How would people feel about repair based hijack

General Discussion
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So. We can all agree that more siege based hijack is indeed a bit slop. But the recent cade rework was. Ahem “more than controversial” but in the since closed feedback post an interesting concept was raised i have put a bit more thought into.

The current development direction is they want to encourage more roaming during hijack rather than holding the fort.

How would people feel about, rather than time based objectives, actionbased objectives.

These could be tied to different areas of the ship and have different effects, each having its own ways of ending hijack.

For example, repairing the req lift somehow with parts in engineering, which combined with the emergency hijack status code delta, might allow bringing up some seriously good weapons to fight back with from a restricted storage bay.

Repairing comms, by fixing the apc, and retrieving spare relay drives from the storage in hangar, and using some sort of executive codes the CO and XO have at the console in cic, perhaps the codebook, allows sending a PRIORTY HADES broadcast or something similarly dramatic sounding that spawns ERTs from a pool of significantly better ERTs, I.E higher chances CBRN, a far larger PMC platoon or maybe even a few marsoc akin types.

Standard endings could be achieved by removing control rods in the reactors and sending a signal from a computer in the CEs office, or repairing all four pumps for evac

Xenos cannot destroy fully repaired objectives making the prevention of completion the xeno goal while murdering the crew.

The reason this is not an ideas guy post is because i want community opinion on the concept before i settle down and draft a proper design doc to post into idea guys. Im not infallible, could have flaws i have not seen, some we may be able to see a solution to together.

I think this will encourage the roaming behaviour without doing something as questionable as removal of cades. It also fixes the RP issue of why the hell are escape pods not prefueled if pumps are so slow. They are supposed to be near instant, but the impact damaged the pumps. I think people will also enjoy it more if hijack has its own benfits, i.e the chance for people to use some cool gear, and dchat potentially getting the chance to storm the place as a more powerful ERT.

Changing the objective from timed survival to a set of tasks i feel will remove the incentive to camp.

This would obviously be a rather large project and would start with just converting the two current hijack endings into the new objective based goals.

Contributers can add their own room related objective sequences as they wish

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Having alternative escape methods would be nice.

Maybe they could standardize the ERT shuttles being a legitimate method of escape. Maybe it could be balanced around needing a few more minutes than it currently does before it can launch and it has a limit on how many people can use it to evac, sort of like an escape pod on a larger scale, but minus the explosion. As is, I don’t understand how they work. If I recall, you could use a dead ERT member’s ID to launch the shuttle. Now that appears to be disabled. Even then, some times you don’t have the option to leave the almayer, only swap landing pads.

I was thinking recently it would be cool if comtechs, MTs, synths, and the CE could hack individual escape pods so that they could be used for evac. Maybe take this a step further and allow DCC, pilots, synths to use the pod’s panel to reprogram it to not have such an absurdly high chance of crashing. This would give marines a chance to escape even when the XO refuses to call evac and then dies protecting the tablet from the marines. People are always talking about roleplay, but there’s not much in the way of roleplay when the server rules and mechanics are designed to take choice away from you. I think during hijack, server rules could be lightened a tad to allow marines to go AWOL and refuse commands without fear of OOC punishment.

To expand on this idea, I would change how the fuel pumps function a little. Maybe there could be a control pad on the fuel pumps that make’s it so each fuel pump can be set to not increase the fuel % for the entire ship, but instead more quickly fill up a smaller reservoir for the set of escape pods that are closer to it. Maybe changing the flow of the fuel could be announced by ARES so command will know if a fuel pump is going rogue.

As an aside, allowing escape pods to be hacked could be fun outside of hijack as well. Such as giving captured CLF survivors something to do if they escape from the brig other than hiding in maintenance all round. Maybe have it so an escape pod getting hacked sends out an alert to the brig so they know someone is trying to steal a pod to escape. And because the CL is by definition a slimy fucker, maybe he could have a few illegal escape pod “keys” that they can hand out that make the process faster/easier for anyone they want to make a deal with.

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pump transfers to prioritize a local area

This could be fucking huge, and the IC conflict of a CO trying to get EVERYONE off and a half dozen Marines trying desperately to save their own hides over everyone else’s could be huge.

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There’s a section in Rule 11 Mutinies which allows for hijack EVAC to be mutinied and can be started by a single person, so if any CO or XO wishes to die in a blaze of glory you can just mutiny and call EVAC still should you wish to escape via pods. Ive done that multiple times as CMO by going to CIC and starting evac when command refuses.

I like the ideas the post maker suggested, giving other objectives rather than pump holds (especially now since no cades) to help give atleast something to the marines left on ship would be fun indeed.

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I get that, but I specifically don’t want evac to be entirely reliant on CIC/the tablet. The point is to give marines options and not make them reliant on those. As for the rules, I’d simply want a change that allows marines more options, in this case, by letting them ignore command and even to a degree undermine it if they’re trying to escape.

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We had a nice discussion about some of these things years ago amongst the dev team at the time. Repair objectives are tricky if they spawn at known locations, because players can just conveniently hang out at those locations pre-hijack and repair them immediately. You can actually observe this behavior currently with people hanging out near telecomms in upper engi.

That being said, I think folks have a lot of fond memories of the old SD system, and I do too, but like all old things, a big portion of that positive view point is a product of nostalgia. If we were to go a repair based route, which I don’t think is entirely a bad idea, we have to basically meet one constraint, and that is the things to repair need to be randomized to a degree, and interactable by more than just the limited number of people with engineering skills.

The vision we have in store for multi-z Almayer in hijack is basically the ship getting completely ripped apart. It is getting hull breached and rammed by a dropship after all. Stuff is on fire, there are giant holes in the floor, things start malfunctioning. There’s quite a bit of utility available to contributors to enhance this environment further and make it more chaotic, and that’s what I think might work best. I’d really like to see players utilize some problem-solving skills in navigating what is basically burning wreckage to track down repair objectives in order to either prime the evacuation routes or scuttle the ship.

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I have to wonder if the concept of hijack would work better as a alternative game mode than an event that occurs only after a Xenomorph victory on the planet.

There might be merit the idea. Firstly, you remove any lore issues as since this event now occurs as part of a game mode you can now re theme it to be a logical event, not a series of illogical events that result in a impossible scenario occurring. Secondly, you’d have a far better capability to balance the event as you know both the Marines and Xenomorphs are now operating at a fixed starting point, instead of a variable situation where one side might be far more excessively overpowered than the other.

Its hard to balance for hijack when one faction is, by intention, meant to be in a far more powerful position than the other. Especially when said faction is the less well populated one.

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This is what I’m saying; as a newer player, hijack is still cool to me because it’s still somewhat fresh and new. It fails to have the horror and the novelty of “holy shit, aliens got on the shuttle, holy shit, aliens are on the Almayer” if it occurs with every xeno win. Even balance-wise, balance is no longer a major concern if it’s something that doesn’t happen a majority of the time; if there were other outcomes possible for a xeno victory, just the variety would take a lot of the pressure off of hijack to be a perfect, or perfectly balanced, gamemode.

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I get what you are saying. Thats partly why i thought having the objectives bribg in different places would be better.

You csn perhaps camp one or the objectives, but if you then need to run to the other side of the ship and back itd difficult to camp that.

I do look foward to proper multiz implementation. I heard theres talk about the hangar being converted to the PVE lift configuration, and possibly there being a new sub level to it, being a series of cat walks and potentially seeing the planet below and the new VTOL from above. All of that sounds brilliant especially if you could get destruction during hijack.

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If marines can freely roam the ship, they have enough strenght to just assault crashed DS and crush xenos.
If they don’t have that much strenght, then they won’t hold any repair objective for longer than two minutes without cades if Queen and T3s get involved.
So unless said objective rewards marines with WY synth deathsquad, or something similarly powerfull, why even bother?

Almayer is too small for a cat and mouse game of marines and hijacking xenos.
Even if xenos crashed in brig and every single ladder and stairs were somehow locked, besides one in engineering, and marines had to fix something in tankbay, Queen can arrive there in like 3 minutes tops.
In such a perfect scenario, but without cades, marines would require top level coordination and skill to slow down incoming xenos across a frontline involving two maintenance corridors, two normal corridors and buildings inbetween. Such thing is not feasible.

No, Multi-z Almayer won’t fix that either. Xenos can roam the ship free and marines can’t secure any location to repair, complete objective and receive a reward, or marines are strong enough to just assault hijacked dropship and kill xenos, while leaving few guys to boost their strenght even further by fixing everything.
Holes in floor and roof would just give xenos more mobility, something they already have plenty.

Only Steelpoint’s idea can work from that direction.

How else I see it? Two separate Almayer levels like we already have, bottom and upper deck.
One deck gets all of those repair objectives, the other is just a battleground.
All xenos land in one predefined spot at the edge (for example tankbay) of a battleground deck (DS crashing explosions keep marines from camping there).
Marines split, majority of the force stays in the battleground deck and try to slow down xeno advance to the other end (for example the bottom deck engineering). The only way for T3s, Queen, King and maybe even few T2s like warrior, to access “repair” deck from “battleground” deck is to reach that opposite side, while T1s, Spitter, lurker and drone T2s can use holes/tunnes/whatever to freely move to repair deck.
Marines who stayed in repair deck are obviously tasked with those objective based repairs with rewards, but have to protect themselfs from xenos who can access their deck and try to disrupt them.
Both marines and xenos have to pick a strategy of how many of their troops stay for battleground deck, or how many place in repair deck.
More people repairing shit, faster repairs, but less people in the battleground, main xeno force reaches repair deck faster too.

With minor adjustments, like static sentry guns, static not-fully enclosed cades etc, it could be a very good and atmospheric back and forth.

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While we’re ideasguying, one thing from Thaomper’s post that I did really like is adding things in the vein of Almayer destruction. What we’re missing is areas for hallways to collapse, a staple of “our ship is exploding!!” in video games and even something seen a lot when you retread early areas in the second half of Alien: Isolation.

A pool of like, 20-30 hallway collapse randomization spots and two chosen on Almayer crash and then two more chosen every 5 minutes would probably shake things up a bit for both sides.

Marines have a doomed pincer attack going on? Maybe a lucky hallway collapse turns one angle into an absolute kill zone while the other bugs are forced to rotate. Likewise, perhaps the roaming Marine force is getting kills but has to outrun the Queen; what happens when a hallway collapses in the middle, cutting the force in two?

Could either do some Brute and then the dropship door close effect stunning and shoving someone to the side when standing on a telegraphed collapse tile (I imagine there’d be a metal shriek sound and a telegraph red square like the pipe bursts) or outright gib them if we’re still feeling like Marines are too handheld. Ultra funny if a Queen screech stuns someone on a collapse tile.

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how about you just remove it

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