Should we change how xenos win?

[Blade2000Br]

it's funny to think my report made an entire forums discussion on the matter.

butterfly effect and me are two in one. It just TENDS to happen.

[Crab_Spider]

The idea of crushing Almayer is too troublesome to code and it won't worth the effort. The Marine timer is much easier to implement.

Oh please

[Szunti]

I don't think there is any reason to nuke the planet or bomb it if xenos remains. They are already contained, so no threat. The goal is to get the colony working again and examine this completely new lifeform. Eg. telepathic communication is definitely a technology humanity could use.

Bombing is ineffective. Xenos live in the caves and dig tunnels easily. Even if you are mad and want to kill the xenos, you could never be sure that there aren't any surviving.

Nuking the entire surface of the planet would make it inhabitable for a long time.

[misto]

bombing out the colony is not an unreasonable move, if you ask me. think. what if looters catch word of a dead colony, come to grab some valuables, and wind up picking up some of the xenos and bringing them elsewhere? what if the upp swoop in and grab the xenos for themselves? even if the marines arent allowed to suspect that xenos can fly spaceplanes and pose a mortal threat to humanity as a whole, denying access to xenos to other human factions would be a factor in their decision making.

[Katsukai]

I find it really unrealistic that the xenos can operate the dropship to almayer and I agree on all points that it has become pretty stale after many months of playing.

Here some ideas of alternative win conditions.

1. a terraforming treatment facility or a huge colonial fusion reactor has a broken coolant system that the marines have to regularly operate it manually or repair it for like every 20-30 minutes else the colony goes nuclear, this could be a map specific thing.

2. If the marines abandon the planet completely the game ends in after 20-30 minutes, unless the marines decide to make a comeback. Dropships would require perhaps randomized landing spots to avoid xenos for camping.

3. Xenos win if they reach big enough numbers in Almayer, from infected marines or xenos that infiltrated the dropship and got into the almayer. The amount of xenos needed for winning would depend amount of live marines in USS Almayer vs the xenos that successfully infiltrated the ship, perhaps adding objectives for xenos to complete in the ship, like infesting the cryo storage or de-power enough areas to cause the ship to fail and start to fall into orbit. Perhaps allowing Xenos having another queen in almayer could maybe balance it against the odds or perhaps allow eggmorphing since there wouldn't be a way for the xenos to reproduce in the ship and continue their species without a queen.

[Renomaki]

... Honestly, I just want it so that, after first deployment, if the marines fully abandon the planet, the xenos would automatically win, no timer involved.

It would give marines more reason to stand their ground and HOLD instead of being so eager to flee the moment things look bleak, allowing us to recreate all those awesome last stands that Apop no doubt imagined during development of this game, instead of... Well, what we see now. That, and in the event of a xeno steamroll, at least the rounds will move a little quicker instead of throwing more salt in the wound after marines get their asses kicked on the ground.

We don't need to make it all crazy and complicated... Just make it so that marines have more incentive to hold the line and provide a more logical ending after the xenos take over the planet.

[manezinho]

... Honestly, I just want it so that, after first deployment, if the marines fully abandon the planet, the xenos would automatically win, no timer involved.

It would give marines more reason to stand their ground and HOLD instead of being so eager to flee the moment things look bleak, allowing us to recreate all those awesome last stands that Apop no doubt imagined during development of this game, instead of... Well, what we see now. That, and in the event of a xeno steamroll, at least the rounds will move a little quicker instead of throwing more salt in the wound after marines get their asses kicked on the ground.

We don't need to make it all crazy and complicated... Just make it so that marines have more incentive to hold the line and provide a more logical ending after the xenos take over the planet.

This also sounds pretty good.

[davidofmk771]

If that became the case the dropships would have to be pilotable by drones too, otherwise it just cuts content from the game (the dropship crash phase). A big problem is that it doesn't make sense lore-wise for the majority of the marines to escape. A few stragglers would be no problem to control, but half the entire ship escaping with what they know would blow the lid off the whole situation.

I mean, unless you wanna just imply that, but im always 'meh' about implying things you could show.

