The phase suit :
-researched through the protolab, as 3rd type special amour as an alternative to heavy armour and jetpacks.

-functionality
The commander equips a marine with the phase suit just like any other item.

While the marine(s) is wearing the phase suit, the commander can select these phase suited marines and by clicking a button on the commader interface it will enable the phase to "warm up" .

the commander then clicks at another location on the map /level and those marines are immediately phased to the new location.

(in short its like a phase gate, but without the phase gate, the commander has full control to teleport the marines from location to another)
(it can't really be abused cause you can just eject the commander, or don't pick up the phase suit in the first place, you could even put in measures to stop teleporting marines over pits and lava)

-cost/research time/cool down/warm up is undecided at this stage, it would be tweaked to suit gameplay and balance. (perhaps like a two way phase, so they can phase in and out, and then a long cool down etc)

useful for what?
-fast response units, can easily go from one fight, back to spawn to re-ammo/heal, then back to fight, or good as back between two frontline areas, can quickly reinforce either of the front lines

-for scouting and reconnisance

-setting up traps (imagine phasing in, mining up an area, phasing out)

-alternative to emergency/distresses beacon (easy to get back to base even when obs is down) (perhaps the functionality would be tied to a phase gate itself, or even the protolab for example. so if the protolab is taken down the phasing on the suits ceases to function).

-setting up sneaky phase gates to let the heavy armour and weapons through - perhaps phase gates will also be able to phase things like turret factories or seiges, so these phase suited marines go in, set up the prelimary facilities to let the big guns through.



it would be a great feature for interactivity between the commander and marines.

other possiblities?
the phase suits could perhaps have slightly more armour than vanilla marines or other features such as a secondary ability that is activated by the marines, or the commander, called phase shift, where the marines are partly phased in and out so that they are immune to damage or take only 1/2 damage for a short period of time. (cool down after)

great to hear a new original idea that hasnt been thought of before, now you're thinking with phase gates!
just to tweak the idea a bit here's my 2 cents:

1: the phase suits cannot be used to phase into any areas with DI. would you like the entire marine team to magicially appear in your hive?

2: when the comm selects a point to teleport them to, he can only select a general area (say 10-20m sq) and not pinpoint a vent or anything like that. that way its always a bit random and you never know exactly where you will end up.

3. comm can only control where the phase suit teleports to, he cannot teleport them back to base (except for beacon). the individual marine controls when he jumps back, eg he needs urgent ammo/meds, comm teleported him into a stupid place.....

hmm sounds like an awsome idea, and for once its a further development of tech from the ns 1 to something new.

I think the tech may be pretty limited if it could not be used in di areas, but something has to be in place to stop a rine team phasing in a trashing a hive uber quick. Maybe rines could get a sluggish period when they phase in if its in a DI area. meaning they have 5 secs of fuzzy screen and other functionalltiy problems. This problem could be more server the closer to the hive they tried to phase in. this teck would defo be useful for active defence, such as protecting rts, and locked down hives. Id love to see it in some form

I like the general idea but a bunch of marines appearing in your main hive all of a sudden is definitely way too powerful!

Even one marine is too much as he could simply build a phase gate for the others.


There has to be a huge nerv for this feature. Even extremely high costs and a long cool down are not enough.

they could nerf it a few different ways. to help with this phase-suit proposal i've coined the term "phase-jump" to differentiate it from normal phasing, and because i think it sounds cool.

make the phase-jump time take about 5 seconds or so - that way a lot of marines would be temporarily off the battlefield for a small period of time, giving the aliens a chance to wreak a bit of havoc. from the first person perspective make graphics of space/time warping, the previous location becomes a blur, you get a cool sort of "millenium falcon making the jump to light speed" thing happening, then space/time warps and the screen bends into the new location.

