shuttle camping has gotten a bit ridiculous

[Siserith Vassada]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):currently there is a major problem with marines pulling back when they have the advantage of 50+ marines and camping the shuttle to ridiculous proportions i suggest removing the alarm or building on the landing pad. or some other option

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Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):ending ridiculous shuttle camping[attachment=0

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):a change back to either no alarm or removing the ability to build on the landing pad

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

[Siserith Vassada]

this was much worse with about sixteen more people before xur led them forth on the pod. this also forces the xenos to "stall" to survive as it's the only possible option. this has also been worse with the entire shuttle surrounded by electrified grilles. in only two to four mintues you can grab all the supplies needed and make an impenatrabe iron curtain.


it's really an issue of marines pulling back early and camping the shuttle.

[Wickedtemp]

Honestly, it is an issue. With the numbers how they are, it's normally 20-40 combat ready marines vs 8 or so xenos, and the marines are behind several layers of barricades. It's an unwinnable scenario nine times out of ten.

[Siserith Vassada]

everyone always seems to support the marines in this saying "if you give them enough time to prepare they will do it" well guess ******* what. in less than half the time alloted you can make impenatrable shuttle camping defesnes.

as i've started to play xeno more holy shit this shuttle camping is awful.

[Siserith Vassada]

defending for both sides is so much easier than attacking too.

[Jeser]

defending for both sides is so much easier than attacking too.

Finally. That's the main reason, why we have this problem with camping. But still, assaulting as alien is a bit easier, than marine (excluding shuttle deathtrap, of course).

[Toroic]

Finally. That's the main reason, why we have this problem with camping. But still, assaulting as alien is a bit easier, than marine (excluding shuttle deathtrap, of course).

It's much, much worse on the prison map because there's no FOB, so you send marines a few at a time, and they generally get pushed back, and if the air on the prison runs out, it's a horrible stalemate for both sides. Marines suffocate, and xenos can't increase their numbers. No one wants to attack.

[SkyeAuroline]

-snipperino-

Hiya, Siserith! I was command for this round (you posted this in an ongoing round, by the way), so I can give the marine perspective!

Bravo and Charlie were wiped out completely. 2/3 of Alpha and 1/4 of Delta were dead. I ordered a retreat. When I was about to deploy the remainder for a counterattack, y'all called the shuttle on us. So of course everyone was on hand to defend it. That was ALL OF THE MARINES alive and healthy, since they were about to be deployed anyway.

Make a little more sense why we defended the shuttle, buddy?

[Necrofallen]

Well the idea of having like, heaps of alien castes that take quite a while to get to the point of evolving to, is that marines are kind of "pressured" to attack, or else attacking later will be harder. The impasse we've reached is that the highest 'strength' of aliens is equal to or maybe even lower than the optimal 'strength' of marines (by that I mean electrified grills, etc.) So how do we fix it? Two solutions: 1: Lower the marines strength by doing what this suggestion says. 2: Raise the alien strength.

I'm personally in favour of giving the aliens more neat abilities to counteract the marines 'impenetrable fortress' but as to ways we can do that, I have no idea, and besides that is for a different thread.

But yeah, keep the marines pressured. The longer they take to kill the aliens, the more of an advantage the alien has. That's a way of keeping rounds interesting. Just thought I'd share my opinion.

[Jeser]

Make a little more sense why we defended the shuttle, buddy?

Yeah, now we know a bit more. Anyway, this shit won't change untill core changes happen to both sides, cause right now, defending for both sides is more easier and fun then assaulting, and aliens can easier assault then marines. While such situation will remain, nothing will change.

[SkyeAuroline]

Yeah, now we know a bit more. Anyway, this shit won't change untill core changes happen to both sides, cause right now, defending for both sides is more easier and fun then assaulting, and aliens can easier assault then marines. While such situation will remain, nothing will change.

Oh, yeah. I don't disagree that in most cases it's terrible. It's just that Sis used a bad example for his OP.

[Wesmas]

Hiya, Siserith! I was command for this round (you posted this in an ongoing round, by the way), so I can give the marine perspective!

Bravo and Charlie were wiped out completely. 2/3 of Alpha and 1/4 of Delta were dead. I ordered a retreat. When I was about to deploy the remainder for a counterattack, y'all called the shuttle on us. So of course everyone was on hand to defend it. That was ALL OF THE MARINES alive and healthy, since they were about to be deployed anyway.

