Weapons in backpacks, The whole issue.

[RadiantFlash]

Beware, fairly long post, to inspire discussion.

As apophis says: [D] OOC: Apophis775: it's not getting left how it is.
I like to think I have a fairly unbiased opinion, as I play both alien and marines, so I'm going to toss this discussion on the forums.

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As Apophis stated during a round earlier, carrying guns in your bag starts to get ridiculous, when people start just putting guns in them.

Marines that tend to pack weapons in there bags are really power-gaming, and expect to be caught by xenos so they can use there weapons to get free. However, There is some realism to being able to carry certain weapons in your bag, such as a single SMG, and really, being able to fit as many pistols in your backpack as you feel like it.

But, just because you CAN doesn't mean you would normally would EVER DO SO as a marine. It's easier to just simply reload then pull a whole new weapon out for soldiers.

For those who suggest only a single weapon for the marines because marines today usually only have a single gun, just consider that this isn't the real-life military, and while it's roleplay, We're talking about people who have the ability to travel in space.

They're going to be decently funded to give there marines a secondary weapon here. Especially for specialists, who need a secondary for dealing with regular combat, when there primary weapon can't help them.

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There were various proposals by players, such as simply not allowing certain weapons to be in the backpacks. While it makes some sense, magnums would clearly have the size for a backpack, but still pack a ton of punch.

There was also the creative idea of removing backpacks entirely to be replaced with more armor slots. However, this clearly limits roles like medics, engineers and specialists heavily, and allowing only them to have backpacks wouldd just be odd.

The idea of allowing aliens to strip marines again came up as well.
While I am whole heartedly against that, because it just got messy, and tended to be obnoxious and mildly immersion breaking for marines, it does make as much sense as allowing marines to carry so many guns in there bag.

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However, Apophis proposed something else.

He proposed bringing back weight system, with 25 Weight(slots), and each amunition/weapon having a certain weight(Taking up amount of slots).
I do like the idea of marines you know, NOT having 5 shotguns/magnums, etc.. for when they are captured.

However, I've found that in prior expierance, the weight system gets really really messy when used with other storage things, like boxes, shotgun ammunition boxes, etc...
If the weight system was only for the backpacks, it might not be an issue, but it remains to be seen.

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In obvious conclusion, I find that while some of the ideas are great, and solve some of the major issues of larger weapons being stuffed in your back... The problem of having having marines stuff there back full of small arms simply can't be prevented.

It's more of a user-powergaming issue that the staff is just going to have to root out themselves, then a design error.
What is your opinions on the matter? Anyone else have or hear further ideas about marines with there silly weapon stuffed backpacks?

[Mark Valentine]

I'm gonna chime in my two cents here.

You should pack a decent a mount of ammunition and a spare weapon or two. By spare weapon or two I'm referring to a handgun and the marine combat knife, exceptions obviously go towards the Specialist. Apop added in the feature to tuck away your marine knife in your boot, which In my opinion was genius and really badass. Melee combat isn't an impossibility as most Marines run out of ammunition in their magazine, reverting to the knife to ensure a kill. There is plenty of viable storage options besides your backpack for your spare handgun, throwing knives, grenades, ammunition, etc.

As Apop stated before, the server is 'Loosely' based on the Aliens movies along with the lore itself. Meaning this is seriously open for interpretation, the idea Apop was trying to get across (From what I could tell) was to eliminate the unbalance. The point is to make the system fair for all parties, not just Marines. Things like supply drops, ammunition shortages, and or weapon loses should be expected and occur more often than usual. Without a secure supply LZ, Marines are cut off and left to their own devises. I believe a weight system that merely effects storage capacity and not player speed would fix the problem without incident.

[Mycroft Macarthur]

on the one hand i like the idea of marines only being able to carry a certain amount of guns, i mean dont get me wrong im all for people having options or emergency backups JUST IN CASE but it gets really ridiculous when instead of carrying ammunition people just carry spare guns, i mean i know its faster to pull a backup then it is to reload the gun you have now but the difference isn't THAT huge cmon.....just reload your fucking weapon, aside from which it IS obscenely unrealistic that people could carry like five M41a's, i use shotguns as marine and you can only have TWO (the one in your hand and the one in your suit slot) because (for me at least) shotguns dont fit in the backpack and i seem to make it work well enough, at most marines should have a max of 2-3 primary weapons on their person, aside from which having so many SERIOUSLY devalues sidearm or secondary type weapons in their entirety (who would bother with a revolver when they can have ANOTHER assault rifle)

but then i have to look at it from the OTHER side.

you know what? its right, marines DO get disarmed all the time, marines get disarmed REALLY easily to the point where its just weird, the one thing they never EVER did in the movies or games was LOSE THEIR WEAPON, this is SS13 so we have to cut some slack but the fact that you lose your gun so often and so easily is half of why you NEED to have backups, there are options to not losing your weapon but half of them amount to "dont be aggressive"

think about it, what are people MORE likely to do the moment they cant carry as many spare weapons with them?

attempt to retrieve weapons they lost, pull a sidearm or go for their knife?

or just say "fuck this shit" and immediately abandon their squad to go back to the sulaco to get new weapons, seriously reducing the manpower on the surface, leading to even MORE turtling from the marines, fewer assaults and significantly reduced coordination? i mean think about it, the handgun is fucking worthless in current build and you know it and now that stabbing the aliens leads to you taking burn damage from the acid and now that riot shields are alot harder to come by then they were in nostromo and now that xenos in general are vastly improved in melee compared to nostromo map, melee focused marines is a MUCH less common occurrance.

you KNOW they'll pull this shit, if people dont have any kind of peace of mind knowing they have options they're just going to not bother at all and quite frankly in my opinion we need to see LESS turtling because marines go SSD on the surface too much as is.

[Sebro]

Mebe weapon holsters would be good?

[Adjective]

Limiting what can be put in what container is fine. Realistically, you cannot fit a large shotgun into a backpack, but you can in fact fit several handguns in a backpack. You can however, strap a shotgun around your shoulders, yet you cannot effectively wear a strap to hold a handgun without it being a nuisance.

[Mycroft Macarthur]

shoulder holsters already exist in the game and at least used to be capable of holding the M41a (havent tried shotgun on it since nostromo), the problem is they seem to be rare drops from the crates in question.

[RadiantFlash]

shoulder holsters already exist in the game and at least used to be capable of holding the M41a (havent tried shotgun on it since nostromo), the problem is they seem to be rare drops from the crates in question.

Actually, they can't hold rifles or shot guns anymore, and there is one in every webbing crate. Webbing crates come with a single brown webbing, one holster, one load bearing equipment, and three webbings.

[Feweh]

Anything but a Weight system that slows people down. It's hard enough keeping squads together as is.. this would make things even worse.

[Sadokist]

I dunno i've never once thought about this since you can't carry a assault rifle in your pack anymore. I carry 2 assault rifles, one attached to my armour and one in my hands at all times, a belt full of assault ammo and 2 flares in my armour. My backpack is always open for stuff. That's just how I do it.

[WyattH]

I never really saw the whole backpack guns as an issue because you can't fit any of the larger weapons in, the biggest is the SMG which doesn't really have alot of stopping power. And the space taken up by guns that could have boxes of ammo greatly decreases the amount the marine can shoot.