The Official Noxter Thread

[The Undying Nephalim]

posted on January 15th, 2009, 7:21 am

Last edited by The Undying Nephalim on January 15th, 2009, 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

There has been a boon in Noxter threads, most of them involving ideas, complaints, or concerns. I felt maybe making a single thread for all things Noxter would help centralize all the talk about them. So here is a Noxter concept thread. The Fleet Ops team most likely already has the Noxter planned out for their addition to V3, but I see no harm in presenting any ideas that might inspire or help make the Noxter original, balanced, and a truly fun force to play as.

And so here are my ideas that I would love to see incorporated into the Noxter.

Base Structure and layout
I've mentioned in several other threads. I really would love the Noxter to have one central being as their base, and all their mining facilities, shipyards, and research structures to grow off of and add onto the one central being. I know this is possible in the A2 engine as it has been done with the Klingon Fleet Yard. Compared to the other sides it would add a new dynamic and make the central base much more important to defend as destroying the central core would wipe out the rest of the creature. Considering the biological nature of the Noxter, this form of base seems very logical. It's also been mentioned the Noxter all derive from massive "Mothers." Perhaps their bases are a Mother that continues to grow and expand. I took some time to draw up a concept of a Noxter Base:


1. Perhaps large mandibles could serve as a place to drop off collected resources. Of course, since the Noxter Base is one organism this presents a problem for mining resources, since the player cannot build a mining facility right above a moon. There are several solutions to this problem.
a) Make the mining ships for the Noxter faster
b) Make them collect resources faster
c) Make most Noxter units cost less so they do not require as much.
I think the need for the Noxter to produce masses of smaller faster mining ships will help build their insectoid feel. Mining trails would build up, much like a trail of ants bringing their resources back to their nest.

2. Reseach nodes could easily grow onto the main organism.

3. Breeder add ons could be attached around the Mother, allowing it to create many ships at once. This is easily possible as the Klingon Fleet Yard proved.

4. Extra addons could grow on the mother depending on the avatar. In this one perhaps a pair of spiked towers could act as a giant sensor array and reveal a large area of the map.

Masses of Units

I have a strong feeling the Fleet Ops team is already on this. I would love the Noxter to rely on huge masses of tiny weak pathetic units. A massive swarm of tiny melee beasts bashing on a Borg cube would not only be epic, but quite hilarious.

Infestation
Though I don't literally think the Noxter should infest and take command and control ships (as they are unable to use tech), I think they should somehow capture a ship and it essentially becomes an immobile little base that pumps out tiny swarms of Noxter ships.



Those are some of my ideas, hopefully they are worthy of note 

posted on January 15th, 2009, 7:26 am

Would the stock 8472's ability to mine enemy ships and stations be of any use?

posted on January 15th, 2009, 8:56 am

Nice drawings

The Noxter wont have a base in the classical meaning, we have planed something different here We want to give the player the feeling that he controls a large living swarm, rather then starbases and starships. Its not yet completely sure how that will be accomplished and how much of our plans are possible, but we are working on it

Yep the Noxter do not infest or "assimilate" starships. enemy starships might however serve as spawning grounds for young Noxter, but thats a rare case, too.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 9:41 am

well i like the ideas one way they could gget a 'living organism' feel is t make what ever stations they do have (mainly the breeder) mobile and instead of research stationsto have each vessel to be like a mobile research station allowing it to research upgrades such as weapons or extra sensors for itsself. another idea is to limit the ammount of ships but make the ones that you can get to be cheap and fast producing and evolve/upgradeable (mayb gain more ranks and/or gain ranks quicker)

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:05 pm

How 'bout this: the Mother can literally consume vessels, and using existing Replacewapon technology, you could make it so that a button on the command bar thing, whatever  would alter the Mother so that it can do a physical matter-to-energy transfer, and energy can be used as a universal resource, BUT, the Mother does not have it's standard weapon to use (whatever that is) while in this mode. Also, using the Mother, you can transform that energy into any resource, and all ships have the same time to be transformed, so sending small fleets of huge vessels = not a good idea.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:13 pm

Sounds deadly, it could protect against spamming destroyers.