Make a little more sense why we defended the shuttle, buddy?

I think this was the round where I was Comander. Either that or something almost identical happened. But the fact is on the prision marines dont have a good place to dig in, so once you start taking large losses, you grab the bodies and head to the sulaco to re-organise. The mistake the aliens made was rushing to end it. I was going to be redeploying the marines, and my BO had got everyone ready for it, when the shuttle message apeared. Then it made more sense to wait it out, kill the atack, followed be a counter atack. Aliens blame the marines, but the fact is if your enemy has pulled back, you use the time wisely. If you understood the shuttle, you should have left a couple of people there to defend, while the rest prepared an assult. The queen should not call the shuttle unless every alien is in the optimal stage for an assult, with lots of huggers which can be quickly loaded.
I think part of the issue is aliens forget how complicated it can be to get a wounded marine ready for combat again. The shuttle needs to be called to the LZ, they need to get on the shuttle, the cool down has to finish, the shuttle has to go back up, they have to be taken to medical, they then need a doctor to treat them (which could take a while even if it is full and compitent due to the number of injered), they then need to grab replacements for all the guns, ammo, helmets and whatever else they lost on deployment, before loading onto the shuttle and heading back down and atempting to rejoin the squad.
It can be even slower if command, and I know I am guilty of this, dont notice the request for the shuttle to be sent.
The marines logisticaly are far more complex than aliens, who stand on weeds and recover plasma, which is kinda like ammo, and health.

Aliens need to be more paitent, because the marines generaly need to pull everyone back so we dont have squads with 2 dudes in cause the rest and in the medical department. The marines will probably assult again, given time to reorganise, get the shit they need and form a plan.

[Toroic]

Hiya, Siserith! I was command for this round (you posted this in an ongoing round, by the way), so I can give the marine perspective!

Bravo and Charlie were wiped out completely. 2/3 of Alpha and 1/4 of Delta were dead. I ordered a retreat. When I was about to deploy the remainder for a counterattack, y'all called the shuttle on us. So of course everyone was on hand to defend it. That was ALL OF THE MARINES alive and healthy, since they were about to be deployed anyway.

Make a little more sense why we defended the shuttle, buddy?

The real issue with this particular hanger defense was plasteel barricades. They cannot be easily broken or melted, and with 4 marines continually shooting inside, we couldn't really even work on them.

It certainly didn't help that the queen mismanaging the console led to the death of 6 xenos.

I think this was the round where I was Comander. Either that or something almost identical happened. But the fact is on the prision marines dont have a good place to dig in, so once you start taking large losses, you grab the bodies and head to the sulaco to re-organise. The mistake the aliens made was rushing to end it. I was going to be redeploying the marines, and my BO had got everyone ready for it, when the shuttle message apeared. Then it made more sense to wait it out, kill the atack, followed be a counter atack. Aliens blame the marines, but the fact is if your enemy has pulled back, you use the time wisely. If you understood the shuttle, you should have left a couple of people there to defend, while the rest prepared an assult. The queen should not call the shuttle unless every alien is in the optimal stage for an assult, with lots of huggers which can be quickly loaded.
I think part of the issue is aliens forget how complicated it can be to get a wounded marine ready for combat again. The shuttle needs to be called to the LZ, they need to get on the shuttle, the cool down has to finish, the shuttle has to go back up, they have to be taken to medical, they then need a doctor to treat them (which could take a while even if it is full and compitent due to the number of injered), they then need to grab replacements for all the guns, ammo, helmets and whatever else they lost on deployment, before loading onto the shuttle and heading back down and atempting to rejoin the squad.
It can be even slower if command, and I know I am guilty of this, dont notice the request for the shuttle to be sent.
The marines logisticaly are far more complex than aliens, who stand on weeds and recover plasma, which is kinda like ammo, and health.

Aliens need to be more paitent, because the marines generaly need to pull everyone back so we dont have squads with 2 dudes in cause the rest and in the medical department. The marines will probably assult again, given time to reorganise, get the shit they need and form a plan.

The problem with this is threefold.

1) Xenos don't have any way to know whether marines are or are not hurting for people, IC and sometimes even OOC

2) There is no non-meta way to delay attacking when the marines have been swiftly wiped out on the prison.

