Several Suggestions

[Sapholin]

Here are a few suggestions, divided by teams. Feel free to comment (intelligently) on any of them.

Aliens:

Enable the advanced basilisk to fly for a limited time. It would do so by repeatedly pressing space, or perhaps by holding it down to gain forward momentum. It wouldn't be nearly as agile or responsive as a human's jetpack. This is, of course, to help take care of humans on levels where aliens simply cannot reach a human with a jetpack. Enabling the advanced basilisk to fly would give aliens flight at stage 2, like the humans, and as the basilisk is fairly weak to begin with I don't feel that it would be overpowering.

Allow large aliens to walk over dretches, provided there's enough room. They are the size of a guinea pig. Why can a tyrant not step over them easily? Or even a dragoon?

Increase the HP of the barricade to absorb several lucifer cannon shots at least. Right now it seems like the hovel has more HP than the barricade does and I see it used more often, any way.

Granger spit. It does nothing except place creep decals where it lands. I'm not even sure if the decals do anything. Perhaps it could slow humans down or deal acid damage?

Humans:

Allow humans with a construction kit to heal humans wearing battlesuits.

Apply some speed differences to humans. The more armor you buy/wear, the slower you move. As it is all humans move at the same pace. This is kind of unrealistic as the aliens move at different speeds depending on size.

Give human buildings (not the reactor) more HP. Since they don't regenerate as alien buildings do, and they are made of (presumably) high quality metal alloys, they should have a higher resistance to damage and impact.

Allow humans to build turrets on flat walls within a close vicinity to the floor. I have seen too many bases crowded just because of turrets thrown everywhere on the floor. Some angles can be built on but it would be nice to build turrets on walls. This provides no real advantage (other than turrets being out of the walk-ways) and they are still within reach of aliens.

General Improvements:

Currently the interfaces for building, upgrading, and the like are very clunky and obscure the view a great deal. Making the dialogue boxes semi-transparent might fix this, so that players can still see the box and the action around them. Also, sorting the armory menu for the humans, like the alien evolve menu, would be a vast improvement as well.

Reflective building damage (as a server option). Too many humans shoot their own turrets, reactor, etc. This would prevent them from destroying their own structures, and it would prevent teamkillers from eradicating 4-5 good structures before being booted.

A solution for deconners. In natural selection (yes I know these are two seperate games) there is a commander's chair which controls building and removal. Perhaps there could be a server option to enable such a feature, so that the commander must authorize the removal of structures before they can be deconstructed. A human with a construction kit could "enter" the reactor, and marking a building as needing to be deconstructed would be similar to cutting off the power to it. A similar solution for the aliens would be to allow a granger to "control" the overmind by entering it.

Intelligent comments and suggestions are welcome.

[Dustin]

Here are a few suggestions, divided by teams. Feel free to comment (intelligently) on any of them.

Aliens:

Enable the advanced basilisk to fly for a limited time. It would do so by repeatedly pressing space, or perhaps by holding it down to gain forward momentum. It wouldn't be nearly as agile or responsive as a human's jetpack. This is, of course, to help take care of humans on levels where aliens simply cannot reach a human with a jetpack. Enabling the advanced basilisk to fly would give aliens flight at stage 2, like the humans, and as the basilisk is fairly weak to begin with I don't feel that it would be overpowering.

It's been said before.. Timbo (or other) doesn't want any flying aliens.

Allow large aliens to walk over dretches, provided there's enough room. They are the size of a guinea pig. Why can a tyrant not step over them easily? Or even a dragoon?

I like it, and agree.

Increase the HP of the barricade to absorb several lucifer cannon shots at least. Right now it seems like the hovel has more HP than the barricade does and I see it used more often, any way.

Yes, barricades are weak. I second this motion.

Granger spit. It does nothing except place creep decals where it lands. I'm not even sure if the decals do anything. Perhaps it could slow humans down or deal acid damage?

No comment

Humans:

Allow humans with a construction kit to heal humans wearing battlesuits.

Only ckit->battlesuit? Why no medic-type class/field medic?

