CO / XO "Withdraw & De-orbit" alternative to "Nuke"

Development Ideaguys
21

So we make CO / XO ordering a withdraw an automatic fun “Xenos Major” victory button which will humiliate and get that player bullied whenever they use it. nods

Here are the outcomes for CM then:

  • Unga Rush The Hive. Marines UNGA ball and rush the hive as fast and as violently as possible and annihilate the hive.
    ( Marine Major Victory .)

  • Early game Drop ship Hijack The xenomorphs rush the lz and manage to hijack either the Normandy or the Alamo. Burrower hijinks and whatnot. Once on board, the xenomorphs slaughter the entire crew who are non-combat RP players anyway.
    ( 80% Xeno Major Victory )

  • Nuke . The Marines - who have clearly failed to rush the hive and resort to protecting two coms towers which are randomly positioned and typically in tiny hard-to-defend locations that benefit xenomorph play style. 10-20% of Marine Victory that involves arming the nuke to kill 1-2 xenomorphs; but realistically 80% of the time results in Marines just dying more with a nuke sitting at LZ that cannot be armed.
    ( 80% Very likely Xeno Victory )

  • Marines successfully evacuate - but funny DS Hijack. The Marines try to pull back to avoid being slaughtered by the xenos because command isn’t insane. Marines are not allowed to ‘meta’ evac because … reasons. . I dunno. But the Marines evacuate after sustaining horrific losses and the xenomorphs are coming at the LZ from all sides - mercilessly aciding through walls, digging through walls, teleporting through magic funny holes. The xeno morphs are then ferried up to the USS Almayer where in - in all likelihood - the slaughter all the Marines as they cower around drop pods that have a 5% chance of working, try to put fuel into lifeboats that are pretty easy to overrun, or try to defend a bunch of ‘strategic points’ because Marines need to “fight to flee like cowards”.
    ( About an 70-80% of a Xeno Major Victory)

  • Command orders a withdraw after about 1:30 - 2:00 of fighting The CO / XO order a “Withdraw” after getting enough tech points - this is a tier 5 investment now - and order the Marines to completely withdraw from the planet so that they can ‘leave orbit’ to refit and rearm as fast as humanly possible - leaving the planet to the Xenomorphs to have.
    ( 100% a Xeno Major Victory )

No middle ground. No “draw” conditions. There is no middle ground.

It sounds like you want it so that if the Marines do anything other than completely and utterly exterminate the xenomorphs - using handicapped / nerfed weapons / broken drop pods / comedically malfunctioning Dropships that work against the marines / broken Gas Masks that don’t protect the marines - likely are always going enjoy a Xenomorph major victory.

No RP exceptions. Nothing else.

That’s what you want?

1 Like
22

Anything but Hijack. I beg of thee.

I don’t care about the ‘fight to the death’ argument when it comes to hijack. It’s such a stupid, boring and frankly badly designed part of the round that there’s never any fun in it. Too many times has the Hijack alert interrupted genuinely good, organic RP on the ship, be it as a shipside role or as a marine who managed to limp back onto the DS to safety.

Terrible combat in hijack aside, RP is the crux of it. Marines have no time to do squat with hijack. Wanna do a memorial? A church service in honour of the fallen? A proper debrief? A role call? A medal awarding? A mutiny? An execution in the Brig? ANY kind of RP?

Bad news: You can’t. You have about 3 minutes, after which everyone goes “OH WOW, XENOS CAN FLY?? GEE WHIZ GUYS, GOOD THING WE HAVE TONS OF METAL AT THE LIFEBOATS!”

It’s a terrible part of the round, and if you give me the ability to skip it when I know I’m beat, then I’ll take the L.

8 Likes
23

maybe marines should kill xenos better if they dont want to lose groundside

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Literary just win ground side, and you won’t get humiliated. That’s a plain as fuck skill issue, because both sides humiliate the loser in any case what so ever, and most marines blame CIC for the loss every time as well, so there would be 0 difference in attitude.

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How is it a “Skill issue” if:

  • Marines don’t have enough corpsmen / engineers?

