Martian mode two point oh

[Sundance]

Martian Mode


I've decided to make a discussion about martian mode as a whole. Currently it was my little side project that I got great pleasure outta spriting, but I let it fall to the wayside and then people started losing interest.
I realise now for this mode to be implemented that it'd have to be very much a community thing. I can sprite yes, but I can't code. Even if I did, I would need people to try out things to see if it's fun, or if things need a buff/nerf. I'd also need to get a nod from the admins. So let this thread be an open discussion, feel free to offer suggestions once they aren't too off topic

The Conditions
Martian mode is cross between Changling and Nuke Ops. You work as a team to gather "Biomass" from preferably alive humans. You use this to manufacture uprgades for your troops. The main thing is that you fly around on the martian mothership, which is marginally bigger than a singularity.
The winning terms is if you manufacture enough humans to go home. The losing terms if all the martians die, or the mothership explodes.

Sprites and coding
Before you ask, yes there's alot of coding here. But nothing too insane, late last year MyBlueCorners had a look at some of the coding and it seemed to work all dandy. Most of the martian stuff is just resprited things that already exist in coding such as regeneration chamber and chargers and AK-47, but require tweaking.
Two big things that would stand out coding wise is the mothership and the martians themselves.
The mothership would be coded so that when you enter the pod you get ported to another z-level to the interior of the pod. The mothership is actually controlled by a console at this area.
The martians themselves would be coded so that there's a whitelist on picking up things on literally everything bar their own technology. On the flipside, humans can't work use martian technology.

What's next
I need a coder to work with me on this project, just on the side, nothing too urgent at all. I'd also need a few beta testers maybe later on. Currently what I need right now is some active discussion, go over to this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=566 and go to the 5th page and go backwards as I was toying with a fair few ideas at the start which I scrapped.
I also need a martian player sprite, so I can get started on armor, if anyone has the dimensions saved it would be great

[Rhydic]

this looks like a super good thing, people have been wanting alien back and actually working reasonably for a while but this would make a good replacement

currently the only thing we have that's related to SPASS ALIEMS are changelings which spit at people and eat them in a dark corner, but this would be full blown aliens dragging humans away and harvesting them for biomass in some kind of weird assembly line thing

manufacturing weapons is super duper neat, instead of rampaging for the sake of rampaging with your cyalume saber and signal jammer it would motivate them to have teamwork and kidnap humans to arm themselves better plus the fact that they're martians and it's sort of impossible to disguise yourself as an alien would help with recognizing your comrades

not only that though but they wouldn't be rampaging much because the living humans would be better for biomass harvesting so it definitely wouldn't be a storm-in-and-kill-whoever gamemode like every other gamemode is

the only huge concern i have is idiots suicide bombing the mothership or metagaming jerks in pods running around with lasers 2 minutes in and destroying the mothership before anything can happen

would definitely need to give them some sort of aura where people within their field of view can't suicide/succumb to prevent them from getting biomass though; also i'd imagine the amount of biomass necessary would vary relative to server population?

[Sundance]

it's sort of impossible to disguise yourself as an alien would help with recognizing your comrades

This is true, AI and borgs would have an active part in defending humans from what clearly is not human

the only huge concern i have is idiots suicide bombing the mothership or metagaming jerks in pods running around with lasers 2 minutes in and destroying the mothership before anything can happen

Both are two things I have considered.
The first may not even need an idiot suicide bombing, but a HoS who's armed to the teeth with a jetpack, the ship may not be able to target him. I thought of an upgrade for the ship (one of few) which would spawn "chasers", basically blob like critter when comes in contact with a player does 1) toxic damage? 2) slows them down? (again open for discussion)
The latter problem is not an issue, but rather I would see that it is encouraged so that idiots would realise that taking on a mothership on their own even in a pod is batshit retarded. Martians work as a team and the station would be required to work together to take them down, vigilantes would be biomass-fodder.

would definitely need to give them some sort of aura where people within their field of view can't suicide/succumb to prevent them from getting biomass though; also i'd imagine the amount of biomass necessary would vary relative to server population?

This is fully activated martian torquebow, the weapon they spawn with. It is a 3-shot taser. When used point-blank, it has the same effect as a vampire bite, causing potential stun but more importantly: stops a player from succumbing.
And yes, biomass would vary.

[mbc]

Hey, jus so you know i'm still around. I don't really have time to code for martian mode because of classes, but I have a good deal of their items and machinery completed. To code the martian mobs, we'll probably need an *actual* ss13 coder, because mobs have changed so much since rev 4407 that making the martians myself wouldn't be worthwhile.

