Unless the map itself specifies “there are Xenos here”, there is contact from survivors (FORECON, Fax Machine) etc then deciding “Hey let’s OB this Hospital” or "Hey let’s paradrop 2/3 squads as the Scout sneaks around the colony for no real reason should be considered metagaming.
There is no IC justifcation for sending Bravo + Scout to the planet to paradrop 3 squads in, or any variation of this, and it OOC leads to a marginally worse round experience for everyone involved when everyone ends up wiping out (90% of paradrops).
If we’re going to enforce strategies based solely on the idea that there’s a colony in trouble then the only one you can’t get metagamed for is “Drop onto the LZ. Set up an aid station and fan out in teams for survivors”
I fail to see how paradrop is metagaming. Even though we don’t know the reason behind the distress signal, it’s reasonable to assume it’s hostile activity. So wanting to take a possible enemy by surprise is more than reasonable.
Ordering marines to OB hospital is a lot more questionable, but it can be solved with a simple rephrasing: “OB hospital if OPFOR presence is confirmed”.
Lots of people like paradrops by the way, so you not liking it doesn’t mean it’s “a worse round for everyone”. I personally dislike 00:45 marine stomps as a marine, but it is what it is. I can’t tell the CO to stop winning so fast.
I could yap your ear off for like an hour about any this was more reasonable than you think, but the short version is:
Going in with just flamethrowers and pistols against “a bunch of animals” is a lot more reasonable than next-to-no-intel paradrops into hostile territory.
Preparing a paradrop isn’t an issue for me. It makes sense if a commander wants that resource on the table to be able to prepare it specifically before an operation begins. It also makes sense in a lot of the distress signals, to not send an entire battalion down, and leave some forces in reserve before the reason for said distress signal is determined during recon.
It would be very HRP to send the scout down, have them collect every possible Mortar Fire & OB position, learning enemy positions, while a platoon builds the FOB and some marines remain as paradrop support incase the scout ends up in trouble. I don’t see how that is metagaming, and the situations with the OB is explained quicky by the implication that the plan is “if OPFOR presence is confirmed“.
The entire marine fighting force, more rounds than not, are deployed wholesale because the player base is not 300-1500, convention is already out the window militarily speaking.
I could see sending scout for Paradrop in the lake firstdrop on LV624 as metagaming as it assumes enemies will be there and only there, CLF have MotionDetectors too you know? (fog is hell) But I don’t understand your argument as far as paradrop in general being so and you’ve not elaborated to any of the replies. Most Paradrops I’ve witnessed have been to a section of what would have been frontline, expediting all the fighting troops to be in one spot, cohesive. The “paradrop behind all the xeno build” strat is a bit stinky as well as an over extension in most cases. However counterpoint, Queen could just get a FOB tunnel and hijack on the second landing. Similarly stinky, but a strat all the same.
Me when command pre-plans to OB some random civilian installation because you can never be too sure.
Quite frankly we are actually HRP because this is what the actual US military would do.
So, paradrops are very often extremely strategically inadvisable, and lead to wipes because from the smaller Squad sized tactical level- what now? Hope i have enough AP and good marines with me to blast through xenos till I can retreat, which negates the point of the deployment if I dont kill atleast more than get captured, or just commit to trying to assault and likely die?
They are in most cases inherently flawed because there’s nothing to be done besides start blasting as a marine and hope to crush, and marines don’t do well with no options. CAS OB Flanks tactical retreat relocation ect.
But, I don’t think it crosses into metagaming. Its ill thought out and stupid but marines do deploy via parachute, there could be hostile terrorists and getting the drop might be an idea. Its just not a good one.
(This is funnily enough ooc/ic supported by mainly XOs trying stupid paraop deployments not COs. That’s more CO players knowing better ooc but IC it almost seems like the more senior officers being better strategical thinkers than junior officers new to command. )
If you have the people for it an ill thought out paradrop might be mutiny grounds but I dont think its metagaming. As a SL, SO, ASO whatever- it is within your position to heavily discourage the XO. Hell as a SL gunnery sergeant you have more time in the corps than the captain. They ought to atleast consider a suggestion.
Technically, TECHNICALLY could be considered metagaming for doing some of the paradrop plans, like the lake paradrop in LV-624. Your plan assumes the enemy is in caves. The distress could have been all the buildings are on fire and they need as many marines as possible to get the survivors out. It could have been CLF have taken hostages in buildings. Of all the possible distress the colony could have ran into, your plan was to ignore the colony and paradrop at the random cave system nearby. Who in the right mind would focus their plans on the nearby mountains when a city is calling for help?
Even with the above in mind, I do not think we should limit the planning and execution of the marines. As a xeno, I like every couple of rounds having to deal with different scenarios outside the basic crap. If some crazy plan was actually even more powerful than the standard meta there might be some reason to block them, but as-is the crazy plans are crazy and ill-advised. Besides, some of the creative ideas allows for future meta plans to be made. Let the CO cook.
Considering their ammunition was high-explosive armour piercing and they were in an area where discharging that type of ammunition could easily critically damage the nuclear reactor by fucking the cooling system and trigger a meltdown (which is LITERALLY what ended up happening in the end due to extensive fighting since many marines disobeyed orders to disarm) + hot headed ungas it seems like a pretty reasonable decision to me.
Painting it as ‘bad tactics’ doesn’t sit right with me, I’m pretty sure given the information they knew, it was the logical choice.
Keep in mind Ripley and Burke were the ones who suggested it, anyway- Gorman kind of just went with it.
How is it metagaming to paradrop and plan an Orbital Bombardment? Tacmap clearly shows multiple dead bodies in certain areas of the map, assume the distress signal involves hostile action especially with the rise of the CLF in the Neroid Sector.
If you land and you find out its a power issue, then don’t OB. If you land on what you believe to be an enemy stronghold and its fighting you, fire that bitch away.
I’m all for banning roundstart paradrops, belive me, but pushing it trough “it is metagaming” would achieve what people feared the most in threads discussing “non-standard drop tactics”. And that would be punishing any creativity, with added drawback of only objectively shitty plans that don’t benefit marines at all being allowed.
Basic zero info distress signal deployment to not be LRP/metagaming would require marines to wait for the first ARES lifeform scan (since distress signal was already sent like few days ago, if not weeks), then sending lone scout on paradrop to a random location in the colony so he can confirm stuff and only then deploying marines.
What sense does it make to land a dropship in the colony that is sending distress signal and is suspected to contain hostiles? The potential for LZ to be rigged with a fuck-off bomb, or AA battery nearby, or anything like that is massive.
Every marine is always already armed to the teeth, Almayer should be notified that it isn’t regular distress and that hostile local fauna is most likely the culprit, so to not always outright state it is xenos. Which “realisticly” Almayer in the state that it is, should never engage more than putting boots on the ground, confirming that great majority of colonists is gone and xenomorph hive is fully established with T3s, thus promting command to order evac without suffering even one casuality.