  • Occasionally we get one random player who plays PO and deliberately screws up the operation of the DS?

  • We have no CAS?

  • No one plays as supply?

  • Basic marine protective gear doesn’t work “because of magic.”

  • Certain weapons don’t work “because it wouldn’t be fair.”

  • You literally have the magic funny “Stun Everyone Around Me” Queen screech. How much skill is it to push a “Stun Everyone” button?

  • Where is the “Skill” in running back and forth and laying on “snot carpet” to heal while Marine medics have a fucking stroke?

Holy shit.

ONE sentry gun is able to shred dozens upon dozens of xenos in the movie. Just one. What made the xenos ‘scary’ in the film is that they were relentless, did not fear death, and that there are many of them. Xenos in CM are -nothing- like that. They’re bullet tanks. And I can almost ‘see past that’ just for pure game play purpose and balancing. But there are so many other issues that work contrary to that.

Xenos “Win” half the time due to pure RNG. There are some very talented xeno players - and I’m sure they are just as skilled as shotgun juggling marines. A lot of rounds are pure RNG; the Marines are screwed even before they get off the Almayer - and it has nothing to do with individual Marine or Xeno skills.

  • Un-nerf Marine weapons / gear and tell me it’s a ‘skill issue’.
  • Ditch the ‘queen screech’ and tell me it’s a skill issue.
  • No more “bone shard” shield for the Rav
  • You want to ‘grab’ a marine with your tail? Walk directly up to the marine and “grab” maybe 2-3 tiles - distance.
  • No magical com towers ‘pooping’ larva for no explicable reason and tell me it’s a ‘skill issue.’
  • No need to “de-crypt” a nuclear bomb.
  • Disallow burrower from digging through solid metal or the plating of a dropship.
  • Make it so that xenos have to “walk along a tunnel” to get to an exit of their tunnels.
  • You want the DS so you can fly up and kill everyone? Hijack it before there’s an ordered Withdraw.

Get rid of all that, then we can talk about skill issues.
Playing Xeno is “easy” mode. Convince me I am wrong.

… Back to the original discussion –

All I’d like is just a “Withdraw” thing that allows command to say “Okay. We’re done. Pack it in” so we can leave and not suffer an hour / 30 minutes of just waiting to die. I don’t even care if it’s a Xeno Major or not because it’s just a pure ego thing at this point.

It’s enjoyable to RP a Marine who wants to live; waking up in “Kafka-equse” scenarios in which there is no escape, all our gear is broken or doesn’t work right, and it doesn’t matter how hard you try gets very, very, very tiring after a certain period of time. You want the planet? Have it. I just want to have an option to ‘live’. That’s all.

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Holy shit this turned to cope quite fast. I was gonna say that if you lose, its a complete “skill issue” since the other side quite litterary “outskilled” you, wether it be xeno or alien, but now you are just ranting about balance issues and people not doing the things they need to do.

But anyway, i will respond in a hopefully not mallicious or downgrading manner.

Marines don’t have enough corpsmen / engineers?

thats either a lowpop issue (Game isn’t really balanced around it, and most devs don’t look at it to balance the game) and if its medium/high pop, then the medics/engineers are either not doing their job (skill issue) or they died somewhere to a xeno without being recovered (skill issue), as there is usually about 1-3 engineers and equally as many comtechs in each squad (some squads will wary, with bravo taking 4 while delta taking 1 etc)

You could also equate this with the hive not having builders/frontline/backline.

Occasionally we get one random player who plays PO and deliberately screws up the operation of the DS?

Either its a griefing issue, or its a bald pilot. Could also be an IC issue, so all in all, entirely up to the pilot in question.

On the otherside of the spectrum, you could have a queen that wants to just rush marines instantly, and then dies immedietly to the ungaball, making the hive fall in dissaray and ending the round in 10-15 minutes after.

We have no CAS?

Lowpop issue, as PO roles get snagged every medium/high pop round, and if it dosn’t will get snagged 10 minutes atleast later. If CAS is bald and/or dosn’t take lazes/flares, then skill issue

Look at first answer.