once activated from a 3rd person perspective, the marines start to fade for a sec or 2 (marines cant be hurt as soon as it is initiated, if you try to attack them its like punching a ghost), there's a big sucking/whooshing sound as the air rushes into the space that was once occupied by the marine (or a cracking sound, but i think it may be more suitable for re-entry, read further on... if anyone has read "wolfbane" by frederik pohl and C.M. Kornbluth they know what i mean)
on the other side of the map where they are going to end up, there are electrical discharges, lightening bolts licking the walls (the lightening doesn't hurt the aliens) illuminating the room , with a slight electricity "crackle" sound - not too loud, but an easily noticible sound to the trained ear of a nearby alien. it should be bright enough for any nearby alien to notice it (think of the terminator movies when they travel through time). the marines ghostly shapes appear, and after 2secs or so they are fully solid and can be attacked. once the marines become fully solid there's a pretty loud sonic boom sound, as the air that was in the space they are now inhabiting is pushed outwards faster than the speed of sound. if any dumdum aliens didint notice any of the other warning signals, this should get their attention.

for extra nerf-ness you could probably make the suits shimmer with light or be illuminated in some way. i imagine that these troops would be rapid response shock troops, and shouldnt be hiding in dark corners etc, that would be a waste of res. they should always be thrown into the thick of the battle, not sneaking down corridors. if you make them glow a bit, they will always stay in well lit areas, marine bases/outposts, or battle areas.

some other ideas:
make it so the comm can start the phase-jump, but can cancel this in the 2 secs before the hyperspace part of the jump kicks in. the marines fade a bit, then fade back, without moving. he would have wasted that phase-jump and would have to wait for it to cool down again, but on the other side of the map he's created a little mini thunderstorm in a corridor that will make the aliens freak out.

i guess a comm can phase-jump the marines anywhere - there and back again so to speak - but has to wait for the cool down timer before he can do it (i think this should be controlled by the obs, its more similar to beacon than anything else. the suits are upgraded at the proto). that way he could phase-jump people from one secured hive to double res for example.

marines can initiate their own emergency phase-jump at any time and maybe even without a cooldown timer(open to debate), but it will only phase-jump them back to a "primary observatory" that the commander selects. the first built obs is automaticially the default, and will be the primary obs unless the comm designates it to the other. that way if marines relocate, they will always go back to their main base, not marine start. make it so its free for the first obs to be the primary obs, but if you want to change it, it will cost you 30res or so to upgrade another one. the primary obs will look a bit bigger and different to the others, and there can be only one.
if the primary obs is destroyed and a marine tries to phase-jump back, he will go to the nearest obs, if there is one. if there isnt one, he can't emergency phase-jump, and is likely to get eaten quickly. the comm would need to build a new obs in base and upgrade it to the primary obs to get things back to normal.

to summarize:

alien
if you see a shimmering/glowing marine starting to become transperent, warn your team mates, because there's about to be a heap of marines popping up in double res or near a hive etc.
if you see random lightening bolts, or ghostly marines flickering into your vision, or hear a crackling sound nearby, warn your mates and tell em to get their respective bottoms there pronto - there's going to be a punch-on.
if you hear a sonic boom, start screaming for your mates to get there ASAP.
if there's a few aliens near the marine base and you see the marines start to flicker, get in there and attack the base - its going to be at least 10secs before they get back there (5secs to jump-phase there, 5secs to jump-phase back).
if you're rushing marine start, hit the primary obs first (most people do this anyways to prevent beacon)
if you are gorge (i'm guessing this is what they can do in NS2), try to spread DI around your hive enterances and double res, basically in any siege areas, so marines can't phase-jump there.
if you see a glowing human sitting in a dark corner trying *badly* to blend in with the surroundings, casually approach him and politely ask him if he would like a cup of tea and a biscuit (honestly, do i really need to tell you what to do in this situation?)

marines
if you're the comm, SCAN FIRST before you jump-phase your team, to make sure no aliens are nearby to see/hear it.
if you're comm and aliens start eating your primary observatory, tell everyone to phase-jump back ASAP.
if you're comm and you just lost your primary obs, build a new one in base and upgrade it ASAP, because in the meantime any marine that tries to phase-jump will go to the nearest obs, and could eventually make your entire phase-suit team get scattered around the map.
if you are a marine and the primary obs is killed, phase-jump to the nearest obs, hope there is a normal phase gate there, and phase back to base. if not, run back to base ASAP.
if you're a glowing marine sitting in a dark corner and an alien approaches you and attempts to persuade you with polite manners to have a hot beverage and pastry items, courtiously decline his offer, kindly inform him that you are required elsewhere, and phase-jump the hell outta there before he bites your head off. if your primary obs is down, and there is no other obs, accept his invitation and supply cuttlery, crockery and napkins.

sorry for the long post guys, its been a while since a really groundbreaking idea surfaced, and the more i type, the more ideas start popping into my head, turning a brief post into an essay.

