Xenomorph Rework

Foreword

Motivation

Xenomorphs, as they stand in Paradise, are extremely broken. They are very unfun for crew to fight against, with a number of issues that make interactions with them one-sided. The only reliable counter is mech spam - hardly an ideal solution from a design perspective. They also rely heavily on unfair mechanics. Xenos are also lacking in comparison to other antags, with limited abilities or variety, and need to be brought up to the same level as others (such as Terrors.)

It's notable that it is unlikely this rework will be able to be fully finished or merged before combat changes are fully introduced, as Xenomorphs are heavily reliant on combat (as humanoids themselves) currently. The reason I'm posting this now, and not afterwards, is I may not be able to post this in the future (depending on how long the combat changes take).

Here are some issues with current Xenomorphs:

• Instant taser-level paralysis stuns
  • Stun intent has a 100% chance to disarm followed up by a 100% chance to stun.
  • Facehuggers can also be used as a long-range instant stun tool, with similar time to Taser stuns.
• Hunters move at sanic speeds, being nearly impossible to hit with conventional weapons
  • They have no cooldown on their leap ability if they miss a leap or are blocked by Riot shields
• Sentinel and Queen spit is relatively cheap and has no cooldown, allowing them to quite literally become machine gun tasers.
  • The code is also seriously out of date.
• Burst gibbing removes players from the round with little to no reasonable recourse for recovery
• Very few abilities to use, and are spread across multiple castes of Xenos.
  • Some abilities are very flawed in implementation - Acid takes a long time to act and pulls a list of everything on screen, even if it's out of range.
• Only three castes to reasonably choose - pitiful compared to the variety of Terrors.
  • Not counting Queen, as there can be only one.
  • Ontop of this, Drones do not really fulfill a meaningful niche in the Xeno heirarchy aside from being a replacement Queen.
• Frequent cases of old, outdated code.
  • Numerous cases of code that has been commented out instead of removed.
  • Min/max variables used instead of clamp.
  • All abilities are dated verbs, instead of much better Spells. Only one uses a UI icon.
  • Unique plasma vessel organs exist for all Xeno castes, giving each caste a unique plasma count for balance… and are completely unused?
• And possibly more. My personal experience with Xenomorphs is limited, but this is everything I have come across so far.

Desired Outcome

To make them at the very least more fun and enjoyable to play for both Crew and Xenos, as well as fix up their code and bring it in-line with more recent changes and updates. Ideally, Xenos will be on par with other antagonist roles such as Vampires or Terrors, and no longer rely on any unfun or unfair mechanics. However, I personally will be content with getting them in pretty much any state better than they currently are - I just like Xenomorphs.

All in all, the desired end state of Xenomorphs is for them to become an all-out threat that requires the entire station to fight, similar to blobs or terrors. Some inspiration is taken from Colonial Marines, but everything needs to be reconsidered for the different circumstances of Paradise (pop count, technology, civilians, etc.). Xenomorphs will generally be less numerous than Terrors, but stronger individually, with a build-up of a larger and larger hive over time. Xenos need the ability to handle high-tier station threats (mechs, ERTs, etc.), and vice-versa.

Design

Mechanics

Mechanic: Evolutions

New evolutions for each type of Xenomorph, in order to give them much more powerful versions to evolve to for when the crew steps up the game with riot armor, shields, lasers, and possibly also mechs.

• Add Praetorian as an Evolution for Sentinels - rebalance them appropriately.
• Add Empress as an Evolution for Queens. Also requires rebalancing.
• Hunters and/or Drones could use new Evolutions too, but this will require far more work as they do not currently exist in code
  • Primarily spriting, unless the sprites can be ported from elsewhere.
  • Must be designed from scratch.
• These extra castes should be geared towards later stages of the fighting, and take time to unlock.
• Should be capable of being somewhat of a threat to mechs - current castes are steamrolled by mechs with no recourse.
• If these castes are made to be game enders, limiting the amount of them is wise.
• An Admin-only version of Praetorians and Empresses should be added for Admin events.

Mechanic: Limited Facehugger Carrying

A current problem is the ability for a hunter to carry two huggers, ventcrawl to other side of map, and easily hug and kidnap two victims simultaniously. By restricting this to backline castes (namely Drones and Queens), it gives these castes an actual use. It also forces teamwork between Xenos if they wish to attempt to hug someone in the field.

