Alien Isolation mode

Development Ideaguys
1

Mode Idea:
All players are CIVILIAN ROLES (equipped with the gear you find on the random bodies scattered on normal maps) who are tasked with ESCAPING the USS Alamyer, which in this case would be made civilian, (aka no armouries Req can only request civilian supplies etc.) while being hunted by 1 or 2 super strong xenomorhs (Juiced up drones so the survivors don’t have a chance in hell of killing them), survivors need to escape by whatever means are available, such as gathering fuel for a pod, calling a marine fireteam for evac (small team to provide better protection) or, contact what would be a hostile faction and convince them to help you, such as joining the CLF and gathering intel on their enemies, or stealing tech from the lab for the UPP, and so on

Just a idea I had rolling around in my head, would be cool if it happened, and I think it would help people, mainly new players, discover mechanics that might go undiscovered for a long period of time, such as making alchohol into molotovs or hiding in lockers to avoid xeno detection, just a idea, and would need lots of ironing out, but a idea none the less

I know the argument of people saying “just play survivor” but Survivor you are not really thinking of whether or not a xeno is going to be hiding in a vent, you are thinking “where am I gonna hunker down till the marines stop wasting time and deploy” in a mode like this it would be much more intense cause you hunkering down is pointless since you need to be moving to complete your objective, would make welding a door behind you think "if a xeno starts to chase me will I need this door open, or do I want to know that I can not worry about it coming behind me

Additional things suggested to add:

someone asked me on discord how would the game start and how would the xenomorphs be balanced, again I am not coder, so I am spitballing here

maybe 10-20 minutes into the game, around that time, 2 random crew members begin to burst (if they consented to being the xenomorphs) who run off as larva (Who cannot be killed, would suck to have one guy melee the main threat to death instantly) then the xenomorphs change into drones who then placed down ONE hive each (which acts as their homebase) where they need to go to recover when injured, but if they are invincible why would they need to recover, well, they cannot be killed but can be weaken, at full strength they are a major threat, but survivors can weaken them to make them substantially weaker, maybe at 100% health they are 150% faster then a survivor, but at 50% they are as fast, and below that they as slower and deal less damage, while at 0% they MUST heal to atleast 50% health as they lose the ability to deal damage, and to encourage the xenomporhs to act like xenomorphs, capturing survivors and capturing them in the hive will increase your regeneration and damage exponentially, so you are encouraged to capture survivors, and survivors are encouraged to dive into the hive (which could notify the xeno of where survivors are, idk) and risk their lives to save their friends, of course to make it so the xeno does not capture too many people survivors slowly die while cacooned, which when they die the xeno loses the boost, again, not a coder, just throwing out ideas, basically, make the xenomorphs like a mix of the alien isolation one and the dark descent drones with the capturing

6 Likes
2

This was done not even a week ago on a custom groundmap in the PvE servers, including 2 hard to kill super strong xenomorphs

4 Likes
3

Depending on the pop, you could do it on CORSAT. Spread objectives out across it, and make weeds both unbreakable, and on a higher cooldown, with the lesser drone restriction.

Also gotta make the xenoes faster than the survs, so you either gotta make the xenoes faster (which is eh. Too fast and it becomes worse tbh), or slow down survs (or make running take up stamina somehow).

Otherwise, it could be really cool.

1 Like
4

it has been said often before, and it will be said again in the future.

A more traditional SS13 server placed in the Alien franchise, basicly alien isolation just before the station wents to shit, would likly be incredibly popular.

Yet it hasnt happend yet.
Its a million dollar (but cloud instead of money) idea. Very simpel, and immens potential.
Although it migth take away a good amount of CM’s pop.

2 Likes
5

It has. There was an alien isolation server with custom spriteslike 5 years ago. One or two xenos would hunt down the crew on a custom station. Unfortunately it didnt last long but it was an interesting experience.

1 Like
6

Can you recall the name of the server? Been looking for something like that for a while

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7

I remember how one of the first times the event server was used it was for an alien isolation event.

too bad the event server is rarely used.

8

We had Dead Space server and yet…
This whole shtick is getting old super fast. Regular SS13 keeps things fresh because there are plethora of multiple bigger and smaller antagonists and general vibe is more of a “cartoon for teens in space haha funny meme” which allows for a lot of scenarios to happen and gives freedom for everyone to do basically anything. Restricting yourself to Alien setting wouldn’t be fun in the long run.

