Author Topic: Alien Possession (Read 10060 times)

Darth Futuza · « **on:** September 03, 2008, 05:14:10 am »

This has probably already been discussed...somewhere...but the Search button couldn't find it. So...

Just wondering if in later versions of Tremulous, the aliens could get some kind of possession ability. I'm thinking sort of like the Flood Infective forms, from Halo. So one type of alien could jump a human and then temporarily control that human, until some sort of 'decay/corruptive' timer runs out and the human body dies. Not quite sure what would happen to the human player, forced to be a spectator or something... Then theres also a problem of creating balance for this...like having certain armor protecting humans from possession, like the battle-suit or something.

Thoughts on this?

kozak6 · « **Reply #1 on:** September 03, 2008, 06:10:40 am »

An "infested" builder would be very dangerous.

It would also cause a lot of TK-ing confusion unless it was very obvious a human was infested.

Also, having proper ranged weapons against human constructions is going to cause them severe problems, especially if heavy firepower is involved.

mooseberry · « **Reply #2 on:** September 03, 2008, 06:24:08 am »

I don't think it would work. Interesting idea tho, and I'm pretty sure it has been discussed before.

Plague Bringer · « **Reply #3 on:** September 03, 2008, 12:10:22 pm »

Yes, I do remember a topic that suggested pretty much the exact same thing.

Infested could have 50 health, not 100. Their health could regenerate, though. When a human becomes infected, he dies and joins the respawn que. The infected could look like humans, but with something on their head/chest/back. Their clothing could be ripped. They should also start with little ammo. Twenty rifle rounds, thirty lasgun, five shotgun, etc. Something small, but not too small. Different animations would help, but are not necessary.

Shadowgandor · « **Reply #4 on:** September 03, 2008, 02:44:39 pm »

I can see them becoming some kind of new alien, but becoming a human? Nah, others have already said why it wouldn't be very fair.

+ OPTIMUS + · « **Reply #5 on:** September 03, 2008, 07:12:01 pm »

I'd say the effect of "infection" should only be able to spectate the enemy. it's quite enough sometimes and it's also forcing communications.
maybe only grangers could spectate, so in this way there would be an inspiration to grange for a time if your team is lacking it (=communications).

or more, if it would only be able at s3, by e.g. basilisks, grangers in hives could only spec humans (what could give some reason to theese otherwise almost useless structures).

s3 only would probably be better...

Darth Futuza · « **Reply #6 on:** September 04, 2008, 12:57:25 am »

I was thinking along the lines of:

Alien that can possess requires at least 1 ep. The alien, in order to infest a human, must jump onto the human in just the right spot on the neck, otherwise is knocked back. (If the alien misses, human's damage 'detection' thing goes off, 1 point of damage or something). Once the human is possessed the human player is forced to spectate following his possessed body around. The infested human's health begins decaying at a rapid pace 1-3 health per second, starting out to what the human's original health was when possessed. This makes it so the infecting alien only has control for a brief minute or so. Further the possessed human's body takes on a zombie like appearance (rotting flesh, raggy clothes, tentacles poking out, etc...) so that it can be easily recognized up close. The possessed human also gains the 'ability' to be shot by the humans (whether team-killing is on or not). And finally because making the aliens able to control 'fake' human buildings would probably be a pain coding, not to mention tip the balance for the aliens considerably, the possessed human can only use weapons, medpacks, and the armory, but not a construction kit. Human's in the battlesuit or helmet can't be possessed either.

That's pretty fair right?

googles · « **Reply #7 on:** September 04, 2008, 03:03:45 am »

Now find someone that will make it.

NOT IT!

Darth Futuza · « **Reply #8 on:** September 04, 2008, 04:59:57 am »

Quote

NOT IT!

