howdy folks, i was wondering what peoples opinions where in how onos digestion should be implemented into NS2. i just had a pretty cool game of ns and 2 ideas occured to me...

1. with all the new snazzy graphics to come in NS2, maybe being digested could be more of a journey, rather than a pitstop in a bowel. by this i mean instead of instantly being greeted with the onos's stomach lining, you are very quickly introduced to the teeth, jawbone and tonsils of the beast, before working down the aesophagus (god knows how u spell it), through some tight bits, before ending in a big acidic chamber that is the stomach. sort of like the footage from those arthroscope surgeries, where they stick the tiny little camera into someones throat etc....

maybe even giving the good old trusty knife a good stab here or there, producing minimal damage (2-5hp). if u have some grenades u could release the pin, but it should also do minimal damage (maybe 20-30hp). the main damage from a nade should be inflicted in the marine himself in this situation methinks. at least that way if you were low on HP when digested, the nade will kill you, therefore you respawn quicker.

2. once in the belly,or maybe even when you are travelling down there, if you have mines, you should be able to plant them, and they should cause signifiant dammage. if you let them off in intervals as you were being digested, the onos could recover from regen or a nearby DC, but i think if you primed 4 mines in an onos's stomach at once, surely the resulting explosion would tear a bloody big hole in the side of the thing. maybe for the sake of balance, if the onos is near a DC or hive the blast wouldnt kill it. that way as soon as the comm spots an onos, he wont spam nades, turning marines into edible bombs.

anyways thats about it, please feel free to comment on the ideas above, or any new ones that you'd like to see in the new version of natural selection.

*EDIT* oh yeah i know some of this stuff has been mentioned before (knifing, nades) but i'm retarded and my primative searches failed dismally...

The marine is dead before he gets to the throat

then why am i watching his stomach sqiggle istead of respawning?

I believe the dev team has mentioned somewhere that you will not be able to do anything at all while being digested by an Onos. Your bones get crushed and you're pretty much dead the instant you get eaten.

That is quite plausible and gives another reason for marines to carry grenades and mines, gives you chance to die with honour and mainly respawn faster.

- however i don't think any damage should occur to the onos, perhaps its just a tough on the inside, but its mainly balancing, been discussed a million times in the old i&s forums, and the general out come is, yeah it would be cool, BUT, mines 10 res vs 75 res onos, its a balance and exploit issue i guess.

Personally I HATE DIGESTION, even when I am an onos. It turns the onos into a complete wuss, tip toe into the base and lick a marine and run like hell.

I would like too it REPLACED , with say, more hit points for onos and a more interesting ability, it needs to be a tank. The whole point of digestion was really to deal with heavy armour - whats another way to deal with heavy armour, well they are heavy - so why not have the ability to knock them down instead, then the onos is free to trample or gore them as it wishes as they are unable to shoot, or move whilst they get back on their feet.
An Onos resource cost wise should be about equal to 3 heavy armours with guns ? roughly. So anyways i think the knocking over marines would allow the 3 heavy armours and the onos to have a pretty intense and balanced fight - letting skill determine the out come - instead of the onos digesting them one by one.

No devour is something which is quite unique to NS to have in a FPS environment (other RTS's like WarCraft III have it on certain units), but speaking gameplay wise, it's highly useful at taking a key marine player out of the field of battle for awhile. Digest that 1337-rine and you'll have bought your team extra time that he can't aimbot you team as well as removing any fancy gun or equipment he was carrying from marine recovery reach. You do the same kind of thing in WCIII (if you know how to play that is) you use your devouring unit to run in and eat one of their high level units and then run back behind the lines.

It sucks to get digested, so you try not to let it happen. Get resources, stay in a squad. It also is one of the few things making the onos have a bit of extra fearful attention from the marines, they'd rather let the skulks and fades kill them instantly then suffer a slow death.

The NS2 onos should be expensive and as scare the **** out of the marines class, not a push-over meatbag pansy like it became with NS1 v2.01 and after (especially in combat with ExtraLevels 3 plugin *ahem*).

Onos + bilebomb = alien siege
Onos + primal / umbra + healspray / bilebomb + new stuff? = ultimate alien siege

i wouldn`t say something, but must not the marine be ###### when he comes out?!? and bevore digestion doesn`t there come anything bevore digestion?!? NS ONE has votgotten something!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look.

You're dead.

Internal Damage = A bad idea.

Devouring should be beneficial.



At the very most, make it a coincidence that the onos swallowed a gameboy with tetris.

Yea i mean it sounds like a good idea, i always got mad of being eaten then sitting there for ages, especially in the xmenu versions where you had nano regen and extremely heavy armor how it took so long...but i mean like how do you propose you move when your being eaten by a giant mutant rhino? But actually the use of devour should be changed, because its stupid that when your fighting an onos, in one shot your automatically eaten...i think the onos should have to hold down the button when its close to someone, and that person cant move, and the onos slowly like...bends it head back, and the marine just sorta slips inside, but if the onos stops to soon and trys to run or something...then itll have problems...and maybe if it eats a heavy, have the heavy take longer to get in, or maybe just have them be crushed...

Here's an idea.

Since the marine is in the stomach, being digested, how about this?

Once a marine is digested, then he has an option - wait and see if he can be rescued, or suicide. Suiciding in the onos stomach would lead to a faster respawn, but the onos would still get the kill and would, as a bonus, get an HP boost to counter the fact that a player will be back in the game sooner.