Apply some speed differences to humans. The more armor you buy/wear, the slower you move. As it is all humans move at the same pace. This is kind of unrealistic as the aliens move at different speeds depending on size.

I Second!

Give human buildings (not the reactor) more HP. Since they don't regenerate as alien buildings do, and they are made of (presumably) high quality metal alloys, they should have a higher resistance to damage and impact.

I also second.

Allow humans to build turrets on flat walls within a close vicinity to the floor. I have seen too many bases crowded just because of turrets thrown everywhere on the floor. Some angles can be built on but it would be nice to build turrets on walls. This provides no real advantage (other than turrets being out of the walk-ways) and they are still within reach of aliens.

It'd be strange to determine when the user wants to place on a wall or an adjacent piece of floor, but.. it could be okay

General Improvements:

Currently the interfaces for building, upgrading, and the like are very clunky and obscure the view a great deal. Making the dialogue boxes semi-transparent might fix this, so that players can still see the box and the action around them. Also, sorting the armory menu for the humans, like the alien evolve menu, would be a vast improvement as well.

Sorting by -WEAPONS-, -ARMOUR-, etc would be nice! Transparency works too!

Reflective building damage (as a server option). Too many humans shoot their own turrets, reactor, etc. This would prevent them from destroying their own structures, and it would prevent teamkillers from eradicating 4-5 good structures before being booted.

Reflective? Damaging one's oen buildings returns damage to you?

A solution for deconners. In natural selection (yes I know these are two seperate games) there is a commander's chair which controls building and removal. Perhaps there could be a server option to enable such a feature, so that the commander must authorize the removal of structures before they can be deconstructed. A human with a construction kit could "enter" the reactor, and marking a building as needing to be deconstructed would be similar to cutting off the power to it. A similar solution for the aliens would be to allow a granger to "control" the overmind by entering it.

Entering the reactor/overmind.. that's somewhat.. strange, in my eyes. I wouldn't second this one.

[Teiman]

> Enable the advanced basilisk to fly for a limited time.

Banned by design.


>Allow large aliens to walk over dretches, provided there's enough room. >They are the size of a guinea pig. Why can a tyrant not step over them >easily? Or even a dragoon?

I agree, but maybe is hard (?).

>Increase the HP of the barricade to absorb several lucifer cannon shots at >least. Right now it seems like the hovel has more HP than the barricade >does and I see it used more often, any way.

Imho the barricade is nerfed.

> Allow humans with a construction kit to heal humans wearing battlesuits.

sound Ok to me, other than... often builders are already bussy, and the medistation is there.

>Give human buildings (not the reactor) more HP. Since they don't >regenerate as alien buildings do, and they are made of (presumably) high >quality metal alloys, they should have a higher resistance to damage and >impact.

I disagree. Already hard to kill turrets for dretch and everyone else.

>Allow humans to build turrets on flat walls within a close vicinity to the >floor. I have seen too many bases crowded just because of turrets thrown >everywhere on the floor. Some angles can be built on but it would be nice >to build turrets on walls. This provides no real advantage (other than >turrets being out of the walk-ways) and they are still within reach of aliens.

maybe Ok, with the fun factor.

>Currently the interfaces for building, upgrading, and the like are very >clunky and obscure the view a great deal. Making the dialogue boxes >semi-transparent might fix this, so that players can still see the box and >the action around them. Also, sorting the armory menu for the humans, >like the alien evolve menu, would be a vast improvement as well.

yea, semi trans may help, and maybe a icon

>Reflective building damage (as a server option). Too many humans shoot their own turrets, reactor, etc. This would prevent them from destroying their own structures, and it would prevent teamkillers from eradicating 4-5 good structures before being booted.

And maybe better sound feedbacks about that.

>In natural selection (yes I know these are two seperate games) there is a commander's chair which controls building and removal. Perhaps there could be a server option to enable such a feature, so that the commander must authorize the removal of structures before they can be deconstructed. A human with a construction kit could "enter" the reactor, and marking a building as needing to be deconstructed would be similar to cutting off the power to it. A similar solution for the aliens would be to allow a granger to "control" the overmind by entering it.