It would be cool for few rounds, but then it would stop. I played a couple of PvE rounds with Alien Isolation theme, where people get colonist roles and after few hours GameMaster plays as basically unkillable Alien. It is fun, but I can’t imagine playing it more than once a week, or something.

2 Likes
9

Sounds like a fun idea to me.

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That’s exactly what I was going to say, sounds like dead space 13. I played a few rounds on that server and was moderately entertained but it got stale quick, waiting for things to happen so you could grab gear.

1 Like
11

This man has played too much PVE blueshift

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12

Never actually played that, funnily enough

1 Like
13

Like some of the others said, Dead Space 13 kinda did this idea but the repetitiveness of pick role → wait for preset thing to happen that you pretend not to have been expecting → grab loot → try and stay alive makes it a bit of a tricky thing to pull off. A sort of extended survivor could work a bit like this, everyone spawning as survs without any comms and significantly reduced loot pools and there being one or two really tough xenos hunting them down. Or, take a random set of marine roles and force them to try to survive on the Almayer in a similar scenario set post-hijack.

I do love the idea of a CM offshoot set on a civilian ship/station/colony that’s closer to vanilla SS13. Anything that gives an excuse to interact with the extended lore.

1 Like
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Yeah I really just want a reskinned SS13 regular server type deal, using all the CM assets. It wouldn’t be like the Dead Space server, rather more like regular SS13, set on a massive space-station with different events, traitors, there’s so much more you could do then “Just” Aliens.

1 Like
15

You are not going to beat regular SS13 servers so you can enjoy your highpop of 10 people playing at best.

Alien setting is limiting. Other servers already have xenos and other goofy, but fun stuff.
With vanilla all you have to know in terms of lore is that you are on NanoTrasen space station and Syndicate are the bad guys and this is the future. You can play as moth, as grey alien, as robot, as borg, as plant (diona), as skeleton, as some kind of a gas alien that burns in contact with oxygen, as sort of a bird alien (vox), you can have plethora of different silly religions from basically any media, there is a lot of stuff.

With alien server? You are a regular dude, maybe a synth. You can’t have a silly religion, mostly either major, or minor real life ones. No wizards, no swarmers, no cortical borers, no cults (other than xeno cults), no demons, no revenants, no such things.
And you won’t have them, because alien setting is limiting.

The closest you can get to your dream (in my opinion) is PvE server Isolation mode, or some sort of event where you get to be a colonist while not involving xenos.

PvE.

1 Like
16

Correct, it would not work to make it just alien isolation. Thats why i said a traditional ss13 placed in the universe. Because it needs the variation. Making it always the same antag would be boring.

Thankfully, the alien cannon has many possibel antags
Fromm all the enemy factions, to hostile corporations, xenos, predators, zombies, the black goo, AI being fucky and engineers.

So we got

  • xeno(being already a base ss13 antag),
  • bountyhunter(or whatever esle you would give preds),
  • syndicate agent(enemy corporation spy),
  • blood brothers (see syndy agent),
  • nukies(CLF dont like coperate stations, lets blow it up for freedom),
  • malf ai (both from ai being fucky or just what WY did in isolation [they baugth it and told ares to let people go die])
  • Revolution (works in any late stage capitalism sci-fi universe)
  • Gangs (see revolution)
  • Just zombies (zombies are canon)
  • Sentient virus (works in every setting, its simply a bad virus. That its sentient isnt IC, just means player controlled.)

And thats just the few i can think of on the top of my head. You can still work UPP in there.
The only antags you cant easily make fit are the fantasy ones. Wich kinda sucks. Although, you migth be able to workshop some of the fantasy antags like blob using black goo. That one is just a giant mass, not that hard.

So all in all, if you cant make more then one antag for an alien server, its kind of a skill issue.

1 Like
17

Yeah, this was just a idea, I had, I was thinking of like just a occasional thing like whiskey outpost, not some full blow consistent gamemode, just a interesting little thing to break up the basic distress call gamemode with a less combat, more survival orientated mode, I not think it would be some painfully long drawn out slog to get through (if done right), just a short little thing to break stuff up, just a idea, do not really expect anything of this

1 Like
18

That is a profoundly amazing idea. Great job man.

19

remove xeno Xray and shorten their vision cones, so they rely more on sound, so stealth becomes actually possible. Maybe flares, noisemakers, etc create a vision bubble around them

2 Likes
20

I thought you were talking about dead by daylight for a moment.
Honestly you can play as a xenomorph there as well.

1 Like