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Hive: Trans-WH, Competitive.
So... I looked around and did not find anything that would be in the same line, which just means I haven't found it. If you find it, you'll let me know, right?
Firstly, Trans-Wormholic Hives. I think that has already been suggested. Basically, the idea is that Hives can travel through wormholes. There are conditions that have to be met, of course. Only Queens can lead their court through a WH. Leviathans cannot travel through WHs, unless this could be a special event, for instance if the Hive Skirmish missions reach a certain level of completion (but the Levi is not killed), the Leviathan moves to a different system.
This leads to the second part, which requires the previous element to be implemented: Competitive Hives. Again, the premise is rather simple. If any Hive moves from one System to another, there will be a conflict with the resident Hive. Of the outcomes, there are three: Resident Hive Prevails (should happen with 50% probability), Invading Hive Prevails (should happen with 40% probability), Two Hives Merge (should happen with 10% probability).
Firstly, Trans-Wormholic Hives. I think that has already been suggested. Basically, the idea is that Hives can travel through wormholes. There are conditions that have to be met, of course. Only Queens can lead their court through a WH. Leviathans cannot travel through WHs, unless this could be a special event, for instance if the Hive Skirmish missions reach a certain level of completion (but the Levi is not killed), the Leviathan moves to a different system.
This leads to the second part, which requires the previous element to be implemented: Competitive Hives. Again, the premise is rather simple. If any Hive moves from one System to another, there will be a conflict with the resident Hive. Of the outcomes, there are three: Resident Hive Prevails (should happen with 50% probability), Invading Hive Prevails (should happen with 40% probability), Two Hives Merge (should happen with 10% probability).
Heh, I do like this idea!
Thats a pretty cool idea.
It is a pretty cool idea. I've seen queens go through WHs before... but I assume that's just a queen and not relative to the overall hive?
I've seen it too...once in B-8, a lone queen going to Latos. I followed but she disappeared on the other side.
sex
Yeah, that was how mom made the system get rid of excess Hive when the Levi was killed, I believe.
Well.. Hives already expand across multiple systems (all three hives expand from their central system to the two on either side). So, not sure of the intent of the "trans-WH" suggestion. Are you saying we should make expansion dependent on whether a Queen successfully transits a wormhole? So that could be a chokepoint to prevent expansion? Or.. what? (This may actually already be the case, I don't remember; we did talk about it internally some years ago).
Well, no, I thought there'd be actual fighting going on between two rival Hives. If possible, it would be cool if players could take part in these fights if they happen to find themselves in a sector where this can take place. My idea was to have it happen much like in Fallout 2 (e.g. 'An Enclave Patrol fighting off Floaters', where you can sit out the battle and pick off the survivors... and loot).
To make it less demanding for the servers, if there are no players present, the computer just decides when a battle starts, which bots die when, and so on, to have an up-to-date scoreboard (so to speak) once a player warps in. If no player is present until the end of the battle, the remaining Hive just starts to repopulate.
I did not know about Queens already transiting wormholes, but if so, making them take their court with them would be fun. Kind of like when a new bee queen is born, the old one leaves to find new lodgings. Naturally, this would only work if Leviathans 'produced' queens... and if queens had some kind of rivalry going on amongst each other.
My intent was to liven up the Hive a bit, and make it even more of an 'organic' opponent.
To make it less demanding for the servers, if there are no players present, the computer just decides when a battle starts, which bots die when, and so on, to have an up-to-date scoreboard (so to speak) once a player warps in. If no player is present until the end of the battle, the remaining Hive just starts to repopulate.
I did not know about Queens already transiting wormholes, but if so, making them take their court with them would be fun. Kind of like when a new bee queen is born, the old one leaves to find new lodgings. Naturally, this would only work if Leviathans 'produced' queens... and if queens had some kind of rivalry going on amongst each other.
My intent was to liven up the Hive a bit, and make it even more of an 'organic' opponent.
yes
Why would the hives fight each other if they are of the same "mind"?
I could sketch up a few technobabble reasons for this, but ultimately, because it's more fun.
The point of the Hive, in part, was to be an adversary for the "humans" in the galaxy, be they PC or NPC. A resource conflict for the factions, if nothing else. It sounds kind of like you want the Hives to fight so you can.. fly in and pick up the leftover pieces? Plus, if this conflict takes place in wormhole areas, that's potentially a major "clog" in the works of players trying to fly through to get somewhere else, convoys stabilizing the economy, and various other gameplay. Strategic "clogs" can be cool and all, but I'm not enthusiastic about having it spontaneously happening all the time, or necessarily in wormhole areas.
