Remove Shield Generators or Nerf Them

[Fortport]

Summary:

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Balancing the turtling-fest that marines have been doing lately. Something you can actually counter, as barricades and sentry guns, plus around thirty marines is more than enough to have killed what was on that shuttle.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits(^?), etc): Removing all barrier items, or making it so that they cannot be deployed in the hangar. We had like, a half-dozen tier-threes trapped in a box that were being shot with grenades and etc.

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

[Wickedtemp]

I could type up a long response detailing everything that's wrong with this, but honestly, I feel as though it speaks for itself... This was just downright shitty of the marines to do.

[TeknoKot]

this is genius.

[Fritigern]

I never felt like shields really matched the setting to begin with, so I'd be fine with their removal. On top of that, this strategy is hardly ever used before. This is the first time I've seen a shield put into action in like 6 months of play.

[completelynewguy]

Didn't realize that shields generators were used in the Sully defense.
You can probably replace the generators with inflatable walls.

[Boltersam]

....Wow. Just...Wow.

Okay, no. Things like this should not happen. Shields are IMPOSSIBLE for Aliens to counter, and this kinda shit is ridiculous. I'm highly in favour, because marines retreat early as-is. If they get to use these uncounterable shields in hangar defence, with like 30 of them firing into the killzone created by them, then it's fucking ridiculous. Big fat +1. Either make it so shields have a time limit for how long they can be on, as in, have them eventually overheat, or full out remove them please.

[Egorkor]

lmao, did the marines actually manage to shieldblock all the aliens for the first time in years.
looks like engineering's getting smarter.

[Jroinc1]

Wait... aren't hangar defenses currently AGAINST THE RULES? Why was this a thing?

[Surrealistik]

Yeah, the only reason I never attempted this is because I thought it was straight up illegal to do so.

Reminds me of the time I singlehandedly killed all of the Xenos by planting massive remote triggered potassium bombs around the Rasputin landing zone (and was consequently jobbanned from Researcher for a week).

[MrJJJ]

Wait... aren't hangar defenses currently AGAINST THE RULES? Why was this a thing?

You can't build but you can place things, tables and such, since feature

[Varnock]

Shield generators actually count and fall under the no building in hangar rule. If it happens again just ahelp it and we'll stop that shit.

Like that and the pod since you could probably do the same thing are the only reasons I don't like shield gens. Otherwise you can just melt through walls and get to them eventually. The only thing making them imbalanced is the marine ability to completely box in aliens on the shuttle/pod with no means of escape excluding going down to the planet again IF they happened to be on the pod, otherwise they're just fucked.

Anyways everyone, just do us all a favor and don't do this. If anything, I'd say it fell under not being a dick, since even marines where not enjoying this bullshit, and they were winning because of it.

[Wickedtemp]

It was extremely disheartening , to be honest. We had an excellent Queen, the hive was amazing, we had several "Forward Hive"s that were all great, one in tcomms, hydro, the nexus, the xenos had a strong group. As a boiler, I was actually having a great time helping the Queen with plasma whenever they ran out. There was a good bit of RP thrown in there too.

But, like most rounds I've seen... No marines set foot in the hive, save for those being captured. They defended the entire time, the moment a forward hive was set up, the marines fell back from the area and never touched it again. They ran away every time, just like they do in many, many rounds.

Then when the xenos follow them into the Sulaco, they're greeted by 20 marines, three sentries behind metal barricades, and a shield box. So of course the xenos all die.

The premature retreats are just getting annoying now. Sure, the marines might look wounded, and ICly you'd think that they need to fall back. But on an OOC level you know that most of them are fine, they're just going to get a new helmet and more ammo, and turtle on the Sulaco until the end of the game because it's easier to win that way.