No one plays as supply?

Lowpop issue, as the XO/CO can easily recruit shipside roles for it (supply dosn’t require many IC skills to do)

Look at first answer

Basic marine protective gear doesn’t work “because of magic.”

No clue about that one, as i’ve never experience it myself, nor have i see nor heard people complain about it. Most likely a bug, so tell an admin about it.

Certain weapons don’t work “because it wouldn’t be fair.”

Gonna need an explaination on this, because if its about the turrets/M56D not working if too close to eachother then its a balance issue devs had. If its the M2C not being usuable next to cades and whatnot, also a balance issue. If its neither of them i’m gonna need an explaination as i have no clue what you mean.

You literally have the magic funny “Stun Everyone Around Me” Queen screech. How much skill is it to push a “Stun Everyone” button?

It still has counterplay, and it’s still the thing that kills queens the most. Litterary hang back and bait the screech, then you push the queen while she pushed those stunned marines and you kill her quickly. This is marine 101 that you should take notes on to kill queens better.

Where is the “Skill” in running back and forth and laying on “snot carpet” to heal while Marine medics have a fucking stroke?

Asymetric game design. Its the same reason why xenoes have to get in your face to deal actual damage to you, instead of shooting you dead from the other side of the screen in 4 seconds.

ONE sentry gun is able to shred dozens upon dozens of xenos in the movie. Just one. What made the xenos ‘scary’ in the film is that they were relentless, did not fear death, and that there are many of them. Xenos in CM are -nothing- like that. They’re bullet tanks. And I can almost ‘see past that’ just for pure game play purpose and balancing. But there are so many other issues that work contrary to that.

I don’t think the devs would think twice to remake xenoes into a quantity side, rather then a quality side for immersion, but people generally don’t wanna play xeno, to the point where only 25% of the server, if even, plays xeno on round start. So thats entirely up to the playerbase and what they want to do. BUT, if you want that experience then Morrow is doing this type of shit, where xenoes massivly overwhelm you and you have to survive with like 8 buddies against 100 xenoes who relentlessly hunt you down.

Xenos “Win” half the time due to pure RNG. There are some very talented xeno players - and I’m sure they are just as skilled as shotgun juggling marines. A lot of rounds are pure RNG; the Marines are screwed even before they get off the Almayer - and it has nothing to do with individual Marine or Xeno skills.

Gonna need a citation on this one. Do you mean it coding wise or skill wise across the player base? Because RNG matters very little in the span of the game, as most things are pretty god damn reliable in the things they are ment to do (unless you’re making makeshift things, like improvised firebombs). But all in all, my personal opinion is that the game is about 90% skill, and 10% other, which encompass lag, server issues and others.

Un-nerf Marine weapons / gear and tell me it’s a ‘skill issue’.
Ditch the ‘queen screech’ and tell me it’s a skill issue.
No more “bone shard” shield for the Rav
You want to ‘grab’ a marine with your tail? Walk directly up to the marine and “grab” maybe 2-3 tiles - distance.
No magical com towers ‘pooping’ larva for no explicable reason and tell me it’s a ‘skill issue.’
No need to “de-crypt” a nuclear bomb.
Disallow burrower from digging through solid metal or the plating of a dropship.
Make it so that xenos have to “walk along a tunnel” to get to an exit of their tunnels.
You want the DS so you can fly up and kill everyone? Hijack it before there’s an ordered Withdraw.

I have honestly 0 clue in why you would buff the marines to this extent, and also nerf xenoes. It just seems like massive cope.

Playing Xeno is “easy” mode. Convince me I am wrong.

Play xeno, any kind, and play it like the ones you are suffering against. I personally have more hours in “human”, albeit i’ve become a xeno main for the most part. But playing xeno can be strong, as long as you know what you’re doing, and have experience playing it. I’m a massive lurker fan, and I see so many young and non-mature lurkers fuck up so easily because they think its as easy as they see. I play warrior a bit myself, byt only manage to hit the pounce like 1/5 times because skill issue. I play Rav and always end up overextending and eating shit.

