De Evolve

[NoSpin]

I know this has been mentioned before but I am mentioning it agian. We need to implement a deevolve and here is a few reasons why.

1. Tyrants cannot wallclimb or wall jump. They are powerfull enough obviosly and do not need to but there is a problem. Humans can climb ladders and every alien (except tyrant) has a jumping ability or a wall climb that lets them move around any obstical. The tyrant however can get stuck in certain areas and be imprisoned for the game. If they could devolve to a dretch get out of the area and reevolve that would be good.

2. Humans like to turtle. Sometimes a tyrant is not the best attack, sometimes we need an advanced dragoon to snipe and wear them down. The humans can switch weapons around to alter there stratagy as all luci cannons is not the best stratagy. The aliens should be able to do the same.

* Problem with devolve. Human is attacking you and you deevolve to save the evo points.

* Another problem. De evolving for the regen then re evolving. I do not know if most people want this to happen.

* Solution. You can only de evolve with 90% health

[Basilisco]

[Disclaimer: ok, let's first say i like how tremulous is now, and i'm not looking for any changes. But, let's start a crazy discussion anyways]

So, de-evolve would be available only for tyrants, and it would cost 3 evo points to de-evolve to ad-goon (Just because it's cheaper than die-respawn-evolve

[NoSpin]

I never said that. I don't like that at all. Humans can switch at no cost and you want the aliens to get raped with a three evo cost. No it should be free and every alien should be able to do it.

Besides you are stuck in an area due to poor map building and you have to pay 3 evo points just to get out of there.

Also I think you should be able to de evolve into a granger. Humans can trade their weapons for a construction pack and aliens would still need the overmind to devevolve.

[Catalyc]

http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=373&start=0

Near the end of the first post...

The concept of de-volving has already been considered and decided against during the development cycle.

If an alien team loses all their eggs without having a granger around or noticing, they deserve to lose. The armoury goes down in 2 barb hits and its normally one of the first  buildings to go down during an attack (tied in first with DC I guess ).

[PHREAK]

While devolving might make it easier on aliens, I'm completly against it.

First, It would make the tyrant the ultimate alien, since it could do everything and anything, go adv goon, snipe stuff, charge as a tyrant, then hide as a dretch. See the issue?

First, tyrants are simply brute force. If it had the ability to be anything else, the game would be too alien biased.

Second, if you're stuck somewhere as a tyrant, have a dretch lift you. I've lifted and been lifted numerous times. The beauty about tyrant, goon and granger lifts is teamplay.

Third, logic!
While humans have the ability to hold diferent tools and weapons, evolution is biological thus logicaly ireversable. Think of a butterfly. A butterfly can't go back into a cocoon and devolve into a larva, etc.
Aliens follow a similar rule.
All we need to even things out is have aliens have the ability to evolve around the OM, regardles of human presence. Otherwise, the game is fine as it is, IMO.

[NoSpin]

I like your points.

First how do you get a dretch to lift you?

Second what about the Turrets built on pipes. Tyrants should have some way of attacking them.

[PHREAK]

Dretch lift:

A dretch or basi gets next to a even wall/ledder, etc. You jump on him and keep jumping while he/she moves upward.
Thats the dretch lift. It is mostly used to move OM up at s1 for grangers but is very useful for tyrants as well.

As far as hummies building on pipes, use adv goons, maras, and basis.
Like I mentioned before, tyrants are not meant to be the ultimate alien. It doesn't mean that you have to go tyrant if you have 9 evo at s3.
If there is a bsuit rush, and we already have a tyrant or 2, i tend to go adv mara and take out the weaker bsuits or naked hummies. Once they stop rushing, I go adv goon and snipe something important (e.g. DC, armo, telenodes).

Once again, tyrants are simply brute force. Use them as such and you'll be fine.

[David]

There is only need for this if there is no team work.
Tremulous is a team games. leave it how it is.

[Juno]

Lawl





seriously, you want tyrants to devole to dretches, sneak into a human base or unreachable area, and then suddenly be able to become tyrants again?

[vcxzet]

wth you cant reverse the life cycle  
btw you sould name it retardation rather than de-evolve

[Rippy]

The devolve you proposed is rediculous, as many have mentioned. However, a fair devolve would be if you could only do it while within 5 meters or so from the OM.
- Doesn't allow sneak attacks, or abuse of places such as vents where only small aliens fit
- Doesn't allow a player to go granger when no eggs are left, because any competent human team would've eliminated the OM long ago

Basically, it would let people reconsider their evo. Only problem I see is grangers building things up then going tyrant when a hummie comes and devolve back afterwards, all there would need to be would be a 1 minute delay between evos that gets reset if you die.

[vcxzet]

Imho you should start with granger not adv granger because adv granger is fat

[Stakhanov]

Devolving is not good for higher aliens. Specialization between adv goon and tyrant is important at stage 3. However , it is needed to allow dretches to evolve into grangers - there is no warning whatsoever for destroyed eggs , except when it's too late (no eggs left and usually no granger)

[Paradox]

The balance is fine. Learn to play and you shouldnt have to have any serious suggestion.

