An important part of survival is gamble between the LZs.
Survivors don’t know which LZ is selected and it’s enough to kill them if they decide to fortify the wrong area.
For example:
-
Sorokyne Strata, a pretty often area to defend is either west from the LZ2 and the north area of the LZ1.
-
Fiorina Science Annex - Warden’s office(LZ2) or LZ1’s south-east corner.
-
Solaris Ridge - usual hold in Marshalls(LZ1) or the abandoned mining/engineering(LZ2)
-
Shiva Snowball - extremely simple gamble LZ1 or LZ2 directly.
-
Trijent is giant map in general, knowing the primary LZ would be extremely useful.
LV is meh, the holds are either Secure Dome or solo jungles hide spots.
I suggest adding an automated colony announcement that lets all the survivors know which LZ marines picked.(Something like “Attention. Unknown/Military/USCM vessel selected the primary LZ - LZ name. All colonists, make your way there/Stay safe until help arrives there” could be anything.)
I can say that selecting the right LZ hold is 50+%? of surviving the hell.
I think that this simple change will make survivors’ life at least a bit easier.
If ima be honest, I like the idea that Survs don’t know which LZ is the correct one. It adds to the fear of if their fight will actually result in savior or will they turn into another no name dead colonist that the marines see.
5 Likes
This is the correct take. Survivor is supposed to be a hard role. It does not require additional hand holding.
2 Likes
Did you know it used to be against the rules for survivors to hide on the LZ in the first place and then they stopped enforcing it?
No.
2 Likes
So, apparently this /was/ a rule. And I don’t think that this would fit well. Just giving the survivors the correct LZ on a silver platter isn’t exactly fun - it detracts from the risk of the role.
However, I propose an alternative:
The air rumbles slightly. The roar of engines and a sonic boom overtake the previously silent night sky. High above, you see afterburners - or something akin to afterburners - shining brightly. An aircraft is approaching [LZ].
This message pops up when the marines first drop on the TRANSPORT dropship. It tells the survivors where the dropship is going to land. At this point, the xenos would have developed T3s or killed the survivors by now (12:20 minimum). This provides the option for a desperate run to the correct LZ for rescue.
Cinematic as fuck.
18 Likes
This is actually such a good idea! As you said so yourself, it’s cinematic as hell, and it would give Survs some more flavour!
1 Like
Get this man a fucking medal. This is a good idea.
Back onto the subject of telling survs the primary LZ - it’s already borderline meta to know help is just a few minutes away. Realistically, distress beacons can go unanswered for very, very long periods of time. I’m against survs knowing the primary LZ.
I’d say instead give some incentive to survivors to repair groundside comms, linking the ground and ship fax machines once comms are up (or providing some sort of deployment speed bonus to marines if survivors get one (or both?)) comms up. I dunno, spitballing here, haven’t thought this out much.
Edit: Or something along the lines of giving a second informational blurb tied to each map, informing marines of XX-121 (OMG SURPRISE!) or… something. I dunno, there’s a lot of stuff that can be done to give survivors objectives that would give xenos stuff to contend with early game, too.
3 Likes
Bumping this idea (my own specifically) now that we’re moving toward more objective-based gameplay @Morrow
I think a map-by-map info blurb and quickening the drop by 5 minutes if survs get both (or maybe just one? but that’s easy to do) comms fixed.
Also, if you don’t like being mentioned on forums, sorry. I don’t know who’s even in charge of what passes for CM balance these days.
Cooler without knowing. We had the knowledge of which LZ was primary for years, don’t really miss it. Sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don’t.
2 Likes
To clarify, I meant my own idea that I suggested just above - not the OP idea of informing survs of primary (unless that is somehow incorporated into repairing both comms or something; point being, I like objective-based gameplay)
1 Like
My issue is with any of the ones I could think of, they would help marines upon landing and I could get them standing before a larva evolved. My thoughts were fix the sensor tower or both comms on some maps to radio into almayer for IFF to avoid me going up at all because I’d rather not go up and get IFF to come back down.
