I'm pleased to officially announce the new gamemode, it's an S-COM gamemode:
https://imgur.com/a/WhYVs(Go to the album link for more)
The core of the gamemode is similar to the S-COM events we've had. Aliens overrunning the galaxy, you chosen few have to stop them. So, you go on missions around the galaxy and try to drive them out of the sector. Slightly outdated lore is here:
http://pastebin.com/MRTF7cPpI'd intended to release it today, but I had some issues with one if the drop shuttles, so I'm taking some more time to test and balance. It'll be ingame midweek/Friday depending on how testing works out. What's going to be in then is the preliminary version of the S-COM gamemode. There'll be about 10 missions, because I need to test it with a full round of people, then I can just make 40 missions or whatever and draw however many we need from that pool. There's non-combat roles, researchers have a tech tree that they advance along with the help of stuff that the soldiers recover as well as doing regular science and chemistry etc. There's vehicles that science can get to and construct, as you see in the photos. Some of the vehicles have weapons, some don't. I've also done a bit of a rewrite of simple_mob AI, and different mobs have different behaviour. Some will heal their buddies if their health gets too low, some will retreat off to hide if their health gets too low, etc. Enemy numbers also scale with the number of players, so all in all, it should make for more interesting PVE combat. This is the first PVE gamemode that I know of for SS13 (minus meteor I guess), so I'm pretty excited to see how it goes, and I hope you guys are.
Basically, it's X-COM the gamemode. Research and missions will be limited at first, because I need to balance some stuff and get feedback from a full round and whatnot. I'm relying on you guys to give me some good feedback and bug reports. Either way, it's all there and it will be in soon.