[gareth]

While humans have the ability to hold diferent tools and weapons, evolution is biological thus logicaly ireversable. Think of a butterfly. A butterfly can't go back into a cocoon and devolve into a larva, etc.

Well the evolution in trem, and the evolution from a larva to butterfly does not match the evolution as defined by wikipedia. and as has already been stated, trem is not meant to be in any way realistic.

edit: reading this post, it really isnt relavent  

[Lava Croft]

No thanks.

[NoSpin]

Were all those flames really nessisary?

I mentioned he had a good point. The switching between tyrant and adv goon used excessively could cause problems. I would still like a dretch to evolve into a granger though.

[Stof]

Were all those flames really nessisary?

I mentioned he had a good point. The switching between tyrant and adv goon used excessively could cause problems. I would still like a dretch to evolve into a granger though.

I guess it was made on purpose that aliens CANNOT deevole. Either for Tyrant -> Adv Goon or for Dretch -> Granger

In that last case, it would be nearly impossible to kill aliens since any single dretch in the map could morph to a granger anytime. By comparison, allowing dretch to evolve to granger is like giving all humans both the blaster and the ckit for free on top of whatever weapon they pack with them.

[temple]

I'm against it.  I had a good idea of de-evolution but I forgot.

[Rippy]

Like I said, just allow devolving only when obscenely close to the OM, and have a 1 minute cooldown on it that resets if you die (to prevent grangers from evoing to tyrant to defend the base, over and over). Aliens get devolution, but they have to do it in their base and thus there isn't anything unbalanced about it.

[Basilisco]

You could use the "poor map building" argument as a excuse when things like this (see screenshot) happen



Even though mappers make mistakes, most of the time it's the people evolving in weird/tight places. Or evolving in the middle of a jump near the ceiling or whatever.

<devsreadthis>I wonder if there could be some kind of location-reset option (something hard to abuse) for aliens and humans to get unstuck</2devsreadthis>

[rasz_pl]

You could use the "poor map building" argument as a excuse when things like this (see screenshot) happen



Even though mappers make mistakes, most of the time it's the people evolving in weird/tight places. Or evolving in the middle of a jump near the ceiling or whatever.

<devsreadthis>I wonder if there could be some kind of location-reset option (something hard to abuse) for aliens and humans to get unstuck</2devsreadthis>

no problem, FF for buildings ON and you are free in no time.

[Catalyc]

I've gotten free after evolving into a brush/wall by taking screenshots (yes weird, but it works most of the time!).

[Basilisco]

post

no problem, FF for buildings ON and you are free in no time.

The tyrant in the screenshot was stuck in the concrete, so buildings or no buildins he wouldn't be able to move.

+you can't spect every server to have ff on, or a tyrant to kill base defenses in sd.

I've gotten free after evolving into a brush/wall by taking screenshots (yes weird, but it works most of the time!).

Obscure tremulous secrets only veterans know *runs away to try it*

[Rippy]

How would taking a screenshot change your in-game location enough to dislodge yourself?  :eek:

[killjoy]

this is the best way i can think of for an alien devolve thing (if it were to be implemented):

lowest form aliens can devolve to is dretch..
aliens can only devolve when touching the overmind and have to be out of range of humans (nothing on radar). they would also need full hp. this is useless though since you can't devolve if you get stuck or something.

so instead of the previous way you can make it so you can only devolve if you  have full hp and if no humans are on radar. this also wouldnt work very well because humans can still fire at you and be off your radar (think of the hallways on arachnid).

so all in all devolving is kind of useless since it would favor aliens too much. just dont evolve in stupid places or at stupid times.

[Rippy]

this is the best way i can think of for an alien devolve thing (if it were to be implemented):

lowest form aliens can devolve to is dretch..
aliens can only devolve when touching the overmind and have to be out of range of humans (nothing on radar). they would also need full hp. this is useless though since you can't devolve if you get stuck or something.

so instead of the previous way you can make it so you can only devolve if you  have full hp and if no humans are on radar. this also wouldnt work very well because humans can still fire at you and be off your radar (think of the hallways on arachnid).

so all in all devolving is kind of useless since it would favor aliens too much. just dont evolve in stupid places or at stupid times.

I agree with this. Full hp would stop Tyrants with 20hp from running back, then devolving to a dretch with 1hp before the humans come in to own him.

[Risujin]

I implemented this in Balance Mod. Please see General Discussion.

[Belier13]

* Another problem. De evolving for the regen then re evolving. I do not know if most people want this to happen.

Regen rate vary. I don't remember exact value, but as far as I remember..

Adv. Basilisk : 100 HP / 3 (regen rate) = 33

Adv. Goon : 250 HP / 7 : 35


Let's say they both have 1 hp, they will reach max HP (almost) at the same instant.

and

* Problem with devolve. Human is attacking you and you deevolve to save the evo points.

You can't evolve when humans are arounds, it could work the other way.

[Neo]

Its an interesting idea tho I think the balance patch method works better.

On the other hand you could just not drop down in Tremor.