sd suggestion

[doomagent13]

i dont kno if this is possibly, but i think it should be...

anyway, i think that 10 minutes after both teams reach s3, sd should begin, and then 10 minutes after that the game should end

this would make it harder for the aliens to win in sd, at least on severs with 20 minutes between sd and end of game.  this just my opinion, but the game gets kinda boring when its s3 humans camping their base and "spamming" at any alien in sight, and aliens camping just outside the human base before sd--in sd its a little more interesting.  my idea would get rid of the long times when its s3 vs s3 before sd, which does little but let people rack up enormous amounts of kills. the shorter sd would make it harder for aliens to win in sd before the game ended, cause its been my experience that most alien sd wins happened within minutes of the end of the game.

comments, please

[cephas]

On a side-note, I've always wondered if instead of declaring a tie at the end of SD, it could become true "sudden death" and disable the spawns.  Would this actually end games, though?

[Undeference]

Keep in mind that sudden death is supposed to be a last resort. Adding more sudden death things after sudden death just increases the amount of time people will (and shouldn't) wait. Why kill myself in SD when I can just rack up kills until SD2 begins and the stakes are raised that much more?

It's just that aliens recognize SD as "now when we attack, we're actually doing something" and humans recognize it (given the right circumstances) as "an end to this egg hunt is in sight". If you aren't attacking or helping with the base when you have stage 3, you probably deserve to lose.

The problem with 10 minutes between s3 and sd is that one team usually gets s3 before the other. Whichever team is over the other might not be able to win, though. So making it sd based on when the other team gets s3 hurts that team's ability to make their base useful. It doesn't even encourage the other team to try winning, just to destroy some defenses to keep the builders busy.

[SilverWolf]

How about just before the game ends, the overmind and the reactor blows up?

[Henners]

Dear doomagent13,

Have you met my friend, Mr Shift Key?

No? Ok let me introduce you. doomagent13 - shift key, shift key - doomagent13.

Right now thats out of the way I'm just going to echo what was already said in this thread, SD should be a last resort, not an inevitability. If there is a stalemate that is taking a long time try a change of tactics in order to achieve your goal rather than a radical change in game parameters.

[techhead]

At end-game, every building shuts down, defenses and spawns alike.
Structures can no long be repaired, nor regenerate health.
Behold!
The game will end almost instantly.

[doomagent13]

The 10 minutes between when both teams reach s3 and SD would only be needed if you were upgrading a s2 base to a s3 base-- turrets to teslas(not all), acid tubes to hives (not all).  You can still evolve and buy things in SD.  When both teams reach s3 in the first 15 minutes, the game is not likely to end until SD (personal opinion based on experience, some of which came from SST), and most of the time before sd is just a time to rack up enormous numbers of kills.

A 10 minute SD makes it harder for the aliens to win in SD because they dont have as much time.  Most of the time aliens win in SD is in the last 5-10 minutes of the game(personal opinion based on experience, some of which came from SST).

I havent played on anywhere near all the servers, so this may be more of an exception than "rule"

You tell me:
What happens before SD most of the time when both teams reach s3 semi-early in the game, particularly if aliens get there first?

[Somtin]

Why not download Tjw's mod, which has a variable that changes the way SD behaves? I recall in the readme you can make it so that all defensive structures cannot be rebuilt, the only things that can be rebuilt are the reactor, armoury, medistation, telenode, defence comp, overmind, eggs, booster and barricade. Or we could have a flag type cvar called g_sdbuild. Add up the values you wont to have buildable.

1: Reactor
2: Armoury
4: Medistation
8: Telenode
16: Defence Computer
32: Overmind
64: Egg
128: Barricade
256: Booster

And so on. Default g_sdbuild 511 which makes all of those things buildable. I think it can go up to 1028(thats only 1 or 2 more flags) but if it can do more, then include all buildables in it so people have more choice.

[techhead]

Put Reactor & Overmind in one variable, and put Egg & telenode in another.
Keeps people from making VERY unbalanced servers.
That, and you can now fit a couple extra flags.

[kevlarman]

Put Reactor & Overmind in one variable, and put Egg & telenode in another.
Keeps people from making VERY unbalanced servers.
That, and you can now fit a couple extra flags.

or just set g_suddendeathmode to 1, so when the OM/Reactor goes down, it actually means something.

[techhead]

Ah, but make it customizable, so every marauder doesn't try to suicide the Armory or Defense Computer.