Remove AP from the Marine Machines

[ParadoxalObserver]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Remove it from the machines, make it RO-only.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): As I've seen it, AP does more harm than good. You might be asking: "But how will I deal with a crusher now?" Simple. Call a drop from the RO. Pretty much every other T3 can be taken out with normal rounds if there are enough marines firing. And if that's not the case, teh question is; why are you fighting a T3 away from your squad?

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Until T3's reach Elite normal rounds do the job. A crusher, until mature can even be taken out with normal rounds as long as you hit its sides. And hell, there are still slugs.

My reasoning behind this is marines don't know how to use AP. Some of you do, but accidents even in the hands of someone that knows their role occur. Of course, if it were just the occasional accident it's fine. But when it's one marine managing to FF 4 other marines in a combat situation, then we have an issue. You might say 'he'll learn!' and I agree, stick around long enough and they likely will... and then some other person will appear and make the same issue occur.

I'm not dissing on people that make mistakes and I don't think FF should be removed. I don't think AP should be removed as it has its uses. I just don't understand its usage early in the game and a disturbing amount of battles with Xenos have concluded because of too much AP friendly fire weakening the marines. Which in a way is hilarious, but how is this a thing?

AP has created much salt. Even when I try to be careful as possible it occurs. And of course, you might be asking; "Why leave in slugs?" Because buckshot can just as well inflict high damage to a marine so you'd have to remove all shotgun munitions. Besides, at least with a shotgun they have to pump at which point they should realize what they've done instead of emptying the rest of their clip into the marines they didn't hit as one single young runner is bouncing about.

This is fueled by salt, but I truly believe it would help.

[Desolane900]

-1 You can't be serious..

[Jumes]

why? I enjoy being shot in the back of the head with an ap round.


+1

[ParadoxalObserver]

-1 You can't be serious..

Why not? Question; what's the sense of some random guy getting four clips of AP he doesn't know how to use and ruin the round for a handful of players because he wants to hit that one alien running in between a squad? And after so many complaints of a handful of marines taking every AP magazine they can, what's the point of having such a dangerous tool go unverified? At least if it's RO-only the SL (who we should assume is somewhat competent) will be calling it in WHEN NEEDED. Instead of handful of marines not only wasting it unnecessarily by blind firing into the dark, but also hitting allies in the process.

An even bigger question: Why do YOU need AP in the early game when normal bullets will penetrate even a crusher (as long as you hit its side)? There is zero point to it and all it does it get marines unnecessarily killed.

[Bigchilly]

-1 No, AP salt is general salt, if your head goes flying off from friendly fire, boo who. A shotgun slug is just as lethal and better than a AP round and is used more often, and more people experience FF from it. Same with buckshot.

[Desolane900]

Why not? Question; what's the sense of some random guy getting four clips of AP he doesn't know how to use and ruin the round for a handful of players because he wants to hit that one alien running in between a squad? And after so many complaints of a handful of marines taking every AP magazine they can, what's the point of having such a dangerous tool go unverified? At least if it's RO-only the SL (who we should assume is somewhat competent) will be calling it in WHEN NEEDED. Instead of handful of marines not only wasting it unnecessarily by blind firing into the dark, but also hitting allies in the process.

An even bigger question: Why do YOU need AP in the early game when normal bullets will penetrate even a crusher (as long as you hit its side)? There is zero point to it and all it does it get marines unnecessarily killed.

I destroy more xenos with AP than 4 SADAR specs combined. If you give it to people who are robust, they can actually use it. RO tends to be cancer and denies anything above a grip and red dot.

[Jay Burns]

-1 look, i know its really fucking annoying when a baldie kills yer with a burstfire AP round to the head, it sucks, but it happens to everyone, AP is one of the best counters to crushers, if yer remove AP then crusher is gonna have to be nerfed, and a bunch of balance changes would need to happen, moral of the story AP ammo is a necessary evil, if you see a baldie with AP ammo firing wildly with burst GTFO. Quick Edit: also RO tends to be really stingy and would only give AP to SPCs and SLs.

[ParadoxalObserver]

-1 look, i know its really fucking annoying when a baldie kills yer with a burstfire AP round to the head, it sucks, but it happens to everyone, AP is one of the best counters to crushers, if yer remove AP then crusher is gonna have to be nerfed, and a bunch of balance changes would need to happen, moral of the story AP ammo is a necessary evil, if you see a baldie with AP ammo firing wildly with burst GTFO.

