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Thread: Ice Colony Rework Discussion/Sugg

  1. #1
    Senior Member Steelpoint's Avatar
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    Ice Colony Rework Discussion/Sugg

    Personally, I find Ice Colony to be a monotonous and boring map. The map lacks the clear flow of all the other maps, the only other map that comes close to this feeling of loss is Trijent, but even that map has a clear sense of progression for both sides.

    On Ice, there is no clear direction to push and pull. For example, on LV-624 the usual play for Marines is, Nexus > Hydro > Tfort > Containers > Caves+. Ice lacks a clear sense of direction. Everyone can go everywhere, Xenos can run in and out from all corners of the map, Marines have no clear area to defend except for their Landing zone, it's a disaster.

    If Marines make LZ2 the primary drop, then the map just turns into 'Prison Station Lite' except with less room to maneuver.

    -------------------------

    Ergo, my suggestion to try and reinvigorate the map is to rework its premise.

    Here's a quick level overview of my sugged changes to the Surface of the map.



    Red Stripes = Removed areas
    Green Stripes = Expected areas for Marines/Xenos to move and fight over

    HIGHLIGHTS
    • Landing Zone 2 is now on the surface
    • All entrances to the underground are removed except for three new areas at the far north of the map. A Central bunker entrance and two small side entrances.


    The general overview. LZ1 landings will see the Marines move over a long areas, securing the central buildings, and making a strong push northward towards a new BUNKER entrance.

    This bunker entrance consists of two large stairwells and an elevator, large enough for the Tank to enter. My general idea (which I'm too lazy to open Dreammaker and mock one up) is the Bunker is somewhat open but is surrounded with rock formations to offer xenos some defensive cover. these stairs/elevator lead to the old LZ2 staging area, which should be enlarged to make it harder for Xenos to defend the lower level, encouraging them to retreat backwards.

    The Xenos want to fortify the bunker entrance and the southern areas to repel the Marine push.

    You'll also notice on the map two alternative stairwell entrances to the West and East of the bunker, they'd function simply as alt ways for Aliens or Marines to move around, more ground for the Marines and Xenos to cover, but they offer good flanking routes.

    --

    Xenos also retain their usage of tunnels, so they can maintain pressure on the surface even if the fighting gets underground

    LZ TWO offers the Marines a alternative start. They start much closer to the bunker, so they can resupply a push easier. However, the LZ would be very exposed, with very little natural cover to the North, East and South. So a FoB defence would be far less successful than at LZ1. Essentially you are trading defensive staying power for a better shot at securing the Bunker, your also ceding more surface map control since most Marines will move North, meaning the South and East will be less secure, more so for Intel runs.

    -----

    I also propose that there be a Landing Zone THREE feature. If the Marines secure the lower bunker entrance, ergo the original LZ2, then if a Engineer repairs the power they can open the surface doors and allow a Transport ship to alternatively land in the new LZ, thus giving the Marines a stronger desire to secure the Bunker to make offensive operations into the underground far easier to conduct, and moving the battle to the next part of the map.

    -----------------------

    Thanks for reading. If you want further elaborations I'll be happy to hop into Dreammaker and mock some designs.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

  2. #2
    Senior Member Steelpoint's Avatar
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    JUST to emphasize for those too quick on the draw, the Underground is mostly unchanged and is still there. My changes are more for the Surface.

    EDIT: The bunker is just my copy+pasting the research elevator pic, naturally the bunker will be fleshed out and more defendable, it should be slightly in the xenos favour.

    EDIT 2: Just to note, from some Discord chats. Once the Marines secure the surface bunker, they should be able to easily secure the underground bunker and get a foothold in the underground.

    My idea being that the stairways start two tiles wide but will expand to be around six tiles wide, and the lower bunker should be very wide and open, with lots of room to move, and the elevator that can lower the tank and more Marines, so the Marines can easily secure the lower area without getting trapped by xeno stuns, acid and acid clouds.
    Last edited by Steelpoint; 09-29-2019 at 02:38 PM.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

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    Hey, that's pretty good.

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    As long as ladders get replaced with staircases, it'll be better than it is now, because ladders are just trench warfare except you also can only assault single-file.

    That said, I am not sure if limiting the numbers of elevators is an improvement. Marines have a tendency to want to push with the tank and if you limit the avenues of attack for the tank, that just puts the entire flow of the round on rails or a single chokepoint. Unless you intended for the sign at the Mining Outpost to be another elevator, because you missed that in your list of proposed changes.

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    It goes against every fiber of my being, but Steelpoint is right.

    The openness of Ice does not play to its benefit. Theres nothing on the surface of interest for the Marines to care about aside from perhaps Tcomm. There isn't anything either side can do to apply pressure to the opposing for except to attack their LZ/Hive.

    If there was objectives that helped herd the roamers to one area or another the map would be more interesting. The double Z-level just gets annoying since it just limits how far the marines will effectively push knowing that a beno can hop out of any ladder and nab them, and if the benos don't feel like their winning they'll just hide underground where air strikes can't touch them. I'd push to just remove the entire underground part of the map and make part of the map encased in a mountain or hills so benos get to keep their haven from air strikes and marines can keep their aesthetically cool but mechanically boring underground hangar.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Steelpoint's Avatar
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    Ignore the blue, that's a mistake.

    Everything is up for rework, my general idea is the tank can approach the Northern bunker from all angles, west, south or east.

    The concept of there being only one way for the tank to get underground is, I think, acceptable since the entrance zone should be easy for Marines to secure.

    I was also thinking of a underground rework to streamline it, but I think a surface rework is of greater importance right now.

    EDIT: The ALTERNATIVE idea of just scrapping the underground and merging some underground areas with the very northern area into a mountain base is also a alternative way to proceed, it might be easier to approach. As I said, all ideas are in the pool.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

  7. #7
    Whitelisted Predator ChainsawMullet's Avatar
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    I like this idea, while surface fights would generally amount to the same thing round-to-round, it could push out to make the underground a bit more different.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Steelpoint's Avatar
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    This sugg is seemingly redundant since the devs revealed the utter rework of Ice Colony and teased the image on Discord.
    This is war, survival is your responsibility
    Captain Alan Bentway
    Synthetic: Nicholas
    Hunter Kwei Ikthya-de

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