The idea, the “feel” of the APC is cool, having it transport marines around sounds awesome and “movielike” which I agree with.
But mechanically there is no reason for the APC to exist.
Marines in squads don’t stick close together, a central APC to transport them therefore doesn’t make sense.
Generally, maps are too small, and the APC too slow for it to transport marines potentially faster from the FOB to the front.
Xenos do not have AA, therefore deploying marines close to the front via parachutes will always be better than the APC, there is no risk or worry of having your costly dropship explode in midair from manpads.
There is not even a reason for it to act as a supply transport vehicle, marine supplies can simply be dropped anywhere anytime thanks to drop pads.
To conclude, the idea of an APC still interests me, I play a lot of wargames (where are my WARNO gamers at?) and I wouldn’t mind more in depth tactics in CM. But currently there simply is no reason for it’s existence, no mechanics to support it.
Maybe one day, but certainly not in the game’s current state.
On the medical APC, on top of frontline larva surgery being kinda unbalanced, it also takes away larva surgery from shipside medical and prevents everyone but the groundside doctor (main character if you will) from doing anything but chem factory. And on transport, I have to agree with @subjectd9341, maps are too small and you can essentially teleport crates and marines to the frontline without risk. Maybe have the APC assist groundside engineering in some way? The ability to destroy obstacles like prop containers or resin doors was pretty useful, maybe have it stand still and be vulnerable to attacks while doing it? Besides that, constructing cades out of dirt, being a mobile engineering vendor and stuff like that?
As put, “Gun mechanics don’t go against the game’s design unlike the big bulky metal box that gets stuck and runs down their allies”
The awkward situation with the APC is that the game is built around the movement and actions of people-sized targets and players at all levels including: the map designs, how combatants and people move about and interact or fight, or really just overall exist in the game.
As it was in the game, it was 100% of the time either a “block and ignore marines, destroy FOB cades, and save aliens” machine that massively screwed up 5-10 marines at a time if you did something wrong once, or you sat out the whole round twiddling your thumbs as a psuedo-observer or at best a transport PO but with wheels instead of an on-rails dropship if you played APC crew to not be doing the first case.
I did say I kinda maybe would like to have the APC back at some point, but I think it will need a lot of work. Be it OOCly or mechanically enforced responsibilities and changes to the game. As for what those ideas could be- it is up to discussion and frankly beyond me, but I will say the APC seemed to work fine in HvH, but that is a whole tangent of its own.
Genuinely, I want to see APC make a comeback, Since Jeser’s leave I have slowly been learning to code, and would love to make some kind of contribution to the server.
And I understand that MANY people have a problem with people rolling VC and ruining the round. Maybe we could add a WL but that seems so unnecessary… could just be a solution to increasing the required hours of Engi and CIC roles.
I seriously want this to stay and not burn out like some of the other ideas CM has had in the past.
A lot of people have negative thoughts about VC and I understand that’s “mostly” the inexperienced and uncooperative players that only use VC because they saw an MLG clip on youtube and thought they could be that guy. not using APC for one of its many purposes.
I don’t know what the other members and heads of staff think about APC and I can’t really argue at that point but personally, I would love to work on APC just like Jeser did and even expand on it.
This is my love letter to the community and I don’t want the APC to be a dumpster fire of an idea (more than it already is right now)
