Add dropship pilots.

[Monoo]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

I was thinking about the movie that started it all recently. In Aliens, the marine squad's dropship is piloted by Colette Ferro, a corporal and fellow marine. And then my mind wandered over to the dark corner where I shove all of my salty video game experiences. Countless times, the dropship has been launched back to the Sulaco before the marines have fully evacuated from the colony, or before everyone's loaded on to go down. The easy way to fix this would be to add a dropship pilot role, just like in the canonical USCM.

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

This will fix ALL of the problems that marines have with transportation now. You know how the CO yells out the time until briefing as soon as the round starts? Give the pilot a radio like that, and tell them to announce their leaving and arriving schedule.

No more groups of marines stuck on the flight deck whining about how the shuttle hasn't been up in ten minutes. There's someone in there to fly it up any time?

No more MPs having to pilot the shuttle! It makes no sense when you think about it, and I've seen many MPs completely disobey orders from higher up and launch the thing whenever they god damn please. Plus, we can avoid all of that business about MPs defending themselves from aliens and the like by leaving them on the Sulaco.

In the event that the pilot dies or ceases to exist, an MP or officer could still fill the role. We could also add a co-pilot role as backup in case the regular guy goes AWOL.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

The pilot could be some kind of low ranking officer (like, below the RO on the chain of command) or a corporal and regular marine like in the lore. Not sure really, DISCUSS.

Depending on rank, the pilot can spawn in their own office or prep room with some sweet new gear. An aviator's helmet and glasses, a command radio, some kind of shiny sidearm, all kinds of great things. They show up to briefing like everyone else. As the marines are dismissed and crowd into the hangar, the pilot takes the helm and yells out to everyone that they'll be operating on a strick five-minute schedule. Between flight drops, they head over to cargo and pick up helmets, flares, and anything else marines need.

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

Opinions!

[LordLoko]

Protip:

Check the forum search

This is the fifth time this was suggested

[Azmodan412]

1. Duplicate.
2. That's shitcurity's job.

[Monoo]

I saw

Has there been any word on what the staff think? Timely transportation is important, and I did my best to flesh it out a bit more.

[Infernus]

This was denied before since no one could think what else can they do besides flying the shuttle. (Does not mean that it will be denied now :P)

The problem is that they cannot just sit in and send it back and fourth.

What else can they do?
Control the turrets?
Shoot with cannons?
..?

And also think how could it work, since we can't see anything by, for example this suggestion:"They can shoot the cannons!"
How? Why? What about balance? Is it mid flight or on the ground? etc...


I do like the idea of pilots as most of the time, no one is there to send it. But we (staff and devs) can't think of everything else from the tiny scratch of what you suggested (Which is only flying back and forth :P) (EDIT: And dragging cargo when in hangar).

[LordLoko]

Tell apop to add on the auto-denied list

[Monoo]

I don't think they would need to be confined to the dropship, necessarily. They still would operate on a schedule, but when they have downtime they could help out around the FOB or in cargo. Maybe give them some tools to help fortify? I don't know, that's why I think discussion is important for something this controversial.

[LordLoko]

Well, the pilot in the movie did nothing but wait, the coopilot got out for a smoke break,which allowed an alien in And the shuttle get destroyed. The other shuttle was remote controlled

[Gentlemanly_headcrab]

MP's can be ship pilots currently with CO/XO permission if we had a full-time shuttle pilot it'd eventually get boring of just going back and forth. Unless we had something like a turret control system or some way for the pilots to actively be useful in piloting (Like doing something allows the shuttle to get there faster or take down some of the time between landing and take off) it'd just be them hitting a button and watching space fly by before hitting ground, picking marines and moving back.

[forwardslashN]

Implemented.