Cloaking has always been a bother, and it always leads to "DROP AN OBS DROP AN OBS DROP AN OBS" or "GET MT GET MT GET MT". Both of which, yes, are a good idea, however its fairly limited to these. Making sensory as the first chamber a bit bothersome, and always leads to the same thing.

Beacon Sensors are dropped by the commander, they are essentially like mines. A marine takes it, and places it like a mine on any surface. Beacon Sensors would be an upgrade from the Observatory, and be dropped within the Observatories range. Perhaps costing 5 resources each.

What this beacon sensor will do, is detect cloaked aliens in a SMALL radius around itself (about 1-2 metres). On top of that, every 15 seconds, it will emit a high frequency ping. This will actually make a loud sound to players, allowing aliens to know there is a Beacon Sensor nearby. What this high frequency ping will do, is somewhat like sonar. It will work like motion tracking, revealing the location of all lifeforms (aliens AND marines) around it. However it will show the size of the lifeform with the ping (in the size of what the sprite marines see), so you can tell somewhat what it is. This ping will not uncloak aliens.

These would be a fantastic counter-measure to sensory chambers! Trying to hide these littles sensors all over the map, behind pipes, above doorways, even in a hive! Imagine you are trying to siege a hive, they have Sensory, and are building in a hall way. Aliens would try to sneak their way in, before you got the phase and some turrets up. Stick one of these babies on the roof near the entrance and WHAM, small radius cloak detection and 15 second interval pings.

Aliens would be able to destroy these with any direct attack. Parasite could defect the Beacon Sensor, halting its cloak detection for 30 seconds.

Obviously, the name is just the first lame thing that came to my head. Something like High Frequency Sensor (HFS) would be better.

Feedback?!

While this is an interesting idea, there's one downside in your original idea that I don't like.

You mention that they have to be placed within range of the observatory. I think a stronger suit would be able to be placed anywhere, but an Obs needs to be active to use them. Either that or we're talking about a huge range from the Obs.

I'm not sure about pinging also showing Marines, unless this is simply due to sonar not differentiating friend from foe. however, it's probably an unnecessary confusion. Either that or the difference between the two have to be fairly strong.

Overall, interesting.

I thought this topic was going to be about giving the kharaa a chamber/ability that detected when marines beaconed. Darn, I was hoping to make jokes about gorges being bacon sensors all ready.

Switching gears, it is nice to see new tech, but what is the advantage of dropping a sensor over an obs? Cost and build time? I think the scanner sweep fulfills this role, and scanner sweep and obs together cover cloaking well enough all ready.

I suppose for the marines this could be good, but for the aliens, having decloaking all around the map? then what's the use of having cloaked skulks at start? I always have fun when im building a RT and a Invis-Skulk jumps out of nowhere and attacks me . maybe having a parisite on the beacon sensor could ping the marines for the aliens to see them?

Well, with some tweaking it might make the sc 1st far more interesting than it is now. I just don't know if its a good idea to have sc in NS2 in first place.

First, thanks for the mature feedback.




I'm not quite sure what youre getting at with that first paragraph. I meant the commander must drop them within an Observatories range, the marines can drop them anywhere.

Showing marines or not isnt really that important, i think it could add to the confusion AND/OR benefit of this, for example, you might see a marine through a wall, with a cloaked skulk behind him, and run to the rescue.





The main advantage of this is deployability. It is a quick fix, for when you dont have time to get an obs up, not to mention itd just be useful to have some at key choke points around the map.

I'm actually stating to think that the scan MUST be activated by the commander. However theres a 30 second or so cool down on this. So its more just a cloak detector. But it has a side benefit too, which is essentially saving the energy of an observatory. Everyone knows obs run out of energy fast, when the commander knows what theyre doing. I often end up having 3+ obs at my spawn when the enemy has cloak.





Do note, that the decloak range of these is quite small, you would need hundreds of these things to get even close to full map coverage. Also, if a marine isnt near the Beacon Sensor, one bite and its gone, 5 resources wasted for marines.

i'd place 15 in spawn, with a brief 1sec pause between placing each one.

that way every second there would be a loud "PING!" in base, and would force people to stop armory humping and leave spawn, or stay and listen to PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING!

Haha, hows that different to a turret farm >.<

Now, a turret farm + 14125 of these things, thatd sound nice.

Well your idea it pretty fair. Usually ideas related to Sensory seems a bit more like a rant, but not here.


My only issue was going to be how it survives, but you do say it is just one bite. That seems proper since it isn't built up like a structure, but is it still worth it? As an Alien my role is stealth, recon, and support. I'd go out of my way and even uncloak just to take out these sensors. That accomplishes two things, making me visible and taking away from the time I could be attacking things. But it also means it is going to have a very short lifespan, and a single sensor won't relay much info then. Even if it were to be placed by the traditional electrified-combo, just a quick dash and bite would suffice.


