warbluke wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:01 pm
Reading that appeal was like jumping headfirst into a foreign stock exchange for obscure card games. SOM, Plat miner, FC, TAD, what the fuck is going on at TGMC? I don't think I want to know what any of these mean.
SOM - Sons of Mar. They are a faction hostile to Marines that can appear as an Emergency Response Team. Think of the Martians from the Expanse. An independent faction hostile to and independent from Earth with strong militaristic vibes. In the context of this appeal, one of the Marine's objectives to capture was located at a landmark styled after a Sons of Mars base.
Plat Miner - Platinum miner. Marines have a cargo system not terribly dissimilar to TG13. Marines need money to buy more advanced weapon and armor that are either limited at mission start, or unavailable at start entirely. This is where "the big guns" and the "fancy toys" come from. But they ain't cheap. Phoron and Platinum miners sprinkled around the map provide the money that marines need in order to keep pace with (or out pace) the xenomorph's own advancements.
FC - Field Commander. This person is the top of the Chain of Command for ground based operations. Squad Marines have no obligation to listen to this person whatsoever, but limited roles such as Corpsmen, Engineers, and Squad Leaders have obligations to listen to this person according to the rules. In the general day-to-day of TGMC, despite there being at least some requirements to listen to this person, many people do not care and continue to operate as independent individuals ignoring orders. Usually these orders are "RETREAT" because the marines' standard modus operandi is to kill the enemy and push regardless of circumstance.
Tad - Tadpole. The Tadpole is a flexible dropship that can land anywhere on the map where there is space for it. It is piloted generally by a Piloting Officer. As a note, the Alamo is another dropship, but it is larger, and locked to only a few prepositioned landing zones (generally the Forward Operating Base or the ship).
I'll try to give the best synopsis that I can for the outsider's perspective as someone who only has the context of the Appeal but as someone who plays TGMC.
The Marines have two objectives to win this game mode (Nuclear War). They can either collect all 3 disks (which is not a quick process) and activate the Nuke or they can kill all Xenos.
Our Field Commander here has elected to go for the Disks so far. They've already collected 1/3 and are headed to the 2nd, which is located at a SOM Base. The fact that it is a SOM Base is irrelevant, it is just the landmark where their second objective is present. After tacitly securing the area, our FC notices a couple things.
First, the objective is not properly secured yet. "Maze/Mazing/Mazed" refers to the Xenos' ability to place resin walls and make terrain more favorable for them fight in. While Marines
control this area for now, it is still mazed, presenting a challenge for Marines should Xenos decide to counterattack the objective. Our FC is trying to rally marines who are orbiting the area of the objective to clear this maze and more firmly secure their position at the disk site. The default mode of engagement for Marines is to engage the enemy to their own detriment. They will push and push until they get themselves killed. The FC is trying to stop this, rally marines to an objective, and keep an element of cohesion before marines disperse and become vulnerable to a collapse from a counterattack (a "wipe"). This is a model example of being an FC. As an analogy for TG13, this guy is doing the job he signed up to do. We've all met command players who only took the role for a baton and tacit authority over their departments to use as a base to valid hunt.
Second, our FC has spotted an engineer extending the line to reach a Platinum Miner. Plat miners are valuable because, while located in more xeno favored lines, provide double the points of a phoron miner (which are typically located in the neutral zones). Wanting to consolidate the front and also hold a strong position, the FC
orders (which is within his rights ICly and OOCly) the engineer to abandon the miner and hold the chokepoint at the bridge. This area limits the flow of xenomorphs from a specific area and keeps the engineer with the main force. The engineer tells the FC to his face that he will not follow this order and will instead continue for the Plat Miner.
The actions that follow this is what becomes the subject of the appeal. The FC was carrying an anesthetic hypospray and he puts the engineer to sleep with a small dosage (This works similarly to TG13's CMO Hypo, except higher capacity and chooseable dosages up to 30u). His intent with this is to, without involving admins, get this engineer to obey his order. He drags this sleeping engineer back to friendly lines and waits for them to wake up to reiterate their order. The Engineer wakes up, with anesthetic still in his system, and proceeds to go back to the miner. However, the engineer falls asleep again, and is mauled to death by xenos. The usage of this anesthetic hypospray to force people to obey their orders is outside the authority of the FC.
While this engineer is walking away, sleeping, or dying, the FC is on radio saying that if they go out there and die he will order him to not be revived and strip him of his gear to be distributed to others, both things that he does not have the authority to do. If it gets to this point, I believe admins expect people to start ahelping. The FC follows through with most of his threats. He orders a medic to not revive him, strips him of his gear, but does not behead him like he said he would (this is round removal. heads cannot be reattached to humans). These are things the FC does not have the authority to do and the rules prohibit.
Now, how could this happen? It should seem pretty self evident that this is a problem that you just ahelp and let an admin sort out if you're the FC (a role you have authority over according to the rules ignores your order to your face). But it's more complicated than that. In theory, TGMC is an MRP server. There are expectations for how people act and an expectation according to the rules to follow the chain of command for certain roles (in this case it would be the Engineer as they are a limited role). In practice, most everyone plays it like it is an LRP server. Chain of Command is often ignored. Everyone in Command can be collectively saying "DON'T PUSH THIS WAY, HOLD POSITION AT THE OBJECTIVE" and a majority of the marine force either doesn't have an obligation to listen to them (squad marines), has job content that is where the squad marines are (corpsmen), or has job content that is behind or adjacent to that push where the corpsmen and squad marines are (engineers). Then Squad Leaders and the FC have to either let them get mauled to death without their buffs (stuff like -20 or 30% damage or increased movement speed, pretty big stuff) or run to them and try to get them to pull back, effectively making it look like to everyone else
this is where the action is and
this is where I need to be.
Some people take these high authority roles (FC, Captain [they are two different people with absolute authority over the ground or ship]) and either don't say a damn word playing like a squad marine or are incompetent to the detriment of those under them (not using their AOE buffs, not organizing the marines, not coordinating their indirect fire assets [CAS, OB, Mortar, Howie]), and just generally
not leading. Trust in chain of command is eroded. People are incredibly jaded when it comes to subjecting themselves to the orders of another person when they feel (rightly or wrongly for one reason or another) whatever they are doing is better for the overarching objective of "winning" or "fun". The hour requirements to play these high impact high authority roles is not high at all.
It looks to me like another case of the way the game is played by everyone differing from how the admins and rules expect people to play it.