A Chance to Escape.

[Styx]

Rundown

As someone familiar with both sides in CM Xenos and marines I usually end up in the hive by the nests whether as a Marine about to burst or as a Sentinel watching over them, this topic is mostly about how the Nests work in current CM and what I would like added to make this part of the game better(?) Because as it stands most Marines when they get the chance will Kamikaze instead of making a run for it, they resign themselves to death instead of trying to live and I find this annoying and boring. I will start off by letting you know that I will add what I would like added into the lower half of this post and why I think they should be added.


Nesting

I find that from a certain standpoint Marines, should be given a better chance to escape, whether that be on their own or with other nested marines. Now, in my experience as a Sentinel watching nests that there are only Three situations (technically 4 and that is when they all happen at once) where Marines have a chance to escape and they are.

1. Shit hive design, as in xenos have to go through a maze of doors and walls to get to a Marine that stood up on the other side of the maze has plenty of time to free others or destroy their way out whilst you are still trying to get to them.

2. Luck, Whether it be a shit guard that is less robust than you or they're lagging the fuck out, giving you ample time to kill them and escape

3. Teamwork, in the rare chance that a nest is setup well, you can actually see other Marines also nested, this allows you to communicate with each other and co-ordinate. The way you escape is you all break free from your nests at the same time, with this you are able to over throw the balance as the guard can't be everywhere at once. And Voila prison riot occurs and the great escape starts.

How to prevent escapes.

As you can see most of the ways Marines escape is due to their competence and the Xeno's incompetence which brings us on how you stop these from occurring and the fix may surprise you!

1. Good hive design, Have a competent Drone or Hivelord construct a proper nest with easy access to captures.

2. Robustness, Luck tends to go both ways, either the Xeno or Marine gets lucky and when a marine is able to wiggle free it comes down to a proper fight where a Xeno is trying to incapacitate a Marine and the Marine is trying to kill the Xeno, in the event a capture gets out by luck you must counter them with skill.

3. Teamwork, What a surprise more than one Xeno can and should always be on guard duty in-case of multiple getting up at once. (side note having more than one Xeno guarding almost guarantees you won't escape)

A Chance to Escape (Marines)

Despite what this post might lead you to believe I actually want to argue for granting more chances to escape from nests because as it stands it is boring as fuck for both sides, and granting additional opportunity and options for nested Marines will help make guard duty less boring when there is more that could be done on both sides, What I would love to be added.

1. Marine Escape Tools, the use of certain items to reduce the time it takes to escape i.e Blowtorch, knife, machete or even a glass shard. Just a way to give you more time on your limited lifespan

2. Knowledge, knowing how close you are to escaping without prior stopwatch testing, Examples examining yourself or the nest to see how close you are to escape.

3. Wiggle Room, this ties in with point 1 as it stands you are unable to use any items when nested, let alone open any storage you have. My suggestion is depending on how long you have been resisting, you are able to open your storage might not be able to take anything yet but you can see what you have at your disposal. After a bit more time you might be able to grab something from your storage and use it. (Don't really know how I feel about this, because I know Marines will just pull out a nade) Or perhaps loot/use a nearby item.

[SIZE=3]4. Remove stun delay when you escape the nest.

A Chance to Escape (Xenos this part is mostly optional)

1. Ability to Strip Marines, pretty self explanatory

2. Knowledge, currently you just examine nested marines to see if they're awake or not and keep an eye on the ones that are, however you can sometimes miss if a Marine is struggling to escape and would be nice if that detail is added when you examine them, and maybe the ability to see how close they are to escaping

[SIZE=3]3. Text Warnings, in the case of wiggle room, text will appear in chat that a Marine is grabbing/opening something, however you need a clear LoS for this to occur.



I could go on, but I have been writing this on and off whilst playing CM which doesn't make for good writing. So tell me what is what your opinions are, they don't even have to agree wtih what I have said, I just want the boring bits to be slightly more entertaining. Also I wasn't exactly sure to post this, and if there is a more appropriate place please let me know.

[Nichodemius]

Since most try to self nade. This wil mostly do 2 things. Less marine only SSD on capture. But this is only so they can nade themselves and then log out.
Allot of marines do marine only.
This causes the mentality nade self.
Some people will be vengeful in their last moments of life and self nade but some people would want to live and escape. I applaud you to be the latter but many don't and just RP revengeeeee boom! This weakens the Xeno trice (larva loss + collateral + dead player doesn't control a Xeno so no players) and is part of the reason buried larva for example exists (which devaluated captures even more)

So while I like the idea of giving beno guards more action and escape RP. We must watch the nades.

Remember a escape is not all you can do. Talk on your comms tell them if you hear gunfire. Ask for aSL so the squad can charge and find the nest a push with direction.

