thoughts?
rockets, mortar shells, custom claymores and C4s are no longer available roundstart
Rough, but could be âinterestingâ depending on the other changesâŚ
Adds the explosion data analyzer, costs 1 credit to print and can be attached to casings and grants 2 credits for every mob hit by the casingâs fire or explosion
You will never see it in anything thatâs not a fire maxcap, otherwise itâs an opportunity cost.
Also lowers the casingâs max capacity by 30 units if below 200 and 60 units if above 200 units.
Impacts the efficacy of the previous point⌠(Explosion sizes get really dogwater when you shave even a bit of explosive chemicals, with these values they are either not going to do any damage or be smaller than a demo rocket with blast dampener)
Adds chem dispensers to the OT workshop and other minor changes to the workshop
Good!* (*see additional reply below)
Adds an option to buy an explosive chem paper with an easy recipe
adds an option to buy an armylathe upgrade
adds an option to buy a single use Drathek approved custom OB
Minecraft Creative mode, all of these are absolutely busted
Marines must earn OT stuff by hitting good nades.
So your entire round is essentially out of your hands and in the hands of John Marine who hoards some grenades and throws a bunch of them at the scary xenos in the dark that he canât see (he hit nobody - you can cryo).
This PR at face value seems to create a potential astronomical swing in power. If marines are winning - they will win absolutely harder. If theyâre losing - youâll feel even more useless and demoralized for playing OT than before.
The way I see myself playing this:
This looks to me like the old research problem - with there being such a massive gamble on giving your precious points away to marines to lose on your behalf (and the âanalysisâ grenades being gimped to boot), I would turtle the points meanwhile abusing all the boons to print out even more nade spam than ever before, until eventually xenos get absolutely rolled by high power casings with research explo and any buffs on top of current OT this PR has, provided the round gets to the âround has been going long enough that stims are in OT editionâ˘â
Havenât play OT in a while so I may be slightly out of touch but I think the concept is cool but has some problems. Whenever I used to play with a second OT I would always try to do things that wouldnât interfere too much with whatever theyâre doing, since itâs always annoying when OTs are stepping on each otherâs toes. So I would do things like phosphorus claymores since most OTs (at least back then) never used phosphorus and claymores are cheap metal-wise. But the problem with this system is that both OTs now share tech points so if Iâm trying to avoid bothering the other OT I canât actually spend anything and am basically stuck making grenades (or whatever they decide to buy). It reminds me of my least favourite part of research, which is how research points work. In practice I can imagine there being a âmetaâ where people prefer to buy certain things and will get mad at you if you try buying something that is considered a waste.
Also not sure how good the explosion analyzer is going to be in practice. It all depends on marines hitting things with it, and itâs very common for things like grenades to not hit any xenos since they can react and run away. Normally thatâs not even an issue since blowing up a bunch of xeno defences and pushing xenos back is still good but in this case it means wasted credits. Again, I can see a world where your fellow OTs will get mad at you for buying explosion analyzers because theyâre viewed as a waste.
Still, the concept of unlocking things over the course of a round is really cool. One of the problems with OT is that thereâs not much reason to stick around rather than just speedrun things out and then ghost. The things I complain about with regards to points might be inevitable since I canât think of any better way to unlock things over the course of a round that doesnât involve something like this.
Chem dispenser I have slightly mixed feelings on. Itâs very convenient but feels a bit anti-soul. Begging research/medbay for chems is one of the very few reasons you have to interact with other people as OT. I havenât played research in ages either but I used to like delivering polytrinic and ammonia to OT when I had nothing else to do.
rename technology credits to marine coins
Despite what I said earlier, I feel it has potential with the right balance and some tweaks.
What I would personally like to see is to wire in the âanalysisâ assemblies into the monitor in OTâs workshop, which with this PR could be made to flash red when an assembly is primed/fired, and you can look at the impending aftermath if youâre present, even for grenades (it currently only does cam shells - boring).
This would alleviate one of the biggest âI donât even know if my isolated room assembly line simulator gameplay is having any impact to the round at largeâ feelings of OT. (People often dump their supply and ghost to look at the explosions)
Not to mention youâd get to yell at the appropriate John Marine for flubbing an expensive nade. (++)
It would be more soul if instead of a chem dispenser - you had a demolitions budget that let you order explosives production crates instead (this is easier to scale to pop).
