Carrier T3 Evolution: Harbinger (or something else IDK whatever man)

[Surrealistik]

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

A new alien evolution that serves as a living transport and combat medic for alien castes.


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

Completes the evolutionary path for Carrier castes; adds a valuable niche that the aliens lack.


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

* T3 Evolution that evolves from the Carrier.

* Quadruped sprite like the Crusher.

* Loses the ability to drop weeds.

* Retains the ability to collect and throw multiple Facehuggers; Facehuggers take up storage space (as below).

* Gains the ability to carry aliens in armoured pouches. Can put Aliens into an available pouch (useful for snagging Aliens in crit; they will receive a notification when done, and when the Harbinger tries to do this). Aliens can enter or leave these pouches at will (the Harbinger will be notified when an alien is enters or leaves his pouch, and aliens inside will display on his Status tab; works similarly to Mech passenger modules). Whether or not an alien willingly enters or is put into a pouch, there is a short delay before this action resolves (~1 second).

* All aliens gain the verb to toggle off being pouched to minimize griefing. This does not prevent them from being pouched while they're stunned or in crit however.

* Carried aliens heal at the rate they normally do when standing on weeds and are affected by Pheromones. If the Harbinger is on weeds, they also count as being on weeds.

* Carried aliens can transfer Plasma to each other, the Harbinger and vice versa.

* The Harbinger can toggle on its 'Plasma Infusion' ability, which heals carried aliens at double the normal rate when standing on weeds at the cost of Plasma.

* Can store up to 4 units of aliens in these pouches; Facehuggers/Larva take up 0.33 units of space each (fractional amounts rounded up), T1s take up 1 unit of space, T2s take up 2 units of space. T3s cannot be stored.

* Harbinger can eject an individual alien, or all aliens simultaneously.

* If the Harbinger dies, all Facehuggers/aliens it was carrying at the time are released in its tile/adjacent tiles. If the Harbinger was destroyed by explosives, those aliens will each suffer minor-moderate brute damage, and the released Facehuggers will be destroyed.

* Has Ravager movement speed (or slightly faster) and health, moderately armoured, heavily armoured in front (not quite to Crusher levels).

* Has moderate plasma storage and generation levels.

* Has Pheromones.

* Has faster drag speed (mainly for helping move large T3s that cannot be pouched; the Harbinger still gets slowed, just by about 25% of the normal speed reduction).

* Weak melee/tail damage (Hivelord tier or worse).


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

Coding, spriting.

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

Neutral. interesting concept, breaks lore heavily. And I mean, what would it look like? is it quadropedal like a rhino, or bipedal like a god damn kangeroo?

[Surrealistik]

Neutral. interesting concept, breaks lore heavily. And I mean, what would it look like? is it quadropedal like a rhino, or bipedal like a god damn kangeroo?

See it as more of a quadruped like the Crusher.

Yeah, there's no lore precedent, but then there's no actual lore precedent for several castes.

[Azmodan412]

Sounds fucking impressive. Tentative +1.

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

See it as more of a quadraped like the Crusher.

Yeah, there's no lore precedent, but then there's no actual lore precedent for several castes.

Too my knowledge, all castes we have, at one point, have been featured in a game and or movie.

[Surrealistik]

Hmm, there's a 'Super Carrier' but that sounds kind of retarded.

[Releasing]

Assuming direct control

Nah but really +1. It's a really cool idea, I don't know if it'll get added or not, but I'd like to see it in action. Would give xenus another support caste rather than a 'murder kill kill' caste. Reminds me of a kangaroo with putting things in 'pouches' lol

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

Assuming direct control

Nah but really +1. It's a really cool idea, I don't know if it'll get added or not, but I'd like to see it in action. Would give xenus another support caste rather than a 'murder kill kill' caste. Reminds me of a kangaroo with putting things in 'pouches' lol

What game is that screenshot from?

[Releasing]

What game is that screenshot from?

Mass Effect 2

[Azmodan412]

Assuming direct control

Nah but really +1. It's a really cool idea, I don't know if it'll get added or not, but I'd like to see it in action. Would give xenus another support caste rather than a 'murder kill kill' caste. Reminds me of a kangaroo with putting things in 'pouches' lol

To quote Alister... you know the one.

"Muahahaha! I am Princess Stabbity stab kill kill!" <- Xenos nowadays.