Actually read the suggestion. I said I /don't/ want AP removed. I said I want it removed from the machines and made so the RO is the only one able to supply AP. Make it a cheap buy to drop to squads when needed. Crushers are only really able to completely blow off normal rounds at elite, and at mature it's true it's already annoying. So when you see that mature crusher just barely surviving every time or an elite shrugging off all those shots. Put down your supply beacon and request an AP drop. Simple.

Again, you don't need AP at round start. It gets wasted by people that use AP against everything and will result in more losses than victories. If it comes in a supply drop then it's more well regulated and will make it so Xenos don't win early skirmishes because of AP FF. Seriously, I've seen fights where there isn't a single crusher to be seen and AP is being pulled out even when the T3s are very clearly taking damage from standard rounds.

And sure, you might be asking; "But what if the RO is incompetent or the SL?" Well then, you also won't be getting extra helmets which would pretty certainly spell defeat for the marines anyway.

Edit: They can't really be stingy if it's in a supply drop... and the issue with being stingy at ROUND START and only giving the AP to SPCs and SLs at that point is...? Again, if you don't need AP to beat Xenos at round start why is your mind racing to; "But the RO won't give me AP at round start!" You don't need it at that point, man! And when you do it'll be in drop that the RO has no control over its handling!

Uhm. Mind giving a reason besides; "Stop being salty."

'-1 No, AP salt is general salt, if your head goes flying off from friendly fire, boo who.' I mean, look at this. Right here you explain the EXACT issue with it and then just add a 'boohoo' and give none of your reasoning why it should remain the same. >:V

Really, give me an actual reason for why you need AP at round start. At this point I haven't seen one good point besides; "I like my AP!"

And uh, sure. I'll give you that. But I shoot one slug, I hit one person. Did I do harm? Of course. AP? You burst or spam click? There go two or three marines. And again, I'm not against AP. I understand its issues and its necessity. But it has zero necessity in the early game and all it results is in marines losing skirmishes due to AP FF when AP wasn't needed to begin with. When this happens it gives a huge advantage to Xenos.

I mean, it'll still happen in mid and late game when the drops come in. But at /least/ marines won't be having huge FF losses in the early game and so have better chances.

I destroy more xenos with AP than 4 SADAR specs combined. If you give it to people who are robust, they can actually use it. RO tends to be cancer and denies anything above a grip and red dot.

So your point is; "I'm robust. Thus your points are invalid."

Good, you robust a few xenos with your AP. Good show! While that your polar opposite shot most of his squad with the AP allowing the Xenos to capture most of them, bolster their numbers, and advance. And uh... you are aware that the RO is that guy dropping helmets in yeah? If you can convince him to do that you think it's impossible to convince him to call in a supply drop that is necessary?

Is there any point you can make for how keeping it generally affects the team well besides; "Well, ya know. Some of us (like me) are robust and we'll save the team if we get all that AP!"

Because remember, the marines are a team based on organization. Telling us you have amazing skills and some others too isn't really what I call balance. What about all those rounds when our robust fellows aren't around? Are we doomed to suffer an early AP demise? There needs to be more to your point besides that.

[Bigchilly]

The hive can easily get a T3 by the time marines are ready to deploy, or the time the pod or rasp hits the ground. That is why AP ammo is needed, its its not like there are 20 mags of AP ammo in each vendor either. And once AP ammo is gone, its gone. FF is FF, apop already said its a feature and its remaining, most of the marines in "Aliens" died via FF interestingly enough. Restricting the amount of AP ammo is just gonna cause more salt on the marine side. "I need muh AP" -marine

[ParadoxalObserver]

The hive can easily get a T3 by the time marines are ready to deploy, or the time the pod or rasp hits the ground. That is why AP ammo is needed, its its not like there are 20 mags of AP ammo in each vendor either. And once AP ammo is gone, its gone. FF is FF, apop already said its a feature and its remaining, most of the marines in "Aliens" died via FF interestingly enough. Restricting the amount of AP ammo is just gonna cause more salt on the marine side. "I need muh AP" -marine

'FF is FF, apop already said its a feature and its remaining' - I said I didn't want FF removed. Neither is this a topic on removing FF. So not even sure why you're bringing this up.

