first lets begin by taking a look at how to NOT build a defense, in this particular round the CO decided he knew how to build a better defense then his trained and experienced engineers did and he allowed the doctor to raid the metal stores, so the CO destroyed the attempts of those who came before him to completely take over organizing the briefing defense, lets take a look at how it turned out shall we?
oh my, im pretty sure all of you can name a few issues with this one already but lets fast forward abit further and see just how they responded to the changing battlefield dynamic
not much improvement is there? sure we can all chime in here and we will all have our own opinions and things to say but i will cover some of what are, to me, the most pressing issues
1. the MG's were placed in too forward a position - having even ONE remaining MG by this point in the round is a godsend, but having three means you can cover every direct entrance into briefing at once, however machineguns in spite of their raw power are tools and like all tools you must know when and where to deploy them, at the very front of the line MG crews will be exposed to thrown huggers (at that distance it wont even need to be carrier launched), spitter neurotoxin and melee attacks from essentially every alien class, the queen does not even need to enter the ROOM to affect you with her screech at this range and to top it off the machineguns are too close to the action to lay down a proper suppressing fire or do any real damage, if that is too meta for you then know that this would be terrible against HUMANS AS WELL, if you used this defense against HiT you would be fucked, to further illustrate the point, notice how the MG's are all gone save for one in the second photo? thats right, they were melted.
2. the vent is unwelded - in almost all cases by the time the aliens are moving on the sulaco survivors have been recovered and debriefed or aliens have been witnessed using vents for travel, each unwelded vent is an alien flank waiting to happen and there is no excuse for the vents onboard to be unwelded this late into the round if you are concerned the aliens may board the sulaco and attack it directly.
3. the barricades are disorganized - properly arranging the tables does not just LOOK nice, it also ensures that you are able to properly slow the aliens down, or in the case of other armed humans, able to receive the maximum possible protection from ranged enemy attacks, these positions can be EASILY flanked, aliens and other human enemies alike would not even need to BOTHER taking it down or fighting through.
4. metal was wasted - this medical setup in the back the acting M.D. set up looks very pretty and would have been excellent eye candy for screenshots when arrayed with a much better looking briefing defense, its a shame that this will GET PEOPLE KILLED! first off, briefing is a TERRIBLE place to operate on people, it is the FRONT LINE of combat and as the fighting gets thick people will be moving around like crazy, this means your patients and operating area are being constantly moved around, vital supplies are being regularly stolen (and subsequently lost as the idiots who nicked them ALWAYS get captured or killed) and worse, you may have to constantly pause your operation not just due to the roller beds being moved around but due to the fact that you yourself are very likely IN COMBAT at the same time, this is the front line and as such it can be overrun at any time, in that case you will probably have to flee immediately or get captured/killed, your patients are screwed either way, good job asshole.
instead, if medbay must be abandoned, move all medical operations to the CANTEEN, in the event of a defense the tables and chairs in there are likely to be taken down and used in the defense (and even if people still want some to rp there you can leave enough for them to keep them happy while still gathering the lions share of usable shit) meaning the rest of the room is free for you to array in whatever method you deem best, if the surgery leaves your patients hungry (some surgeries do that for some reason) then they have food right there, if they need new equipment (shit gets lost in the mess that got them injured to begin with) then the armory and cargo room are right there and if you have to suddenly flee or are given the call to abandon ship then you still have whatever remains of the forward and fallback defenses to protect your very, VERY short journey to the south escape pod (or you can take the long route to the northern pod which is ignored more often by both alien AND marine forces alike), cant make it to the pods? your only chance is to find a place to hide such as the storage rooms or lockers, both of which are very nearby and available in adequate supply, to top it off you aren't operating on someone in a main hallway area or in a battlefield (unless some chucklefuck didn't weld all the vents) so if people come to fuck with your operation, it isn't an accident, it is because they are there to achieve that SPECIFIC task.
