100% Remove Survivor Radios

[ForcefulCJS]

Summary: All radios that aren't on the Sulaco should be removed

Benefits):
- We have made rules and dedicated a significant amount of our RP enforcement toward knowledge of the Xenomorphs, we could have easily not made this a "First Contact" situation but roleplay and balance dictate that the marines not run in with perfect knowledge of the enemy
- All that effort and roleplay potential is lost in 90% of the rounds because there are a dozen radios scattered around the map that survivors inevitably pick up and scream into
- Therefore, in some sad twist of fate, its the xenos who are up against the unknown enemy while the marines, who outnumber them 4:1, come charging in with perfect intel

Details:

- Here's a short list of valuable intel that is given freely to Marines almost every round:

1) Xenos are hostile
2) Xenos use vents to travel (aka GG prison vents)
3) Facehuggers/Crabs infest the host to make more xenos, but can be removed through surgery (cue the marines loading surgeons onto the dropship so that marines who get facehugged but not captured never burst)
4) Facehuggers infest monkeys/skolks (cue marines murdering every monkey on the map)
5) Helmets protect against facehuggers (cue marines hauling a crate of helmets with them)
6) That there are survivors in immediate danger, the 15 minute wait until briefing becomes a 5 minute rushed briefing and the marines are landing with perfect intel before xenos have even hit T2.
7) Any number of other details about xenomorphs since survivors are given perfect knowledge about everything except the marine expedition at roundstart (ive been told that a survivor grabbing every gun on the map within 2 minutes and rushing the hive and killing all the monkeys was allowed)

It should be common sense that a SURVIVOR should at least have to SURVIVE in order to pass this information onto the Sulaco forces, verbally, in person, hopefully after at least a LITTLE roleplay has taken place between these armed strangers. That makes much more RP-sense and is MUCH better for balance than "HI IM A SURVIVOR FROM THE COLONY/PRISON WEVE BEEN WIPED OUT BY ALIENS HERES A NICE LIST OF HELPFUL FACTS ABOUT THE ALIENS THAT LET YOU COUNTER VIRTUALLY EVERY TRICK UP THEIR SLEEVE".

Implementation:

Delete all the non-Sulaco radios, make survivors SURVIVE if they want to play a crucial role in the round... crazy concept huh?

[DerpinMcDerpDerp]

Usually facehuggers try to rape marine faces before marines take extra helmets with them also it's obvious xenos killed the scientist they look like monsters made to kill -1

[WyattH]

-1 the radios should just be changed to how they are on Lazarus Landing, hardset to the civilian network, so that survivors can work with each other if they want but not contact outside

Removing all the radios is overkill and not a good idea.

[Disco Dalek]

-1 the radios should just be changed to how they are on Lazarus Landing, hardset to the civilian network, so that survivors can work with each other if they want but not contact outside

Removing all the radios is overkill and not a good idea.

I'd have to agree with this.

Additionally, in reference to the first point, the whole problem with marines shooting aliens on sight never made sense to me. Just think about it. You land on a foreign planet that has sent out a distress call. It's dark, bodies and blood are in just about every building you come across, and the place generally looks like it got torn apart. You suddenly see a giant unknown creature that looks like something out of a nightmare rapidly moving through the darkness. No sane human being would say," Eh, could be harmless. Let's wait to see if it kills one of us before doing anything drastic."

[LordLoko]

-1 the radios should just be changed to how they are on Lazarus Landing, hardset to the civilian network, so that survivors can work with each other if they want but not contact outside

Removing all the radios is overkill and not a good idea.

I think it would be interesting if we had some kind of spess magic that made those bouced radio be only heard in Lazaru's landing

[ForcefulCJS]

All I'm hearing is "I don't like the policy we have in place and radios let us bypass that so hooray keep radios".

The only thing that should be possible is keeping the radio networks separate, if someone wants to magic that together then go ahead, but the current system is terrible where the VASTLY OUTNUMBERED xeno's are playing "First Contact" while the marines are all playing with "I have a xeno encyclopedia thanks to a survivor with a radio, lets go crush some bugs".

[DerpinMcDerpDerp]

All I'm hearing is "I don't like the policy we have in place and radios let us bypass that so hooray keep radios".

The only thing that should be possible is keeping the radio networks separate, if someone wants to magic that together then go ahead, but the current system is terrible where the VASTLY OUTNUMBERED xeno's are playing "First Contact" while the marines are all playing with "I have a xeno encyclopedia thanks to a survivor with a radio, lets go crush some bugs".

LIKE I SAID xenomorphs look like natural killers no matter in what situation a human would run shoot or scream

[ForcefulCJS]

Ok so you don't like the policy, that's nice, make your own suggestion thread to remove it.

This has nothing to do with policy, it has everything to do with marines boarding with complete knowledge of the xeno forces and stomping them because they can counter all the xeno tricks before they even use them.

[Jack McIntyre]

-1 and really just heads up to anyone, as staff we do not let survivors tell the Sulaco people anything about the xenos or requesting help on the planet. It is forbidden due to the potential of meta as well as the fact that radios like the ones on the surface would not be able to send all the way to space, could you imagine if that was real and the people having the possibility to spam radio communications between ships? It could lead disastrous. So not really seeing the need for this suggestion.

[Gamarr]

100% agreed; please remove colony access to the radios until a replacement is done. I play survivor and personally avoid them at all costs as I find spurging onto the radio to the marines just bad form. It makes it too easy for marines if abused and this comes from someone who doesn't play xeno. It's not fair to the xeno side in the slightest and breaks the intended games flow in so many ways.

Maybe alter Sulaco telecomm to just not pick up the general channel anymore? Thus the only receivers will be new fresh radios I guess and the new colony channel, which was formerly 'general'? Or alter the radios default channel to another freq. It can't be that hard to fix this.

It's bad because they work, and have seen multiple rounds of this going on. Both sides play it off and I've seen little powergaming going on through it, but does happen more than it should.

[ForcefulCJS]

"as staff we do not let survivors tell the Sulaco people anything about the xenos or requesting help on the planet"

I'm assuming staff = admins?

Because I've definitely had admins tell me it was OK for survivors to radio information about xenos to the Sulaco. I was the "first contact" runner once, I was near the LZ when they landed and thought I could get a peek at their numbers but as soon as they see me I had three marines chase me across a quarter of the map spraying multiple mags of ammo in my direction. I ahelped about it and the response was "They learned about xenos from the survivors on radio, they know all about you".

I've spoken as survivor to the marines before and had plenty of conversations. We have perfect radio communications and it makes perfect RP sense for a survivor to let the marines coming to rescue them all about the threat they know so well (who would want their rescuers to wander into a xeno bloodbath?), and it makes perfect sense for the marines to extract all the intel they can get from a survivor on radio.

If its really policy for survivors not to give intel to the Sulaco, then either make it a clear rule or just delete the radios or separate the radio channels. The current method clearly isn't working.

[Wesmas]

The issue is with the prison map, not the colony. Colony radios cant be heard on the Sulaco, but the prison ones can. I feel like the prison station should be locked off, because it gives the marines a huge intel advantage. Taking the radios away is unfair, because its the only way to organise a meeting between survivors. It could just be the radios on the prison are locked to another frequency, because then the marines cant hear us and question us.

[ForcefulCJS]

Oh this is just a prison issue then?

Should be easy to have prison radios mimic the other map's.

[apophis775]

-1 the radios should just be changed to how they are on Lazarus Landing, hardset to the civilian network, so that survivors can work with each other if they want but not contact outside

Removing all the radios is overkill and not a good idea.

This is sort of a "bug" with how T-comms works at the moment, It's being worked on.