Bring back Request Shuttle for the command comms consoles.

[1138]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): In the last iteration of Colonial Marines, marines were not able to evacuate and escape via emergency shuttle unless a staff member was online to approve it, under very specific conditions. Those conditions usually being a marine or two screaming, 'BOSS WE'RE TOTALLY FUCKED CAN WE PLEASE GO HOME' to the commander while an adorable snek is tearing its way out of a nearby marine's chest, and the nearby janitor is busy throwing 'cleaner' grenades and roasting many aliens. What we see almost exclusively is the bridge staff mashing that emergency shuttle button while ordering the marines to reinforce the hangar before the aliens even board the shuttle ONCE. And this is happening way too frequently, because half of the marines are metagaming with the knowledge they can royally fuck over the aliens if they just turtle it out, and the other half are following orders from the actual metagamers. Plus, it's not exactly fun when there are 40-50 marines left against 20 aliens, and the marines decide to call for evac to force the aliens to mount an assault. Which is metagaming, because that's pretty much the intent that I've seen recurring over and over again in these scenarios. The fact that evac is so easily accessible is one of the greater problems here. An emergency shuttle is exactly what the name entails, it's for last resorts, for emergencies.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): This change would emphasize the necessity of the marines needing to deal with the xeno threat, or to die trying. This would provoke more interesting and engaging conflicts, with several close calls and numerous chances for a heroic human last stand to hold their position. In addition, evac is not a guarantee. Wey-Yu would probably prefer the marine detachment be dead and the sulaco to be lost rather than risking xenomorphs hitching a ride on the emergency shuttle.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Revert back to the old emergency shuttle call system. A staff member needs to be on to approve it and call it. In addition to this, general protocol for requesting an emergency shuttle is that a direct message needs to be sent to CentComm detailing the situation before requesting an emergency shuttle, and the alien strength needs to be without a doubt much stronger than the strength of the marines.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): See above. Just revert it back to the old system we had.

[SASoperative]

+1. So much +1. This would easily stop the whole shuttle camping that has been happening as of late.

[Mitchs98]

All the +1's for ever. We need this. Please.

[RadiantFlash]

Personally, I'm for not requiring admin confirmation, but for a built-in counter to check whether the xeno's outnumber the marines, to call the shuttle. An admin isn't always on, and the general rule for staff (as far as I'm aware) was to wait till xeno's outnumber marines anyway. Usually, at the point the xeno's out number the marines, the marines are shit out of luck, and about to beaten, rather badly. It would also prevent the staff from having to worry about the shuttle calls, and deal with the issues that come with a large population.

[1138]

Personally, I'm for not requiring admin confirmation, but for a built-in counter to check whether the xeno's outnumber the marines, to call the shuttle. An admin isn't always on, and the general rule for staff (as far as I'm aware) was to wait till xeno's outnumber marines anyway. Usually, at the point the xeno's out number the marines, the marines are shit out of luck, and about to beaten, rather badly. It would also prevent the staff from having to worry about the shuttle calls, and deal with the issues that come with a large population.

That'd be an okay failsafe, in my opinion.

[Rahlzel]

Working on this now.

[Surrealistik]

Personally, I'm for not requiring admin confirmation, but for a built-in counter to check whether the xeno's outnumber the marines, to call the shuttle. An admin isn't always on, and the general rule for staff (as far as I'm aware) was to wait till xeno's outnumber marines anyway. Usually, at the point the xeno's out number the marines, the marines are shit out of luck, and about to beaten, rather badly. It would also prevent the staff from having to worry about the shuttle calls, and deal with the issues that come with a large population.

Agreed. +1 to this specific implementation.

[aphotic]

All of my +1. I just got out of a round where, when the marines were pushed out of the FOB, instead of re-grouping and trying to take it back, they immediately start fortifying the Sulaco and call the evac shuttle. The evac was cancelled by admin for the meta-gaminess, so cue 2+ hours of 35 marines sitting on the station playing ping-pong with an empty dropship surrounded by girders and walls, trying to bait the queen into their chokepoint. It wasn't fun for the dead players, the live aliens, and I imagine it probably wasn't fun to 90 percent of the marines.

Still, there's always going to be that small segment of the population that just has to "win" even at the expense of everything and everyone else, and turning the Sulaco into a gauntlet with a full force of marines then calling the evac is a fool-proof way to do that. Some changes need to happen to address this, and this is definitely one of them.

[apophis775]

I believe this is already in, so... locked.