5. Shield Generators are Unprotected - the addition of shield gens are the only real saving grace for this defense design, unfortunately however the marines here neglected to construct anything to PROTECT those generators or at least slow down the alien attack upon them, walls, grilles, r-windows, barricades or tables, even REGULAR windows could have bought precious seconds and afforded the shields valuable protection buying you time, as it is any random turd could run up to it, acid it and run out, not all models of shield generator require praetorian acid (there are different models dontcha know) and like tables, the shields will buy you time but is not an instant win card against the aliens or an instant safezone creator.
now lets see an example of a vastly superior defensive line
the degree to which this is an improvement is difficult to measure, simply having multiple layers of table walls ALONE makes this an infinitely safer place to fight and gives the marines a few places to fall back as the lines get pushed, it even LOOKS nice (which should not be a high priority for a defensive line, but is nice to have either way) but i can name a few issues, you may find others but ill start with what I noticed.
1. regular tables - once again instead of going to the extra time and effort to make reinforced tables the marines here have used regular, while there is nothing wrong with that in and of itself the defensive difference can be easily measured, a regular table can be slashed down in a single hit paving the way for aliens to swarm in and attack you, reinforced tables require FOUR hits to take down and therefor can buy you ALOT more time (and therefor safety), this can be the difference between a sudden rush causing an end of the line to collapse and having time to shift the forces available to you to where they are needed the most, it takes more time and a tiny bit more metal but a three layer thick section of R-Tables can and typically WILL afford more effective protection then even twelve layers of regular tables
2. frontmost barricades disorganized - the top and bottom barricades don't match each other meaning you have to use differing defense strategies in response to each (assuming you actually take time to consider that kind of shit), furthermore they just aren't very solid given their setup, the purpose of the frontmost tables is NOT for you to stand at and use as cover, the point is that they are there to PROTECT you by SLOWING the alien advance, warriors and runners have to be next to you to attack you, throws have moderate range and carriers and sentinels alike have to be within a certain distance of you to use their abilities, as does the queens screech, the farther in the back you can be from that front and still be an effective combatant the SAFER you will ultimately be, if the front cades are not properly set however the aliens can just walk through and wont be slowed down at all (and not buying you time needed to score kills)
3. forward ammo - im sure this supply of ammo is very convenient for marines in the thick of it, im not sure why there isn't any 10mm or 9mm ammunition there (in spite of those being two of the most commonly used ammo types in the game) but the REAL problem is that its in too forward of a position, the center is oftentimes the weakpoint of a briefing defense and even when the lines hold its not uncommon for aliens to make it to, or past that point, ammo this close to the front line is just going to get wasted because when marines need it the most they wont be able to get to it, if you are going to have it near briefing at all have it directly next to or outside the doors leading into briefing in easily recognizable locations, if you want dedicate someone to the task of arranging it in racks for quick access (sure it may be a waste of metal but each rack is only 1 metal each)
4. briefing medbay - while this recovery room setup looks very pretty it leaves this entire hallway area (what was left of briefing after the rearmost wall was setup) too crowded, when the aliens overtake briefing alot of marines will be too cramped to make it to safety, worse, people who are recovering or SSD's placed in the beds will be captured and killed, eaten or hugged, as i covered earlier, DO NOT SET UP OPERATING ROOMS IN BRIEFING! even the BRIDGE would be a better place (if still worse then canteen)
and now im going to show you how I set up the defenses of the sulaco and cover why i believe this is a good way of handling things, not having a guide to go off of myself i have had to design this one completely from the ground up so i still consider this design a WIP, its definitely not the best but i feel it happens to be a damn good start, i will leave the decision of whether or not it actually IS a good job up to you (the people), hopefully we can work together and come up with a standardized defense plan, in so doing we can speed up the barricade process in times of emergency (its way, way easier to build it up as a group if we all know exactly how to build it and why)
now for particulars.
