Xenomorph changes and features

[GunHog]

The following changes to Xenos are created on behalf of @WJohn!

🆑
Name: WJohnston & Gun Hog
rscadd: Aliens may now force open unbolted, unwelded airlocks. Unpowered airlocks open faster than powered ones. Has a cool sound provided by @Ultimate-Chimera!
tweak: Alien Drone health increased to 125 hp.
tweak: Alien drone is now faster!
tweak: Alien egg and larva maturation times halved.
tweak: Resin membrane health increased to 160 hp.
rscadd: Aliens may now open firelocks.
rscadd: Aliens may now unweld scrubbers and vents. (From the outside!)
tweak: Droppers no longer affect aliens.
/:cl:

• Prevent lasers travelling through membranes
• Prevent droppers affecting xenos (they do not have eyes!)

Make xeno spit targeted using clicks

[Supermichael777]

REEEEEE! 👍
DNM untill airlock opening has delay

[Core0verload]

Can you make alien embryo grow 2-3 times slower in dead bodies? So the aliens would actually have a reason to keep hosts alive.

[GunHog]

Can you make alien embryo grow 2-3 times slower in dead bodies? So the aliens would actually have a reason to keep hosts alive.

If WJ wills it, sure, I can look into how that code works and adjust accordingly.

[WJohn]

<3

Also yeah I suppose longer maturation times when dead to incentivize keeping hosts alive is a nice idea, gives the humans a few more chances to escape or cause damage.

[lzimann]

Can you make alien embryo grow 2-3 times slower in dead bodies? So the aliens would actually have a reason to keep hosts alive.

Isn't it already like this?

[GunHog]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/blob/8cd8d259eeb8d6af23a08a0de8c085e2a7b4b809/code/modules/mob/living/carbon/alien/special/alien_embryo.dm#L53

[WJohn]

Also, to make drones more appealing, their speed should be increased to base human movement, like sentinels got.
All my other suggestions are here: #15886 (comment)

[RemieRichards]

Have suicide corpses not count for the extra delay, because you just KNOW people WILL do that, not might, WILL

[Dorsisdwarf]

Make suiciding / ghosting with a babby disable your alien chances too for the round.

[Robustin]

Reduce egg maturation times too.

It's another needless speed bump for Xeno growth.

[GunHog]

The egg timer has been halfed, this is already in the original commit. In the next commit, I am halfing larva's maturation goal from 200 to 100. Please note that biting people does increase growth as well, so do consider getting out and nomming on things.

Drones are also getting a speed buff as well. I have these two changes saved, but in the interest of keeping a maintainer from forcing me to do a "rebase", I am uploading my commits in batches.

One more thing: @WJohn I am not sure changing chestburster growth inside a dead host is such a good idea. Checking for both suicide AND ghosting seems excessive and problematic, but that decision is up to you.

[imtakingabreakdontatme]

You can't suicide while restrained anyway

[WJohn]

I thought about it some more, and yeah there really aren't enough incentives to actually keep a host alive. There are so many benefits given by exposing things to space and even directly killing hosts, that slightly shorter human burst times when dead doesn't really fit with what we have now. I say we leave it as-is for now.

[Razoozle]

👍 merge when?

[GunHog]

I have to finish it first. My efforts to integrate click-based aiming for xeno spit (and fireball spell) were unsuccessful, so I will have to leave that out for now, and work on the other bits.

[Razoozle]

@GunHog You can fix the door prying with this, change the cooldown with sleep if you feel the need for it. This is from citadel station. http://pastebin.com/X2x6jMyQ

[Razoozle]

Also don't forget to add this. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/211463060/ShareX/2016/04/airlockforced_alien.ogg

[GunHog]

I already made code for the airlocks, but it does contain reminders for things (shocking etc) that I will be sure to add and test. That sound is awesomesauce, and I shall use it as well. New commit shortly. I will deal with the merge conflict later.

[GunHog]

Added more stuffs. @WJohn please provide feedback when you can! Some of the things I did not get around to doing yet, they are in the OP. My action messages are thrown together, feel free to provide better ones that are more immersive, WJ.