ChronoLegionare FTW!!!!

+ Loud sound
+ Shockwave effect

And/Or... indicators for aliens to react.

Still too powerful?
Besides cool down and high cost try...
+ state of stasis, where player can't move or shoot
+ loss of armor (a new model would be sweet with a 'rine in civi clothing). Why? Armor can't go through for some later explained reason.
+ inherited sickness... teleported player gradually loses health, suppose comm can medpack but eventually the player will die due to phase sickness (or whatever)
+ stealing from Red Alert... teleport back automatically. The duration of stay is not long enough for one soldier to build a PG... yes, I know that's pretty short, but it's just an idea.

i guess it could be done instead of them being actual "ghost" like for a period.. but lots of people dislike stomp/webs/digestion as it is, it would be even worse if the commander initiated this sort of thing instead of the aliens. i think the ghost idea sounds cooler, i'd rather the marine be vulnerable once they are walking around and can control themselves, rather than phase-jumping in just to watch a skulk gnaw your ankles off.... also in the meantime the screen would be blurry during the jump and he wouldnt be able to see what is happening around him... an alien could walk up behind him and just wait until he becomes solid.


it sounds kind of silly to research a technology, only to have it break down the first time you use it. maybe after you do a few phase-jumps it starts to disintegrate. it would make the comm spend more money on welders... sounds good


that would be even worse, spend all that res to kit up a marine, just to have them die a few minutes later, no matter how many times you med them.
you could probably create a visual disorientation effect to each marine for 5-10secs after each jump, like what invader zim mentioned (think of han solo getting thawed from the carbonite in star wars), but a lot of people hate these in-game effects. search for topics on lerk gas hallucination, you'll see what i mean...
i'd like it though, it would provide a lot of balance to have people instantly appear in a part of the map, yet stagger around like they are drunk for a bit, making it harder for them to build or aim during that period, and easier for the aliens to attack them. maybe build times are halved during this period, meaning comm would have to give them cat packs to try to get them back to normal speed?
that also raises a whole new question, disorientation + catpacks = ??. really angry drunks instead or surly drunks?


good idea, but yeah, thats pretty short, hardly making this technology a viable tactic. if that was the case even if you didnt try to build stuff you wouldnt be able to deal any effective dammage before you phase-jump back. i think all of the phase-jumping needs to be controlled by either the commander or the marine, not an automatic timer.
considering what i proposed, the marines wouldnt be able to phase-jump too close to a hive/double res (unless the gorgies arent doing their job and laying down DI), and also there is plenty of warning that they will be in the area soon. after the warning period they would still have to construct the phase gate or TF which takes time as well....

How about making the phase suits reliant on the obs, make it borrow energy from the obs to phase around this way it limits the number of suits you can have because if you have too many you might not be able to have them all phase at once or you might just not be able to phase them back. Also, if you used this tech a lot and kept your obs empty of energy you would lose the ability to scan or beacon. Since it was suggested that there would be only one "primary obs" that they are connected directly to you wouldn't just build more obs to give them unlimited energy, though it would give you the ability to scan and beacon even if your primary obs has no energy. This way, you would have a limit on how many you could realistically have and still make it worthwhile, and could create some more strategic idea's. Do you want a few suits and make them phase all over the place, or do you want many suits and have one big do-or-die phase rush?

excellent idea on how to manage resources in regards to the 'primary obs'

say the primary obs has energy like all the others - but maybe a bit more because its the primary one. it can be used for scans, beacons (just like the others) or phase-jumps. but only the primary obs has the capability to do a phase jump, and to do a phase jump with the entire team (for arguements sake lets base it on NS1, so 7-8 marines) would use up all of its energy.

the commander would have to make a strategic decision with an element of risk. if you only had the primary obs you can either give half your team phase-suits and scan the area, or you can give the whole team phase suits, phase-jump them all in and hope for the best. if you didnt want to rush it you would need to build a secondary obs somewhere else to scan the area first (and to beacon later if you made a mistake), then phase-jump the team in.