This is not a solution to deconer, and will help griefers or noobs, that will use the commander to anoy.  Anyway If you give the overmind some powers, can be use a a "turret" to shot something to humans. That can have fun factor.

Conclusion:

Mostly disagree with your ideas, except the menu enhancements. And yea, the barricade is nerfed.

[Sapholin]

A medic type class would be a great addition. Perhaps enabling humans to  buy an advanced form of med-kit that requires energy to work. This would replace their primary weapon, leaving them only with a blaster, and it should also change their model a bit so that they bear the red cross logo.

As it is, a turret takes one dragoon pounce and one or two swipes to kill. Then it explodes, damaging other turrets. A single dragoon can eliminate three turrets in the span of a minute. I don't think giving human structures a 15-25% boost in HP would be much of a disadvantage for the aliens. Besides, who rushes turrets with a dretch, hoping to take them down?

Better sound feedback on building damage would be nice. Perhaps some form of alert noise as well, for humans wearing helmets, much like the "Overmind is under attack!" message, along with a readout of how many telenodes are left.

Griefers wouldn't be able to annoy using the comm chair as they'd then have to GET OUT and decon the structure. It would require two griefers working in tandem to decon a base this way, which is much less likely than before. As for noobs, and griefers who just enter the comm chair to PREVENT deconning, you could call a team vote to remove the current commander, or vote kick them.

Also, one thought that I had forgotten, is that there needs to be a main menu Options command, where one can specify their player name and the like without having to enter the game.

Edit: Currently, when you try to evolve near a human, you get a pop-up stating that you cannot evolve. Instead, when an alien presses Q, if they cannot evolve here, immediately display some text across the screen, rather than a pop-up. Have it state "You cannot evolve this close to the enemy.", new line, "Move away from the enemy and try to evolve again.". This way there is no time wasted in pressing Q, choosing a new form, and finding out that you can't evolve any way.

[Taiyo.uk]

Enable the advanced basilisk to fly for a limited time.

Aliens can get to jetpackers by wall/ceiling climbing, dragoon pouncing or mara jumping in nearly all cases. I don't think this would be a good idea.

Allow large aliens to walk over dretches, provided there's enough room. They are the size of a guinea pig. Why can a tyrant not step over them easily? Or even a dragoon?

Good idea - charging tyrants take out any smaller alien classes in their way.

Increase the HP of the barricade to absorb several lucifer cannon shots at least. Right now it seems like the hovel has more HP than the barricade does and I see it used more often, any way.

With you on that one, barricades are rather useless due to their low HP at the moment.

Granger spit. It does nothing except place creep decals where it lands. I'm not even sure if the decals do anything. Perhaps it could slow humans down or deal acid damage?

I believe it does 4 damage if you hit a human. I think it'd be a good idea if the decal area would slow humans down. I don't know about increasing the damage it does as the graners are a builder class.

Allow humans with a construction kit to heal humans wearing battlesuits.

Hmm, I think that would give too much of an advantage to humans, they all have medkits anyway.

Apply some speed differences to humans. The more armor you buy/wear, the slower you move. As it is all humans move at the same pace. This is kind of unrealistic as the aliens move at different speeds depending on size.

Good idea, chainguns are heavier than rifles, etc. So chaingunners should run slower. Battlesuits are powered(?) so perhaps they can run faster for a given weight to carry.

Give human buildings (not the reactor) more HP. Since they don't regenerate as alien buildings do, and they are made of (presumably) high quality metal alloys, they should have a higher resistance to damage and impact.

Hmm, I think they're strong enough, I have seen dretches drop from a ceiling directly onto a turret and destroy it, but for a typical base with say, four turrets in a group you need at least a mara or dragoon to kill off a turret quickly.

Allow humans to build turrets on flat walls within a close vicinity to the floor. I have seen too many bases crowded just because of turrets thrown everywhere on the floor. Some angles can be built on but it would be nice to build turrets on walls. This provides no real advantage (other than turrets being out of the walk-ways) and they are still within reach of aliens.

Simply staggering the turrets prevents blocking walkways for most bases, they're freestanding structures as opposed to sticky growths like acid tubes. Possibly turrets could have magnetic or adhesive bases in later stages?

