Clarifying mother announcements

[Jaketeaking]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): the mother announcements, which now appear every 30 minutes, saying how many xenos left, give an exact number on ship, and an estimate on the ground. for some reason, people seem to think the second number is solid, and send many marines to their deaths, where as I have experienced it can be off by as much as 5. my idea is to change the wording, to better reflect that this is an estimate, not an exact number
Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
simply change the wording

[coroneljones]

-1
Update-Neutral

If the marines think this is an exact number they will actually stop turtling and fight once again

[Mephiliso]

I don't quite understand, Jones. Isn't the point to make Marines stop turtling? I don't see how this is a bad idea.

[coroneljones]

I don't quite understand, Jones. Isn't the point to make Marines stop turtling? I don't see how this is a bad idea.

While a clarfication would be nice, people would take the wording and go "IT MIGHT, be 5..or it MIGHT BE 12, lets wait"

Actually, switching to neutral

[Mephiliso]

Ah, I see what you mean. To be honest I think the M.O.T.H.E.R. announcements are alright where they're at right now, though there's always room for improvement.

[moff_lockwood]

Mother already says "approximately." Marines might reasonably confuse that for being more accurate than it is, so I think it's fine. The bridge staff should realize the error margin and plan accordingly, since they are familiar with mother and realize the terrain makes it hard for an exact count. Mother should be underestimating the aliens though, so never less xeno's than reported for the reason of avoiding marines being afraid to attack. So if mother says 5, there are definitely at least 5, but there might be more (up to as many as like five more).

A percentage method might be better, with a min/max error range (as the possible random error, there should be a chance for it to be accurate). So say it can always be off by 2, but could be off by as much as maybe 5-7 depending on population. At low pop, having 10 when mother said 5 would really end badly for the marines, but having 7 when she said 5 would be less certain death.

[Snypehunter007]

The scans are the ground are SUPPOSED to be an estimate. This is unlikely to change.

Asking this to be locked.

[Doc]

-1
There's no real reason for it needing to be exact. Dense foliage and the fast-moving nature of xenomorphs provide IC reasoning, and OOCly, marines don't really need laser-precise knowledge of alien strength. It's supposed to be an amorphous battle.

[Polkjm]

I think it's fine as it is, -1

[Joe4444]

if people read it...they'd find out it says the mother announcement is UNCLEAR and NEEDS BETTER WORDING not THAT IT SHOULD GIVE EXACT NUMBERING or that IT NEEDS TO BE LASER PERCISE.

[Polkjm]

I've read the post, I still think it's fine

[forwardslashN]

Yeah, I think this is resolved. I've actually rewritten the original warning a couple of times, and I don't believe it needs to change. If people don't know what approximately means, I don't really think that's a problem from a developer standpoint.