3) On the planet, marines generally hold the FOB harder, so by the time you've pushed the marines back to the Sulaco, many of them have died. On the prison, it is very easy for marines to lose their foothold with minimal losses, and there are far less static hosts available compared to the planet. Growing the hive over 15 is hard unless you let the marines try to rush and manage to capture all or most of them. Simply waiting until you have more T3s isn't as good as it is on the planet, as it's likely your number won't grow over 15.


The prison is much, much more vulnerable to long, drawn out rounds, because if marines breach, xenos can no longer take hosts alive, meaning no matter how many times xenos attack, they cannot start to improve their numbers. Unless they are stealing dead marine bodies (which would be very meta) they'll eventually get cloned and back in the field. However, it is much more difficult to field marines in an airless environment, and one hugger will likely cause the marine's death.

The prison map rounds seem far more likely to drag 3+ hours, and without a good FOB location marines never commit significant numbers. Xenos spend a lot of time standing around with nothing to do waiting for marines to get weak enough, or for xenos to get strong enough to escape the hanger alive.

Prison map has fundamental problems due to breaching (last one one xeno attempted but was caught, marines breached using research grenades later on, which removed the air from most of the prison) but also due to more limited mobility as the round goes on. Xenos can't rush because marines don't commit, but they also lose a long game as more vents are welded.

This magnifies the problems of hanger defense being a very common way for even a losing marine team to cripple or kill the xeno team. On the planet, xeno mobility improves as the match goes on, and they tend to have plenty of larva to replenish numbers if the hive isn't assaulted or the entire xeno team isn't wiped out.

Hanger defense is always excessively weighted in favor of marines (when xenos aboard the sulaco is meant to be death for marines) due to marine damage buffs and breaching no longer being allowed (so even a xeno team that is crippled after surviving the hanger gauntlet could breach for atmos victory), but the prison map is harder for xenos to come back from a rough early game as the map becomes less friendly, and also can completely lose their ability to improve their numbers if the prison is breached.

Giving the prison map a better FOB location and providing a counter to plasteel or preventing building within two tiles of the dropship will dramatically improve things.

The more marines can rely on winning if xenos use the dropship, the less they'll even put the effort in to hold the FOB.

[Davidchan]

I think it's important to point out that the Sulaco design in general is not very defensible.

Xenos must enter in the hangar. From the hangar, there are no less than 2 crawlable vents that instantiously travel the xeno across the map, (Seriously, why did we not take tg vent crawling.) The main ladders would be a good choke point, if it was at all possible to barricade or disable the 3 other ladders in cargo, engineering and cloning respectily. But, since falling back to those ladders and holding that area leaves a big gaping hole in their defenses, nobody does that.

The escape pod corridor is narrow and cramped, the maintenance tunnels that only support crew has access to (Engineering marines can't even enter the tunnels without hacking the door) generally get flooded with Xenos as there are two tunnels that lead right to the pods in addition to the main corridor. Any last stand here would have to take place INSIDE the escape pods, splitting up the marine force or putting them all in one 3x20 meat can thats unrealistic to defend.

The Bridge is the only other place that is defendable, proper access given out and engineers doing a bit of remodeling the XO and CO offices make very good DFBs but otherwise the marines just gave up the rest of ship falling back to here, they'd have to stock the bridge in advance with ammo, spare weapons, medical supplies and tools and other equipment needed to maintain their line. And the Xenos can always just melt through the side walls which can completely over run the defenses.

So, Marines hold the Hangar, because they have to. If the Sulaco was a bit better designed with the Hangar being at one end of the ship and requiring the Xenos to push through the entire ship instead of just B-lining to medical or marine prep, the Sulaco invasions would play out a lot more like an attack/defend with marines having multiple strategic defense points to retreat through without giving up half or more of the ship, and the Xenos would have room to make a proto-hive on the Sulaco if they actually are managing to capture and breed more reinforcements.

[Troika]

I was playing in this round as a marine and holy shit was it ever tedious. The aliens, quite logically, refused to suicide into the giant autism fortress constructed around the shuttle after they saw it the first time, and the Marines didn't want to trickle over a few at a time to engage the Aliens in close quarters. Result? A five hour round!