Right now, this can be solved in several ways. We could have the shuttle crash into the Sulaco at a random location, preventing kill-boxes, we could disallow building in the hangar COMPLETELY, this includes barricades and sentries, or if there's staff online and they see 20+ marines, they could say "The fuck are you doing, get down there and fight! -- Central"

But yeah. Glad to know this shield shit isn't going to last. The marines never turned them off, aside from flickering them a few times so they could throw grenades in. I'm confident that goes against the "Don't be a dick." rule.

[Surrealistik]

I think giving the Marines more tools to go on the offensive so they decide to organically would be the best option, like scans that show the approximate # of aliens, and gun emplacements that have fast redeployment times so they can advance and leapfrog with more confidence:

http://colonial-marines.com/viewtopic.p ... 785#p75785

http://colonial-marines.com/viewtopic.p ... 741#p75741

[Wickedtemp]

I think giving the Marines more tools to go on the offensive so they decide to organically would be the best option, like scans that show the approximate # of aliens, and gun emplacements that have fast redeployment times so they can advance and leapfrog with more confidence:

http://colonial-marines.com/viewtopic.p ... 785#p75785

http://colonial-marines.com/viewtopic.p ... 741#p75741

Marines ALREADY have everything they need to go on the offensive. Assault rifles, shotguns, SADAR, smart guns, grenades, SMG's, knives, revolvers and service pistols, flamers, a shit ton of different weapon attachments, AND they have superior numbers every round. They also have flashlights and flares for light, so the dark caves can easily be lit up, especially now that xenos can't drag the light sources away.

Marines have everything they need to attack, yet they hardly ever do because it's easier to turtle in the FOB, then turtle on the Sulaco when they retreat cause a few xenos showed up and destroy their sentry.

And I say this as an annoyed Xeno AND marine player, because it means I'm stuck sitting at the FOB, then running back with everyone else to the Sulaco after not even going through a single mag. It's annoying as hell to me, because at that point it's not even Colonial Marines. It's a game of cat and mouse where the mouse, instead of playing the game, runs and hides in a dog house with a Rottweiler for days until the cat is forced to go after it. It's a game of "sit there and let sentries kill them all" for the marines, and it's a game of "let's hope this time we don't get kill-boxed again" for the xenos.

[Varnock]

Marines ALREADY have everything they need to go on the offensive. Assault rifles, shotguns, SADAR, smart guns, grenades, SMG's, knives, revolvers and service pistols, flamers, a shit ton of different weapon attachments, AND they have superior numbers every round. They also have flashlights and flares for light, so the dark caves can easily be lit up, especially now that xenos can't drag the light sources away.

Marines have everything they need to attack, yet they hardly ever do because it's easier to turtle in the FOB, then turtle on the Sulaco when they retreat cause a few xenos showed up and destroy their sentry.

What marines don't get is that they need to push to win, not turtle, otherwise it's a tossup on which side fucks up first. Don't get me wrong, having a fallback point is VERY important, but if the majority of the forces are always there then nothing is going to happen. Sure a few people might get cocky and get caught, or xenos might get in too far and get dead, but it's just going to make the round drag on.

This ties into the issue that aliens ALSO have to push to win, moreso than marines even since their defenses are a lot easier to break down if pushed against and they need hosts to propagate. They ALSO need to learn to MELT LIGHT SOURCES AND DEFENSES. Like seriously, folks. I've had to sprint in as a sent caste and start melting just because no one else had despite there being several others way too many times. Darkness and multiple places to strike from are very important and heavily increase xeno life expectancy. Even if you die distracting some marines to another side, it might be enough to let the others manage something too.

Make some macros, it'll help. Toggle Darkvision is your BEST FRIEND as a xeno. You'll get dead a lot less often if you watch for light sources coming closer rather than for marines through walls. Just, uh, don't get caught on something while you can't see.

[Fortport]

All I want is the shield generators to be removed, nerfed, or for admins to put something explicitly mentioning them in the rules. There was someone moderating, can't remember their name, who watched them construct all of this. Before I pushed the aliens onto the ship, the empress was telling me they were building. I saw a moderator name in the staff verb.