1. Missing Forward Tunnel - most common defense setups involve a series of walls built in a manner to funnel the aliens into a long tunnel where MG's don't really need to aim and even without them it is typically possible to funnel defensive fire in, while a brilliant strategy on paper this setup has few flaws, it reduces visibility down the chamber for anyone not in a specific position, only a small few can provide defensive fire down the tunnel (any attempts on the part of others to aid will lead to NUMEROUS friendly fire incidents), it is almost always built in a way to block movement (which more often then not leads to marines being trapped in one end as opposed to protecting everyone else, this forces you to dismantle the barricades any time someone wants to come in or leave, MORE importantly however this will force the aliens to turtle, as they are players who may have even fought on the defending side of such setups before they are NOT stupid, they KNOW that going down the tunnel is certain death so they are going to just hide in the back and wait for marines to get bored and go to THEM, guess what, sooner or later they ALWAYS will and they WILL destroy your defensive line to meet the aliens head on, you need an alternate form of defense just to protect marines FROM THEMSELVES! if not the aliens will just take their time to melt EVERY single wall with acid and once they have a single square worth of safety behind a wall they are free to take their time and melt each damn wall, moving up one square at a time, another thing to bear in mind is that the longer this goes on where the marines are not in any real, actual danger, the more likely the admins are to delay or refuse to send the emergency shuttle (and odds are pretty damn good your going to need one soon if the aliens made it to the sulaco at ALL), don't get me wrong, the tunnel setup IS very useful and really handy, you should definitely deploy it in other locations for defense purposes, just not HERE, not at the very FRONT of the lines, but we DO still need a defensive plan, which leads us to....
2. Table Maze - so if we aren't to create thin tunnels, we need to slow down the alien advance, think of it like a tower defense game, the aliens represent the monsters who will have to walk the maze, we the marines represent the towers, the longer and bigger the maze is the better your chances of confirming kills are, assuming you built the tables out of R-tables this still applies, MORE IMPORTANTLY however, friendlies are not blocked from getting into and out of your fortifications, in addition by using tables instead of walls or girders the firing lanes CAN remain relatively clear as indicated in the following screens (for added defense, you can add REGULAR tables to the sections marked in white which can be quickly removed and reassembled in times of need to let people past, keep wrenches handy)
as we can see here the machinegunners have clear lines of fire to rain death upon all advancing alien forces, the lanes are not blocked and marines in the tables behind him may support the side lanes if they align themselves to face it and only shoot directly forward, if for any reason the machinegunners go down then anyone in the fourth layer in the back can then shoot OVER his downed body at any aliens who dare try to drag him off (if there's more then one marine there, which there SHOULD be, one or more can keep you covered while you get facehuggers off his face if it happens to be necessary), in addition by having a space behind him anyone traveling through this area wont move the machinegunner by accident (and therefor shutting down his ability to lay down a suppressing fire), to be extra sure you may consider placing a chair in this spot beforehand so the machinegunner can buckle in (which will also protect you from being quickly dragged off by aliens)
3. wooden barricades - wooden barricades while used only rarely can be added to a barricade setup to shore up weaknesses in the line, not sure where to best utilize them i put them all in the front near one of the weakest points in the line (which is funny considering its also the smallest doorway), the reason wooden barricades are so excellent is that like the deployable barriers from sec, you can SHOOT THROUGH THEM! bullets will travel right past the barriers into the bodies of any alien troublemakers, while less useful then sec barriers which cannot be clawed down and can be moved (wooden barricades are permanently there till taken down again) they are far easier and faster to setup and the sulaco always has a store of 30 in northern storage (by contrast sec barriers are almost never seen on the sulaco, usually kept to the nostromo where they are left behind by fleeing marine forces), you may be tempted to save them for the doctor who can use them to make splints (and in fact, is the only way to manufacture new splints) but remember that there is one set of splints inside every red medkit and many of the medical vendors so even in the squad rooms alone there are a few to go around, i believe other red medkits exist on the eastern end of the ship and ALOT can be had from the vendors in medbay, if the doctor is ordered to abandon that end of the ship and move the infirmary to the canteen it is HIS JOB to know which supplies he is going to need and to grab them quickly and go, still not convinced? bone surgery isn't like internal bleeding, its usually not hard to figure out where the broken bones are, it will probably be in the place with all the brute damage and even if you don't scan it, that part of the body will feel pain from time to time (another indicator), so once a regular scanner confirms the presence of broken bones, advanced scanning is almost a formality really and if the doctor didn't take the time to bring back at least the spare surgical crate and ONE rollerbed or make ONE table to operate on, quite frankly he sounds pretty shit at his job and you are probably better off just leaving it till the pods come.
