Trenches

[Admiralkio]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): They're trenches. Holes in the ground that marines sit in. Good cover from projectile fire.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Less tablefort meta, actual defensive position.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Engineers would get the M4A5 Entrenching tool, or, in layman's terms, a shovel. Does brute damage when used to attack, but otherwise can be used to dig trenches in the ground, maybe 10-20 seconds per tile of trenching.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Give engineers a special shovel sprite, and add trenches. They'd act like walls except you can right click and climb into a trench, but can't move anywhere but the trench unless you right click and climb back out. Requires 10 seconds to get in or out. Marines can fire out of trenches but their sight is limited and their accuracy is lower.

[Gentlefood]

+1 only if you can enter and exit from the ends freely.

[LackingAHelmet]

+1 if you add an M16A2 and a helmet that had an Ace playing card in it.

[Admiralkio]

Probably should add that it would prevent marines from being spit at and provide cover from the Boiler's gas cloud attack.

[MauroVega]

Right so we got these aliens with claws for hands,lets make trenches so we are traped at a lower level with them

Neutral

[Tristan63]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): They're trenches. Holes in the ground that marines sit in. Good cover from projectile fire.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Less tablefort meta, actual defensive position.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Engineers would get the M4A5 Entrenching tool, or, in layman's terms, a shovel. Does brute damage when used to attack, but otherwise can be used to dig trenches in the ground, maybe 10-20 seconds per tile of trenching.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Give engineers a special shovel sprite, and add trenches. They'd act like walls except you can right click and climb into a trench, but can't move anywhere but the trench unless you right click and climb back out. Requires 10 seconds to get in or out. Marines can fire out of trenches but their sight is limited and their accuracy is lower.

Make them like resin walls kinda connection eh?
10 seconds to get in a trench sounds ridiculous, 10 to get out and 3 in.

[Edgelord]

Trenches aren't very Nam. And I don't see how they would help against melee-centric aliens.

-1

[KittyLava]

Trenches aren't very Nam. And I don't see how they would help against melee-centric aliens.

-1

I believe trenches in this case aren't exactly there for protection against melee themed hostiles, rather more to protect them from being shot at by friendlies to occasional spit. Although, boilers would be devastating as said marines can't get out as easily. Can see some interesting outdoor checkpoints toward initial lines defense tactics, secondary fallback lines inside their FoB, even handy against raiders/hostile teams later.

This honestly feels like any double edged blade is, one hand it's helpful, other hand it'll bit back depending against what.

[LordeKilly]

Could be potentially good. These could reduce damage of hurtful acids and prevent knockdown on them. Although I think it should work as the alien resins, with there being a specific door tile that takes time to get into, and then middle tiles that provide the actual protection.

+1 anyhow.

[DernSquirrels^3]

I feel like standards and engies should get the entrenching tools, let the grunts do the shoveling.

► Show Spoiler

AFFIX BAYONETS AFFIX BAYONETS! OVER THE TOP! *Blows whistle*

[Gentlemanly_headcrab]

+1 I'm up for it, but not entirely sure how it'd work with the whole, aliens are melee focused and only spitters launch projectiles trenches usually protect from.

[MasterZ01]

Well ugh, considering that may work in some of the environments on the current map, You can't really shovel concrete tile and foundations, so you'd still have pillow forts .. just with trenches outside of the buildings, which by the way would need bits of wood and other things to keep operating correctly, you need a good foundation that keeps your feet out of the mud because you could get trench foot otherwise, also you'd need some wood bits to keep the trench's cohesion together in a fight. Assuming that all of that is wisped away by Game magic it still wouldn't really by RP-centric considering the Xenos are a agile close ranger melee fighters, The goal is to keep them as far as from you as possible not be trapped in a muddy ditch with big angry xeno. Also I've heard we're getting a series of new maps, this may be more less applicable then. so for now -1 from me.

[LordeKilly]

Well ugh, considering that may work in some of the environments on the current map, You can't really shovel concrete tile and foundations, so you'd still have pillow forts .. just with trenches outside of the buildings, which by the way would need bits of wood and other things to keep operating correctly, you need a good foundation that keeps your feet out of the mud because you could get trench foot otherwise, also you'd need some wood bits to keep the trench's cohesion together in a fight. Assuming that all of that is wisped away by Game magic it still wouldn't really by RP-centric considering the Xenos are a agile close ranger melee fighters, The goal is to keep them as far as from you as possible not be trapped in a muddy ditch with big angry xeno. Also I've heard we're getting a series of new maps, this may be more less applicable then. so for now -1 from me.

Perhaps that could be the vice, is that it has to be on grass tiles exclusively. Another point, perhaps it could allow a chance to miss the marines while entrenched? It could be coding hell, but a sickass feature.

[ParadoxSpace]

The meme here is that you guys don't know youre going against aliens. You think you're going against guys with guns.

