Prevent hugger stun/decap combinations by adding a rule

[Arachnidnexus]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

Currently this is the rule for how xenos should treat infected hosts:

• Do not Kill infected hosts (once they have the icon) if they are defenseless or nested. It's counter-productive to your cause of spreading. If a marine escapes the nest and uses a weapon to resist, THEN you may kill them, but you should try to tackle and nest them. Remember: The most hosts you get, the more aliens you get.

What I've seen happen a fair bit, though, is that xenos will use the hugger as a guaranteed stun on a marine and then go for a head decapitation while the hugger is still on the marine's face stunning them. Technically this seems to be within the rules since the host is not infected until the hugger falls off and the icon appears. My proposal is to add a line to the xeno rules to prevent willful harm on a host if a live facehugger is currently on their face as well.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

I believe that this will close up a loophole in the rules which players have abused before. This will explicitly remove an element of powergaming from CM and be better RP-wise (I do not recall a single instance of xenos using facehuggers to stun-kill in the media).

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

Especially with the nice buff that guarantees a SSD larva, I feel that a xenomorph using a facehugger only to kill the host breaks the spirit of the "do not harm infected unless they fight back" rule and is poor xeno RP. Securing hosts and keeping them alive for new xenomorphs is fundamental to what playing as aliens should be about, and the fact that this loophole exists allows for quite cheap and effective murderboning. Adding this rule would benefit the RP and gameplay because it would restrict xenos to using huggers for their intended purpose and would hopefully create more SSD larva which would give ghosts a better chance at re-entering the round.

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

Add a line to the xenomorph rules explicitly forbidding the willful harming a host who has a live facehugger on them.

[HalfdeadKiller]

+1 for pretty much all the reasons already stated.

[Aredal]

Well xenos have their instant 100% melee stun from a face hugger which they use to kill and marines have their instant RANGED stun which they use to kill, and most likely multiple xenos at once. So I would say that I would give +1 if SADAR was nerfed. Otherwise I'm willing for stun decaps to stay.

[coroneljones]

Actually the hug and decap before infection is a legit tactic,according to apop

Just informing

[Arachnidnexus]

I know that it's allowed, and the suggestion is to have it removed because I feel that it's a lore-breaking and cheap tactic. And Aredal, I agree that SADARs are cheap as well, but facehuggers and Carriers can be replenished much faster than rockets and SADARs.

[Aredal]

Marines run faster then xenos and can do a full 360 no scope ANTI TANK ROCKET shot while at full speed , also marines can have a total of 7 rockets in a backpack and they can additionaly pull one more backpack if they want while having an another weapon with mags for it in the belt, and a single rocket will stun more than 1 xeno in most cases, so 1 rocket is almost like 2 face hugged people. And you can just use supply beacons to send them more missles while planet side.

[Aredal]

^ to fill that in, the thing that balances the sadar to facehug decap is that sadar is ranged and safer with somewhat limited tries, while you have near infinite tries with facehugs, but they are very risky and the moment you charge at a marine you need to excpect 30 bullets from which about 10 will kill you for sure. And the fact that there will be more than 1 person with a rifle.

[Arachnidnexus]

I'm not a fan of keeping cheap and lore-breaking tactics in just because it counters another cheap tactic, to be honest. Breaching arguably countered marine turtling on the Sulaco, but that was not very fun and quite cheap as well. I don't think that removing this tactic will really nerf xenos considering the new guaranteed SSD larva from hosts, to be honest.

[Aredal]

I'm not a fan of cheap tactics all together, but still I would rather have a cheap counter to a cheap thing then a cheap thing without a counter aka imbalance. Also we will see if the new xeno ssd larva feature will work good as a replacement when it is in. Then maybe we could have some rounds with ssd larvas but no hug decap. It is up to the admins though. Also breaching sulaco was not a counter to marine turtling I think, it was to reality braking shooting thourgh metal rods, which not only blocked everything other than bullets, like spits, but shocked with A VERY LONG STUN too, and stun combat 1 stun= death is cheap. If only we could have not cheap things on both sides, it would make less salt happen.

[Wickedtemp]

-1

Apop's cool with it, and by the time the aliens are supposed to do this the Queen has made a "Kill on sight" order. The marines aren't even technically infected until the hugger falls off on it's own, LONG before the marine would die.

[ForcefulCJS]

-1 (Dunno why the community does this is isn't Reddit but whatever gets my point across)

I'll comment on the post-infestation side since it looks like hug n' kill pre-infestation isn't at risk.

