Trijent Dam; Logistics Nightmare

[Swagile]

Ok so.

I am posting this to show that, while the IDEA of Trijent Dam is good, the EXECUTION of Trijent Dam as a map is extremely poor as it exposes what holds Marines back; Logistics.

Logistics is an important factor in warfare and is also why the most effective way to currently win the round is through metarushing; because our logistics is dogshit.

Let me explain in detail.

Requisitions: Req does NOT get enough materials to properly cade. It allows maybe LZ-2 to be caded decently, but the rest of the map usually goes uncaded because there are too many places to cade and lots of flank points. To reasonably cade outside of the FOB costs 100's of metal, as well as 20-40 plastisteel. And thats just ONE FOB with maybe ONE layer of cades.

Medevacs: Medevacs can be done 2-3 times; 4-6 times if there is two medivac pads on one CAS and its done rapidly by two PO's. This is every FIVE minutes. In a normal engagement, you get a lot of rapidly wounded. Some that have to be medevaced now, others later. This brings in the next issue.

Movement: There is no easy way to and from on the map. You can only run; there is no APC, no ability to switch LZ's to another part of the map after clearing certain conditions, no elevators, no trains, nothing. This is absolutely terrible because it enforces a "rush or die" or a "turtle till one side gets bored" mentaility; an issue that persists on Ice Colony but is even WORSE on this map.

Checkpoints: This is mostly about map control and ties in with my Requisitions point, but there are TOO MANY CHECKPOINTS. Maps like LV, Big Red are well liked because they have well established checkpoints. If you hold them, you have a safe base to push out from and only have to deal with harassers occasionally. Hydro on LV, Lambda Podlocks on Big Red, North Containers on LV, ETA Filteration Caves on Big Red. These are well known for a reason; they are GOOD CHECKPOINTS to hold. Trijent Dam violates this rule by having 3-4 checkpoints that are unreliable to hold and takes 100's of metal to reinforce properly, as well as one or two turrets to reliably secure due to MULTIPLE flanking positions (river, backside alleyways, tunnels).

Barricades: Another issue is that most barricades must be made again because of a lack of ease in transporting barricades. Transporation of cades requires a slow grab + an engi to screwdriver + wrench, then wrench in place for you once you place it. This is unreliable and a death trap on a map as big as Trijent. Marines need to be able to pickup unwired cades like deployable cades and be able to hoof it then place it rapidly down in a new position so that FOB's can slowly be moved up.

Ill update this list as I go but these aren't new or unique issues; Trijent Dam just amplifies these issues by x10 due to its large size. Until these issues are addressed, Trijent Dam will be the new "Vote Dam and Leave" meme map much like Ice Colony is.

[Lumdor]

I agree with you. My only experience playing this map was as a predator and it was huge. During that time we barely made contact with any marines. Otherwise I'd agree as the issues could be seen even as a side antag.

[FGRSentinel]

Many of these issues and more were brought up on the old forums:
https://cm-ss13.com/old/viewtopic.ph...art=25#p236496

As you can see, my list was more extensive and covered a number of concerns not just with the map, but with the Marines' logistics revolving around the presumably expected player count for the map, going so far as to say that Almayer might not be able to accommodate the changes needed to handle that population, which the recent Sseth tide has reinforced.

Of note is medevac, which was brought up in one of the last Town Halls we had and the dev that responded to it (I forget which, sadly, it was a while ago) dismissed it and several others I brought up from the list I gave in that post as being things the Marines would have to deal with. Medevac, specifically, got us the response of "just take them back to Alamo via roller bed," which was a very suboptimal solution and poor response.

[Imheretohelp]

Every map has checkpoints.

LV has Nexus -> Hydro -> Containers

Big red has LZ1 -> Bar -> Lambda/ETA

Prison has LZ1 -> Chapel/Crashed Ship->Civ Residence

Ice doesnt really have this

Dam ESPECIALLY doesnt have this.

Map size is fine, but when marines do not have checkpoints to reach and fortify then it's doodoo. The map needs to be linear. This is not a dynamic game, it is rigid and reliant on habits and tradition.

[Gookamungus]

The other guys pretty much have it right. The size and lack of defensive positions skew the balance towards the xeno team. Marines will either need to be able to travel safer and faster (vehicles, more difficult and extensive to code) or they need terrain that favors their movement from the LZs to the battlespace, which they don't have right now.

Just spitballing, but if we took the river mechanic out entirely and made it so that both teams could only pass over the bridges, we could partly solve our checkpoints issue. Instead of filtering the water, it could be a mechanic where the bridges start raised, then must be lowered. This would also serve as an anti-rush mechanic. This would probably cause its own problems where battles center around the bridges, but right now I think that might be more preferrable to the absolute map control that xenos have right now.

