The humans can show the ants the paths to alien structures by controlling invisible ants. They can show the ants as many paths as they want, but a single ant nest can only spawn eg. 4 ants per minute.
The ants will then go out and poison the alien structures to worsen them.
It should be impossible for aliens (even grangers!) to determine whether a structure is poisoned unless they notice that it’s not performing as well as it should or they actually see an ant poisoning it.
Instead of ants, would nanobots be more appropriate, considering that the humans are suppose to have a technology theme while the aliens are suppose to have the biology theme?
Yes. Aliens are supposed to be vigilant and look out for nanobots and, if they spot some, trace them back to their hives.
Yes, but that’s be like squishing individual ants to get rid of an anthill. The only way to get rid of them permanently is to destroy their hives.
Yes. Actually, the nanobot hives should NOT be possible to build inside the power range, so that humans can’t simply poison the whole alien base from inside their own.
No. You’re supposed to hide one somewhere, then show it some inconspicuous paths to the alien base (between the pipes on Arachnid 2, etc.) and then they’ll poison structures. If the path doesn’t end at a structure, the bots should poison the nearest reachable one. It’ll certainly be totally useless on box maps like ATCS. It’s meant to be used with properly designed maps.
is it possible to show a path that runs in circles in the human base for 200 seconds, then a path that runs in circles for 200-15 seconds, then one for 200-15-15 seconds, etc., such that all of those paths continue towards the alien base in parallel, so that even if the nanobots spawn every 15 seconds, a lot of them reach the alien base from many sides at once?
Yes, but it won’t be too useful because it’d take 22 minutes (for 10 bots) to prepare and another 22 minutes before they actually attack. I doubt that anyone would waste their time running bots in circles for almost half an hour, not to mention that you can’t fight while showing the bots the paths, so the team would be missing a fighter.
I like the poison idea, but without ants/nanobots. How about adding a new weapon which sprays grangercide. Aliens will lose HP or can’t build on these spots. As @lamefun suggested the effect can wear off after a while.
No idea if this would work in our engine (all this would be best for a mod), but similar to how the PROprietary game Portal 2 has different colored ‘Gels’, I think it’d be neat to have a gun/RPG/morter loaded with Grangercide (perhaps “Agent Teal” or similarly named thing (a color name, to be like other ‘rainbow-herbicide’ styled substances)), which would be a visible gel/goo/paint-like splatter that can mark up a small area to prevent the aliens from doing things, like have different properties for different substances splattered:
Salty: Slowly melts alien, leaving trails (like a slug) for a distance that harms other aliens who touch it.
Anticreep: Prevents alien building and slows/stops alien HP regeneration
Teflon: Prevent wall-walk (should be slick for humans too for the roflz).
Possibly do other stuff like:
Magnetic: Allow wall-walk for humans (with magnet-boots).
Flubber: Speed up human movement and jump height (slightly).
Primer: Protective paint for human built structure (Adds +10-20 HP to a structure and heals it 10 HP).
Insulation: Weakens the effect of zaps (by half).
Any kind of substance could do stuff like this (or multiple things here like this with a single substance), and this would require some new assets, adding paint particles and splatter shaders for surfaces + special surface flag hax to make the special things™ happen when you are touching surfaces painted with the stuff(R).
What about cement bottles? Humans should have finite BP as usual, aliens should have finite BP but they should have a lot of them. Humans should also be given this little upgrade: throwable Cement Bottle that permanently petrifies alien structures. Petrified structures can’t be destroyed or deconstructed, so alien base will eventually become so cluttered with useless structures that they will have to move it.
Well, i think these petrified structures should have a way to be destroyed, otherwise permanent barriers can be created.
Either:
1: These petrified structures can slowly on their on accord disintegrate,
2: You can destroy them but it requires an enormous sum of damage to be dealt, or
3: A special alien weapon can destroy it, such as a grangers spit (which would effectively look like the spit is melting it)