Controlling hosts is already a nightmare, if a queen doesn't want decaps she can disable slashing, if queen wants contextual slashing then there's a command for that too and she can clarify it in Hivemind, disobeying a direct order from a queen and destroying viable hosts will get you banned as it is.

Trying to tell me which marines are "helpless" is something thats absurdly difficult to enforce. A marine that's "helpless" one second can be holding a rocket launcher the next. Limb stuff is almost entirely run on RNG and xenos suck at being able to identify the physical injuries of a host, you can slash a dude 10 times only to find out he can still use his shotgun and blow you away. This crappiness of the infestation system often FORCES xenos to resort to the only thing that guarantees a host wont wake up and murder half your hive, a complete decapitation.

It's an uncommon situation, but it happens:

1) A couple hosts were recently infested in a forward nest but now an overwhelming rescue team is on the way, there is no hope of being able to drag the hosts away (they are awake and yelling for help), and your hive has knowledge that larva can be removed. The completely appropriate response here would be to quickly kill the hosts.

2) Your hives been SADAR'd and you now have a specialist captured and can see the SADAR in his suit storage (but for some stupid reason you can't remove it). If I were a queen in that situation I'd absolutely support tearing his head off. Same thing applies when squad leaders are able to use orbital beacons in the nest, once that relationship has been made I'd support executing squad leaders.

3) Some dude is away from the nest and resisting without a weapon. Sorry a retrieval is almost impossible in this case, if it looks like he's getting near rescue I'd support going full lethal unless he's close to bursting (again might be contingent on alien knowledge of facehugger surgery).

4) Some dude got loose and went on a killing spree using explosives, .44, etc... why give him another chance to do it again?

[Wickedtemp]

-1 (Dunno why the community does this is isn't Reddit but whatever gets my point across)

I'll comment on the post-infestation side since it looks like hug n' kill pre-infestation isn't at risk.

Controlling hosts is already a nightmare, if a queen doesn't want decaps she can disable slashing, if queen wants contextual slashing then there's a command for that too and she can clarify it in Hivemind, disobeying a direct order from a queen and destroying viable hosts will get you banned as it is.

Trying to tell me which marines are "helpless" is something thats absurdly difficult to enforce. A marine that's "helpless" one second can be holding a rocket launcher the next. Limb stuff is almost entirely run on RNG and xenos suck at being able to identify the physical injuries of a host, you can slash a dude 10 times only to find out he can still use his shotgun and blow you away. This crappiness of the infestation system often FORCES xenos to resort to the only thing that guarantees a host wont wake up and murder half your hive, a complete decapitation.

It's an uncommon situation, but it happens:

1) A couple hosts were recently infested in a forward nest but now an overwhelming rescue team is on the way, there is no hope of being able to drag the hosts away (they are awake and yelling for help), and your hive has knowledge that larva can be removed. The completely appropriate response here would be to quickly kill the hosts.

2) Your hives been SADAR'd and you now have a specialist captured and can see the SADAR in his suit storage (but for some stupid reason you can't remove it). If I were a queen in that situation I'd absolutely support tearing his head off. Same thing applies when squad leaders are able to use orbital beacons in the nest, once that relationship has been made I'd support executing squad leaders.

3) Some dude is away from the nest and resisting without a weapon. Sorry a retrieval is almost impossible in this case, if it looks like he's getting near rescue I'd support going full lethal unless he's close to bursting (again might be contingent on alien knowledge of facehugger surgery).

4) Some dude got loose and went on a killing spree using explosives, .44, etc... why give him another chance to do it again?

I don't kill marines that are nested unless they're about to kill other xenos. I tend to play as a Sentinel so I can normally neuro-spit them before they can get a shot off, re-nest, drag away their weapon, acid it, repeat until they burst or run out of weapons. Doing anything else gives them a window to suicide or potentially blow something up, maybe even get other hosts free so I play 'babysitter'...

It sucks because, if the marines pack extra pistols, they're a threat until they use the last one. It really fucking sucks having to just sit there and watch the same marine because if you don't, they'll kill themselves or some shit. I cannot tell you how much I wish I didn't have to do this, but... What else am I going to do? Now since they'll always burst it isn't AS bad but it still sucks.