'The hive can easily get a T3 by the time marines are ready to deploy' - Oh no. A young or mature T3... it's not like our normal rounds can penetrate it... oh wait. Unless it's a mature crusher, you're fine. And if it is a mature crusher, it'll likely only be one. Meaning there's more than enough time to call in an AP drop before it becomes too big of an issue. Normal rounds will still be going through its sides which will keep it at bay until the AP comes in.

'not like there are 20 mags of AP ammo in each vendor either' - Which makes this a bigger issue. If a couple of marines are going to grab as many as they can just to waste them or embed them in their allies then it's wasted, limited ammo.

'"I need muh AP" -marine' Better than; 'Half my squad was killed ten minutes after hitting the ground because a squaddie shot AP into all of us while trying to hit it' - marine

[YungCuz]

Another hurdle for marines to have a harder time great.

[Casany]

You know it isn't as easy as throwing a supply beacon down, correct? First you have to order the crate, which takes about 4 minutes, then load it on, 1 minute, then wait for command to send it, which takes 5-25 minutes. Overall, by the time the AP is there the elite crushers have already killed everyone. -1

[Zalgo]

It'd be nice if there was some way to restrict how much roundstart AP ammo a marine could take. It'd be difficult to monitor manually, though, so I'm not sure how that would happen. The way I see it though, until the need actually arises, I don't see why a standard, medic, or engineer, or even SL for that matter, would need more than one mag of AP. I can see why they'd take one with in case they actually came across a heavily armored insurgent or something, but one standard taking four AP mags is mindblowing to me. I'll tuck one into my belt, but never more than that. I can see a specialist taking two, and I'm honestly a bit surprised the SPC doesn't have a couple mags in their personal vendor already (if it does, sorry for ignorance), but I suppose since there's a relatively large amount already in the vendors at large, it makes sense that there wouldn't be any in the personal vendors.

TL;DR - Makes no sense for marines to take more than minimal amount of AP ammo, even if they're attacked by an elite crusher or summin', focused fire on it with one mag of AP each will still fuck them up.

EDIT: Forgot to give actual +/-, dangit. -1. AP ammo shouldn't be removed, but marines should be limited in how much they can take before first contact with a xeno that deflects regular rounds.

[bloody russkie]

AP is here to stay, its only rounds that can wreck pretty much every xeno in seconds with quickfire burst, normal rounds become obsolete and useless to 13.30 already, when ancient ayy running around and deflecting half of normal rounds and dodge another half of bullets.
Crusher is a pain in the ass when he charge in, stomp, drop 2 hugger and sanic away with charge, so you need to unload as much damage in short time in him as possible. Normal rounds cant penetrate frontal armor, its like 5-10% chance, AP have like 40%-50%, but its good enough if you unleash full AP mag to end him.
Shotguns - even if it hits, it can be deflected so shotguns is shitty alternative with low firerate and almost no damage output to xeno but catastrophic damage to humans instead.

[ParadoxalObserver]

You know it isn't as easy as throwing a supply beacon down, correct? First you have to order the crate, which takes about 4 minutes, then load it on, 1 minute, then wait for command to send it, which takes 5-25 minutes. Overall, by the time the AP is there the elite crushers have already killed everyone. -1

Or, ya know, most marines will be unable to fight the crusher, as it is, because other people already wasted most of the AP. Leaving only a few marines even capable of doing any proper damage. Clearly this is a much better outcome, right?

It'd be nice if there was some way to restrict how much roundstart AP ammo a marine could take. It'd be difficult to monitor manually, though, so I'm not sure how that would happen. The way I see it though, until the need actually arises, I don't see why a standard, medic, or engineer, or even SL for that matter, would need more than one mag of AP. I can see why they'd take one with in case they actually came across a heavily armored insurgent or something, but one standard taking four AP mags is mindblowing to me. I'll tuck one into my belt, but never more than that. I can see a specialist taking two, and I'm honestly a bit surprised the SPC doesn't have a couple mags in their personal vendor already (if it does, sorry for ignorance), but I suppose since there's a relatively large amount already in the vendors at large, it makes sense that there wouldn't be any in the personal vendors.

TL;DR - Makes no sense for marines to take more than minimal amount of AP ammo, even if they're attacked by an elite crusher or summin', focused fire on it with one mag of AP each will still fuck them up.

