Instead of adding something permament, why not approach it from different angle?
What if queen have strains instead, each strain would give different bonuses, considering queen cannot de-evolve with mean choosing strain will be one time choice you need make, but in exchange strains would not give negative drawbacks, but if they are too strong they would give “some” drawbacks but not strong ones (like removing something for something)
(but there can be some small drawback if strain is too strong)
Few examples of strains: (this are examples, don’t take them ALL seriously)
Greather Resin:
This strain unlock new structures, with are exclusive to queen with this strain.
- Upgraded Recovery nodes, now they are “factory” columns with emit queen phermones, but range of this column is limited to 3x3 and queen can only create 3 of them (require hive weeds).
- Thorny weeds, queen get ability to spread weeds with have thorns on them (spiky weeds), with make moving slower and deal small damage, deal little more damage if someone is moving horizontaly or dont have shoes. (you cannot place sticky on it, but it function as sticky resin and resin spikes, you can build fast resin on it)
- Resin hole its same resin hole with burrower and carrier can create, queen can create it anywhere (same rules apply that it cannot be too close to each other) but now empty resin hole have chance to “trip” marine when he walk on it, causing them to get knocked down and drop weapon (something simillar to hugger jump out of hole) chance would be around 20% (?) if someone make it, they can change this chances
The Swarm:
This strain is situational, when you are last xeno and want make last standing on ground:
- Now “max limit” on active lessers is increased drasticly
- Now maximum lessers in core/pylons is increased by x2
- Now “production” of lessers is quicker (core, pylons)
- Now Lessers emit “weak” phermones instead of “very weak”
- Choosing this strain give you (3) ready to use lesser drones when hive core is build (it add +3, so if count is “0” there will be 3 lesser drones to use)
(this strain can be nerfed by annoucing to marines location of hive core like “your sensors detect high nest activity at [location]” so its only used as “last resort”)
(In short, this strain revert back lessers when they first added, i still remember one queen holding last stand with SWARM OF LESSERS pouring from core to defent her and die to 1-3 bullets, it was FUN to play that last standing, and i wish it was a option)
Parasitic Adaptativity:
By experiencing small amount of patogen from “ancient jars” you gain new abilities and structures to use:
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Spore nodes now queen have ability to “upgrade” nodes to spore nodes by pressing this ability on node it will change to spore node, it will grow slowly (something like sack of spores(?)), and when matured, they will release cloud of 3x3 harmless spores with block vision, when broken by knife, they have same rule as resin holes (need space between them to prevent spaming), when they get destroyed by fire, they will instead pop at 5x5 range and extinguish fire in that space (still harmless to humans or xenos, the 3x3 still extinguish fire but have smaller range)
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Resin Hair(s), this resin structure can be placed on weeds, and it will react to touch and getting damaged, its something like touch sensor with send alert to queen (for example) “You feel that one of your hair sensors got triggered at (location)”, it would be good for scouts or sudden marines flanks, but queen need inform other xenos because only she can see this warning (or it can be changed to warn ALL xenos, or there can be option to enable/disable to prevent chat flooding)
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Spore Acid Towers normal acid towers drop by queen are upgraded to parasitic acid towers, they deal same amount of damage as normal acid towers, but now, when they hit marines they will make their vision blurry for short period of time (like 10-15 seconds), it happend because acid contains parasitic spores, with got sprayed to air with acid, marines who got sprayed with acid wave get their eyes attacked (its only exposed internal organ) with cause temporary blurry vision.|
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Parasitic Sack this resin structure when placed (it takes 1 second to place it) will start growing (for like 1 second) after it grow, it will reach maximum volume and explode, releasing liquid with parasites in 5x5 range from explosion, all marines in this range will be covered in parasites, with make other xenos be able to see glowing outline of marines/predators (similar how some aliens start glowing when hit with special bullets), this is only good to use against scouts/predators, because of their invisibility.
Tactical Mind
After commanding for long time againt marines, you adapted your leadership to higher stage:
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Better Leaders after promoting xenomorph to leader, leaders (and queen) gain following:
- Queen can select leader “color” with is shown as Icon near xeno health. (like “*” and other stuff)
- Queen can enable or disable “recruit” function for specific color of leader.
