Make the distress beacon riskier for humans

[ForcefulCJS]

Summary:

Right now the distress beacon's outcomes vastly favor the marines.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

Makes Sulaco camping less viable/encouraged.

Details:

The vast majority of latejoiners are already heavily encouraged to play marines since observing won't even let you play a larva (this really should be its own suggestion since the game's greeting message tells xeno players to observe and then stick them with a 10m cooldown if bursting RNG doesn't bless them). On top of the marine's steady flow of reinforcements (aka last night's primetime game where xenos slaughter 30 marines and there's still 40 humans camping on the Sulaco waiting for them), the distress beacon is often a game-decider since it coincides with marines falling back to Sulaco. Recently had a game where xenos just butchered the humans, it wasn't even close, the marines had no communication, mutiny everywhere, just chaos and death as the CO tried to pull a Donald Trump meme and make a giant wall. Only 3/4th of alpha and half of delta survive the initial deployment. Xenos are confident since they outnumbered the evacuated marines, numbering less than 10, but shortly before we hijack the dropship we see the distress beacon get an encrypted response. By the time we arrive on the Sulaco those ~8 surviving marines were replinished with +10 latejoin/laggard marines and on top of that 5 PMC members had shown up with specialist equipment and 3 autoturrets.

Plasteel barricades were placed in front of every window and door before the dropship even arrived and autoturrets were facing all the escape routes. We arrived in a dropship full of xenos and yet the only way we can even leave the shuttle is by slowly slashing down the barricades or acid'ing them down, both take at least one minute given the circumstances. Meanwhile the shuttle is being flooded with grenades from a PMC's grenade launcher and frag spam from the others, the entire xeno force is easily wiped out without a single human casualty or a single xeno even making it off the dropship.

This routine repeats itself daily, Sulaco camping + distress beacon aid = autowin if the humans put an ounce of thought into their defense.

But surely when the distress beacon backfires (and it rarely does), the humans should be punished just as hard... when it works they get heavily armed PMC's, surely the xeno ERT is just as terrifying? Nah, its four spitters/sentinels with no facehuggers, two marines can easily wipe them out without breaking a sweat since 1) spit mechanics are awful and won't hit a moving target 2) Neuro spit that isn't coming from a praetorian will not last more than a couple seconds, the spitter caste's terrible tackle rate and weak slashing will never beat a marine. Human ERT = Badass squad, Xeno ERT = Target practice. I've only seen a xeno ERT once and a single marine wiped it out by breaching a window with an electrified grille next to the xeno ship and it sucked in all the spitters and shocked them to death (they were all hiding next to the window because they had no way to create weeds and were getting their health chewed up by m4 spam).

Distress beacon can still favor marines but should it be riskier to use instead of a good chance for a game-winning benefit and a small chance of a minor inconvenience.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):

Increase the chance of the beacon backfiring with a hostile event, and make the strength closer to the PMC's that marines usually get.Either that or give the queen a psychic distress signal that has a 90% chance of 5 crushers showing up and a 10% chance of 5 unarmed survivors show up (ok thats a little sarcastic but still).

Edit: I'll offer an alternative based on feedback. Add a rule that marines can't place defenses in the "hazard area" of the Rasputin LZ. Plasteel barriers at every dropship exit + nade spam is absurdly unfair and would even the greatest powergamer blush with envy.

[Feweh]

Its supposed to favor the Marines. Theres a equal chance that any of the events can be helpful or hostile. Admins can even tell the ERT what their objectives are.

To be fair, they can only call ERT when the ratio is 2;1. So making it more risky for the Marines would spell doom.

[coroneljones]

Do your research before posting


There is a xeno distress beacon wich sends xenos to the sulaco
the Iron bears can be hostile
along with other risks,like it landing on pizza


And its ment to buff marines

[Toroic]

I think the real issue here is the hanger fortifications sealing xenos in the dropship, not distress beacons being too powerful.

