New Option

Elvis, I was playin yesterday and shotty had about 6 kickass lgm spawns in a row while mine kept spawning in Outer Mongolia (as usual). I was thinking maybe a pre-game option of lgm-spawn-far/lgm-spawn-near/lgm-spawn-random might be a nice add-in. It would level out the luck factor and perhaps enhance tiny maps by setting spawn to 'far' to burn more than 10 seconds and big maps by setting it to 'near' to not penalize so much on huge maps. Basically, the 'far' would just choose the most distant start point and spawn it there, and 'near' would do the opposite. Of course, 'Random' would just be as it is now, but it could also be called 'give-an-edge-to-shotty-and-zach-and-punish-stimpy-for-his-crappy-luck'. Comments anyone? (on the option, not my crappy luck...)

P.S. While you're at it, how bout a rapid tree regeneration option too for some of those fun, albeit tree-scarce maps?!

Maybe change the respawn math so, it's only allowed to respawn in ther same place twice in a row. Maybe something along those lines sounds good. I don't beleave it would be a good idea to allow someone to choice how and where lgm's respawn. I dunno..

That's one of the more interesting suggestions floated in quite a while. LGM respawns are one of the only truly random elements of the game, and between two equal players it can mean the difference in a win and a loss, or at least swing the tide immensely, and without much of a theoretical justification. I don't think there's much of a concern about controlling where an lgm respawns --- it's hard to believe people would use that information strategically, although it could be done. For instance, if you start NW on CT3, you could spike SE from long-range (maybe from pillview), then just camp out in your corner in the knowledge that your little guy will land almost immediately. Maybe that's a little far-fetched though, and it wouldn't work on most maps.

On balance, I think the option would be great, although I doubt that change would keep Stimpy from suxing rox.

--Kax

Actually, I'm an idiot -- you couldn't game the starts that way unless the "distant respawn" were measured from where the lgm died, rather than from where the tank was located when it died. So, even more reason to be in favor of it.

--Kax

You're right Kax... you are an idiot. Thank you for your support.