The fate of the carrier

[Chocolate_bickie]

lmao what the fuck am I reading

Might as well remove slashing from every Xeno that isn't in the runner evo tree

I'm not saying remove all combat abilities from medics etc, they can still use knives (more than synths). But a medic fighting is a bad medic, this would make sure only players willing to play a support role would play medic.

Furthermore medics would require teamwork and protection, this is alot like xenos right now. You need everyone doing their job correctly to win with individuals being too weak to work on their own.

[ColonelCorazon]

I'm not saying remove all combat abilities from medics etc, they can still use knives (more than synths). But a medic fighting is a bad medic, this would make sure only players willing to play a support role would play medic.

Furthermore medics would require teamwork and protection, this is alot like xenos right now. You need everyone doing their job correctly to win with individuals being too weak to work on their own.

Medics need to be able to defend themselves and their patients. They have a hard enough time getting other marines to cover them already. I couldn't support taking away any weapons from them. However, I don't want to see a medic slot wasted on players who'll be focused on fighting and using the medic equipment for themselves. This is why medics aren't allowed to have BCs when I'm RO.

[SirMandrake]

Medics need to be able to defend themselves and their patients. They have a hard enough time getting other marines to cover them already. I couldn't support taking away any weapons from them. However, I don't want to see a medic slot wasted on players who'll be focused on fighting and using the medic equipment for themselves. This is why medics aren't allowed to have BCs when I'm RO.

Agreed completely. Also, we've overtaken a discussion on carriers. Whoops!

[Taketheshot56]

I'm not saying remove all combat abilities from medics etc, they can still use knives (more than synths). But a medic fighting is a bad medic, this would make sure only players willing to play a support role would play medic.

Furthermore medics would require teamwork and protection, this is alot like xenos right now. You need everyone doing their job correctly to win with individuals being too weak to work on their own.

There is a reason army medics and navy corpsman are armed with full size infantry weapons.

You might be a medic but the enemy doesn't really care.
Taking away medics combat skills makes ZERO sense.

[themaskedman2]

I am still a heavy proponent of buffing Carrier in a few ways, my personal choice is just to buff the throw.

Idea:
Carrier Throw
-Long-ass Cooldown to it can't be spammed
-Heavy plasma-cost for same reason
-If it hits a marine dead on it will latch immediately, so Carriers can solo people but not take on groups.
-If it misses nothing happens and the hugger is still stunned.

So ideally this won't result in Carriers solo-hugging an entire squad, but it can mix itself with an assault squad and slap a hugger in amid the chaos and run away with the infected.

[Boersgard]

I am still a heavy proponent of buffing Carrier in a few ways, my personal choice is just to buff the throw.

Idea:
Carrier Throw
-Long-ass Cooldown to it can't be spammed
-Heavy plasma-cost for same reason
-If it hits a marine dead on it will latch immediately, so Carriers can solo people but not take on groups.
-If it misses nothing happens and the hugger is still stunned.

So ideally this won't result in Carriers solo-hugging an entire squad, but it can mix itself with an assault squad and slap a hugger in amid the chaos and run away with the infected.

This already happens even with the fairly lame hugger AI. If I'd suggest anything in this vein, it'd be to reduce the cooldown between jumps that huggers have. (Also change the "I've just hopped" sprite to something else that isn't the "dead hugger" sprite, because it's confusing) I've seen a lot of marines that completely ignore a facehugger that's been tossed in front of them and they usually get away with it because it takes so long for a facehugger to jump and latch someone. Decrease the cooldown enough to force marines to prioritize the hugger or else; 2-5 seconds between jumps imo; just not enough that a tossed hugger = an instant facehug/capture. It should force the marine to spend a second shooting the hugger instead of the xenos. That alone would be extremely useful for a carrier that needs to get away quickly.

Should also take into consideration multiple carriers tossing mutliple huggers at the same time, or carriers going off and 'suicide bombing' with all their huggers inside a marine formation/fob for a load of easy facehugs.

[Heraclitus]

I have to agree with Bonesguard on this, Carrier is now more teamwork dependent and to quote reddit: that's a good thing. They were very powerful before, too powerful really.

I think what might need to change isn't how carriers work, but how face huggers work instead. I'm not talking about full scale hugger AI like people speak of from 'the old days' but maybe devs could change up how they work. Something like getting a face hugger on you doen't immediately hug you, instead you struggle with it and other marines can help take it off you.

Face huggers were one of the scariest parts of the Aliens franchise, arguably more frightening than the xenomorphs themselves. In CM they just sit on a tile and then teleport onto the nearest mob after a couple of seconds. They're perfectly functional for their intended role but beyond that huggers are boring to go against for marines and boring to use for xenos.

[themaskedman2]

Honestly a dream of mine is playable facehuggers, I would imagine something like, a ghost can click on an egg and takeover a sorta miniature playable facehugger caste and try to stealth nab people.

Though a problem with that is people wasting all the eggs, ghosts griefing, or other scenarios, but maybe it could work with some adjustments. Maybe a special "Enhanced Egg" just for players to use that.... Carriers or Hivelords can create out of normal eggs?

[Steelpoint]

The only universe where I'd support playable facehuggers is a universe where Marines respawned after dying or where death is not as impactful. A more fast paced game akin to the FPS AvP games.

Walking along and then suddenly getting facehugged out of nowhere, through no fault of your own, is not a good idea.

Facehugging is already a very annoying mechanic for people to suffer through, it's a (near) five minute stun that infects you with a larva which, assuming you are captured, have to suffer being shat on in a hive for twenty minutes before finally dying, which is a bad gameplay experience.

[MasterShakeEZ]

If carrier is support and not offensive at all then why does it lose all its drone abilities. Give it all the drone abilities and then it can be a retard hugger transport as a bonus.

Another idea would be to delete carrier cause its fucking pointless now. Give hivelord or drone the ability to transport more eggs and just fucking delete it.