Just saying “The other side is easy because it seems easy” is so malicious and ignorant.

All I’d like is just a “Withdraw” thing that allows command to say “Okay. We’re done. Pack it in” so we can leave and not suffer an hour / 30 minutes of just waiting to die. I don’t even care if it’s a Xeno Major or not because it’s just a pure ego thing at this point.
It’s enjoyable to RP a Marine who wants to live; waking up in “Kafka-equse” scenarios in which there is no escape, all our gear is broken or doesn’t work right, and it doesn’t matter how hard you try gets very, very, very tiring after a certain period of time. You want the planet? Have it. I just want to have an option to ‘live’. That’s all.

99% agree, in the fact i want it to be a Xeno major. But to each on their own on that.

PS: sorry for the massive wall of text.

2 Likes
27

If marines lose the ground battle (winning the ground battle means completely and utterly exterminating the xenomorphs, it’s kindof the entire reason they’re still here after they get survs), they lost, no way around it. Majors and minors are very small details of that win or loss, and most people don’t care about them, a good example is that usually only the CL says not to nuke, you don’t get “PVT. Stanley [Alpha (RFN)]: CO pls no nuke we won’t get marine major :((((‘”.

I’d like to see any ideas you have for possible “draw” conditions considering how binary winning or losing groundside is, and since you’ve already gone on a passive aggressive rant about the topic I’m sure you’ve got some ideas, right? Personally I’d prefer we remove major/minor because it really doesn’t matter or add anything to the round.

(oh also, the reason gasmasks don’t work is because the acid gas isn’t an inhalation thing, it works on contact by being acid, I’ve seen people bring up gasmasks helping with acid gas before and I don’t understand where the idea that a gasmask should help comes from)

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  • The xenomorphs have literally zero logistic issues besides “wait for funny bar to fill up” AND / OR “wait for cool down.”

  • You heal all by yourself. There are no organs to damage. You cannot go blind, run out of air, or anything like that.

  • You have night-vision wall hacks right off the bat. Every single xeno has night vision wall hacks.

  • If you die, you can respawn as a hugger, lesser drone, or larva forever. As a marine? “Sorry scrub. Maybe you’ll be foxtrot.”

The only reason I wrote everything I did is because I’m “sick” of the “skill issue” taunt. Nothing personal. But when you throw ‘skill issue’ at Marines – there’s quite a bit to be said. A dumb dumb marine ‘shooting’ one of his buddies? Skill issue. An SO OB’ing the whole front line? Skill issue. Fine. But having to deal with the idea that your team is deliberately handicapped or at a massive disadvantage which is clearly indicated by the “win/loss” ratio … -all- the time just to ‘make it fair’ pisses me off. And that by being handicapped, you lose / die more often than you feel is reasonable?

Playing Marines is difficult. Play Xeno main for a year - then play Marine main for a few months. Tally up how many times you “lose” a round and also write down “Why” you lost. It gets frustrating.

STALKER: MISERY

Have you ever played “M.I.S.E.R.Y.” for stalker? It’s a mixed bag. It’s a mod for stalker that makes the game really hard, is super pretty, and is really fun and interesting to play. Until you play it too much. The developers of the mod made it impossibly ‘difficult’ to play. As in - unrealistically hard. Your weapons degrade insanely fast. Everyone shoots 200% better than you and are basically aimbots. You get garbage ‘rewards’ for any quests you complete. The game is ‘pretty’ and has sick ambience and immersion - but it is virtually impossible to play. Very quickly, the person grows utterly sick of the game because they are just reloading over and over and over to just enjoy the game even slightly.

The devs of MISERY snarled at everyone who said “This … is … over the top” … and pretty much drove a large portion of players away from the mod. Because they wanted it “hard.” Unrealistically hard. By and large most of the STALKER community avoids the latest version of MISERY because it’s an unplayable pile of Fuck. I guess the reason I brought this up is that I’m getting kind of the same vibes about CM. The pixel artwork is superb. I believe the community is really nice, mixed, and generally authentic as a nice diverse mix of people.

