Xeno Spawns with Preferences Off

[Fickmacher]

Bug Description: Sometimes players spawn despite having their candidacy toggled off.


Steps to reproduce:
1. Enter round with preferences off.
2. Larva becomes availible.
3. Become a larva anyways.

Seriously just happened to me. Double-checked and they were off. Other players are making the same complaint. Why asre people who don't want to be Xenos getting shoved with them, anyways?

[apophis775]

Known bug, I've been trying to fix it for around a year.

[Juninho77]

You just withheld very important information, Fick. You were the host. That changes everything. It's not like you were an observer who was pulled into a larva. No, no, no. Bad Fick. Very bad Fick.

I hunted the bug for 30 minutes. For 30 minutes I looked for a way observers could be unwillingly pulled into a larva. 30 minutes of my life you took away, Fick. 30 minutes.

Alright, let's get to the "bug".

Code: Select all

/obj/item/alien_embryo/proc/AttemptGrow(var/gib_on_success = 1)

	affected_mob.emote("scream")

	spawn(20)
		var/list/candidates = list()
		var/picked
		if(!affected_mob)//hopefully fix a runtime error
			return

		if(istype(affected_mob, /mob/living/carbon/human) && affected_mob.stat == DEAD)
			return
		for(var/mob/dead/observer/G in player_list)
			if(G)
				if(G.client)
					if(G.client.prefs.be_special & BE_ALIEN)
						candidates += G.key

		// To stop clientless larva, we will check that our host has a client
		// if we find no ghosts to become the alien. If the host has a client
		// he will become the alien but if he doesn't then we will set the stage
		// to 4, so we don't do a process heavy check everytime.

		if(candidates.len)
			picked = pick(candidates)
		else if(affected_mob.client)
			picked = affected_mob.key
		if(!picked)
			stage = 4 // Let's try again later.
			stage_age = 35
			return

		affected_mob.death()
		affected_mob.stat = DEAD
		src.protect = 1

		var/turf/T = affected_mob.loc
		var/mob/living/carbon/alien/larva/new_xeno = new(T)
		affected_mob.birth = 1

		new_xeno.key = picked
		new_xeno << sound('sound/voice/hiss5.ogg',0,0,0,100)	//To get the player's attention

		affected_mob.death()
		affected_mob.stat = DEAD
		src.protect = 1
		if(ishuman(affected_mob))
			score_marines_chestbursted++

		for(var/mob/L in range(src, 10))
			L << "\red <b>[new_xeno] crawls out of [affected_mob]!</b>"
		affected_mob.overlays += image('icons/mob/alien.dmi', loc = affected_mob, icon_state = "bursted_stand")
	//	if(gib_on_success)
		//	affected_mob.gib()
		del(src)

More specifically:

Code: Select all

		if(candidates.len)
			picked = pick(candidates)
		else if(affected_mob.client)
			picked = affected_mob.key

What happens:
No candidates available [candidates.len = 0], [else if(affected_mob.client)] comes into play. He is the affected mob, and he is online, therefore he becomes a larva.

Fix would be: [else if(affected_mob.client & BE_ALIEN]

BUT:
While that would prevent hosts from unwillingly turning into aliens, it could be abused: if there are no candidates available, his chest would never burst.

So, in the end, I guess it's more like a feature. You can't escape the aliens, Fick.

[Davidchan]

I feel adding a prompt like pAIs or Positron Brains have would go a long way. When an Alien is available to play, everyone with Xeno candidacy enabled gets a yes/no prompt to take control. After 30 seconds anyone who hasn't click yes/no would be considered a NO and the prompt would expire, if no alien was selected it would wait another 30-60 seconds and ask again. Repeating this process until an active player elected 'yes' to join. No more idling/afk larva bursts who just sit on their host and stare at the wall.

I have a very stupid question, and if this gets shot down I understand entirely. If other people like it we can make it a proper suggestion, someone else can do it I don't fucking care, not like we get paid or credited for changes anyways.

