Aliens eating corpses

[Deuce Manchester]

Why isn't this meta/aren't there rules against it? It serves no IC purpose to the Aliens, since it's stated in the lore that they don't consume humans/creatures they use for hosts. All it does is deny the ability to be cloned.

[Expired Torpedo]

actually it does. devouring hosts so you can get the host to the hive faster. and to get rid of dead bodies in the hive

[stolzdude]

Devouring people help aliens heal, right?

[MikeBluer]

Devouring people help aliens heal, right?

No, is just a old rumor.

[Toroic]

The main reason to eat corpses is to get rid of them. Otherwise you either have a corpse taking up a nest, or you have to drag them elsewhere. It's way, way easier to just devour people.

Realistically, no marine is going to drag your dead body back for cloning from deep in the hive. It'll slow them enormously and the odds that you're not SSD by then is low.

If you want to get back in game, go drone or larva.

[Wickedtemp]

If you want to be cloned, but the marines don't drag back your body...

Blame the COUNTLESS people that just log off the moment they die. They've set the standard, which is "90 percent of these bodies will result in a mental interface failure, if not ALL of them, so why bother?"

[Stalin]

Realistically, no marine is going to drag your dead body back for cloning from deep in the hive. It'll slow them enormously and the odds that you're not SSD by then is low.

After a successful hive attack, there are usually a few marines scouring the hives for alien remnants, whilst others collect corpses and take them back to the Sulaco.
If you want to speak realistically, tell me how a runner, hunter, drone, spitter, or sentinel can consume their entire body mass and keep it contained in a tiny area (their stomach) for any duration of time.

The main reason to eat corpses is to get rid of them. Otherwise you either have a corpse taking up a nest, or you have to drag them elsewhere. It's way, way easier to just devour people.

To devour somebody, you have to remove them from the nest, aggressive grab them, and then devour them, taking around fifteen seconds. You can drag them somewhere else in less time, perhaps a small area where corpses can be piled on top of one another.

There's another issue with devouring corpses: decapitation, followed by nomming. Once you remove the body, you effectively remove any chances of the player being cloned. Nobody will go and grab a secondary corpse, remove its head, and then place the other head on the now headless body. This is prevalent on the Sulaco, and the usual excuse for the aliens is that "it's removing evidence", of course ignoring the huge amounts of blood, and the heads scattered about on the floor.

Another problem. Apparently it's easier to devour a host and take them to the hive that way. Physics aside, you spend a good number of seconds devouring the host in the first place that could be spent dragging them. If they wake up inside your stomach, you're dead anyway as they begin cutting out of it from the inside. Nowhere in the lore have aliens devoured their hosts as a means of transportation, so why here?

[canon35]

It'd be nice to have another way to transport hosts. Perhaps carrying them in your arms or on your back?

[Toroic]

After a successful hive attack, there are usually a few marines scouring the hives for alien remnants, whilst others collect corpses and take them back to the Sulaco.
If you want to speak realistically, tell me how a runner, hunter, drone, spitter, or sentinel can consume their entire body mass and keep it contained in a tiny area (their stomach) for any duration of time.
To devour somebody, you have to remove them from the nest, aggressive grab them, and then devour them, taking around fifteen seconds. You can drag them somewhere else in less time, perhaps a small area where corpses can be piled on top of one another.

There's another issue with devouring corpses: decapitation, followed by nomming. Once you remove the body, you effectively remove any chances of the player being cloned. Nobody will go and grab a secondary corpse, remove its head, and then place the other head on the now headless body. This is prevalent on the Sulaco, and the usual excuse for the aliens is that "it's removing evidence", of course ignoring the huge amounts of blood, and the heads scattered about on the floor.

Another problem. Apparently it's easier to devour a host and take them to the hive that way. Physics aside, you spend a good number of seconds devouring the host in the first place that could be spent dragging them. If they wake up inside your stomach, you're dead anyway as they begin cutting out of it from the inside. Nowhere in the lore have aliens devoured their hosts as a means of transportation, so why here?