[Razoozle]

👍 👍 👍

[GunHog]

Merge conflict? AGAIN? Seriously!? In the same file, where a conflict did not ACTUALLY exist. Ugh. Fixed again. Still waiting for @WJohn to reply.

[Razoozle]

WJohn.exe is not responding.

[WJohn]

I can vanish at random, sorry, my home internet problem is still gonna persist for a couple more weeks.

Huge 👍 to these changes. I prefer giving xenos more utility and flanking potential rather than just raw number buffs.

[GunHog]

Final changes added. WARNING: Droppers have been nerfed such that they only work on human mobs.

[Core0verload]

Add monkeys to the dropper. They have eyes too.

[WJohn]

I don't mind whether or not you can use droppers on monkeys, that's such an outlandish use that I doubt anyone would miss it.

[imtakingabreakdontatme]

Whats wrong with using droppers on xenomorphs?

Should be at least one way to capture them, and trying to melee a xenomorph is already very risky

[PKPenguin321]

yeah, undo the dropper change

[Core0verload]

Gas/foam grenades? It's already better than trying to use dropper on the alien.

[WJohn]

The dropper change was made because xenos do not have eyes (or at least they are heavily shielded by their dome heads) and it bypasses the Queen's syringe immunity. With neurotoxin from the bar being an instant knockdown, this is not okay.

[imtakingabreakdontatme]

If someone can get into the heart of the hive, avoiding all the facehuggers/neurotox projectiles/pounces/aoe tail attacks and then land their melee hit before any alien hits them, then somehow drag the queen back out, is that the worst thing in the world?

[imtakingabreakdontatme]

I guess if aliens have no eyes that makes sense though

[PKPenguin321]

muh realism
muh xenos have a weakness!! remove!!

in terms of the game itself, if somebody actually manages to pull of neurotoxining a xeno with a melee range eye dropper, that would be hype and make a great story. i dont see the problem

edit: not to mention that you're arguing realism when we're talking about a fictional creature

[GunHog]

@WJohn, what do you want me to do here?
(I could do a check for aliens, but then that would be snowflake, and lots of other mobs which lack eyes are affected by droppers. Droppers are not as decently coded as syringes were.)

[imtakingabreakdontatme]

Alight so as to the rest of the changes:

Other than the aliens growing faster, all the changes are offense oriented/aimed at letting aliens break into places more easily.

I think this is a mistake/poor direction to go in. Aliens don't have any trouble going on the offensive. Once they're on the offensive they usually win. Aliens suffer when the station is kicking down the hive door down when they only have like 2 aliens and a larva.

And not only are you buffing the wrong stage of the alien game (when they're already winning), by making it harder to defend/fortify against them, you're just making it more attractive to call the shuttle (aliens are even harder to defend against, so why bother?)

All that being said this all just suggestions, because I don't actually care enough about xenomorph balance (sorry WJ!) to not just merge this eventually.

[Razoozle]

@KorPhaeron But xenos should be able to open airlocks anyways. They can easily get trapped in rooms with no vents, no way they can escape, etc. People can easily prevent them from getting in rooms by welding/bolting the door if they needed to.

[WJohn]

Queens don't have too much trouble on defense if they are even slightly competent. Perhaps that could be improved by giving hints and tips on what to do whenever you evolve to the next stage. Blobs for example have this which is pretty useful for teaching hotkeys. If it outlined some basic key strategies I think we could make the defense consistently better, but that is for a different PR.

Also one-shotting the Queen is bullshit no matter what. It was the same shit with syringe guns and people brought up the same dumb "you deserve that kill" argument. One-shotting an unstunnable 400 HP monster is not okay, unless perhaps by bombs.

Also, the defense phase is the weakest part of xenos because they lack numbers. I'm not too sure if we should actually make it more powerful and okay to just tank everything like blob mode is, or if we should instead focus on making xenos able to move into the offensive more quickly, as that involves everyone and is more fun anyway.

[GunHog]

New change: Dropper nerf mostly reverted, xenos are still immune to them, however.

[PKPenguin321]

that is dumb

[Dorsisdwarf]

Only aliens with acid spit should be able to unweld vents