colossal shrimp

[barren ibex]

This was an idea I had pitched a while back but I can’t find the original post. So I’m making this new one to expand on the idea.

Basically:
A mid-late game unit that’s pretty much just a bigger shrimp that alone is equivalent to ten smaller shrimp.
It would have 10x the health, 10x the collection speed, 10x the cost, 10x the production time, and the same walk speed as a normal shrimp. While being slightly smaller than a hunter

The initial reason behind the post was to increase performance late game. I really like the groups of tiny shrimp and how they look and feel to fight. And this wouldn’t take away from that since you would still produce those in mass early - mid game. And the large shrimps would most likely be accompanied by a few smaller ones who naturally migrated across the map.
The difference here would be having 150 units to only having 105.

This would also make hitting key parts of the alien eco more strategically viable with fighters hit and run tactics. They would have one central target to focus on wich they could take out in two to three passes, instead of having to hover over almost dozen tiny shrimp putting themselves at risk.

Most importantly, I think it would sick having one or two massive lone workers and would highlight the evolution in scale of alien units throughout the match.

[red arrow]

Idk. Dram wants to keep Human and Alien ecos separate in how they operate.

Aliens use mass cheap units, Humans use a few large expensive units.

Maybe shrimp can be carried with wasps. Im not a huge fan of this but tbh Im kinda annoyed with how slow they are and how often they ge hung up on the smallest terrain details. Flying units could overcome this.

Even so there are enough of them to not require it

Getting autonoding will probably help a lot.

[barren ibex]

Can’t wait for auto noding

If having 200+ shrimp doesn’t have a considerable weight on game performance they should stay as is, in regards to this idea they could still be smaller than mentioned, even if each of the larger shrimp are equivalent to 3 instead of 10 smaller shrimp it could help while maintaining small scale units produced in larg ish numbers, I would prefer having hordes of offensive units than having the performance take a hit because of hundreds of idle harvesting units

[red arrow]

When human faction is made to not have an urban sprawl across the map I think things will get better. A human COM right now has to make so many Harvesters that each one is almost expendable, especially when too many operate in the same area

[full patrol]

I like your idea! What if shrimp could link together and operate as a larger unit, with each additional shrimp making the harvester bigger? (up to a maximum of...8?) When the unit takes damage, individual shrimp would fall off and die, causing the unit to shrink. Initially, the shrimp would move separately with their own pathfinding, but once grouped, they would function as a single unit with unified pathfinding.

I’m not sure how challenging this would be to implement, but I think it could be an interesting mechanic to explore!

[barren ibex]

Honestly that’s way cooler, maybe when shot at they could all scatter away from each other as well

You could probably just set the shrimp ai to group together if there’s enough of them in an area, then despawn them and spawn in another model in their place, and vise versa

[barren ibex]

This will help tons as well, personally I wouldn’t implement this solution at all until the teams have been re worked

[earnest shale]

I dislike the Idea of Mega Shrimp. I would prefer Upgrades that make Biocashes able to harvest Biotics themselves. Shrimp will get Upgrades that makes them support units, helping your Army to Heal as they aren't needed to Harvest Anymore.

Also imo give Shirmp Veterancy except they get Resource Capacity. They become more Valuable over time.