4. rear wall with false walls - you want to setup a rear wall in the briefing room somewhere with at least ONE false wall for one very important reason.
do not expect briefing to hold.
oh dont get me wrong, an epic enough defense can hold off even the most determined alien assaults and it is more then possible to score kills, demoralize or scare the aliens or send them into enough disarray that you can push out and win the day, but lets be honest, if the aliens have made it to the sulaco odds are good you already lost some of your best people on the nostromo, what have we got left? scrubs, fuckin scrubs, the odds of a shit ton of pros suddenly logging on all at the same time are low, even then even if NO ONE is dying or getting captured people WILL get wounded from friendly fire or alien attacks and have to begin cycling out for treatment, if nothing else they will need fresh magazines (shotgun users especially ALWAYS run out fast and it takes them a long time to reload) and have to leave to retrieve them, even if ammo is RIGHT behind your rear wall, sooner or later if the alien assault isn't completely WRECKED by their push into briefing, they probably WILL break through sooner or later, one well placed screech from queen is often all it takes to turn the tides.
even then, assume that they will, plan for it JUST IN CASE, the moment the wall is sealed you have time to escape, lets hope you had enough metal leftover to setup fallback positions (and you should, there is a shit ton of material to be had on the sulaco, if you check EVERY room in which metal is stored save robotics you have tons of material to work with, even then you can tear down alot of the R-Tables and wooden tables found throughout the ship to use as barricades, wooden tables are just as good as R-Tables but more convenient and its just right there for the taking if you have weld fuel, goggles and a wrench, the admins may require permission to take the sec hardsuits but no one is likely to bitch at you for taking the tables that they are resting on top of.)
i recommend by building a tunnel leading out of briefing with fake walls as seen in the provided screenshot, if the aliens made it past briefing odds are good you no longer have a chance to salvage the situation unless HiT kicks some SERIOUS ass, its about calling the pod now and buying time for it to arrive, the aliens wont be delayed long by the tunnel but by now almost all of the marines will be captured, killed or SSD save for the small few so you need every possible advantage you can get, noncombatants should already be in or moving towards one of the pods, every second could be the one that saves your life, in addition it will prove convenient to have welded or otherwise sealed off one of the exits from briefing, by concentrating the alien forces into one narrow choke-point you bottle them up, buying yourself even more useful time and making it easier to score kills.
you want the approach to the pod itself kept relatively clear, it is essential that the entrance to the pod itself be kept clear enough that people can get in until the last possible second, if you seal the one path through your barricades then odds are good the random marine or civilian who makes it to the podbay you are in will end up getting captured before you can open it back up, the two provided examples below will show how i typically build up the defenses here, it may not work against warriors and runners but against all other alien classes it is your single, last chance of holding the lines, you really only need barricades to be facing the briefing area but if you have spare metal or materials you may build some facing your rear but if you are getting hit from both positions at once then you are already fucked and you should abandon the approach to the pod and start getting inside the pod itself, ideally you should weld the approach into the bridge shut to protect your flanks but sometimes it proves necessary to keep them open to facilitate faster travel between the north and south ends, better then rear barricades however would be an extra wall and fake wall setup in the back as shown in the provided screen, as this is a rearmost position you only need it to be a single tile thick (and again, if the aliens have penetrated that far into the sulaco then you are ALREADY FUCKED), as an extra, IMPORTANT note the doors into both the pod chamber and the pod itself to either be welded shut or kept crowbarred open, welding it will force the aliens to melt through with acid (buying you valuable time) at the risk of trapping survivors on the other side and keeping them out of the pod (so as always, save it for the last possible second) or by forcibly keeping the doors OPENED you can keep the firing lines clear so you can shoot out at approaching aliens and keep them from approaching, leaving the doors as normal will buy you a brief second of time as alien spitters, praetorians and sentinels will not be able to target you with their spit until AFTER the door is open but it also provides the aliens PROTECTION from you and allows the queen to approach your pod, queens screech has a radius of 5 squares so even at the very edge of the pod everyone inside will be affected.