In a similar vein, OT production is largely metal-supply gated. If this similarly allowed you to purchase select pre-printed assemblies (that canât be turned back into metal?), it might give more incentive to make âbadâ analysis grenades.
Give âanalysisâ assemblies a pink instead of a green light to indicate that John Marine shouldnât expect a maxcap.
A generic improvement to the regular green âassembly ready and fueled properlyâ would be adding a few additional âtiersâ of the the current green indicator to be a different color depending on the assemblyâs relative explosive and incendiary power. (perhaps with special colors for special properties such as fire-pen)
Regarding the âfreeâ research explo paper⌠I have no good way of saying this, but - no. Despite how much I would LOVE these - anybody, whoâs played with (or against, on the receiving end of) EXP1 or EXP3 provided to OT by research, will tell you that research chems make current-balance OT go from average req-power-level or gimmicky munitions to something that instills fear in Xenos and marines alike. But research even with the paper will most likely forget you exist as is common when they usually get explosive properties regardless.
Juryâs out on whether âmore OBâsâ is good for the game. Cluster shrapnel, or cluster fire shrapnel would be potential for high comedy. Chemical gas OB could be very unique as well (in that it wouldnât destroy fortifications). I feel I would like it if the OT OB leaned in the âgimmicky OTâ direction, rather than just being a straight extra Cluster/HE/Incend (Where were you when overwatch foamed all of admin).
I absolutely fucking love it, the issue is that xenomains will hate it, and admitedly they kinda have reasons to do it.
If Iâm not mistaken the main issue that xenomains have with the OT is that:
- They donât know what the nade that fell in front of them will do: Maybe it will be a mini OB, maybe it will be a massive low-power incendiary nade, maybe it will be a poorly designed HE nade made by a new OT or maybe it will be a fake grenade made just to scare away xenos.
- Xenos get no agency in the ordnance-making process: Letâs assume that we still have the old research system: You want rines to NOT have stims? kill the IOs, thatâs a way of deterring it. Sure there is the issue of marines getting vials and corpses and yadda yadda yadda but at the end of the day you were given an option to slow down the process.
With the current OT system if you get a good tech and itâs pumping out god tier explosives then there is nothing benos can do to stop him from doing that. - You canât run away from rockets: If a demo clicks near your sprite when it loaded WP or HE you WILL be hurt. But if they loaded an OT rocket then thatâs it, youâre dead.
- Xenos canât cope with being on the recieving end of the metagame that they do on a daily basis: Just for the sake of transparency Iâm going to admit that this last one is written out of spite. Xenos are allowed to hide game-ending traps (hugger traps) below corpses and other sprites but when marines hide their own game-ending traps (OT Claymores) itâs suddenly bad and unbalanced.
With that said:
Rockets, mortar shells, custom claymores and C4s are no longer available roundstart and must be unlocked with technology credits
This means that 2 out of 3 controversial OT items are still available (M15 and the claymore).
Adds the explosion data analyzer, costs 1 credit to print and can be attached to casings and grants 2 credits for every mob hit by the casingâs fire or explosion (as long as they are not dead or a monkey). Also lowers the casingâs max capacity by 30 units if below 200 and 60 units if above 200 units. Doesnât award credits for gibs (no data to analyze duh!)
I can imagine OTs making bank with cyclonite filled nades. But besides that, it has the same issue that research had with biomatter getting turned into research points: It rewards you just for existing in the already planned gameplay cycle. Marines WILL use nades and the explosion WILL happen with the intent of hurting xenos, xenos getting hurt hard by grenades IS the reward of using them and anything that comes on top of it is kinda excessive and most importantly: Hard to balance. And yes, I am aware that there is a tradeoff for the points that you are getting (the capacity of the container).
Also please tell me that âevery mobâ does not include marines.
Adds chem dispensers to the OT workshop and other minor changes to the workshop
This is some seriously good stuff. I canât understate how much chem dispensers that are usable by OTs were needed. Pestering other departments for chems was a pain in the ass and the maintainers giving as a solution âjust go and speak with others lmaoâ was even more annoying.