so basically i think each marine that you would prepare for a phase-jump would require their own individual amount of energy, that can only be used with the primary obs. the more marines with phase tech, the more energy required. i guess if you had 9 marines but only enough energy for 6, then 3 would be left at base and would have to walk/normal phase from there....

this way you wouldnt need a specific cool down timer for the phase-jump so to speak, you just need the obs to slowly regain its energy under the current system, which is in effect a timer anyways, you cant make it gain energy any quicker. brilliant.

i still think the individual marine should have the ability to perform an "emergency phase-jump" back to base. maybe they have a battery pack inbuilt into the suit, good for 1 jump, that gets recharged whenever they are within a certain radius of the primary obs. that way if the primary obs is down and they use it, they go to the nearest normal obs. even if they get the primary obs back online, the marine has used his jump and would have to walk the rest of the way.
you could even make it so that they need to spend a small period of time near the primary obs for it to charge fully - with a meter to indicate the progresss/current charge. if they ony charge it half way and go back to the battle, then panic and try to phase-jump, it will drop them in a random part of the map, in this example probably about half way between the battle and the base. it would teach noobs to charge it up fully, or risk being stuck in a remote part of the map with a glowing phase-suit.....

Some really good ideas here. Teleporting to Non-DI areas with a few seconds of reaction sounds like a reasonable balance to me. It could always be tested.

definitely some nice ideas - just adding another into the mix

when the phasejump begins, the marines armour is destroyed so when they get to their destiation they weld each other or wait a little while for it to regenerate

edit: ust thoguht of another use - imagine an onos is in your base, you get it down to say 10-20% health and then it starts running for it.
being the awesome comm that you are, you phasejump a few marines into its path to finish it off

Wow, I'm impressed. This is an awesome idea.

This is really good idea ;0 , i hope max or charlie has read this thread .

I really dont like the idea.
It's far too powerful and dont require any teamplay.

What would be the point of going through the entire map if you can just telepot a marine then make him build a phase gate ?
Where would be the challenge ?

Imagine the lone survivor marine with 5hp that managed to reach the Hive and is now typing: Ok im in, give me a pha*
And a fresh marine phase-jump just near him with a big smile on his face.

The marine feel suddenly old....ah well


Yes there could be always some cons , but I dont like the general idea, Marines dont need this.
This dont add to the Phase-gate overall gameplay (which is great in term of teamplay) but subtract from it - which is bad imo.

for starters if its at the end of a tech tree then of course its meant to be reasonably powerful. so it needs to be on par with jetpacks and HA (otherwise nobody would use it) (jetpacks and HA would also be overpowered if they were an early game item)
also the entire thread is full awesome ideas which would help balance this new feature.
EDIT:- one idea being that it would take 2 or even 3 phase jumps to get across the entire map, so it would be as simple as you make it out. The challange would be that they would require a lot of attention from the commander in order to be used to their full potential, more so that HA which are fairly self sufficient. Which is a good thing, because at the later stages of the game where most of the marines structures are built, and all of the items are researched, all the commander does is equip marines (which needs to be streamlined also) and gives way points. So i'd say given the right circumstances the commander would have a bit more time to play with these guys.

you would still have marines trying to get through the areas of a map to sneak a phasegate somewhere early to later stages of the game, again its an end of tech tree feature.

This absolutley adds to the team play as there would be a need for communication between the commander and the phase suit marines - i can imagine it would be fairly useless teleporting marines into an area that they a) don't know what to expect and b) don't even know they are about to be phase jumped.
Not to mention the amount of tactics this opens up.
like diversionary tactics (omg there are marines in the hive, meanwhile the real battlation of HA walk into another hive...)
another one :- the comm wants to be really tricky, so he phase jumps 1/2 of the psmarines into one entrance of the hive, and then the other near the 2nd entrance of the hive trapping the aliens in somewhat.

if you don't like the feature thats fair enough, but some of the points you made suggest to me that you didnt even read the thread, let alone the entire first post.

"when the phasejump begins, the marines armour is destroyed so when they get to their destiation they weld each other or wait a little while for it to regenerate"

could we get a rine model that spawns in naked like the terminator on t1&2


"think of the terminator movies when they travel through time"


With paly testing a tweaking there will be dozens of different ways to make this tech balanced but useful

Very cool idea. Agreed, many ways to balance it. Perhaps a cooldown time of 1 minute, and complete removal of armor on phase. Normal tech cost (~40), but fairly high suit cost (~15-20), would make this a pretty cool alternate to the other proto techs. Would create quite the new ninja scenarios, and definitely boost SC's use.

