Let's talk about Ice colony.

[Freedominspace]

It annoys me that it takes so long, and often devolves into stalemates. As an unrobust Marine, I normally die less than 2 hours into the round, so then I have to wait.

[TheMaskedMan2]

Here is my random theoretical Ice Colony thoughts!
Z-levels are pretty much japery, theoretical way to turn Ice into one Z-level.

1. Move the underground North of the map. (Claim it’s built into the side of a mountain.)

2. Move LZ2 to the Cargo warehouse. (Huge open pad already, pretty fit for it.)

3. Add timelocks to the main entrances, Xenos get the inside, Marines outside. Marines get some time like on LV t play in the snow and the outside, Xenos get time to fortify thw locked down facility.

4. Cause power restoration to “Heat” indoors environments, negating the need for a coif, if power goes out it gets cold again.

4. Profit, maybe?

[HKO20006]

1. Make map location names more detailed, Prison did this very well, like South high sec north/south, instead of the whole south cave as Underground Cave
2. The ladders are mazes of itself, they don't go where you expect them to go. Dorm ladders? Nah, nowhere near the elevator, way south. The nearest ladder underground? It's from bar (to basketball court). The most used pairs (in supposed coordinated attacks) are the ladders in Engineering and Sub Engineering, Hanger elevator and Hanger ladder. The rest see much less uses.

[Jeser]

Another large issue with Ice Colony is simply when marines rarely win. The problem isn't how low the marine win percentage is (which is probably the lowest of the four map if I had to wager), it's actually just how terrible a marine win feels. Most rounds on Ice end very quickly, when xenos push early and decimate the cold and disorganized marines. However, when xenos don't rush the marines and they're allowed to gain a foothold on the planet the chances of a marine win unsurprisingly increase substantially.

Thus, there are two extremes on Ice Colony which occur far to often for me to consider it a polished map. Either the round ends in close to an hour following a xeno metarush, or in the unlikely event of a marine win the round lasts for upwards of 4-5 hours. The devs have stated somewhat recently that they aim to decrease the average round time as it is unfair expect players to play CM for 4-5 hours straight. Additionally, the casualties on Ice Colony during the long rounds are massive resulting in a massive amount of the playerbase having to sit out for hours.

The biggest problem which leads to the more common 4-5 hour rounds on Ice than the other maps is the dreaded lower level. Traversing the lower level on Ice Colony is like trying to navigate Pam's Labyrinth with a broken ankle. The abysmal move speed combined with the extremely complicated and pitch black corridors make coordination impossible. All tactics are out the window and marines are quickly disband into small groups which are easily picked off by even mildly competent xenos. A single spitter, sentinel or hunter can easily kill dozens of marines as it is impossible to corner them due to how slow everybody is.

Even if xenos are outnumbered 5 to 1 they can easily slaughter swathes of marines on the lower level. This leads to a 4-5 hour (or longer) on Ice being caused by an extremely predictable set of circumstances.

• 1. Xenos don't metarush LZ1
  2. Marines spend roughly 1 to 2 hours fighting over the bar area on the map.
  3. If marines are ever pushed back far enough to the LZ, they lose.
  4. Assuming marines get the better of the bar skirmishes, they will slowly and tediously secure the top part of the map. We're between the 2.5 to 3 hour mark at this point.
  5. The disorganized marine force descends into the icy hell that is the lower level, where they are picked off one by one by the few remaining competent xenos who are likely in the later stages of maturity (elite/ancient)
  6. The outcome of this part of the round is dependent on how many marines are remaining after the battle for the top of the map. Since the lower level strips all tactical decisions from the marines it all comes down to sheer numbers and whether the more competent xenos are already dead.
  7. Marines either win when the remaining xenos make the mistake of defending the hive, or lose as xenos slowly build up their numbers as they capture roaming squads of 4-5 marines.

This. nothing even to add here.

[ArrancarX5]

Also, I forgot to mention, Ice Is NOT NICE. it's cold and it sucks.

[Mvp777]

Maps waaaay too big and its cold as balls, makes actually winning as Marines extremely difficult.

[Sulaboy]

With the changes to cold it is a bit more manageable, and the elevators can add some flavor to the round, but the cold is a big problem, and I don't think face huggers should rip off coifs. Also during high pop it becomes harder to break into the underground as all areas can be more easily guarded.

