New alien designs

[Fabio1701]

I feel that the aliens are not varied enough for my taste. it's like they are the only species on the planet. Not that SMAC had many more species, but the mind worm's psi and ability to get tougher made it like they were another sentient species. So I think we should put forward ideas for another aliens in the CBE spirit, if not for the mods then perhaps for expansions.

First an overview of what exists, then some new ideas:

Wolf Beetle: Swarm organism that constantly defends alien hives by patrolling around them closely. Carpets landscape in massed swarms when Alien aggression is ignited.

Raptor Bug: Targets unarmed units such as Workers, while avoiding military ones.

Siege Worm: Migrates between several destinations, destroying any infrastructure or units in the lands they pass through, extremely effective against cities. Does not become actively aggressive or specifically move through or towards human construction until the aliens are particularly pressed.

Drones: Only known Alien unit capable of flight. Has similar capabilities to the Wolf Beetle, but is more durable.

Manticore: Chemical spewing "infantry" of the Alien Hive. Commonly found stationed within the hives themselves to attack targets that close in. Appears in greater numbers if Alien aggression is continued after the first Wolf Beetle swarms.

Sea Dragon: The oceanic relative of the Raptor Bug. Much more voracious in the fact that it regards all naval vessels as possible prey.

Kraken: Aquatic relative of the Siege Worm, behaves similarly in all fashions. Will form "pods" similar to Earth-based cetaceans, making them deadly to take on even at the highest combat levels.

now some new ones, which should be easy to graphically arrange:

Leviathan: This is basically a Kraken that can attack adjacent land units with it's long tentacles, but cannot go on land. Travels Solo like Godzilla.

Behemoth: This is the 'natural' version of the xeno titan, a massive hi strength unit that formed the template for the xenotitan, so less carnivorous and aggressive, but if bothered can ruin your day. Travels in pairs.

Hydra: Siegeworm of the sea, at the end of the three tenacles is has a tiny head. Travels solo, like a giant eel. Should be easy to replace the tunneling graphic with spashes and change the color a bit.

Blob: A gelatinous animal that can move from land to sea freely, like a jelly fish in the sea but on land like the blob form the movie. (Thought there should be an alien that can travers both terrains like a hovertank).

 

[Serenum]

Aliens in general need to be much more aggressive and decisive in their attacks, both siege worms and krakens should be willing and able to attack cities or specifically move in to pillage tiles, right now if a siege worm is of any concern or not is entirely up to where it decides to move, which is random as far as I can tell.
Siege worms should be attracted by improved tiles as a source of food or whatever and if attacked it should retaliate by attacking the city itself.

 

[Fabio1701]

Aliens in general need to be much more aggressive and decisive in their attacks, both siege worms and krakens should be willing and able to attack cities or specifically move in to pillage tiles, right now if a siege worm is of any concern or not is entirely up to where it decides to move, which is random as far as I can tell.
Siege worms should be attracted by improved tiles as a source of food or whatever and if attacked it should retaliate by attacking the city itself.

It would also be cool if a work could build a thumper like from dune as an improvement to attract siege worms. Do that on a tile just outside your enemies expansion area to slw him down.

 

[T Glenhaber]

It would also be cool if a work could build a thumper like from dune as an improvement to attract siege worms. Do that on a tile just outside your enemies expansion area to slw him down.

You can do that with covert ops

 

[Fabio1701]

You can do that with covert ops

Yes, but:

1) you can only do that with a ridiculously high covert op rating which I almost never seem to achieve, and really if my rating is that high then I'll just take the city thank you.

2) you can do the covert op only in a city, and I would like to put thumpers on strategic points in no mans land or at critical border areas or on strategic resources so they get pillaged.

3) I may want to call the worms onto my own land if there is an invading army and I have no units to counter with. Yes it may wreak havoc with my tile improvements, but it may be worth the sacrifice to see an enemy army get swallowed whole.

 

[Serenum]

You can do that with covert ops

In theory. In practice I've never seen it happen, not to me nor to the AI.

 

[Fabio1701]

Anyway, back on topic, more new aliens:

stratoleech: high flying alien blimp that hunts satellites and leeches them until they deorbit. Flies like a drone (owner mountains, sea, canyons) but can orbit and deorbit when it wants to feed. Kill it before it orbits, because once its on a satellite that satellite will deorbit in 3 turns. Can also be killed be destroying/deleting a satellite it is leeching on. (I think an alien threat to sats is necessary because they are so hard to kill with artillery, seeing as many are put in place artillery can't get too like over sea and over mountains. Also the ai spams too many useless says. There needs to be some natural atrician) lorewise, DNA from this alien helped in the development of the rocktopus.

Infested: bizarre human/alien hybrids from stations that fell too deep into human augmentation or were affected too much by the miasma but managed to adapt. These aliens appear when too many stations disappear and they are immune to sonic fences, going straight to cities in bunches when they spawn. Killing infested will not affect alien aggro.

 

[Lglenhaber]

Barnicles A weak unit that is invisible and can move onto tiles with ships. If it attaches (x% of the time) it deals a large amount of damage to the unit every turn. Found near sea dragons
Medusa A strong melee land unit that looks like a jellyfish with bones in its tenticles and a mouth in the head
Scorpion A strong melee unit that can sting units, making them lose 20 hp a turn for 10 turns. Found alone.
Infant alien units a weaker version of the unit that will aggravate aliens twice as much if you attack them. Usually found near or on hives

 

[T Glenhaber]

Anyway, back on topic, more new aliens:
Infested: bizarre human/alien hybrids from stations that fell too deep into human augmentation or were affected too much by the miasma but managed to adapt. These aliens appear when too many stations disappear and they are immune to sonic fences, going straight to cities in bunches when they spawn. Killing infested will not affect alien aggro.

When Infested kills a human unit, there should be a chance that the unit turns into a Infested (much like a privateer)

 

[Japper007]

I think some more air/orbital aliens would spice things up.

Dragon A snakelike alien with wings, can pass over units (but can't finish it's turn on an occupied tile), has 4 movement and attacks easy prey (such as unguarded workers/colonists) on the ground. Better escort those workers!!!

Eldritch An abomination of tentacles that resides in the orbital layer where it takes up orbital space and actively hunts for satellites.

 

[Fabio1701]

When Infested kills a human unit, there should be a chance that the unit turns into a Infested (much like a privateer)

brilliant!

 

[T Glenhaber]

Acid Beetles
Baneling-like units which spawn quickly on alien nests. When they attac a unit, they deal 25 damage to that unit and spread miasma to that tile. Immediately die if ranged attacked.

 

[Lglenhaber]

I think some more air/orbital aliens would spice things up.

Dragon A snakelike alien with wings, can pass over units (but can't finish it's turn on an occupied tile), has 4 movement and attacks easy prey (such as unguarded workers/colonists) on the ground. Better escort those workers!!!

Eldritch An abomination of tentacles that resides in the orbital layer where it takes up orbital space and actively hunts for satellites.

I think that the Eldritch should spread, and gain more health and strength per tile it controls. Better kill it quickly, or find a large infestation

Also,
Hive Queen
A medium alien unit that can create hives. The unit can expend itself to do this.

Mind Worm
A unit that can control human units, turning them into Infested-like units

The Gargantuan
A strong passive sea unit that works as a hive. If angered, it will produce more units