If you caught the live stream on Tuesday - and if you didn't you can check it out here on Youtube - you saw that there's some parts that we're trying out that change up the gameplay. A couple of examples that were mentioned:
If you guys had any ideas for parts like this that you'd like to see in the game let us know. Maybe it's something that will enhance your economy, your defense, your attack, your Servos, your buildings, your Drones. Anything goes.
"Drone Combat Software" - grants a damage bonus to drones at the expense of defense or speed.
"Draw Aggro Software" - draws attention of nearby enemies with a defense bonus to the Servo that uses it.
"Combat Leadership Software" - boosts nearby allies (servos/drones/both) with a minor boost to speed, defense, and attack.
"Constructor Software" - boost build speed of structures while the servo is nearby.
Graham,
I already proposed these in the dev feed chat, but just to make sure:
"Control Disruptor Grenade" - Servos and drones caught in the blast will become (temporarily) uncontrollable and start attacking random targets (including the owning players buildings, drones, servos).
"Power leech" - Like a tazer (kind of wire connection), drains health from targeted servo/drone and gives health to user; Connection breaks when distance exceed a certain limit. When used on ally, pumps health to your ally.
And two new ones:
"Last resort" - A self destruct (for your servo) that destroys your servo but does damage to the area proportional to the health of your servo.
"These are not the drones you are looking for..." - Creeps do not attack the servo or the drones within the servos sphere of influence.
Very cool ideas guys - thanks for reposting from chat Thecw. "These are not the drones you are looking for..." is an interesting one, with fun implications for CoOp games too.
More ideas welcome.
I know you asked for parts in the top posting, but during the dev stream Jacob said "any crazy stuff we would like to see in the game", so herewith a not-a-part:
"Domestication Tower" - A building that attracts and heals creeps. The creeps don't attack any of your buildings within the sphere of influence of the tower. Nor will they initiate attacking your units, but they will still fight back when you attack them.
Use it to lure creeps to your territory; The little ones to slaughter, the big ones to use as guards. Or lure them (preferably the really big guys) to enemy grounds to attack your enemies buildings and units.
Two 'weapons' that mess with cool down timers:
"Hot Head Grenade" - A grenade that maxes out all the cool down timers of the units caught in the blast.
And its counter part:
"Cool Attitude Blast" - A spherical wave originating at the servo that lowers or even resets all the cool down timers of units touched by the wave. The further away from the origin point the weaker the effect.
"Time Crawler" - Make the passing of time crawl for enemy servos and drones (and creeps?) caught in the sphere. Movement speed, fire rate, incoming missile speed, everything, slows down for the afflicted (like slow motion). Like the freezing effect but as a sphere around your servo.
"Meteoric Attraction Tower" - Allows you to set a target point (like the rally point of the Drone factory) to which future meteors will be attracted. Fun strategies can be made by allowing the target point to be placed anywhere on the map (including in the enemy camp ).
Nice one. That would be cool. Probably a screw in co-op, though. We've been trying to avoid "required" parts. Ideas on how to fix that for this one?
I do not really get want you mean with "required parts" in this context, but if you mean that it might be overpowered, then make the building of the tower dependent on:
You also could have a (bloom) cost for every time you move the target point.
Not a part or a building, but a drone idea:
"Harvester Drone" - A drone that can harvest bloom wells for bloom, but very slowly and very inefficiently (eg harvesting 10 bloom might actually deplete the well for 15). Use when you know you can not hold a bloom well; and therefor do not want to waste 150 bloom for a refinery on it that is going to be destroyed before you can even recuperate that cost; but you want to get some bloom out of the well anyway.
Don't we already have creep attraction/distraction in the form of bait launchers? I just tested one out against AI and you can pop it in their base and like a quarter of the maps creeps will run off to attack it and anything left in the area. It gives me an idea for a strat on DSC actually
I think it would become a part that you simply would have to take because it's so powerful, particularly in some of the meteor-based co-op maps. Yes, we could bind it up with restrictions like that to mitigate it.
The idea that the part opens up 3 screws and you can only pick one is, IMO, a more positive limit. I get something cool, but I can't get everything. Plus, it has flexibility.
In a simpler world, we'd figure out parts that wouldn't have to have those restrictions, of course.
Take a look at Zeek's Strip Mine in the next build. Kinda feels like this (in terms of the return to you) as he burns through the Bloom and only gets a small percentage of the yield.
I know about the strip mine ability (as it is in the current build), but that also destroys the well. When a well is depleted then that location loses it strategic value. I was thinking more along the lines of: Take some bloom now, but leave the well as a point of contention.
Anti-missile system. Servo part that protects an area from missile/grenade attacks, allowing it to protect a drone swarm from it's mortal enemy. Probably need experimentation to see if it works best with rate of fire limit, shield block style activation, or immunizer style. Actually, rate-of-fire suggests it might be partially effective on volley/barrage. Which in turn suggests a passive system with an intercept chance per attack. This could be a whole family of parts if you are looking to grow the catalog.
I was going to make another thread on matchmaking, but it could also fit here: Make the cost of rank depend on the quality of the servo (perhaps with a multiplier or offset to maintain increasing cost) First servo would be "bought' from larger starting bloom, affecting initial cash on hand. Lower level players would be able to field more servos early or spend on upgrades/drones. Players could tune down quality in order to rush - or to quickly level up available drones, focusing their quality parts on rts boosters.
Another variation: pistol overwatch mode where servo stops shooting at regular targets and shoots down missiles with it's standard range and rate of fire. For maximum variation with minimum parts, make it a targeting system that uses any weapon, and require 10% of the projectiles damage to shoot it down; rifles will be better against grenades and even melee servos will have a chance to swat a direct hit grenade.
Wells are losing some of their strategic importance in the next build, because they won't be the only way to make forward bases anymore. They already deplete after about 14 minutes, less on DSC, now they aren't the only way to have forward drop zone as well losing one is going to be less of a big deal. They're going to pretty much just be a source of bloom, which is strategically important but not as crucial as they are now.
We're probably going to change it so that he leaves the well (specifically for this reason).
This one is high on everyone's list.
We've talked and experimented with this in a ton of forms. Nothing's ever felt very good. Best current idea: a part that reduces the cost for future ranks. It's not exactly what you're suggesting, but it gives the other player some response time, etc.
A few other ideas:
Flight pack - enables limited flight, but disables weapons while in-flight. Requires a cooldown before flying again. (Would allow for sneak attacks or getting the heck outta Dodge, for example)
Artillery Mode - the servo deploys into an immobile artillery unit, enabling slow, but powerful attacks at extreme range. Disables main weapons and movement while active. (Good for clearing away defenses, but also requires the servo to be defended while active.)
Armor Mode - the servo gets a decent bonus its own armor at the cost of attack and movement speed. (Good for leading the charge, or drawing fire)
It'd be interesting to see parts like this combo with others. Might grant an additional layer of tactical consideration while building servos.
Thanks!
Blink's new ability that we're testing is kinda like the flight pack, just with flying instead of teleporting. Jury still out, but it probably makes the next update.
We have parts that do the armor thing (add armor with penalties) already. Most of the feedback we get is that parts with penalties are annoying. We're trying to reserve those for the later game when you're ready to make those harder, less-broad choices.
"Shock Wave Generator" - Does damage to everything around the servo. Like the blast effect of a grenade, but with the servo as origin point and does not need to be thrown/shot.
We have a variant of that (area-based EMP stun) coming in the next update. Would be easy to riff that into other options, as well.
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