- Queen or Leader can “recruit” specific xenos by their name or class, if you choose by class, all xenos who become that class will be automaticly added to specific leader group (so you can lets say give luker leadership, and add “luker” class to follow that luker leads with allow to create “ambush” leader (group) of lukers)
- Queen or Leader can place “flags” of their group color, queen have all 4 colors to choose from (leader can only place its own color one if queen allows) when flag is placed ALL xenos in that group will have “changed objective” and see direction where “flag” is (work similar to markers when its selected to “track all” option)
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Lesser Leaders Function similar to “Better leaders” with some exceptions:
- Lesser Leaders emit “weak” phermones instead of queen “very strong” one.
- Lesser Leaders don’t have their own flag, instead all members of group have tracking on their leader
(main propuse of lesser leaders is to be backliners/ambushers but can be used on lesser drones)
if you see queen or leader that mean this option it “toggle” by queen command tab.
One With Resin
By developing strong psychic connection with resin you gain new abilities:
(when connected to ovipositor “negative” effects of skills apply to queen, so if she is not on ovi they will not apply)
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Strain “passive” skill - Allow queen on ovi to “feel” weeds, with mean that if weed node get destroyed, queen will “feel” that as damage to her body (health), thanks to that queen is able to tell ‘direction’ where damage is done (it will appear as indicator near queen eye (like arrow pointing to direction)) of course damage will be apply depending on how important structure is to hive like: Recovery Node, Morpher, Core, Acid Pillar, Weed Cluster.
It will not apply to resing walls, doors, and other structures, because they are more like “nails” than “skin”, cutting nails is painless, not like cutting skin (walls can be make from drone puking substance or reshaping resin, with is not damaging to queen) even if resin door is somewhat semi-living thing, it mostly react to xenomorphs phermones(?) or their hivemind… its just like auto reflexes or xenos praying it open.
(thats what i believe at least for “balance” sake)
When Queen decide to de-ovi it will take her longer than normally, because of her connection to weeds, she need first to ‘shatter’ connection with them to de-ovi safetly, queen can speed up process by pressing button for de-ovi twice, with will show pop-up: “Are you sure you want shred connection faster? It can cause heavy damage to your mind weakening you, are you sure you want to process?” if you decide to press “YES” queen will deovi faster, but she will suffer heavy health damage as penalty.
(like 200-300 damage, it depends how long she was de-oving with damage scaling down the longer she waited to de-ovi faster)
When there is Cluster OB, or just any mass destruction weapon with can destroy weeds and stuff, when it happend, queen will receive heavy damage, but it would be “max cap” to prevent queen dying on ovi from all weed nodes dying or structures, for example 50% health “cap”, so if she have 1000, she will lose 500, if 400 she will lose 200, of course she can avoid ALL that damage if she de-ovi.
(its this way so if drones and others spam resin nodes everywhere, queen will not die from all that damage stacked from resin nodes, like how you remove single hair and it hurt, but when you remove a lot of them at same time it hurt less)
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(below are only for ovi)
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Psyhics Blast Allow you to destroy ‘structures’ nearly everything except weeds like: Recovery Node, Morpher, Acid Pillar, Weed Cluster, Resin Wall, Resin Door, Resin Spikes, Fast Resin, Sticky Resin, etc.
(its good if you build something and cannot destroy it)
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Mind Blast Allow queen on ovi to target marines on weeds or next to them, when used on enemy near weeds they will suffer hallucinations and get blurry vision, when marine is on weeds, they will get attacked heavy by it, with can cause: Temporaty Lost of Hearing, Hallucinations, Blurry Vision and Issue to Shoot Straight, it only work on 1x1 area. (one player target, and it will attack immidietly, but have some cooldown)
When Queen is off ovi, she will only have “Mind Blast” ability, but it will apply on 3x3 area with Temporaty Lost of Hearing, Blurry Vision and trouble shooting straight. (3x3 attack have similar indicator to trapper boiler, to make enemies think its trapper and not Mind Blast)
REMEMBER THIS ALL ARE JUST SUGGESTONS.
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