Also as a med main it was annoying to be trying to build up the most beautiful smartfridge stock just to see an OT with 2 jannie buckets and realize that I would be unable to use the chem dispenser for quite a good while⌠Also it was annoying as a researcher given that we had to speedrun research if we wanted an actually decent stim lmao.
Adds an option to buy an explosive chem paper with an easy recipe
I was unable to watch the video in the PR page because firefox+linux+2010 laptop funnee so Iâm just going to say: I hope that in the video there was a scene that had the menu for buying the paper and that the paper costed something like 120 credits or something. Because honestly this aggravates the problems we already have.
adds an option to buy an armylathe upgrade
I saw nothing written in the PR so I can only conclude: The closed source codecs and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race. (Also fuck poulsbo drivers and anything related to the god forsaken dev team that wrote them)
adds an option to buy a single use Drathek approved custom OB (reaction limits subject to change!)
OT shells already are scary, this thing will get us a staff report in no time if itâs ever used.
Either way. Unironically: Thank you for actually trying to fix this mess of a job/role. God knows that OT in particular is a fucking mess in terms of design.
relying on marines not under your control for role play-ability is bad
itâs fine for shipside roles to rely on shipside roles, but not shipside roles relying on groundside roles
just wayyy too inconsistent. you either get a guy that frags and gets you 14 gorillion points, or you spend all your points on shells and rockets just for nobody to ever find them after they are dropped
spend all your points on shells and rockets just for nobody to ever find them after they are dropped
The decline in dedicated FOB jannies has been a disaster to all shipside roles
Maybe command can buy you stuff with tech points or you get a passive income. At leats that way you can alway be able to play the game. As for the getting a billion points. Have a cap point so you can only have so many at any given time.
OT had it coming is all iâm saying.
bomb photos added
all custom casings (except OB) now take a picture 1.2 seconds after detonating
picture canât be bigger than this otherwise it lags too much
This is actually soul as fuck, finally the OT can see how many marines they murder
We really need some kind of ammo bunker vendor for FOB.
One of the biggest issues Iâve run into with new players, is how everything just looks like a puke of incomprehensible bullshit on their screen. You walk in fob or prep and its just, what the fuck is all of this? None of them ever told me they stopped playing because of it (itâs always the controls and poor feedback from clicking on stuff) but they havenât ever said positive things about how cluttered it looks, either, in fact itâs always been, âI canât even tell what anything isâ.
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Gameplay
In my perspective, OT has 2 ways of making explosives.
Spamming cheap fire nade/claymore (I saw it kill queen and half of hive during evac at choke point in low pop) Or making some max cap mortar/Sadar rocket/CAS rocket (really depends on the skill of the marine who uses it) -
Point system
I agree with Efzapaâs idea that the shipside role should not rely on the marines on the ground. Using the point system, I feel like it is going into the Rsr path and shares the same question. Researcher relies on the IO so much to make progress, which OT canât make powerful nade. Only can spamming cheap Ince nades makes it boring. (feels like the BNM and APS) The Greeno and custom OB as the most powerful game-changing methods. They require help from IOs/Marines to get intel. It will also use up one personâs full round time to make sure itâs in progress. Itâs somehow a balance. Low-level heal chems and nades are easier to make but high-level stims/greeno/custom OB requires more help from other departments. I canât say itâs good or bad, we only can test it out and find how to improve it. -
Other stuff
I like the idea of making photos at the printer, it is much easier to have RP with it. Besides, I canât wait to make a Rsr custom cloud OB to surprise Xenos. (like the one in TGMC)
Iâm considering making the analyzer not nerf the casing but iâd rather see the TM first. Also the PR will be on hold for about 12 days as Iâm currently far away from my PC.
I donât play OT, but a one-time custom OB sounds like the beeâs knees. Complete and utter mayhem no matter the contents. Metal foam covering half of the xeno backline, flaming smoke dousing anything and everything, et cetera
That aside, as much as I like the idea of unlocking things, I worry that the whole analysis grenade system will just lead to OTs making nothing but custom M15s instead of using the new system