But it gets exhausting to just “die” all the time - sometimes through no fault of your own. And to relieve the same scenario over again - with no escape. You want to ‘play’ another round - but then realize that stupid things happen and certain rules are ‘that way’ just for the sake of ‘balance’ or ‘game play’ – and it feels very stacked against the Marines and Marine players in general.

And when they -voice- that frustration, are immediately slapped down and told to “get good” is even more frustrating. How do you “get good” against random Queen Screech / stun / grab / hug? How can I possibly “get gooder” in that situation? You can’t.

I just want a reasonable chance of living through a round. Just some sort of “Fuck this, I want to leave” option that allows me to survive. I don’t even care about ‘winning’ the war because victory is purely subjective with WY involved and how the Corps handles things.

I AGREE at this point that “Withdraw” should be a Xeno Major / Minor or whatever we want to call it. I get the impression that largely doesn’t matter that much.

I don’t want to keep fighting or bickering. I’ve posted my idea - and believe it would be pretty reasonable. I’m moving on if you want to move on. I am more than happy to discuss the “Withdraw” idea more.

5 Likes
29

Adding more options for a round to end on a more ‘organic’ point I feel would be a net positive. I understand the concept of hijack is a controversial one with people running the gambit from loving it to hating it, but I feel that there is no harm in giving Marines, and Xenos, more power to dictate how a round ends.

I believe that the core gameplay loop of the game IS the groundside game mode. I do not believe that hijack is a part of the core gameplay loop, and I feel the game would be better served if it was an optional part of the game that could occur if both sides allow for it.

Letting Marines abandon the planet after a long set period of time is a perfectly acceptable change. It opens the possibility for more roleplay scenarios and gives the Marines an alternative way to end the game outside of a grinding FOB siege that invetibly ends in a marine defeat before we all wait for the mandatory 20 minute shipside FOB siege.

1 Like
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so youre saying you dont deserve a defeat even though you lack entire departments? Shit logic my guy. Marines packing their shit and leaving is a clear cut defeat to me

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if you die as marine you can be revived, only if you perma (which often really does boil down to a skill issue, I should know, I have 280 hours in PFC and die a LOT) can you not be revived, and if you want to you can join as xeno after that anyway.

I know you’re going to disagree with this, but marines really aren’t handicapped. I firmly believe that if marines stopped fear RPing and actually worked together in a real effort to push, they’d win every single round, but the game is balanced around the majority of the force being idiots.

I play pretty much only backline acid runner (when I play xeno), with my side “winning” usually just meaning the part I enjoy most is over and I’m about to be thrown into FOB siege, so I don’t really have a strict definition of “win” or “lose” and mostly just focus on the individual fights to see whether or not I did well or poorly during a round. On the marine side of things I usually get myself killed pointmanning, whether or not I get hit by friendly fire is irrelevant because I’m almost always putting myself at risk of getting brazil’d and often do, but I value the RP a lot more than just winning, leading to a similar situation to xeno where I don’t really care which side won but how much RP I got to do (and the occasional moment where I feel I actually fought well).

Individual (combat) xenos will (almost) always be more powerful than individual marines, that’s why there’s more of you. I’ve salted in Dchat too, but this is a team game and one good marine isn’t going to cut it.

Unfortunately most marines have brains similar to that of an ant.

Queen screech is an example of teamwork being heavily rewarded, almost the entire hive coming together at one moment to capitalize on an ability that otherwise will only net at most a cap or two, with a very high risk from possible forces from offscreen and a large angry swarm of marines after the stun has worn off. Most other stuns are also often avoidable via teamwork, slugs (as a secondary) can save people from warriors, lurkers, being brazil’d in general, and a stun and slow are also very useful things to have on hand, it can save you and your teammates from a lot more scenarios than you would think.

Unfortunately high casualties are almost a necessity unless it’s a complete sweep round, not everybody can live.

Personally, I think we should just remove hijack entirely and let evac’d marines RP on the Almayer for a little while, unfortunately there is the time constraint of “xenos will actually fucking die of boredom if we take too long” so we’d either need to add something to keep them busy or make it only last 5 minutes at most.