Why ever not?

sticks · « **Reply #9 on:** September 04, 2008, 05:25:39 am »

its not a problem of it being unfair i mean shit, if you have 2 teams that are exactely the same then the game will suck, that simple. good idea sounds like it could be a lot of fun. . .kinda like the spy in tf2

Kaine · « **Reply #10 on:** September 04, 2008, 06:15:19 am »

Quote from: Darth Futuza on September 04, 2008, 12:57:25 am

I was thinking along the lines of:

Alien that can possess requires at least 1 ep. The alien, in order to infest a human, must jump onto the human in just the right spot on the neck, otherwise is knocked back. (If the alien misses, human's damage 'detection' thing goes off, 1 point of damage or something). Once the human is possessed the human player is forced to spectate following his possessed body around. The infested human's health begins decaying at a rapid pace 1-3 health per second, starting out to what the human's original health was when possessed. This makes it so the infecting alien only has control for a brief minute or so. Further the possessed human's body takes on a zombie like appearance (rotting flesh, raggy clothes, tentacles poking out, etc...) so that it can be easily recognized up close. The possessed human also gains the 'ability' to be shot by the humans (whether team-killing is on or not). And finally because making the aliens able to control 'fake' human buildings would probably be a pain coding, not to mention tip the balance for the aliens considerably, the possessed human can only use weapons, medpacks, and the armory, but not a construction kit. Human's in the battlesuit or helmet can't be possessed either.

That's pretty fair right?

Let me get this right:

It is stage one, and little Georgey Perkins saw rush goes miserably wrong, and he gets possessed. His zombified body sprints through the human base (human turrets ignoring him) and he opens up a can of saw kung-pow on everything in site. End of game, 20 second total play time. No skill involved.

Gay. As. Hell.

If you wanna have a 20 second game, learn to play well, then go to some dipshit server and ream them... but you gotta work for that pleasure. The "possessor" makes short games way too easy to come by.

Samurai.mac · « **Reply #11 on:** September 04, 2008, 07:33:49 pm »

Just my take on this, I'm not sure whether it would solve any of the balance issues with this:

The possessed human dies (and is able to respawn as normal). The body is then mutated over a period of four or five seconds, at which point it reanimates and is under the control of the alien who possessed it. Rather than playing like a regular human, I suggest it be more like a human-alien hybrid, possessing abilities like increased jump height, regeneration and melee from the aliens (being able to use a booster would be good too), and showing as human to turrets, teslas and radars. However, it's a human and so vulnerable to headshots, and since it's a dead body, the health should be lower than that of an ordinary human. Additionally, I think the alien (might make sense for it to be a Dretch) should only be able to possess a human when they have low health and activating a MedPack could provide a defense against an attempted possession.

Paradox · « **Reply #12 on:** September 06, 2008, 09:57:03 pm »

If you want to make it fair, make it so the reposessed body drops its weapon, or at least lowers the ammo to something small, like 10 shots.

Painsaws would be instantly dropped.

Give em really strong melee.

Lava Croft · « **Reply #13 on:** September 06, 2008, 10:15:01 pm »

Posession of Humans has been a gameplay idea/mechanic at the very start of Tremulous development, only to be dismissed as 'doesn't work (good enough)' soon afterwards.

ODDity · « **Reply #14 on:** September 07, 2008, 02:12:06 am »

What if an Alien unit, say s3 basi or something, got a legitimate kill and could choose to infest (use/enter) the body.

It would then show up as human on the radar and could get past turrets to take a look at the base, but wouldn't be able to sprint or shoot and upon inspection the body looks kind of zombie like and therefore attentive humans could shoot and kill the basi inside as normal.

Perhaps the basi, upon working the limbs puppet like, gets tired at some point and has to jump out or die inside there, say, a minute after the infestation.

Just a thought. Oh, and hello everyone, I've been away for a bit if anyone noticed, but I'm back now.

kozak6 · « **Reply #15 on:** September 07, 2008, 07:24:03 am »

If possession were only for a few seconds and with minimal health, it might not be overwhelmingly powerful.

cactusfrog · « **Reply #16 on:** September 07, 2008, 07:52:29 am »

or the human changes into a zombie that is a bot.

Darth Futuza · « **Reply #17 on:** September 08, 2008, 01:40:05 am »

What if the 'possessed' human showed up as a human on radars, UNLESS the humans had a defense computer, (Turrets would detect it as well).

I think it would be much better if the 'possessed' were used for sneak attacks on human 'raiding parties' rather than totally obliverating bases. As eVe puts it, oblivarating bases would be lame.

sticks · « **Reply #18 on:** September 08, 2008, 01:05:43 pm »

they could spawn at alien base then have turrets recognize that the infected human was actually alien, allowing the humans to keep an intact base and the aliens to freak out the humans. from a negative standpoint though, the only reason this was a success in TF2 is because of ff being off so you could just walk around shooting your teammates to see if they were a spy. so idk if this would work in tremulous when bleeding and tk's are such a huge factor in the overall game play.

