Spit and Polish (GPP)

[Conzul]

Additions:
The Overmind bleeding isn't big enough, so it's not apparent to humans that the OM is dying. The reactor always lets aliens know when it's hurt. I think OM blood should be a bit bigger/more apparent.

The Reactor zap has a very short range, almost ridiculously short compared to the overmind. Can it be increased a little?

The pie timer can only display 20 seconds of build progress, whereas the OM and RC take 30 to build. Could it be fixed to represent actual times for those structures? I usually send out progress msg's to teammates when om and rc are being rebuilt, this would help...

Aliens still only get partial evos/frag for a kill assited only by acid or hive or OM, which is unusable to them. While humans get full credit for an alien they damage that was also damaged/killed by rets/RC/tesla.
   *Could this be fixed?

Text coloring is nice, but number 8 (dark gray or black) does not work when applied in names. This makes me   because I wanted Dark Conzul, not Dark Conzul. (^8Dark ^7Conzul)
   *Could this be fixed?

Granger Spit is almost useless at only one second of slow time, and while I know that the 1.1 time of 4 seconds was too much, I think this is an overreaction.
   *Could this be changed to two seconds, perhaps?

A pouncing dragoon can knock a victim out of a basilisk grab (this is done mostly by nOobs who don't know that the basi doesn't need any help)
   *Could this be fixed?

For 1.2, the Tyrant value has gone up to 960 (in tremulous.h). However, if an alien kills a fully decked human (tyrant equivalent) of 1200cr(bsuit+luci+nade), that alien still only gets 3 evos, which is 1/3rd of it's wallet size. If a human takes out a tyrant, he gets close to 1/2 of his wallet size filled. Which is more than the best an alien can get with one kill, which seems unfair. Also, since you get an evo for every 400cr a human was mounting, Bsuit+Luci+Naders often jettison the nade, which means that they go down in value to just 2 evos if killed.
   *So: Could one of those pieces of equipment get a minor raise in value, so that we can get 3 evos properly (which is still not near 50% of our wallet size)?

[_Equilibrium_]

Text coloring is nice, but number 8 (dark gray or black) does not work when applied in names. This makes me  because I wanted Dark Conzul, not Dark Conzul. (^8Dark ^7Conzul)
   *Could this be fixed?

As far as I know, this was done intentionally, because a lot of people in 1.1 were coloring their name black, so it was extremely difficult to read it. This was done to prevent that. It appears that black was changed to dark gray in GPP, so it may not be as much of an issue, but I don't mind this at all. All the black names in 1.1 were getting a little annoying.

[Conzul]

Text coloring is nice, but number 8 (dark gray or black) does not work when applied in names. This makes me  because I wanted Dark Conzul, not Dark Conzul. (^8Dark ^7Conzul)
   *Could this be fixed?

As far as I know, this was done intentionally, because a lot of people in 1.1 were coloring their name black, so it was extremely difficult to read it. This was done to prevent that. It appears that black was changed to dark gray in GPP, so it may not be as much of an issue, but I don't mind this at all. All the black names in 1.1 were getting a little annoying.

I thought that might be the case, but in 1.2 ^8 isn't that dark, in binds you can still read it nicely. How about letting just part of your /name be in ^8 ??

[Kiwi]

Aliens still only get partial evos/frag for a kill assited only by acid or hive or OM, which is unusable to them. While humans get full credit for an alien they damage that was also damaged/killed by rets/RC/tesla.

I agree, I think assisted ret kills should only give you a few credits, not all of them.

Granger Spit is almost useless at only one second of slow time, and while I know that the 1.1 time of 4 seconds was too much, I think this is an overreaction.

Granger spit is supposed to be useless.

A pouncing dragoon can knock a victim out of a basilisk grab (this is done mostly by nOobs who don't know that the basi doesn't need any help)

Thats the name of the game, imho.

For 1.2, the Tyrant value has gone up to 960 (in tremulous.h). However, if an alien kills a fully decked human (tyrant equivalent) of 1200cr(bsuit+luci+nade), that alien still only gets 3 evos, which is 1/3rd of it's wallet size. If a human takes out a tyrant, he gets close to 1/2 of his wallet size filled. Which is more than the best an alien can get with one kill, which seems unfair. Also, since you get an evo for every 400cr a human was mounting, Bsuit+Luci+Naders often jettison the nade, which means that they go down in value to just 2 evos if killed.

It seems fairly balanced to me?

[Conzul]

@Kiwi "Granger Spit is supposed to be useless.
    Really Kiwi.

