Colony Floodlight Improvements

[KingKire]

Summary:
Colony Floodlights receive two buffs to help make them more important and lasting side objectives for marines. The first being a buff towards making broken floodlights easier/quicker to repair then the current 30 second welding requirement. The second buff aims at making floodlights more durable or effective at lighting environments if time and resources are diverted to upgrading them.

Details and description:
The buffs would work like so; instead of the normal 30 second welding to repair a floodlight, the Colony Floodlight could be repaired in one of two ways:
1) Reduce the time it takes to weld.( example, 5-10 seconds): The floodlight still requires the time of a valuable trooper to repair but it now does not take longer to fix a lightpost then it does to completely cut open and dismantle several large walls.
2) Requires a multi-step process: Instead of fixing floodlights being a task of sit and stand for 30 seconds, a technician must do 3 or 4 steps in correct order for the floodlight to be fixed. This could be [ use wirecutters to cut old wiring, add new wiring, screw plate on, wrench plate closed] this means that a floodlight can be fixed very quick by a skilled technician but still has the barrier of people needing tools and some knowledge to repair it. This step can be faster or slower then the current welding method depending on the users skill.

The second (optional) buff would be to have Colony Floodlights be able to be upgraded. At the cost of some metal and valuable time, an engineer can reinforce a floodlight by welding plates onto it. This increases the time it takes to destroy the light by a decent amount. If a reinforced floodlight is destroyed but then repaired again, it still retains its status of reinforced without costing extra metal. This element is balanced by the need for engineers to use metal and time to upgrade each individual light but can pay off in the longer run due to the increased durability.
- A bigger step would be the need to use plasteel plates to reinforce the lights, but the result is a considerable upgrade to the time it takes to slice up a light.
- A side upgrade for floodlights ( optional) would be to upgrade the amount of light they emit by one or two tiles by adding in extra power cables or such to the unit. The trade off would be the time it takes to upgrade the light, and the fact that they would use a considerable amount of extra power.


Benefits:
Floodlights are a important game element for colonial marines and currently they are being criminally underused for something that could add a decent amount of depth if not physically then at least psychologically to the server.

Currently floodlights take a valuable engineer 30 seconds of his time in the middle of a dark jungle to repair a floodlight. This repaired floodlight is a weak creature, able to be disabled in seconds by a lone xeno darting in and out. It can be reinforced by building walls around it, but the cost to do so is enormous both in time and metal. The worst part is that its job of illumination can easily be replaced by the lowly flashlight, which is excessively cheap, movable, and can only be destroyed by sitting in acid for a few minutes.

Now you can say, nerf the flashlight for being decent but one can go the other direction and help these little metal giraffes have their day in the limelight. Yes, by making the Floodlights easier to repair, we can reinforce the nature of the colony itself giving the marines a little bit of a "homefield advantage". The marines are making this area south of the river into marine territory and it should reflect that. Lighting itself is a massive psychological part of the game, and having areas lit vs. areas that are dark subconsciously tell all the players, xeno and marine alike, which side is "winning" the game. The xenos want to tear these nodes of territory down, and marines want those nodes to stay up. So making the Colony Floodlights more durable helps make people know whose territory is whose easier. Seeing floodlights go down should fill marines with great dread instead of annoyance that 30 seconds was wasted.


-anyone elses ideas on the subject and ways to make it better?
( Thank you Infernus for the guide, sorry for the end, too much color fun)


some examples of what they would might like: ( p.s. i am no bueno at pixel art but eh)
reinforced floodlight:

floodlight reinforced.png

[Desolane900]

This is the most colorful suggestion of them all. Like a rainbow. It's so sweet to the eye, like a piece of fruit.

[Gentlemanly_headcrab]

+1 Gotta love that eye candy and great ideas

[MauroVega]

Doom is Eye candy...
..
.
oh yeah the idea is good to +1

[coolsurf6]

Bump?

Seriously this is a good suggestion!

[KingKire]

bump because Colony Light improvements never say die.

[KingKire]

Bumperonia and cheese, floodlights please.
\
As a side note, flashlights have been nerfed, which i thought was pretty nice. So maybe this gives this suggestion more merit.

And if even this suggestion might not make it through, at least have xenos that cut the floodlight power be shocked-stunned like when they cut an apc.

[SPACEpotato1]

Summary:
Colony Floodlights receive two buffs to help make them more important and lasting side objectives for marines. The first being a buff towards making broken floodlights easier/quicker to repair then the current 30 second welding requirement. The second buff aims at making floodlights more durable or effective at lighting environments if time and resources are diverted to upgrading them.