Changes I'd add.
If xenos make more forwards and false nests. They delay marines. But allow marines to push and fight and xenos to weaken and pick off. Marines will be rescued more. So perhaps some stop nadeing / SSD and will wait for rescue. If they then still are alive on burst perhaps then they will Xeno. I think the wait time between nest burst and possible Xeno play is a big reason for SSD and the creation of marine only.
So I propose. Cheaper nests, doors and resin windows.
Then a new issue pops. Split marines over nests so you need more guards. The idea of xenos perhaps having a secHUD like vieuw of who's resisting can help.
In nests also slightly faster larva growth does a few things. Less marine downtime but also less rescue chance (see nade SSD) and less xenos needed to guard.

We should balance this we want guarding to be less dull but not put a strain on Xeno manpower (tailpower?)
Less downtime and bore for marine to reduce nades and SSD. But instapop while it does both removes escape / rescue / Intel.

Perhaps even a next round bonus. Did you die burst and play Xeno? +points on next deploy? 5 or 10?
Yes stronger marines due to gear but this isn't that big and more beno's it should remember to your account so a round switch DC doesn't screw it. Next successful ready be it a day later + points?

All in all good point to bring up something worth talking about +1 for you also playing both sides

[Pigeon]

Most nade themselves becuase once the aliens realize what is up they will respond en-mass. You will 100% get recapped or killed if they come back, two not many people actually get nades for what you expect. Maybe at best 20% of people have nades on them, less when captured even.

Otherwise for break out stuff and such... you do know it already an annoying issue to make sure anyone is even guarding the captures? It always an issue in hives so I rather not make it even easier. Making it easier to escape makes aliens less willing to capture which weakens them in various ways which means aliens need a new round of buffs to do anything. Yea no.

[senjx]

all of this is completely useless due to the new insecure xeno player meta which consists of making warriors guard nests so that marines have 0% chance of escaping

[Grentex]

You do know that marines nade themselves because escape is impossible unless EVERY single xeno is SO focused on the front they won't bother with captured rines for some reason.
Only ONCE did I actually properly conduct and escape with others and thats because a bunch of robust deltas were capped. And even then, the hive in general was quite bald.

Granted now it's impossible with the 3 second delay after escaping nesting lol.

[Troika]

make nests flat out unescapable, no one ever actually makes it out of the hive anyways

[Rocco Ward]

Ability to open inventory would be amazing, just as long as marines can’t interact with anything until they break free.

The breakout timer would be nice! Make it an examine thing so other xenos and marines can see how close you are. Maybe use different descriptions depending on how close you are.

Those two above ideas would be trivial and a quality of life improvement.

Now here are some hardcore changes that may need to get experimented with a bit.

#1 - Disable tunneling for xenos who have devoured marines. This means secure nests need to be closer to the frontlines, which gives marines a bonus incentive to rescue their comrades. Plus the captured marines will have a decent chance of escaping since they aren’t super super deep in the hive, which is pretty much GG. When you are nested deep in the hive not only do you have to fight through the hive, tons of doors, it also takes a lot longer for you to reach medical care to remove larva. While it still is possible for a runner or lurker to run to the back of the hive to do this, it’ll make it harder for them and give you a chance to escape before you even reach the nest.

#2 - Give bonus damage to machetes when attacking resin doors and nests. A nest should be able to destroyed in one hit. A door in maybe 2-3 hits.

The bottom line is this. You need to give marines hope. Hope that they won’t burst before they get medical care. Hope that they can make it to safety. Right now neither of those are possible, thus lots of suicide nades.

[CABAL]

It's a false statement that dead marine gives benos nothing. Me for example, I have always "be beno after unrevivable death", even if I suicide nade myself, I will still be beno.

Current system isn't really too bad for Benos, so no benomain will complain too much. You could not guard the host at all and they would be captured when strolling trough hive and then frontlines. This could be actually pretty good tallhost strategy. I wouldn't consider nading myself when there would be no beno on MD pinging.

Idea of beno not being able to crawl trough tunnel with marine inside is a good thing in my opinion. Or keep it in place, but allow marine to use equipment while vored. It so cool in concept to burst from beno not with a knife, but fucking Pulse Rifle burst fire. This would grant a bit of risk to benos, who currently only bother to swallow and immediately go trough tunnel.

Benos shouldn't know how ready you are to free yourself. Granted, they shouldn't even see if you are struggling. What is the point of doing it, when beno can see everything? It would only lead to meta drones, who would unnest you, disarm you during unnesting stun and then nest you again.

[Dorkkeli]

Dont get captured, easy.

[ThePirateSphee]

neth is pushing for nests to be mechanically inescapable anyway