How to fix Hijack: Remove Distress Beacon

Development Ideaguys
1

… and replace it with an always-spawning ERT System.

Thanks for clicking on the title.

The Solution

Once the Alamo lifts off, hacked remotely by the Queen or others, ARES sends an automated distress beacon as protocol for Delta Alert. Third parties, seeing the distress beacon or through their own relays and intrusions into ARES and the Almayer will arrive to take advantage of the situation.

Now, all ghosts can roll for a ‘generic’ “Distress Beacon Response” wave. Response Teams will be spawned in quantity and variety based on how many players roll. 10 players could be two teams. 20 players could be two big teams, or three middling teams. This scales infinitely.

Examples
  • 1:
    • 20 players roll
    • 5 get put into the CLF Team who are hostile to everyone but the UPP
    • 5 get put into VAISO who are hostile to everyone but the USCM
    • 5 get put into UPP who are hostile to the USCM but not CLF
    • 5 get Foresaken, who are hostile to everyone.
  • 2:
    • 15 players roll
    • 10 get put into VAISO who are hostile to everyone
    • 5 get put into CMB,who are friendly to W-Y and the USCM.
  • 3
    • 40 players roll
    • They are divided between UPP, CMB, PMC, CLF and Foresaken
    • Who are all friendly/hostile to the others involved at random (within reason).

The teams wouldn’t change, but the amount of them will. The CLF and the UPP could arrive to the Almayer, they could be friendly to eachother or hostile to the Marines. They could be hostile to everyone. They could be friendly with eachother and hostile to the Marines.

The Problem

I believe there are 3 problems with Hijack:

1: I’d rather be playing it than watching it as a Ghost (unless I have things to do).

This is solved by allowing more overall ghost spawns for ERT.

2: Unlike Nuke, it’s far easier for the Marines to be in a stronger position through evacuating at an IC reasonable position.

Hijack and Nuke are only similar in the way that they’re only victory laps if the other team is too weak and too disorganised to stop the victory lap. Xenos hijack often when they wipe FOB and XO has denied reality and refused evac for half an hour. Marines nuke when Xenos have been sieging for an hour thinking “just one more push and FOB breaks”. However, if Marines earlyevac, or Xenos pull out and skirmish for caps, you can reach a state where it’s not really a victory lap. And one is far easier to reach than the other, and one team also gets stronger-than-ususl reinforcements. I think that, to counteract the marines undoing the Xeno victory lap + make it a far more interesting event (since it’s so common) hijack should be an uphill battle for the Marines.

This is solved by adding more hostile third parties to both sides, and ironically makes Hijack slightly more competitive for Xenos who’ve wiped FOB allowing ghosts to play again as well as making hijack not a “hunt the three guys in maints”.

2.1: “I just want to skip to the next round!”

tab out and watch something

3: Hijack has a bad tendency to turn into LV Caves 2.0

Marines are still strong despite no barricades, ironically even stronger at times if they evacuate with enough force. Tight hallways, lack of weeds, lack of cover mean Xenos are only really stronger than Marines if they overpower Marines (as mentioned before). This fixes this by introducing more third parties and unknown variables, harming both Marines and somewhat Xenos by allowing for more volatility and chaos through HvH.

This sounds like a net-Marine nerf

You can see it that way, it sounds like it, but ironically this betters gameplay for Marines by giving them more things to shoot and more fun things to shoot at, as well as allowing ghosts to play again and possibly shoot their friends (the fun part of HVH). The round doesn’t end at the USCM wiping out, Xeno Minors are still possible, the end result is just far more unpredictable.

This makes, in total, Victory Laps far more unpredictable. The UPP could walk into marine cades and shoot them to prevent Marines overwhelming Xenos. The UPP could seriously flank the Hive while outmaneuvering Marines.

This simulatenously tackles staleness, and all-too-oft victory laps from either side during Hijack while not making Xeno Minors or Xeno Majors impossible to achieve!

What this also fixes…

Can a specific ERT team be “too strong”, if they can’t set up their AMR before a stick grenade is thrown under their feet?

Thanks for your time reading this!

9 Likes
2

More chaotic hijack would be epic, cool idea

6 Likes
3
3 Likes
4

PR has no similarity to what I describe unfortunately :frowning:

2 Likes
5

It reminded me of this part.

image

3 Likes
6

Looking forward to this, looks absolutely dope. can’t wait to have this test-merged

1 Like
7

I personally believe that reworking the ERT system is something we need to do.

I really like the idea of variety here, and I think adding this kind of complexity is healthy for Hijack. That said, it would need to be handled carefully so it does not just feel like admins spawning random ERTs to stall a delayed round end.

One thing I think works well in your proposal is that these scenarios could be grounded in narrative causes rather than defaulting to “Queen is hackerman”. Some quick examples I’ll give on the spot:

[list][*]UPP hacker

[*]A CLF sleeper agent or stowaway with a hacked ID disabling the PDCs and recalling the DS

[*]3WE attempting to retrieve specimens from a “dead” ship that is easier to contain than a colony

[*]Queen by sheer chance hits all the right buttons (monkey, typewriter, shakespear scenario)

[*]Corporate Liaison receiving a fax with objectives from W-Y before ARES recalls the dropship on a crash course
[/list]
That kind of framing would make the escalation feel more intentional and more lore friendly. Hidden games behind the scenes and the USS Almayer are just expendable pawns, a means to an end.

Right now, ERTs also tend to spawn too late. You often get large walls of text as you spawn in, sometimes without enough time to read them properly, and people can even miss their objectives entirely. I think ERTs should be automated earlier, triggered when the Queen interacts with the console at the LZ (or when there is % of dead for the marines, or even an extremely low % of living on colony) giving teams time to establish orders, roles, and lore before deployment.

Another point worth considering is ERT transport. Using breaching pods instead of a dropship for a variety of ERTs would help prevent evac cheesing, with dropships reserved only for specific scenarios. On top of that, layering in a basic ship-vs-ship mechanic could add meaningful objectives for engineering, CIC, and other departments. The Alien TTRPG has a surprisingly clean system that could be a good inspiration without being overcomplicated.

Additionally, giving ERT leaders a small portable fax machine or PDA-style interface (like the CE has(?)) that displays faxes digitally, email-style like the lore terminals. That would allow communication with fax responders or staff without needing to ahelp constantly and also make the ERTs feel like they’re not just “spawned in temporary assets” and part of a living entity/faction

Overall, I agree that there is work to be done here. Many of these ideas could comfortably fall under the “WYCI” issue, but I think the most important first step is deciding what kind of endgame Hijack is meant to be. Once that is clear (plz devs clarify the goal ty), the mechanics can be built to support it.

2 Likes
8

uh…guys?

FTL Hijack Objectives - HackMD

1 Like
9

Unless the PR has been updated since it was last posted, the PR doesn’t address my suggestion I don’t think.

1 Like
10

The PR also just gives marines another win condition for hijack for some god forsaken reason. Which I don’t really understand.

1 Like