after ALL this, if the aliens are still coming and the pod STILL isn't ready to launch, then all you can do is hold, design your pods defenses like this at first (placing the MG here specifically if you managed to save one), good teamwork among the remaining survivors will be the only tool you have left, assuming you have any spare metal or had the forethought to leave some R-Tables, barricades or sec barriers beforehand then deploy them in the areas marked in white (you don't even have to flip them as long as they are THERE), all you can do now is fight the enemy off with superior teamwork, hopefully you took the time to bring some spare clips to the pod because you will probably need them.
specifically, the enemy will be trying to use neurotoxin spam or rush in and melee your buddy on the MG (if you have no MG they will simply target whoever is in the middle or whoever is the most threatening), when these happen you need to use a free hand with help intent to shake your buddy on the gun up right away to keep that MG firing, assuming you brought ammo with you (and if you even bothered to bring it you should keep ONE spare box at all times at least) you should be able to keep them distracted or out of the pod long enough for the pods to launch (and at this point, odds are good you may be the last people left alive), ideally you want at least two people on defense (one person on the MG, another just using whatever their best weapon happens to be) and a third who is focused on dedicated medical tasks, using anti-tox and bruise packs to keep the other fighters in the fight, if you have more survivors then that on the pod then they can all do as they deem fit, just keep fighting and staying alive, if you only have two then whoever is NOT on the gun needs to go back and forth between fighting, helping up his friend and being a medic (even untrained people can use gauze, ointment and anti-tox pills or injections) and if you only have one, well just keep firing that MG and keep them away from you like crazy, any time you aren't putting the fear of god into those xeno bastards they'll be tryin something, you have only yourself to rely on, its okay to risk running out of ammo because if you get downed you aren't getting a second chance.
and that, is the best i can say regarding defense of the sulaco itself, while this defense was geared towards fighting back against the aliens (for obvious reasons) it should work equally well against all enemy types that do not cause breaches including mechs, HiT, rogue marines, mutineers returning from the nostromo and so on, while we focused exclusively on the sulaco and many may disagree with what i have had to say here so far, i hope in some part what was covered here was enlightening or helpful to some, at some point i would like to see about designing similar defense setups for the areas of Engineering, Sec, The Bridge and the AI core, areas which are either common, or easily defended and would make useful fob locations.
regardless, if you cant fight harder (we cant all be xur afterall) you just have to try and fight smarter, even if you cant survive, you can at least die well, dying on your feet is better then alot of marines will get here but hopefully we can improve the odds just ABIT more, the purpose of a proper defense is not to be an impenetrable wall the aliens cannot ever breach, the purpose is to slow them down enough to fight them off, to hold them and do enough damage to them in their attempts to push you out that THEY break first, if anyone has their own barricade designs they wish to share (please include pics) or they wish to discuss how defensive fortifications should best be handled then i encourage you to speak up so we can come to the best conclusions.
this had to be broken up into two posts due to the 10 image limit per post.
first off, an example of a rearward barricade guarding the approach from the pods, you can place more such barricades to mimic an airlock system for greater protection but as covered in the above post, if these are playing a serious part against the aliens, you are already fucked.
here is an example of how the escape pod should look while still boarding, the second image with white will mark the areas you need to block off to protect the crew once the pod is at max capacity (or once it becomes clear no one is coming
and finally, if you had the time to acquire shield gens from the west end of the ship for defense purposes, consider instead using this alternate defense method designed by Jeser 'Jes' Aushwitz, mobility is reduced as the table setup is more cramped but the addition of shield generators will provide indefinite protection for your pod (unless the aliens realise slashing the APC will shut down the shields) and the cramped space will make it both easier to aim as well as rendering it easier to engage the enemy in a melee fight (if you are specifically trying to avoid a melee, tough shit, you should always have a knife at least), as an added bonus the shield can be brought down and back up more quickly, easily and safely then ANY table setup if you have someone who can help you shut down the second shield with you at the same time (if you move one of the shields onto the square as the table next to it then at the risk of it being covered in acid you can raise and lower the part of the shield by the door by interacting with a single shield unit)
