Have you ever wanted to be fast like a runner but strong like a spitter? Have you ever wanted to be a carrier but wanted to not die at any confrontation? A drone Tier 2; unsure what to name it, maybe “Queen”; like a bee hive Queens have close high ranking drones that feed her jelly and carry her young. This would be akin to the Queen/Drone hybrids in the lore that are more slim but arguably the deadliest. This would open up the early game in an interesting way so here me out.
HP 450
Plasma 300
Armor 20
Slash 30
Abilities : can carry two eggs or two huggers
can not spread weeds but can construct special hive structures(hive clusters, morphers, etc.)
Is slightly slower than runner
tail stab
a nerfed pounce that only jumps 3 tiles
drone pheromones
I want to sprite it at least I just am a not skilled in that. It would come out just before runners meaning it could be timed to be equal to the time it takes the first drones to get 200/200 evolution. It could be the only xeno that could be removed from the caste list after the first 30 minutes. Forcing a huge trade off for the xeno hive if they were to have too many of them.
EVERY class under drone what it can evolve into can weed. That is done on purpose. I don’t think you want to break that pattern with any new creation.
At first I was struggling to see this creation’s place in the world. You took a vampire and removed everything scary about it for some drone abilities. There is no way I would trade a T2 vamp slot for a drone that leaps and can sometimes get a slash in.
I think I get it though. Imagine it as a strain of carrier. It is just a carrier that is designed to stay close to the fights and have huggies at the ready. Considering it lost the ability to make traps, I think the frontline carrier strain has some merit. At the bare minimal it has a place in the world: to replace carriers that keep being too risky on the frontlines.
I dont know if the set of skills is what would be ideal for a frontline trapless carrier, but it is a good start.
Also a carrier strain that is a bit more fun and not just a trap and huggie placer machine would probably see more people evolve to it, leading to frontline hugs being less of a chore to get.
Yea like its a xenotype based on the symptom of a New Young Queen so it could just be tied to “is there a Young Queen” later in the game. I might trade a Drone class for a Lurker but thats the trick its meant to be a little choice for those players depending on the time of the round.
Yes, howver now there is a new threat to killing Queens and not successfully killing a hive. The hive will get a small new time frame of power surge of these borderline broken xenos. Its meant to add new limits to a small hive with larva that hatched as soon as the new queen evolved. It could be a BIT to much but given they are still reliant on drones & reliant on a Queen laying eggs & reliant on the need to evolve a lurker or a warrior or a spitter but only having access to T1s in that time frame. With no added data, it seems like a complete game changer for a weak or new xeno hive. Its main nerf I would argue is if you consider that most players would rather be a Standard Class tier 2 then the choice to be this specialized scenario dependent (Young Queen) xeno is just not worth it. It would prevent the xeno hive from taking Tier 3 xenos as well. It would demand any player who chooses it to stay that class because it would take 5 + minutes to get back the evolution points to get to a more useful Tier 2 xeno. So I doubt it would be popular and most of a indicator of where the hive it at. It definitely would need some balancing to be more perfect for that “game changer” status I think a weird specialized xeno like this would offer.