[Anonymous]

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:23 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on January 15th, 2009, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Would the stock 8472's ability to mine enemy ships and stations be of any use?

again taking 8472 as inspiration? could we please keep Noxter unique with as little 8472 ishness as possible.
Otherwise it is merely a rip off - made due to the inability or unwillingness to work on adapting the canon species to game dynamics.

Noxter should be noxter. Unique.
Not knock offs that WILL remind the player of an 8472 fill-in.

AND can we please not call it mother?!!!
Call it nest. call it queen. Call it birthing chamber. Call it Uterus!
But Mother has A2 8472 all over it!

Other than that - Damn cool drawing Neph. And great suggestions. (ure going all out to get the Noxter )

[Megaman3321]

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:26 pm

Last edited by Megaman3321 on January 15th, 2009, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, right! Destroyer spam is a multipurpose field, but it's meant to take down fleets of starships and mining colonies, NOT base stations. However, if you also incorporated my idea into defense turrets, and that type was more effective against destroyers, then it would be even MORE useful.

again taking 8472 as inspiration? could we please keep Noxter unique with as little 8472 ishness as possible.
Otherwise it is merely a rip off - made due to the inability or unwillingness to work on adapting the canon species to game dynamics.

Noxter should be noxter. Unique.
Not knock offs that WILL remind the player of an 8472 fill-in.

For some reason my keyboard doesn't want to work. Anyway, this is different. It doesn't go to metal, it goes to energy, and it's more like a decommission than anything else. The equivalent
of the hull points would go to that universal resource, and, although not necessary, it will help in the later stages of he game, especially against the Borg. 

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:29 pm

Yeah, right! Destroyer spam is a multipurpose field, but it's meant to take down fleets of starships and mining colonies, NOT base stations. However, if you also incorporated my idea into defense turrets, and that type was more effective against destroyers, then it would be even MORE useful.

u sure u wanted to quote me or Ty? ur response seems to be more to his statement.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:31 pm

Nice drawings

The Noxter wont have a base in the classical meaning, we have planed something different here We want to give the player the feeling that he controls a large living swarm, rather then starbases and starships. Its not yet completely sure how that will be accomplished and how much of our plans are possible, but we are working on it

Yep the Noxter do not infest or "assimilate" starships. enemy starships might however serve as spawning grounds for young Noxter, but thats a rare case, too.

question. What are the Noxter. Are they ship sized entities or jem'hadar sizd?
Reason im asking, is ure mentioning starships serving as spawning grounds for them. What kind of spawning ground?

[Megaman3321]

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:32 pm

Last edited by Megaman3321 on January 15th, 2009, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Serpicus, it's a 2 parter. Also, read the edit.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:32 pm

The ability may have been given to 8472, but I was thinking more along the lines of vultures. If they are supposed to have a primitive intelligence, they would more likely resort to scavenging than other races; picking the bones of any deralicts they happen to stumble across.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:33 pm

Serpicus, it's a 2 parter.

huh?

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:35 pm

The ability may have been given to 8472, but I was thinking more along the lines of vultures. If they are supposed to have a primitive intelligence, they would more likely resort to scavenging than other races; picking the bones of any deralicts they happen to stumble across.

that's the 8472 miner again. . still essentially the same.

posted on January 15th, 2009, 4:38 pm

question. What are the Noxter. Are they ship sized entities or jem'hadar sizd?
Reason im asking, is ure mentioning starships serving as spawning grounds for them. What kind of spawning ground?

Energy spawning grounds. Tow back to base. Process into energy. Also, the comment was aimed at both of you.

The ability may have been given to 8472, but I was thinking more along the lines of vultures. If they are supposed to have a primitive intelligence, they would more likely resort to scavenging than other races; picking the bones of any deralicts they happen to stumble across.

I was thinking more of dragging them back to base for processing to energy. However, all of my ideas are completely disposable, and are meant to keep balance while giving that race and edge. Also, if Noxter didn't understand our kind of tech, then why would they scavenge? What's the point of gaining control of a capital ship if you can't control it? Can you answer that?  :unsure: