Shower thought I had about Hybrisa, what if at a certain point in the round, if certain conditions are met (say, comms are up but marines are losing - I’m not sure how to regulate that effectively), a squad of 10-15 militia-style reinforcements will be delivered to the left side of the map, having broken through the blockade of cars there. Obviously, if LV-759 has a massive settlement like Hybrisa (and obviously means of large-scale transport via cars), there would be other settlements which could be similarly plighted by the xeno infestation which has seeped onto the planet. Their objective would mostly be the same - to reach the marines that would hopefully be in an FOB siege on the right side of the map, but their style would depend heavily on chance, and I’ve thought of a few scenarios it could be. In all of the scenarios, I thought it would be possible for a Fax Responder WL-haver to spawn as the leader of this group, or it would default to a leaderless scenario.
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Injured local governor
Following a local xeno outbreak, a local governor was infected with a xenomorph parasite. Following a botched extraction surgery, the governor is delivered to Hybrisa searching for aid with severe organ damage which will eventually kill him, if Peridaxon is not found to extend the time he has. This squad would be lightly armed, mostly consisting of paramedics and some personal bodyguards of the governor, they should try as best they can to save the governor by getting him to USCM surgeons. -
USCM recruiter
A recruiter from the USCM would’ve been deployed to the planet several years ago, and having faced a similar crisis in a smaller settlement the local survivors flocked to the natural leadership of the recruiter, who (falsely) promised them escape on a USCM ship. As it so happens, he found a ship to take them to - the Almayer which recently entered orbit. This squad should be thematically civilian with some sparse USCM gear around, led by a well-ish equipped recruiter. Their goal is to escape to the Almayer, as was promised by the recruiter. This could definitely lead to some interesting RP scenarios, I think. -
CLF cell
This one speaks for itself - it could probably be used if marines were winning and xenos need some time to recover with the help of CLF sabotage. They should spawn with NO SCOPES and primarily close range weaponry, and would probably be a leaderless variant. -
Working Joe Highway Maintenance Crew
An autonomous squad of working joes (highly dependant on the number of synth WL volunteers, probably not practical in that regard) comes to repair the highway infrastructure of Hybrisa Prospera. Hilarity ensues. -
TWE Militia squad
Essentially just a deployment of sec survivors -
anything else that could be reasonably thought of
I think that it could create an interesting dynamic in the round. On one hand, the newly injected survivors could try to search for what colony loot hasn’t been taken and risk serious danger from the xenos, or they could try to make a breakneck push into the xenos from behind, hopefully allowing marines to push out a little to try to link up with them. Furthermore, since Hybrisa is a highpop map, this should allow some people to get back into the round. It’s not necessarily entirely marine biased, either, as these lightly geared survivor-types could potentially serve as a source of caps, although at the cost of attention to the marines. However, there are several problems with it:
Metaknowledge
As with any ERT, these volunteers are from dchat. They will know where turrets have been left behind, they will know where the xenos haven’t built, where is the best route for them to go etc. This works in reverse, too, as the Xenos will most likely be able to predict where the squad will be deployed, pre-build it and potentially just kill or cap them all.
Metagaming
Deploying people with a free-shot in the backlines could potentially lead to people rushing down the hive while the xenos are busy, and could lead to some frustrating situations where xenos get screwed by rapid objective-based gameplay of the ERT.
Automation
While I was thinking more in depth about this, I also realised how difficult it would be to integrate this as a feature of the map instead of just an admin insert, what with the complexities of trying to deploy the ERT in a not immediately hostile location and at a suitable time in game balance.
What do you guys think? I think it’s a cool concept which could help higher pop rounds stay interesting for the many dead that inevitably rise from it, and inject some RP as well.
