I am aware that there are quite a few of these floating about but I want to put in my two cents.
I was recently reading up on some of the updates in tremulous 1.2 and wanted to comment on them.
Aliens:
Dretch: I think the dretch is fine over all but I wanted to change one thing; the ground-head-bite. I've seen some crappy attempts to handle this (namely reducing the distance that the dretch can bite) but they usually screw over anyone with even a mildly high ping. My solution is to make it so the dretch cannot bite past a certain angle. For example:
\
\ Doesn't bite
\
\ =======
|dretch |
bites | |
========
Forgive the crudeness of my drawing. But this way people with high pings won't be screwed over yet the dretch isn't crazy unbalanced.
P.S. That is not an accurate portrayal of the angle that the dretch can bite, just an example.
Basilisk: I do understand that this is one of the more deadly creatures out there but I also know that it's one of the hardest to learn. A few things here.
1. Both basi's should be darker in color because of their stealthy role.
2. Both basi's should be able to "hide" from radar. Now before you flame me with "taht wud be unbalancd!1!11!one!11!!!1" It would be an activated ability. Basically the basi can right click (or whatever) and for 10 or 15 seconds (approximately) the basi is off of human radar screen, but still visible, this ability would have a longish reload time for balance. This would allow basi's to be used by newer people more effectively in s2.
Advanced Basilisk: Just one change; the gas attack. I think that it should be changed to a dart attack where the basi would launch a projectile in a slight arc that has the same effects as the normal gas, except that it can go through s2 armor (helmet wouldn't protect you from it). Before you start yelling realize a few things: You can only effect one person with it and it would also handle the, "I'm in the vents of kartik with a helmet, low ping and p-saw" which extends the game 20 minutes as dretch after dretch goes in to try to kill him, as a basi could fish the guy out now.
Realize that this isn't a high priority thing for me, if it's not used I wouldn't care all that much.
P.S. The dart couldn't effect b-suits.
Marauder: Honestly this one's fine for me. I heard that they were putting a recharge time on the wall jump ability which is fine.
Advanced Marauder: I read that the dev's were making the adv mara's zap attack an area-effect attack which doesn't have to be aimed. As long as the range is shortened I'm fine with that.
Dragoon: Also fine for me.
Advanced Dragoon: I read that we would be getting that adv goon in s2 and honestly I don't like. That in my opinion would hurt the balance. I also read that the adv goon's barb attack would have area effect damage (it explodes) and I also didn't like. In my opinion camping isn't handled by making the enemy even more powerful.
Tyrant: I heard that the rant would have 50 less health and the healing aura would be going to the basi. Honestly why would you give the healing aura to the basi? That would totally ruin the stealth of the basi if a bunch of other aliens were following him around and some aliens couldn't even follow the basi (because he's small and can wall-walk.) It's really stupid in my opinion. I think that the rant should keep the healing aura. I also read that the charge would last longer and go through more people and I'm fine with this. I think that any thing smaller than a mara (dretch, basi and grangers) should be able to go through the rants legs. I'm not talking making individual models for each leg I'm just saying make the littler guys no clip on the rants legs. One last thing is, make head-shots for rants instead of decreasing their health. Haven't you ever seen that huge head and wondered why shooting it didn't do anything different?
Structures:
Overmind: Only one change. When it dies aliens healing slows down a lot. Honestly in 1.1 I couldn't give a crap if the OM went down as long as I was already evolved. I just think there should be more of a punishment for the OM going down.
Eggs: Fine with them as is.
Acid tube: Just one thing. Make where that acid lands the source of damage. It doesn't make sense that one would get damaged from acid spraying away from you. So it should be damaging where it lands.
Barricades: Just remove these entirely; they are one of the most useless structures around. If one is insistent on keeping them then I suggest that they cost less build points and trap or slow any human that get near them.
Trapper: It's fine as is.
Booster: Fine as is.
Hovel: Again a very useless structure. Except it costs no BP so leave it in.
Hive: I like it as is, but make it so the can swarm attack you if you're crouching. It's just weird that it cannot.
Humans:
Construction Kit: Fine as is.
Advanced Construction kit: With this I think that instead of healing structures it should just start healing them and they heal themselves the rest of the way. Basically one would go up to a building and press right-mouse then walk away and the structure would repair the rest of the way.
Blaster: I wouldn't mind a bit faster fire rate on this one, but I don't really care that much (I don't use the blaster).
Rifle: Fine as is.
Pain Saw: There should be a secondary attack where one thrusts out the p-saw (increasing the range) but only for a short time. This would make it a bit more useful against goons and rants whose melee attacks have the range of an ICBM.
P.S. The secondary attack would have a fast recharge rate.
Shotgun: Fine as is.
Las Gun: I think a faster fire rate should be put in for this one. The only people I see using it are jetters and campers.
Mass Driver: Just change the fact that anything near the cross hairs (not in the center) will get hit, seriously I've hit things two millimeters outside of my cross hairs with this. Otherwise it's a fine weapon.
Chaingun: I think it's fine as is. It wouldn't hurt to make it have a tad less spread though.
Pulse Rifle: Only really useful for attacking bases and short range work. But I think it's fine as is. In one mod it slowed aliens down if it hit them (one shot for small aliens, more for bigger ones) albeit interesting I think that it would be unbalanced.
Grenade: Fine as is.
