Midround Ancient Robot Attack

[swinglow20]

I've been wrestling with this concept for a while, and I've finally put together a design document to hammer out the details, but essentially this project aims to add a "Boss critter" to the game. This project was directly inspired by S.W.O.R.D. but the goal of the project is to tone down the boss's destructive capability and fine tune the combat experience players would face. You can find the rough concept design doc here: https://hackmd.io/@swinglow20/Hkax1-iEp 

I would love to hear some ideas or suggestions, as there is a ton to think about for a project of this scope.

[JanusRose]

I enjoy this idea - it's super metal. I would enjoy more odd boss-like antagonists in general as well, something not as stationary as the blob or real time strategy as the flock, or solely collective like revs.

I haven't seen how big the ancient would be, but I'm imagining it being able to get both robots from the lava moon, and assimilate crew. Maybe a very reasonable cooldown, but the image of a hulking death robot is fun, and deserves to be explored.

[swinglow20]

A new sprite I worked on to try and revive this project
   

[SonOfAShepherd]

I'd absolutely LOVE more mid-round antags and events. This reminds me of the SWORD drone but toned down to a manageable level, which seems like it could be fun for a mid-to-high pop station. Something for the crew to rally against and get their murderous tendencies out with. Also the sprite is fantastic, really well done. It fits the aesthetic of "strong Silicon invader" perfectly, in my book.

[Glamurio]

Mentioning it here as well, it should draw from dead people. We need more of that anyway. Basically if an artifact spawns that has this type, all dead people get asked to queue up. Either on spawn or on activation. If on activation, the artifact could have a boot timer to wait for dead players, and if none are found, spawn as AI.

Either way, cool idea.

[Gomp]

Is this going to be classic only?

[swinglow20]

Is this going to be classic only?

It is currently intended as a cross server experience, but we're still hammering out the details. 

I would LIKE it to be on both servers, but it would depend entirely on developer and player input on what they would like to see out of it.

[Taylorstar]

A while back we saw robotic drones mostly made out of a combination of sillicon artifacts combined to look like some kind of robot/machine that also had some animation to them. I would like to see more use of stuff we already that could scratch that itch get more life and chance to shine and grow into these events. Not knocking the new sprite it does look cool and if the project and its niche is to grow we will need new things to add and flesh such events out.

[Whele]

I think it's fine if science is sent the thing, but it'd be better if they had the option to activate it, not have it activate automatically. That way they could set up a bit if they wanted to engage it, maybe have some security officers on standby. It'd be cool to have it drop something interesting, like some especially powerful artifact batteries or what have you. Make it sort of a risk/reward thing.