Hint: To get that line, refuse Leliana the first time, tell Alister she is one archdemon short of a Blight and he will say this: "She's more 'Ooo look at the pretty colors' than 'Muahahaha I am princess stabbity stab kill kill!'

[Releasing]

To quote Alister... you know the one.

"Muahahaha! I am Princess Stabbity stab kill kill!" <- Xenos nowadays.

Hint: To get that line, refuse Leliana the first time, tell Alister she is one archdemon short of a Blight and he will say this: "She's more 'Ooo look at the pretty colors' than 'Muahahaha I am princess stabbity stab kill kill!'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfzewYhMd0

Don't make me stab-kill you xenus

[Azmodan412]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfzewYhMd0

Don't make me stab-kill you xenus

Come at me! I'll Cone of Cold your ass and let Sten smack you around for 60-70 physical damage, 20 fire damage and 6 cold damage! WE'LL SEE WHO IS STAB-KILLING NOW! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAA!

Edit: Yes, that damage is possible. Give Sten Yusaris, a secret two handed weapon with a damage rating of 18.38 or thereaebouts, +10 damage against dragons. Have 50+ magic and cast flaming weapon and frost weapon so that they are both active at the same time and get Sten to at least +75 approval.

[Gentlemanly_headcrab]

+1 Totally for this, if I do hive lord I really just babysit and constantly spit out recovery pheromones and weeds and it feels nice that you're being a medical type alien, though it's not really lore friendly I'm liking this idea a bit. Maybe not the hugger thing as it's sorta crusher (the armor is not exact but close?) with a shitton of speed mixed with a carrier that can also heal. Take away the hugger throwing and focus it on transporting huggers, healing, and transport aliens as a support.

(Just my opinion on it.)

[Surrealistik]

+1 Totally for this, if I do hive lord I really just babysit and constantly spit out recovery pheromones and weeds and it feels nice that you're being a medical type alien, though it's not really lore friendly I'm liking this idea a bit. Maybe not the hugger thing as it's sorta crusher (the armor is not exact but close?) with a shitton of speed mixed with a carrier that can also heal. Take away the hugger throwing and focus it on transporting huggers, healing, and transport aliens as a support.

(Just my opinion on it.)

Facehuggers do consume transport space, so there's a material tradeoff to taking them. Facehuggers are also pretty much the only offensive weapon it has that's anything close to effective despite it being a T3; their capacity could be tweaked down to 0.33 units / Hugger I suppose. Will definitely need some tweaking.

[Azmodan412]

I still give it my +1 because I imagine it as a xeno APC/cargo truck.

[Surrealistik]

Yeah, I envisioned it as a living APC personally.

[Wickedtemp]

This sounds interesting... Would it be able to transport marines?

[Surrealistik]

This sounds interesting... Would it be able to transport marines?

So long as they can chestburst you if you're dumb enough to transport them while they're conscious, why not?

Can see them taking up room equal to a T1.

[TeDGamer]

-1 with the current suggestion. Here's why:

Loses the ability to drop weeds.

What? And lose the important cargo space that you can throw off somewhere when there is no weeds there. Doesn't make sense

Can store up to 4 units of aliens in these pouches; Facehuggers/Larva take up 0.25 units of space each (fractional amounts rounded up), T1s take up 1 unit of space, T2s take up 2 units of space. T3s cannot be stored.

16 facehuggers....16 FACEHUGGERS. I find this absolutely ridiculous, especially since this is when they are young. Why would carriers even want to upgrade when they can wait for a T3 to die and become a harbringer? At the same time:

Retains the ability to collect and throw multiple Facehuggers; Facehuggers take up storage space (as below).

Definitely not worth it for carriers to ever upgrade if they can wait for a way better evolution, when they basically lose everything to upgrade and could gain so much more while evolving.

Whether or not an alien willingly enters or is put into a pouch, there is a short delay before this action resolves (~1 second).

I feel this delay can basically make and break the aliens being saved. It should be no delay and you should be more like a tank.

Carried aliens heal at twice the rate they normally do when standing on plasma and are affected by Pheromones.

Ehhhhh, not really liking this one. Absolutely exploitable. Aliens run in, run out, into your pouch, then run back in, in a few seconds or even 1 second. This should be using a lot of your plasma to balance out this fact.

