Short-range SL pinpointer for marines

[RavingManiac]

Summary
Marine armor comes with a pinpointer interface similar to the alien-queen pinpointer, pointing towards the squad SL. The pinpointer only works within ~21 tiles of the SL.

Benefits
Improves squad cohesion. Emphasizes the role of the SL. Limited range of the pinpointer means that it is best used to find the SL just after losing sight of him, and it cannot be relied on to keep track of the SL indefinitely.

Details
Keeping a squad together is hard. Even when simply moving through terrain, individual marines can lose track of the rest of the squad, and the SL must constantly announce his location to prevent his squad from falling apart.

In combat, the task becomes almost impossible. Even finding your own squadmates is daunting when there are so few pixels to differentiate squads by color. Finding our which squadmate is the SL is even harder. The SL himself is far too busy fighting to type out an exact description of his location. Combined with injuries and chasing aliens, this is the stage where most squads completely dissolve.

An SL-pinpointer, enabled when the marine wears his armor, allows the SL to to physically lead them, having the entire squad move as a group without splitting up. In combat, he is able to rally his squad and keep it together, whether attacking, defending or retreating. His leadership becomes one of not simple rank, but also inherent function, and his authority will extend beyond what is currently, with our playerbase, providing suggestions.

At the same time, the pinpointer will have a limited range, deterring marines from straying away from the squad. Instead of being a foolproof guide allowing you to home in from across the map, it serves as a safety-net, best used to regroup with your squad again just after losing track.

Implementing this would greatly improve squad cohesion, with marines fighting in their squads instead of a giant rainbow mob.

Implementation
A relatively simple modification of the existing pinpointer code

[Whistle]

Suggested previously by myself.

It was shot down due to server load.
I will find you the exact logs momentarily.

[Whistle]

viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6823&hilit=Squad+leader

viewtopic.php?f=86&t=7987&p=84894&hilit ... der#p84894

[RavingManiac]

Problem seems to be a large number of constantly-updating tracking procs. Might be a way to optimize it, or just decrease the update frequency. It shouldn't cause much more lag than the alien queen pinpointer does, though aliens do usually get less players.

Otherwise, it could be an "on-demand" indicator, showing up briefly only when the marine wants it. Or examining the armor could just give "the squad-leader pinpointer points towards <direction>".

EDIT: From the first thread you linked

possible alterations:
- Due to lag created by motion tracker scripts ( from what i've heard) squad locator beacon is an activatable ping instead of a constant alert.
- Squad trooper can click on armor or in Objects menu to send out a ping to locate the Squad Leader. Requires a few seconds to recharge.
- Squad locator beacon only works in a short area: Balances squad around needing to stay in the general area of your Squad Leader or you can become "lost". If the SL is abducted into caves, the squad cannot immediately find him from across the map without getting near enough to get a signal.
- Sargent can activate his locator beacon to send out a "pip" to all other squad members of his location, essentially telling marines where the SL is and that they should "rally" to him

The SL-activated "pip" sounds like a good alternative

[KingKire]

+1. I still would love to see this idea roll back up, possibly sets the... oh wait new idea for motion tracker. hmm.

[Swagile]

Just make it so the pin pointer only activates when you examine your armor.

And make it have a cooldown of 10 seconds so you can't just make an auto clicker to lag the server.

Problem solved.

[Anticept]

Having it update every 10 seconds would be more than enough, and it could be combined with this: marines see an icon over their squad's squad leader to help them stand out some.

The biggest benefit would be to the new players. Actual marines would know who their SL is easily. But since it is a game, often with casual and untrained players, a little bit of aid isn't a bad idea.

That said, such an icon and tracker should sync with overwatch terminals. EDIT: what I mean is, WHO gets tracked? If SL is shipped to medical, and Spec is given an ID, we need the icon to show on the spec and not the old SL anymore. Setting that from the overwatch terminal seems the best way.

[Swagile]

Having it update every 10 seconds would be more than enough, and it could be combined with this: marines see an icon over their squad's squad leader to help them stand out some.

The biggest benefit would be to the new players. Actual marines would know who their SL is easily. But since it is a game, often with casual and untrained players, a little bit of aid isn't a bad idea.

That said, such an icon and tracker should sync with overwatch terminals.

Crew monitor on overwatch terminals already does this.

Tells you how far away a marine is from their SL; but the information isn't very precise. Its just "x amount of meters" and thats it.

[Anticept]

I'm going to edit that. What I meant was, WHO gets the icon? I think the setting on the overwatch terminal would determine.

[Wubs4Scrubs]

+1

This sounds like a very helpful tool for the CM's tard wranglers.

[TopHatPenguin]

If this is doable, it'd be pretty neat although I personally think there should be an option to toggle it on and off so it doesn't clutter the hud.

[Steelpoint]

We did something like this on /tg/, the Nuke Op Cyborg had its Pinpointer changed to instead point to the nearest living Nuke Op.

I think this would be a positive change, it would give wayward Marines a somewhat good direction to follow their SL, however the feature of it only working with X tiles means Aliens dragging a SL far away won't have to as badly worry about being homed in on.

[TheMaskedMan2]

If it causes too much server load I propose you make it so marine armor has built in trackers. How it would work, like someone else said, is you examine your armor, and it says what location your SL is in. Like the squad monitors officers have.

Something like "Alpha SL - Main Hallway".

[forwardslashN]

There are better ways of handling this, and this would cause a lot of lag. Denied.