[SkyeAuroline]

Marines run faster then xenos and can do a full 360 no scope ANTI TANK ROCKET shot while at full speed , also marines can have a total of 7 rockets in a backpack and they can additionaly pull one more backpack if they want while having an another weapon with mags for it in the belt, and a single rocket will stun more than 1 xeno in most cases, so 1 rocket is almost like 2 face hugged people. And you can just use supply beacons to send them more missles while planet side.

Well xenos have their instant 100% melee stun from a face hugger which they use to kill and marines have their instant RANGED stun which they use to kill, and most likely multiple xenos at once. So I would say that I would give +1 if SADAR was nerfed. Otherwise I'm willing for stun decaps to stay.

You guys realize that at maximum, four marines can carry SADARs (the specialists) out of 60-90 marines (seems to be the recent numbers) from the start, whereas facehugger insta-stun is possible from the very beginning for a significantly larger chunk of xenos, right? And that SADARs are banned on the prison map, hence having no effect there, while facehuggers aren't (obviously)?

+1 to removing the stun/decap deal. It'd be nice if we could instead make huggers into an actually-useful foe instead of throw-and-instant-effect grenades/landmines, but then we're getting into the territory of having players play the huggers or giving huggers decent AI, both of which aren't viable as far as I know.

[Aredal]

Yes I realise that there can be 4 specialists per game, and about 50 more people who cover them with a ton of suppresive fire that getting into while there is a sadar specialist is death. But I also realise that when there is max 4 specialists, most of the times the xenos are in numbers of about 8-12, so bassicly the specialists themselfes are almost the half of the xenos while there is still like 40-50 more marines with rifles which kill xenos very fast if they attack or move into line of sight. And the sadar being banned on prision comes with banning of breaching for both sides on all maps. So xenos cannot breach on Sulaco too even if the map is Lazarus Landing, while marines can have their deal on Lazarus. Also to beat face hugger stacks, marines can just use someone who was infected, stand still while next to an another marine while shooting and taking huggers off at the same time and killing the ones next to them beucase they do not attack when you don't move and many more ways aviable with being just able to get an another helmet replecment for free, and surgery to remove a larva from the infected face hugger killers.

[apophis775]

The rules were written, to allow specifically this.

[SASoperative]

The rules were written, to allow specifically this.

This is directly from the rules in a post
UPDATE:

New part of Xeno rule 1: "Do not Kill infected infected hosts (once they have the icon) if they are defenseless or nested. It's counter-productive to your cause of spreading. If a marine escapes the nest and uses a weapon to resist, THEN you may kill them, but you should try to tackle and nest them. Remember: The most hosts you get, the more aliens you get.

EVEN I AM CONFUSED

I think you may be confused or drunk Apop.... He is talking about aliens putting a facehugger on a marine and than instantly slashing them to death as the facehugger is on them

[Toroic]

This is directly from the rules in a post
UPDATE:

New part of Xeno rule 1: "Do not Kill infected infected hosts (once they have the icon) if they are defenseless or nested. It's counter-productive to your cause of spreading. If a marine escapes the nest and uses a weapon to resist, THEN you may kill them, but you should try to tackle and nest them. Remember: The most hosts you get, the more aliens you get.

EVEN I AM CONFUSED

I think you may be confused or drunk Apop.... He is talking about aliens putting a facehugger on a marine and than instantly slashing them to death as the facehugger is on them

He's not confused, hug/decap is intended to be A tactic xenos use late game. Thus the rules don't exclude it.

[SASoperative]

The issue with this is just that they are basicly infected at that point once the facehugger is on them. If they have the time to slash someone to death they had the time to pull them out and to a nest than
The objective of the aliens is to allow the infestation to spread... This just seems extremely counter productive

[apophis775]

No, they are infected once the icon is there. The icon is generated as an overlay by that Alien Embryo.

And yes, the objective is to spread, but sometimes it's better for the xenon to just kill people. Hence why, we gave le queen the ability to control that.

[ForcefulCJS]

I just got warned that it was against the rules for me to lop the feet off a squad leader once they were nested.

The only nest I could reach before he woke up was a frontline nest, my only stun was tackle so I had no way to guarantee that he would even stay in the nest. Once he got loose he could cut his way out and get back to the marine line (with that facehugger immunity) in about 20 seconds. We had had several marine escapees at that point and we knew that hosts who escaped would explode in strange places where the larva would get murdered (aka the Sulaco or the dropship).

Realistically I had no chance of containing the squadleader without crippling him, so I slashed his feet off and got told that it was against the rules.