Imo SC could use a boost as such (even though its not specifically getting a boost, just that there would be more reason to use it). It seems like DC is just the safest way to go with the 2nd hive, since SC vs HA is nowhere near as safe as DC in large pubs, due to onos. SC is still (obviously) the better of the two against JP, but DC can hold against JP far better than SC can hold against HA, again, in large pubs.

With the new PS tech (phase suit), the definite use of it would be for ninja PGs. You wouldn't want to balance it so that a comm could just suit up all his marines and phase them all in. It would be much better if the balance was made so that the optimal technique would be to suit up one or a few marines, who would get the PG up for the rest of the team, for the rush.

I think the best aspect of this concept would be for breaking out of the marines' last stand. Currently, it takes a rather skilled ninja or a very lucky JP to get out of almost any MS when the aliens have 3 hives and are 'trying to end it'. These scenarios can go on for quite some time. With a decent investment of res, the comm could get PS tech, and try his luck at dropping the marine in a good enough spot, at a good enough time, to get that pg up and try for a hive rush.

Perhaps the one way to work the suit would be to click on the marine, give him a waypoint, and then have a little box come up on the status bar (bottom middle of the screen) that is asking if thats where you want him to phase to. Then, when its ready, the actual PGs light up a certain colour, perhaps just for the PhaseSuited player, or perhaps a colour that corresponds to the player (he glows green too, say). Then when he phases, he goes to that location, with the full portal entry of choice (sound, light, whatever).

This method would not allow multiple phases (since the player would need to use a PG), and thats too much of a decision for me to make. I think either way could work pretty well, its all about balancing either route.

thats definitely a good tactic for the commander to use, and would probably end up being the most popular. but i think the comm should still have the option to suit up the entire team and phase-jump them if he wishes to.


another good idea on how to use this tech. it could be very useful in these circumstances, or very costly, depending on how the comm uses it. if there are 3 hives and most of the aliens are outside spawn trying to attack it, if most of the team phase-jumps out to attack a hive, they leave the base extremely vulnerable to that final rush that will end the game.
and by this stage in the game, the aliens would control most of the map, therefore there would be heaps of DI everywhere. the comm would have to scan several areas before he could find a spot that is relatively clear of DI to do the phase-jump, and most likely it would be an area that is far away from any hive/double res node.
also, usually in this example aliens are starting to block marines into spawn with oc's and dc's... if they were smart gorgies they would still do this to block jp'ers and HA's, but also spread DI through the map to prevent marines phase jumping, and also SC's to pick up marines with SoF if they do phase-jump.


i like the idea of selecting specific marines for the phase jump - if your whole team has a suit but you can only phase-jump half of them. you could choose your best players phase-jump, to make sure they get the job done.
i dont think the phase gates should light up, or be part of this tech whatsoever. sure the technologies are similar, but they are ultimately fundamentally different. the only structures that are used by this tech would be the proto (to research the suits) and the primary observatory (to initiate the phase-jump).
and i'm definately against each marine glowing a different colour. the suits should all glow the same colour (i'm thinking white, it would stand out the most in dark areas) so that its easily identifiable to the alien team.
would you really want the entire team to glow every colour of the rainbow? they are phase-jumping to an area to wreak havoc and destruction, not phase-jumping to a rave party to bust a move.

i like this idea, it give the impression that the marines have invented this revolutionary technology (some time between NS1 and NS2), but they havent mastered it. because its obvious benefits outweigh the possible negatives, they have rusned it out, but its a bit unstable, and prone to slight failure. its a bit like that movie "timeline", where sometimes when people are teleporting through time they wouldnt be fully "scanned" and would get slight errors, resulting in some"packet loss" (in the movie the packet loss would be a large part of his intestines, or legs etc).

i dont like the idea of 100% of the marines armor being removed when they phase-jump, a single skulk with focus could wipe em out almost instantly. i'd prefer it if the amount of armor loss for each marine was random, 1 marine could have 70% of his original armor, and the guy next to him could have only 15%. that way the marines are still disadvantaged and need to weld each other, but the armor loss is not universal to the whole group, and highlights the slight random flaws of the technology.

