Engineers (not the kind you think)

[MadSnailDisease]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
This adds some more in depth things into the lore. This http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Engineer is their avp wiki page.
Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
Adds a very interesting wing of the xenomorph, marine, predator lore.
Would be very fun and spooky to die in a 4 way battle.
Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
If you don't want to look at the wiki, here it is summed up. First, engineers created both the xenomorph and the human races. At one point, they liked the humans, but 2000ish years ago they tried to wipe out the human race but fucked up and everyone on the ship died. It sounds from the lore like most of them are dead. In requiem, it is shown that a predator keeps an engineer's helmet as a trophy, and in fire and stone, the comic series, ahab the predator barely kills one and takes his skull as a trophy. They are pretty dang strong, and the predators plasma caster doesn't hurt it.
Edit: currently still reading up on lore, but they are definitely not all dead. You may see reference to a "last engineer", but this only refers to the last remaining one at LV-223, the engineer temple, which died to the trilobite.

I would propose that a crashed engineer ship have been housing an alien queen and whatnot. Hearing this, a few remaining members of a predator clan show up to settle some old debts. On top of this, marines show up because some marine scout ship got the shit beaten out of it by the engineer's ship. This would lead to an epic 4 way fight between the four factions.

Edit: Alrighty, here's what my research has yielded. The thing that overall killed the engineer was the detonation of a predators wrist gauntlet. What tore him up in a single shot was an engineer beam sort of rifle, although the spear gun went through his entire body, until the engineer tore it out of his body. Prior to this, the engineer spent his days tearing apart xenomorphs which were mutated by what I can guess was a late or finished prototype of agent A0 3959X.91 - 15, which is what killed off engineers at the temple and generally buffs the hell out of anything it infects via touch. It also makes them attack anything in sight. I now propose that the crashed engineer ship be carrying agent A0 3959X.91 -15 and for the crash site to be covered in pools of it. This would lead to increasing depth of story, as all 4 species present at the battle could be infected, but the predators and the engineer would be the only ones with prior knowledge of what it is. A few marines will probably die investigating it.

A0 3959X.91 - 15 can go in one of two directions. In the movie Prometheus, it's chest burster is the trilobite, which matures extremely quickly and in turn chestbursts a deacon from the engineer. Here it would make sense to diverge from standard lore and do a few interesting things. Here the queen which was in the hold of the engineer ship should have been experimented on with the agent, making it slightly buffed, but it's offspring is not hostile within the hivemind. Now bursters from marines will be standard and fall within the hivemind of the alien set up, giving the aliens a fighting chance. The engineer will probably never be bursted, so we don't need to bother with a deacon.
Note: this would not be against conventional avp lore, but merely add on a little bit.

Edits continue: At this point my research has gone on for hours, and I really should stop. I just discovered that the current CM timeline does allow for the existence of the engineers. In the timeline, an ancient species is mentioned, and it says they seed the existence of life on earth.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
I always get a little pissed when people just say "coding and mapping" for the implementation. That being said, I would have to spend a crap-ton of time explaining the intricacies of the heavy amount of coding. So...

A lot of coding and mapping, the former of which I would be delighted to help with.
Make agent A0 3959X.91 - 15 a disease that can only be transmitted by contact with the liquid.


P.S. If this has been done, tell me. I am not on the server a ton so I may have missed this already existing.

[MikeHdez97]

+1 i like it because it will add something new to the server and also it will expand the RP

[Jen_Llama]

Gameplay wise, it'd just be a really big bald human who could take a lot of damage and gib things with wrestling moves. I'm not sure engineers are established enough in the ways CM would need them to be.
I do however think your crashed engineer ship with a queen in it/predators looking for a hunt/marines investigating the crash would be a great idea, though I think it might already be in the works..?

[MadSnailDisease]

Gameplay wise, it'd just be a really big bald human who could take a lot of damage and gib things with wrestling moves. I'm not sure engineers are established enough in the ways CM would need them to be.
I do however think your crashed engineer ship with a queen in it/predators looking for a hunt/marines investigating the crash would be a great idea, though I think it might already be in the works..?

I see where you are going with this, and the engineer certainly would be pretty overpowered, but as the details say, the three that have appeared have been actually killed. One by a predator, another by the trilobite, and another by a predator and a human. I am still reading up on all things avp, and am going to investigate how they were killed. The idea here is that the predator(s) show up expressly to kill the engineer, easily making it a fair fight if it were a 2v1.

[Stivan34]

Would be good, More RP possibilites, Jockey Xenomorphs if a larva bursts from a Engineer? +1

[MadSnailDisease]

Would be good, More RP possibilites, Jockey Xenomorphs if a larva bursts from a Engineer? +1

I guess yeah, but the only way it would happen is if he touches the goo or some strong alien fucks him up.

Also, it would be a deacon, leaving a lot more to our imagination. Jockeys come from standard alien bursters from engineers. Deacons would probably be stronger.

As I type this, I can only think "hold me I'm scared." God forbid we release a deacon onto the server...

[Stivan34]

I guess yeah, but the only way it would happen is if he touches the goo or some strong alien fucks him up.

Also, it would be a deacon, leaving a lot more to our imagination. Jockeys come from standard alien bursters from engineers. Deacons would probably be stronger.

As I type this, I can only think "hold me I'm scared." God forbid we release a deacon onto the server...

Deacon is the alien that bursted from the last Engineer, But the Trilobite impregnated him with that, Aliens use Facehuggers, So no Deacon unless the Engineer gets impregnated by a Trilobite.

[MadSnailDisease]

Yeah but I changed the suggestion to the entire hive being infected by A0 3959X.91 - 15. I assumed the infected hugger would be trilobite since that's what infected the engineer in Prometheus.

