Aliens can Pull through pipes/ tunnels

[KingKire]

Summary:
Aliens gain the ability to pull people into pipes and tunnel tiles. Ala, one of the pinnacle finale points of aliens

This is version 2 of the suggestion

Benefits:
Allows more horror stories, interesting mechanic.

Details:
With the addition of aliens now being able to travel through pipes via movement instead of teleporting, this allows this suggestion to be able to take place.
An alien would move underneath a vent or tunnel tile, and can "grab" any person standing in a 1 tile radius. The person is held still for a moment, "You feel strong hands grab your *left/right* leg! You cant seem to move!". After 2 seconds, they are knocked prone, and after another 2 seconds they are dragged into the vent/tunnel.
They can break out of this grab by either using a melee weapon on their leg (boot knife) or someone grabs them and pulls them outside the vent area before they are pulled in. Welded vents prevent pulling attempts.


Implementation:
version 2.o:
-Alien has to be directly under a vent or tunnel tile for them to have this option.
-The target being grabbed must be in one tile of the vent or tunnel exit.
-Grabbing immediately stops the target. they cannot move at all. this effect lasts until they are broken out or are cut out.
-Cutting a target out requires melee weapons to be used, targeting the users grabbed leg
-This has a chance to miss, hit the target, or hit the alien. (which means, stab alot to get lucky baby)
-Possibly fire arms can be used, but thats devs call (more programming work etc). Using a fire arm in this manner means you can shoot up your legs now.
-damaging the alien causes it to lose its grip
-Pulling the target out of range causes the alien to lose its grip
-After 2 seconds of not moving, the target is knocked prone
-After two more seconds, the target is pulled into the tunnel and knocked unconscious for X seconds.

I think with this version, it offers alot more reaction gameplay for those being grabbed, at the cost of having the user injure themselves in the process of escaping.

[Thatnewguy01]

-1, gives more of a chance for the poor docs in surgery to get nabbed out of nowhere with even less time for anyone to help

[Kerek]

Great idea, bad mechanic. This would make welding vents useless and xenos would be able to kill valuable roles such as a doctor or command with ease as vents no longer matter.

-1

[KingKire]

hmmm, yah, the more i think about it, the worst it seems to get. i might just settle for xenos being able to pull through vents, which might work as an alternative.

it is a very fluffy idea though, which i like alot

[Kerek]

hmmm, yah, the more i think about it, the worst it seems to get. i might just settle for xenos being able to pull through vents, which might work as an alternative.

it is a very fluffy idea though, which i like alot

I really like your idea, they should however need some time to pull through vents with a sort of "the alien is ripping and tearing at the vent!" and then stun whoevers being pulled and have it take a bit of time so drones on sulaco cant meta docs or something like that.

[Butterrobber202]

If a Xeno bursts through a vent it could just be a suicide bonbering that kills or crits anyone in a 3x3 radius. It would kill the Xeno, and break the piping making travels through it impossible

[Wubs4Scrubs]

-1

I often talk about how I'm not a fan of "unavoidable deaths" and when I picture this mechanic I just see a xeno camping in a vent on the planet where he meta-knows the marines will go to scout and then like a living mine just grabbing one from the vent without the marines having any way to know it was there. Having a change like this I feel would also require potentially reworking all the maps for balance reasons since there might be vents which marines HAVE to walk past and aliens know they can snag an easy kill by just camping there.

[KingKire]

I reedited my post to only allow for aliens to pull through vents and tunnel entrances. This should make it more balanced overall , and give a little more fun element to it on both sides.

[nerocavalier]

Interesting idea, however, I doubt that marines can actually stab the alien in time if there's only two seconds.

Seeing that the boot knife macro is gone you have to move the mouse to your boot, click, then move back to the alien and click. Except there's also the possible RNG miss which means that as is, without outside intervention that marine is very likely a goner.