If the Harbinger dies, all Facehuggers/aliens it was carrying at the time are released in its tile/adjacent tiles.

I feel all of them should be damaged due to the chemicals being used to heal the harbringer (if it can even die) are longer used for those aliens and it reminds me of aciding a locker, you're destroying the locker and it's contents

Has faster drag speed.
No, they should really just be putting them in a pouch rather than dragging a crit.

Has Ravager movement speed (or slightly faster) and health, moderately armoured, heavily armoured in front (not quite to Crusher levels).

Moderately armoured part is fine. Should be fast but it should use up plasma. To compensate, a huge plasma capacity to drain from because they are meant to be healing.



It really feels like an jack-of-all-trades xenos at the moment.

Able to best ancient carriers (I believe this is only like 10 facehuggers) as a young. Very exploitable with the aliens able to enter the pouches themselves. Can be very annoying if the aliens want the others to retreat so they take them in when they don't want to be taken in. It doesn't feel fun to play as this because with just one,you can basically annihilate an entire squad with just 16 facehuggers alone, do you really need to bring T1s and T2s along that will take up 4 or 8 facehuggers each at that point?

[Surrealistik]

What? And lose the important cargo space that you can throw off somewhere when there is no weeds there. Doesn't make sense

16 facehuggers....16 FACEHUGGERS. I find this absolutely ridiculous, especially since this is when they are young. Why would carriers even want to upgrade when they can wait for a T3 to die and become a harbringer? At the same time:

The Facehugger count is probably the thing that most requires tweaking as stated earlier. The problem with being too draconian about the Facehugging cap is that the Harbinger is left with no means of offense whatever without them.

I don't know what you mean about your critique with regards to losing the ability to plant weeds.

Definitely not worth it for carriers to ever upgrade if they can wait for a way better evolution, when they basically lose everything to upgrade and could gain so much more while evolving.

Generally, higher tiers are straight upgrades which is why they're limited; a Ravager is pretty much flat out better than a Hunter for example, as is a Crusher, even if there are things the Hunter does better (Stealth).

I feel this delay can basically make and break the aliens being saved. It should be no delay and you should be more like a tank.

Delay is necessary otherwise it becomes way too easy to deny Marine kills.

Ehhhhh, not really liking this one. Absolutely exploitable. Aliens run in, run out, into your pouch, then run back in, in a few seconds or even 1 second. This should be using a lot of your plasma to balance out this fact.

I don't mind making the accelerated healing while in the pouch toggleable, however the pouches should probably have a basic healing factor (equivalent to basic weed healing)

I feel all of them should be damaged due to the chemicals being used to heal the harbringer (if it can even die) are longer used for those aliens and it reminds me of aciding a locker, you're destroying the locker and it's contents

Don't like it; I feel it obviates part of the point of an APC alien, especially Hail Mary suicide runs for breaking a line, sacrificing oneself so that the hive can succeed.

No, they should really just be putting them in a pouch rather than dragging a crit.

It's for helping transport slow T3s (Praetorians) primarily. Pouching T1s and T2s is virtually always better than dragging.

Moderately armoured part is fine. Should be fast but it should use up plasma. To compensate, a huge plasma capacity to drain from because they are meant to be healing.

Definitely disagree with mobility for an APC being conditional on plasma nitros.

It really feels like an jack-of-all-trades xenos at the moment.

It's durable, fast and can heal and move huggers/aliens. It is shit at anything else.

Able to best ancient carriers (I believe this is only like 10 facehuggers) as a young. Very exploitable with the aliens able to enter the pouches themselves. Can be very annoying if the aliens want the others to retreat so they take them in when they don't want to be taken in. It doesn't feel fun to play as this because with just one,you can basically annihilate an entire squad with just 16 facehuggers alone, do you really need to bring T1s and T2s along that will take up 4 or 8 facehuggers each at that point?

As mentioned above, I said I'd be willing to increase the load consumption of Facehuggers to 0.33 such that you max out at 12 Facehuggers assuming you leave no room whatsoever for Aliens. That said, no, you couldn't annihilate any decent 5 man squad with this alien alone without some seriously drawn out hit and run.

Also if you hate both the fact that aliens can enter the pouch and that you can put them in the pouch, then how would you have the carrying mechanic work? If aliens don't want to be picked up, they move before the second is done (they could also have a verb that toggles off being carryable while non-crit/stunned). The one second delay also prevents aliens from instantly disappearing while under fire.

