W-Y Research disk/M.Guffin

[KingKire]

Summary:
Create random info disks around the colony, and have the disks offer the choice of a player to be greedy or selfless with it.

Benefits:
-Allow players motive to explore more the colony
-Create a system to give moral choices to the player to partake in, and essentially gives conflicting goals to create tension.


Details:
This suggestion has related suggestions:
(Dosh system 2.0)
(Upgrading research) [ ill link it in when i write it up]

Wayland Colony Research disk/m.guffin:
This disk is found throughout the colony. It essentially contains research data, or compromising info of what has happened in the place. Its value cannot be understated.
It comes in 3 flavors of increasing value. Standard, classified, and top secret.


Upon finding this data, the player has a choice of what they can do with it. It should be noted that there can only be one choice. Using the disk in the special ways will cause the disk to be unusable for the other ways to prevent gaming the system.


[SAVE] Survivor: The survivor is hoping to save this information in his possession. Carrying it and surviving will give the player a massive end of round cash bonus.
( "Ripley, special order 937 was a fluke of the hardware. Any proof otherwise is just a mere error, but we will happily compensate you for your ordeal if you would be so kind to transfer over any left over data of this... accident")

[DESTROY] Corporate Liaison: The CL is hoping to “destroy” this data. Essentially, the CL uploads the data he gets to his Superiors, and then scrambles the data, causing it to be worthless. This gives the Liaison "Influence", which he can use to “buy” W-Y favor for that round, or if he doesnt use the influence, it is cashed out.
( "Thank you Mr. Carsone, the data uploaded has been most useful. Your outstanding understanding of discretion as a liaison has not been unnoticed by the company. Shame that all the evidence was lost due to unforeseen circumstances."-END TRANSMISSION)

[SCAN] Research: The researcher can Scan the data gathered to help create useful in game bonuses such as data on xeno kind. The researcher gets no end of game benefit for scanning the data, he must carry unused data.
("Commander! These data readings are incredible. Unbelievable. Some of these ideas on this disk are well beyond even standard research of today! Applying this info, we might be able to win this fight.")

[LAUNCH] Cargo: Cargo can launch the W-Y slates back home, giving a small-moderate boost to cargo points.
(" 200 credits fer a chitty pievce of'a plastic an' metal. An' they trhew in a cre-ate of the best booze weylando can make. Aye, thats a good deal hehe")

[SAVE] Personal: Any person can hold onto the data, and if they survive to the end of the game, it can be said they used that data for personal gain. This offers a decent cash bonus, and depending on the modifier, can be a tidy sum.

[SCAN] Command: Command can scan the data back to High command. This gives influence of command into the mission, allowing things like extra support and such to be doled out to ensure this missions success. The points that are unused give a smallish bonus to all the troops on the sulaco, essentially, For the (small) good of the all.
("Commander, this info you brought back on the colony is troubling to say the least... were sending you some extra support from high command to help resolve this issue.")

With these basic distinctions, we have conflict. Personal reasons fighting Group reasons. Selfish vs. selfless.
The most important goal is survival. If the player does not survive, they don't receive payment for that mission. But, one can gamble the groups survival for their own.


Of interesting note, there can be several Research disks around the colony, and each can contain some useful info, but you cannot tell the difference between a standard disk and a extremely rare disk until you actually process the data held inside. This makes hunting for ALL the disks important scince you cannot tell which one is which just by sight alone.

[Crab_Spider]

There are data disks you can get from the Science Dome in LV-426 and a Flora Disk on Shiva's Snowball in the Hydrophonics Lab, but since the removal laptops, you can't view what's on them.

[KingKire]

This isnt so much about whats on the disks, it more about the mechanics of getting players to go and hunt around the colony and giving them rewards for it. You could swap out the disks with anything (possibly a W-Y clowns nose), hence the McGuffin part.

[Renomaki]

Honestly, this would be nice to give the CL something to aim for.

Whenever I happen to roll CL, I like to make up a goal to work towards during that round. This mainly consists of having the marines recover certain things on the colony, like mech parts and lab documents. With this, however, now the CL will have a more consistent goal that is more than for the sake of RP.

It would make sense for Weyland to want any sensitive information from the colony to be recovered and sent back safely one way or another, so having the CL ensure the marines recover the disks for them to be shipped back to Weyland to please his employer would be an interesting goal to chase after... Provided you can get the marines to give you the disks in the first place, anyways.

[KingKire]

Yah, thats what the interesting part is! This was all to be hooked up to a OOC points/rewards system that gave small, non-game changing rewards to players. This gave some real good reasons for a player to both act selfish and to act selfless.

To grab your example, why would a marine give up his very valuable disk to the CL? Because he wouldnt know its value till the end of the mission! He would essentially be giving up an inventory slot (Or several!) for a *chance* at getting decently rich. Meanwhile, the CL has some gold/ diamonds. They are essentially marked as worthless to him, but if given to a marine, the marine would know that he had a guaranteed decent chunk of money! The marine naturally would take the sure bet a majority of the time.

But what about the survivor? Well, he has a pretty huge multiplier bonus for surviving. Anything that he has with any amount of value is going to be worth *alot*. couple this with the fact that *any* of those disks he has in his possession are also worth *alot* even if they are low grade. The survivor knows that IF he gets aboard that ship, the MP's are gonna strip him of his stuff and never give it back. BIG loss in exchange for a much bigger chance at survival.

Alot of this just creates the engine for some good character justification!

[Swagile]

It would be nice if these disks had more of a gameplay factor than just roleplay.

Thats why I like the WY Influence thing; if the CL manages to get a really important disk, he can order in some heavy guns (PMC's), or get some black market goods in that he can use to bribe marines with in exchange for "favours", etc.

Money ive found isn't really a great motivator when all its used for is a pack of cigarettes unless the player is a really good roleplayer; but thats hard to find when CM is more focused on shooting aliens than roleplaying.

[Wubs4Scrubs]

I like the idea of giving the CL more things to do while also preserving RP and lore considering that on a W-Y research outpost there would certainly be data to recover and some of it would probably be classified. Additionally, I like the RP this would introduce between the different departments. The idea of the RO or CMO undercutting the CO and using the discs to benefit their own department is a neat concept and could lead to some good RP (or executions). However this would be a huge update and would require a lot of testing and coding to implement. I'm going to wait for further discussion before I vote one way or the other but I would be very interested to see a dev's opinions on this.

[Sarah_U.]

I'm game for the idea, but some work and polishing could be done.

I'm rather busy today so I won't suggest / comment much, but I like it (+1).

[Snypehunter007]

Going to run through this with BMC, tomorrow. Please do not post until after Monday (07/03/17).