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This isn’t true, their first issue is “get the NPC hosts” and if the survs hate xenos like I do then they are killing tunnels and shooting them on sight which starts to limit hive numbers, they either kill or capture the survivors which can essentially tilt the round against them or for them but I think the risk/reward element is a great part of the game.

They only heal on weeds or via the Queens heal (a mechanic I greatly dislike) or by a specialized xeno and I think that gameplay style is an attraction for some so removing the ability for the aliens to run a pocket healer build isn’t fair.

This is true but at the same time they have to come out of cover to get within clicking distance of you and that’s the time to kill them, if this is an issue on being ready for it then always be ready unironically.

Less true ever since larva queue, as much chance of foxtrot and with that recent addition to grab the unchosen slots as a freed mob means even ertbanned shitters like me can grab cryotroops. I agree wholeheartedly about the sentient huggers and lessers though fuck both of those things and if you wont remove them atleast mute them I fucking hate those little backseating meta nerds.

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Every one of these replies to each of my issues are minor inconveniences to the Xeno player that hardly make up the difference and do not justify anything remotely as ‘balanced.’

I know that you have replied to me in a civilized fashion and I respect that.

The xenos are unbalanced pretty badly simply to make them a playable valid threat against the Marines. It is difficult to ‘balance’ a game like this. … One idea would be an elaborate ‘starcraft’ hive system sort of like the Zerg would be interesting - requiring ‘gas’ and ‘plasma extractors’ which requires a ‘plasma carrier’ drone caste would be neato. Perhaps something that offered an ‘economy’ that is more than an afterthought or a ‘hand wave’ that tethered them a little bit to reduce the ‘trolling’ factor.

This would require considerable spriting, coding, and quality testing.

A topic for another thread.

Any suggestions involving “Withdraw” - such as how long of a ‘time frame’ would be doable when the CO / XO has ordered a withdraw? Like a ‘window’ of about 4 minutes or so?

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I mean, xenoes are on paper always gonna be unbalanced against marines 1v1, but that doesn’t mean that them as a faction are unbalanced. They are an entirely differrnt faction, with entirely different needs and conditions, and directly comparing them to marines is a mistake in and off itself.

But since you wanted to list a lot of marine grieviences, I’ll list my Xeno grieviences.

    1. Every Xeno, cept for a select few are all very much high risk, high reward. And it makes them extremely punishing for new xenoes to even try them out since if they don’t know what to do, will die in 4 seconds vs a marine or less. Take runner as an example, where if you miss a pounce, or go too close to a marine, they can PB you with a shotgun and kill your instantly, sending you directly to the larva queue.
    1. Larva queue can be an extreme amount of waiting, and the number of caps vary a lot, so if you die round start as any Xeno, there is no guarantee you will ever respawn, and a very slim chance you will evo anything further then T1. There’s a reason why observer is my highest hours, even compared to all my Xeno hours combined.
    1. Playing xeno is just generally tilting, and has led to most of the prime xenoes to either quit, or just not xeno again. Prime example would be people like BOO and WAR who left since their favourite caste got nerfed/anoying and just stopped having fun. you can see this very generally across xenoes as the only xeno i recognise anymore is SO and MAG3.

So suffering ain’t a marie trait, its just a base CM trait.

2 Likes
36

Time to add my two cents

Hijack is a slower, more drawn out version of the hive steam roll, where the hive is pushed back room by room until it is cornered and the queen is pincered by several squads, sometimes rarely surviving or turning the fight around, most people don’t complain about this because it’s over quickly most of the time.

If you are going to add a way to skip hijack, maybe give queen a way to skip hive rush, like if they lose control of 80 percent of the colony and marines get a critical mass within a certain range of the hive core, queen can order the hive underground, forcing them to hibernate to survive but stalling the infestation, which would be a USCM/WY win.

