RE: Alien habits and pet peeves

> G'day,
>
> > - A unit hiding...
>
> What type of unit will want to be doing this?

This was intended for the artillery bugs.  They hide until they get a
direct
order from a hive node to attack a certain area.

>
> > - An attacking unit will attempt to attack the nearest unit
> > with any means possible.
>
> I take it you mean nearest enemy unit?
>
> > To make a unit do something other than it's basic
> > behavior requires a control check.	A control check
> > is made by a hive node creature spending one
> > action and rolling the target units quality die vs the node
creature's
> > leadership value.  This roll is modified by the below factors
> >
> >	+1 for each suppression marker on target unit
> >	+1 to +3 based on current morale
> >	+1 for each full 12" between node creature and target unit
>
> What about intervening terrain? In other words what are they
> using as their
> means of communication? A neat twist might be to require "runners" to
> actually carry the "change in orders".

The original idea was a form of telepathy, but pheromones worked a
little
better as I could put in the distance modifier.  The chemicals get
weaker
with distance and time.  That and once the players start to figure this
out
it will allow for some interesting PCM (pheromone counter measures)as
they
attempt to find the right combinations to affect the bugs.  Cant wait
for
them to accidently confuse the "dont eat me" smell with the "mate with
me"
smell.

Runners would be kind of different.  Give those human snipers something
to
do.

>
> > Hive node creatures ignore all suppression and never take
> > confidence tests.
>
> Why not?

The hive node creatures are directly controlled by the hive mind which
is
somewhere else and uses them like communication relays.  In the first
simulation games we let them get suppressed and things tended to fall
apart
for the bugs a little to quickly.

>
> > Routed -	The hive mind can no longer maintain control.
> > Models in unit will revert to their basic behavior....
>
> The reproductive costs on the colony of having units that don't
> know when to
> run away must be pretty high ;)
>
> Either that or there are a lot of node creatures around so they can
tell
> them to run.

Creatures with the attack behavior are not going to be that common. 
Suicide
assault troops that are created as one use type units.	Ammo with legs.

>
> Cheers
>
> Beth

Thanks for the feedback.