Is Clone Scanning pre-round meta?

[TheSlapDoctor]

Recently, a moderator warned Marines over OOC not to get pre-scanned before heading down to the distress beacon.

While we all know to do as warned during the round, does the community agree that getting the scan is metagaming?

On one hand, I do see that having the scan provides a definite ingame advantage to the Marines, having multiple 'respawns' can allow the Marine population to effectively swell quickly.

However, the scan itself is provided for a reason. Cloning labs are provided to 'revive' dead Marines, returning them to combat if the worst does happen. While it's true that the Sulaco does not know that Lazarus Landing is going to contain hostiles, surely the Marines are expecting combat if they go down in full force. IC, why would the Marines NOT be scanned when there is a threat of combat? OOC, the scan is incredibly fast for the benefit it provides (IC it is likely far more difficult), it seems a little out of character for the Marines (not to mention Command) to ignore this incredible resource, when the risk you're choosing to go with is permanent death.

Also, Cloning is not a free 'respawn', it requires resources and time to complete. Finally, and I believe most importantly, it doesn't disrupt the balance of the game to any huge extent. Of course, it does tilt the balance in favour of the Marines, if it didn't, it wouldn't be a resource. But the benefits are not without drawbacks. The increased numbers of hosts are useful to the Aliens if the Aliens are playing competently. While the decreased number of Ghosts (due to another Benefit, players are not removed from the round if they get huggered immediately) might pose a problem, the increased number of Larva allow those dedicated Alien players to benefit from the SAME type of respawn system.

I understand as well that I am biased, my favourite role is in Medical, and I enjoy being able to bring a player back from having to wait a number of hours for a new round.

Until I'm told otherwise, I'll stop pre-scanning. But I wanna know what you think.

[Siserith Vassada]

with so many ways your body can be unrecoverable/unclonable, i think it should be fine to have prescanning, it actually seems pretty smart, you certainly woudlant remeber anything 5 minutes before and and everything after the scan though, and you may not even get back down with the massive turnover time with somthing like this

[MauroVega]

I stand corrected

[Feweh]

We use the scanners a cloners IF a body is recovered. We always have done it this way.

From what I was told in the past, we were not to allowed marines to pre-scan.

[apophis775]

100% meta and powergaming.

Doing this, WILL result in action taken by staff.

Additionally, if this becomes a standard, I'll removing cloning 100%.


Cloning is for recovering bodies ONLY.

[Edgelord]

100% meta and powergaming.

Doing this, WILL result in action taken by staff.

Additionally, if this becomes a standard, I'll removing cloning 100%.

You could always code it so only dead bodies could be scanned. Assuming that isn't too difficult coding-wise.

[TheSlapDoctor]

100% meta and powergaming.

I'm aware of the staff stance on it, I was interested in the reasons behind the decision. As I said, I'll stop pre-scanning, no problem, it just seems like a strange rule to enforce.

[apophis775]

Personally, if I thought it wouldn't result in a complete riot, I'd remove cloning all-together. I think discourages people from moving to the alien side, and is generally lore-breaking within the precedent we've set.

It doesn't fit the with the overall "feel" that we want to make with CM, but because of how people would play without cloning (never even moving away from anyone or doing anything that may hurt them), it's something we need.

[Siserith Vassada]

it doesant fit but with the current way the game kind of works, it's almost neccicary

[Edgelord]

I definitely support the removal of cloning, I think tension is a factor that enhances the CM experience so much, but I would never advise it unless turtling is severely nerfed.

For a group of grizzled space marines we're super afraid of danger.

[TheSlapDoctor]

Never even moving away from anyone or doing anything that may hurt them

Kind of shooting myself in the foot here, argument wise, but isn't this in a way an element of gameplay you're trying to encourage? I feel like the staff and (RP enthusiastic) community are discouraging the Rambo-esque, no consequences kind of gameplay that some players have adopted.

Obviously both extremes are damaging to the fun of the game, but it'd be interesting to see the effect removing cloning would have, from a player attitude point of view.

