On the 4 CO event round last night I (Cower Relay) was having a fucking meltdown bc of information overload as Gunship Pilot; I didn’t have a DCC and it was very highpop. I had like 4 people calling CAS while 4 people called medevac while there was 6 Fultons at any given moment. I had to manage all this while reading the constantly scrolling radio
I enjoy managing info but some QoL stuff would be nice – I can even code this, just gauging for interest first:
“Ping” from the console whenever there’s a Medevac – too often are medevacs missed by lone GPs. There’s no way to monitor it without monitoring radio
Radiotelephone bag for the GP. He can click the Normandy phone with it to “link” them, so he can answer phone calls while he’s reloading/etc without running all the way back to the cockpit… In fact this might be a good QoL feature for all offices.
I don’t wanna ping for Fultons cuz Fultons last a good long while and GPs should be checking Fulton page regularly anyway, it’s part of the balance — but the medevac thing sucks because I cannot stand ruining someone’s round because I missed a couple radio calls.
I think DCC is essential to the dropship. The role now sucks because it’s simply a worst pilot. If it had something to look forward to this would not be a problem. I remember that round yesterday on solaris where neos where spawned and we had like 6 bags on medevac at once while most of us were close to bursting. Usually GPs don’t have much to do but when the time is right you just get buried in bodies. That’s why dropships are a two man job
A ping that indicates clearly, HEY YOU GOT A MEDIVAC DEAL WITH IT, would be very very helpful. When I was medic maining, it was soooo hard sometimes to get that damn GP to notice. Somtimes normandy just isn’t in the air and I have no way of knowing, other times it is in the air and GP is just busy with his pew pew targets to even look at radio. Waiting with a body ready for medivac for 10 minutes is painful as fuck though, and I would gladly take anything to help with the communication in the process.
Well the process of it is basically - you fly over a floating balloon carrying the person and a hook grabs that balloon and hauls the person in. So in the realm of verisimilitude the problem with grabbing multiple medevac stretchers at once is that you have to turn the dropship around and fly to the next balloon.
The cooldown mechanic is just an abstract simulation of what the dropship would have to be doing in flight.
I’ve reached the point that I don’t even bother with fultons as an IO. Feels like 80% of the time the bodies won’t get picked up, and it’s a hassle to announce fulton up for every single corpse. There’s dozens of corpses to fulton every round, it gets stale and annoying to say it on radio. Why wouldn’t they just have a transceiver in the fulton that just tells the pilot while I concentrate on more important things than typing “fulton up” while a lurker looks at me.
Tbf, it gives DCC something to do during ridealongs. You don’t want GP to be TOO self reliant. I don’t wanna buff GP I just want his life to be less schizophrenia-inducing.
The timing is part of the balance and the challenge.
Time management is a huge part of the fun of GP, it’s stressful but engaging and it makes your DCC really valuable. It makes it WORTH IT to train your DCC instead of ignoring them like a dickhead
that is why as GP i like to use ,jmt CAS Is in the air and ,jmt CAS is down so medics/IOs/FTLs know when the Normandy is flying or not, but most of the time it ends up with them asking if the Normandy is in the air anyway.
One thing that i do as GP is giving priority to stuff, if there are medevacs, i will focus on that and use the time i got left to do CAS, if there are medevacs and fultons i will focus on both and use the time left to do CAS.
The ping idea would be nice since a corpsman without a radio can’t notify a GP about medevac if there is no comms.
Also for the radio i would personally just think of putting a radio much like the scout one into the GP/DP Helmet, with the upcoming new sprites for it, it would even make more sense.
Yes re: Fulton because this means when it’s just GP and DCC – super common situation – the DCC flying Alamo can get actual experience with the equipment console
Should let DCC use omnisentry too
I’ll compile all these ideas into one thread at some point soon