Have we ever considered making Facehuggers a player controlled mod? Give them hivemind (or an understanding of it at least), and for their Alien abilities they can vent crawl, hide and pounce/leap up to 2 tiles to reach a host. Xenos would still be able to harvest from eggs and get huggers as usual, non-player control huggers acting pretty much like they do now. Player controlled huggers would be Larva-tier or lower, requiring them to work with the Hive to infect stronger hosts. A caveat of this, being that the hugger becomes the embryo upon infestation. Basically reserving your spot as a larva ahead of time by doing the work of infesting yourself.

I can think of two options as to how players could elect to be huggers. The first would be the same as chest bursting above, when an egg hatches or is harvested, all ghosted players with Alien candidacy elected would be given the prompt. If anyone click yes, they become a sentient Hugger and can move around, if nobody says yes, it is just another docile/passive hugger that sits in tile and waits forever. No real big changes here, just giving more players the chance to play as more aliens.

The other option, would be to add a 'Spawn as Facehugger' option to the ghost menu. The game would check for any docile/passive huggers or a Mature-ready to hatch egg. If one is found, that player takes control and continues their round as a face hugger looking for a host to infect. If no huggers are found, the game replies that no suitable child is available or that the players Alien candidacy is not properly set,alternately stating the hivemind can not support another child if all of the Xenomorphs are dead (No Queen, Drone/Runner/Sentinel castes alive, No Larva alive). Also, if there is no living Aliens, eggs should not be able to hatch as while this would be an entertaining way to restart a round, it would get old fast and basically require marines to completely destroy and remove all nests and eggs to win the game.

In doing this, it would be required for coders to change the end game settings for marines to be)

All Xenomorphs (Drone,Sentinel, Runner castes, Queen and Larva) killed.
All Sentient Huggers killed.
No infected hosts alive.

[Juninho77]

Both your suggestions would be doable, definitely.

Sentient facehuhgers, however, that would seriously tip the game balance away from marines.

I personally find it an interesting idea, but I'd implement it differently. Well, I'm at work, so I'm not going extend myself too much.

[Davidchan]

I'm curious how sentient huggers would change thing. If we make pounce/leap their only means of infecting (so a marine walking past a hiding hugger wouldn't trigger them), I don't see how their survival odds would be much better than a typical larva trying to escape after bursting.

[speedybst]

Hmm, i do like both those ideas, but to ensure that they get the attention they deserve, probably best to make a new post for them.
The idea of being a hugger is actually a very nice one, would give you a little something extra to do as a ghost.

[Zynax]

Why not have it burst and nobody be in it and dead aliens can use the larva

[Butterrobber202]

Meh we use to have smart Huggers. From what I have heard they would CHASE marines down hallways... Like HOARDS of them

[Pillow]

Meh we use to have smart Huggers. From what I have heard they would CHASE marines down hallways... Like HOARDS of them

That sounds glorious.

[Fire and Glory]

That sounds glorious.

Lets just stick with Apop's spiders for horde chases eh?

[Pillow]

Sounds reasonable, but still I would love to see a horde of huggers running down the hall

[TopHatPenguin]

As David has stated I think a prompt would be nice just like a pai or posibrain so that even if you forget to turn off the preference there is still a backup system.

[Fickmacher]

It seems to be happening more frequently for me. What's annoying is this scenario: "Oh, you're on the surgery table and you burst? Fuck you, you're playing for the other team now and won't be cloned." Even if an admin sticks you back in your corpse, the doctors have already tried and failed to clone you, so have fun rotting in the morgue.

[Juninho77]

Well, what would you suggest to fix that?

[Fickmacher]

Hell, just let 'em die instead. Or make the larva braindead and let someone with preferences on who comes in later take the larva, if it's still alive. This has been happening to me nearly every time I burst now.

[Juninho77]

Alright, then. Make a suggestion detailing that; if Apophis approves it, I guarantee you I'll code it myself.

[Fickmacher]

Alright, then. Make a suggestion detailing that; if Apophis approves it, I guarantee you I'll code it myself.

Yoh: colonial-marines.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2481