Enemy Structure Ideas

[Ood]

Well, I like ideas.

I'm going to post any structure ideas I have here, if you want to contribute, feel free, if you're idea's a good one, I'll add it to OP with a link to your post.

Sir Null and I had a good one today while killing a 7-drill (is that a record?)
A structure that heals all surrounding structures rapidly, but not itself. Would heal 8 adjacent structures quickly enough so that it would take a large group (4-5+) to overwhelm the heal. This would force you to break through the enemy's lines and strike the healing structure down in order to kill the rest. Minions on such a structure are debatable, I think they are necessary since once you get far enough away from the surrounding (healed) structures, their minions stop chasing you.

An idea I had of my own:
A structure that starts with a small, low damage shotgun spray with medium range. As the structure is damaged, the spray gets more damage and more spread. At ~1/4 hp left the spray is nearly ~270 degrees. The spray would shoot with a small delay at your current position, such that with enough speed you could circle the structure and take minimal damage. Would have minions of course.

One I've see on another thread:

May 13, 2013 13:21:14 GMT -5 hypevosa said:

Something I would like to see is an enemy who goes into stealth mode forcing you to deal with minions for a short while (at least). That would be cool.

From this thread:
Quicklite:

quicklite said:

one that cycles through specific 'triggers' every 10-20 seconds, with a 2 second warning (shown by the fortress getting the overdrive aesthetic) when it is about to perform one.

Renenutet:

renenutet said:

How about an enemy that has rings of rotating walls, each with guns? Parts of the wall could be difficult to break and others could have strong guns. Possibly flying minions that can pass these walls, and ground minions that stay in between the walls?

In between the walls are parts that connect the concentric walls, forcing you to move with the structure rather than sit there and weaken the wall. They push, by the way. Maybe those connector walls could deal contact damage?

Once you get to the center structure, dealing damage to it increases its likelihood of creating a pulse wave that breaks your frontal shield and pushes you through the walls to the outside of the structure.

renenutet said:

I'm thinking that this is a randomly-generated randomly-appearing grid-free structure that appears anywhere outside of the 8 regions around origin. Kinda like a convoy, but non-moving. Also it can appear in cleared areas.

(A stationary convoy, of sorts.)

Gingerbear:

gingerbear said:

Watch Tower Variants:
1) Releases Black Holes one by one, which follow the nearest player within range.
2) Releases Black Holes in a rotating spiral manner (or any tricky but dodgeable pattern)
3) Releases Black Holes in a pulsing pattern (they spread out then fall back to center)

gingerbear said:

Mine Laying Towers:
Fill their immediate surroundings with mines. A bane to all scouts.

gingerbear said:

Debuff Towers:
Towers that have the sole purpose of nerfing player tanks in their vicinity (Let's say within a 5x5 grid of towers).
Debuff can be trigger lockdown, speed/turret rotation/fire rate decrease, shield regeneration nerf, etc. Being in the zone of a Debuff Tower would be signaled on the HUD.

gingerbear said:

Synchron Towers:
Towers that work together with other towers of the same kind. For example a "Nightwatch Outpost" would spawn minions that patrol to the next "Nightwatch Outpost", and then come back. Distance between these towers could be anything from 1 to 5, and they would be put down in groups of 2 to 10. Killing off a Tower would cause the release of any associated actions (so for example no new patrols would go in that direction).

Synchron laser tower: Like the above synchron tower, but ones that have a constant laser beam connecting them. Dealing high damage (but not aimed). would connect any similar towers within up to 3-5 grids.
Anyone else have any thoughts?

[quicklite]

My record is a 10-drill :3

As for the healing one, isn't that kinda a cross between a drill and a super-tank? Nonetheless, it seems like a pretty cool idea. As for the shotgun one, it sounds a little simplistic for an enemy. A little like a drill complex with a more powerful main gun, but no walls/annexes. A fun twist would be either to give it mobile, rotating walls, or really lopsided shielding (really strong in some parts, less so in others. Of course, you'd need to see the enemy's shielding to be able to do this properly, but that's another thing entirely ), so that as well as just dodging the shotgun/minions, you have to contend with its intricate defense system.

As for me, I'd like to see a fortress that relies on shielding with sub-par health (could be cool), or one that cycles through specific 'triggers' every 10-20 seconds, with a 2 second warning (shown by the fortress getting the overdrive aesthetic) when it is about to perform one.

[renenutet]

May 15, 2013 10:31:34 GMT -5 quicklite said:

mobile, rotating walls,

Now ya got me thinking. How about an enemy that has rings of rotating walls, each with guns? Parts of the wall could be difficult to break and others could have strong guns. Possibly flying minions that can pass these walls, and ground minions that stay in between the walls?

In between the walls are parts that connect the concentric walls, forcing you to move with the structure rather than sit there and weaken the wall. They push, by the way. Maybe those connector walls could deal contact damage?

