unknown - Xeno meta rush/camping LZ1

[ColonelCorazon]

Player Report

Your Byond ID?

colonelcorazon

Your Character Name?

Wanda Fisher

Accused Byond Key(if known):

unknown

Accused Character Name

Xenos near LZ1

Approximate time and date of the incident (Central US Time for fastest results)

Aprox. 6:30 CT

What rule(s) were broken:

Xeno meta rush/camping LZ1

Description of the incident:

I was one of Charlie's engies, and Charlie was deployed to LZ1 to set up comms and the LZ1 FOB. Before our squad had even fully exited the Alamo or passed the Shiva landing sign, one of the marines was run over by a Crusher. Xenos had already breached the wall protecting LZ before we arrived. From my position, I also saw two Xenos in the breach as the Crusher slam dunked that Charlie. As half of us pushed out to set up comms we were nailed again by several Xenos and that Crusher before we had passed the Aerodome doors. A few of us made it to comms proper and the second I entered the room a Lurker pounced me. A Boiler began gassing us as we tried to set up. After fixing comms we were all more or less wiped, as more T3s moved in to finish us off. Overall, the play on the Xeno's end of things felt incredibly unfair and unfun.

I feel like this entire encounter classifies as meta rushing on the LZ1 Xeno player's part. The marines didn't have time to set up or completely leave the dropship before we were attacked. While I think camping comms and sitting at the Aerodome doors counts is incredibly cheesy, I think the real issue here is what happened at LZ1 and that is what I think needs clarified.

I did indeed ahelp the issue, which was ruled IC since the Xenos weren't directly on LZ1. I felt that, based on my image below, the Xeno's locations qualified as LZ camping.

Evidence (screenshots, logs, etc):

Unfortunately I didn't screenshot the initial contact. I took a screenshot later to try to clarify what I saw with notes:

How you would punish the accused:

No players should be punished, as it's not clear what is and isn't LZ camping for Xenos.

Since we don't have any official guidelines regarding what actually is and isn't LZ camping, I think we need to hash out what is fair regarding how far Xenos can push up as Marines first deploy. At the very least, I think we need clarification from staff, because this round left a lot of folks confused and feeling frustrated.

[Slader101]

I saw this happening as a Ghosted Marine as well, i can confirm that a Crusher walked over to LZ1, broke the reinforced walls there for no reason, being as no survs or marines were anywhere near LZ1, then the Crusher and a Rav with a Spitter, and a few sents and runner stayed by LZ1 and waited for marines to drop. Once they did the Charlie marines who dropped were almost instantly crushed and forced to retreat due to xenos killing and wounding many of them. I think a change into the rules of xeno meta camp and the punishments might need some rework.

[Emerald Blood]

I made the wall, the Xeno wanted to destroy the wall. They own the colony and if they want to break the wall, it's fine. The Xeno were also quite interested in killing the Cyborgs I had locked away near the LZ. Marines landed while the Xeno were biting at the wall and Marines offloaded from the dropship, with the only attack really being one person getting hit by a crusher or so. The Xeno retreated and then the Marines just walked on out to the left like they always do. A about 3-5 minutes later, ~5-6 Xeno came back including 3 tier 3s. The Rav actually went into Crit but no one finished it so a Crusher or something walked up and saved it. The whole battle the Marines were standing in the open hanger (as the docked ship was removed this round) and ended up getting wiped, though there were so few there at the fob anyways.

From what I saw though that whole thing, this is 100% a failure on the Marines part. They had a wall with literally 2 holes in it pointing to the west to use as a defense against the Xeno. The only only flank was from the north but the Marines failed to even secure the wall or anything, and ended up getting killed. Now I was told the PO for LZ1 wasn't that great this round but from everything that I've seen, this is just how the round went down. After LZ1 was lost with not much of a fight, I even just gave the Marines the Medical and Security cyborgs that they should have had from securing LZ1. Marines were also given extra reinforcements via Cyro to help dampen the failure of LZ1.

I'll leave this open a for a while so people can say whatever they need but there was no meta-rush on LZ1, just a failure in Command or Marine planning.

[Isolatar]

Queen here. I'm assuming you saw Ravager 314 near LZ1. We were both talking about the robots in the aerodrome hangar which explains why they were near the LZ when you landed. As for the crusher, I did catch them breaking down the wall separating the LZ from the rest of the long corridor.

I can only assume that the conversation me and 314 had attracted the other xenos to observe and attempt to break into the storage room. I know for a fact I had a boiler around the LZ too since we tried melting our way in. And with you guys landing, that probably triggered the xenos at the aerodrome hangar and got Charlie killed.

[ColonelCorazon]

If there are multiple xenos visible within seconds of marines exiting the dropship, I guess I don't understand how that isn't on the verge of being a meta rush. We were under attack almost instantly upon deployment. I saw three xenos, and there were clearly more just waiting a few more tiles outside of my visual range as we quickly found out. Even if we had put up cades, there would have been around 10 xenos right next to us and assaulting us as we tried to defend the LZ within the first 30 seconds of deployment.

[SolarMacharius]

I was Charlie Spec that round. The xenos did not instantly retreat after the crusher hit someone. They kept up the assault until we started moving up. As for securing the hole, we were ordered to restore comms. By the time we had moved from the lz a boiler, a bunch of lurkers, a ravager, and a crusher were there. They were on us the second we dropped.

I can guess the queen didnt order them to camp the lz, but thats what they did regardless of intent. Its literally the only rule xenos really have to follow and they broke it. I dont see how its possible to hold the gap the crusher created by ourselves since they had a bunch of backup from the hive. Especially without comms and the other three squads below ground. Those xenos above ground ignored the three squads that had already landed below ground to wait for ds1 to land so they could get some easy kills.

I dont care if they were there for the borgs initially. They made the decision to stick around and camp the lz knowing that only one squad would be there since the others had already landed below. One of the xenos even said that in dchat. They went after charlie because the other three squads were behind the blastdoors at lz2. That is an intentional decision to camp.

[Heera-o]

If this is the round I am thinking of I was a Sentinel this round. There was a lot of conversation about the tall host behind the wall and the queen ordering various units to try and breach the wall to capture them. The focus was capturing the host behind the wall not setting up an attack on the LZ.

[FGRSentinel]

If this is the round I'm thinking of (since I remember a round with a few cyborgs brought up on the ship), I know LZ1 was completely lost. I was a doctor and there was a random announcement from ARES that reinforcements were being pulled from cryo/hypersleep due to the loss of LZ1. I don't remember how long this took, but it seemed to be pretty quick after the drop. I have to admit that the situation seemed suspicious and if telecomms wasn't established, would have given the Xenos a terrain and communication advantage on top of taking at least a third of Charlie out of comission in either the short or long term.

I have to agree with ColonelCorazon and Slader that there needs to be a change to the rules regarding this in general. I cited a few similar instances of Xenos loopholing the rules on the old forum (mostly abusing rules to do things that icly make no sense) and it seems that this is the case here: a staff member put something mildly interesting near the LZ, which gave the hive an excuse to sit outside of LZ1. I'm not exactly sure which dropship went down first, but if Normandy arrived first and there was enough time for the hive to be made aware of this, the choice of the Xenos near LZ1 to stay and keep going after machines that serve no purpose for them isn't really an ic one if you ask me.

[ColonelCorazon]

Basically the entire point of posting this was for there to be a discussion about what is/isn't fair about how far xenos can push LZ1 prior to deployment. In my ahelps, it was recommended posting a player report, but I'm thinking this would be better posted in the general discussion forum. Would that be preferable a this point?

[Frans_Feiffer]

Logs: