDITED

As I foresaw some of the ideas were either too harsh or impractical. When I initially wanted to post the only one I would have voted for straight off was the slowbuild, I just added the others for variety and to see the discussion that developed. I have scrubbed the following from the list:

- Marines within MC AoE jump 1/? their normal height
- Marines within MC AoE have sensitivity reduced to ?%
- Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal RoF (catalyst counters this)

So we are left with the following to discuss:

- Structures within MC AoE are built at 1/? speed
- Marines within MC AoE are slowed to ?% of normal movement speed (JPs too?)

Although there have been some interesting points posed in response to slowing down Marine movement, namely:

And I have already suggested that that particular idea is kept to a different thread, did you read what I posted about going off-topic. I don't care who came up with it first or where but it doesn't belong in a thread that concerns MCs slowing down processes in some way.

Bump!
Did you hear that?

OK, maybe it was nothing.

-YES- for MCs slowing build speed in AoE. It's not going to come up very often, but you can be sneaky with their placement, especially later in the game when you have SCs. It would be a nice change to see a chamber that affects Marines as well isntead of just Kharaa (although starting in B6, the SC will SoF 'Rines in it's AoE.)

[EDIT:] Response to x5.
Perhaps not 1/3rd or even 1/2 (I think those amounts are a little too powerful.. we're talking about nanite vs. bacterium wars here), but 2/3rds. It wouldn't be so much of a detriment, especially if the MC's slowbuild effect didn't stack. You could stop some potential sieges if you managed to get an MC up in range. How many times would your Hive have lived had you killed that TF just 5 seconds faster? The MC would stop the sieges from going up as fast and you'd get those 5 seconds back.

I have compleatly re-done this post for several reasons, the only one inportant here is that Zunni locked the thread I posted & asked that I move the idea to here: http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...pic=80160&st=15 . If you wish to discuss TommyVercetti's idea please goto the above link.

*Returns to topic*

Sorry about that, the main reason why I didn't supply a stance on the matter is, quite frankly, I don't have much of a stance on it. I suppose I would have to say no to all of them, I pritty much agree with the others who say that all of the other chambers (exept OC of couse) have no afect on marines, so why should the MC?

Also about the 'advert' for the other thread, I was just makeing shure that anyone who had a stance on that matter knew where to go.

maybe auto-redemption too if within the mc's range?

But redemption is a DC ability...

that has to do with movement...

I would consider this if it was an Movement upgrade instead of an existing Defence upgrade. An interesting suggestion nonetheless.