Allow aliens to devolve.

[The_Mockingjay_]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
I think that the aliens should be able to devolve to a prior form after they evolve. For example, an alien that is a hivelord could devolve and would become a drone, and once they are a drone become a carrier / queen/ hivelord again. Devolving should take jelly the same way as evolving.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
I think this will benefit the server and its players. It would allow more versatility with the aliens. As the aliens are a hivemind, the queen could say, "Hey you, larvae, yeah i'm talking to you! Go drone and then hivelord you slimy slug!" and then later decide that it would be more beneficial to the hivemind to have more aliens in combat roles so the player that became a hivelord could devolve to drone and then evolve to carrier to assist the hivemind.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
Aliens can go down a tier.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
When you click evolve in the alien menu, the caste you were prior will be available on the list.

[apophis775]

[Jeser]

Ehm. It's totaly not logical. And imbalance. -1

[The_Mockingjay_]

The way I see it is that it isn't any less logical than the normal evolving. If you can eat magic jelly the queen shits out to become a huge badass alien, shouldn't you be able to use that magical jelly to go to a smaller state? And maybe to balance it then it would cost jelly, have a long wait time for the jelly to set in, and you would need to get the queen to approve it, it would kinda be like how a crewman can go to an officer and change his job.

[Jeser]

Ehm.. Actually, read wiki, aliens are evolving, melting with these strange substance into new form. It's how I understand that. It's not "magical" jelly. If alien devolve, it should then do opposite, leave jelly, that was it's body. Stupid, isn't it?

[The_Mockingjay_]

I understand that its not literally "magical" but I meant it in that you eat jelly from the queen and five minutes later you can contort your body and grow into a huge alien. I just thought it would make sense if the jelly lets you change form it should go both ways, idk it might be a shit idea I just thought it seemed useful / half decent.

[Jeser]

Of course it will be useful. For aliens. But it is pretty non logical and not lore right, also brings disbalance, since aliens not humans, their evolution "biological".

"a crewman can go to an officer and change his job."

Crewman can, because he is human. He doesn't transform into another form, with different colour, grow long tail and big armoring plates on chest for new assignment. That's the difference. Human can put equipment he had into storage, go get reassignment and take new gear. Aliens can't devolve their new pair of additional hands back. Also aliens are evolving to grow bigger, faster, deadlier. It's against their logic to become weaker form than before. It's against their nature.

[Biolock]

I see what you're saying, and its benefits. I don't know if I agree with the suggestion though, I'm staying neutral,

[UnknownMurder]

Name an animal that 'devolve'.

Also, aliens can't 'devolve'.

[The_Mockingjay_]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii

The link is a species of jellyfish that can revert back to its youngest form once it ages. Its pretty damn interesting if you want to give it a look and its what somewhat inspired this post, and there are lots of articles about it.

Also, I don't literally mean devolve, I just used the term since the evolve function is already in the game, I just revert back to a prior state.

[Jeser]

Aliens don't revert to previous evolution form, that's it.

[The_Mockingjay_]

And hivelords / carriers / ravager / sentinel don't exist either, but they are in the game.

[RehabBaron]

I recall someone saying once "Balance first, lore second."

[Jeser]

Welp, aliens doesn't exist at all.

Aliens have different forms? Yes. Then let's add few forms, that never was in films and so on. But that doesn't mean we will go against alien nature of evolving, improving and make them able to become weaker, than they were.

[The_Mockingjay_]

Sometimes you need to take two steps back to go forward, Jesser.

[Jeser]

It's really getting annoying already, how people see not existing letters.

I agree, but. This is hive.

Specimens with useless mutations go for biomass recycling.

(c) Abathur

Too weak and useless forms of xenomorphs more likely would be killed by drones and melt into some biomass for hive, jelly. We went too far in our discussion. I didn't find in wiki information about reverted process of xenomorphs evolution.

Aliens should choose wisely their future caste. Or trust Queen to choose. If Queen doesn't sure/need any specific caste, then she always can say "choose by yourself, my child".

[johners12345]

All I have to say.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

[Mitchs98]

In concept, kinda cool. Logically? Trolololol, no. -1

[Rahlzel]

Denied due to popular opinion, along with my own.