So I think most people would agree that hijack is generally not a very enjoyable portion of the round, and I’d go as far as to say many people neither understand its mechanics, nor care about it. So instead of a desperate last stand/escape, it’s more “run around like your head’s cut off until the xenos slash you into a million pieces”. I also think that win conditions (marine major, xeno minor, draw, etc.) are confusing and could use a redesign.
So, I have a whole pile of partially formed ideas that I’d love to get feedback on, and maybe collectively we can put something together that would make hijack more fun.
So the first problem is that xeno minors and draws just don’t make sense. As of right now, if marines kill all the xenos aboard the Almayer and survive, its a xeno minor. But if they kill all the xenos aboard the ship with self-destruct AND kill themselves, its a draw. In both cases all the xenos die, but when the marines kill themselves in the process its better? This just straight-up does not make sense. Either the two should be switched, (so SD is xeno minor and xeno wipe is a draw) or SD should remain as a draw and marines wiping aboard the Almayer should be a marine minor. This incentivizes what marines usually do anyway, which is fighting back. Self-destruct should be a last resort when fighting back is hopeless.
On that note, self-destruct also needs to be made way easier. As of right now, it’s basically a gimmick, almost never seen unless xenos are extraordinarily bald or marines could wipe anyway. IMO fuelling should be sped way up, and perhaps there are other changes that could make it easier. Bringing back anchorable cades might also help.
No matter what is changed, though, there will always be rounds where hijack will just be awful. There are fourty xenos on the ground, the Alamo never managed to launch, etc. For these cases, I suggest adding a new button to the command tablet and the bubble. This would be the “fly the fuck outta here button”. In universe, we’re obviously all located on a ship. Ships fly. When the operation is clearly FUBAR, any competent commander would send the ship off. This would be a xeno major, would bypass hijack, and would prevent the annoying slog of hunting down doctors and MTs one by one on the Almayer.
Finally, I think the last problem with hijack is that escaping isn’t rewarding. For all intents and purposes, 50 marines escaping on boats and escape pods is identical to 50 marines being brutally slaughtered or captured and used to birth larva. IC this doesn’t exactly make sense, and OOC it doesn’t really reward marines when they make a brilliant and daring escape. So I suggest changing xeno minor/major to be based upon the number of escaping marines. Perhaps if 40% of Almayer personnel survive and escape on either boats or escape pods then xenos only receive a xeno minor, instead of xeno major. That way, when all else has failed, a successful evacuation is still somewhat rewarding. Obviously xenos won the round, but the Almayer’s crew lives to fight another day. I have no idea what this percentage should realistically be, might require testing.
In conclusion, I think that some or all of these ideas would drastically improve the quality of hijack, and would also make marines a lot more comfortable with losing. As it is right now, as soon as the evac call is made you know you’re in for up to half an hour of bullshit followed by a xeno major. You lost, so everything is unfulfilling and a little bit sad. This way, even if marines are regularly losing on the ground (especially with double-burst) they still have something to fight for, and depending on the circumstances they can lose less.
Edit:
Oh and the last thing I forgot to mention, is that regardless of any changes, there oughta be a wiki page dedicated to hijack. Nothing is explained anywhere and I think that adds to the general chaos and discontent.