As far as the story goes, don't marines kind of phase jump into maps already? At the start of a match, when there is no tech in the place, not even a infantry portal, how do all the marines get into the map? What is it about the Kharaa that doesn't allow the marines just to phase jump into the hive at the start of the match?

I think the answer is that phase jump tech is already there, but it requires the energy of a star ship and is good only for one time, after which the marines need a infantry portal so it costs less energy and is more accurate (two objects moving in space...). Emergency beacon just seems to be an "assist" by the tech that put the marines in the map in the first place, thus why it costs so in structure and energy. I wonder if that observatory thing could have a costly research option of decreasing marine spawn times...

Another answer IMHO is that there the infestation around a hive counters phase tech for the most part, thus the need of a physical phase gate to get around that in turn. I wonder in what other ways an infestation that is now dynamic would counter marine tech... Fog of War, anyone? Screwing with Motion Tracking or limiting the Commander's view and/or abilities in some way...

IMHO, any phase suit tech should require a functioning phase gate, observatory, infantry portal, and prototype structures, plus not be allowed to jump to any area influenced / covered by the infestation. In this way it would be similar to when the Kharaa negate the Advanced Armory by destroying it, it wouldn't delay the end game unnecessarily, and finally make it a tech that would be used more as a way to jump behind enemy lines or flank, then say to suddenly beam the team into the hive. Once there are those limitations on it, I don't know why it would need to be nerfed any further as it would need to be in some ways as viable for the return on investment as say other high marine tech tiers.

also here is another twist

if marines didn't get phase suits - what if the fade had a very similar ability?

Fade player hits the superblink button, the fades screen zooms out into a view much like the marine commanders, and the fade player click where he would like to appear.

I think it sounds pretty killer, but what happens when you slip and click on a wall ? would you get
like a *SPLAT* effect ?

I'm not sure if you were trying to make it a joke but I think, given the highly experimental nature of this technology, that this should happen if the player tries to teleport some place where something all ready exists.

Well I still like the idea, even though I play Kharaa and would be totally caught off gaurd if 3-5 rines
phased right on top of my position. Good Post ^_^

OMG so much to quote. This idea has merit and negatives.

Things I think, be they brought up before or not.


Built upgraded at Proto lab

Is droped by com picked up by marine,
marine is then selected. A large, large green ring apears around him, area's that have DI are marked red or when you try and place the marine there his placement silhouette is red. All though a second smaller brighter green ring might work with in DI area's, I belive the suits shouldnt require a obst, whats the point other wise they should be self contained.
apon clicking the marine to a jump point his suit notifys him and those around him of a jump with a 4 seconds warm up, then there is a cool visual limbo for a fraction of the time say 5 seconds, apon exiting limbo he gets a image that rapidly becomes clearer then he gains control.
It's with in this time he should have the option to recall back his building time should be halfved perhaps he's drunken dureing this short period its with in this period that a single jumper shouldnt beable to complete a phase gate.
Jumping should produce a exstreamly visable and audible VFX at both exit point and rentry.
its with in a small time frame that this marines vision becomes clearer before the auto recall timer kicks in, it would prolly be close to ten seconds. Before said soliders suit has a valuable cool down timer of 40 seconds. before it could be fired up again.

A phased marines suit would get him out of devour if he was eaten while phased, phased marines suits should have a great phase nanite like look but really be a bright glowing blue while in the temparary phased state.

Artistic ways a com can use this

tracking down that near death fade
fakeing a onos with meal
a quike free jump back to base to resupplie
weapon retraval of that lost shot gun
jumping over defences to see if there are any secondary defences
getting to a weld point/or to weld something
temparly out of imminent death to med in a safe enviroment
droping and build taging a res node so it becomes complete
easly controling ways in and out of a hive
slight of hand
flanking manovers
baiting
getting noobs on track
pointing newbs in the right direction
takeing away some aspect of free choice




I think it needs a Range/distance limitation, or your going to see this as way to over powered.
I think armor needs to stay but perhaps drop the armor amount and give it a slight regen like ability like defualt kharaa have, after all its phase and ninite enhanced armor.