EDIT: Forgot to give actual +/-, dangit. -1. AP ammo shouldn't be removed, but marines should be limited in how much they can take before first contact with a xeno that deflects regular rounds.

Yes, thank you. It makes little to no sense along with the fact that lack of any control over it means it's very quickly wasted. Until now I feel most who have commented are thinking only about themselves in the matter of; "B-But I'm good with AP!" instead of "Is it actually benefiting the team, even if it's giving me that sweet KD?"

Maybe limiting the amount individual marines can initially carry would also work so we don't have marines filling their entire belt with them.

And uh... I never said it should be removed. Again, I realize the importance of AP in fighting the heavier Xenos, later in the game.

AP is here to stay, its only rounds that can wreck pretty much every xeno in seconds with quickfire burst, normal rounds become obsolete and useless to 13.30 already, when ancient ayy running around and deflecting half of normal rounds and dodge another half of bullets.
Crusher is a pain in the ass when he charge in, stomp, drop 2 hugger and sanic away with charge, so you need to unload as much damage in short time in him as possible. Normal rounds cant penetrate frontal armor, its like 5-10% chance, AP have like 40%-50%, but its good enough if you unleash full AP mag to end him.
Shotguns - even if it hits, it can be deflected so shotguns is shitty alternative with low firerate and almost no damage output to xeno but catastrophic damage to humans instead.

I... does anyone actually bother reading suggestions or do they just read the title and immediately get to typing? I must've said three times already that I don't want AP removed from the game and I very clearly iterate that in the opening post. I want AP better /controlled/ not /removed/. That's the whole point of this suggestion, in my mind the best way of controlling it would just to limit it to RO supplies. Although it's not the only way, for example Zalgo quite correctly suggested creating an AP limit so a single marine isn't emptying an entire machine. Removing it from the machines isn't the /only/ way of properly controlling AP it was just my suggestion of how to better control and solve its biggest issue, at the moment, which is quite easily being responsible for a large portion of combat injuries, at the moment.

Anyhow, can we all please stop going - "Sure, AP has that really huge issue, but lets ignore it because I like having completely free access to all the AP."

Come on, people, be like Zalgo and actually give constructive criticism on what might work better than my original suggestion. >:V

[Casany]

Maybe add a time lock to the marine cendors so after 1 hour you can get AP? Seems easy enough

[Bigchilly]

So you want to limit AP ammo, but still it will end up in the hands of bladies. Example: Squad Leader annouces to the fact hes getting some AP ammo sent down to deal with the heavily armored targets. The specialist will most likely be running with something special (sniper/smartgun) so they wont take any, and the medics and engineers wont attempt to help in the front line work, because well. . . that ain't their job: So it will always end up with the bladies, standards, whatever your preference is for a uneducated standard marine. Not to mention but SL's and standards are bound to ask for it round start if they start in the munition vendor of course.

[ParadoxalObserver]

So you want to limit AP ammo, but still it will end up in the hands of bladies. Example: Squad Leader annouces to the fact hes getting some AP ammo sent down to deal with the heavily armored targets. The specialist will most likely be running with something special (sniper/smartgun) so they wont take any, and the medics and engineers wont attempt to help in the front line work, because well. . . that ain't their job: So it will always end up with the bladies, standards, whatever your preference is for a uneducated standard marine. Not to mention but SL's and standards are bound to ask for it round start if they start in the munition vendor of course.

Fact is, no matter the mechanic we implement it will /always/ get in the hands of baldies. I just want to delay how early on this happens to not give a huge advantage to the xenos in skirmishes too early on along with trying to make sure it doesn't just get wasted as frequently. And do take notice, not all standards are baldies. I've seen plenty of baldie medics that don't even get the basics of medicine.

And the RO isn't forced to comply with round-start AP. Why would they? "I want AP." "What for?" "I just want it."

Besides, like I said, Zalgo's own counter-suggestion of limiting how many magazines you're allowed to take at round-start might even be better. Like limiting each marine an amount between two and four so you don't have one single marine with 10 AP magazines on him firing it in /every/ situation instead of actually preserving it and swapping it in when necessary.

[Snypehunter007]

AP is here to stay for now.

Asking this to be locked.

[forwardslashN]

AP is here to stay for now.

Asking this to be locked.

Or maybe not. We're still considering our options. This will be resolved when we come to a decision.