Details and description:
The buffs would work like so; instead of the normal 30 second welding to repair a floodlight, the Colony Floodlight could be repaired in one of two ways:
1) Reduce the time it takes to weld.( example, 5-10 seconds): The floodlight still requires the time of a valuable trooper to repair but it now does not take longer to fix a lightpost then it does to completely cut open and dismantle several large walls.
2) Requires a multi-step process: Instead of fixing floodlights being a task of sit and stand for 30 seconds, a technician must do 3 or 4 steps in correct order for the floodlight to be fixed. This could be [ use wirecutters to cut old wiring, add new wiring, screw plate on, wrench plate closed] this means that a floodlight can be fixed very quick by a skilled technician but still has the barrier of people needing tools and some knowledge to repair it. This step can be faster or slower then the current welding method depending on the users skill.

The second (optional) buff would be to have Colony Floodlights be able to be upgraded. At the cost of some metal and valuable time, an engineer can reinforce a floodlight by welding plates onto it. This increases the time it takes to destroy the light by a decent amount. If a reinforced floodlight is destroyed but then repaired again, it still retains its status of reinforced without costing extra metal. This element is balanced by the need for engineers to use metal and time to upgrade each individual light but can pay off in the longer run due to the increased durability.
- A bigger step would be the need to use plasteel plates to reinforce the lights, but the result is a considerable upgrade to the time it takes to slice up a light.
- A side upgrade for floodlights ( optional) would be to upgrade the amount of light they emit by one or two tiles by adding in extra power cables or such to the unit. The trade off would be the time it takes to upgrade the light, and the fact that they would use a considerable amount of extra power.


Benefits:
Floodlights are a important game element for colonial marines and currently they are being criminally underused for something that could add a decent amount of depth if not physically then at least psychologically to the server.

Currently floodlights take a valuable engineer 30 seconds of his time in the middle of a dark jungle to repair a floodlight. This repaired floodlight is a weak creature, able to be disabled in seconds by a lone xeno darting in and out. It can be reinforced by building walls around it, but the cost to do so is enormous both in time and metal. The worst part is that its job of illumination can easily be replaced by the lowly flashlight, which is excessively cheap, movable, and can only be destroyed by sitting in acid for a few minutes.

Now you can say, nerf the flashlight for being decent but one can go the other direction and help these little metal giraffes have their day in the limelight. Yes, by making the Floodlights easier to repair, we can reinforce the nature of the colony itself giving the marines a little bit of a "homefield advantage". The marines are making this area south of the river into marine territory and it should reflect that. Lighting itself is a massive psychological part of the game, and having areas lit vs. areas that are dark subconsciously tell all the players, xeno and marine alike, which side is "winning" the game. The xenos want to tear these nodes of territory down, and marines want those nodes to stay up. So making the Colony Floodlights more durable helps make people know whose territory is whose easier. Seeing floodlights go down should fill marines with great dread instead of annoyance that 30 seconds was wasted.


-anyone elses ideas on the subject and ways to make it better?
( Thank you Infernus for the guide, sorry for the end, too much color fun)


some examples of what they would might like: ( p.s. i am no bueno at pixel art but eh)
reinforced floodlight: floodlight reinforced.png

I think flood lights should lose their upgrades when destroyed, otherwise it's a little-wee bit OP, otherwise +1

[Jay Burns]

It will give engis another thing to do plus this idea is really well thought-out +1

[Eenkogneeto]

All I really see this doing is leading to more slashing of the unfixable apc in engineering so that the squad engis have to rewire the damn place to get the lights back on.

That said, +1 for giving me more to do as engi. and making lightslashing less of a tedium of 'i may as well to deny them it 4ever' as alien. I mean yeah, I'll still slash every light, Its just now i might think about if its worth the effort first.

[Jroinc1]

All I really see this doing is leading to more slashing of the unfixable apc in engineering so that the squad engis have to rewire the damn place to get the lights back on.

That said, +1 for giving me more to do as engi. and making lightslashing less of a tedium of 'i may as well to deny them it 4ever' as alien. I mean yeah, I'll still slash every light, Its just now i might think about if its worth the effort first.

Unfixable? The one behind the power monitoring console that can be dismantled with your tools, unless something's very off about it?

[Eenkogneeto]

Unfixable? The one behind the power monitoring console that can be dismantled with your tools, unless something's very off about it?

Yes like i said, You have to dismantle it technically shouldn't be possible to make an APC there. Depending on if you're lucky or not you can have to rewire the area around it so the other apc will power the floodlights, Sometimes it does automatically. I haven't figured out what causes it to do one or the other.

[adamkad2]

Bump. Also its a cool idea, +1