I guess, can you write a little more exposition on the point of having battling Hives, with humans sitting on the sideline (and not technobabble, but where the Fun actually lies?). It basically sounds like a "christmas is here" type fly-in-and-pick-up-drops event.
I guess, can you write a little more exposition on the point of having battling Hives, with humans sitting on the sideline (and not technobabble, but where the Fun actually lies?). It basically sounds like a "christmas is here" type fly-in-and-pick-up-drops event.
From what I've read, I think the fun would be similar to BS, except smaller scale (Like a big hive skirmish between two or more queens). Pretty much two competing hives (Queen Bee's are territorial or something right?) would be an awesome battle to take part in, because neither side really has the resources to send a mass of bots at you, so you'd have mild interference, while you flew through and picked fights, eventually deciding a winner by finishing off the queen, or both queens potentially. Maybe the levis could participate to make it extra challenging. Or if you were lazy you could just let them battle it out, and just fight whatever bots aggro on you, and loot, you can do that in other skirmishes. I dont see why a human player wouldnt kill both queens anyway, unless hives became like system specific, and that system would derive some benefit or something. idk, it does seem fun though.
Ummm... I hayve to be honest, I did not flesh the idea out that much, but I can do so now, of course. My original intention was to kick off the discussion (succeeded).
I see what you (Incarnate) mean when you mention 'clogs'. That would be a problem, and considering the problems standard trade and CtC convoys have when encountering trouble, perhaps even more so. Perhaps there could be 'nice nesting grounds' for the Hive to seek out. A system has certain roid fields, with roid density, light intensity, what have you. A Hive could have a certain set of criteria according to which it assesses Areas and chooses one to take residence.
If there's already a Hive there, there will be a battle in that sector (sadly, many wormhole sectors have pretty dense roid fields, so that could be another problem). If a system has two 'sweet spots', two Hives could theoretically co-exist semi-peacefully (with only fringe conflicts) until one grows large enough to expand to the other spot, and battle ensues.
If Hives became even more of a threat to players, it could also become a tactical decision to aid one Hive, i.e. denial of territory.
As for frequency of occurrence, ideally it should perhaps happen as often as once a week, or once a month. The problems I perceive (now that I thought about it some more and more in-depth) are that if it is 'not scripted' but only dependent on growth rate, player interference could be such a disturbance as to never allow it to happen at all.
The above is brainwriting. My apologies for rambling.
Edit2:
The fun would lie in witnessing the environment going about its own business, making it even more of an Environment and less of an ostensible grind zone. Naturally the Hive serves (only) as entertainment to the players. But as such it could spawn new 'missions'. These would not be missions in the traditional meaning, but rather direct player-to-player interaction, ideally. This would also make gameplay more dynamic (it feels a bit static to me, at the moment). I think it'd add depth to the game (how much is debatable), but perhaps it would create waay more work than it's worth.
I see what you (Incarnate) mean when you mention 'clogs'. That would be a problem, and considering the problems standard trade and CtC convoys have when encountering trouble, perhaps even more so. Perhaps there could be 'nice nesting grounds' for the Hive to seek out. A system has certain roid fields, with roid density, light intensity, what have you. A Hive could have a certain set of criteria according to which it assesses Areas and chooses one to take residence.
If there's already a Hive there, there will be a battle in that sector (sadly, many wormhole sectors have pretty dense roid fields, so that could be another problem). If a system has two 'sweet spots', two Hives could theoretically co-exist semi-peacefully (with only fringe conflicts) until one grows large enough to expand to the other spot, and battle ensues.
If Hives became even more of a threat to players, it could also become a tactical decision to aid one Hive, i.e. denial of territory.
As for frequency of occurrence, ideally it should perhaps happen as often as once a week, or once a month. The problems I perceive (now that I thought about it some more and more in-depth) are that if it is 'not scripted' but only dependent on growth rate, player interference could be such a disturbance as to never allow it to happen at all.
The above is brainwriting. My apologies for rambling.
Edit2:
The fun would lie in witnessing the environment going about its own business, making it even more of an Environment and less of an ostensible grind zone. Naturally the Hive serves (only) as entertainment to the players. But as such it could spawn new 'missions'. These would not be missions in the traditional meaning, but rather direct player-to-player interaction, ideally. This would also make gameplay more dynamic (it feels a bit static to me, at the moment). I think it'd add depth to the game (how much is debatable), but perhaps it would create waay more work than it's worth.