Aliens: Colonial Marines Force Add

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2008-08-12 07:38pm

How differently would the colonial Marine's encouter with the Xenomorphs have gone if the USCMC utilized SOP and nanomachines as of MGS4?

Basically under SOP the Marines senses would be sharpened, emotions controlled, and pain managed amongst other things.

Nevermind the wankiness of the system, what are your opinions?

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DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2008-08-12 07:51pm

They'd retreat more orderly, possibly, but they're still fucked royally if they listen to their shit-for-brains CO.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2008-08-12 07:55pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:They'd retreat more orderly, possibly, but they're still fucked royally if they listen to their shit-for-brains CO.

Keeping this in mind, lets change things around.

1. The Marines aren't ordered to stow their guns, collect mags, etc

2. Lt. Gorman, also under the effects of SOP, doesn't freak out and suffers no comm interference.

CaptHawkeye · Post by **CaptHawkeye** » 2008-08-12 10:28pm

They still retreat. They're awfully outnumbered, surrounded, and in tight quarters against an enemy with an advantage in that environment. The difference is this time they escape with drastically reduced casualties (or none at all). Assuming the stupid ass shit with the drop ship and command center holdout occurs again, they probably win this time. The xenos suffered pretty much total casualties attacking just a handful of them. Burke gets his facility, Ripley gets her surrogate daughter, Apone gets his retirement paid for, and Hudson gets his discharge. Everyone's a winner.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-08-12 10:31pm

TheMuffinKing wrote:2. Lt. Gorman, also under the effects of SOP, doesn't freak out and suffers no comm interference.

IIRC, the radiation from the colony's powerplant was responsible for interfering with the marines' transmissions. As for Gorman, he did NOT freak out, but when faced with situations he wasn't trained for (guerilla warfare, which uses tactics similar to the xenomorphs') and for which the marines weren't equipped for (operating in the powerplant, which would and DID blow when damaged by gunfire, although the smart thing to do would've been to order a retreat, reequip the marines with flamethrowers and other weapons that wouldn't damage the powerplant), he overanalyzed the situation and became unable to think up a plan to save his subordinates in time.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-08-12 10:35pm

CaptHawkeye wrote:Burke gets his facility, Ripley gets her surrogate daughter, Apone gets his retirement paid for, and Hudson gets his discharge. Everyone's a winner.

Ripley is determined to exterminate the xenomorphs, but the fact that SOP controls prevent a MGS4 mercenary from pointing his (or her) weapon at a client, means if Burke is the client, the marines will obey his order to capture a xenomorph for study, and shoot Ripley if she tries to interfere.

CaptHawkeye · Post by **CaptHawkeye** » 2008-08-12 10:45pm

Sidewinder wrote: Ripley is determined to exterminate the xenomorphs, but the fact that SOP controls prevent a MGS4 mercenary from pointing his (or her) weapon at a client, means if Burke is the client, the marines will obey his order to capture a xenomorph for study, and shoot Ripley if she tries to interfere.

Burke was interested in the face huggers more than he was interested in the grown xenomorphs. He had no issue with the marines icing every wall climbing slobber stain out to kill them. He wanted a "specimen" but he also wanted to survive. Since the situation isn't as desperate this time around, he'll probably just sneak them out when they leave. Which I assume was the original plan.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2008-08-13 03:06am

Sidewinder wrote:he overanalyzed the situation and became unable to think up a plan to save his subordinates in time.

He also micromanaged his men, which probably is an artifact of the retarded command system (CO sits in an APC watching video feeds) that encourages such behavior.

Look how he ordered them to retreat: "Sergeant, I want you to put up a fire screen with the incinerators and then fall back to the APC...". Apone didn't hear the entire order due to interference, got distracted by it and brutally murdered by a xeno. If their Lt just said "Fall back to the APC!" and let the sergeant do the rest, most of the marines would probably be alive.

I'm not sure if SOP can remedy that tendency, which will get men killed sooner or later.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-08-13 08:23am

I've never understood threads like this. The incident at LV 426 only happened because of a chain of laughably poor decisions and pre-existing conditions; it's not like the xenos won on merit or anything. It doesn't take inane nanomachine bullshit to make it a win for the humans.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2008-08-13 09:01am

Stark wrote:I've never understood threads like this. The incident at LV 426 only happened because of a chain of laughably poor decisions and pre-existing conditions; it's not like the xenos won on merit or anything. It doesn't take inane nanomachine bullshit to make it a win for the humans.