I am fine with disabling building in the hangar; really, if the Marines have fucked up hard enough that the xenos managed to push onto the Sulaco, the game should be over pretty quickly either way.

e: Another potential option here might be to let praetorian and boiler spit damage and destroy walls/grilles/tables, which means marines can't just fort up behind a wall-o'grilles and shoot everything that gets near. Also, mabye have bullets have a chance to hit and damage grilles/tables?

[Edgelord]

I play as combat engy and half of my role is building, that being said in-hanger building has got to go. Let us make sentries, but roflstomping the xenos is just no fun when they can't leave their dropship.

After running back to the Sulaco with their tails between their legs, the marines are in a position of DESPERATION, not one of power. They are meant to scramble every active man and woman that they have to hastily defend what little they have left to protect. Assuming the xenos have the numbers and caste advantage that they should have by then this should be a tooth and nail fight for the marines.

I personally love it when the Sulaco is assaulted, just not when I can throw up plasteel on all of the exits and watch the hordes of marines shred them to bits. In addition, if the hanger was a weak point of defense then it would motivate commanders and marines to not let it come to that at all. I hope I'm not alone in my belief in this.

[monkeysfist101]

The marine last stand should be holding the LZ at any cost. Xenos on the Sulaco should be a terrifying thing.

[SkyeAuroline]

I think this was the round where I was Comander. Either that or something almost identical happened. But the fact is on the prision marines dont have a good place to dig in, so once you start taking large losses, you grab the bodies and head to the sulaco to re-organise. The mistake the aliens made was rushing to end it. I was going to be redeploying the marines, and my BO had got everyone ready for it, when the shuttle message apeared. Then it made more sense to wait it out, kill the atack, followed be a counter atack. Aliens blame the marines, but the fact is if your enemy has pulled back, you use the time wisely. If you understood the shuttle, you should have left a couple of people there to defend, while the rest prepared an assult. The queen should not call the shuttle unless every alien is in the optimal stage for an assult, with lots of huggers which can be quickly loaded.

Definitely a different round from this screenshot. I was XO, no bridge officers and the commander killed themselves early on.

[Toroic]

I think it's important to point out that the Sulaco design in general is not very defensible.

Xenos must enter in the hangar. From the hangar, there are no less than 2 crawlable vents that instantiously travel the xeno across the map, (Seriously, why did we not take tg vent crawling.) The main ladders would be a good choke point, if it was at all possible to barricade or disable the 3 other ladders in cargo, engineering and cloning respectily. But, since falling back to those ladders and holding that area leaves a big gaping hole in their defenses, nobody does that.

The escape pod corridor is narrow and cramped, the maintenance tunnels that only support crew has access to (Engineering marines can't even enter the tunnels without hacking the door) generally get flooded with Xenos as there are two tunnels that lead right to the pods in addition to the main corridor. Any last stand here would have to take place INSIDE the escape pods, splitting up the marine force or putting them all in one 3x20 meat can thats unrealistic to defend.

The Bridge is the only other place that is defendable, proper access given out and engineers doing a bit of remodeling the XO and CO offices make very good DFBs but otherwise the marines just gave up the rest of ship falling back to here, they'd have to stock the bridge in advance with ammo, spare weapons, medical supplies and tools and other equipment needed to maintain their line. And the Xenos can always just melt through the side walls which can completely over run the defenses.

So, Marines hold the Hangar, because they have to. If the Sulaco was a bit better designed with the Hangar being at one end of the ship and requiring the Xenos to push through the entire ship instead of just B-lining to medical or marine prep, the Sulaco invasions would play out a lot more like an attack/defend with marines having multiple strategic defense points to retreat through without giving up half or more of the ship, and the Xenos would have room to make a proto-hive on the Sulaco if they actually are managing to capture and breed more reinforcements.

The sulaco is not meant to be defensible, it is meant to be "oh fuck fuck fuck" time for marines.

The vents in the hanger can easily be welded, and in my experience so is the door to cargo ladder and the doors to the east.

Marines are supposed to actually try to hold the ground, and not have their best strategy to make a minor attempt to pick off a few xenos before planning on winning in hanger defense.

[Egorkor]

Praetorians can break grilles with heavy spit, not sure about spitters.

[apophis775]

Denied. There's already a Topic about this, where i addressed these problems with my upcoming solutions. Please check the forums before you make duplicates.