I've been thinking about the nanoscale aspect of a marines vs. aliens battle, and it occurs to me that this could be brought more directly into gameplay. So, in that spirit, here's a new marine structure/upgrade idea.

New Prototype Lab research item: Infestation Analysis
Collects samples of the Kharaa bacteria infesting this area and produce tailored nanite killers. Enables construction of Air Cleaner structures.

New structure: Air Cleaner
Emits nanites that decrease local infestation. Structure is about half the size of the armory. Within its range:

• Aliens receive no innate regeneration
• Chambers do not auto-build or heal
• Redemption is less likely to succeed
• Webs decay faster
• Spore and Umbra dissipate faster
• Healspray is less effective

Alternately, make this an upgrade on Turret Factories instead of a separate structure.

The proto lab seems like the logical place to put this, but that's probably too far up the tech tree for it to be useful. Thoughts?

Sounds nice. How about having spots where you can "clamp" it on ventilation ducts? It would have a wider AoF, since it's being blown throughout the station.

I like it...make it possible to put it onto spots like the weldable atm.

suggested something very close to this some weeks ago ... topic was closed (Iguess because it included some thoughts about features only possible with another engine)

But so what?! ... I absolutly support any ideas that focus our view to the sub microscopic battle between nanites and the bacteria.

likr the idea but then we would have to give the kharaa a building of similar function to combate this or the game would totaly fall to the marines side

Really... I mean really.

One upgrade with a negative effect to all aliens and structures and a bunch of their weapons and then some.
And this by just being in the area.

In logical terms it sort of makes sense but... NS is a game. It is a vital part of any game to be playable.


Have you even thought of how to balance this out? What would be the alien counter to this?

dash, please think further than this would be cool and it makes sense.

Eh. Any one thing will be "unbalancing", certainly, no matter what. I certainly don't think that anything like this should be added to the game with no other changes, nor do I think that all the effects I listed are necessarily a good idea gameplay-wise, just plausible from the premise. If this ever makes it into the game, I would not be surprised to see it only do some of these things. Anyway, it seems to me that there are plenty of ideas that would buff the alien team; this one just happens to help out the marines. There's no reason that ideas have to come in pairs, I think :) Personally, I think the "unchain upgrades" and "infestation" (in the sense of having some game effect and not just visuals) ideas for aliens are pretty good, and would be "unbalancing" on their own. I'm sure the devs can balance things, they've done a pretty good job so far. There'll be some point in the future that the alien team will be overpowered again :) At that point, something like this might be worth doing.

acctuly the alien upgrade i would like to see for this, wouldnt have much effect the aliens them self, as in mathamaticaly in game but i would love to see a fog a hasse if you will roll in when a life form pushes e on the hive it lasts said time, less if air cleaners are on, but if air cleaners are on, when life forms are in fog it negates the hazze,

ok the hazze comes out of every chamber is a mirky ugly green to rines, it is like fog, not pea soup but something that give aliens a chance on them open flats them long tunnels that take 3 leaps to cover, whatever, to aliens the fog is 100% transparent and they cant even notice it

when a rine is in the fog, he can tell were fog isnt easyer by looking out and seeing were it end you know like fog, has the same limited veiwing distance in the fog, as he had when hes out side the fog looking in

so he can see x distance to the fog, then only y distance into the fog

distance y is the distance he sees when hes in fog, unless looking out of the fog is in this distance then he can see distance y + x + z z being the excess past x if he was looking at him self


at one hive the fog will seap out of chambers and be the size of a lurk spore

on two hives the fog will flows out of chambers and the the size of four lurk spore^3
(note this is from each chamber unless theres another chamber with in x units, or arms reach)

on three hives the fog floods out of chamber and hives as well and is the size of nine lurk spores^3
so a rubics cube, 27 slurk spore stacked as a cube

the set backs aliens have to get into the habbit of hiting +E on the hive every time they see one or when the fog runs out

at early game its useless,

mid game aliens have to hit e on the hive so many times, its better just to use it when being rushed,

being in the fog only negates air cleaners effects, never does it mathmaticaly buff in game, it does how ever negate how a person my other wise spot you and take you out

at end game if aliens are being rushed theres not going to be any alive to press e on the hive, if aliens are rushing this means rines are already boxed into there base

to not put so much strain on CPU i would say only have fog come out of rez nodes and hives,

for story reasons the rez nodes store up and over flow all the gunk they dont need out of the rez intake the over flow is realses by alien monitaring the hive, the good rez gets sent to the hives for purifacation and distrabution, at the hive it is further filtered and more excess gunk is over flowed and rejected

the over flow could also auto eject fog once every five minute

this would be so atmospheric, is that even a word?

edit wait cubed is ^3 my bad

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*brain asploaded*