Alien Isolation - Make it more common?

Development Ideaguys
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I’ve lately been enjoying going shipside as a xeno and terrorizing the crew. From a shipside perspective, having a xeno onboard is also very exciting and keeps things on edge. I think most people on both teams enjoy seeing it, and I know dchat certainly does. It’s entertaining, but it’s also been rendered almost nearly impossible to pull off. If this is something that interests the playerbase as a whole, I’ve been trying to think of ideas of how to make it a more common/prevalent occurence.

Presently, pretty much the only way you can do it is by going lurker and getting super lucky (or getting super lucky and bursting shipside). Mostly because lurker is the only caste that can hide on the dropship after they got rid of burrower tunnelling, and it’s the only caste that can survive the trip up without taking damage cause the handhold alarm leads to the DS getting bumrushed immediately. So general ideas that could make shipside xenos more common:

1- Get rid of the handhold alarm. Marines have Bravo and a FOB for a reason. They have MDs, crew monitors, DS cameras, OT claymores and omniturret spam. If you cannot adequately defend the LZ with all of these tools, then honestly you should suffer for it, not be rewarded. Who is the warning for? Shipside xenos can’t target cryo marines (which isn’t a luxury granted to freshly spawned larva mind you, but that’s a separate issue). I think it’s fair not to target people who just spawned, but anyone else on the ship is fair game. Roles like OT and Research can have ridiculously broken round impact while being completely untouchable, making shipside xenos more prevalent can serve as a minor counter if nothing else.

2- Get rid of FOB space turrets. They’re bad for the game in general, I already made a different post about that.

These first two are probably the easiest and least controversial to implement, and don’t actually require any new ideas, just rebalance. Next I’ll list some brainstorm ideas that may be a bit more controversial, although most should also be pretty easy to add to the game.

3- Let shipside xenos weed. Any shipside xeno. Every xeno that gets loose on a ship in the Alien franchise is a terrifying force to be reckoned with, it would be nice to get anything other than a burrower or drone. Maybe for non-weed castes it can be an ability that lets them drop a single node with a bit of cooldown, at the cost of some plasma or health or something.

4- Let shipside xenos receive queen heals, pheromones, plasma, and/or build hive structures.

5- Let shipside xenos heal off weeds slowly

6- Create a strain that any xeno shipside can evolve into, something akin to the alien isolation event, a blend between a drone and lurker maybe just as an example

7- Create a role that xenos can purchase using the comm towers, in the same way they might get boons. But it spawns a special caste shipside (could be something similar to 6)

8- Bring back burrower tunneling in the DS

Just some thoughts, all under the assumption that people want to see more shipside xenos. Maybe I’m just out of touch and nobody actually wants to see this, but idk let me know what you think

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You want to see this untill you witness round after round of sweaty xeno player robusting entire CIC and medbay.

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Nukeing FOB turrets is a bad idea, but decreasing their battery significantly would be fine (Like, 15 to 20 minutes after landing they should depower)

FOB turrets where added for a reason, and while they are kinda insane right now, removing them would just bring back old issues.

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Fun in theory, but I can see some flaws, mainly in areas of high vulnerability. As stated, a prime lurker could make short work of an unprepared medbay, given a lot of staff there don’t carry guns nor do they wear armor. If medbay is wiped that means no hugged surgery. If CIC is made up of two SOs on lowpop who have one pistol between the both of them you’re probably losing command. It’s also just… not fun to perma in some area of the ship because nobody even knew you were in danger in the first place.

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It’s fun and exciting because it’s rare. Shipside already struggles to adequately complete all their tasks as is and is chronically understaffed, this would just make the frustrating experience of groundside marines losing because of shipside failures more common.

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I agree it should happen more often it makes shipside jobs more fun too. I also agree that research is overpowered an deserves to have some counter. I am always told that research is hard and luck based but I have played too many games with 50 minute super stims which is instant loss for xenos.

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Most of what should be said has already been said, but I just want to add that the current OOC rule against xenos rushing to get into the dropship on first drop (which is kind of pointless since the addition of the LZ turrets) was because of some subhuman degenerate trash player who would do this very thing with the purpose of being a nuisance shipside a year or two ago. They would most often do it as a runner, the most tissue paper caste there is.

That being said I do think it’d be cool if there were some sort of variant as you described for a shipside burst. Maybe after the round has reached a certain point in time, similar to how the King was intended to be a round-ender.