As for the fade useing this technology, NO WAY, fades get portal guns, marines cant see the portals but fades can drop two portals at any given time go in one and out the other vice vercer, perhaps drop one portal then let it sit go around a few courners sort of like a recall, but droping portals on the move would be bound to line of sight projectile fireing. that or give the gorge this ability but dumb it down make it like a freebie maintinace thing to asist with building or helping out other kharaa, as really the way blink is now is cool but could use some visual touch ups and its old speed back. blink also doesnt need to be throw back into the stone age and made useless by makeing one nasuated or getting them killed as your FPS view zoomes out too a 3d top down view so you can then get skatered and fine were you want to teleport to next, all while in the heat of battle, how does yoru fade stear while your picking a new location?

Nice post

absolutely, its gotta have cons and pros, it needs benefits, but it needs limits and counters so it will add to the game and not ruin anything that ns already has going.

I think that if implemented, the phase suit should also have a player initiated ability similar to the old teleport blink. This is how I imagine it could work; the Marine takes out his PS controller, forcing him to unequip any weapon, looks where he wants to teleport to, then holds down the fire button for 5 seconds, during which time the PS will emit a really loud whining charge-up noise and restrict his sensitivity to almost paralyzed. After 5 seconds the marine is teleported to within 5 meters of where he was aiming - so it would not be easy to get in high places that normally require a jetpack to reach. After teleporting, he is deaf for 5 seconds and his armor emits a lot of sparks and buzzing noise. The cooldown would be something like 15 seconds, so once you jump you are very vulnerable. Also, anyone equipped with a phase suit should constantly produce a distinct buzzing sound and have strips of glowing light on their armor; phase gates aren't exactly stealthy.

I also think that a commander-initiated jump should have a set range, so it would be more useful for passing through walls than getting all the way across the map. Also, the further the commander teleports the marines, the further they should spread apart.

That's just my take. I don't think this tech should replace phase gates at all, just give the marines the ability to travel more quickly and pass through solid barriers.

because NS maps dont have wide open spaces, and this system is based on line of sight, it wouldnt be very useful at all. due to the delay times, it would take longer to phase down a corridor than to simply walk down it. the only possible use for this would be to phase onto high ledges etc, but as you say, it wouldnt be suitable for this purpose. you aim at the ledge, phase, and appear 5m away from it, and fall to your death...

I think he worded it badly, and simply meant that the players looks on the map, etc. Cuz yeah, requiring Line of Sight would be retarded on this.

yeah that makes a lot more sense. still, i'd prefer it if the comm determined the main phase-jump. that way he can control his expensive phase-suit marines better, fitting in with his strategy. without that you'd get phase-suit rambos, that would be easily killed. also, comm can scan the intended destination to make sure its safe before the jump.
just leave it so the individual marine can phase-jump back when he wants to, that would be a definate requirement.

Nah, Buzzou understood my idea the first time. I was thinking the marine could use it to ambush aliens if he has motion tracking. Imagine being a skulk at the end of the intimidation corridor on ns_nothing, when suddenly a marine pops out of thin air in front of you and shoots you in the face.

I just thought it should give marines a sort of nerfed blink ability so that they have some control over the phase suit, not just the commander. It would kind of suck if you could only use your jetpack when the commander activated it, or if your heavy armor didn't protect you without the commander watching over you. The commander could still teleport them through walls and such, so they could get much closer to the hive/siege spot but not teleport directly outside it or in it.

I enjoy this idea, but I dislike the phase suit being used for anything other than scouting. It should be a trade-off instead of purchasing a heavy weapon because the mechanics could postentially ruin gameplay, particularly if two or three people can jump in and tear up the entire opposing squad.

that the fades get the portal gun is only a suggest, more not
and its not stone age when you see a map (what is nasuated?)
i think he mean that as a secondary or as 4. hive ability (3D map zoom )

but when marines have phase suits
what have aliens?

when a comm teleport 5 phase guys whit hmgs
two corrner away from your hive
what is the counter?

i dont mean the nerf
i mean the counter , what have aliens to move over the hole map in 10 seconds?

But the counter can be built into the nerf.

We havn't laid out anything too specific in this thread. But there have been ideas.

What if the marines all lost their armor on phase? And if the act of phasing took a full 5 seconds of vulnerability on either side? and was really loud? And each phase suit cost 20 res?

