[ALPHA] Stop Shuttle Camping

[Surrealistik]

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

Per the title.

Look, I lean towards Team Marine but this is some egregiously terrible bullshit; it devolves what should be climatic conflicts to shooting fish in a barrel, and it's about as easy.

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

Stop unfun campfests that happen even when marines have excellent numbers and can afford to remain on the offensive.

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

Popular marine meta is:

1. Marines prepare the Sulaco well in advance when they're struggling to make progress, if that (not taking casualties; just having pushes frustrated and their FOBs eroded by guerilla warfare) for a massive 'shooting fish in the barrel' shuttle camp, recalling pretty much all of the marines to the shuttle bay. Here they set up heavy defenses; rows and rows of flip tables if not also force fields and emitters.
2. Call the shuttle to meta lure xenos aboard the ship.
3. Hose down the shuttle with suppressive fire/emitters as they toss frags/rockets/c-4/chem nades/potassium bombs/misc aoe into the ship.
4. Boarding aliens get utterly wasted, no chance to survive, make their time, etc...

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

Ban this sort of strategy except as a last resort when truly beaten back.

Give aliens another way to invade the ship?

[Jeser]

Resin space elevator!

If seriously, it's pretty complicated thing. Look. Marine's from FoB send shuttle back with wounded. And one warrior or runner get on shuttle right before launch. So, marines are dying/don't know about alien on shuttle. Shuttle arrives, alien loose on Sulaco. NOW. COMMON, FUCKING, SENSE! Make only one exit from shuttle, put two MPs near it, so aliens won't sneak again on Sulaco. Common sense. But from aliens point of view it is metagaming.

Stupid situation, right?

[Steelpoint]

From whenever I spectate I often see many Aliens complain about Marines metagaming (using that crappy ((META)) thing people do) whereas in reality the Marines are just reacting to what the Aliens have done. Usually some Alien tries to sneak onboard the dropship and from there Humans start taking more precautions.

In addition its not uncommon for Marines to get really suspicious whenever the Dropship is recalled/deployed without authorization, meaning Marines will respond to the Dropship being used without anyone being inside the Dropship.

Ultimantly I think this is a problem of the way the end game for the Aliens is made.

[Surrealistik]

No, that's really not what's going on here.

I'm seeing marines literally just drop everything, stow away on the shuttle and withdraw to the Sulaco, even when they have a massive numbers advantage or at a minimum more than sufficient numbers to press on planetside, then metalure aliens via the shuttle call after they've set up pretty much impenetrable defenses and have not seen one alien pop aboard the ship prior to the call and again, aren't at all in any kind of desperate situation.

[TopHatPenguin]

No, that's really not what's going on here.

I'm seeing marines literally just drop everything, stow away on the shuttle and withdraw to the Sulaco, even when they have a massive numbers advantage or at a minimum more than sufficient numbers to press on planetside, then metalure aliens via the shuttle call after they've set up pretty much impenetrable defenses and have not seen one alien pop aboard the ship prior to the call and again, aren't at all in any kind of desperate situation.

I'll agree that this happens a lot ( Which kind of feels cheap if you are playing as a marine ) but banning people is not how to solve this.

If aliens had another way in too the sulaco which nobody would really guess then sure.What i mean by this is that don't make it obvious ( You could even have this other way change up every round just to keep a fresh feeling to it) i know that ages ago Apop had an idea about going through the engines of Sulaco to get in but i can't see that being used currently.

[Minijar]

The dropship is a ship right? So maybe add decorative parts to it like landing gear/engines which aliens can hide in? Just like in the film!

[Derpislav]

I only play marine, and almost every round I see commander ordering us to withdraw and fortify the hanger after losing 3 men tops per squad, and long before we should even start suspecting that xenos would be able to use the shuttle.

[Godzillan]

Maybe just make it against the rules to fortify/guard the Sulaco until the aliens get there? I do know there's nothing more annoying than slowly gaining numbers for an hour, and finally making the decisive assault into the FoB, just to go to the Sulaco right afterwards and have a bunch of girders and tables blocking all entrances while the shuttle is bombarded with grenades and bullets from all sides.

[aphotic]

+1. Part of this is addressed in another thread (to make calling the evac shuttle more restricted). The other part is, even without the lure, a fortified Sulaco with a marines number advantage is unassailable- The limited number of aliens that can fit on either the shuttle and drop-pod, the predictable landing spot, and the easy lanes of fire provide an advantage that, probably, was meant to give a fighting chance to a very small amount of marines. When it's utilized by a team of marines at or near full strength, it becomes almost impossible for even a well-developed group of T3s to assault. Add in table barriers on the Sul and walls and girders in the hangar to stop the aliens from exiting out of the shuttle windows or the right-side doors, and it becomes an unending stalemate: Marines won't move because they know they can't lose, and aliens won't attack because they know they can't win.

Making this tactic against the rules is simple enough, but that requires both being someone around to enforce it, and a willingness to discipline 20-30 players simultaneously, which isn't practical. So, it likely has to be addressed from the gameplay side of it, and short of somehow letting aliens jump off the shuttle mid-transit to attack the Sulaco from the outside, the only way to stop what's happening is to reduce the fortification potential of the hangar, and the only consistent way to do that is probably to prevent building on it.

[Steelpoint]

Honestly I think the problem here is the Dropship and Hangers design that lends itself heavily in favour towards the defenders.