[KingKire]

Well, the time can always change, but it should be short enough where a marine or his buddy needs to be on their toes to prevent problems (scince, once marines know about vents, theyre gonna weld them all shut)

[Wubs4Scrubs]

I believe on the planet there is at least a couple spots where the vents are obscured by something. In this situation where the marine has to stab the alien to be freed is he just fucked if there is something blocking the sprite he has to click on?

[caleeb101]

God. I can feel the salt already. My problem with this is that they have a chance to miss. IF you think of it in a real situation, what baldie is gonna actually miss that? Remove the chance to miss the stab and also extend the timer from 2 seconds to 4-5 seconds. This will make it FAIR for marines and also it'll make it more rewarding for Xenos when they manage to pull a marine through. -1 For the original post though.

[Boltersam]

Tunnels are teleports, and if you try to go on a vent tile while ventcrawling, you start exiting.

Better if you can grab if beside a vent, and the Alien is revealed for a few seconds, more along the lines of a Hunter pounce than a Runner pounce. Though this raises a question, what happens to someone in the vents? You've got the pulling part, but what actually happens to them? It can't be an instant/guaranteed kill, obviously, and devouring would be suicidal.

[KingKire]

mmm oh yah, tunnels are still teleport.. hmm thats sucks.

Well if the marine cant click the vent, he can also click his own sprite with the leg intent to *stab* the hand grabbing his leg free.

As for having a "miss" chance, i wanted the marine to being stabbing like mad at his legs, trying his best to not to get swallowed in. Even the best marines can be surprised, which is why having a buddy watch your back is pretty key. You can escape on your own, but its got a random chance of failing. A buddy pulling you free is 100% success, e'ry time.

Having the alien be revealed for a second might be an interesting thing, but i just wanted to have a quick and simple text prompt, no extra sprite work needed.
As for being "fair", its not really fair to the lone marine at all. If he cant get his knife out, hes pretty much boned. If he has a friend though, that friend has 4+ seconds to go and grab him to get him free, which is a pretty big bonus to "stick together". Coupled with the fact that once marines know aliens can crawl through vents, they'll probably weld them all up.


as for marines in tunnels, since marines cant climb in/out of vents (yet ), Theres no real code structure for marines moving around in them. i just have the marine being knocked prone until hes brought outside the vent tunnel as a simple solution. This could be symbolized as the alien tackle spamming the marine down as he drags him along, which isnt unreasonable imo.

[Boltersam]

Having the alien be revealed for a second might be an interesting thing, but i just wanted to have a quick and simple text prompt, no extra sprite work needed

What I mean is that the Xeno is on the vent tile temporarily while dragging the Marine in, no new sprites, just the regular sprite, then it goes back into the vent after the dragaction completes.

[KingKire]

@ boltersam oh that'd be pretty cool. maybe when the marine is knocked prone, the alien sprite pops out for a few seconds?

Plus, there'd be sounds of the action too, like the marine being grabbed would give a help emote, or maybe an alien growl as well.

[Jonesome]

Would be a cool idea, implementation seems problematic though. Would make for some great RP moments.
I actually had played a scenario like this as an MT, while I was instructing another engineer on the SM, an alien popped out of the vent. I ran like a coward, and saw through the airlock the alien maul the guy unconscious, "devour" him, and then disappear into the vent. So almost the same mechanic.

[forwardslashN]

This sounds cool, but it would be really difficult to do.

[shyshadow]

It's a cool mechanic, but it's highly abuse-able mechanic, also only two seconds to click on your boot knife, click on the targeted leg, and click on themselves? That's literally the most absurd thing I've heard, also, what about survivors? They don't have boot weapons at their disposal, and if that wasn't enough, what if the welding of the vent doesn't stop this mechanic? It'd be a bit too much effort for ANOTHER Xeno buff, they already have hugger combat, why add another thing that allows them to basically instantly incapacitate marines/humans, it's a bit unfair and unless it's changed to be actually balanced and Hugger Combat is removed.
-1