New ship layout discussion

[Lil Mayo]

While this could go in the Update Discussion thread, we could discuss new strats for holding the ship after the new update.

Firstly, charging the Alamo and destroying the xenos doesn't work anymore. With the 22 minute timer to Xeno Minor, aliens can afford to lose their queen in 3 minutes then delay for 19, and still win the round.
Secondly, with the new CIC and Brig layout, CIC holds are impossible now; you get completely flanked and the xenos can easily travel through those hallways.

That means that SD holds are the best tactic to win the endgame now, unless you somehow wipe out all the aliens in 22 minutes, and no one delays.

What do you guys think?

PS: New CO office makes it one hell of a place to rob... but when you do pull off those heists, boy oh boy!

PPS: Take "winning" with a grain of salt; we're here to enjoy the round, not to powergame and win 24/7!

[CABAL]

-Poem-

Self-Destruct is Marine Minor, not Xeno. They are the "superiour" species, they have to crush the marines. If marines are able to hold SD for 22 minutes, they are the winning side. Xeno threat is destroyed, but humanity can still live. It's a draw when nobody evacuated and there was no Faxes sent to high command becouse nobody will know about anything and that hive was complety destroyed.

CIC was never a good place anyway to bunker. Now it looks like it was made to not be the last stand, or was exactly made for that. Sounds strange, but that doughnut looks cool and it would be "cool" to defend, but how much it would be glamorous it isn't effective. Those standard hulls have to be reinforced and holding CIC should give some profits if this should stay this way like... Constant ERT squads that have like 0% chance to be Xeno ERT when console is maintained by XO.

Why bridge room have now access restriction? I can't get labeler now without asking becouse that one near shooting range is always looted.

[Hughgent]

The single stack of 10 metal that used to spawn in the left maintenance bay isn't there any more. no more grabbing it for the Autodoc.

RIP MEDBAY. EVERYTHING IS RUINED. THESE ARE THE END TIMES. MAKE YOUR WILLS AND HUG YOUR WIVES. STUDY YOGA TO KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE.


^{I mean overall I like it.}

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

While this could go in the Update Discussion thread, we could discuss new strats for holding the ship after the new update.

Firstly, charging the Alamo and destroying the xenos doesn't work anymore. With the 22 minute timer to Xeno Minor, aliens can afford to lose their queen in 3 minutes then delay for 19, and still win the round.
Secondly, with the new CIC and Brig layout, CIC holds are impossible now; you get completely flanked and the xenos can easily travel through those hallways.

That means that SD holds are the best tactic to win the endgame now, unless you somehow wipe out all the aliens in 22 minutes, and no one delays.

What do you guys think?

PS: New CO office makes it one hell of a place to rob... but when you do pull off those heists, boy oh boy!

PPS: Take "winning" with a grain of salt; we're here to enjoy the round, not to powergame and win 24/7!

Alrighty, charging the Alamo does still work and so does SD holds, CIC holds havnt been effective for some time and this change to CIC might develop some interesting CIC/BRIG sieges i can foresee.

There could be some interesting tactics employed in the future in the New Astronavigational/Tank Deck areas too.It could be possible in the future to use that lower deck west side of the ship as a kind of "LZ FOB" if you can picture it.Where you would have a few main lines of cading locking off the Normandy from the east side of the hangar, or even hold the whole hangar right up to where it meets the Medbay section with the intention to fallback to lines of cading behind you, slowly wearing down xenoes as they inevitably try to push you back.

One question i have is that, does the SD still turn off if the SD room APC is slashed? Is it "automatic" in both that it starts as soon as the crashed shuttle hits the Alamayer, and does it "automatically" happen regardless of the SD APC or even ship power being online still? Im assuming it does, but it may not.

If it is "automatic" then it doesnt matter where you hold and if theres going to be anywhere better than a SD hold, then it has to be like a SD area and on one end of the ship, reducing the amount of flanks and increasing the amount of choke.Which could end up being that Tank deck area or the new CIC/BRIG if done right.

The other thing about SD, is it still if i remember correctly the only place a crashing shuttle cant land? I know ive seen it hit CIC and everywhere else before, but never SD im pretty sure.

[CABAL]

If it is "automatic" then it doesnt matter where you hold and if theres going to be anywhere better than a SD hold, then it has to be like a SD area and on one end of the ship, reducing the amount of flanks and increasing the amount of choke.Which could end up being that Tank deck area or the new CIC/BRIG if done right.

Somebody has to "click" the switch after 22 minutes. Not holding SD would mean that marines had to push to that area and we all know xenos would always meta to destroy everything in SD, weed everything there and build thic resin wall even without spotting a single marine hiding there.

[taketheshot56]

im not a fan....Lots of fluid escape routes were removed. The lower forward end of the ship is completely useless. Whereas the mappers had worked hard to really spice up the flooring and walls with decor. The new areas and im not trying to put anyone down i know the devs work hard, but the new areas look like crap compared to other parts of the ship.

Time shall tell i suppose.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Somebody has to "click" the switch after 22 minutes. Not holding SD would mean that marines had to push to that area and we all know xenos would always meta to destroy everything in SD, weed everything there and build thic resin wall even without spotting a single marine hiding there.

Roger that, so holding SD is still the most logical then, i was hoping that it might be fully automatic, meaning we could almost hold anywhere on the ship and SD would still activate once the timer elapsed, not the case though.

Now that ive had a few rounds with the new format as a CMP and normal marines, its definitely going to take some getting used to and probably a while until any of these new spots possibly get used for good holds or staging areas to engage from.

