Add One Way Droppods

[Surrealistik]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):

Per Subject.


Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):

Gives BOs, MTs and CEs, three of the most boring roles in the game, something else to do that's useful.

Adds an interesting, fun new feature that can deliver both reinforcements, impromptu/prefab staging facilities and supplies to most areas.


Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

Sulaco hangar bay now has a 5x5 drop pod launch pad.

This launch pad each starts out with an intact 5x5 droppod on it, with a 3x3 interior and an airlock at the centre point of each 5 tile side.

SLs each get one droppod beacon (more can be ordered via the Requisitions beacon crate, which has 2 per crate).

Placed droppod beacons allow BOs to launch a ready drop pod centered at the location of the beacon. While a droppod is in transit to the beacon, the beacon will beep and flash conspicuously. A droppod will not launch if the 5x5 landing area is obstructed by anything other than mobs (which it will crush on landing, with the usual landing noises), or if any tile in that landing area is 'indoors'. There is no 'cooldown' for droppod launches other than the build time for a new droppod (rewards efficient MT crews).

Anything the droppod lands on, including walls and other obstacles, is instantly destroyed. Once launched a droppod it cannot be recalled or fly back to the Sulaco; it, and its contents, are planetside for good.

MTs/CE can build new droppods on these drop pod launch pads (which should be air tight as the pods must move through space before they land).


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

Coding, mapping.

[Snypehunter007]

As much as this has been a joke with Warhammer 40k memes, I would actually like to see this happen. I think their should be some type of risk though, but not one that is inherently "cheap" and has no way of being counteracted.
+1 for me with something along the lines of the following.

Examples being:
-There are two different methods of building the pods. One is longer but it doesn't cut production corners. The other does and on drop their is a chance of the heat shield frying and cooking the marine inside to death.
-Pods should have a relatively clear spot to land in, if they are launched and hit a building it should hurt, or kill (like I said examples), the marine inside.
-Etc.

Edit: I just reread the suggestion and saw that it said a 5x5, not a single occupant. Disappointed.

[YungCuz]

IS LOCKER ODST COMING BACK? +1

[Surrealistik]

As much as this has been a joke with Warhammer 40k memes, I would actually like to see this happen. I think their should be some type of risk though, but not one that is inherently "cheap" and has no way of being counteracted.
+1 for me with something along the lines of the following.

Examples being:
-There are two different methods of building the pods. One is longer but it doesn't cut production corners. The other does and on drop their is a chance of the heat shield frying and cooking the marine inside to death.
-Pods should have a relatively clear spot to land in, if they are launched and hit a building it should hurt, or kill (like I said examples), the marine inside.
-Etc.

I could see that for every crushed wall-type obstacle, the occupants take some brute damage.

If enough such obstacles are crushed, there is a tremendous explosion on the droppod and everyone fucking dies.

My only concern is that this is super ripe for griefing.

[Karmac]

IS LOCKER ODST COMING BACK? +1

I think this would be a better solution to the 'Reinforcement ERT's' Apop has been thinking about and testing, add in 'locker pods' you can launch from RO to supply beacons and deliver marines straight into the fight, preferrably ones that don't cause the user to die from the trauma of hitting the ground at such a speed though.

[Surrealistik]

I think this would be a better solution to the 'Reinforcement ERT's' Apop has been thinking about and testing, add in 'locker pods' you can launch from RO to supply beacons and deliver marines straight into the fight, preferrably ones that don't cause the user to die from the trauma of hitting the ground at such a speed though.

I don't like it in part because this gives MTs a valuable role to play, and because an actual droppod has more of a tactical impact than singular capsules.

[Karmac]

gives MTs a valuable role to play

Nah, just make a new role like how the rasputin got the PO so MT's will never be valuable.

[Derpislav]

+1 as long as it's buildable, otherwise I don't care.

[Renomaki]

Honestly, I don't understand why droppods aren't single use to begin with.

A larger hanger with space for several drop pods would be nice, with kits to build more if needed being a useful addition. It could be a cargo order, ordering a package of construction items to build 5X5 pods with ease. It'll also be a nice buff to the pod, since as is, it is just a smaller dropship that is a deathtrap should a skilled boiler get a shot inside.

[Surrealistik]

Honestly, I don't understand why droppods aren't single use to begin with.

A larger hanger with space for several drop pods would be nice, with kits to build more if needed being a useful addition. It could be a cargo order, ordering a package of construction items to build 5X5 pods with ease. It'll also be a nice buff to the pod, since as is, it is just a smaller dropship that is a deathtrap should a skilled boiler get a shot inside.

I'm not averse to pre-fab kits, but only if they don't come at the expense of being able to make custom designs.

[Renomaki]

I'm not averse to pre-fab kits, but only if they don't come at the expense of being able to make custom designs.

Honestly, wouldn't it be easier if they were pre-fabs?