So next time instead of TRYING to host him, I should just start slashing his face off before the infestation takes hold? That seems like a bizarre rule.

[Toroic]

I just got warned that it was against the rules for me to lop the feet off a squad leader once they were nested.

The only nest I could reach before he woke up was a frontline nest, my only stun was tackle so I had no way to guarantee that he would even stay in the nest. Once he got loose he could cut his way out and get back to the marine line (with that facehugger immunity) in about 20 seconds. We had had several marine escapees at that point and we knew that hosts who escaped would explode in strange places where the larva would get murdered (aka the Sulaco or the dropship).

Realistically I had no chance of containing the squadleader without crippling him, so I slashed his feet off and got told that it was against the rules.

So next time instead of TRYING to host him, I should just start slashing his face off before the infestation takes hold? That seems like a bizarre rule.

Generally forward nests are a bad idea, because they aren't secure.

If you can get the marine to a secure nest (easiest when you hug, devour, run/use tunnel.) then it's worth doing, or if you have plenty of other xenos there as backup.

Otherwise you're probably better off killing them outright, tactically.

You shouldn't really cripple before they escape, but if you have a checkerboard, surrounded by sticky resin, hosts will struggle to escape.

[apophis775]

I just got warned that it was against the rules for me to lop the feet off a squad leader once they were nested.

The only nest I could reach before he woke up was a frontline nest, my only stun was tackle so I had no way to guarantee that he would even stay in the nest. Once he got loose he could cut his way out and get back to the marine line (with that facehugger immunity) in about 20 seconds. We had had several marine escapees at that point and we knew that hosts who escaped would explode in strange places where the larva would get murdered (aka the Sulaco or the dropship).

Realistically I had no chance of containing the squadleader without crippling him, so I slashed his feet off and got told that it was against the rules.

So next time instead of TRYING to host him, I should just start slashing his face off before the infestation takes hold? That seems like a bizarre rule.

You had 100% no reason to lop off his feet as far as I can tell. And remember, just because someone is infected and escapes, doesn't mean they are going to live.

With the update I put in a bit ago people *should* burst around 5 minutes after infection. Since it takes 2 minutes to escape from a nest if they are resisting, they should be fine to just leave there, as if they escape the nest unless they start attacking other aliens, they've only got around 3 minutes before they burst. Typically, a marine should only have enough time to escape from the nest once.

[Wickedtemp]

There's no reason to slash hosts much when you have a good checkerboard nest and if you have sentinels doing their job and guarding. It sucks, but it's doable.

[ForcefulCJS]

But I was still in the same goofy bind where the rules encourage me to murder someone rather than infest and take a ~75% chance of them escaping.

After Sunday's "lol a squad leader instagibbed you with a knife because no click delay while devoured", I didn't want to risk getting blown up trying to run back to the main nest, so I used our "forward" nest that had gotten really close to the marine frontline after marines pushed out. There was only one resin door between him and freedom and as a carrier I knew I had 0 ways to keep him contained. We had already lost most of our aliens and I knew I wouldn't be able to watch him closely since I had to run back to nest for more huggers. Given our numbers there was pretty much nobody left (it was 4 v. 40 around this time) to even watch him (the only other alien on the front was also a carrier) so it was virtually certain he'd run free once he got out of the resin. I chopped his feet to give us a chance to infest him but after getting contacts I'm just going to cut his head off if it happens again. How does that help anyone though when I'm told that its better to murder hosts rather than try to nest them and do the ONLY thing a xeno can do to prevent someone from escaping in their absence... break their feet off.

There's no reason to slash hosts much when you have a good checkerboard nest and if you have sentinels doing their job and guarding. It sucks, but it's doable.

You said you played highpop every day and always saw marines win, you should know that having enough xenos of the proper caste to watch a nest becomes increasingly impossible as the round goes on and xenos enter a spiral of death because as you lose certain castes you can't even nest effectively (meanwhile average marines are welding doors, administering first aid, and using specialist weapons *ahem*). At that point it seems like the rules say "start murdering because you sure as hell ain't going to keep anyone nested as a carrier!".

[Wickedtemp]

At that point, the game turns to "Infect as many as possible." because some of them WILL burst, or they'll suicide, and that's one less marine to deal with.

Then there's the end-game Xeno assault, at that point just kill unless the Queen forbids it. There have been rounds, not high-pop, where we nested most of the Sulaco, didn't kill any of them except for a couple.