User blog comment:Tuckerscreator/Wars Never Ends/@comment-26685181-20121004012944/@comment-26685181-20121005065122

I wish we could reply to replies >:(

I do think that, while a Flood faction would be very Zerg-like, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Zerg seem to hierarchical for me - the Flood is amorphous and constantly shifting. I think your idea of infantry units having different modes for different situations is a very intriguing one, viewed from a Flood context - the Pure Forms especially would work extremely well in this light. I also like the idea of Flood units getting more larger and powerful over time, and with every unit they kill - like, again using an AoM example, the Hydra, which grew a new head with every few units it killed. Eventually, a combat form could become a Juggernaut by having a high enough body count - tempered somewhat by the fact that most would be killed before they reached that point. Or perhaps this could mitigate the Flood's natural lack of vehicle equivalents - that the longest-lived Flood units can become large enough, strong enough, and fast enough to go toe-to-toe with a vehicle. Imagine a Juggernaut taking on a Scorpion - sending a huge arm crashing through the turret, tearing apart the chassis to get to the crew inside! How cool would that be?!

I also think that, like the Zerg, they should have a gradual effect on the area they occupy, changing the map itself over time, such as in. At a certain point in the match, they start pumping out a protective spore field that gradually saps health and, if a unit dies within it, turns it into a Flood unit, adding to the defence of the base. This would compensate for the lack of a turret-equivalent. I wasn't entirely sure about the Flood aerial units - they didn't really seem to gel with me, though I loved the Thrasher Form to bits - that was a nice design, and felt like how I would have preferred the Tank Form could have been. If the Flood doesn't get an aerial component, I'd like something more alien - we've seen some tremendous leaps from Flood forms, perhaps we could have some kind of "grasshopper"-like form that just kicks up and out, able to latch onto and take out aircraft?

Separate post for my ideas on a Forerunner faction.