State of the Coder's Union Address

[Abbysynth]

Hey all, just a heads up regarding a few things I'm working on next. Quite a few of the goals I had for the last time I commented about future plans are now finished, so I feel we can move on to necessities. Here's what I have in mind, subject to change:

Marines and xenos are in a pretty well-balanced state right now. This means any real changes have to be very carefully balanced.
Server lag is well within tolerable parameters for now. It's a constant effort to keep things efficient. I've recently done quite a few performance enhancements and more are on the way (I'm looking at you, bullet casings).

I'm focusing primarily on the 3 races in stages.

First is Predators. There will be two tiers of Predator rather than one, a Yautja vessel orbiting the planet, with its own shuttle to the planet, and a wider variety of weapons and equipment available to Preds. There will be a 30% or so chance of 3 "youngblood" Predators spawning on round start instead of as a marine or xeno, depending on the whitelist (which we currently aren't using). Preds will spawn with objectives, similar to traitors. The second tier of Preds will be "Veterans", which are given full access to all Pred equipment and can only be spawned manually by admin. All new and existing Predator equipment will be given a thorough rebalancing, particularly their cloaking device.

Next will be xenos. Sorry Marines! Xenos will be giving something similar to Preds - an Elite tier. Each caste will have a variety of options available to allow them to become an "elite" version of their caste - for example, a Carrier landing 5 facehuggers or a Hunter infecting or killing 10 people. The Elite version has a variety of overlays they can choose from (scars, bullet holes, acid patterns, etc), and their general stats are increased to about that of the next tier up - Ie. an Elite Hunter has about the same stats as a Ravager, only is faster and does slightly less damage. If you evolve up a caste, you lose the Elite benefits and have to start the process over again for the new tier. Elite status also applies to Queens, whose only requirement for Elite status is to have lived a long enough time.

Finally will come Marines. There's a few things in mind as surprises for Marines, but next on the chopping block is R&D. Research as it currently stands is only a placeholder. R&D will be significantly rebalanced, in effect (or possibly in practice) turning the Researcher position into something more like a Weapons Manufacturer. They are responsible for the testing and research of various pieces of new weaponry, including new weapon attachables and specialized anti-xeno equipment. This might also include prototypes of existing weapons, like an upgraded M41A, the M41B, which might be available in low numbers. Grenades would also be still buildable; they will likely be nerfed in strength but faster and easier to make.

This makes Research feel a little bit more like what might be available on a high-tech military vessel. The job would also be relegated to Engineering rather than Medical, and would likely arrive with a full overhaul to the Sulaco lower level.

One more thing to look forward to in the future - map rotations. Can't say much about em yet. But maybe somewhere down the line..


Have fun and keep playing!
Abby

[TR-BlackDragon]

Ohhh I like the sound of this so far I like it alot

[TopHatPenguin]

Looks like something i can look forward to besides the Halloween stuff, nice

[WyattH]

Really looking forward to Research!

-just hoping research will still be able to make power cells/health huds/PDAs as well as circuit boards ~_~

[Abbysynth]

For the record, this stuff is NOT currently being coded, it is barely being planned so far. It's in theory only.

[WyattH]

For the record, this stuff is NOT currently being coded, it is barely being planned so far. It's in theory only.

Awww, it's still really nice to know what's coming either way~

[Pillow]

ALl HAIIL THE CODERS

[Mac]

Sounds like good stuff. Also unrelated to this but I sent you a PM regarding some things I am trying to code for my own project, I'm wondering if you could perhaps give me some advice.

[Steelpoint]

I like the idea of elite variations on all Alien casts.

What I personally think is that a elite caste should be something you have to really strive for, meaning that it should be easier to just get royal jelly and evolve to the next level than to get to a elite status.

My idea is that a elite cast is usually reserved for a person who either really enjoys playing one particular caste, someone who wants to flaunt their skill as a particular Alien or someone who really wants to delay evolution as long as they can.

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For Predators I have a minor query.

Would it be possible to explore the idea of a non-white listed Predator role that is a really, really, low level/basic Predator ( think a really young blood) that only has access to essentially wrist blades, a basic med kit and a crappy cloaking unit. Maybe their biomask is very ineffective and will break easily to facehuggers.

Kind of a way to let people play as a Predator in a minor capacity without the ability to make a massive impact to the game, even if the odds of this young "young" blood spawning is very small (like space ninja on ss13, could be 1% of a chance to spawn).

Either way, I like the pred system proposed.