@Kiwi "It seems fairly balanced to me?"
    How so? It means that either that aliens wallet is too small, or that Tyrant is worth too much.

Added some more items to list ^ ^

[Meisseli]

A tyrant is better than a battlesuit.

[_Equilibrium_]

@Kiwi "Granger Spit is supposed to be useless.
    Really Kiwi.

Yeah. Why add something else to encourage more battle grangering than there already is?

[jez]

I agree with the first point. Not really too fussed about 2 or 3, and 4 is probably meant to be that way.

For 1.2, the Tyrant value has gone up to 960 (in tremulous.h). However, if an alien kills a fully decked human (tyrant equivalent) of 1200cr(bsuit+luci+nade), that alien still only gets 3 evos, which is 1/3rd of it's wallet size. If a human takes out a tyrant, he gets close to 1/2 of his wallet size filled. Which is more than the best an alien can get with one kill, which seems unfair. Also, since you get an evo for every 400cr a human was mounting, Bsuit+Luci+Naders often jettison the nade, which means that they go down in value to just 2 evos if killed.
   *So: Could one of those pieces of equipment get a minor raise in value, so that we can get 3 evos properly (which is still not near 50% of our wallet size)?

You do get an evo for killing a naked human you know. Working on the basis that its an extra evo for every 400cr spent on human gear, then bsuit + luci (1000cr) still earns an alien 3 evos for the kill. In my view, tyrants are more powerful than bsuits, and should be worth more after an appropriate conversion. My reckoning is that 1 evo corresponds pretty well to 225cr.

I'd agree with kiwi that there is no real problem here.

[KillerWhale]

Text coloring is nice, but number 8 (dark gray or black) does not work when applied in names. This makes me  because I wanted Dark Conzul, not Dark Conzul. (^8Dark ^7Conzul)
   *Could this be fixed?

As far as I know, this was done intentionally, because a lot of people in 1.1 were coloring their name black, so it was extremely difficult to read it. This was done to prevent that. It appears that black was changed to dark gray in GPP, so it may not be as much of an issue, but I don't mind this at all. All the black names in 1.1 were getting a little annoying.

Actually, this wasn't a Tremulous change.

iD made this change in Quake 3 because people were using black skins and names in space maps, then standing on an edge and sniping.
You couldn't see them, or the name that popped up on mouseover, because it was all black-on-black. That's also why they didn't just make it grey, it still wouldn't show up.
It really doesn't apply to Trem that much. For a while, most of the clan servers had black in names enabled, and there were never any problems I knew of.

[Conzul]

I think that a battlesuit+Luci combo is better than a tyrant, were I to judge based on how many credits that player can get with that getup. A human lucisuit can be a real harvester, whereas tyrants do more psychological damage.

I agree with the first point. Not really too fussed about 2 or 3, and 4 is probably meant to be that way

You do get an evo for killing a naked human you know. Working on the basis that its an extra evo for every 400cr spent on human gear, then bsuit + luci (1000cr) still earns an alien 3 evos for the kill. In my view, tyrants are more powerful than bsuits, and should be worth more after an appropriate conversion. My reckoning is that 1 evo corresponds pretty well to 225cr.

I'd agree with kiwi that there is no real problem here.

I agree with that as well, but the game dictates that every evo is worth 400cr. Therefore, you will almost never get 3 evos per battlesuit+luci kills(1000cr of equip is rounded down to 800, which is 2 evos mate). But even if you did, you would still only get to be a goon or advmara with the 3 evos you got if you died getting them, and the lucisuit who got you as a rant would get 960 creds, which is nearly another lucisuit. Definitely a chainsuit, which is arguably just as good as a lucisuit but 200cr cheaper.

@Kiwi "Granger Spit is supposed to be useless."
    Really Kiwi.

Yeah. Why add something else to encourage more battle grangering than there already is?

I don't think it would encourage battelgrangering. What makes you say it would?
Useless things have a track record of being removed from tremulous 
Would you like spit removed as well? F.U.

[_Equilibrium_]

Making a granger more effective in combat would cause more battlegrangering. Pretty simple.

[Conzul]

Making a granger more effective in combat would cause more battlegrangering. Pretty simple.

That would hardly make a granger more effective in combat. The granger would still die if it was the focus. It would just add a little in the support department. No, it wouldn't encourage battle granging.

[_Equilibrium_]

If you wanna support your team to push back the humans, go dretch. Sitting there spitting shit at them will only get you killed, feeding them even more. Not only that, you could be blocking the path of actual attack classes. I view the spit as a purely flavorful aspect of the game, much like the alien growl/human "come on".

