Add a scan option to the communications console.

[HalfdeadKiller]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Add a scan button that will tell the approximate amount of "Unknown Lifeforms" on the planet.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Will hopefully prevent marine turtling against a small force, due to loss of morale from losing marines.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Basically, marines turtle because they are afraid of the aliens, and they don't know how many aliens are available. Currently, the only way for marines to get intel on the number of aliens, is for an admin to relay it. Having a semi-accurate knowledge of how many aliens are left, will provide less turtling, because marines turtle due to not knowing how many aliens are alive, after their assaults and losing many marines.

The scan option will display an approximate number of aliens, in increments of tens, rounded. So, if there are 7 aliens, the scan option will display Approximately ten unknown lifeforms detected. If there are 14 aliens, it will display approximately ten unknown lifeforms detected. If there are 18 aliens, it will display approximately 20 unknown lifeforms detected. And so on and so forth. One could perhaps add a five to ten minute timer on the scan if you want to balance that.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Code

[UnknownMurder]

This has been suggested before and I believe it was turned down.

[HalfdeadKiller]

Well damn.

[apophis775]

If we did anything with this, it would be an admin response thing.

[Gamerofthegame]

We were talking in deadchat the other day about something like this. (You were there.) An automated one every hour after the first (so 2nd, 3rd) would be nice.

Just to curb the "evacuate 20 marines against four aliens" shit...

[apophis775]

See, my worry would be that, the marines would be like, OMG 22 ALIENS, BETTER ABANDON THE PLANET AND TURTLE LOLKBYE.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

Hmmmmmm what if once every so often the scan would break due to some random event.

[Gamerofthegame]

See, my worry would be that, the marines would be like, OMG 22 ALIENS, BETTER ABANDON THE PLANET AND TURTLE LOLKBYE.

That's possible, but is having them abandon the planet and turtle against ten aliens unknowingly all that better?

[TopHatPenguin]

Maybe a risk and reward thing might be alright?

So the idea would be that for each time you use the scan option the more likely it would become for a higher risk.

The higher risks could be random things like maybe some Hostile things board or it disturbs a nest of spiders on the planet ( marines would have to be on the planet for this to happen, so X amount of marines on the planet for certain planet events)etc you get the jist.
So if marines were having a good old turtle time and they scanend for say the third time a "Pirate or merc group could come investigate your ship for loot" or something would happen.

No idea if this would solve the problem of turtle time but eh.. worth a try.

[johners12345]

Maybe a risk and reward thing might be alright?

So the idea would be that for each time you use the scan option the more likely it would become for a higher risk.

The higher risks could be random things like maybe some Hostile things board or it disturbs a nest of spiders on the planet ( marines would have to be on the planet for this to happen, so X amount of marines on the planet for certain planet events)etc you get the jist.
So if marines were having a good old turtle time and they scanend for say the third time a "Pirate or merc group could come investigate your ship for loot" or something would happen.

No idea if this would solve the problem of turtle time but eh.. worth a try.

Sounds cool, may be time consuming but would be TOTALLY worth it if accepted

[Mycroft Macarthur]

See, my worry would be that, the marines would be like, OMG 22 ALIENS, BETTER ABANDON THE PLANET AND TURTLE LOLKBYE.

the problem is that marines are basically already doing this, and they have been even since the nostromo.

see the moment the aliens even get onboard alot of marines just want to say "fuck it" and call for the escape shuttle immediately and now that the shuttle has a 20 minute timer (23 really) they're going to want one as fast as is possible more then EVER because at 20 minutes 99% of the time you may as well not bother calling it at ALL, we'll get overwhelmed LONG before the shuttle even gets here.

however during this waiting period we're still fighting back against the enemy and sometimes we end up dealing SIGNIFICANT damage to them in the fight, the problem is we dont actually have any way of knowing that, once they are ON the sulaco usually our specialists are all dead so we cant kill the tier3's anymore (its not like we can just break into the specialist room and get more spec gear), the majority of our kills end up being smaller tier aliens.

the reason THAT is an issue is that sometimes we end up doing a REALLY good job of defending against the xenos, they may have come aboard with 27 guys but they're down to like 9 now, the problem is we would have exactly ZERO means of knowing that, i've lost count of how many times on nostromo the escape shuttle was denied because the marine force outnumbered the xenos by a significant margin, and we have the same problem back then that we do NOW.

