Ancient Xenos need a rework.

[Gentlefood]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Currently Ancient Xenos serve very little purpose. If the Xenomorph side is winning then its exceedingly unlikely that an Ancient Xenomorph will come into play at all. They contribute nothing to a Xenomorph win that's already decided. On the other end of the spectrum, if marines do manage to weaken Xeno numbers, a handful or even a single Ancient Xenomorph can be enough to attrition marines to death almost indefinitely and delay the round end.

As a note this isn't a complaint about xenomorphs winning. I don't care about that. What I do care about is Rounds that should have ended at 2 hours going on into 3 or 4 hour rounds because xenos can play ring around the rosie and attrition marines to death for two hours.

So what should be done. Honestly I'm uncertain. Due to the stacking nature of upgrades, its entirely plausible that an Elite xenomorph could do the exact same thing, and I am uncertain of how much of a buff Ancient gives. Its entirely possible that this issue is unresolvable without another major overhaul of how xenomorph combat works or the like.

However in the off chance that Ancient Xenomorphs give a plethora of powerful buffs it could be considered that the buffs are scaled to how strong the hive currently is or even how long the round is currently going. Sort of an adrenaline rush after they evolve before they weaken back down.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Hopefully reduce the amount of round delays due to Marines at ~50 pop getting attritioned to death by a handful (less than 10) xenomorphs.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Honestly as I have no access to the code values I couldn't tell you exactly the best way to implement this if at all.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): As per above.

[Toroic]

From what I've experienced and seen the bonuses seem to be mostly linear from young -> mature -> elite -> ancient, meaning elite -> ancient is very much the same as mature -> elite. It's substantial but it means xenos gain power slower and slower as they upgrade. With xenos healing easily of course, an hour and a half of an elite T3 is much more productive than an hour and a half of a mature.

Easiest solution I can think of is if the queen is dead for more than say, 30 minutes then the marines automatically win, as she can't really run that way, and with her creepy breathing can't hide either.

The real issue I'm seeing you describe is that ancient xenos (I'm assuming mostly runners and hunters in this example) can juke and do hit and run attacks for hours delaying the round. Hive collapse without a queen for too long would solve that.

[Simo94]

+1

I'm up for anything that makes the round less than 90 minutes

[ZDashe]

+1 to hive collapsing without a queen for extended periods of time. Long enough for a surviving Xeno to maybe infect a new host to burst and be a new queen, but short enough to discourage drawn out attrition warfare, because the surviving Xenos will be pressed for time. 30 mins sounds reasonable.

[Boltersam]

+1 to hive collapsing without a queen for extended periods of time. Long enough for a surviving Xeno to maybe infect a new host to burst and be a new queen, but short enough to discourage drawn out attrition warfare, because the surviving Xenos will be pressed for time. 30 mins sounds reasonable.

I hate to be that guy, but I'll just quote to show that I agree with this sentiment. Donedydone.

[JDresdin]

+1 to hive collapsing after 30 min without queen also. It's silly watching the last hunter go around killing hosts instead of infecting.

[Snypehunter007]

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7075#p122569

Locking.