Portable telecomms relay for marines

[Actuallythatguyyeah]

Summary: Okay, I'm sick and tired of Xenos destroying telecomms on Ice Colony, camping it up for marines sent to investigate and playing it off as "seemed like a good place for a nest and we break all APCs" or "marines too dumb to fix telecomms" on Big Red map. With PCR (Portable Communications Relay) marines will have actual critical infrastructure to establish, giving a reason for FOB other than "case we need retreat from a facility that went black for some reason."

Benefits: Marines get an actual, reasonable task to complete: Deploy comms relay and protect it, not just sit in FOB and pretend they're gonna need it. On Big Red/Ice Colony xenos can no longer break telecomms and pretend it wasn't meta.

Details: Marines get a Portable Communications Relay, two availiable (because redundancy) in hangar/RO. It needs to be deployed in area with APC power by engineers or MTs, meaning marines can't just put it anywhere and need to secure power or at least put batteries in local APC. After deploying it acts like regular telecomms relay that's already implemented.

Implementation: Movable object that needs to be secured with wrench then has stuff done to it (whether it's wires, screwdriver of multitool I'll leave to coders), has a check whether it's in an area with an APC, after deploying becomes a static object and has properties of a regular telecomms relay. Add a check if there's already a functioning one deployed to prevent issues with two telecomms relays active. If you want it possible to destroy/melt with acid, then allow RO to order another one. Whether it only works with marine frequencies, splitting survivor radios from military radio (which I think is a good idea,) is, again, up to coders preference.

[taketheshot56]

That's actually a great idea. It really would flesh out the FOB and give marines something to do other than click 400000 times to build sandbags +1

[Doktor710]

Good idea, but I think it would be good if you can put a battery inside because FoB is to protect the strategic area and can't be placed everywhere... But the best way is to make telecomms working at the beginning of the game or/and reporting about aliens breaking APCs and metagaming.

[solidfury7]

Good idea, but I think it would be good if you can put a battery inside because FoB is to protect the strategic area and can't be placed everywhere... But the best way is to make telecomms working at the beginning of the game or/and reporting about aliens breaking APCs and metagaming.

This is not a great idea for the following reasons,

It makes more work for admins

Aliens cannot be reported for slashing APCs and metagaming is notoriously difficult to prove (on the alien side, especially)

This solution is not always possible for every population side.

The solution is pretty much > Aliens could metagame, so you gotta' powergame

In all honesty, the removal of telecomms is a huge boon to the marines, it forces marines to indefinately hold one area, restricting more diverse and varied tactics. The telecommunications issue also completely nullifies the usefulness of Command in everything other than the OCCASSIONAL attempt at reorganising marines (which never works unless you pull everyone back to LZ1).

The telecomms idea is seriously flawed and requires amending. While I personally like this idea, I instead think that if you wish to keep the awful t-comms meme of an idea, Squad Leaders should be given a unique backpack which act as a radio kit, or as previously suggested a unique role to do so.

This would no longer completely destroy the marines organisation and keep Command out the loop, instead it'd give the marines at least a fighting chance to remain organised via SLs/Radio Operators communicating with Command.

[Doktor710]

-snip-

Nevermind, it's better.

[Nick123q23]

I like this idea, but it could also be solved by just better mapping in general

[Actuallythatguyyeah]

Gotta argue this one with you, Solid.

It makes more work for admins

Making admins less worry about xenos targeting telecomms because it fucks marines up? I need you to elaborate on this one.

This solution is not always possible for every population side.

Can't really remember a game without at least a single engineer/MT in recent times, and even in those games xenos screwing telecomms would be just as bad as having nobody to deploy PCR.

The solution is pretty much > Aliens could metagame, so you gotta' powergame

Can't see how giving a squad a task of constructing telecomms would be any more powergame than giving them a task to secure it.

In all honesty, the removal of telecomms is a huge boon to the marines, it forces marines to indefinately hold one area, restricting more diverse and varied tactics. The telecommunications issue also completely nullifies the usefulness of Command in everything other than the OCCASSIONAL attempt at reorganising marines (which never works unless you pull everyone back to LZ1).

When comms go down it is almost always up to marines to organize and fix the issue. Command CAN issue squad-wide orders, but it's almost never utilized.
Also marines DO always have to hold indefinately one area, which is the FOB or LZ, usually one is the other. Can't see how this would change it in any way.

The telecomms idea is seriously flawed and requires amending. While I personally like this idea, I instead think that if you wish to keep the awful t-comms meme of an idea, Squad Leaders should be given a unique backpack which act as a radio kit, or as previously suggested a unique role to do so.
This would no longer completely destroy the marines organisation and keep Command out the loop, instead it'd give the marines at least a fighting chance to remain organised via SLs/Radio Operators communicating with Command.

Xenos already pick off specialists and medics just because. Adding another role they can pick off would work as expected, and work even worse on low-pops.
Can't see how it would destroy organization either, just add one more objective marines need to protect.

I like this idea, but it could also be solved by just better mapping in general

If changes to Ice Colony say anything, this is not really an option (moving telecomms from a hard to defend area that's within reasonable distance from LZ AND needs to be unsnowed by xenos to plant weeds into a perfect forward nest location in the mother fucking Narnia.)

[misto]

this sort of thing was kind of already thought up with a radio backpack relay thread, i think. it was quite warmly received. the fragility of human long range communications compared to the other team is a major balancing factor that is often overlooked

[Bronimin]

On other servers, you can build telecommunications equipment from scratch with the right circuit boards. The code to do it should be there. I'd much prefer this to removing t-comms altogether and the radio backpacks that people seem fascinated with.

[misto]

something you build at the fob is also a nice idea. then there is another reason to build your fob and keep it safe

you could also have one to install in the crewmount slot in the DS that will serve the planet as a tcom relay so long as the ds stays landed