[TehSpoderman]

If you like Ice, you gay. Seriously though, the gameplay on Ice is bad. Its straight unenjoyable to WIN as marines. If you wanna see my reasons, look at Wub's post.

[WinterClould]

Ice is not nice. Ice is suffering. Even when you win as a marine it eats ass.

All the people who just vote Ice then leave actively hurt my soul. Vote Ice if its your damn favorite map, but Jesus people don't vote it just so other people gotta deal with that bullshit.

Every time I see the map get voted for Ice Im tempted to join as CO and force all the marines on DS-2 in hopes the round ends quickly from it. But I just can't bring myself to bother because of how completely unfun that is. Even if I think it's more fun then playing on the surface which is boring and shitty.

The only thing good about Ice's surface is sometimes a squad at Tcomms gets cut off from the LZ and has a cool last stand with medics evacing people via their special beds and everyone else just trying to hold out for dear life.










I don't even like the winter clothing and I have an extra special hate for the coif fight me.

[Mvp777]

By and large i'd say Ice is the most unpleasant map to be a Human on, for the many reasons stated.

[Dolth]

Since the temperature update happened I have nothing against Ice Colony.

Though I'd like to just spit on people whining about how difficult underground is as a marine. Those are just hallways, just like any station, just like prison, just like some places on Big Red. Jesus you are MEANT to have the advantage. That is NO excuse.

[Symbiosis]

Ice is bad.

Really bad.

It does have the best sprites, coolest features, and best atmosphere, though.

Xenos can delay near invevitably, the sheer amount of ladders and the spread of each ladder is far too much.

The ways to make Ice more enjoyable are tied to mobility and ease of access. The fact Xenos can camp elevators and delay is goofy. Multi Z level itself is difficult to manage.... but erasing ladders and creating only two ways up + the DS is a start.

[misto]

you wanna talk ice colony, ill talk ice colony

https://gitlab.com/cmdevs/ColonialMarines/issues/2688

ice colony is caught in a time-space distortion field that causes its ladders and elevators to have almost nothing to do with each other across z-levels. when you ride some of these elevators, you are travelling farther horizontally than you are vertically. when you climb through some of these ladders, you're on a magical journey through winding spaghetti tunnels.

[Gnorse]

Now that marines don't get slowed down, that's one bad thing about ice removed.
There's still two huge factors though, one being the whole 'face huggers rip off coifs' thing and then there's the insane amount of delay and ladder camping.

[misto]

no really, ive been studying it. i have the answer

https://imgur.com/a/L6txH

the player base doesnt hate ice colony merely because of snow, or cold, or ladders, it is instinctually repulsed by this impossible space. this planet isn't only frozen, it is cursed. evil magics have been wrought here. space is twisted. the distances are wrong. the positions of ladders are wrong. the positions of elevators relative to each other are wrong. this is approaching some aperture science levels of shit

[Allafif]

My biggest problem with it is ladder confusion, yeah. Even the xenos get lost, and they have nightvision. I'd love to see the official map have numbered ladders so that you know how to get to where you want to go.

[misto]

i made a video demonstrating some of the worst ladders ive noticed so far in my study of ice colony.

https://youtu.be/Y64bJPnBoXc

PAY ATTENTION as you watch this video. observe how you can travel northwest from the garage to dorms, go down a ladder, go north and up a ladder, and wind up back where you started. observe how you can go northeast from the bar and down the garage ladder, then northeast more and up the bar ladder, bringing you back southwest to the bar. observe how you can go northeast from the research storage dome to the garage ladder, down it, then northeast to the research storage dome ladder. YOURE GOING IN THE SAME DIRECTION EVERY TIME, AND YET GOING IN CIRCLES. NO WONDER PEOPLE GET LOST ON ICE COLONY, THESE LADDERS ARE VIOLATING SPACE-TIME

[misto]

lets talk about ice colony: the ladders are still fucked up and weird and inconsistent between the upper and lower levels, arent they?

at least making snow forts is kind of neat

the worst part of ice colony is you get 2 kinds of ice colony rounds:

1. the marines rush underground at lz2 early and probably die because comms either doesnt get set up soon enough or the tiny team sent to put up comms gets ambushed and slaughtered

2. standard lz1 deployment where marines never ever set foot underground and spend hours garrisoning the bar

[spookydonut]

Let's not necro old threads