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Thinking about expanding the scenario into three parts. As a big Aliens fan I want to do it justice and while I like the scenario, seems a bit of a shame that nearly everyone is dead at the start.

Thought I'd seen some talk that there were three parts and it'd been cut down for space? Understandble given the massive size of the book of course, but wondering if anyone knew roughly what the other two acts were? Also did they use the same characters throughout or different for each act?

Currently thinking: Act 1 - OUTBREAK Normal day on Hadleys Hope until Russ Jordan is brought into medical. They can examine the facehugger and another team gets sent out. They won't play the team but instead scientists and weyland management dealing with the creature.

May possibly include some characters from Act 3 here: Sigg the scientist and Holroyd the android (he may be manual labour but as a synth they trust him to keep his mouth shut and get close to the facehugger before anyone else).

When the chestburster escapes into a vent, they go in to chase it before news breaks out. Game of cat and mouse with a chestburster in the ventilation system.

Act 2: two ideas.

BUG HUNT

A Marshall and some deputies are given orders to investigate the disappearances around the station and locate the creatures. They end up in an assault on the beginnings of the hive, which reacts violently as one of them is currently molting into the Queen.

Or

TRUST NO ONE

The characters for Act 3 are sent out to Processor 9. However rather than a quiet run, they encounter one of colonists who had fled the base. A technician in the comms tower, he's convinced that their SOS is being blocked and is trying to find a way to send out a signal without WY interference. All the others with him have been picked off however, and he's been sent over the edge into a dangerous paranoia. Convinced they've been sent by Weyland Yutani to block the signal, he's booby trapped the location and is armed. No actual aliens in this bit, just hints of them.

I don't know if you would be interested but one of the Alien novels specifically covers the last days of Hadley's Hope. It's called River of Pain and really fleshes a few things out. I enjoyed it though it did raise some questions for me. For example, and this isn't a spoiler, it's on the blurb about the book if you go look at it:

There's a Colonial Marine garrison at the colony. You'd think if an entire garrison disappeared the marines in Aliens would take the assignment much more seriously.

Cheers, I'll give it a look. Yeah I'm not big on having a unit of Marines already there. If I do the big hunt/hive it'll probably be a hastily assembled and equipped militia with a Marshall to lead them.

Doesnt make sense/not fitting etc with a marine unit on LV 426.

I was thinking about doing exactly this, as I felt the character agendas in Hope's Last Day jump too quickly to the end game. (Though to be fair, the scenario is very clearly presented as an example of what Act 3 of a cinematic scenario might look like.) As an experiment, I wrote Act 2 agendas for the characters when I ran this scenario for my group, in the hopes it would encourage the players to explore the colony / look for survivors / investigate, rather than make a dash right for the escape shuttle.

I was going to take a different approach than what you've written up here though. I was planning on having the characters play the five provided pre-gens (MacWhirr, Hirsch, Holroyd, Sigg, & Singleton) for all three acts, and starting the scenario at the same point in time as it does in the book (4 days after infection). Act 1 would be the PCs being sent out to Processor 9 on a maintenance run and encountering signs of xenomorph infestation. Act 2 would be escaping the processor and getting back to the colony. Act 3 would be pretty much what's in the book.

One thing I really felt was missing from Hope's Last Day was PC/NPC interaction. There are a few living NPCs in HLD, but not enough for my tastes. Having to deal with the Cronus crew in Chariot of the Gods really elevated that scenario for me, and I'd want to do the same thing here. So I might put a few escaped colonist in Processor 9 for the PCs to interact with.

Huh, quite like that. Are you going to have them encounter the aliens in act 1 or 2 directly or just build them up?

I like the idea of using the same characters throughout but don't really want them getting killed off too early, and the third act seems a nice place to introduce the adult aliens.

I agree it could do with a couple more NPCs for interaction. Maybe a bit working around the base and a "rumour control" town meeting at the start?

Who could be left in the base otherwise? Someone who didn't take part in the last stand and was hiding? Someone injured but not yet taken away or facehugged?

Working in the Weyland Yutani operatives to rp with before things get chaotic might be good as well to set up the shuttle as well.

Personal I feel the lost gem in hopes last day is making it cinematic and not using it for a short length campaign game. Much like Isolation there is a story to be told there, of the xenomorph arriving and taking over. Playing out mundane scenes, only for people to find out/witness what came of newts Dad. The shock and panic when he dies so horribly, the search teams going out and trying to find the creature. Days later and people keep going missing, dried up skin from the creature is found and it's clear it's getting bigger. Then reactor faults because something is going off there, people finding the queen and knowing how bad it is, dozens of people getting infected, the scientists trying to find a way of stopping it. All leading up to playing out the last stand, where barricades are formed but it's all somewhat hopeless.

