I think it would be nice if the aliens had a "Commander" also, but with a different twist.

Some Ideas as to how it could possibly work.

The alien commander, unlike marines, isn't something that players may start with early in the game. It's an upgradable feature that takes about 30 or so res..

When a player reaches the res requitements, he or she may mutate with and into the hive.

The benefit of a player doing this is that now, he/she has direct contact with the Hive's knowledge and may communicate it to other players.

For example:(possibilities)

When inside the hive, players can only see an area around their teammates, and may "Hear" an infested area when their mouse is over it.

This makes marines extra cautious, about proceeding into an infested territory while encouraging stealth(sneakiness).

Infestation could be fought with flamethrowers, without alarming an alien commander. Only an attentive commander would notice parts of their visibility is slowly fading away.

Also, I think it would be nice if an alien commander had the ability to give waypoints, and to organize groups without calling them squads.
This way, in NS2 you'd find more aliens attacking in an organized/ intelligent fashion, rather then a single stray skulk being caught with his pants down or aliens just all going to a highlighted area. It could encourage teamwork and tactical teamplay when dealing with marines..


But these are just some incomplete thoughts =o maybe someone will think of somethin better

Just saying, the Hive Mind has been discussed before. That said though, I do think there are some good ideas here.

The flip side of the one idea for having a sort of fog of war for the Hive Mind (AC) would be that while the infestation improves his "vision", I would like to suggest that the Marine Commander's vision in an area where there is infestation would be decreased.

A little idea on the "not squad named" part, you could call Kharaa squads Packs, like a wolf pack.

I do disagree with one idea though, I do not think the Kharaa should have their Hive Mind inaccessible at a round start, it should not require evolving (upgrades) to be invested in.

Also, I think Kharaa Hive Mind should have bonuses or give bonuses based on how "collective" (proximity?) a team can get, like they see improves in their bio mass thanks to being symbiotic with each other or improves awareness by being one with the Hive Mind aka, follow the directives of a Hive Mind, gain something of a bonus (deliberately leaving vague so as not to incite flames of over powered or useless, thus leaving up to the Devs to decide what a bonus should be...).

Hey =] I like this idea. NS1 is very predictable in deciding who'd win... Not being able to see parts of the map could have a big impact even if your at a res advantage.


I think it would give the game "Less predictablility" when trying to see who'd win in the end.

That's somethin i think NS2 should really put an effort to fix..
and I think a "Hive Mind" could help.

I think there should be random variables on EACH map, that appear @ random times in the map and can give an advtange to either team.. both team's commanders could be alerted to the ship's new accessable feature, and a mini war would start in trying to obtain it before the other team..

I'm still thinking on the details of this.. but w/e it is It should unpredictable for when it appears and where it appears..

For example:

Agreed, and MT should give false signals on infestation too.

The original post about alien squads reminded me of this post{Quorum Sensing}.
The basic ideas are this:

- Quorums are formed the same way as marine squads(proximity)
- A.) The dominant lifeform of the group confers a minor bonus(NOT FULL) based on it's type. (ie skulk - celerity, lerk - adrenaline, fade - cloaking, onos - focus, gorge - carapace)
- or B.) The quorum leader is chosen by the kharaa commander and all kharaa in the quorum receive 1 level of the leader's upgrades.{unless there is only one level currently available: bonus_level = floor(leader_level/2)}
- The leader can be quickly switched by the kharaa commander.
- No player can have more than three levels of an upgrade.(ie: if I have level 3 cara and the quorum leader has that upgrade, I still only have level 3 cara and not level 3 cara + Quorum bonus)

jjr: For example?

I kinda do like the general idea though, as well as the "pack"/"quorum sensing" ideas. Yeah.

i actually love the idea to have an alien commander. Its improving teamplay a bit (forming squads
due to strategical reasons, building and evolving out of tactical reasons etc.) and one guy
is controlling the aliens in the same way as the marine commander does.

this would solve problems like:

- resource system (one resource pool for each team)
- team equality (both teams have same amount of active players)

How alien commander could work:

one guy clicks on any hive and enters it (impressive idea )

What you see then is just normal top down view like marine commanders but
different style (fitting to kharaa)

if you click on hive you can "build" lifeforms. For example: mutate to fade unlocks for one
player to gestate to fade (exakt mechanism should be diskusses)

same with gorges. and if you click on gorge you get options to build structures and where
to place them. So that gorge has now the possibility to drop an OC or whatever comm has decided but
only at the spot you told him.


So, resource system for aliens has to be tweaked. 20 seconds after match starts a fade appears, that would be not
so nice, so there need to be done some adjustments.
But for me this change would add: more fun for aliens (more coordination, marine comm is always fun to me so
alien comm would be too), possibilty to balance the game more easily

the kharra are one, the hive, the skulks, the fades, the infestation is all 1 organism, just splited into pieces.

i would love it when the alien "commander" could reflect this.
instead of 1 player become commander, the AI give bonuses on usefull players. or automaticaly spread infestion in hallways and routes who are most used by the alien players. heck! when the AI detect a wounded player on DI, he could use on of his abilitys on him. ( become one whit the infestion for stealth, or get teleported back to hive. )

i suggest a AI bundle who dont really make decisions, but enforce and support the decisions of the team, help endangered players, maybe do a alien beacon when the hive is under 25-40% (once or twice max )
all players are commanders whit this, in a indirect way,

another thing the AI could do is help gorges, IE, when a gorge build OC and DCs, and spread some infestions there, the AI will detect that and let the DI grow faster, or give a building regeneration in this area.

This is the kind of thing alien comm needs - a radical departure from the marine gameplay, while still being useful.

I love the idea of making it a "gestate into" feature instead of just starting as an alien comm.

Also, I would give the alien comm short range visibility on parasited marines (about 5-10 feet out from them). You could tint the marine view blue, and the alien view orange.

LOL:

How about this upgrade costs somewhere around 35 res (meaning comes out a little bit after the lerk). But as a tradeoff, the alien comm can, at any time, burst out of the chest of a parasited marine, forfeiting his 35 point investment, but killing the rine instantly or he can infest any marine who's touching dynamic infestation - again, forfeiting his res and position as comm, but taking control of the marine's character. This would function as death for the victim, but would allow the commander to move and shoot just like he was on the opposing team - there would be a distinct graphical change in the model of course.

when I wrote my post I had the picture in my head playing StarCraft with Zergs
I loved to play with them, and I would love to do the same in Natural-Selection.

But I dont know what the devs intend to change. If they want to make such drastical changes
or not? Or if they want to keep both teams as unique as they are now (in all manners)?

But Im sure that any drastical change will come to fill the leak between professional games and
public games, regarding resource system (varying amount of players) and individual strength
of units.

it would be worth it to at least think about including that "alien commander" and what benefits it
could bring (more teamplay, unified resource system solves problem between marines & aliens
res handling under dynamic amount of players, choice of chambers, unified tactics as long as kharaa
obey the comm)