• Restricts Xenos to only carry facehuggers if they have a specific variable set.
• It can easily be added/removed from any Xenomorph caste at any time for balance purposes.
• Does not affect other humanoid mobs, which are always capable of carrying facehuggers.

Passives

Passive: Health/Plasma Regen off of Weeds

Currently, health and plasma regenerate on weeds exclusively - giving Xenos a smaller level of regeneration off of weeds (terror level, perhaps?) would allow non-building castes to continue sustaining the fight, even without a queen or hive. Still on the fence about this - more feedback/thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

• More sustainability to Xenos without a Queen
• Should be extremely small - otherwise, Weeds offer little benefit
• Would allow capturing castes to spend more time outside the hive searching for and capturing hosts.

Passive: Xenomorph Death Alarms

Terrors can see when and where fellow terrors die, as they are all linked via a hivemind. Xenomorphs are the same and should have the same mechanic. It gives all Xenomorphs much greater awareness as to what exactly is happening on station.

• Should be simple to implement - code already exists for Terrors.
• Possibly tie it to an organ, such as the Hive Node? Could have some interesting implications for crew.

Passives: Weed Movement Speed

A suggested passive ability which I believe would improve the gameplay of Xenos and give more importance to hive-building castes (Drones/Queens) would be to give Xenos a small speed buff on Weeds, and/or give Crew a small speed debuff on weeds, to encourage Xenos to fight on home turf for an advantage, rather than immediately running away elsewhere on the station. Will definitely need feedback and/or testing before implemented.

• Xenos have increased speed on Weeds
• Non-xeno humanoids have decreased speed on weeds
• Both should be small buffs/debuffs - speed and stuns are kings of combat on Paradise currently

Abilities

Ability: Queen Sight

Currently, Queens lack the ability to watch fellow Xenomorphs on station. Terrors have this ability and it benefits them greatly - especially once their nest/hive has been established and they have little else to do.

Cost: None.
Cooldown: None.

• Gives Queens something to do once Hive is done
• Better situational awareness as to the general status of the fighting across the station
• Easier for Queens to direct, help, or order specific Xenomorphs around
• Opens the door for some Queen watching abilities to be implemented (such as Pheromones/Leaders from CM).

Ability Stronger Acid

Currently, Xenomorph acid is barely capable of melting down a normal wall or window. Terrors have the ability to destroy walls with the simple click of a button. Stronger spit or acid, for stronger castes, would allow those Xenos to open up new routes and paths much quicker and allow more mobility throughout the station.

Cost: 200 Plasma
Cooldown: Medium

• Current acid is quite weak - deals little damage and melts walls, windows, and doors extremely slowly (often taking multiple doses) while being quite expensive,
• Xenos have little ability to break walls, while Terrors and other antagonists can do so quite easily and with good reason.
• This will melt normal walls/windows in one spit cycle, rather than multiple.
• Should NOT be able to break reinforced walls. AI is already cheesable by enough antags.

Ability: Strong Neurotoxic Spit

Neurotoxic spit is great for stuns, however does little damage. Once the crew gears up, and the time is for fighting and not for capturing, cheap stun spam is not fun for the person on the receiving end. Spit focused on damage, and not stun for more powerful, combat-focused castes would make combat overall more enjoyable.

Cost: 100 Plasma
Cooldown: Short
Desc: Spit strong neurotoxic acid capable of punching through armor.

• Exclusive to later castes, and more expensive.
• Damage values must be considered carefully - not too high for unarmored people, but not too low for armored personnel.
• Should not stun, period. Purely for fighting purposes.

Ability: Tail Sweep

Originally suggested on the PR, this would be an ability that hits multiple tiles infront of the Xeno, dealing brute and stamina damage to anyone caught in it. Short range, but gives Xenos the ability to attack multiple people at a time, similar to some antags like Vampires.

Cost: None
Cooldown: Long
Desc: Lash out with your tail, striking adjacent targets.

• Damage needs to be considered carefully, for same reasons as Strong Neurotoxic Spit.
• Shouldn't be spammable. Plasma costs do not make sense, so a longer cooldown is better here.
• Torn on best implementation - Xeno spins, hitting all adjacent tiles, or simply hits the three adjacent tiles in direction they are facing?
• A stronger, combat focused variant for later castes may be a good idea as well.

Ability: Clear Vent

Terrors have the ability to smash vents from either the inside or the outside, Xenos should be able to open vents, too. Currently, Xenos can use Harm Intent on closed vents to slash them open from the outside. From the inside, however, they have literally nothing, making them very easy to contain by just simply welding vents.

