I’ve had an idea of a ‘meta campaign’ as a staff event. It would be something that takes place over the course of several days or weeks and would add a sort of sense of progression to the game. I doubt we’d run multiple campaign missions in a row, but we’ll see.
(google doc better explaining the event)
Right now, I am just spit-balling my ideas, but I figured I could post my ideas to see if there’s interest, or if there are better ways to go about it.
The objective of the campaign is to attack and defeat the opposing faction at their home planet. The campaign map is divided into a set of semi-linear planets, each planet is a map. The central planet will be LV-624 and is the start point of the campaign. Adjacent to this central planet are the two factions ‘1st line planet’s’. These represent a buffer separating each faction ‘home planet’. The home planets are behind the 1st line planets.
| Marine Home Planet | — | Marine 1st Line | — | Central Planet | — | Xeno 1st Line | — | Xeno Home Planet |
Edit: my epic artistic rendition of the strategic map
(V2 of the map)
In order for a faction’s home planet to be vulnerable to attack, the enemy faction needs to hold at least one of the adjacent 1st line planets. It is not necessary for both 1st line planets to be conquered.
Once an attack is launched against a home planet. The campaign will end no matter what the outcome is. If the attacker is defeated, the game is considered to be a draw (or minor victory for the attacker). If the attacker wins, it’s a major victory.
To complicate the campaign, there are three ‘stronghold’ planets that can be attacked and conquered, gaining the faction holding the planet a permanent boon to the remaining games.
In each faction’s 1st line sector, and the central planet sector, exists a “link”. Each link allows a faction to attack a stronghold planet. In order to use a link, a faction must win the battle in a sector that contains the link, then they must vote to attack the stronghold planet. The attack can select any of the three stronghold planets to attack as they wish, although they cannot attack a planet that has already been conquered previously.
A major factor of stronghold planets is that the winner of the fight gains the reward, it does not matter which faction attacks the planet first, it only matters who wins. A faction should be just as observant of what reward they will gain if they win, versus what reward the enemy may gain if they win.
The winner of the central planet fight at the start of the campaign gains initiative. A vote will be held regarding what they will do. Firstly, they will vote if they should use a link (assuming one is active) to attack a stronghold, if this vote passes, then the attackers vote on which stronghold to attack. If the attackers do not vote to attack a stronghold, or they can’t, they instead vote for which next enemy planet to attack, assuming there is a choice. If there is no choice, they simply attack the next planet.
Initiative will always pass to the faction that wins a battle.
For example, if the Marines win the first battle on LV-624, the central planet, they can either attack a Xeno 1st line planet, or use the central link to attack a stronghold.
The maps I’ve initially thought of to use are as follows.
Central Sector
- LV-624
Marine 1st Line Sector
- New Varadero
- Shivas Snowball
Marine Home Planet
- USS Almayer
Xeno 1st Line Sector
- Sorokyne Strata
- Solaris Ridge
Xeno Home Planet
- Kutjevo Refinery
For the strongholds, and the bonuses I’ve thought up, are as follows.
-
Chance’s Claim
Marine Hold - Tank Unlocked. The tank is persistent during rounds, if Marines lose a game but don’t evacuate the tank, then the tank is lost. The marines can re-gain the tank if they can attack the planet the tank was lost on and recover it. If the tank is lost on a stronghold planet, it is returned to the adjacent planet that is linked to the stronghold.
Xeno Hold - Royal Guard (guaranteed Warden Prea with a lot more health and plasma). Royal Guard may have limited lives, if it loses them all the Xenos can no longer spawn a Royal Guard for the rest of a campaign. If a Royal Guard dies during a round, it can not be respawned even if extra lives are left for that round. Xenos can save a Royal Guard if they attempt to “evacuate” it, to do so they need to make it stand still for 5 minutes until it can be “evacuated”, this will alert the Marines via a ARES announcement. Once it has been evacuated it cannot be returned for the remainder of the round. -
Fiorina Science Annex
Marine Hold - Almayer gains Limited Supply Of Adv Brute/Burn Kits inside of crates. Each crate contains a certain number of units, the Marines will gain a certain number of crates (TBD). Up to CIC to decide how many are deployed during a round. Once a crate is deployed, its gone.
Xeno Hold - Human Cultist, Xenos gain 3 Human Cultists, the Queen decides how many are deployed during a battle, or if none are deployed at all. Once deployed they are lost forever, even if they don’t die during the round. The cultists will likely have some restrictions on their actions (such as no reviving dead marines, don’t drag dead marines away, similar stuff) -
Trijent Dam
Marine Hold - UPP Aid, a Squad of UPP will be spawned not long after the round starts, they are guaranteed to be allied to the Marines. Normally, a combat synthetic will NOT spawn, however, Marine CIC can choose a single round for the campaign where a combat synth will spawn.
Xeno Hold - CLF Interference, hostile CLF are guaranteed to spawn sometime after the Marines land, they will spawn in an area closer to the Marine lines than the Xeno hive. Additional CLF may spawn during a game. Under normal circumstances the CLF will be hostile to both factions, however a queen can, once per campaign, choose to “mind control” the CLF and force them to be neutral to the xenomorphs. The CLF will be forced to disengage and not fight the xenomorphs, but they cannot directly ally with or fight alongside the xenomorphs.
There won’t be a lot of major in-game changes, aside from the stronghold boons, but here’s a small list of what I think would be different.
In-Game Changes
- Marines are 100% aware they are going to be fighting xenomorphs.
- There should not be any Predator spawns during the campaign.
- There is no hijack during the campaign. If marines evacuate or are wiped out planetside, the game ends in a xenomorph victory.
- Factions being attacked in their 1st line or strongholds will be given a minor boon near the start of the game (Few xenos evolved into a hivelord roundstart or Marines getting more Materials or new weapons as an example)
- We could set it that survivors on Marine planets are all transformed into a allied Military ERT, such as Contractors. Whereas on Xeno planets there are no survivors, with xenos instead gaining an equilivant amount of free larva. Allied survivors might be too much but we’ll see.
- The Marine stronghold will be the USS Almayer. The game will start similarly but a certain section of the ship (designated by the xenos, tho likely the lifeboats or astronav) will be blocked off, giving the xenos time to fortify and prepare, the xenos may be given more boon’s than normal depending on the difficulty.
(v1 of the map)
