Should we change how xenos win?

[Renomaki]

You know... I been playing this game for a long time, and while reading a recent player report that was caused by a queen manipulating dropships to gather more planetside resources, I began to wonder... Why do we have aliens attack the marine's ship?

The first few times for a newbie, it is a shocking event when aliens suddenly turn the dropship against her marines and delivers a whole hive to their doorstep, but after months and months of it, you can't help but wonder how strange such a concept is. You would think that the whole battle was for the planet, but then after winning said battle, the xenos just randomly decide to go all D-day on the marines and hijack a dropship up the Almayer's butt. Why would they abandon a perfectly good hiveworld to go smash up some small platoon ship?

The marine reaction itself starts to grow tiresome as well as time goes on, with marines always kinda metaing it (intentional or not) and trying to trigger the escape pods and self destruct the first chance they get, before randomly deciding "hey everyone, lets build all our defenses in the self destruct chamber for some reason, it for some reason is the only real place to set up defenses" and so they all through instinct set up a big-ass nest in there. It gets so bad that when the planetside battle starts to go bad, marines start DEMANDING a retreat, not because all hope was lost, but because they realize they can't win on the ground, so they try to win on the Almayer by camping the SD (active or not), quite often disappointing the admins in the process due to how cowardly they can be, sometimes forces numbering up to 30+ active marines fleeing on the dropship that could have been manning their defense positions at the FoB. And as I said before, shortly after like clockwork, the xenos hijack the ship because reasons and we get to defend against boarders.

But why does it have to end that way anyways? Why can't we just make it so that the moment the last uninfected marine leaves the planet, the xenos win? After all, it could be assumed that all the Hive wants is to protect their newfound home, while the marines are trying to wipe them out and reclaim the colony for humanity. Why abandon their now safe and secure planet to go raid a ship that they won't be able to escape from that also has very limited resources (compared to planets like LV-624, which have sprawling jungles full of wildlife to harvest).

We already have a system in place where, if the last living xeno flees the platoon ship after an official boarding action, the game ends with a minor victory for the marines. So why not instead flip it around so that if the marines flee the planet, it counts as a successful Xeno defense? Again, by driving out the marines, the xenos would have secured their hiveworld and would be free to expand through it peacefully (at least until the marines come back, anyways), so it would be more logical to end it there than have some weird endgame that involves xenos learning to fly a dropship really badly and marines fleeing to the self destruct chamber out of instinct.

But then, that is just me. Do you think it would be better if we had such a system in place, or would you rather we keep the current endgame in place, and why?

[apophis775]

Feel free to discuss, but we most likely won't be adjusting how aliens win anytime soon.

[Renomaki]

Feel free to discuss, but we most likely won't be adjusting how aliens win anytime soon.

What I most would like to ask you is WHY that is how xenos win?

Is that just some old workaround due to old code that we just ran with due to growing accustomed to it? I really wouldn't mind understanding why we use such an odd system to calculate game ending conditions.

[misterjoper]

Actually I agree, good point. Though better win condition would be: "If Almayer Has not been boarded for 20 minutes and no uninfected marine has been planetside for that period then the game ends." Without timer you eliminate the boarding phase.

[northcote4]

Well, I suppose I'll point out what will likely be a common theme:

If the marines succesfully escape the planet and the xenos don't pursue, it leaves the USCM free to bombard the xeno hive until the entire area is nothing but ash and glass.

Of course considering that would take place after the round ends, you could argue that the xenos still get a successful defence. But still, it's something to keep in mind.

[solidfury7]

I always thought that the ship should suffer a major failure which causes it to crash in to the colony.

Solves the aliens piloting the issue dropship bullshit and explains how the Aliens get on to the ship.

Have a crashed ship sprite on the colony (randomised spot) and then have aliens have to walk on it to enter (teleported) on to the ship. Boom. Bobs your uncle.

[spookydonut]

Xenos on the metal hive is actually really fun gameplay when people aren't being combat nested or one side isn't delaying the round end.

Having a marine timer for no marines on the surface the same way there's a queen timer might be cool.

[davidofmk771]

I always thought that the ship should suffer a major failure which causes it to crash in to the colony.

Solves the aliens piloting the issue dropship bullshit and explains how the Aliens get on to the ship.

Have a crashed ship sprite on the colony (randomised spot) and then have aliens have to walk on it to enter (teleported) on to the ship. Boom. Bobs your uncle.

I love this idea.