[ForcefulCJS]

Its supposed to favor the Marines. Theres a equal chance that any of the events can be helpful or hostile. Admins can even tell the ERT what their objectives are.

To be fair, they can only call ERT when the ratio is 2;1. So making it more risky for the Marines would spell doom.

What do you mean ratio is 2:1? Like marines 2x xenos? Or xenos 2x marine? Or xenos 2x humans?

It's almost certain not xenos 2x humans since the marine survivors + Sulaco crew will typically at least equal the xeno numbers even when xenos are stomping. Most rounds there aren't more than 15 people who even have xeno enabled.

I'm just as certain that the outcome isn't 50/50, I've seen every PMC 2-3 times since I've started playing and I saw Xeno ERT once. Also never seen hostile iron bears, one of my first rounds here was iron bear, barely knew what I was doing but tossing a frag into the dropship and gunning down the stunned praetorian gave me an early intro into what xenos would get when they pushed Sulaco.

@Coronel did you even read my post? I dedicated a paragraph to the Xeno result.

@Toroic I agree that the big boost marines get from beacons could be balanced out with weakening Sulaco camping in other ways, but outside of remapping the Sulaco or changing the rules I don't see a way to stop it. Maybe giving the marines even less warning when xenos hijack. Alternatively you could just make it so that marines are given more reasons to leave the Sulaco since Xenos currently MUST take Sulaco to win (and marines meta this all the time, if marines lost as soon as every human fled the mission area I guarantee you'd see a lot less general retreats while marines still have >50% of their numbers in good health) but Marines routinely camp their way to victory (who wants to xeno hunt when we can bore them into attacking us and we clear them out all at once!).

If we're going to keep beacons as-is then gives Xenos a chance to turn around shit games too. Countless rounds of xenos circling the drain for over an hour with a small guerilla force while the marines top off ammo, replace helmets, get medical aid, fix their hair, etc. before pushing out to finish the xenos.

Based on what Toroic mentioned, I added that as an alternative suggestion. If people really have such a hardon for PMC's then at least remove the most unfair aspect of Sulaco camping.

[Jen_Llama]

These are getting more outlandish as the days pass. I can understand the whole shocked grille thing, but the distress beacon already has failsafes built into it as a mechanic.
-1

[Egorkor]

Just wanna say you''ve been posting nothing but "favour xenos" in the suggestions, and with each topic it makes me think it's influenced by salt.
-1 for reasons stated above.

[Wickedtemp]

They're kind of right. Marines get PMC's frequently, even when they're not needed. Once, the marines got a squad of PMC's fairly close to the start of the round.

Yeah, there's a xeno ERT, but a couple of hunters and sentinels aren't going to accomplish anything aside from dying. The Sulaco will get the announcement, a few marines will be outside the shuttle when it docks, and the Xeno's will die. So, easiest way to actually do something positive? Give the xeno ERT a buff. More xenos, or maybe give them a couple T3's, whatever.

As for the barricades, yes, they're getting out of hand. The Xeno's lose most of their hive when they attack and push the marines back to the Sulaco, given that they didn't all die. The moment the Queen uses the console, there are grilles OUTLINING THE SHUTTLE. Sometimes two layers, and then table barricades behind that. Sometimes the grilles are electrified.

It's literally a death trap for any xeno that shows up. The hangar is guarded by easily 20-30 combat able marines that can just open fire on the shuttle or drop pod and the aliens are stuck there. Nothing they can do. It's power gaming to the extreme and, in my opinion, breaks one of the server rules.

Don't be a dick.

EDIT: People are now more or less saying "Because Forceful made this suggestion, -1." That's real cool of you guys.

[Gamarr]

So, -1, the shuttle arrives in a randomized spot and unless there is direction for the marines, there is not even guarantee that they will be prepared at all for the beacon'd xeno reinforcements. It is alright as is. You get PMCs sometimes, or a pizza guy, there is an hour requirement before you can even launch the beacon I believe too, so I am not sure how you got a beacon 'close to the start of the round.'