Once you get to the center structure, dealing damage to it increases its likelihood of creating a pulse wave that breaks your frontal shield and pushes you through the walls to the outside of the structure.

I'm thinking that this is a randomly-generated randomly-appearing grid-free structure that appears anywhere outside of the 8 regions around origin. Kinda like a convoy, but non-moving. Also it can appear in cleared areas.

[gingerbear]

@ posts above: rotating walls could also cause awesome caleidoscopic effects to watch.

I have posted my ideas in some other threads but here is a quick recap:

- Watch Tower Variants:
1) Releases Black Holes one by one, which follow the nearest player within range.
2) Releases Black Holes in a rotating spiral manner (or any tricky but dodgeable pattern)
3) Releases Black Holes in a pulsing pattern (they spread out then fall back to center)

- Mine Laying Towers:
Fill their immediate surroundings with mines. A bane to all scouts.

- Debuff Towers:
Towers that have the sole purpose of nerfing player tanks in their vicinity (Let's say within a 5x5 grid of towers).
Debuff can be trigger lockdown, speed/turret rotation/fire rate decrease, shield regeneration nerf, etc. Being in the zone of a Debuff Tower would be signaled on the HUD.

- Synchron Towers:
Towers that work together with other towers of the same kind. For example a "Nightwatch Outpost" would spawn minions that patrol to the next "Nightwatch Outpost", and then come back. Distance between these towers could be anything from 1 to 5, and they would be put down in groups of 2 to 10. Killing off a Tower would cause the release of any associated actions (so for example no new patrols would go in that direction).

[Ood]

Recapping everyone's ideas:

Rotating walls is a very cool idea, that one's added for sure. (Though I copied renenutet's description, sorry Quicklite)

A heavily shielded enemy would be cool, but enemy shields don't really do much at the moment except add more 'hp'.

A tower with triggers would be interesting. It'd need to be sturdy enough to last more than a few seconds though. Perhaps something on par with a drill?

A stationary convoy would be cool, and could perhaps be more common than you make them out to be. Instead of finding a city, it'd be finding an enemy city.

Watchtowers:
1) Traps that follow? Evil
2) Pattern traps would be cool, spirals especially.
3) Pulsing would be cool, but when they're in the center the stacked damage would one hit kill a lot of people.

Mine towers is a cool idea, but scouts have enough trouble as it is.

I like debuff structures and most structure ideas that give effects to a large area (like the healing one, and synchron one). Right now everything is contained to one grid, making each enemy feel pretty similar to the last, the only (slight) overlaps come from adjacent drills.

Synchron structures would be cool. Perhaps an even niftier idea would be to have a laser that is shot between them. Sort of like a laser fence. It could do quite high damage (since it isn't aimed).

[Radecut]

Sounds good! Many of these ideas are wonderful.

[Ood]

Another idea, we have round, triangular, and quadrilateral enemies. Perhaps adding more types would allow for more variation in enemies. Pentagonal enemies could be ability cycling structures, hexagonal structures could be 'linkers' or 'synchron' structures, etc.

Currently round/tri/quad enemies are mostly based on shape, which is fine. New structure classes could also follow suit.

[renenutet]

Here's an idea. How about enemy scouts? The moment before one passes through, every player would see a flashing red warning light. The scout is a convoy-like structure with low health and a slow RoF single-shot delta cannon, but can deal very heavy contact damage and can travel at over 100 sqps (squares per second) The scout would appear at one corner of the map and rush to the other, before turning around and blasting off in another direction. The point being that you would have to keep on your toes constantly while it is in the grid, and have to tactically set up checkpoints in clear areas to attack the scout if it comes by.

It could also trail a small tail of watchtower black holes, to prevent any kind of chasing and to encourage lateral hit-and-run attacking.

[Ood]

I like the idea renenutet, but that's more of a 'convoy' than a structure. Such an enemy would be very difficult simply because nothing can keep up with it. Hit & runs are all well and good, but when something is moving that fast you're only going to get a few shots off anyway. The only reason we even have a chance at the current convoys is because we are faster than them, and even still their speed is probably too high.

[renenutet]

See, what I'm trying to say is that it has Very (with a capital V) low defensive capabilities. HP below 600, no minions, one cannon (albeit powerful, can only get one shot off). However, the main kicker is that it can ram into you. This adds a mechanic of constant movement and fast tactical assessments. It would require player coordination to line up in a manner that would deal the most damage to the scout as it flies by.

To give it a structure aspect, how about having it link certain towers? When it links up enough towers while travelling, it can run to a random part of the map and build a superstructure (like the rotating-wall structure).

[Ood]

A bit of a necro-bump, but I think there's some good ideas in here, and the game could use some more variety in structures at the moment.