[Varnock]

All I want is the shield generators to be removed, nerfed, or for admins to put something explicitly mentioning them in the rules. There was someone moderating, can't remember their name, who watched them construct all of this. Before I pushed the aliens onto the ship, the empress was telling me they were building. I saw a moderator name in the staff verb.

Yeah, that would be me. The exact wording was that they were gathering their strength I believe, the building stuff was only specifically mentioned in OOC when I berating them for bug abuse.

I DID remove several other constructs in the hangar, but not the generators, as I was still unclear on their ruling at the time. Y'know, since it was like, 3am.

[Fortport]

I think it would've been better, Varnock, if you stopped them from doing that too.

[Varnock]

I already said why I didn't...

[Surrealistik]

Marines ALREADY have everything they need to go on the offensive. Assault rifles, shotguns, SADAR, smart guns, grenades, SMG's, knives, revolvers and service pistols, flamers, a shit ton of different weapon attachments, AND they have superior numbers every round. They also have flashlights and flares for light, so the dark caves can easily be lit up, especially now that xenos can't drag the light sources away.

Marines have everything they need to attack, yet they hardly ever do because it's easier to turtle in the FOB, then turtle on the Sulaco when they retreat cause a few xenos showed up and destroy their sentry.

And I say this as an annoyed Xeno AND marine player, because it means I'm stuck sitting at the FOB, then running back with everyone else to the Sulaco after not even going through a single mag. It's annoying as hell to me, because at that point it's not even Colonial Marines. It's a game of cat and mouse where the mouse, instead of playing the game, runs and hides in a dog house with a Rottweiler for days until the cat is forced to go after it. It's a game of "sit there and let sentries kill them all" for the marines, and it's a game of "let's hope this time we don't get kill-boxed again" for the xenos.

They turtle largely out of fear actually; fear of the unknown quantities of aliens, and getting whittled en route before then being put through an impossible meat grinder of sticky floors, maze configured walls and T3s on terrain that favours the aliens. For that reason Marines only generally win under two conditions: the aliens incur massive losses on a failed Sulaco raid, or the Marines rush the aliens to death.

Both of the things I've linked to directly address those fears.

[Fortport]

I already said why I didn't...

I mean, regardless. It's already been done though, so we've all learned from this. Shields are bad.

[Joe4444]

wow....marines did this? also the marines DO need to push but the thing is, We're human. We get broken bones that take us out of the round for minutes maybe hours. Xenos push more often because they don't deal with FF, broken bones,Ammo,Squads(maybe a hunting pack) and the marines are just scared to push because xenos can set up defences quickly, So even when marines land they already have a death trap of sticky floors, walls T3s hugger fields all whilst trying to heal the wounded, keep FF to a low, Keep fresh marines coming in, Making sure they're not getting flanked. Its stuff like that that make marines have to turtle and get pushed back to the Sulaco and do shit like this,still gonna go with +1 because this is bullshit

[TeDGamer]

I don't see the need to remove them at this point that you can't build any longer in the hangars. Plus this is extremely smart, just go to the pod instead.

[KingKire]

technically a duplicate of ( viewtopic.php?f=59&t=5933 ) but has some good discussion. -1. Personally with the changes to aliens and hanger building added onto the difficulty of set up, i think shield generators should stay but thats my humble opinion

[Boltersam]

technically a duplicate of ( viewtopic.php?f=59&t=5933 ) but has some good discussion. -1. Personally with the changes to aliens and hanger building added onto the difficulty of set up, i think shield generators should stay but thats my humble opinion

Shield generators make it literally (And no, I actually mean literally) impossible for Aliens to do anything. They can't move through it or spit through it, or even deactivate it somehow for Christ's sake, but the marines can freely shoot and launch grenades through it without risk to themselves. The changes to aliens and hangar building does not change the shield generators are ridiculously overpowered and in favour of the marines, because the aliens have no way to deal with them, and marines use them without penalty.