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This is actually a fair point; what if the alarm didn’t sound until the xeno got shipside then? Then it gives them a chance to actually leave the ship, and gives the shipside crew a heads up.

I mean they would be losing moreso because of a groundside failure to protect the FOB. It’s a team game, I feel like groundside and shipside are too disjointed. I mean yeah marines rely on shipside, but I think shipside could do to rely more on marines in a meaningful way that isn’t just fultoning bodies, but actual protection.

Having some semblance of danger to shipside roles makes it more fun in my opinion

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I’mma be honest, its…meh, especially since most essential and core machinery is irreplaceable unless admin spawned, like chem dispensers, research equipment, CIC overwatch, you name it, most of it is meltable and can EASILY cripple a department if marines or MPs respond a second too late. Running around a drone shipside is more annoying and frustrating than the groundside map itself, since its a two-floor map WITH a sub-floor (catwalks) and shit tons of vents

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It’s also a ruling that shipside xenos can’t break irreplaceable stuff pre-hijack.

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I think you oversell the engagement from “xeno onboard”.

It’s not. The rule was removed when rule-clarification was nuked.

I think it’s fine as is. I think alarm is not needed though. Maybe the alarm should be on the dropship itself, instead of the shipwide announcement.

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It shouldn’t be removed fully but at least put it on a small delay would be massively helpful. It really just needs enough time for the xeno to get off the dropship and in to the back rooms.

I do like that idea as long as its heavily restricted. First off they should be allowed no more then ONE node. It should cost a bit of HP and last off it must have a really long cooldown something like 5 mins.

That would be neat but don’t see that happening.

Eh… perhaps allow them to tunneling into the tiles right next to the door would be fine. but otherwise no.

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I thought it was perfectly fine when it was lurkers sneaking up and they couldn’t get queen heals or heal on weeds anymore, but it got nerfed further past that (mostly because of burrowers) and is basically pointless.

One of those things where burrower’s burrow ability should’ve been nerfed rather than nerfing every xeno sneaking up to the almayer.

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How long ago was this? I got shipside larva within the past week and the rule was still a thing according to the staff that were online.

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When they nuked the meta you are also allowed to melt cas weapon shipside, ob, ob ammo. No restrictions anymore at all, I tried to search for the topics about it. Thought it would be a easy find, since there was many topics about it. But seems like topics get deleted after x time have passed.. I didn’t know that. Perhaps you find it when you search in discord.

Rules Shipside Xenomorphs

While shipside Xenomorphs can do almost everything they like once they get shipside they aren’t allowed to attack people who just got out of cryo and are getting their gear.

This restriction doesnt apply post-hijack.

Xenomorphs should not be rushing to get onto the dropship before second drop.

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I have most of my hours in shipside roles and a lone shipside xeno (or hell, several) were always a highlight.

It’s really a shame with how they are so rare currently

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I love shipside Xeno. So far I have decapped 2 XOs, 1 CE, and 3 MTs. I almost got the crown jewel of Bob Cross himself.

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as a chronic marine and shipside main, i do agree that at the very least alarm should be removed. we have bioscans for a reason. i remember the time before and it was fine.

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as someone who actually does main shipside (i know i stan SG i promise thats the ONLY ground role i play) and in fact the jobs who have to secure shipside against Stoopid Benos (ASO, CE, MP) i don’t in fact enjoy shipside xenos

Im okay with 4 though, tgmc allowed that and it was w/e. 6 and 8 are cool too

At most shipside xeno event for marines is a lot of unrobust players who accept it’s not their job to catch it and walk around knowing they can get randomly decapped because they…made the conscious decision to play an auxiliary role when their ping was bad or they weren’t confident groundside

Idk how i feel about turrets still. I hate them mechanically but as with most things in ss13, if it doesn’t exist, people will push it whether it’s moderated against or not; so if we’re really against lz rushes and trying to keep rounds longer than 30 minutes for the health of the game, I just don’t know what to do. A lot of recent stuff has been towards round time management for the health of the game and I get the sense its a design priority for contribs. But in a world where that wasn’t the case, LZ fights are fine by me.

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you can remove all hand holding and then it turns into 9 cades on ground and 9 cades on Almayer to block the dropship doors. Plus don’t forget about turrets on dropship.

It’s not like there is absolutely no chance somebody forgets to close cades and lurker somehow gets on board. But I think you are overestimating the results 1 and 2.

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