[DernSquirrels^3]

The meme here is that you guys don't know youre going against aliens. You think you're going against guys with guns.

Paradox has a point. Hell, marines don't even know what's going on since the colony went dark. Anyway, I think that they should only be dug on grass and path tiles. Just imagine the trench lines along the river embankment.

[Edgelord]

Paradox has a point. Hell, marines don't even know what's going on since the colony went dark. Anyway, I think that they should only be dug on grass and path tiles. Just imagine the trench lines along the river embankment.

But this is an offensive operation if anything. The point of the FOB is that it can be thrown up in like 15 minutes and serve as a staging point. This isn't a battlefield situation, to the knowledge of the USCM High Command this is them investigating a colony that went dark. You wouldn't dig trenches to fight pirates would you?

[Admiralkio]

That doesn't change the fact that it takes about two seconds for someone with a shovel to realize "Hey! I can get better protection by moving dirt." It doesn't matter that they have no idea what's going on - the USCM is meant to fight guys with guns, as said earlier in the thread. Trenches would be logical.

[username123]

-1, too much work for devs for something that is basically a metal barricade, there is no reason why a marine would or a squad engineer will dig a trench when engineers can build metal barricades. On top of that, it will create a lot of lag because as far as i concern, the only byond ss13 like game that have this kind of mechanic is lifeweb, and it involves multiple Z levels where each hole acts like the ladders that we currently have.

[Outboarduniform]

+1
Actually , you can make shit dirt trenches that will hold for a few days , adding wood and all would be for sustained combat , and this op is considered to be short in and out.
Plus , I would love to see boiler smoke linger in the trenches as it clears from the upper ground. Another cool feature would be static machine guns to add to them. Since lost marines say that they learned their FOB building skills in French warfare class. Also , standard issue gas mask/gas mask canister or satchel would be nice

[Joe4444]

+1 only if you can enter and exit from the ends freely.

or so you can exit anywhere but front and back would take longer?

[SpanishBirdman]

Paradox has a point. Hell, marines don't even know what's going on since the colony went dark.

True, but FOBs are rarely built before the marines make first contact and figure out (somewhat) what they're dealing with. This seems like a lot of work for an asset that doesn't make much sense in the CM world.

-1

[Morrinn]

Neutral, leaning on -1.

Several things.
How does the trench provide cover for an acid cloud?
How do you expect the trench digging to work, if say, you were to dig out a large area instead of a straight line.
How do the xenos retrieve a marine from a trench?

If someone could code all this to work, I guess it would be a nice addition, but it honestly sounds like a shitton of work for a thematically challenging reward. Plus, do we really need to incentivise turtle tactics any further?

[ShortTemperedLeprechaun]

I'm neutral on the idea. It's supposedly a quick drop to investigate a dark colony, however I feel it could be an orderable cargo object. It would probably a specific line of code that decides where one can dig. Ontop of this, it would be an interesting way to hold a position, or at make an attempt.

[qDan]

For example trenches may give immunity to spits and grant 5-10 seconds drag\pick up immunity so aluems wont be able to drag immediately even hugged marine because he lie on the ground below. But yes OP's suggestion not very elaborate so +1 in mind but 0 for now.

[FzJoss]

This is a cool suggestion i was going to suggest crouching, but i realized it would be hell to code, so, here is my bit about this.

Make trenches only take 2/3 seconds to get in, but 9 seconds to get out of. (Jumping into a 1,5 meter deep trench is quick and easy, a trained marine should be able to know how to do so without injuring himself, but getting out would need him to holster his weapon and climb up, that takes longer)
While in trenches, marines can't get hit by projectiles UNLESS the source of the projectile is one/two tiles away from the marine and aims DIRECTLY at his sprite. (Protection from friendly fire and spits)
Marines still get affected by gas clouds, so they will get royally fucked by boilers.
Trenches near water (the river) need a wooden tile foundation or else the movement in the trench is made twice as slow, as well as making it harder/longer for marines to get out of it (muddy trenches are bad trenches)
Aliens can still slash at marines in trenches from the outside, but cannot hit their legs/groin/feet (their claws wouldn't reach the marine)
Marines get a CHANCE to jump through trenches (about 80%) when they are above them and running at full speed
All alien castes but the queen (because she is so slow) can jump over trenches if they are running, they won't be able if they are stalking
Both marines and aliens will fall into the trench if they move to it while WALKING/STALKING
Now, about building:
Trenches take 15 seconds to dig (for balance, 30 seconds would be too much but, you do need some time to dig up a 1x1x1.5 big trench
Building is divided in 3 stages, 5 seconds per stage, removing a .5 meter deep bunch of earth at each stage
There will be one pile of dirt in any adjacent tile of the trench which can be used to (via right click) to fill the trench faster than it is dug up (3 seconds per stage when filling a trench hole)
No trenching in metal tiles

How about this?