Xenos are carnivorous, and most are either large enough to eat a human whole, or have acid strong enough to melt through metal in minutes, let alone a human body.

If xenos couldn't devour corpses, they should be able to dissolve them with acid instead.

As far as devouring and regurgitating, I think it was initially added so xenos could travel through vents with a victim in their stomach. It's less necessary now, but the pre-placed tunnels lead to areas with many hosts, and it's more convenient to grab (aliens don't have multiple types of grabs, just fast grab) and devour and use the tunnel.

[Stalin]

Xenos are carnivorous, and most are either large enough to eat a human whole, or have acid strong enough to melt through metal in minutes, let alone a human body.

Humans are carnivorous, too, but you never see incidents of us eating our own body weight over the course of a single meal. Even if we had "super acid" in our stomachs, the remnants of the body have to go somewhere - atoms cannot be destroyed. No matter what way you put it, devouring somebody whole doesn't have a place in Aliens; they're self-sustaining, their acid serving as a renewable battery, and eating a host only serves to work against the reason for their existence.

[Toroic]

Humans are carnivorous, too, but you never see incidents of us eating our own body weight over the course of a single meal. Even if we had "super acid" in our stomachs, the remnants of the body have to go somewhere - atoms cannot be destroyed. No matter what way you put it, devouring somebody whole doesn't have a place in Aliens; they're self-sustaining, their acid serving as a renewable battery, and eating a host only serves to work against the reason for their existence.

Aliens could definitely eat the head, which is the part you need for cloning.

Also, way to use the realism arguement and then provide a rediculous example immediately after.

Where did you think they get their energy? Xenos are obviously carnivorous.

[Stalin]

Also, way to use the realism arguement and then provide a rediculous example immediately after.

Where did you think they get their energy? Xenos are obviously carnivorous.

Ridiculous example? Such as what? It even states on the Xenopedia that Xenomorphs use the acid as a biological battery, its source being a magazine and a manual. I have no doubt they're capable of eating something, but we never see it happen in clear detail in the games, movies, or books. The act of consuming a whole person doesn't serve a purpose within the game. Limbs? Perhaps.

[Toroic]

[quote="Stalin"][quote="Toros"]Also, way to use the realism arguement and then provide a rediculous example immediately after.

Where did you think they get their energy? Xenos are obviously carnivorous.[/quote]

Ridiculous example? Such as what? It even states on the [url=http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Xenomorph_blood#Purpose]Xenopedia that Xenomorphs use the acid as a biological battery, its source being a magazine and a manual[/url]. I have no doubt they're capable of eating [b]something[/b], but we never see it happen in clear detail in the games, movies, or books. The act of consuming a [b]whole[/b] person doesn't serve a purpose within the game. Limbs? Perhaps.[/quote]

Well, the battery theory is listed in a paragraph about "outlandish theories." Note that outlandish is a relative term when you have a wiki about androids and space aliens.

[Arachnidnexus]

I'm kinda curious about what people think about hunters who eat corpses on the Sulaco to prevent cloning. The 'clean up the hive' argument kinda falls flat there as the hunter really has no reason to wait around and eat bodies except to meta cloning in my opinion.

[Mitchs98]

90% of the time aliens devour corpses JUST for cloning purposes. Hell I've seen them decap then devour the body and then melt the head. There is literally NO reason you should have to eat a DEAD marine. Make a small 1 x 1 room, drag all corpses there, problem solved.

I did it the past three times I was Queen, round had SIGNIFICANTLY less lag, and no one still got cloned. So if ya say devouring the corpses is needed to counter cloning, it really isn't.

[northcote4]

90% of the time aliens devour corpses JUST for cloning purposes. Hell I've seen them decap then devour the body and then melt the head. There is literally NO reason you should have to eat a DEAD marine. Make a small 1 x 1 room, drag all corpses there, problem solved.

I did it the past three times I was Queen, round had SIGNIFICANTLY less lag, and no one still got cloned. So if ya say devouring the corpses is needed to counter cloning, it really isn't.

