CAL-NS|Hsu (aka Zephor, aka the magnanimous and glorious head of CAL-NS) and I have been discussing Competitive Combat quite a bit lately. There has been significant query from CAL Admins outside of NS as to why there is no Combat league, as they have been asked by players in their games (be it CS, DoD etc) this question. At the end of the actual Idea/Suggestion portion of my post I have provided a rough outline of what Competitive Combat in CAL would probably look like, to hopefully further explain the changes we ask for.

Note, these changes would only be pertinent if mp_tournamentmode is set to 1, Combat would proceed as-is otherwise.

Change Number #1: Marine Structures
Competitive Combat games will emphasis the Attack/Defend Nature of Combat Mode, and because of this we feel it would be necessary to make the CC and Armory (or Armories) invulnerable, and if they are still attacked for no alert to be sounded. The Alien's job in our setup is to defend their Hive, not quickly rush the MS and kill the chair before the Marines have a chance to double back. Teams will be very small, so it would be impractical to keep a person in the MS to defend against a Skulk rush, likewise leaving people behind to weld up base is out of the question for obvious reasons as well. The time limit will also be relatively low, so in the event the Aliens are completely dominating the Marines the game is not going to drag on for very long (which is one of the key roles of the CC in Combat at the moment).

Change Number #2: The 3rd Hive Weapons (namely Web and Xenocide)
The third hive weaponry presents some interesting problems in Combat that are not seen in Classic mode. Xenocide allows a Skulk to inflict potentially massive amounts of damage while robbing the marines of Experience, and when used en masse creates a no-win situation for the Marines. Web is one of the most potent weapons in NS, but thanks to its limited availability (only after 3rd Hive is acquired) it's not terribly imbalancing in Classic mode. However in Combat it is very easy to unlock the 3rd Hive weapons, and as such Web is extremely overpowered.

The simplest solution here is to remove the ability to unlock the 3rd hive upgrades for the Aliens. The loss of Primal Scream, Acid Rocket and Charge are probably negligible issues, as in most cases it is more advantageous for players to select an additional upgrade or two over the 3rd hive ability when playing these classes. If the proposed solution is undesirable, for whatever reason, then removing the Gorge as a playable class, and changing the nature of Xenocide (probably by giving out XP to players injured by Xenocide blasts and denying XP to the xenocider himself, or something similar) could also potentially solve the problem though things such as the rate of the Hive's self-healing would probably need to be evaluated as there would be no chance of a Gorge being able to give the hive a quick boost of health.

These are the most fundamental issues that are keeping Combat from even being seriously considered for CAL at the moment. Other potential issues such as the costs of the Shotgun and of Lerks could ultimately be problematic, but before such angles can be explored these two concerns would need to be addressed.

Proposed Rough Outline of Competitive Combat in CAL:
4v4. Friendly Fire On. 7-10 Minute Timer. Played on the smaller Combat maps (Core, Faceoff, Pulse, Niveus, maybe some custom maps such as Angel). Probably a 6 week regular season (fewer total available maps) to start. Each Match would consist of 6 Rounds total (3 on Marines, 3 on Aliens by both teams), probably scored as Two (2) Halves of 3 Rounds each: aka Home Team plays as Marines 3 Times, then Away Team plays as Marine 3 Times (potential scores for each half would be: 3-0, 2-1, 1-2, 0-3), if both teams win 3 Rounds total the Match is a tie, otherwise whichever team won at least 4 Rounds wins the Match.

One question:

The CC is still there, but in cant be destroyed.
Will a skulk munching the CC still get XP for it?

Would it be possible to just remove the CC in tourney mode? Just like in the earlier betas

Didn't CAL at one point do a NS:Co league or was it just UGL?

I don't like it, especialy the hive 3 changes.
The aliens are depending on web and xeno, or any player would go jp.

fade blink is to energy consuming, spores to lush and skulk don't stand a real chance against jp on certain maps with ugly constructed hive rooms.

Aliens would still be overpowered even with these changes I think, just because of the Fades and Onos that can get every single upgrade all together.

The numersous radical changes proposed are simply to far removed from how Combat is supposed to be played. CAL tried to implement a "no-fly-zone" their last go at this and it never took off. UGL, as you know, was successful for 2 seasons with no radical changes in gameplay BUT, back then mp_combattime hadn't been implemented yet and base-camping was a serious issue. That, and intentional team-killing was a problem, although I can't recall why.

The interest exists for competitive Combat, as evidenced by a dozen teams or so being registered in UGL's Natural Selection Combat League.

*shrugs* if most of the competitive players agree, then thre shouldn't be a problem if they want a seaprate combat mode.