Describe your ideal Colonial Marines Round

[Tidomann]

If you had a perfect game on colonial marines, one that perfectly embodies how you feel a round SHOULD go on the server- what would it be like?

I'll start-

I become an ancient sentinel, and proceed to stun everyone, and melt their guns. Soon requisitions has to order more and more weapons as the lockers empty until finally a single marine with a magnetic harness foils my plans and kills me.

[MrJJJ]

Marines being competent, all baldies gone, they don't exist, everyone is decent or good or REALLY good at the game, and the new people are always willing to learn so they never fuck it up as bad as baldies do.

*Although thats more of a wish for the entire CM than a round but ehhhhhh*

[manezinho]

The xenos have ancient runners and spitters, they stun spam everyone to death and the queen dances on their corpses. The deadchat gets filled with salt as a salt mine midi begins to play. Carson escapes and the almayer blows up because one marine hid under a body. All the marines spam OOC with Hoorah until OOC gets disabled. Then the server restarts.

[Philby0]

Crime rate of 2 stolen sweetrolls in an hour, constant supplies of tea. Take a bribe from the CL without doing shit for him. Die heroically helping widows and orphans escape on the pods while boarding.

[Dirty Old Harry]

Spawn in and interact with the squad, have banter that doesn't dissolve into memey shit or without someone fighting someone else. Briefing goes as everyone sits down, doesn't talk over the CO and actually listens to the plan. Go down, find xenos, have a long winded and hard fought fight where i die holding the line as everyone evacs.

If only...

[Hulkamania]

Having the marines follow orders.

You can see that this is indeed a fantasy.

[Renomaki]

My ideal CO round would consist of a fully staffed ship, loyal marines that use smart tactics rather than bum-rushing xenos the first chance they get, and when the going gets tough, marines that are not quick to pussy out and run away the first chance they get.

Alas, a CO can dream...

[Ghostdex]

Something along the lines of less friendly fire, pretty much.

[Tidomann]

Within the confines of the game as is- a 100% dedicated high roleplay marine force would be amazing. Assuming they didn't get hyper murdered very quickly.

I think this would make non-meta strategies actually testable.

And having a dirty old man save everyone.

[Dirty Old Harry]

That dirty old man being either Xiphos or Crimson, i'd assume.

[ImHereToHelp]

Designating squad duties is only relevant for the first 20 minutes or so, then battle lines get drawn and all squads become one force.

As a medic, my ideal round would be one where I am close enough to the front to receive any injured marines quickly, but not so close where I have to constantly stop what I'm doing to pull out my shotgun. Admittedly, I enjoy it when I'm one of few medics around. I feel that I am competent enough to save everyone that comes to me, but get all the validation in the process (I am not a perfect man).

However, if game mechanics facilitated squad objectives and cohesion more, then I would like to be around just my squad and have everyone's interpersonal and gameplay skill dictate what happens RP-wise. I know I've had some hero rounds where I saved a fellow marine from a hunter and a runner by killing the runner and cuckshotting a hunter, forcing him to retreat. This felt significant because it was just me and that marine and my decisive action led to a positive RP encounter. Another example would be where there were two downed marines in a room with a crusher. Everyone was too scared to push and save the marines, except me of course. I went in there and killed the crusher by myself and everyone quickly typed something along the lines of "GOOD KILL" "good job" and "Nice". Being a medic and doing such things when we're on our last legs really makes me feel that I save fellow marines with medicine, but also by killing threats.

Sticking a squad down on a planet with a very concrete and important goal WITH VIABLE THREAT is the only way you will ever have squad cohesion and RP. I find that the way CM is set up is not ideal, but decent enough, in achieving this goal. It is very challenging to facilitate this sort of gameplay on a 100+ player BYOND game, that I sympathize with. But, the essence still stands: One squad, one concrete objective with significance and challenging threat (not weak but not overwhelming). I know this is attempted by having various assets on the planet scattered and providing a benefit by securing and repairing said place. However, perhaps a more "gamey" objective would prove beneficial? Maybe some sort of Capture Point tug-of-war? How about some Natural Selection 2 inspired maps, where the entire map is split in different zones and securing each zone provides resources or a general buff to the faction? This would force each faction to spread out and secure their own bit of turf. Each squad will be split and given a concrete objective and (hopefully) viable threat by matching with an equally split xeno force.

Regardless, my rounds are typically ruined by snowflake CO's that give orders leading to xeno stomps IE: Not pushing out of hydro/medbay after fog on LV-624 or doing some dumb LZ2 shit on Big Red. These meme strats don't create universally understood battlelines, which makes my job as a medic ultimately unfulfilling.

[Clayton_Kelly]

Marines lose so the game doesn't drag on.

[MetaphysicalBeing]

Being afraid of other marines FFing you then growing balls and going into combat, get FFed, get pain crit, Xeno drags away, nests, breeded, ghosts, salts.


The end.

[solidfury7]

Some pre combat bonding roleplay which places value on each marine personally, rather just feeling like they're a redshirt, followed by an ever increasing and desperate struggle for survival, losing people you bonded with mere hours before.

Evacute the colony, aliens don't rush the dropship, instead giving marines some roleplay regarding the death of the marines, failure of the operation, internal struggle....then the Aliens come back in to play.

Boom.

[SolarMacharius]

From an officers perspective, the ideal round would be where marines get through briefing without getting their spec or SL brigged for half an hour for doing stupid shit (or going SSD in a locker round start). Once the marines land, it would be nice to have the marines actually follow orders and stick with their squads. The SL is competent and not some random no name who talks maybe twice over comms before getting murdered by the aliens five minutes into coming into contact with them. The FOB team actually makes a decent FOB, and not a single line of barricades with one sentry max. The SO's don't go to cryo twenty minutes in leaving me and the CO or the last remaining LT to manage everything by our self. Lastly, the marines figure out how to flank the aliens so we don't have to go through the painful experience of slowly losing ground and then evacing.

From a boots perspective, the ideal round would be one where command is competent and updates orders regularly. The ground forces also wouldn't pin all the blame on command, when most of the time its their fault for FFing and not taking the initiative when it comes to flanking or encirclement. The marines would also attempt to shoot the aliens dragging off their friends instead of standing there without their weapons even wielded, and would not walk in front of the gunline and then complain about getting shot.

That's my ideal round of CM. Its not even a fantasy because I have played plenty of rounds where the marines have fought extremely well and kept the amount of FF to a minimum. I enjoy those rounds much more than the usual "everyone gets wiped now wait ten minutes for the hijack alarm and a failed SD attempt" that usually happens.

[Heckenshutze]

Complete. Xeno. Extermination.