Insane nanomachine bullshit or not, I thought it would be more interesting than just having the marines act competently.

Erik von Nein · Post by **Erik von Nein** » 2008-08-13 07:42pm

Uh, why? Since it sounds like the whole SOP thing would just make them act competantly, anyway.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2008-08-13 08:57pm

Erik von Nein wrote:Uh, why? Since it sounds like the whole SOP thing would just make them act competantly, anyway.

Touche good sir/ma'am.

I suppose with competent marine leadership coordinated with Ripley's knowledge would lead to a boring drama free movie.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-08-15 03:18am

TheMuffinKing wrote:I suppose with competent marine leadership coordinated with Ripley's knowledge would lead to a boring drama free movie.

This will be easily remedied if you have Solid Snake perform a mission AT THE SAME TIME AS the SOP-enhanced marines, e.g., Snake arriving at the planet to destroy the xenomorph hive and the marines arriving to secure a live xenomorph (yes, this includes facehuggers and chestbursters) for Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division.

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2008-08-16 07:40am

Just a quick note here...

I am not familiar with the arsenal of MGS4, but I have to point out that the more firepower you bring into that situation the more damage you are doing to the cooling system of the reactor.

You may find yourself in a situation where you can actually survive the encounter and wipe out the main nest only to have done so much damage to the cooling system that you don't have time to summon a new dropship from the Sulaco before the facility explodes.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2008-08-16 04:15pm

Steven Snyder wrote:Just a quick note here...

I am not familiar with the arsenal of MGS4, but I have to point out that the more firepower you bring into that situation the more damage you are doing to the cooling system of the reactor.

You may find yourself in a situation where you can actually survive the encounter and wipe out the main nest only to have done so much damage to the cooling system that you don't have time to summon a new dropship from the Sulaco before the facility explodes.

Not if you rearm everyone with incinerators, shotguns et al. Or, you know: withdraw and shut the fucking thing down before coming back!

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2008-08-17 07:45am

Completely agreed PeZook

The best idea would have been to fall back when it was noted where they were and then issue the appropriate arms. Flame units, and M-41's with the same ammunition that you would expect them to use on starship boarding operations (low penetration rounds) would have made a huge difference there.

Unfortunately Gorman, with Burke in the shadows whispering bad ideas into his ear isn't going to allow for this.

As far as MGS4 goes...they still have the dynamic duo as mentioned above and their dropship is stll toast.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2008-08-17 10:37am

I thought the dropship crashing into the reactor was what caused the thing to blow up.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2008-08-17 03:49pm

Typhonis 1 wrote:I thought the dropship crashing into the reactor was what caused the thing to blow up.

I wonder if under SOP the pilot of the dropship, or Lt. Gorman would have noticed the dropships's loadmaster's encounter with the alien that killed the pilot.

I figure in this case, the pilot if she knew what happened could have locked the cockpit, or gone to investigate and gotten killed that way. Either scenario would leave the dropship at the LZ preventing the crash into the reactor.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2008-08-17 06:09pm

Steven Snyder wrote:Unfortunately Gorman, with Burke in the shadows whispering bad ideas into his ear isn't going to allow for this.

Assuming Burke has a working brain, he WILL allow the marines to return to the APC and exchange their rifles for flamethrowers because doing so increases the chance the marines will live long enough to capture a xenomorph for Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division.

TheMuffinKing wrote:I wonder if under SOP the pilot of the dropship, or Lt. Gorman would have noticed the dropships's loadmaster's encounter with the alien that killed the pilot.

I figure in this case, the pilot if she knew what happened could have locked the cockpit, or gone to investigate and gotten killed that way. Either scenario would leave the dropship at the LZ preventing the crash into the reactor.

If the marine officers were competent, the dropship would've lifted off IMMEDIATELY after the APC is dropped off, so it could fulfill its function of gunship and provide air support (as described in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual), including aerial reconnaissance; the xenomorph shouldn't have gotten a chance to board the dropship.