Weyland Yutani Long Distance Motion Scanner Array

[SpanishBirdman]

As you may recall from the movies, aliens can be difficult to track. They don't show up on thermal scans or any other scan normally used by the USCMC, except for motion scanners. Fortunately, due to a very lucky coincidence that was definitely a coincidence and nothing else, the Sulaco was equipped free of charge by WY with a prototype motion scanner for field testing. With more testing and refinement (a LOT more testing and refinement) this scanner could be useful in almost any op that the USCMC runs. For now, unfortunately, it is a buggy and unreliable mess of a device pushed half baked from the brilliant minds of WY R&D. Keeping it running will take constant effort from the engineering crew and the hard work of marines and the researcher to specify scans, but it can function very effectively under certain circumstances, such as the marines being pushed back to the Sulaco.


Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
The LDMSA is a replacement for MOTHER scans, allowing marines to find out how many aliens they are fighting without needing an admin. Under ideal circumstances, the LDMSA can provide an accurate count of the marines, monkeys/stoks/naeras and every xeno on the planet sorted by caste. In practice this very rarely happens, as the LDMSA is a buggy and fragile prototype that requires constant maintenance by engineering crew and others to keep functional, including spacewalks and collecting specimens from the planet.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
1. Scans no longer require admin involvement
2. Shipside engineering crew now have a valuable and time consuming job for the entire mission keeping the scanner running
3. Scans make sense lorewise now, instead of MOTHER magically producing thermal scans of the aliens
4. Gives the researcher more work as well
5. The number of engineers on the Sulaco is directly related to how well the scanner works, so marines get very accurate scans after being pushed off the planet(likely leading to an attack) and poor scans when they are deployed on the planet.
6. Admins can still influence the quality of the scan if they desire, providing balance.
7. The researcher can determine what to call the specimens going into the system, giving alien castes standardized names instead of being "red dogs"

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
The scanning array is made up of 5 scanners on various parts of the external hull, and a console in engineering. The scanner requires time to activate and calibrate to local conditions, so it will not be functional at all until about 40m into the mission. Once that happens, the quality of the scans the LDMSA gives out are impacted by three factors.

First, the scanners themselves are very delicate and prone to breaking without warning. One of the scanners will develop a problem about every 5 minutes, requiring full system reboots or repairs to the scanners on the hull of the ship. These scanners can be damaged by meteorites and require welding to fix, have fried their internals and need wires to repair, or simply have shut down and need to be reactivated with a multitool.

Second, a scanning chamber is available to the researcher. Putting a creature such as a stok or a sentinel will mark it as an anomaly type, with a custom name that the researcher puts in. Other system factors determine if motion signatures are accurately identified as one of these, but marines can get a pretty good idea of the stage in evolution the hive is in if they collect enough samples.

Third, local phenomena can determine the accuracy of the scan. This variable is set by admins, and can reduce scan accuracy by up to 50%, though 20% will probably be standard.

These three factors mean that the scanner can be either extremely accurate or largely useless, depending on how well engineering and research work at it and how generous the admins are feeling, but it will always be available to ship crew, ensuring command has the information they need to move the round along.

The first and third factors produce the projected accuracy of the scan. What this means is that when the scanner takes the accurate results from the game, it takes that number (76 for example) and multiplies it by the reverse of that fraction (45% becoming 55% for example). This number comes out as 41 for the scan below, which is very inaccurate due to multiple damaged scanners in the array. The scanner then randomly increases or decreases one of the counts, such as Type 1 anomalies, but usually the unknown counter. It will do this 41 times in this example. These 41 up or down counts might even out due to random chance, but they might not. The marines will need to fix the array to get an accurate number. If the engineers fixed the entire array in this example, the counter would only be at 14, due to local phenomenon (admins).

Sample readout:

Weyland Yutani - Building Better Worlds

R-147 Prototype Long Distance Motion Scanner Array

Bringing LDMSA online, please wait...
Running system diagnostic:
- Bridge scanner fully functional
- Port aft scanner damaged, please repair damage
- Starboard aft scanner Error 297, please restart module
- Port mid scanner fully functional
- Starboard mid scanner overloaded, please adjust wiring and reset
System 65% functional.

Local interference:
Minor stellar radiation spike
Heavy cloud cover over target area
Scan accuracy reduced 20%

Final projected accuracy: 45%

Scanning...

50 active USCMC ID tags
76 motion profiles detected, sorting...

FINAL RESULTS
Active marines: 44
Deceased marines(No motion detected): 6
Scanned anomaly Type 1 (monkey): 4
Scanned anomaly Type 2 (stok): 1
Scanned anomaly Type 3 (runner): 5
Natural phenomena: 2
Total identified motion signatures: 56

Unknown motion signatures: 20

Areas of heavy activity:
Medical Dome
NE cave system
Telecomms Dome

DUE TO SYSTEM FAILURES THESE NUMBERS ARE NOT GUARANTEED TO BE CORRECT

[Snypehunter007]

hmmmmm.....tentative +1 because I thought I saw a thread familiar to this one a few weeks back. I think it was "Let Surface Scans be accessible from BO consoles" or something like that. Though yours seems to be a bit different as I think theirs was just a straight up M.O.T.H.E.R. report from the BO consoles or something like that.

[Kyrac]

All my +1's.

[ThatCrazyBridgeOfficer]

+1
(With exceptions) As someone who mains BO this is something I wish to have.

The marines will have to setup an Antenna-Tower/Scanner Array on the ground and protect it to allow the ship to make such scans.

The Commander/BOs should be able to make scans private/hidden so the crew doesn't rush these places and allows the BOs to continue sending commands.
Make them print a paper each time to be reviewed from any communications/Overwatch computer.
Make such scans less of a big deal, get rid of the engineering boosts and researcher naming ideas and simply make it so that this "Power/Ability" requires a groundside presence protecting a "Scanner Array" simply printing a paper with scan results.

Cooldown 10 Minutes (Doesn't create an announcement, the Overwatch console just prints a paper with the results)
Can select the ship and or ground for scan.

Results are as follows:
Unknown movement signatures (Gives locations and how many at each)
Marine Signatures and numbers per location (Anyone holding a marine ID will count as a marine, everyone/thing else is an "Unknown")

[SpanishBirdman]

+1
(With exceptions) As someone who mains BO this is something I wish to have.

The marines will have to setup an Antenna-Tower/Scanner Array on the ground and protect it to allow the ship to make such scans.

The Commander/BOs should be able to make scans private/hidden so the crew doesn't rush these places and allows the BOs to continue sending commands.
Make them print a paper each time to be reviewed from any communications/Overwatch computer.
Make such scans less of a big deal, get rid of the engineering boosts and researcher naming ideas and simply make it so that this "Power/Ability" requires a groundside presence protecting a "Scanner Array" simply printing a paper with scan results.

Cooldown 10 Minutes (Doesn't create an announcement, the Overwatch console just prints a paper with the results)
Can select the ship and or ground for scan.

Results are as follows:
Unknown movement signatures (Gives locations and how many at each)
Marine Signatures and numbers per location (Anyone holding a marine ID will count as a marine, everyone/thing else is an "Unknown")

I like the idea of a planetside tower and the 10 minute cooldown, as well as giving options to bridge crew about how much information gets to who. The engineering component of this is a must have, however. Most of the reason this exists is to give engineers something productive to do midround.

[Snypehunter007]

M.O.T.H.E.R. scans are now automated.

Locking.