[Blade2000Br]

Just to put this as heads up: confirmed by spooky, this brig chances is to make raiding/escaping way harder than it used to be.

[Dauntasa]

confirmed by spooky, this brig chances is to make raiding/escaping way harder than it used to be.

Why? This is not actually beneficial to the game in the slightest.

[Sulaboy]

Why? This is not actually beneficial to the game in the slightest.

You ever watched a MP drag someone past the landing pads then get swarmed by marines? Now you just bring them up a ladder and close the blast doors to the lower deck. Makes MPs harder to jump.

[Snypehunter007]

Hm. I haven't played recently so I just popped on to look at the mapping changes.

My opinion:
- While the reason for moving the brig might be to make it harder for marines to escape, it makes it an inconvenience to actually deliver a prisoner to the brig. It is *too* far back and the hallway runs through important areas before reaching the brig.
- Thank god that awful tank deck was removed.
- Pilot's Quarters are okay, though there is a lot of dead space.
- Officer's Quarters are okay.
- Commander's Quarters are okay.
- Tank Crew's Quarters are okay, but they feel a bit jammed in there.
- Vehicle Bay's feel okay.
- Missile rooms feel empty and the mapper used the wrong doors on the room because the doors are labelled as "Particle Cannon Systems Room"
- All of the "kitchen" areas with the light blue/grey tiles feel way out of place with the aesthetic.
- The OB cannon and fluff AA gun feel way too far away from anything else important and take a long time to get to considering how far away they are from anything else.
- The location for the new CL office is out of the way and doesn't really have an "flare" to it to indicate the "this place is important", if that makes any sense.

Side Note:
- Research still has a ton of double walls and looks like trash.
- The holosign's white text is too large for the sprite and come off it.

Edit: Also, I noticed the "Max Out" rule was violated several times in places.

[WinterClould]

First thing I thought when I saw brig placement was "Holy shit arresting a marine in breifing or processing survivors is gonna be hella fucking stupid now."

Maybe it's time we had a small holding cell near brefing for minor arrests before and during brefing?

[FGRSentinel]

What's the "max out" rule exactly? I don't recall hearing this one before.

[Herac]

Side Note:
- Research still has a ton of double walls and looks like trash.

I always assumed that was so any xenos held in research who weeded their cells wouldn't immedietly bring a flood of delta's C4'ing their way in to slaughter them.

[Blade2000Br]

What's the "max out" rule exactly? I don't recall hearing this one before.

It was a rule made to mappers.

[Grubstank]

I always assumed that was so any xenos held in research who weeded their cells wouldn't immedietly bring a flood of delta's C4'ing their way in to slaughter them.

now THIS guy plays colonial marines

[Snypehunter007]

What's the "max out" rule exactly? I don't recall hearing this one before.

It is the name of a rule Apop had established with the new ship. It wasn't called anything specific so I named it the "Max Out" rule.

The basic premise was to avoid "maxing out" the size of the ship. With the Sulaco, rooms were added with little regard to the overall ship's profile. When Artoutis made the new ship, there was a lot of dead space that was occupied by hull wall tiles. The overall idea with the rule was to try to keep parts of the ship at least separated by a few tiles to hull and be economical with the space provided because of this rule.

I always assumed that was so any xenos held in research who weeded their cells wouldn't immedietly bring a flood of delta's C4'ing their way in to slaughter them.

I don't believe research walls are meltable and there if marines tried to get in there, they'd be more likely to C4 through the doors but I haven't played in a bit so who knows.

I also know however that you should never double wall an area while mapping unless the tiles look good while doing so, a.k.a they are intended to be double walled.

First thing I thought when I saw brig placement was "Holy shit arresting a marine in breifing or processing survivors is gonna be hella fucking stupid now."

Maybe it's time we had a small holding cell near brefing for minor arrests before and during brefing?

Eh, that would take away from using the brig, which I don't think the dev team wants to do, it just needs to be more accessible. Unlike other mapping changes, I can't recommend any particular spot since the brig is so large now and I'm doing my own mapping ATM.

[WinterClould]

I feel like the main brig might end up being a hold out during mutinys or when large amounts of marines/POWs need to be arrested.

A small holding cell that's only for low security individuals (nonviolent marines only causing a ruckus) with offences under 10 minutes (where dragging someone across the ship isn't worth the effort honestly) just makes sense.

Why waste 5 minutes walking the length of the ship for a 5 minute arrest?

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

I feel like the main brig might end up being a hold out during mutinys or when large amounts of marines/POWs need to be arrested.

A small holding cell that's only for low security individuals (nonviolent marines only causing a ruckus) with offences under 10 minutes (where dragging someone across the ship isn't worth the effort honestly) just makes sense.

Why waste 5 minutes walking the length of the ship for a 5 minute arrest?

Make sense to me, it was already even abit of a issue dragging marines from say the req line or brief room for a 5-10 minute sentence that we were using rolly stretchers to speed up the process, now the destination is in another deck level.

[Audi_Gzz]

New Layout is wonderful even though defending cic is now 10x harder I like how they changed up more shit.

[spookydonut]

I mean for briefing arrests why not just NJP them instead?

[Hughgent]

a sweet black roller bed for moving arrested marines.

[jackrkazi]

With all this in mind, why does holding pods seem to be the new meta when it never seems to work?

[Garrison]

With all this in mind, why does holding pods seem to be the new meta when it never seems to work?

My guess is so that if things go badly, you can just GTFO. Though there's always those marines that will fight to the very end.

[jackrkazi]

You’d think that’d be the idea but most times command orders everyone to hold out or we get swarmed