Hendrich · « **Reply #19 on:** September 20, 2008, 03:46:44 pm »

Hmm, ok, lets see if i could collaberate this:

When human dies of a legimitate kill from a basi, the basi could choose to infect it with the 'Enter/whatever' key. Once infected, the human will have minimal health, but he has the armor/weapons when the human was alive. The only thing is, he cannot reload his ammo so if he wastes his ammmo, thats it. Also his ammo supply is decreased by somewhere around 70-85%, and if the dead human was weilding a P-saw or a nade, the basi cannot be allowed to infect the body, which is another good reason for getting a P-saw. he will be only to live for a lower amount of time, lets say 15 seconds. He also cannot use his blaster, med-kit, battery/jetpack or grenade.

The human, lets say, has somewhere around 15-30 seconds to live, because since its a deceased corpse the basi has only so much power to control a complex human body. The 'infected' body can be spotted by turrets because the basi is inside the body and the turrets locks on to any nearby aliens. Maybe we can say the same for teselas.

The infected human's name will not be shown when another teammate go nears him to see what his name is. This is a way to determine whether or not a human is infected or not. Maybe we can also do something like if a teammate decides to hit an infected body, the basi inside will do the "Im hurt or I'm dying" sound. Thats another way to determine a fake teammate.

The point of an infected body is that when he joins another human(s) on a attack, he could be pretending to attack with them. But once they have thier backs turned, the infected human can attack the others.

Also the infected human cannot be attacked by tubes, etc. Boosters would also let him heal faster. but it won't give him poison damage. If the 'infected' human dies, so does the basi. The basi can go outside of the body at any time, but if the basi leaves, the dead corpse cannot be infected again.

Yea, so there, thats pretty much it. The problem is coding it, it would take a coder with immense determination and skill to code,and balace such a feature, and nobody here is intrested in doing such a thing. That is why this idea will never be off the ground.

resistance · « **Reply #20 on:** September 29, 2008, 07:45:17 am »

How about when possessed by say, a s3 basi, the human drops any weapon he's carrying and begins to deteriorate at 1-3 hp/sec. Turrets without a defense computer don't recognize him as alien, but with a defense computer, they can. He has a medium-strong 50-60 hp/hit attack when he uses his arms to whack humans. To other humans, this and the lack of a weapon would be the way to distinguish him from a regular human.

gimhael · « **Reply #21 on:** September 29, 2008, 12:01:38 pm »

Nice idea, I think I have seen something similar in a movie.

The only problem for the basi would be that after he accomplished this tricky attack and infested the human, he'd have to let the human go and escape. Normally the human would be dead, now he would be able to fire at the basi again -> high chance that the lisk doesn't survive.
And when the human players have learned about this kind of attack they would just make a suicide run after they have been grabbed by a lisk and got away.

Taiyo.uk · « **Reply #22 on:** September 29, 2008, 01:04:18 pm »

Giving aliens the ability to "egg" humans could introduce fun game mechanics where the aliens have no spawns left.

However, the implementation is another issue though, having a dretch burst from a human would look a little odd due to scaling - the head of a dretch is actually slightly larger than that of a human when you see them next to each other. Also, what kind of gestation period would an "egged" human have? Would members of the human team be able to detect that a human has been egged? ...and kill him before he hatches? Finally, how do the aliens actually go about "egging" a human? Would a granger attach itself to your face and thrust it's impregnation tube down your throat like the facehuggers in Aliens?

A simple alternative to possession could be the Overmind controlling humans to defend itself. Aliens are telepathically linked to the OM, so perhaps the aliens could poison the humans with some kind of mind-bending substance that allows the overmind to gain some level of control over them - diverting their aim away from alien targets or making them turn away from the alien structures. The idea being that the affected humans would have to fight the influence of the OM to maintain control of themselves.

kozak6 · « **Reply #23 on:** September 30, 2008, 06:29:36 am »

Would a medistation be able to de-egg a player?

It might provide some incentive for the human to try to get back into his base, potentially serving as a Trojan horse for the next spawner.

frazzler · « **Reply #24 on:** October 17, 2008, 01:52:26 pm »

omfg. i just got the best idea.

my idea is: YES!!!!

this is a brilliant idea. it just needs the kinks and stuff worked out give it some thought then consider every possible option. then come back.

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Author Topic: Alien Possession (Read 10060 times)

Lava Croft