A Suggestion for Headcrab Canisters

[KAHEBLEH]

Oh no! We're talking about headcrab canisters, those disgustingly overpowered things! I know it's what you're thinking, and I'm all for a nerf on them, believe me. BUT this is not a post strictly about how OP they are... So read on Freeman, if you are able!

But one thing I couldn't help but notice was how when the headcrab canister lands, is that it just sticks itself unrealistically into anything it lands on, whether it be a building, or a rebel's head and then just kinda floats there afterwards.

But here's my suggestion; They should have an impact explosion, doing damage to or killing whatever is underneath or around it. This is greatly demonstrated before the Water Hazard chapter in Half-Life 2, where civilians hiding out near the toxins are killed by the impact of a headcrab canister, even though they weren't directly hit by it.

I'd love to see that element added to the headcrab canister AFTER they're nerfed;

Nerfed to the point where it costs a bit more resources to launch the canister itself, and to make the launcher, and that there is a significantly longer delay between launches from each canister launcher; Anywhere in the neighborhood of 30-60 seconds between each launch. Although that's just my opinion...

Anyways guys, aside from all the OP-ness of the headcrab canisters in their current state, what do you think of the idea?

[Mr. Darkness]

It's pretty much implemented already.
The cannisters have a small range of impact for damage (though seems like for the stun it's even bigger).
The increase of cost for resources might work. But again, having all flags make it easy to spam, still, just by twice less.

But we can't just nerf everything this way so we can't afford anything at all, can we?

Aside from that, you can't spam cannisters if you only have 1-2 flags captured and fully upgraded. So I think it completely depends on the power around the map.

P.S: I am NOT saying I am against cannister nerf, I am pretty much indiffirent, you just need a strategy, IMO.

[Mustang]

The nerf that I'd like to see is just a cap on how many canister launchers a player can build

[KAHEBLEH]

The nerf that I'd like to see is just a cap on how many canister launchers a player can build

If that were to happen, but everything else about headcrab canisters stays the same, then they should only be allowed to build one at a time. Considering by the time you get one up, you should be ready for bombardment resource-wise, and that the delay between each launch is 8 seconds currently.

[JJ]

Should just require vision of target area and power should be harder to generate, then I think it'll be okay.

[pandango]

Yeah if the power income was as high as the scrap income I doubt people will use the cannisters as much as they do now.

[Mr. Darkness]

If you make it so the power is harder to generate, it would affect the units and other production that requires energy dramatically.
You don't need to increase the demand for power, you just need a big cooldown on headcrab cannisters, that's all. Otherwise disballance will happen.

It simply already is the way that if you run out of requisition you can't launch a cannister for a while. So having a big cooldown (approximately 20-30 seconds) would IMO be more than enough.

[JJ]

People have been complaining that Combine power is too easy to generate, so I think it would be okay if it was more of a challenge. For Rebels you really need map control to to defend all the scrap makers, but Combine have it more convenient.

[Mr. Darkness]

People have been complaining that Combine power is too easy to generate, so I think it would be okay if it was more of a challenge. For Rebels you really need map control to to defend all the scrap makers, but Combine have it more convenient.

Yeah that's true.
But in that case defense buildings will be built with a delay. Such as Manned Turret and also buildings like Armoury. So after that there's probably even less defense and combine are more vulnerable early game.

[rui_troia]

2 minute cooldown on canisters

[KAHEBLEH]

People have been complaining that Combine power is too easy to generate, so I think it would be okay if it was more of a challenge. For Rebels you really need map control to to defend all the scrap makers, but Combine have it more convenient.

Well, see, the thing with power is that there's a fine balance between its uses during production of units, and its uses after the units are created. Things like the strider's dark energy cannon and the super-soldier's dark energy sphere can use considerable amounts of energy in short amounts of time, and that those things are really the unit is only worth using for. Sure, there's strength in numbers for striders, but with their low DPS and move speed, they're rather vulnerable to swarms or high damage shots. So the dark energy cannon lets them obliterate those large groups or powerful units. For super-soldiers, their expensive demands limit the number you can generate to have an effective army ready before the enemies blow you sky high. Even they can be overrun by sheer numbers if you have a large group. So the dark energy sphere balances things out.

But yeah, power can be created on ridiculous levels so long as you have requisition. There should be a hard cap on how many power stations you can create on a certain map, in correlation to how many scrap depots the rebels have access to. Since most maps have at least 2 scrap piles or more, the number of power generators per combine faction should be equal to half the amount of scrap piles, while still generating the same amount of power.

But hey, it's just an opinion. A GAME OPINION! Thanks for watc-... er... reading.