No, i absolutly got what you meant.
I just focused on why its bad for xeno side. Something you didnt focus on, wich you said so yourself.
I just mainly adressed a problem, you didnt adress as much as it needs for this to work.
Your change would be a fundemantal change, yes… for marines.
Xenos would basicly interact 1:1 the same with communications just that their ability to disrubt enemy communication gets a major nerf.
Other then that, nothing changes. Still “cap comms, to stop marine communication”
The argument of “it’s a tactical mechanic” doesnt work, because the hinge of it being tactical is that xenos can disrubt xenos in important situations at will. Wich is a nice idea. But they could only do that realiably, even with a small ammount of starter jelly, while controlling comms.
Wich is the same requirment to disrubt comms rigth now, just with a better reward.
“Limited time ability that takes recources and objective controll” vs “quasi-permanent ability that takes objective controll”. Thats a nerf, not a more tactical version of it.
Same end state, just jumping through a lot of hoops.
For the changes to the marine side, you cant just dump more points into the intel economy and expect it to work out.
If comms where to only be there for intelpoints, they would 100% need to give more points.
but current point gain and tech tree pricing is set by overall avalibel points in the round.
So if you where to give comms more intel points, and thats it, you would mainly give marines a flat buff.
Its already not hard to hold comms for over 1/2 of the round for marines.
So its not a situational tecpoint increase, but a general one.
Giving marines
- Communication that cant be fully deactivated.
- A larger ammount of foxtrot/cas/OBs to be bougth. Aka, more power.
If you where to adjust other tecpoint sources and purchases acordingly to the newly introduced tecpoints, you will definitly cause 1 or more tec point sources to fall flat. After all, you will need to take the points the tower gives, from some other source.
And the best sources you can take points from without disrupting too much gameplay, would be xeno bodys and power gens. Wich both dont have the ammount of points you need to make comms tower worth while.
Wich means you will def have to take points from IOs.
Of course you can just say “Fuck it” and just give marines flat more points if they controll comms and xeno royal jelly gain ALSO a buff.
Honestly, that migth be the best way to make this work. But it can also have unvorseen consequences. So who knows.
Tl;dr:
Cool idea.
But if you want this to work, you need to not give xenos a big nerf, and deal with the large ammount of new marine tecpoints.