Blue, red alarm and emergency lighting during DS crash after hijack

General Discussion
1

While the Almayer is undergoing situations that require it to go on blue or red it feels like the ships alarm systems are insufficient to cause to the player a sense of urgency and danger.

That is due to 2 factors: sound and visuals.

Specifically the lack of actually effective alarm sounds make the existing ones irrelevant gameplay and rp wise. The sound of the alarm needs to be repeated in smaller intervals as to constantly remind the player the situation they are in (being boarded, DS crashed on the ship etc). A good example of such alarm is the generic alarm sound in the Alien franchise like the one during Nostromo’s self destruct sequence . Same alarm has been used in Alien isolation to great effect for other emergencies besides self destruct. I would recommend the use of such alarm with different volumes and intervals depending on the code level (less vibrant with longer intervals during blue, more while red and max during evac or self destruct). That way every evac will feel like an actual emergency.

In the terms of visuals there is no ship anywhere in any franchise that get a complete electric shut down after some suffering structural damage. There is always backup power that also powers emergency lighting. That lighting is non-existent on the Almayer. Just imagine running for your life through a barely lit corridor and you turn around to see your buddy getting dragged in the dark by a creature you can not make out and the only indication of its existence being the red emergency lights that create an atmosphere of a horror movie. If we had such lights in every room and corridor a ds crash on the Almayer would be so much more atmospheric.

Pair a good alarm with the shady barely lit red corridors and the game turns borderline horror. It also creates the atmosphere of agony that the franchise initially intended. Maybe add some pipes that blow steam in your face (and not explode) and you turn the Almayer into the Nostromo moments before it exploded.

Wouldn’t you want this for your game? Instead of a dull and barely noticeable evacuation sequence that might as well not have happened?

4 Likes
2

At the very least make it so the lighting changes. Nobody is scared or streesed in completly fine lighting but if you add some red here and there? Even if it is bright as shit you have much more of a visual indicator that something is happening.

4 Likes
3

Yes, the red lights should be added (just port over the red no power lights most servers seem to have), we are more or less a four decade old horror movie ported over to a two decade old 2d atmos sim game, and there is no horror if you are running through the bright as the sun Almayer shooting funny 32 x 32 sprites attempting to pretend being scary benos. About the sound, while it would surely add atmosphere, it may just annoy people and make them turn off sound entirely.

1 Like
4

We do not need an Alarm, trust me, hearing the same sound repeated every ten seconds for 15 minutes is grating.

Lights, however, would be very cool. Perhaps even flashing lights showing the nearest armory.

5

Reminded me of this

2 Likes
6

An initial alarm might be good.

The thing I’m 100% on board with is the lighting change. Add in some blue and red lights for Blue Alert and Red/Delta alert and maybe the fire shutters activate a little more and it would be very interesting.

7

Just implement this sound and edit it out a bit.

For the dropship hijack