Booster ideas

[kharnov]

We discussed a few ideas on IRC today regarding the booster. Here's a summary.

1. The booster should be able to be built on walls and ceilings. It's pretty obvious.

2. Boosters should give you poison from a range instead of at contact. The range can possibly be half the healing range.

3. Let the booster enhance the regeneration of surrounding alien structures. Probably shouldn't stack.

4. Have the booster poison the attacks of hive swarms. Debatable.

5. Dragoons standing near a booster should regenerate barbs faster. Seems legit.

[Ingar]

1. Yes
2. No, while healing powers are generally of the telepathic kimd, poison powers suck the life out of you. Sucking requires physical contact.
3. Yes
4. Only swarms within range of the booster?
5. Yes

[kharnov]

Oh no Ingar, I didn't mean giving humans poison, I meant giving aliens poison for their attacks. The reason for this was that it gets very annoying for multiple aliens to use a booster at once, while multiple humans can very easily use the same armory.

As for the hives, I guess only for hives within range of the booster.

[Ingar]

I did mean aliens getting poison from the booster, but I was thinking rather wide-range. Short-range, like the armoury could be nice.

[kharnov]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Poison you nearby, not across the room. Armory range.

[Tom]

I agree with all those ideas.

[Comet_]

I like all of this; I think they are all wonderful ideas, but I would like to bring up a brief point:

It sounds like we might be adding a lot of utility to the booster that would make booster an even more critical part of the aliens ensemble. Thus, the opportunity cost of not having a booster grows as it gains more utility meaning that s2 aliens would technically be weaker and weaker without it as its effectiveness increases. Perhaps it's worth consideration as to which buildings can gain these abilities. I think the barb regen should happen wherever there is "creep" or perhaps with eggs; similar to the overmind heal. That would make it so booster is less critical to gameplay (albeit still very critical for poison/healrate).

[krtv`]

i really like the idea of booster giving hives poison, would help make alien bases a bit tougher. maybe even give it some more upgrades, such as increased range.

[kharnov]

I suppose the booster could take on a similar role that a defense computer had for human bases back on GPP? Or would this be overloading it with too many purposes?