Hijack, i think most people will agree, is a reward for xenos. They fought through grueling cadehugging lines, so now they get to slaughter poorly armed RP crew with their abilities and stats balanced for cadehug fighting, and then they get to stalk and terrify anyone at the pods or boats, culminating in breaching the final lines of defense and getting many kills in short order, withdrawl would basically kneecap the xeno reward for winning the ground side. The whole point of xenomorphs is this nigh unstoppable murder machine that even the best of the best can only stall, letting them get through your defenses should be a death sentence, and if anything hijack should be faster and more bloody for them.

I dont personally care about win conditions, there are literally thousands of rounds of CM, you will not and cannot remember more than a few round ends, what ought to matter and be catered for are the memories, good RP scenes, funny moments, robust combat encounters, etc.

Some say that hijack will prevent you from properly RP’ing, to some sense this is true, counterpoint: prepare for hijack as a possibility and don’t start a soap opera while the ground is losing hard, or make more reactive RP scenes. Furthermore Withdrawl as a concept would completely stop any and all RP on the ship entirely on the decision of a single person. This will happen even if there are people on board who want to keep playing out their current scene, with no recourse on their part.

Last point: either put withdrawl to a ship vote, or make it require like…3-5 CIC officers agreeing, with the CO/XO not having OOC permission to order them to agree so that it’s an actual choice.

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We already have a huge discussion thread about the idea of allowing Xenomorphs to simply capture the Dropship instead of starting a hijack, so I won’t dwell on that.

For this idea we’re talking about, I’d simply set it that at the 1.5 hour, or 2.0 hour, mark, CIC unlocks the ability to Abort Mission and Deorbit the planet. Once the sequence is commenced there is a 5 minute timer started, once the time elapses the Almayer will be out of orbit and the dropships will no longer allow travel to and from the ship.

Xenos would still have the chance to start hijack if they capture the Alamo. Maybe you can add a 3 minute “roleplay” time akin to when Marines win to give some chance for roleplay.

As I said I’m all for these ideas.

3 Likes
38

imo the victory state refers what happened to the battle for the colony. not quelling the xeno infestation is a tactical defeat no matter how you try to look at it. whatever happens afterwards when the almayer manages to fuck off is on the strategic level and is irrelevant to the conclusion of the battle.

anyways, i’m personally not a fan of hijack (sometimes you can get fun pump holds if you’re lucky) and i’m not a fan of drawn out FOB sieges either. giving CIC a more concrete and IC way to end these sieges is a good thing. i find it silly that the brass would keep marines behind cades for an entire hour knowing damn well the chances of them pushing out are sub-zero.

CIC can already order an evac before FOB even falls and end up with an abundance of supplies for hijack. in the end there’s no poorly armed crew but a second FOB set up in lifeboats and steel fortresses on fuel pumps. it only takes 1 guy with b-gel to shutdown almost everything xenos might throw at them. the reward for sitting through grueling cadehugging lines should not be another set of cadelines for pete’s sake

considering the purposed time-gate behind this option, the alternative of not picking it will only make hijack a bigger uphill battle because the chances for every wall being covered in OT explosives and marines getting their hands on stimulants increases.

xenos would still have the time to overrun the FOB if they’re close enough. if anything it might make their assault more ferocious and actually have them break through. if they succeed, they will get their ship slaughter as a reward which sounds okay to me.

in the end it’s just an option that CIC gets to think about. this won’t remove hijack, it won’t remove soul, it’s just a way to put an end to stale and overdrawn rounds.

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hijack bad. alternative to hijack good. therefore, +1

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40

I think that as @kooarbiter stated … having a “Flee To the Depths” option for the queen would be neat if we have a “Withdraw & Deorbit” for Marines.

  • Queen / Xenos can ‘buy’ “Flee To the Depths” after a certain period of time.

  • Once “purchased” - any xenos that climb into a tunnel just ‘exit the game’ or are ejected to an underground ‘hive’ which they cannot exit from.

  • Marines and Xenos are given 3-4 minutes for “RP” / “Fun Chat”.

This is considered a “Marine Victory”

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Honestly, just give the leaving xenoes thumbs, and an underground bunker style and you would be set.