Comms Scrambler Array objective to reduce marine rushing.

[KingKire]

Summary:
Create a small Comms array hidden on the colony that scrambles all communication north of the river until its turned off or 50ish minutes go by.

Benefits:
The Scrambler Comms array should help reduce but not outright prevent marines from moving across the river to attack aliens. Normally, marines are forced by admins to stop rushing the caves before the 40ish minute mark because it really hurts the Aliens chances to have a decent chance at playing the game. Having to "forcibly" tell marines to fall back, even if they are winning or had a lucky chance to follow a xeno to the hive, feels bad for marine players, and leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth reminiscent of the old "you cant cross this 1 foot wall" scenario present in old games.
(The 1 foot high wall that blocks a lvl 99 demi-god that came from hell and back from entering a new area scenario)

This Suggestion should create a passive force that makes marine alot weaker, but doesnt outright prevent, marines entering the cave system. It also only effects the early part of the round ( more ideas on that below) and it can be fixed even quicker if the marines are diligent about fixing the problem.

Details:

So, the background on this suggestion is that Wayland-Yutani is running a secret operation, which is true, and that they would like to make sure that no unauthorized personnel could communicate on whats being dug up down there without going through W-Y approved Communications. Wayland-Yutani made sure to have the top-secret area of its colony blacked out by a Communications Scrambler array set up across the river near the cargo depot. Essentially concealed as a radio relay tower, The Communications Scrambler Pulses out large bursts of radio traffic on all but a few select frequencies if it detects unauthorized radio traffic. The Array runs on its own backup generators hidden in its tower, making it still able to scramble radio traffic for a short while, even if power to the main colony was lost for any reason.
It was perfect to keep nosy people away, but not a high enough radius to affect important visitors to the colony.

Controls for this Scrambler array to be shut off were put in key secure areas of the colony, along with other sensitive info and such. Places like the IA's office, the Secure Storage Dome, and the Head Researchers office. Now, im unsure on if it the shut off switch would be a computer code, a large button on the wall, maybe just a shortcut on a laptop.



Implementation:
Now on the technical side of this suggestion, im unsure on how it could be coded in.

I've thought about it and my idea on how it should go would be that there would be a special feature added to all tiles north of the river that stops any radios from working. I think there's a small code that prevents people from using Orbital Bombardments in the cave system that can be re purposed if i remember correctly, but i could be wrong.
-if this isnt possible, then maybe just have all communications be jammed (shutoff, like ice planet) as soon as a non-survivor crosses the river. Cruel, but effective.



The first Non-Survivor crossing past these tiles triggers a warning from Mother:
"Warning, Communications Jammer in effect, Possible Wayland-Yutani Scrambler detected on planet, Shut-off location unknown, possibly within High-Secure Areas. Proceeding to Calculate possible Scrambler Shut-off locations. Possible locations: Internal Affairs office, Head Researchers Office, Secure Storage Depot."
-The Shut off switch for the scrambler doesn't turn on until its triggered by marines crossing the river, to prevent meta shenanigans. Its also randomized between the three areas to prevent marines from just camping one person at the "switch" and shutting it off as soon as it turns on. Possibly even forgo the random aspect and just have it need all three to be shut off?

-issue: what happens if a marine is dragged across the river by aliens? That triggers the Scrambler anyways, dont get caught.


If after 15 minutes without shutting the scrambler off or the round has reached 1 hour and 15 minutes long, Mother sends out an info that the Scrambler array has been disabled remotely (or the array ran out of power or something)

If no Non-Survivor crosses the river by the 45 minute mark, the marines are rewarded by having the scrambler be shut off remotely by mother as a reward for their patience. The message from mother plays:
"Possible Wayland-Yutani Blackout Scrambler detected on planet. Shut-Off location found, Remotely Shutting Down Array to prevent communication issues that may occur crossing northern river region. Reasons behind Communication blackout for north river region: unknown)


-issue: Should survivors communications be cut off as well? Is that possible to code that only radios found on the planet work on these tiles?


Anyone using a radio north of the river would just get the message that "You hear several loud sqwaks and buzzing coming from your radio, completely overriding your channel's communications".


This idea also had a sister idea using the missile array that the admins like to use every so often be triggered instead of the communication scrambler. Who knows, maybe switch it up between each other. Also, this comms scrambler array could be the reason why the Russian distress ship crashlanded onto the north river. (or it was hit by the missle array, either one works), So lore boost.

[Renomaki]

Ok, so, uh.. If I am reading correctly..

This jammer only triggers when you cross the river, right? Because it would suck if it happened the moment you drop down to the planet.

Communication is HIGHLY important for marines the moment the round even starts. One thing I hate about the snow map is that comms are down when you hit planetside, which makes keeping track of everyone very hard and keeping everyone on your six a challenge, let alone communicating with command properly.

The idea of having a jammer in the jungle that fucks up your coms gives me flashbacks to the snowmap.. *shivers*. Even if it only triggers when a marine crosses the river, just HOW much does it count? North or south shores? Because of all comms suddenly shuts down because one marine got a tad too giddy pushing back a runner, then a lot of salt would be had.

I wouldn't mind this event as a once in awhile thing, but just once in awhile. Otherwise it would make the lives of SLs leading their men all the harder.