Five marines with phase suits and HMGs would alone cost 175 res. Add in some welders (since they lost their armor) and you're almost at 200 res, not even counting the cost of the tech. Plus, the marines would be very vulnerable for the first couple seconds, and aliens will get extra warning of the phasing that occurring, from the sound.

Or you could make it so marines can't carry anything but a pistol when they have the suit on. Or just an lmg/sg, etc. You could do a lot of things to balance out this tech, and I definitely think its a tech worth balancing out.

Suggestion: Add an upgrade at the proto that lets a player use the suit to phase a short random distance within the same room.

+1 arcade style gameplay elements

Hah, cool bonus idea. I dont know about 'random' though. Maybe it could be similar to the old Fade blink? I'd picture it as this: the player looks at the ground and alt-fires, then sees a marker placed there. As long as he stays in range, if he click the other button, he teleports there. Can't do it too much, but it would be cool and fun for short-range combat. Also for gaining access to difficult areas.

I've been thinking the phase suit was way over powered or too much risk at high cost till now. Make the phase suit only do this, and trust me, the ability to retreat fast putting distance between you and an enemy is very powerful. This I believe plays way more with how a marine uses defenses and ranged combat to get the upper hand, as opposed to the speed and melee power of the kharaa. Still have it be a high tech so it comes in on the later game, but this could be a very fun way to play if you were on a well coordinated team, even though you would have less armor. Possibly use a marine with the armor like bait? Good chance it could work, better than a marine's chances baiting without it.

hmm, i didn't like the idea of the phase suit at first. seems a bit too powerful.
also, i think you should still be able to phase into DI areas, but the alien team should receive a notice, and/or the 'energy' required would be greater.

the phase suit seems quite.. powerful. perhaps too much so, i think more than a tweaking of numbers (charging, energy, stasis, disorientation etc.) and such, you should (as someone suggested) give the alien team something good too. a counter. (imo, counter =/= nerf.)

the "phase suit" i'm talking about up to this point is the 'commander-controlled' long-distance phase suit, the original idea.

more recently surfaced is another idea - the short-range teleporting suit,
I don't like it at all.
that's way too much like a fade. (or rather, how a fade should be)

i agree 100%. i thought the long range suit sounded amazing - definately the best idea to come out of the I&S forum for ages, hence why i went nuts thinking of intricate ideas on how it could work, and how it could be nerfed.

i dont agree that there should be an alien class or ability to nerf it, i think that any nerfing should be inbuilt into the actual marine technology when they develop/playtest it (if they do). aliens will still have features to counteract phase-suits, eg their faster speed, movement chambers, hive teleport, or the new tubes idea they mentioned in a previous podcast....

This is my thinking as well. Comm controlled phasing, not marine controlled blinking.

You can't tell me that wouldn't be fun.

We're telling you that would be stupid. :/

hehe

marine controled is to strong
also this idea have a great cance to be implemented

but i stay to me loved jp

There's no such thing as too strong in a resource oriented game.

No, I'm saying it's fun to do as a fade.

I guess that's a good point if they make fades back to what they were a long time ago. If they're just planning on keeping blink as is, I think it wouldn't water down the teams' differences too badly though.

If there's gonna be a short-range teleporting ability for ANY unit in the game, it would have to be for the fade.

i thought the fade is getting a portal gun

First of all, great idea, however it is implemented.


Comments on the various ideas presented:
If it is comm controlled:
How about only being able to teleport phase suit marines to other phase suit marines. That way it would be like an advanced mobile phase gate.


If it is marine controlled:
Yes, a long delay "old blink" would be cool. There could be a warpy space effect on the wall where you fire it and after 5 seconds you teleport there. Maybe you could switch weapons and shoot stuff before the phase occurs. Of course aliens could ready themselves to chomp you there as well. Kind of like the nemesis of the movie "Chronicles of Rid######". Also you could get to places jetpacks can, or bypass a wall of lame. It would be a tactical move too because you could anticipate when aliens would close the distance and you would teleport right as they get in melee range. Maybe there would be a glowy thing that moves between where you were and where you're going, so it isn't like blink-blink where'd he go? The mobility would be enough, if you disappear with it, it would be overpowered for sure. Also, it could be ammo-based. OOOh and imagine this, being your own bait...by timing it to phase you back right as you jump out through a doorway.