[Saliva]

Making granger spit useful enough that it's worth using would be a good change in my opinion. Increasing the time humans are slowed to 2 seconds would be nice. The best change would be to make the spit have some kind of purpose outside combat like creating more creep. That would require a lot more than changing a single value though.

[+ OPTIMUS +]

The best change would be to make the spit have some kind of purpose outside combat like creating more creep. That would require a lot more than changing a single value though.

like this?

[jez]

(1000cr of equip is rounded down to 800, which is 2 evos mate)

No. This is what I was trying to get at in my last post:

Spent on human gear => Alien reward for killing them
0 - 400cr => 1 evo
400 - 800cr => 2 evos
800 - 1200cr => 3 evos

The 1000cr lucisuit pricetag puts it very much in the 3 evo reward category.

...but the game dictates that every evo is worth 400cr.

Not quite - The game says that aliens earn an extra evo for each additional 400cr the human spends on gear. This isn't a straight conversion, as some value is lost. If it were this simple, then the reward for a basilisk should be 400cr more than the reward for a dretch (and for a tyrant 2000cr more than the dretch, etc), which is clearly not the case.

I hope this makes sense.


You say (correctly) that the reward from killing a tyrant probably buys you stronger equipment that the reward from killing a lucisuit. I don't have a problem with that really, though it sounds like this is down to our differing perceptions of the relative worth of tyrant and lucisuit.

[Conzul]

Huh. Guess I did mess up the value thing. My point of contention was rather that if one of the players dies, but gets the kill anyway, the lucisuit/chainsuit gets more back in value (another chainsuit) than the tyrant does (3 evos goes to goon or advmara, which isn't getting back up to original power like the lucisuit would)

@Equilibrium
Of course being a combat class is better, but you are sometimes stuck as granger when building something like OM, eggs, bari or another timetaker when the humans attack your base. That's what spit and slash are for anyway, for when you can't evolve to help, not for battlegrangering. I think 2 secs of slow time wouldn't hurt any.

[F50]

I think I agree with you on the granger spit thing. If it actually does result in more battle granging, then meh, revert. Somehow though I don't think that's going to be the case. Given that the granger spit has (I think, didn't bother to look up the numbers) a 1 second repeat, the slowdown really isn't noticeable.

[Meisseli]

If there would be a problem with battlegrangering, simple /kicks will do. The spit change sounds reasonable to me.

[David]

I'd say make the spit better at slowing, and do no damage.
It could slow people who walk over it's splat mark too.

Then it's useful for running away, but not useful otherwise.  (Except maybe as part of some complex plan in clan games or whatever)

[A Spork]

Sounds like a good idea to me.
Devs, make it so!

[Meisseli]

I'd say make the spit better at slowing, and do no damage.
It could slow people who walk over it's splat mark too.

Then it's useful for running away, but not useful otherwise.  (Except maybe as part of some complex plan in clan games or whatever)

That idea sounds neat, but I'd make the spit itself longer, and the splat mark just a short slow. To encourage actually doing the feat and hitting the human

[freecd]

I like that little fluffy thing spitting on me. With the addition of some flamer gas, it makes the perfect shoe polish

[Norfenstein]

1. No, the slices should always represent the same amount of time.
2. Yes, this should be fixed.
3. Not a bug.
4. Agreed.
5. No.
6. No.

[Conzul]

1. No, the slices should always represent the same amount of time.

I do not understand.

[Meisseli]

Actually yes, I agree it would be better if the build timer would be just your standard digital numbers counting down instead of a pie chart.

[Kiwi]

And it would be nice if it didn't cover up how many evos you have.

[UniqPhoeniX]

It would be slightly more useful as a number, tho I think the piechart/timer looks better/more intuitive. It has 8x 2.5s slices (20s total), OM build time is 30s and RC build time is 20s. Easy to tell your team how much longer it will take. Also I agree it shouldn't cover up evo count.

[CorSair]

About that grenade... 

I would want to rename it something else, because:

A: It isn't like real grenade, you just roll it for meter or few more. Real ones fly farther.

B: Too costly for it.

C: Mostly used on alien bases, and is wasted (mostly) while dropping in middle of fight.

Thus, i would like to rename it (don't got any better, try find one for that ) nitro charges or pipe bomb or something like that. And, yes, it is just something minor. But, I think renaming has other effects, like the newbs who just throw grenades in middle of battle, only to see it just rolls, and explodes after 4-5 secs. Possible? Maybe. Maybe not.

[Conzul]

Updated original post, topmost 2 entries.