Personally I think it's the other way around, from the rounds I've played. Most xenos seem to tend to do it for the mess purposes.

Sure, one COULD drag a body away to a corner somewhere, but that would take time and effort. It's considerably less effort to just eat a body. And even if they're devouring corpses for transport, sometimes you just forget during the midst of everything.

I'm kinda curious about what people think about hunters who eat corpses on the Sulaco to prevent cloning. The 'clean up the hive' argument kinda falls flat there as the hunter really has no reason to wait around and eat bodies except to meta cloning in my opinion.

Personally, if I'm a Sulaco hunter/runner, I tend to devour corpses for evidence's sake. True, there will be blood, but without a body, people usually aren't that attentive.

Granted, I tend to spit them up somewhere else (don't want that lag), but all the same, it's more of a stealth thing than a cloning meta thing.


In all cases, however, I will agree that melting a decapitated head is kind of a dick move. But then again, aliums aren't predators, so there's no reason to keep them around.

[Mitchs98]

Personally I think it's the other way around, from the rounds I've played. Most xenos seem to tend to do it for the mess purposes.

Sure, one COULD drag a body away to a corner somewhere, but that would take time and effort. It's considerably less effort to just eat a body. And even if they're devouring corpses for transport, sometimes you just forget during the midst of everything.

Personally, if I'm a Sulaco hunter/runner, I tend to devour corpses for evidence's sake. True, there will be blood, but without a body, people usually aren't that attentive.

Granted, I tend to spit them up somewhere else (don't want that lag), but all the same, it's more of a stealth thing than a cloning meta thing.


In all cases, however, I will agree that melting a decapitated head is kind of a dick move. But then again, aliums aren't predators, so there's no reason to keep them around.

It takes literally 10 seconds to move a corpse to a room as opposed to eating them and causing game breaking lag. What would you rather do? Take a little bit of time, or cause game breaking lag?

Melting heads is also considered meta, report it if you see it happen.

[somhuan]

As someone who likes to keep a clean hive, it takes FOREVER to drag all the dead bodies off to a garbage area. You are very slow while dragging someone, and you want it at least a minimum distance away from your host area so hosts don't get in there and loot and to prevent light contamination.

Stuff like this can really eat up your round if you let it, so it's easier to just eat the marines.
Don't get me started on aliens who claw up marines into little bits to multiply the cleanup job exponentially.

[Mitchs98]

It really doesn't, tell your sentinels(of which you should have many) to drag each host as they burst into the room. You're causing a TON of lag for something that is extremely easy and fast to do. I cannot simply stress the fact that devouring causes lag, it's gotten to the point that I've outright barred my xenos from devouring dead marines VIA Queens Orders everytime I'm Queen. People just don't seem to get that they're the ones causing the lag.

[somhuan]

Don't we have any coders or designers who can stomp whatever lag problem it is?
When the flamethrower was causing lag issues, it got fixed, and continued to be used.

[Mac]

The lag issue is from the item deletion that occurs when a corpse is eaten I'm pretty sure. I don't think there is a way around that as every bullet has to be deleted and moving them would likewise cause the lag.

[Toroic]

It looks to me then that the solution is to eliminate xenos being able to digest things in their stomachs.

-no more lag

-no meta eating head issues

-can devour to clean the nest

-aliens can turn into pinatas filled with marine corpses.

-easier for aliens to drop corpses and hide huggers

No downsides

[Arachnidnexus]

+1 for alien pinatas, bats need to be used more in melee.

[Mitchs98]

It looks to me then that the solution is to eliminate xenos being able to digest things in their stomachs.

-no more lag

-no meta eating head issues

-can devour to clean the nest

-aliens can turn into pinatas filled with marine corpses.

-easier for aliens to drop corpses and hide huggers

No downsides

This, this I agree with. So long as, along with it, the removal of decapping and aciding heads is added or made rules against.

This seems the most viable solution, instead of acid damage give slighlty more severe oxygen damage.

SO LONG AS they are spit up upon evolution or kept inside the evolved xeno and not randomly deleted/disposed of, which would probably spike the game to high hell.