Temporal events
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:07 pm
So I've had a bunch of ideas for events. I'll try and give a quick brief then expand on the ideas.
These could perhaps work as triggered events, perhaps scaling with the threat level or in some cases perhaps triggerable by antags.
1 - UFO attack (very rare)
This is simple really. Once the event triggers on any space-station (i.e not icebox), the crew gets a warning that an unidentified vessel is fast approaching.
After say 5 minutes, a randomly rolled number of (1 to 3) flying saucers appear and start shooting at the station for about 5 minutes before vanishing.
These UFO's, will be sprited (rather than having interiors), so no need for awkward mechanics/mapping, these would just work as a mob.
These would be vulnerable to lazers and projectiles, but immune to anything else and would have a large amount of hit points (and in my mind would jump/jaunt around to make them slightly hard to aim at).
If they can be killed within the 5 minute time-frame they leave behind a random anomaly core [or perhaps something new???] and perhaps a decent amount of random ore/ semi-rare items/weapons/something.
^ how would this make the game interesting? It would cause light structural damage and breaches and deaths/injuries, whilst fuelling the dynamic gameplay to engineers , medbay, security, atmospherics, random crew members, with the end result of loot for the station or further disaster. A more exciting and more rewarding meteor event.
1(a) - UFO attack tractor beam
An expansion on the above but with only 1 UFO but with more HP and better lazers. It also has 3 tractor beams which can randomly pull people into space. IF the UFO is not destroyed in time, it may take away crew members.
If the UFO is destroyed, all crew are released from the beam.
IF 3 crew members were taken after the 5 minute event, it triggers a worse UFO assault at a later point in the round (I.e more UFOs)???
After yet another 3 minutes or so, the kidnapped crew are sent back to the station with a random medical condition/mutation/virus etc
I've kept these ideas seperate, because if 1(a) doesn't get implemented, I'd still think the original UFO idea could be fun if it was only rolled on a rare basis.
I think in the interest of avoiding grief, the UFO's would be non-controllable and would just aim and fire inwards at random points of the station with damage ranging from superficial breaches to life threatening danger depending where they spawn (and how many). The 5 minute warning is enough time to arm the crew enough to face the threat, but I think giving them a large amount of health would create a decent challenge to locate the UFO(s) then kill them to get the anomaly loot etc.
Enough to be a challenge but not round ending.
TL;DR - Space invaders
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2 - Baryon sweep (very rare)
Once the event triggers, the crew get a warning that the station is about to perform a Baryon sweep.
What does this mean? The station is cleansing itself of Baryon particles via a large slowly moving forcefield that passes through all matter going from one end of the station to another.
Yeah but what does this mean? Any organic crew need to get the fuck out of its way. Since the sweep only takes place within the station, crew can effectively duck out of an airlock for a few minutes to let it pass (assuming they have a space suit and oxygen). If not, they get dusted.
Okay but how is this fun? Sec start scrambling to get prisoners out of perma. Engineers perhaps start putting up shields. Medbay shits itself and puts all the injured people in a locker and drags them to arrivals. People beg the AI to open EVA for suits.
Cool, but isn't this unfair? No. Because there's a few ways to avoid it. The Captain/CE/RD can spend time in the Bridge at a specific console and de-activate it (but this takes say 3 minutes uninterrupted).
Or Engineers can build a forcefield (like what used to contain the SM/TESLA) and anything inside the forcefield will be safe whilst the Baryon sweep passes.
Or as mentioned duck into space for a few moments and allow it to pass in the interior of the station.
TL;DR - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwZrgR5Jo80
These could perhaps work as triggered events, perhaps scaling with the threat level or in some cases perhaps triggerable by antags.
1 - UFO attack (very rare)
This is simple really. Once the event triggers on any space-station (i.e not icebox), the crew gets a warning that an unidentified vessel is fast approaching.
After say 5 minutes, a randomly rolled number of (1 to 3) flying saucers appear and start shooting at the station for about 5 minutes before vanishing.
These UFO's, will be sprited (rather than having interiors), so no need for awkward mechanics/mapping, these would just work as a mob.
These would be vulnerable to lazers and projectiles, but immune to anything else and would have a large amount of hit points (and in my mind would jump/jaunt around to make them slightly hard to aim at).
If they can be killed within the 5 minute time-frame they leave behind a random anomaly core [or perhaps something new???] and perhaps a decent amount of random ore/ semi-rare items/weapons/something.
^ how would this make the game interesting? It would cause light structural damage and breaches and deaths/injuries, whilst fuelling the dynamic gameplay to engineers , medbay, security, atmospherics, random crew members, with the end result of loot for the station or further disaster. A more exciting and more rewarding meteor event.
1(a) - UFO attack tractor beam
An expansion on the above but with only 1 UFO but with more HP and better lazers. It also has 3 tractor beams which can randomly pull people into space. IF the UFO is not destroyed in time, it may take away crew members.
If the UFO is destroyed, all crew are released from the beam.
IF 3 crew members were taken after the 5 minute event, it triggers a worse UFO assault at a later point in the round (I.e more UFOs)???
After yet another 3 minutes or so, the kidnapped crew are sent back to the station with a random medical condition/mutation/virus etc
I've kept these ideas seperate, because if 1(a) doesn't get implemented, I'd still think the original UFO idea could be fun if it was only rolled on a rare basis.
I think in the interest of avoiding grief, the UFO's would be non-controllable and would just aim and fire inwards at random points of the station with damage ranging from superficial breaches to life threatening danger depending where they spawn (and how many). The 5 minute warning is enough time to arm the crew enough to face the threat, but I think giving them a large amount of health would create a decent challenge to locate the UFO(s) then kill them to get the anomaly loot etc.
Enough to be a challenge but not round ending.
TL;DR - Space invaders
---
2 - Baryon sweep (very rare)
Once the event triggers, the crew get a warning that the station is about to perform a Baryon sweep.
What does this mean? The station is cleansing itself of Baryon particles via a large slowly moving forcefield that passes through all matter going from one end of the station to another.
Yeah but what does this mean? Any organic crew need to get the fuck out of its way. Since the sweep only takes place within the station, crew can effectively duck out of an airlock for a few minutes to let it pass (assuming they have a space suit and oxygen). If not, they get dusted.
Okay but how is this fun? Sec start scrambling to get prisoners out of perma. Engineers perhaps start putting up shields. Medbay shits itself and puts all the injured people in a locker and drags them to arrivals. People beg the AI to open EVA for suits.
Cool, but isn't this unfair? No. Because there's a few ways to avoid it. The Captain/CE/RD can spend time in the Bridge at a specific console and de-activate it (but this takes say 3 minutes uninterrupted).
Or Engineers can build a forcefield (like what used to contain the SM/TESLA) and anything inside the forcefield will be safe whilst the Baryon sweep passes.
Or as mentioned duck into space for a few moments and allow it to pass in the interior of the station.
TL;DR - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwZrgR5Jo80