Cost: 50 Plasma
Cooldown: Short

• Code could easily be lifted from Brown Terrors for this ability.
  • May be possible to adapt existing code to use harm intent on vents from the inside as well.
  • Alternatively, this could be changed to be akin to spitting acid on the Vent, slowly breaking it open and costing plasma.
• This may be best to restrict to certain castes, so that not every Xenomorph can bust into surgery rooms and kidnap surgeons mid-surgery.

Balance Changes

Rework: Stun Mechanics

Xenomorph stuns need to be changed. A 100% chance to disarm and stun on click is quite extreme, especially when Paradise has been attempting to move away from stuns in general. Not only is spam tackling fast and easy, it literally paralyzes the victim, knocking them unconscious.

• Should deal stamina damage instead
  • Alternatively, some sort of cooldown on tackling would make spam-tackle less viable.
• At the very least, something similar to existing disarm intent stuns would be preferable to guaranteed.

Rework: Acid

Acid seems to be busted, particularly in that it doesn't appear to affect Mechs. I'm unsure why or how - it uses existing procs referenced elsewhere in code, so fixing it might be complicated.

• If gameplay impact is minimal (just mechs are broken), this can be delayed until later.

Remove: Hunter Speed Increase

Hunters going at sanic speed is not fun to fight, and makes them nigh-unkillable. They already have a leap that allows them to cross great distances rapidly - their move speed is uneccessary, and other measures can be taken to ensure they remain powerful.

• Doesn't necessarily need outright removal, can be replaced with less harsh speed values to tweak balance.
• Increasing the speed of leap or decreasing leap cooldown can provide higher mobility if these changes are too much

Add: Xenomorph Brute Resistance/Health Increase

If Xenomorphs are going to lose speed and stuns, they need something to counteract it to stay powerful - either damage resistance, an increase in health, or both. Autorifles and other ballistic weapons deal similar damage to lasers, while also having upwards of double the ammo capacity, making them shred Xenos without the speed to run away.

• Xenos take 70% Brute Damage from all sources.
  • 70% is a fair margin - not so low that all melee weapons become useless, but not so high that autorifles are overpowered.
• 25-50 extra points of health
  • Combined with the above change, this makes Xenos take two extra shots to kill for ballistic weapons, and one extra shot to kill for lasers. Seems minor, considering the nerfs to stun and speed.

Tweak: Hunter Cooldown

The hunter cooldown is quite fast, and doesn't apply to all leaps - only ones which connect with a target and stuns them. They can leap instantly after missed leaps. The hunter's stun from blocked and failed leaps is also extremely quick to recover from.

• Possibly an oversight, but the leap cooldown should function for blocked, missed, or failed leaps (hitting a wall) for consistency.
• Cooldown is extremely fast, only a couple of seconds. Makes it rediculously easy to chain stab, and certainly needs to be longer.
• Hunter's stun from a blocked leap is barely enough time to get a laser shot off. May be imbalanced and need tweaking as well.

Deletion: Larva Gibbing

This is one of the most requested changes for Xenos. Larva gibbing makes it nearly impossible to recover a person once they've been infected and burst. Not only does crew have to fight through the entire Xeno force, they also need to get the brain and MMI it or humanize a monkey to implant it. This takes leagues more time and effort than it does to infect and burst a host, doubly so considering the breakout time of a host on a nest is barely long enough to break out before bursting. Xenos also tend to leave little time for surgeons to focus on things other than powering through IB, infected hosts, broken bones, and organ damage.

• Will not affect balance. A common defense is that gibbing creates ghosts for new Xenos, however if no ghosts choose to become a Xeno, the host themselves will take control of the larva. This means that there will always be a soul for every burst, unless the host leaves the server.
• Notable that Organ Manipulation is one of (if not the) longest surgeries for most races, and is how you remove Larva. It is extremely common for patients to burst on the surgery table, seconds before removal, effectively ending a patient's round with gibbing.

Minor Tweaks & Balance Changes

• Queen speed increased by 1/3rd.
• Evolution requires both full plasma and maturity.
• Increased Drone plasma gain per tick from 10 to 15.

Quality of Life Changes

###Ability Spell Rework
Currently, all abilities for Xenomorphs use a practically ancient method for abilities through verbs, many of which do not allow for targeting or use menus to select items on screen. Every ability needs to be reworked into spells which allow for much, much cleaner and smoother usage and improved functionality.