Flamethrower: The range should be increased a little bit and it should continue to do damage after it hits something. For instance if one hit a mara with a flame and it jumped away the mara should continue to take fire damage for a little while.
P.S. Humans who burned themselves would also continue to take damage for a time.
Lucifer Canon: Fine as is.
Upgrades:
Light Armor: Fine as is.
Target Acquisition Goggles: This is my own idea and the basic concept is that the HUD would point out and track anything that appears on screen for a time. An example: A human is walking around with his TAGoggles and there's a dretch in the corner of the screen. The player doesn't notice but the goggles do. They put a red square around the dretch and the player now notices the dretch there. He opens fire and the dretch runs away but the player sees where he's going because the target is still highlighted through obstacles. After a time the square disappears because the player didn't catch any fresh sightings of the dretch. This is the basic idea for the TAGoggles. They'd be available in s1 for humans and they wouldn't give any damage reduction.
P.S. The "hide from radar" ability of the basi would protect the basi from these as well as remove the highlighting from it if it's already on.
Pain Killers: All that these would do is increase ones health temporarily. Example: Player sees that he's going to be in a fight shortly so he pops some PK's and rushes out there to encounter a dretch. The dretch gives him a head bite (94 dmg) and then a leg bite (24 dmg, leaving him at -18 health) before he can kill the thing. Now when the PK's wear off player will die unless he heals above zero health. so he uses one of his Medical Kits and goes on his way. Realize that these would not make one invincible temporarily, it would just add 50 (or so) hit points to your life for roughly 25 seconds.
P.S. This is something I'm casually throwing out there. I do see how it could hurt the balance of the game so realize it's just there for consideration.
Helmet: Fine as is. I read that in 1.2 "Headshots on unarmored humans only cause 150% damage, battlesuit and helmet protection have been reduced so headshot damage remains the same." I don't know exactly what this means but I really like the helmet as is.
Medical Kit: I think that a human should be able to carry more than one med kit and that the person has to buy them from the armory. For example: A human spawns and doesn't have a med kit. He kills a dretch, builds or whatever and then he goes and buys a med kit from the armory. Now that he has it it acts just like a normal med kit (he gets a new one for free every time he visits a Medical Station.) But he can continue to buy more at his discretion. Meaning he can have 5 med kits if he wants (all re-spawning for free at the med station.) A person can only use one med kit at a time though. This would be a solid way to prevent camping with out ruining balance, in my opinion, because it allows humans to stay out longer but doesn't make them invincible.
Battery Pack: Fine as is.
Jet Pack: Fine as is.
Battle Suit: Fine as is but one should be able to use TAGoggles with the b-suit.
Structures:
Reactor: Fine as is.
Telenode: Fine as is.
Machine Gun Turret: I read that in 1.2 "Human turrets have a slight spinup delay, skillful Dretches can run inside the Human base and get a few kills before being shot by turrets." I think that the way to cause people to camp is to nerf their defensive power. I think that turrets should be left as is
Tesla Generator: These should do more damage and knock back smaller aliens, because right now they are pretty useless unless you're on an unlimited BP server.
Armory: Fine as is.
Defense Computer: Right now it's a relatively useless building but the dev's say that it will repair human structures when built. I honestly think that this would make it almost impossible for aliens to take down a well built human base. I like my idea for repair a bit better (see adv construction kit).
Med Station: Fine as is.
Repeater: Fine as is.
General:
Building:
1. I think that there should be a way that showed where a building would effect before you build it. Like if I were placing a machine gun turret it would have a circle around it showing how far it could shoot. Or if I were placing a trapper it would have a cone projecting from it showing the angle it could trap etc.
2. It would be very convenient to be able change the distance pre-buildables appear in front of you. Example: I put a trapper on the ceiling but it's a bit to close so I scroll the wheel in and it comes closer and BAM I build it.
3. I think it's kind of goofy that buildings can be placed on the very edge of surfaces. I think that there should be a way to prevent this.
New game types:
1. Football (soccer). The concept would be that one has a high level of dretch punt on (an unplayable dretch would be the ball) and everyone is a goon (except for the goalies who are rants) the teams are different colors and goon pounces don't damage other players. If one teams goon bites another teams good the one bitten gets a penalty shot.
2. Domination. A good description is here:
http://risujin.org/tremulous/#domination.
Easier customization:
1. One's settings should "stick" after one sets them. I have to change my quality to normal every time I step into a game and this is really annoying.
2. Just in general I'd like see the phasing out of the need for terminal commands. If I could put the reason for kicking or make custom binds via the escape menu that would be great.
Technical:
1. Dual core support would be awesome. I'm running this game on a DC processor and it runs horribly.
2. Some sort of handling for the insane lag that occurs. A game like this should not lag as much as it does and there should be some streamlining or something to make it less like a slide-show.
Anti Camping ideas:
1. One doesn't get as much money/evos while in base. It's pretty self-explanatory, if someone were camping a base they wouldn't get rewarded as much as if they were out there in the action.
2. When a human leaves a base and other humans and runs off by himself a message should pop up saying something like "Maybe you should bring a friend." after he's not in the proximity of other humans or structures for a time.
I have plenty more ideas but this is about it.
P.S. If I knew how to mod I'd be making this, but I do not which is why I'm putting it up here. So please hold back from "good ideas, start scripting!" As this is annoying.