The crashed Almayer sprite could be mapped in a way that mixes the two decks, as to not over-complicate things, such as the CIC collapsing into the brig and such. I think it should be something the Queen has to hijack a DS to do though. Gives the xenos a reason not to rush SD, and gives the marines a reason not to over-fortify SD, but doesn't change the game TOO much.

My only worry is the wellbeing of our wonderful mappers. It would be quite a feat, even for them.

[Heckenshutze]

Giving the marines the chance to flee the planet would end always in a successful xeno defence. 9/10 of our players prefer to escape alive than a warrior's death.

Why? Dunno. Nobody really enjoys being a standard cog in the machine.. Damn snowflakes.

[Skimmy2]

Why not change it where after the marines fully evac the planet, the end phase begins.
If Aliens arent on the Almayer for 20 minutes they lose, if Marines arent on the Colony for 20 minutes they lose.

This creates a tug of war over the two maps.

[Feweh]

no...

[Sailor Dave]

no...

As a rebuttal, have you considered... yes?

[halo9663]

What about de-orbiting or waiting for marine reinforcements? Instead of SD

[davidofmk771]

What about de-orbiting or waiting for marine reinforcements? Instead of SD

Because the xenos get there faster than those two things can happen.

[Crab_Spider]

If the Alymayer were to crash into the colony, you woukd be telling a story and youd see QUITE a lot of dead bodies and complications with the ship's functions.

[manezinho]

I like the idea of a crash instead of the usual boarding but would it be triggered by players or would it just happen? If xenos made the ship crash, I think it'd be pretty neat.

[davidofmk771]

I like the idea of a crash instead of the usual boarding but would it be triggered by players or would it just happen? If xenos made the ship crash, I think it'd be pretty neat.

That's what i'm thinking. What would xenos want with the ship, anyways? They barely managed to get the DS to land on the Almayer, i'd say fat chance to them managing to leave orbit, go somewhere else, and enter another colonies orbit.

I'd think they would rather take the humans back to their hive in the most efficient way possible.

[misterjoper]

The idea of crushing Almayer is too troublesome to code and it won't worth the effort. The Marine timer is much easier to implement.

[PhinksJinxs]

I like Pie, and cake.

[davidofmk771]

The idea of crushing Almayer is too troublesome to code and it won't worth the effort. The Marine timer is much easier to implement.

What would a 'marine timer' DO exactly? Just force-end the round if the marines don't deploy fast enough?

[misterjoper]

What would a 'marine timer' DO exactly? Just force-end the round if the marines don't deploy fast enough?

Yep. And aliens chose not to hijack ship.

[Steelpoint]

I think the current xeno end game is a nessecary evil.

I did make a proposal on Gitlab to cahnge up the Self Destruct timer because I feel that while the invasion of the Almayer is necessary, I do think we can at least speed up the end game so we are not all spending twenty minutes waiting for paint to dry: https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/1687

[Rataca100]

Technically, this Ship could level the colony and the Xenos hives from orbit. Just technically. That or it can work as a holder until a ship that can shows up.

Gameplay its needed though, they cant actually call a drop ship down from planet side if its not there.

[Stripetail]

It would be cool to see marines fall back and fail to hold the planet, prep to leave orbit to return to USMC lines for re outfitting and backup only to have them ambushed by an antagonist human force like the UPP who would attack the ship at its weakest time.

Or maybe multiple different endings.

One ending could be a malfunctioning dropship that lands for aprox 5-10 minutes to give aliens time to get on it before it's called up and crashes into the ship.

Another could be de-orbiting and heading back to USMC space. An antag ship then intercepts the Almayer and all living xenos as well as some ghosts are immediately turned into whichever antag would be assaulting the ship, then teleported to the shuttle.

They could come across an abandoned pod with a surprise in it.

Stuff like that?

[misto]

if you give marines an "admit defeat by turning the ship around and going home" button up in the control room, that would be another perfectly sensible, if somewhat anticlimactic, ending condition. and no, the regular evac option doesnt quite count for this because the escape pods dont fit everyone

there have also been some proposals for allowing a "nuke the site from orbit" option, but that would just spur the xenos to snatch a ds to escape with and that basically just brings us right back into the regular xeno endgame

the only other xeno victory i can then theorize, which is slightly different from the current endgame yet still achieves victory by removing the almayer, would be some series of sabotage objectives that xenos who hatch on the almayer could try to accomplish to drop the ship out of orbit (and hopefully crashing it somewhere else on the planet rather than on top of the hive) or otherwise cripple operations to the point the marines hit the go home button