I'm suggesting a few changes to the function and developments of the alien races in order to address some imbalances in the game and at the same time make it a bit more intuitive.

One problem in NS was the huge difference in the mid-game aliens. Basically, one skilled fade was so powerful it would dominate a (public) game whereas a skulk was little more than a nuisance at that point. "Fade, GG" was a pretty common chat-line for a long time at the first apperance of a good player gone Fade.

I've come up with two main changes, and the first addresses the huge difference between early game skulks and mid game fades. Basically I want the fade to be somewhat less powerful, and the developed skulk to be somewhat more powerful. Imagine the follwing structural change:

Aliens can use all evolutions from a chamber simultaneously. For example you can get Carapace AND regeneration AND redemption. Also, you KEEP these upgrades when you re-spawn.

BUT...

The cost is increased to (for example) 10pts per upgrade.

Result:

For 50pts you could now either have a completely un-upgraded Fade or a Skulk with carapace, regeneration, silence, celerity and redemption (assuming 2 hives and Move+Defense).

I would say that a vanilla Fade is still more powerful than a "super skulk" but seen in a time-fram perspective you will by going the super-skulk path become gradually more powerful up until super-skulkness, whereas if you chose the fade path you will sacrifice early game power for mid game power (assuming you live that long). Of course dying as a Fade will cause you to have lost your investment so a more reasonable strategy would be to get at least some upgrade(s) before going Fade.

Additional possible tweaks:

- The upgrade costs within the tech branch increases, for example getting your first Defense upgrade will cost 10, your second 15 and your third 20pts.
- If a hive dies, all its associated upgrades stop working
- If a hive dies, all its associated upgrade chambers start deteriorating
- You need 3 chambers of a kind to get level 2 upgrades, and 9 chambers for level 3



I'm sure there are several flaws to this idea but I thought it would be interesting to throw it our there because I think the early game/mid game and skulk/fade imbalance needs to be adressed in order to create a smoother development curve.

*** Disclaimer***

I haven't played NS for a long time and haven't kept up to date with the development of NS2 so I this might be obsolete, implemented or simply retarded. I do however look forward to the (hopefully imminent) release of this most anticipated sequel.

interesting idea indeed. at least that's my thought...

I though see a problem (as expected? )

This will somehow #### the current res system for the aliens up. Under certain circumstances you would find a lot of "super-skulks" and one vanilla fade. I could imagine this being somewhat of a mess if the marines had just SGs lvl 2...

That's a few hits to the vanilla fade, (I don't remember the damage for sg, but i guess it's only about 4 - 6 hits, if not less, which should be easily achieved with a little group of 2 SG marines.) and the skulks would only require 1 - 2 hits... At this point you wouldn't have any lifeforms that truely can counter the marines with thiere even small SG groups.

but i see the advantage if the fade now had skill to stay alive, to get res for upgrades via kills, or waiting for the res to come.

3 hits = no cara fade down.


1 hit on all skulks at any time providing enough pellets hit.

The whole uniqueness of NS lies in the difference between the races, where a marine's strength increases consistently through the tech tree and alien's strength only increases at the 50res tick and the 2nd hive up tick. Of course if you play on public servers, you'll never appreciate the perfect balance between marines and aliens.

You are onto something though, skulking is boring and needs to be fixed. Fading on the other hand is way too much fun since you know you're about to embark on a 40+ kill spree in pubs because nobody can aim.

I love skulking untill it's against some heavier armor, one hit kill guns, and turrets :S