[TeDGamer]

You make a lot of good counter arguments.

Generally however, I would consider Ravager vs Hunter not much of an essential difference. If you weren't capping people, you would still brute a marine to death in a few hits as well as a Ravager.

Sure I can see why you don't like the no delay. I'm not exactly sure how to implement the carrying mechanic as that 1 second isn't really enough time for any alien to react but any longer and you could lose crit aliens on the battlefield.

I like your APC analogy, but APCS have a backdoor to exit and the constant fire on it will affect the marines inside.

I feel like Praes should be using tunnels instead of having another T3 drag it to the battlefield. Point of hivelords mind.

I agree you do lose the combat, but I feel that this makes carrier almost obsolete. Like hunters have their stealth (which ravagers or crushers lose) and spitters their machine-gun spit (which boiler loses), but carriers feel like they're losing out on a lot if they don't go T3 and upgrade instead.

[Surrealistik]

You make a lot of good counter arguments.

Generally however, I would consider Ravager vs Hunter not much of an essential difference. If you weren't capping people, you would still brute a marine to death in a few hits as well as a Ravager.

Sure I can see why you don't like the no delay. I'm not exactly sure how to implement the carrying mechanic as that 1 second isn't really enough time for any alien to react but any longer and you could lose crit aliens on the battlefield.

Ravager is a pretty substantial upgrade over the Hunter in everything but stealth.

Further, when it comes to the 1 second delay, if you stand over the crit alien and turn yourself towards the gunfire to take advantage of your exceptional frontal armour, you are almost certain to save it. Beyond that, I find that finishing off a crit alien usually takes at _least_ 1 second unless it is under massed gunfire (in which case you have no business saving it).

1 full second is definitely enough time for an alien to see the notification of a pouching it doesn't want and nope to the left/right/whatever direction it can move in. I also specified that aliens would get the ability to toggle off being pouched such that the Harbinger can only do it when they're stunned/crit.

I like your APC analogy, but APCS have a backdoor to exit and the constant fire on it will affect the marines inside.

I feel like Praes should be using tunnels instead of having another T3 drag it to the battlefield. Point of hivelords mind.

How can you tunnel on the Sulaco? How can you build a tunnel at the marine front line? Remember, the idea of the caste and of APCs is to deposit troops into a hot zone. A Hivelord trying to Bob the Builder a tunnel in front of a marine firing line is going to find out very quickly why that is a poor idea. Tunnels are for strategic movement/logistics, not tactical movement.

Further, APCs can be disabled and effectively rekt without featuring a magnificent Hollywood explosion that harms/kills everyone inside. Maybe if the Harbinger was destroyed via explosives I'd be willing to have the aliens inside come out injured.

I agree you do lose the combat, but I feel that this makes carrier almost obsolete. Like hunters have their stealth (which ravagers or crushers lose) and spitters their machine-gun spit (which boiler loses), but carriers feel like they're losing out on a lot if they don't go T3 and upgrade instead.

You lose weeds and you lose melee damage, both of which are at least a big a deal as losing Stealth vs going Ravager/Crusher.

And yes, Ravager makes Hunters pretty much obsolete; the Stealth is nice, having large bumps to your armour, health and damage with the ability to cut a swathe through anything that's not a wall or barricade is nicer. Crusher is less clear because it fills another niche, but in balance the much tougher armour, massive charge damage, ability to destroy obstacles, greater speed potential, explosion stun immunity and higher health all make it in my view a hands down better caste.

[Azmodan412]

One of the alterations suggested is this, if you were too impatient to read:

The Harbinger carries the huggers, it doesn't throw them. Carriers would love this shit.

Think a fucking cargo truck. It needs to be protected, yes, and any xenos it is carrying can do just that. Just as people in the Corporate Jet Pod can eject themselves form the passenger compartments, so too can xenos in the Harbinger's pouches.

[Surrealistik]

Sorry Azmo, there's just a lot of massive posts in this thread.

The only thing I dislike about not being able to throw the Huggers is that it leaves this caste virtually defenseless and totally worthless by itself (would probably need to have decent melee damage as a result), but if it's buffed in other ways to compensate, I guess that's fine.

[Tristan63]

So basically what happens if you Impregnate a Kangaroo?