Currently the interfaces for building, upgrading, and the like are very clunky and obscure the view a great deal. Making the dialogue boxes semi-transparent might fix this, so that players can still see the box and the action around them. Also, sorting the armory menu for the humans, like the alien evolve menu, would be a vast improvement as well.

Absolutely! Transparent backgrounds on the menus like the status screen (when you press tab) would be ace.

Reflective building damage (as a server option). Too many humans shoot their own turrets, reactor, etc. This would prevent them from destroying their own structures, and it would prevent teamkillers from eradicating 4-5 good structures before being booted.

It's a part of base building and defense skill not to damage your own structures. Teamkills are already announced on servers where tking is allowed. OTOH deliberate teamkilling is a major problem on some servers, but reflective damage would most likely turn teamkillers into deconners. Many servers have teamkill disabled for this reason, it balances with both teams being unable to teamkill. It was useful in some games where build points were needed for a basemove though...

A solution for deconners. In natural selection (yes I know these are two seperate games) there is a commander's chair which controls building and removal. Perhaps there could be a server option to enable such a feature, so that the commander must authorize the removal of structures before they can be deconstructed. A human with a construction kit could "enter" the reactor, and marking a building as needing to be deconstructed would be similar to cutting off the power to it. A similar solution for the aliens would be to allow a granger to "control" the overmind by entering it.

I don't think such a feature would integrate well with tremulous. Perhaps a decon quickvote system where a teamvote is automatically started when a builder tries to decon something and the decon happens as soon as 50% or more of the team has voted yes. In that way a persistent deconner would just get voted no, and everyone on the team would know who the deconner is. This might also help against inexperienced players from scrapping a game with a bad basemove.

Just my £0.02
Cheers!
-Taiyo

[Dustin]

Of the Options menu on the Main Menu, it's already implemented in the Subversion version. We shall just have to wait until the next version is out.

[kozak6]

I don't like the idea of a medic class.

The humans are supposed to be base dependent.

[PIE]

I don't like the idea of a medic class.

The humans are supposed to be base dependent.

I agree.. they already have health pads/medikits...

Then you'd have medics for humans.. and what about aliens?.. they already have auto-regeneration.. they don't need medics... seems unfair humans get something and aliens don't...

[Lava Croft]

Walking over Dretches: Yes
All the other suggestions: Get some skill.

OK, just to clarify this:

Barricades are not meant to STOP people.
Barricades are meant to SLOW people DOWN.

At least, that's how I've used em these past few years...

[Sapholin]

Medics might inspire humans to make more concentrated efforts and rush the alien base. When they don't have to run back to the human base to be healed, humans would be less likely to camp there. Also, seeing as how medics would only have a blaster, anyway, they'd be generally combat ineffective, and only a few swipes from an alien would take them down.

I'm glad to hear about the Options menu.

Jetpackers are not always accessible on some maps, especially the newer ones that are being released in which there are outdoor areas that allow humans to move well beyond the reach of aliens, but I digress. If the designers do not allow for alien flight, then there simply won't be any.

Anyway, Tremulous is a *lot* of fun, and its a great FPS for Linux, which is one of its main drawing points for me. It's just about all I play on my Linux machine.

Thanks for all your hard work guys.

[Stof]

Medic isn't enouth for humans. You also need ammo for that.

[Sapholin]

That's what energy weapons and a repeater are for.

[PIE]

So.. humans can camp in the middle of the hall instead of just at their base?

[Lava Croft]

Camping is a lack of player skill, or you can might even call it a tactic, but not a problem in Tremulous design.

[Ranger]

Instead of giving the Alien's a flyer class, how about giving the jetpacks locational useage? Humans could use the jetpack close to the reactor, the energy would slowly drain from the jetpacks if it's too far, and not work at all without the reactor anywhere near. I suppose this would encourage repeater use, and would stop humans from jetpacking to the glass ceiling of karith and   mass drivering/pulse rifle/lucy spamming the small outdoor area. Though, if you get killed by someone doing that, you're an idiot.

[rasz_pl]

Camping is a lack of player skill

amen to that