Then I also wonder about how would it relay the visual data. Would it be like MT and show anything that moves near it? Would it only update when it scans every 15 seconds? Does it show even non-moving stuff then? Do the markers last only a slight while or until the next scan?

With Slience & Cloaking being my greatest power, I've had to work against their weaknesses. As things are now, Motion-Tracking is not a sufficient counter to either, as I manipulate my movements well enough so that it is nearly useless. That is of course your reason for bringing this idea up, but it seems like there will be methods of outdoing the sensor feedback present still. Such as when present within vision range of a marine. Unless the marker is still present even then...



Awesome idea, and easy too.

Thanks for the reply;

First and foremost, a big part of these will actually be for rapid anti-sensory deployment. Meaning that you will often have marines around them. So biting them may not be that easy. Second use would be to hide some at key points of the map, behind pipes... in little corners. They would be somewhat hard to see, and depending on the map, marines could hide them very well. Also, mind you, the only lead aliens have to these is sound. It really will be a case of hotter/colder or louder/quieter for finding them.

The visual data, alright;

First with the short range permanent detection, this would work exactly the same as an observatory, in that it will uncloak aliens, put them on the map, and show a motion tracking type thing for players. Remember though, the detection range for these is very small. Imagine this, for its range. A marine places a Beacon Sensor on the ground, and stands on it. Then another marine stands on his head. Both marines are standing up fully, now a cloaked skulk stands on the top marines head. This skulk would not be uncloaked. That skulk would be just outside of maximal range.

Then onto the high frequency scans. What the marines will see from these scans is some kind of blob of random distortion. The bigger the alien, the bigger the distortion. The further the alien, the smaller it gets too. These scans would just essentially work like Scent of Fear or Motion Tracking for ONE scan frame. That is, you will see the distortion on the map, and in your FOV, but it will not follow the alien, it'll just be an instantaneous thing, which will remain for a few seconds on that spot. The main idea of this is to give marines some knowledge of how many aliens are nearby, and which direction they are coming from.

Last of all, you are right, there will of course be counters for this (which is good, i'd hate to think of something without a counter ). But it will be a somewhat different counter to motion tracking or lots of observatories around the map. Making Sensory Chambers games more dynamic and enjoyable in that marines will have more of a choice in how to combat it.

Not a bad idea. It'd be even better if the ping signaled a decloaking pulse of a range approaching 5m or so. A cloaked alien would have to time their attack so as to not be hit by the pulse. This'd make them pretty powerful, provided intelligent placement and timing of placement. Cost would be adjusted accordingly. Perhaps the decloak effect would only last for half a second or so.

--Scythe--

Thanks I do like your idea of timed pings that detect, so aliens could listen, then rush after the ping.

Obviously the specifics of the deployable could be varied, its moreso just a concept for a deployable anti-sensory (and useful other times) item.

All i had to do is read the title of the thread to realize holy crap this is a good idea just by how it sounds. This would be awesome, but sense the observatory already de-cloaks aliens nearby... These could be used outside of the base when the marines are trying to fortify a certain area. Reminds me of the movie with a bunch of blue evil space monkey and all those lights turn on when they came near the sensors. Yes i now i'm weird but i can't remember the name of the movie.

Cloaking is the noob-upgrade by design, it should be bad. Making cloak 100% was a poor choice in my opinion.

A good commander will redirect his shotgun/welder resources into a second obs and scan the ###### out out the aliens, and the marines will absolutely dominate.

The problem is, a lot of commanders don't know how to counter 100% cloak sensory, and I don't know how you could make it simpler than how it is. Probably the best answer would be:

1) Make cloaking only partial, like it used to be ~3.0 (maybe a little earlier)

2) Create darkness model obscurement, which is just "if a model is in a really dark area (or if you want a simpler system, just make a brush entity that cloaks you), then stop broadcasting it at all, similar to 100% cloaking.

I honestly dont have a big problem with cloak. However, the problems you stated are based on newbie players, not the game itself.

For example, you stated many comms do not know how to counter it, and all their means just get cloak killed. Yes, newbie commander.

However, if a commander chooses to invest significant resources into multiple observatories. Aliens often forget that focus and scent of fear are very good upgrades too. A lot of people forget that if a commander rushes observatories, with motion tracking, they will likely not have armor 1, which give the possibility for a very quick win.

It swings both way, and i think sensory chambers are the most interesting in the game. Whereas movement and defense just invoke another generic game.

However in a world of newbies, cloaking can suck hard ass (for both teams).