[EMT_321]

This is a good IC solution to an OOC problem, if the opposing bank of the river +3 tiles back was made the trigger point. If this was used to deter metarushes rather then admin intervention, it would cut down on inconsistent rulings and player irritation.

+1

Total: +2.

[KingKire]

This jammer only triggers when you cross the river, right? Because it would suck if it happened the moment you drop down to the planet.

This jammer, if coded correctly, would only block communication above the river line, leaving the colony untouched. It would A) Stay scrambled till 1:15 , B) the marines shut it off early, or C) Is shut off early at the 45 minute mark if no marines cross the river.

If that was impossible to code due to DreamMakers funky code, It would only Scramble All of the planets comms if a marine crosses the river before the 45 minute mark. Afterwords, it works just like the top suggestion and can be shut off early or shuts off by itself at 1:15.

[Jroinc1]

Assuming this ONLY affects tiles north of the river, AND the jammer manual override requires power to be set, then +1.

In the last round I was in, marines rushed so hard they never set up power... and THAT seems like too much of a metarush to me. Either wait the 45-75 minute timer, (which is pretty long, but you can still fight colony xenos), or
SET POWER,
CROSS THE RIVER to trigger the jammer,
CHECK THE THREE POSSIBLE LOCATIONS,
and DISABLE THE JAMMER (using the uplink).

Relatively quick 4-step process that requires the mehreens to do the minimum they should do south of the river (Only long one is setting power, which is already done, rest can be done by different squads, and could take less than 15 seconds if planned in advance), and only punishes REALLY bad meta-rushes, like the no-power one. Also, to minimize the OH SHIT ONE OF THE APC'S TOOK A SADAR AND THE ENGIS ARE INCOMPETENT factor, make it require 2/3 triggers to be activated

[ParadoxSpace]

does this affect predators

[KingKire]

No, it would be presumed they have advanced comms that are not affected by W-Y

[Warnipple]

I like the idea of in-game mechanics to prevent marines from meta rushing so I'll +1 this idea.

To add to this idea: perhaps more things that need to be 'fixed' before marines can push onwards should be added? I like the idea of having to fix a telecomms tower before comms are up. Maybe add a telecomms tower to LV-624?

[Biolock]

+1, maybe it's not the /perfect/ idea. But any OOC problem that can be solved IC should at least be considered.

[ZDashe]

+1, seems like a good idea given the lack of alternatives. It doesn't stop ramborines from rushing and delivering free hosts to aliens, but at least it prevents any sort of full-scale coordinated meta-assault on the alien hive.

[Jay Burns]

1+ seems a great way to stop rushes, which generate a lot of salt, but what if one Rambo marine runs off and triggers the comms scrambler, essentially severing communications?, is there a way to stop that?

[KingKire]

I would think that there would be a fax from Wayland Yutani that marines are to stay south of the river before they landed on the colony? Maybe an automated colony broadcast to marines who first arrive that politely states "welcome to LZ-421, please enjoy your stay and do not leave colony grounds/ stay out of unauthorized areas". Possibly a final warning played to individual marines on the other side of the river that states "You start to hear a small rising humm slowly blocking your comms channels as you approach the river, any louder and it would drown out your commset completely..."

[Jroinc1]

1+ seems a great way to stop rushes, which generate a lot of salt, but what if one Rambo marine runs off and triggers the comms scrambler, essentially severing communications?, is there a way to stop that?

Well, it'll only cut comms across the river, so he'll lose his comms, but all the rest of the marines would know IC, is that ramborine dropped off the commnet... which he probably was never on anyway, and whatever the MOTHER message says.

[KingKire]

bump due to a metarush disaster this round

[LordLoko]

hey this look like a good idea

[completelynewguy]

+1, maybe a workaround for xenos kidnapping marines and taking them north is to edit the code so that it doesn't trigger the scrambler if they're hugged/infected?

[Solacian72]

I think instead of outright disabling comms, it should instead show up the same as when a marine hears a xeno talk, or a xeno hears a marine talk. They hear bits and pieces of a sentence, but the majority of it is inaudible. I'm not sure how this would work code-wise, but hopefully it would be simple enough.

Neutral, leaning towards a +1

[KingKire]

So i was thinking, okay, a few people seem to have a problem with rambo-marines being able to knock out all the communiccations for a planet (which was the 2nd option i had), which is bad design scince the actions of one causes problems for those who had performed well.

SOOO the new addition would be, INSTEAD of having the comms be messed up for EVERYONE if Anyone who crosses the river, we can hardcode an actual effect, which creates actual mechcanical ingame problems.

Anyone crossing an active jammer array (which are 2-3 radio towers set accross the river, each with 15-30 tile range, (which should be enough to cover most of the north river valley and the definitly the caves) causes this effect:
-Any marines walking near an operational jammer tower causes his commhead set to be "blown out" for 15-25 minutes. (we can have this be set to permanent if we are feeling spicy today). This causes the marines headset to either A) only pop out garbled text during those 15 minutes, B) is completely shut off during that time.

This may be an easier way to code a solution to the comms if they have their own "damaged?" value in their code. IDK. If need be, you can also reuse the code to represent the effects of EMP on comms signals.

The one problem to this, is this a more game taxing effect? and what happens if marines going deeper into the caves and wait out the scramble effect? (IDK about the first, but for the second, maybe we can add more "arrays" hidden in the rock so the entire caves are covered.

As previous though, shutting down the colonys controler for the arrays, turns them off.