[coroneljones]

This would be interesting,possibly loads of fun

Coding might be hard,but if we can have this...could be good

[Boltersam]

I propose we make Deacons a separate hivemind.

No, seriously. Despite the extremely difficult coding this will take, having the Xenomorphs and Deacons square off in a huge final battle would be fucking badass.
+1 to the original idea though, as long as we get Deacons. Also, would there be an evolution path for them, and how would they differ from xenomorphs if implemented?

[MadSnailDisease]

This would be interesting,possibly loads of fun

Coding might be hard,but if we can have this...could be good

Again, if my dev app gets accepted, I would be delighted to help.

I propose we make Deacons a separate hivemind.

No, seriously. Despite the extremely difficult coding this will take, having the Xenomorphs and Deacons square off in a huge final battle would be fucking badass.
+1 to the original idea though, as long as we get Deacons. Also, would there be an evolution path for them, and how would they differ from xenomorphs if implemented?

I can see it, but it would probably be the last thing to add. To start off the deacons, we can have a few dead engineers that were wounded from the crash and got infected. I could give you an estimate if I could read over the code. It all depends on whether or not aliens were set up to be changed and even copied without a full rewrite.

[Stivan34]

Again, if my dev app gets accepted, I would be delighted to help.
I can see it, but it would probably be the last thing to add. To start off the deacons, we can have a few dead engineers that were wounded from the crash and got infected. I could give you an estimate if I could read over the code. It all depends on whether or not aliens were set up to be changed and even copied without a full rewrite.

If Engineers gonna be added, Make their bare handed attacks do 20 damage, Have high damage resistance too, What about... 20 rifle shots to kill one? I have another idea too, Add Hammerpedes, If larvas walk through the chemical they become this, http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Hammerpede

[MadSnailDisease]

Balancing will probably done close to last, but that sounds about right for them. The thing is, they do not have any form of stealth or speed like the preds and aliens respectively, so they are going to need to be tanky, especially since there would only be 1, maybe 2 of them.

[Seehund]

I'm not really sure. Feels like this would detract the focus from the true protagonists of the game - Xenomorphs and Colonial Marines, to add nothing of particular importance.
And of course,

Gameplay wise, it'd just be a really big bald human who could take a lot of damage and gib things with wrestling moves.

[forwardslashN]

-1
This sounds like a project for some number of years in the future rather than now.

Edit: But you know, I'd totally love to play as an engineer. Some day.

[Jen_Llama]

Another issue is the lore divide, since the majority of their lore exists with them as 'jockeys', weird giant elephant-men and the other as 'engineers' as the retcon for the Prometheus movie. Previous incarnations of their xenomorph offspring exist in the 'jockey' lore, those being the jockey-xenomorph/ultramorph rather than the deacon. It would have to be decided which lore CM was going to pull from.

[TheSlapDoctor]

Feels like this would detract the focus from the true protagonists of the game - Xenomorphs and Colonial Marines

Agreed, we haven't got the balance of Marine/Alien correct yet, adding a new playable group will just muddle the balance further.

-1 until the time is right.

[Jen_Llama]

Honk.

[MadSnailDisease]

Another issue is the lore divide, since the majority of their lore exists with them as 'jockeys', weird giant elephant-men and the other as 'engineers' as the retcon for the Prometheus movie. Previous incarnations of their xenomorph offspring exist in the 'jockey' lore, those being the jockey-xenomorph/ultramorph rather than the deacon. It would have to be decided which lore CM was going to pull from.

After multiple hours of lore research, I can assure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the deacons would fit in lore wise. On top of that, it is the least relevant change that would happen in the suggestion.

[MadSnailDisease]

Agreed, we haven't got the balance of Marine/Alien correct yet, adding a new playable group will just muddle the balance further.

-1 until the time is right.

Sorry for double post, doing this on my iPad is not easy.

As I said earlier, A0 3959X.91 - 15 would buff the aliens anywhere from slightly to heavily, depending how on what balancing changes are needed.

[jalen earl]

Just thinking about this and had an idea.

Make an engineer a special event decided by an admin for 1-2 players to be in stasis inside the crashed ship.

Isn't exactly lore friendly but an option could be:
Upon finding the ship marines bring the pods onboard the sulaco for research as a WY directive.

When woken up it initially is a peaceful encounter trying to communicate. but is really a survival game for the engineers to make it back to the crashed ship and fire it up for flight killing anything that stands in its way.

As mentioned bone shattering melee attacks with fists and higher health but cant wield any guns due to its large hands but can wield melee. Would be able to use the shuttle consoles giving a similar station alert.

Anyway just something to think about once xeno/marines are balanced more

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

Sure, sounds fun. But you realize as a dev, you kinda just signed your own death warrent?

[Jroinc1]

The special event sounds as though it could be neat... but for a regular antag, predators are already a bit much...

[jalen earl]

The special event sounds as though it could be neat... but for a regular antag, predators are already a bit much...

Thats kinda the point. say an admin adds 1-2 in early-mid round if it seems appropriate. It then appears as a message to command about a signal/beacon/heatsource etc and an order to investigate and recover any findings. That gets relayed to squads and they go to recover it.

Adds another objective idea for marines and puts the crashed ship area to use more, rather than just a random survival loot

[coolsurf6]

This is getting somewhere, i do not know much of the engineers but i know a bit. I hope this gets inplemented but we need more developers to be able to do this efficently. From spiriting to coding it can resuse some code. But the alien getting a desiese to be able to evolve stronger is a bit hard. If i have spare time and i figure out coding for byond ss13, i will definitly want to help with this!

Apop and some other coders are busy with the researcher update do this will probably be about a year for this to make a appearance if he sees this a good rp scenario, i will continue to watch this and hope for the best.