The sensor tower (not sure if its still in) is not really going to make a difference. Command and ground elements do not communicate and execute movement fast enough to react to xenos that can wander at will without consequence.

[Grentex]

I was thinking. What if engineers could fix the Vehicles of Trijent so we could have a faster mode transportation.

They would have piss poor Durability (well enough to take xeno hits from T1 if they thought they can try and screw it over easily), but easy enough to repair given an engineer has time and remembered to bring a Welderpack and a wrench basically.
It would be ever so slighty faster then running around everywhere and can store to like maybe 6-10 marines OR a crate that takes up like 3-5 slots depending on vehicle choice, which would allow for faster transportation of marines in general.

As for the maps size, yea it's really big. Not to mention, unlike ice, it doesn't have shitton of stuff that'll slow down xenos unless the pause to clear it. The River basically mostly works in the xenos favor moreso then the marines. I'd like to see at least a tiny bit of a slowdown for them regarding the river.

[Aceluke]

I was asked to post this here. I will go into more detail here compared to the discord.

Personally a few things to improve CM a hell of a lot for marines is if we had

1.
Rapid deployment and pickup transit (imagine rappelling and pickup modes with a dropship).

The idea is rather simple. Make an item that deploys a 3x3 square that when a dropship goes on flyby or even a new select mode, lets you hover over the ground at the location to drop marines or pick up medevac stretchers all at once.
The item can be a simple ladder stylized like a rope which can be made to only allow one marine down and up before it vanishes. This would make it a good way to move marines but not an overpowered item if need be.
As always an item would be required to do this and it should be widely available for marines to get or very restricted, no idea how powerful this would be for marines in the long run.
This new dropship utility would lead to 9 marines being able to go up or down rapidly along with supplies and ferrying a large amount of wounded. It could even be named something like the Rapid Deployment System. (RDS)

2.
One dropship and 2 gunships. One which lands at either LZ and can be hijacked by the aliens, along with two gunships which can be used to run CAS alongside MEDEVAC and FULTON pickups. This would allow for 3 pilot officers to be able to be useful during a round with CAS being more widely specialized versus it's current status

Instead of 1, this can be widely used to ferry marines at least AWAY from the battlefield for MEDEVAC stretchers along with pickup of FULTON for DEFCON to be processed easier.

3.
A faster way to move crates than the current system. Imagine trolleys or something similarly.
Just needed in general to get crates across the map without it taking literally forever to do anything.

4.
Req being much less tedious so marines can deploy faster. A fix like SLs giving out attachments or changing how attachments work so that all the minor ones like RDS/EB/suppressor/stocks are freely given.

If anything for highpop needs to be done, it's decrease how long it takes for req to get processed for handing out items. Either moving vedors or allowing simplier spawned attachments to be easier to get for the average marine.

5.
If tactical maps could be used to actually view a marines camera and the map. CORP mercs map system is a good one to copy.

Late at night so I forgot what I was gonna say about this

[BatteryBan]

SO why are there god damn Xenomorphs on the train�s windows?

[JJG]

Too big, no defendable chokepoints. The amount of time and materials required to defend anything is absurd.
You need 100s of Metal and plasteel to even make a defendable position. Having an engineer set this up takes forever because building cades takes a lot of time.
When you are done setting up the cades you can't even defend them because they cover so much area and a single cheeky xeno can just run in and undo the entire defences by melting or slashing a cade down somewhere.

The map is also too large for retreats. Marines retreating from Hydro back to Nexus usually loose about half their numbers. Now imagine the retreat on Trijent which takes about ten times as long.
Retreat is not viable so the only thing you can do is to charge. Charge and win or die trying.

[Dinobubba7]

My main issue with Trijent damn stems from a few issues:

1. Compared to a lot of maps, this one feels absolutely massive, and with that massiveness comes with drawbacks:
Response time for Marines is low
Marines take ages to get to where they need to go and reinforce
If you get dragged off you will never be found

Of course they did test a smaller version, I do think the map is an interesting concept but I dunno, I am getting some flashbacks to when LV-624 didn't have fog.

Speaking of LV this map also comes with two issues that I have with that map:
The damn grass is a xenos wet dream
So many flanks that cant be covered
Massive chokepoints

While on LV the map is a size where you can cover the flanks and such, and the jungle can help conceal benos, the bridge chokepoint seems like a copy=paste from LV into Trijent, in which marines can call CAS and OB's, to then watch xenos scatter that don't do much damage, while boilers volley fire making it almost impossible to cross.

As people have said before, its a great concept but has some obvious execution fails, and I really do wish to see some improvements via feedback.