New Antagonist: Ancient Robot; Redux

[swinglow20]

Hello all!
Last October, I kind of quit work on a project to create a new midround antagonist centered around the Ancient artifact type. I still want to work on the project, but it definitely needs a more streamlined, concrete direction.

I have a few ideas I want to run by the community, and I'd love to hear what you all think and hear any ideas you all might have for the project. 

Some background: from what little we know about them, the Ancient species are silicon based lifeforms with a particular disdain for organic life. They are tied to some secret content that I wont go in to here. Their artifacts are the blackish-grey ones that look like uqill. 

Idea A) tweaked original concept:

The original idea for this was a midround boss antagonist. A derelict Ancient satellite would float by the station, pick up lifeform readings and reactivate, then send a drone out to search and destroy the crew. 

This idea is pretty round disruptive, and I had a hard time thinking of a way it could be playable on RP. There isn't much interaction room with an entity that simply wants you dead and wont talk to you. Some changes to this concept that may make it more RP friendly would be a "bounty" system that gives the drone certain crew it needs to destroy. Almost like a mix of hunter and spief. 

Idea B) "Snatcher" game mode: 

A derelict Ancient satellite would float by the station, pick up lifeform readings and reactivate.
The player spawns in an Ancient satellite as a scout drone tasked by the central intelligence to collect data on the crew. This comes in the form of the drone latching on to the player's head and then teleporting away with it. (Just the head maybe). As the central intelligence gathers more intelligence from the minds collected, the scout drone would be able to upgrade and adapt to the crew's response to it's presence. The minds gathered could also serve a purpose as a new part of the "Collective" as they could be put in new drones and also snatch members of the crew. They could also potentially gather resources to upgrade the drones, as the central intelligence would need raw materials in order to upgrade the drones. 

This method of the antagonist offers much greater counterplay while still retaining the core idea of "This thing is antithesis to human life". Instead of a directly violent approach, this would come off more as cold, calculated indifference. There's also a much stronger gameplay loop for the antagonist as opposed to "murder everything." Also, the higher the position on the chain of command, the greater the resource gain, as they would have better information on Nanotrasen and it's systems. (Also yes I designed the scout drone to look like a claw machine grabber)

Idea C) "Malf AI": 

This time YOU spawn as the central intelligence of the AI satellite. The derelict Ancient satellite would float by the station, pick up lifeform readings and reactivate. You would have resources such as drone shells in order to explore and gather information on the crew, but you yourself would exist as an overseer. At first you could not have access to the station's systems, but as you hack their systems, you could gain access to things like cameras and doors. Similar to the "snatcher" idea, you could need to gather minds to fuel your drones, and it would have a similar progression as you upgrade your drones and start to engage the crew. 

I'm not too sure how I feel about this one, as there's a reason we don't have Malfunctioning AI inherent to the antagonist pool. The AI is a very powerful tool for the crew that is bound by the law rack. Something with the same level of access as the AI without a way to disrupt it would be difficult to shape counterplay around. The good thing is, the central intelligence is locked out of the station at round start. Engineering might be able to modify station systems in order to keep drones and the central intelligence out while the crew searches for the Ancient Satellite. 

On the topic of the Ancient Satellite. 

Once the crew has destroyed a significant amount of drones, I want the crew to be able to confront the central intelligence. I think having each drone drop components the crew can utilize for weaponry or research would be pretty cool. To that end, once central command gives the go ahead, research can program the teleporter with coordinates for the Ancient Satellite and attempt to destroy the central intelligence. This would give the central intelligence a reason to not be so blatant with their drone usage, as each lost drone is one more edge the crew has over it. 
Anyway, that's all I have so far! Below I have attached some sprites for the mid-range drone, the scout drone, and the worker drone. 

(Also yes, if you couldn't tell, this is taking significant liberties to a certain Sci-Fi Franchise  )

   
   
   

[swinglow20]

So, from talking with people on the discord, I feel like option B is the most popular of the 3 options I have currently. Going forward, I intend to use this space to organize my thoughts on developing the project while leaving it open to community feedback. 

Multiple members of the community have raised concerns about escalation. Part of the escalation, I feel, would be a watchful eye announcement making the Ancient Satellite's presence known to the crew. Beyond that, it would be up to the players controlling the Ancients to fill in the gaps. This opens up a few issues in terms of meta knowledge and proper progression for the Ancients. Something that was discussed would be the Ancient artifacts speaking through certain members of the crew, similar to how normal artifacts can make players say gibberish. I think it would be cool if certain members of the crew were designated as "conduits" for the Ancients and could be spoken through while also being able to tell where the drones were. I would like to come back to this at a later date, once I've fleshed out the mechanics more. 

An idea that was pitched would be to have the Ancient drones be tied to an energy system that would deplete similarly to the cyborgs. The drone would need to return to the satellite in order to recharge and repair for the next engagement. This would prevent a lot of rampaging issues, as the drone would need to think out their plan of attack and not over-extend. However, a downside would be that this would promote hit and run gameplay that would make the antagonist unfun to fight. I do think the energy system is necessary in order to balance out the drones' combat. 

The scout drones, or the "snatchers" would have their own tools to incapacitate the crew before teleporting off with their quarry. I think a basic shock prod would work, and someone suggested having a "blink" ability that would teleport them a few tiles forward. Once the snatcher latches on to a target, there needs to be an interval between the initial grab and the teleportation in order to give the crew a chance to prevent the grab-and-go. The victim would lose eyesight but would still be able to vocalize and move around. While the drone is latched on, they would be able to control the player's hands but not their movement. This could lead to some interesting interactions with the crew, where a crewmember could be calling for help but would still be attacking the crew. 

I think, for the sake of simplifying an already complex project, I need to nix the resource gathering component of the gameplay loop. The central intelligence would have access to abundant resources, but would only be able to work on manufacturing so much at one time, dependent on how much information you've gathered. This would curb the snowball effect that the game-mode might introduce if the satellite was able to manufacture a ton of stuff at one time. 

I have a few ideas for how the crew can combat the Ancient threat. Each drone would drop components that the crew can use with different departments in order to fight back. (i.e. engineering could use components to develop shields that reduce the effect of some of the drones' weapons. Research could develop weaponry that could damage the drones' systems.) I'd like to think that the armory weaponry would be moderately effective against the Ancients as a middle ground for the crew to gain some footing, but I don't want it to be a situation where someone sees a drone and goes "Oop! Auth the armory!" Something that could be worked on WAY in the future would be to repurpose the Ancients as "mech suits," where, after a lot of research and teamwork between departments, the crew is able to cobble together a working Nanotrasen:tm: drone. We'll see if this idea sticks. 

After a certain point, I'd like the crew to be able to go to the satellite and fight the central intelligence core. I don't know how this would work progression wise. I've talked to some community members about it, and the consensus is, there shouldn't be an early round end on RP, and I'd like to keep this so both servers can enjoy it. I don't think this engagement is necessarily needed, but it would be cool to explore down the line. 


I think that's all I've got so far. If I missed anything, or if you want to talk about something else, let me know in the replies! Thanks, y'all!