Dave and I read River of Pain and hated it. We too did not like the use of a Marine garrison in the colony. (There was plenty else we didn’t like, but we won’t go into that here.) Newts story from the Dark Horse comics works far better. The three vignettes we wrote this took a different take on the story, influenced but not not centred in Newts story. One of the things we also wanted to do with the three parts was showcase the three different campaign modes. So for space truckers, we had a Firefly style heist; the colonists one was the pretty much what is presented in Hopes Last Day, and then me had a more military one (but focused on the Marshal and his volunteer deputies) about making sure the warning signal got out.

Remember these were meant to be three third acts, so the all the agenda were written (as Hyvemynd says) to race to a finish. But with a bit of tweaking I felt they could work as a three act scenario, with lots of NPCs/spare characters. This is how I thought it would work out, using each vignette as a sequential act. 

Act one: Hope’s Last Hand. A lockdown has been announced, colonists are instructed to remain in their quarters while the marshals track down an escaped “snake like animal” that may be dangerous. But our group of disgruntled PCs have other plans. They have lost so much money and shares at the company casino that they hatch a plan to use the lock-down to sneak into the casino and rob the safe. The antagonists here are the marshals militia, out with motion trackers, steel nets, and other inappropriate weapons (stun weapons, maybe a tranq rifle), which they must avoid or be arrested. One event is they might witness something (a captured colonist) being dragged into a conduit on the way to processor one. If they succeed in getting to the safe, they need to hide their haul until the lockdown has blown over. There is a nearby old airlock, now disused since the atmosphere became more breathable, but when they get there, they must deal with the Union band, who use it as a rehearsal space. 

Act two: Hope’s Last Dance. Involves a new emergency instruction from the command centre to congregate in a secure repair area in sub level one. The PCs see evidence that the situation has got worse while they have been sneaking around. And at least some of the Union band plead with the PCs to get them (and their instruments) to safety. But now there are more Xenos, picking off stragglers to take to the nest in Processor 1. Otherwise this is like Hopes Last Day, but has have one points out, with different agendas. The ending would be more like the scene in Newts story where the aliens get into the safe room and massacre the colonists. 

Act three: Hope’s Last Stand. By now I would hope that the party is made up of one or two criminals from Hand, a Union band member and the last survivors of the Marshals militia. The agendas suggest all hope is lost and the best that can to is get a message out - quarantine the colony, and call for the UACMC, setting up the movie. They have access to the militia armoury, but they find they need to get to the antenna and repair it, though a base infest3d with Xenos

Thank you The1TrueFredrix! That's a great summary and exactly what I needed.

A slight necro, but this was the only discussion I could find about binding a pre or post to Hope's Last Day. River of Pain is worth reading / audio booking if only to get some background on LV-246 and specifically the Jordan family.

Spoilers for River of Pain:

[spoilers]
Many things are absurd in the novel and I can't believe a real editor looked at this

* When the Jordan's return and admit to having contact with Russ and the xenomorph hugger -- they don't even shower. They aren't quarantined. It's Prometheus level idiocy.
* The scene where Russ dies is so poorly written I actually laughed. Newt and Tim sort of laugh and compare it to Monster Maze for real. Like ... they just witnessed their fathers chest explode in a geyser of gore. They run off to play games.
* The marine placement is fine but the hero of the story being a marine is silly, Captain Brackett is just not believable. If he cares so much for his old girlfriend, Anne Jordan he'd have order an evac order in place immediately. He knows the WY scientists are out to use the colonists, this is made painfully clear, and he tell them off. Yet we wait for a week for more WY orders to come back to undermine any authority he briefly had.

To me the lore to harvest is

* The plotting of Weyland Yutani and a really fleshed out timeline of the 1st scientists, the orders from Burke.
* A deeper dive on some NPCs that could be used in a pre or even added to the surviving roster in Hope's Last Day.
* Komisky for example is a full character in River of Pain, she cares for Russ and you get dialog to use for her in HLD. She is very sympathetic as Reece takes over the science.
* We're introduced to the motivations of Al Simpson and get a real good look at the dynamic between colony mgt/colonists/wy/marines.
* Dr. Reece and Morey from WY are fleshed out as villains working to follow Burke's orders.
* Having a small squad of disillusioned marines, sulking about their lot in life and placement on a far away rock taking cash off the top for riding along with prospectors is something to harvest. But leave the white knight Brackett out.
* Maybe 1 of these marines, an uncorrupted one could be a survivor to add to HLD.
* You get a play by of colonists coming in hugged, from the crew that goes out to the site. Marichuck, etc. and WY's plan is in full effect sending colonists out to be hugged for more samples and more specimens.

[/spoilers]