It would probably put more stress on the code to make custom pods, and ensure that every pod meets a sort of standard. After all, if I am calling in a deep strike, I don't want to find out that I wasted my beacon on a tiny drop pod for one. I'd rather a pod that can carry 4 marines minimum, 8 marines maximum. Not a pod that might only carry 1 or 2.

No doubt these pod beacons are gonna be expensive as balls and have long cooldowns.

[Surrealistik]

Honestly, wouldn't it be easier if they were pre-fabs?

It would probably put more stress on the code to make custom pods, and ensure that every pod meets a sort of standard. After all, if I am calling in a deep strike, I don't want to find out that I wasted my beacon on a tiny drop pod for one. I'd rather a pod that can carry 4 marines minimum, 8 marines maximum. Not a pod that might only carry 1 or 2.

You just have to trust that the MTs that know what they're doing, just as you have to trust your Marines, Req and Medbay, etc...

In practice I expect that most droppods will be very similar, but having the flexibility to build and smaller ones when time is short is actually an advantage, or for MTs to customize a pod as say a deployable impromptu bunker/medbay is pretty huge.

No doubt these pod beacons are gonna be expensive as balls and have long cooldowns.

2 Pod beacons are included with each Beacon crate per the OP, and each SL starts with one; effective cost of each pod is the beacon crate price / 2 + the materials cost.

The cooldown is the build time; this rewards efficient MTs.

[Renomaki]

You just have to trust that the MTs that know what they're doing, just as you have to trust your Marines, Req and Medbay, etc...

In practice I expect that most droppods will be very similar, but having the flexibility to build and smaller ones when time is short is actually an advantage, or for MTs to customize a pod as say a deployable impromptu bunker/medbay is pretty huge.

Mate, I don't wanna be that asshole who thinks everyone is an idiot you can't put your faith in, but... You gotta play more SL and CO for awhile, and then tell me if you can "trust in your marines".

Trust me, more often than not, shit can and will go wrong. You might have a cargo staff that is horribly lazy, slow, or just went SSD alltogether (I had two rounds as CO where the latter happened, forcing me to have to deal with cargo orders myself in order to save the fuckin day). Your MTs may or may not set up the SM, and hopefully have an understanding of how it works... OR the SM will blow due to negligence. And don't get me started on when you roll CO, tell a squad to go on patrol, and their squad leader instead decides it would be best to simply go to hydro, set up defenses there, and shortly after get wiped out because they assumed that the CO would be totally fine with attempting another metarush for the 15th time that day, despite that fact that metarushes cause more xeno majors than anything.

There are a lot of good marine players, I know, but there are just as many bad marines players that you can't trust to get a job done, let alone stick to the job till the end of the round. As I learned during my time as a CO and SL, it's that you should never expect things to go according to plan, because shit can and will happen that will ruin everything.

[Surrealistik]

Mate, I don't wanna be that asshole who thinks everyone is an idiot you can't put your faith in, but... You gotta play more SL and CO for awhile, and then tell me if you can "trust in your marines".

Trust me, more often than not, shit can and will go wrong. You might have a cargo staff that is horribly lazy, slow, or just went SSD alltogether (I had two rounds as CO where the latter happened, forcing me to have to deal with cargo orders myself in order to save the fuckin day). Your MTs may or may not set up the SM, and hopefully have an understanding of how it works... OR the SM will blow due to negligence. And don't get me started on when you roll CO, tell a squad to go on patrol, and their squad leader instead decides it would be best to simply go to hydro, set up defenses there, and shortly after get wiped out because they assumed that the CO would be totally fine with attempting another metarush for the 15th time that day, despite that fact that metarushes cause more xeno majors than anything.

There are a lot of good marine players, I know, but there are just as many bad marines players that you can't trust to get a job done, let alone stick to the job till the end of the round. As I learned during my time as a CO and SL, it's that you should never expect things to go according to plan, because shit can and will happen that will ruin everything.

Yes, there are plenty of shit doctors, shit marines, shit ROs, shit POs, shit everything.

At the end of the day Team Marine is a giant clunky clanking unwieldy machine full of moving parts, with at least some portion of them guaranteed to be horribly dysfunctional.

The point is that this is the norm, and giving the MT an important and interesting job other than kickstarting the supermatter which allows for customizability doesn't change this fact or jeopardize team marine (droppods aren't strictly needed to be successful). I'm definitely not for adding this if it's reducible to rote and boring assembly for MTs vs an alternative which gives them the capacity to improvise, customize and optimize designs as needed. Creativity, knowledge and skill should matter, and they simply don't if droppod manufacture is wholly reducible to pre-fab kits.

[LocalizedDownpour]

I literally made this suggestion...

[Surrealistik]

I literally made this suggestion...

Where?

[apophis775]

It was denied if I recall.

We aren't W40k. We do discuss this every few months in dev, so it may be changed in the future, but denied for now.