[forwardslashN]

Remove cloning. That's my honest opinion on the matter. A marine ship shouldn't have state of the art cloning facilities in the first place. But I am probably in the minority.

I definitely support the removal of cloning, I think tension is a factor that enhances the CM experience so much, but I would never advise it unless turtling is severely nerfed.

Yeah, this. When I play marine, I want my life to matter that round. I lived and died, and I can't just come back and everything will be fine. Same for my comrades. I can't just clone that guy I punched at the cafeteria. He's never coming back.

[Wesmas]

Why not remove it with admin powers in a couple of rounds to see how the rounds are different? Give you the chance to test it out, without permenatly disabling it.

[Wickedtemp]

I'd support a removal of cloning.

[apophis775]

Why not remove it with admin powers in a couple of rounds to see how the rounds are different? Give you the chance to test it out, without permenatly disabling it.

I can try this, but it would have to be high-pop rounds to get an accurate result.

[TopHatPenguin]

I think that if cloning was removed then the defibs that medics/doctors get should probably be slightly buffed on the time which a body can still be resurrected from, instead of a extremely short window of opportunity, that's just an idea atleast.

[MikeHdez97]

yeah i like the idea of removing cloning but i hope the defibs get a buff like penguin said

[SecretStamos (Joshuu)]

yeah i like the idea of removing cloning but i hope the defibs get a buff like penguin said

I support this wholeheartedly. Death feels pretty meaningless with cloning.

[monkeysfist101]

I support this wholeheartedly. Death feels pretty meaningless with cloning.

Yep. Dragging bodies to the Sulaco takes marines out of the fight. Fewer marines groundside means that the FOB is overrun easier. That leads to hangar turtling and premature retreats.

[Reznoriam]

I honestly don't think it would have /that/ much of an impact on the gameplay. The vast majority of marines that come in have already ghosted out and can't be cloned anyway. Maybe the inclusion of a timer since the time of death might make it better without removing it entirely, for example they have to get there within 10 minutes. Alternatively you could replace the cloner with something else that works more like a shock paddle with a longer timer on it, bringing them back to life rather than cloning them in a new body.

Now that I think of it, I like that idea of bringing them back to life even more since that means that we would have to deal with repairing the bodies rather than just getting a brand new one.

[Wesmas]

Honestly, as a doctor the cloner sucks. I might strugle through an operation, but its far quicker to allow them to die and clone them. It makes doctors mistakes meaningless. Having the defibbs buffed would be great, but I imagine this would lead to alien meta of head removal being even more effective, because no head sewing and cloning.

[forwardslashN]

Honestly, as a doctor the cloner sucks. I might strugle through an operation, but its far quicker to allow them to die and clone them. It makes doctors mistakes meaningless. Having the defibbs buffed would be great, but I imagine this would lead to alien meta of head removal being even more effective, because no head sewing and cloning.

From personal experience, I don't think it would matter much at all. If aliens are in a position to behead a person, there is pretty much no hope for them to be saved via defib or medevac. If anything, beheading matters more now because we have cloning facilities. Ergo, you need to find the head and body, carry them back to the Sulaco, sew them together, then clone, which is more time consuming than just dragging a whole person.
But yeah, buffing defibs would be nice since they don't get much use right now.

[apophis775]

I think that if cloning was removed then the defibs that medics/doctors get should probably be slightly buffed on the time which a body can still be resurrected from, instead of a extremely short window of opportunity, that's just an idea atleast.

I'm working on the Defibs actually.

I wanna adjust them to have about 5 minutes IF the subject didn't burst.

[Solacian72]

If cloners are removed, that would make rounds a lot longer. Yes, no cloner means less marines, but that means marines won't be as eager to go out their and fight. I've seen people say multiple times how they hate when marines turtle. If we remove cloners, I feel like marines will be turtles even more.

[MikeHdez97]

I'm working on the Defibs actually.

I wanna adjust them to have about 5 minutes IF the subject didn't burst.

'
Please do it Apop because actually the death of team mates feels like like this:
oh he died,don't worry, we can clone him