[Renomaki]

If that became the case the dropships would have to be pilotable by drones too, otherwise it just cuts content from the game (the dropship crash phase). A big problem is that it doesn't make sense lore-wise for the majority of the marines to escape. A few stragglers would be no problem to control, but half the entire ship escaping with what they know would blow the lid off the whole situation.

I mean, unless you wanna just imply that, but im always 'meh' about implying things you could show.

The thing is, it makes even less sense for xenos, after winning the war, deciding to magically hijack a dropship, have the entire hive climb aboard, then somehow manage to fly off the planet and up the Almayer's ass to fuck up the marines.

Most xenos that come onto ships are normally the result of weyland stuffing them poorly in cargo containers and them getting out, or aliens sneaking aboard. They don't don eye-patches and go "yo ho and a bottle of rum, we gonna board yeh and take your booties!" as they go on a joyride in a dropship.

When you really think about it, it is really weird and hard to justify the logic behind it, let alone how after a retreat, the marines just... Sit there. They don't warm up the engines, they don't prepare for a counterattack... They just kinda wait for death because they know they won't have time to redeploy anywho, unless the xenos are too scared to try and go up [which is rare].

Now sure, I'm no expert on lore, but logically, I think xenos would be more than happy to enjoy the spoils of a war well fought and expand their hive across the planet they now own.

[Skimmy2]

I believe the CM lore is that the Alien Hive attempts to leave no witnesses, hence the extreme uncertainty of the Colonies disappearing.
Although that would place more pressure in hijacking anything that can leave orbit to deal with any threats.

[PerfectDeath]

My only concern with the DS hijacking is the abuse that can occur between both sides. Marines calling up the DS before the xenos are ready or, in one VERY weird situation where the marines recovered from their full evac quickly and dropped on DS2 the Xenos wussed out and bailed off the planet with DS1...
They then had a very lucky impact site with a narrow choke point they used to hold up against the marines.

I think it would be a neat alternative to create the scenario where the Almayer gets severely damaged by a UPP ship after the evac. Maybe the Xenos trigger a UPP beacon instead of the DS hack. Either way, it forces the marines to drop back down before the Almayer is destroyed. Lets face it, forcing the marines to suicide drop via command's order is usually met with mutiny...

[4thsurviver]

I think SD is the go to point just because it takes so long and is prone to failure that taking any other option means you probably aren't going to get SD if option A fails. Also SD is one objective you know the Xenos are going to hit since they can crash anywhere else destroying any other plans you might make.

Part of the problem is that Xenos need to take the ship and Marines need to kill the Xenos. Retreating to the ship just makes sense. In character you wait while Command tries to get reinforcements or the permission to bombard the planet and out of character you use it to recover momentum, get healed, get supplied. Its going from last ditch back to starting the battle over.

I think something that could help is if the Xeno had something they needed to defend, an objective that marines could push to that could be used to draw Xeno attention or give them pause. Say in the Xeno caves was the queens egg sack, that if it gets destroyed the queen can't lay eggs or a bomb that needs to be repaired, activated, and be defended for it to go off. That way when marines get pushed off the planet they still have a reason to try and go back down with an actual objective rather than suicide for no reason.

[tiredbum]

As far as crashing the ship goes, I had a round as the CE where it happened. It was sulaco so we had the SM. There was some atmos issue causing it to not get cooled at all, forcing me to eject it onto the planet and irradiate the marines below. Ship crashed shortly after.

Going with the nuke thing though, we used to have one. What happened to It?

[jalen earl]

Change the end marine condition to a random event of 4 possibilities. Have it be some kind of system malfunction message when they attempt to use the different types. Helps reduce meta forts a bit anyway.

Option 1: Self destruct

same conditions as standard self destruct. Non combat staff to pods marines to the SD

Option 2: full evacuations

Like the old end game just everyone to the boats and have it on a launch timer.

Option 3: rescue

Responder vessel docks with a small crew on board. Must refuel over a set time and launch. Same scenario as pods but focused to one location only. Launch is automatic.


Option 4: no hope

CIC defense, drive the ship into a star to burn up or force it into the planet to trigger a core explosion killing everyone. Have to wait to calibrate navigation and transit time. Needs a final activation from the astro deck.