[A] Predator Start-up Change Suggestion

[Feweh]

CM Version (alpha or Regular):
Alpha

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

The Humans gear up, grab gear and go to briefing.. then take the shuttle to the planet, this is their start-up.
Aliens build a Hive, gather host and grow their forces. Both the Humans and Alien's require early game time to get ready for the round RP and Game-play wise.
The Predators currently do not have any of this which is a issue of balance that severely effects the Aliens specifically. Predators main hunt are Aliens and early game it can be crippling to get a good Predator who harasses the Aliens to the point their stuck in the caves.

I'm proposing the Predators have a early game start-up themselves that is COMPLETELY canon to their universe and the situation at hand.
When Predators start the round off they should not have their Plasma-Weapons, canon to the comics and AlienVPredator movie they have to grab their Plasma weapons inside a certain area, along with perhaps certain other items.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

Give the Predators more to do early on aside from simply hunting the Aliens from the get-go and will also be in canon with the movies and comics.
Will also improve balance a bit early, so if a Predator wants to get involved with the aliens early on he doesn't have his Plasma Cannon to back him up.
Also a bit more balanced because all the aliens are Low Chaste aliens, most are just drones who have no real combat abilities.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

They're numerous temples around the map and unique landmarks that should randomly spawn the Predators gear in a crate. They must find the crate using a Pin-Pointer to retrieve their Plasma-Cannons and potentially other weaponry.

Have a generic hostile Mob defending the location, perhaps a planetary beast that would require the Predators to kill together. This would also be in canon with them hunting difficult beast and wouldn't be meaningless all while they claim a trophy.

However, if the Predators don't retrieve their weaponry or they fail to find it... Humans could capture this technology for RD and earn bonus points. Which if the humans somehow did capture any of this the existing Predators would want to hunt them down. (Also canon to the movies)

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):

Code/Spriting?
Mapping abit?
Don't let Aliens melt the crate and don't let the Humans use the Plasma-Cannons for balance reasons.

[coroneljones]

Maybe have them gear up in their ship and then use a pod which takes some time to travel to the surface?

[Feweh]

Maybe have them gear up in their ship and then use a pod which takes some time to travel to the surface?

I was aiming for a more eventful or canon scenario for them.

That's a easy idea but a do-able to fix the initial start-up phase.

[Tetsip]

I would vote hiding the plasma weapons in the pyramid, and coding the plasma weapons if they aren't already so that marines cannot use them.

There are positives I see to this, which is that predators actually have to survive and make it to the pyramid to get their plasma gear. Maybe a marine finds the gear first, and the predators have to hunt down the human that stole their technology and recover it.

There are a lot of negatives too. Once alien and marine players learn where predator stuff is the metagame on protecting it could get potentially severe because OOCly, nobody wants the preds to get their plasma weaponry. I forsee pyramid nests becoming a thing. I also forsee marines rushing the plasma weapon location to take them for research.

Suggestion: Maybe have them in a container only predators can access?

[Feweh]

A viable fix to that is to have them randomly spawn at different landmarks every round.

I suggested a hostile mob that would take the team-work of multiple Predators solely to stop aliens from camping it. It's unlikely you'd get the aliens all together to attack the Mob so they wouldn't be able to camp it.

Also, humans would ONLY ever steal it if the aliens defended it or the Predators were that awful.

It's more for the Aliens early game

[Tetsip]

Could have it so that normal preds can gear up on the ship. But if the viewtopic.php?p=25638#p25638 passes, then maybe the youngbloods are required to retrieve their own weapons from the pyramid on the colony map or something like that.

[UnknownMurder]

I'm certain this is planned out however not yet in.

[Lostmixup]

I wouldn't mind the predators having some kind of setup for themselves. I'd say the search for the plasma weapons would be the best way of doing it.

[Feweh]

I wouldn't mind the predators having some kind of setup for themselves. I'd say the search for the plasma weapons would be the best way of doing it.

I was trying to think of something lore related and interesting rather than gearing up on a shuttle and then waiting 2 minutes for the shuttle to launch.

Both Aliens/Humans have both RP and Gameplay elements of a start-up.. so why not Predators as well?

[YummyToast]

I think that including both a setup and the option of finding improved/extra/other gear in pyramids would be quite neat and offer another optional objective for Predator players.

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

They should be given an uplink with a set number of telecrystals. From there, they can pick their equipment.

This would add a lot of variety and replayability to Predators.

[apophis775]

That's a negative ghostrider to telecrystals

Potentially, higher "ranked" predators will have additional equipment later down the line, however, predators won't necessarily be in every single round like they are now.


Additionally, there ARE plans for a pred ship in orbit, with a teleport that will transfer preds between the temple and the ship.