WE HAVE NO MEANS OF ACTUALLY KNOWING THAT

i mean sure some of the marines when hearing there are 22 aliens on the planet will want to turtle the sulaco, but how many more of them will want to turtle when we have to assume their numbers are just "unknown, PROBABLY infinite" on an IC level and we have to assume OOC'ly that their numbers are just massively superior to ours at all times? if you want marines to turtle less then we need to know just what we're dealing with and i would like to think that if the BO's do a planet scan and it says "22 unknown life forms, 80 marines" that when the cowards return to the sulaco to turtle the BO's will just have some MP's waiting for them VERY happy to have something to do (beat the shit out of some cowards for demoralizing the rest of the marines and abandoning their post, not exactly like a good n proppa commissar, but it'll do)

i know it seems like this has some potential negatives for all parties and will encourage metagamy behavior but the positives VASTLY outweigh the negatives, upon knowing just what enemy numbers are the marines can make more informed and rational decisions, i for one have to give this a VERY big

+1

[Aeleto]

Yeah, marines have no real way of having a glimpse of xenos numbers, and turn themselves to turtling because the time they try to get back, the shuttle/drop pod/entire map is fortified with resin and they have no means of actually pushing them back.

[Gamerofthegame]

Now, logically it'd be fair to give xenos the same. They smell their scent/psychic queen whatever.

[Jack McIntyre]

I could only see the point after this last round I just played where three squads went in and cleared out the hive, but command was ordering all marines to fall back to the FOB, but Weeter, me and a few others said screw it and charged the hive, rescued the marines and turns out that there were only a few left when I was sure it was going to be a good battle, seems the xenos had been wiped out as much as the other squads had, but they didn't go defend their hosts, they just left to find a new place to build. We eventually wiped them all out, but all the while I had command screaming at me for going with some bravo and alpha guys to go get our guys back and I kept telling them to screw off (wasn't that nice) and to court martial me when that was over. Was just a bit of a headache to listen to when I had a BO who kept yelling at me for disobeying orders, but a marine that Adam trusts was telling them that they think they had most of them and he was going to go anyway. Round probably would have been over faster if we had actually went and tried to go get the last of the xenos, but that is just my bellyaching from the last round. So I will say +.5 since I also like the suspense of walking into the hive wondering if you are going to get hit by 10 xenos or just one.

[Gamerofthegame]

As the BO in question, given the information we were sitting on was "EVERYONE IS DEAD EXCEPT LIKE SIX DUDES" nah it'd still be retreating.

But it's true of various other rounds, yes. It's a game of darkness when neither side has any information on the other except what they know of the game mode itself. Some information has to be given on a stick to actually keep nudging things along.

[TopHatPenguin]

I think if this is added it would definitely need to be a risk and reward kind of thing, kind of like how there is a risk and reward system in place with the Rt's.Maybe also have it so you can only use it maximum of X amount of times.

[apophis775]

Any more feedback on this?

[HalfdeadKiller]

Perhaps instead of a scan option, replace this suggestion with the suggestion to have the round end if aliens have not had a queen for ~30 minutes. This might be fitting of a different suggestion thread, however.

[apophis775]

I'd rather not do that. There have been rounds, where a horde of aliens wins, even without a queen just becuase of sheer numbers (even with no drones).

[apophis775]

If anything, I think we'd add an "AI request" thing, that sends a message to the admins in the form of "asking the AI a question" opposed to sending a message to CC. The difference would be, that the AI stuff is for things on the ship/sector (scans, etc), and the CC stuff would be things like support, orders, etc.

Wut u thunk?

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

If anything, I think we'd add an "AI request" thing, that sends a message to the admins in the form of "asking the AI a question" opposed to sending a message to CC. The difference would be, that the AI stuff is for things on the ship/sector (scans, etc), and the CC stuff would be things like support, orders, etc.

Wut u thunk?

Gonna agree with the idea apop, honestly a good idea. Doesn't make sense to ask command int he middle of god knows where about a scan, when the ai on ship can tell you.

[Infernus]

+1 for the ask AI thing

[Edgelord]

+1 for scan that requires approval. Marines shouldn't always know the approximate number of aliens. Maybe the scan could include the mobs as well for realism's sake?

[apophis775]

Ok, I'll move this to accepted. Here's how it will function:

Similar to Messages to CENTCOM will be an "AI Inquery" or "AI Request" command, it will tag the thing as AI when the staff receives it, so they can reply properly.

[dylanstrategie]

Is this still approved or relevant ? We now have automated scans, seems like manual scans were turned down in the meantime