[Sundance]

Hey, jus so you know i'm still around. I don't really have time to code for martian mode because of classes, but I have a good deal of their items and machinery completed.

haha I know man, I'd be busy with university myself if I didn't defer my year for a good few months. Like I said, I am lax right now on the coding side of things as I amn't actually finished spriting.
Can you list the stuff you've coded so far? That way if another coder comes along he won't be working on something that's already been coded.

To code the martian mobs, we'll probably need an *actual* ss13 coder, because mobs have changed so much since rev 4407 that making the martians myself wouldn't be worthwhile.

When you say mob you mean the actual player sprite, not an npc critter? I always get confused.
Yes, this is something that would require a coder to look at, it's something I put under "the big thing" along with the martian mothership.
However there's still a few weapons still to be coded and the armor, if we could get the machinary,weapons and armor coded then the likely hood of a coder looking at the two "big things" would increase.
Seen as the mothership is a pod, coding wise this would be very much in Cog's domain. oh hello cogs

[Cogwerks]

Making a 64x64 martian pod would be easy. Making a giant one... that'd require writing yet another set of complicated overrides for the complicated overrides that let 64x64 pods work in a 32x32 world. Not impossible, but it'd be a pretty big project again. I might introduce 96x96 vehicles sometime after the rest of the 64 vehicles are fully fleshed out and fixed.

Frankly I think it'd be a hell of a lot less work to have the mothership just be like the static nuke shuttle, and give them a smaller craft that can fly around. Having big vehicles with a dedicated explorable interior would be a very very big mess to tackle.

[Weavel]

Honestly I've been against the idea of a moveable mothership from the start; it'd suit the progress of a game far better if the mothership was somewhere their mini-pods could warp to rather than having to potentially slog the length and bredth of the station multiple times to drag one dude because the guy flying the mothership fucked off to get shot

[Sundance]

So i've taken into consideration the fact that a massive mothership isn't really viable, so i've started a z-level mothership that looks like this (WIP):

There's a few new sprites there (windows, shutters and stairs) I'll add later to the spriting thing, after I'm done with other things.

Basically the set-up now is that martians can warp to the station via the computer south of the biomass. It teleports them to the destination like the wiz computer, and creates a perm portal that only the martians can see (like a floor cloaker) This allows the martians to literally appear outta thin air. I might do a cool transition, so it's like their phasing into the area.

Now that's not to say I've ruled out pods. The whole thing behind martians mode is that they can create things from biomatter, so why not pods. The southern part of the mothership is their podbay with room to build a 64x64 and (hopefully) a 96x96 pod. The difference between each pod is that the 64x64 can take two passengers (2 martians or 1 martian and 1 prisoner) while the 96x96 would be able to take 2 martians and 4 prisoners. I'm going to resprite the big ship to fit the 96x96, while I'll do new 64x64 sprites.

[Sundance]

Just messing around with the idea that during the round, the station should a weapon drop of sorts.
3 NT helper pods arrive on scene at the ~30 minute mark, spawning in pod bays around the station. The pods would have crates to help defend against the martians, as well as being able to use the pod itself.

Stuff like:
Rocket launcher with 2 RPG rounds (for the martian pods)
Armored spacesuits (blast armor/spacesuit in 1!)

Pod upgrades
Sub-machine guns (because boo to stun weaponry, horray to bullets)

Pills of strange reagent and tricordazine

Of course, this leaves chance of martians to intercept one of the drops, so you'd have to act fast.
Another idea would be due to the ineptness of NT, would be have on the emergency response pods instead of a crate of monkeys. Useless for the humans, but if the martians would intercept it, that'd mean they could use it for biomass, which is bad news.

[Sundance]

oh god sorry for the triple post but:

would be have on the emergency response pods instead of a crate of monkeys.

Should read as:
Would have the emergency response pods ship a crate of monkeys instead.
Boo to proof reading.

[Captain_Bravo]

No, it should have read:

Would have the emergency response pods ship a crate of cluwnes instead.

[Sundance]

No, it should have read:

Would have the emergency response pods ship a crate of cluwnes instead.

But then you'd waste all your submachine ammo to stop the awful honking.
Would be hilarious in-game though.

[Captain_Bravo]

"We've sent you a crack team of operatives to assist. They're taking a risk flying close to a known wizard station, but it will allow them to arrive faster."

[Captain_Bravo]

"We've sent you a crack team of operatives to assist. They're taking a risk flying close to a known wizard station, but it will allow them to arrive faster."

[atomic1fire]

Perhaps the martians could also capture the enzymatic reclaimer in genetics for use in their objectives.

Since most rounds involve genetics being bombed, it would be nice for security to have to defend it from misuse.

I mean the thing could basically be used as a martian biomass factory on the station.