Okay. How's this for a refining of the strategy - locking down the entire escape wing. Power down the chapel, cut the wires, etc. Power down the hallway, cut the wires, etc. Turn on the fire alarms, if you don't have an enemy AI.
Yes, they can get through. This is all delaying tactics. That's the point.
RE the recall - just deconstruct the communications computers and take the circuit boards. Unless they have an AI, they won't have the time to recall the shuttle until it's too late. At that point, they've got 5 minutes to get through two layers of doors to get to the escape wing. Including the welding fuel (which, remember, is limited in the welder), they're going to have to rush most of it. Yes, it's not a perfect strategy. But it's damned well effective, especially when they're not expecting it.
If you have a friendly AI, it's even easier, and virtually impossible to fail.
Well, sorry, it's only effective in a ghost town:
Unless you've already subverted the AI (or there isn't one),
you've already lost. The first room you cut power to sends an alert to the AI and all borgs that there's a power fault. If the Engineering crew is half competent, they too will notice the power fault. This is an awful lot of sabotage, that will take a good amount of time, that you're assuming nobody will stumble across and announce over the radio "Hey, somebody's wrecking up the escape wing". You'll never lock it down with more than a skeleton crew on board.
As far as getting through your "delay tactic" on the miracle nobody actually noticed it before you called the shuttle;
they have 10 minutes. People rush to escape right away. People do not wait until the point of no return to rush down there. There is plenty of time to get inside. The station was designed to have weak points, to allow people to break into virtually everywhere in little time. There isn't enough wall between Escape and the rest of the station to slow any kind of competent crew down. Especially if there's an engiborg - again, without subverting the silicons, this tactic does not work.
So, even if by some chance it takes the crew five minutes to get into Escape so that they can't recall, what then? Doors to the shuttle have been welded? So what?
They are surrounded by glass. They will smash into the airlocks, and when they find you hiding in one, they will kill you, as you are
obviously the one who sabotaged everything, hiding in the airlock as you are. So now you have to kill people after all. Besides, any half competent engineer can build a serviceable "safe" tunnel to the shuttle's windows in plenty of time before it arrives, with materials right there in escape. And again, if you didn't subvert the silicons, an engineering borg can build a new passage to the shuttle in essentially no time, with doors and everything.
But provided somehow that you manage to go unnoticed or talk your way out of being murdered before the shuttle arrives; It takes no time to smash through to the shuttle - it has windows facing the escape arm's windows. Competent crew, upon seeing the welded doors,
use the lattice that leads out to the end of the airlocks to break into the shuttle's windows. By the time you've emagged into the shuttle's bridge and shortened the launch time, you've already got people inside the shuttle's windows, and they're a-coming with ya. Not to mention any who've
followed you on board through the door you used. And if you weren't planning on shortening the time, well, you lost.
Escape alone is only easy when there are less than 10 people aboard, and all but you have never played before. Try this tactic on any station with more than a skeleton crew, and you can look forward to a lovely vacation in the permabrig.
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Topic: Space Station 13: Urist McStation (Read 2125438 times)