As for shuttle defense, People use what is effective. Long as xenos have a unit such as the Carrier, where they more often than not use the ranged huggies just to ko/stun in order to lead to killing instead of actually infecting things, then marines are likewise going to use what works to stop that. Walling, defensive fortifications. What is really needed is an addition/new mechanic for xenos to sneak aboard the sulaco without having to use the shuttle assault (which might be lack of imagination on part of players involved as much as the lack of options).

Until there is some new kind of ploy that xenos can use to alter the balance of power after they push the marines back to the shuttle, then this is what you are going to get and have to deal with. The thing that creates the salt is that marine defenses are multitudes more sturdy than xenos because of the fact they literally cannot just continue to shit out marine supplies like xenos can with resin, and what they do make can be worked with to function to their strengths. Xenos are just as at fault for 'poor form' with their own defenses and those ugly-as-sin checkerboard resin nests. The resin mechanic needs updating in a big way too, really.

[WyattH]

-1 Because Forceful made this suggestion

[Wickedtemp]

So, -1, the shuttle arrives in a randomized spot and unless there is direction for the marines, there is not even guarantee that they will be prepared at all for the beacon'd xeno reinforcements. It is alright as is. You get PMCs sometimes, or a pizza guy, there is an hour requirement before you can even launch the beacon I believe too, so I am not sure how you got a beacon 'close to the start of the round.'

As for shuttle defense, People use what is effective. Long as xenos have a unit such as the Carrier, where they more often than not use the ranged huggies just to ko/stun in order to lead to killing instead of actually infecting things, then marines are likewise going to use what works to stop that. Walling, defensive fortifications. What is really needed is an addition/new mechanic for xenos to sneak aboard the sulaco without having to use the shuttle assault (which might be lack of imagination on part of players involved as much as the lack of options).

Until there is some new kind of ploy that xenos can use to alter the balance of power after they push the marines back to the shuttle, then this is what you are going to get and have to deal with. The thing that creates the salt is that marine defenses are multitudes more sturdy than xenos because of the fact they literally cannot just continue to shit out marine supplies like xenos can with resin, and what they do make can be worked with to function to their strengths. Xenos are just as at fault for 'poor form' with their own defenses and those ugly-as-sin checkerboard resin nests. The resin mechanic needs updating in a big way too, really.

I don't think the PMC's from that event were from an ERT, it was an admin event. If I'm remembering this right, they just decided to send a team of lightly armored PMC's with 'experimental weaponry'... They had a "Prototype SMG" that, from what I was told, had a low-ish damage but infinite ammo. I don't even think an ERT was called. Course, I might've latejoined that round so maybe an hour had passed, I don't know, but regardless there was NO REASON to call an ERT anyways, marines were absolutely killing.

[Anewbe]

-snip-

I don't think the PMC's from that event were from an ERT, it was an admin event. If I'm remembering this right, they just decided to send a team of lightly armored PMC's with 'experimental weaponry'... They had a "Prototype SMG" that, from what I was told, had a low-ish damage but infinite ammo. I don't even think an ERT was called. Course, I might've latejoined that round so maybe an hour had passed, I don't know, but regardless there was NO REASON to call an ERT anyways, marines were absolutely killing.

That's how I remember it, too.

[Jack McIntyre]

Right forceful I will be honest, as I said just play the game, you keep making suggestions and you did this one without doing research, there are iron bears who can be hostile to marines. There can be pizza men who just bring pizzas instead of a armored pmc group, and we even have a pod that is full of xenos that can help hit the sulaco. So do your research before suggesting things otherwise it doesn't help your cause at all.

[SkyeAuroline]

-1. There's plenty of consequences already to calling the distress beacon.

[apophis775]

Denied. In realty, when the beacon is called there's only about a 40% chance it will be HELPFUL to the marines.