Aliens on the Dropship should have room to get off the ship easily and establish themselves, right now the only way off the ship are through small window ports or a small exit near the bottom of the ship, of which its not uncommon for engineers to shore up the windows after they've been broken down 500 times during the operation so now you can only leave from the bottom or top of the ship.

Firstly I would suggest making the ship's exit far more open but at the same time impossible to set up marines to block it off, akin to how the real Dropship is designed the lower portion of the dropship (facing south) should be fully open, this will not only make getting off the Dropship easier but it will make it easier for Aliens to get off without walking into a firing line.

Here's a mock image I made on /tg/code of what I mean.



As you can see, this quick mock design allows for far more Marines to get on the ship, makes it far more open to get in and out, but also gives Aliens a quicker and easier way to get off that Marines cannot bunch up to block, because there's only a one tile gap inbetween the dropship and the outer wall which would leave them all incredibly vulnerable.

[Jeser]

Interesting design...

[Biolock]

It'd have to be modified, since there's a very long kill ally that could easily be turned into a "no man's land", but something like that could work.

[Surrealistik]

Make the shuttle areas no build, give the shuttles more exits, both solid ideas.

Personally I do think the aliens should have some method of invading the Sulaco, other than the shuttles, because even with these changes, the bay can be pretty heavily fortified and effectively quarantined, to say nothing about force fields and emitters, which ignore nobuild; perhaps the ability to evolve vaccuum immunity so they can travel through deep space to the Sulaco? They could disembark from the shuttle before it's arrived, and travel through space, then infiltrate though various ports that are vulnerable to entry.

[Jeser]

Make the shuttle areas no build, give the shuttles more exits, both solid ideas.

Personally I do think the aliens should have some method of invading the Sulaco, other than the shuttles, because even with these changes, the bay can be pretty heavily fortified and effectively quarantined, to say nothing about force fields and emitters, which ignore nobuild; perhaps the ability to evolve vaccuum immunity so they can travel through deep space to the Sulaco? They could disembark from the shuttle before it's arrived, and travel through space, then infiltrate though various ports that are vulnerable to entry.

Never saw emitters and shield generators in hangar, by the way. I like that another version of shuttle. It should be a bit difficulty to seal off.

[Surrealistik]

I see emitters pretty regularly; they're an excellent way of suppressing an entire lane given the massive, _burn_ based damage they deal. Force fields are more esoteric, but they can be used extremely effectively and shouldn't be discounted.

[Jeser]

I see emitters pretty regularly; they're an excellent way of suppressing an entire lane given the massive, _burn_ based damage they deal. Force fields are more esoteric, but they can be used extremely effectively and shouldn't be discounted.

I saw and used them, but never in hangar. More likely in pod hall, as final resort.

[Surrealistik]

I saw and used them, but never in hangar. More likely in pod hall, as final resort.

They're really nice when used on the shuttle window rows; free, deadly, effortless suppression as a set up for explosive spam.

[Jeser]

They're really nice when used on the shuttle window rows; free, deadly, effortless suppression as a set up for explosive spam.

Hm, never thought of it. Well, not surprising, I'm more specialized in hardly penetrating passive defense, not active.

[Thrain]

One thing that might also be doable is to have all defenses, and construction of any kind, that is in a hanger when the ship lands/takes off is auto-destroyed. That way it would be impossible to build defenses in an active hanger, but you could still build a bit leading up to that hanger.

[Jeser]

One thing that might also be doable is to have all defenses, and construction of any kind, that is in a hanger when the ship lands/takes off is auto-destroyed. That way it would be impossible to build defenses in an active hanger, but you could still build a bit leading up to that hanger.

Nah, much easier is to make tiles under shuttle and two tiles in all directions from shuttle unconstructible.

[Evilkyle24]

I once saw a round where the aliens were kicking ass and had a bunch of T3's, they and the queen got on the shuttle...

And the entire hanger was mined with fortifications on either side. The moment the ravagers lead the charge, all of them immediately died to land mines and a hail of bullets coming from every direction. The aliens that tried hiding in the shuttle had worse luck, they got some RPG's and frag grenades.

[tenshar]

The fact is, marines are not stupid. You destroy our lights and wreck our power apps and so where down the line if we start to loose the fob, as we do, we get called back. And suddenly as we are on the Sulico patching marines up the shuttle leaves without any go ahead from an so or co ect and it's like "Well shit, something wants on board and it ain't a marine". So of course we react by setting up. And even then we tend to loose unless the aliens boarded with few numbers or bad planning. And the fact is as someone who only plays marines less I have died most of the time we get called back after a number of losses people just whine and assume its a bad co. The fact is you have no idea how many marines are Mia unless your command staff because you cannot see the other squad chat. Usually at least one squad has gone dark. There is already a rule on setting up a blockade on the Sulico and the staff enforce it.

And let's not speak of the alien meta teams always waiting at the drop pod for us to come down at round start. You may wander around it in a circle but you know your only there to meta us.

[KeyWii]

I like Steelpoint's shuttle variant, though I agree that it needs some modifying. Overall I think a shuttle redesign would help with the shooting range that the Aliens have to go through to actually get a foot onto the Sulaco, as well as the absolute clusterfuck that is trying to get out of a full shuttle during the initial Marine landing.

[apophis775]

Denied. Too much shit has to get re-done to adjust the design of the dropship.