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Ornery Marines (LOL)


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My father was in Marine Force Recon. Needless to say, in his younger years, it was hard for him to go to a public place and IGNORE any snide comments thrown his way.

WELL, the RF Marines on board by Megaron, I do believe, are the same way.

Stay with me, this is silly.

I'm roaming around for a few hours and the Fatigue alert sounds.

I realize the region I'm in (Valkerie) isn't that friendly to Terrans who aren't insurgents, and as such I need to find a resting place. I dock at Starwind, and send my entire crew to OFF DUTY.

This is hilarious. Instead of going to Troop Quarters, the Personnel Scan shows them all going to the shuttle bay. Coincidentally, after a few minutes, all of their life factors start to dip by a few points.

Theory: We were docked at a star station, and the crew decided to check out the gift shop, and probably started brawling with a few locals from the Mercenary Caste on their way to the Starwind Saloon ;-)

Yeah, I know, probably not what happened. But amusing all the same.

I have to wonder, if Marines COULD fist fight while off-duty, would their AI points go up? lol.

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My crew? Aw, they know not to cross me, else I'll make buy more "Authentic" spicy curry... *grin as Rensig cries after burning his mouth* Though Rensig, unfortunatly is getting used to it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I recently had the same thing -- sort of. We were just out in space... had a few intruders, and the compliment of Marines (8) went straight to the shuttles 3 & 4. They were obviously having a party -- because they never moved. I promptly relieved Resnig to his qtrs and sent the Marines searching. I personally think that resnig has removed his locator device and keeps it in the ops center -- I think he was down in the shuttles leading in all the xmas Marine-deer games.

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  • 1 month later...

My marines felt the need to joy ride in my shuttle. I sent them on a mining drone deployment on Charon. After deployment, sent shuttle RTB command.... shuttle hypers back to CC, but then starts moving AWAY. So I try HALT, then RTB again...shuttle still moves away...friggin jar-head...repeat several times. Finally, I target shuttle from my CC and there is my shuttle doing loop-de-loops over and over right there in front of me. Finally, I move my CC in close and he decides that he's done and docks.

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quote:

Originaly posted by bikertaz

My marines felt the need to joy ride in my shuttle. I sent them on a mining drone deployment on Charon. After deployment, sent shuttle RTB command.... shuttle hypers back to CC, but then starts moving AWAY...

Had the same thing. I figure that has something to do with their low AI and calculating the point of collision. But if I held my CC still from the moment just before they HJ'ed untill collision they had no problem docking. The "educated" ones touch down OK even with CC moving at full speed.

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Guest DocHoliday

It could be either that, or perhaps you don't have the latest patch. I read in the version history, that the older version had a "pitch" problem, where shuttles and fighters in space would get "confused" if the target vessel was above/below the ecliptic plane.. So they started doing loops. Happened to me all the time, especially with cargo pod retreival..

After patch x (don't recall), the ships in space are able to get unstuck from this predicament..

Of course, if you have the latest patch, this can't be it...

Cheers,

Doc

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Running v2.00.19, so I'm almost fully up-to-date. Since I'm early in the game, I attribute it to low AI marines. I haven't been playing very long, so they haven't had opportunity to "get smart". I guess for the time being I have to put up with baby-sitting them very closely. Was having trouble last night getting them to tow and/or retrieve cargo pods too. I think I had at least 2 pods self-distruct because the shuttle wouldn't pick them up in time. Also had trouble retrieving mining drones, but eventually worked that out. Very frustrating, but all in the fun of the game.

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quote:


Originally posted by bikertaz:

Thought I read about the pods eventually self-distructing in the manual somewhere. Regardless, they appear to in the game because they disappear after a while. Maybe someone else snatched them up.


Cargo pods can be picked up by transports, some are booby trapped and will explode. Not a good thing for a shuttle.

Instead of using marines to pilot a shuttle, I usually toss the pilots with the lowest AI in them and the missions are completed without much problem and it's good training for the pilots. Bumps thier AI up pretty quick.

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  • 1 month later...

quote:

Originally posted by Wolferz:

Instead of using marines to pilot a shuttle, I usually toss the pilots with the lowest AI in them and the missions are completed without much problem and it's good training for the pilots. Bumps thier AI up pretty quick. [/QB]

Not a bad idea. My few "smart" marines were pretty fatigued after deploying drones, so I used system engineers to pick them up. They must not get out much because they all took the scenic route (making planetfall about 2000 clicks from waypoint 1; AND they refused to RTB when I tried to pull them out). I actually had to hop into a FC and jump to their system to straighten them out. (Is it just my imagination, or do crewmembers wise up when the captain's near?)

I can see it now:

Psirat "Shadow, can we talk?"

Shadow "Yes sir?"

Psirat "Your latest preformance evals have come back pretty low. I'm afraid that until you can get your scores up, you have shuttle duty."

Shadow "Nooooooooo!"

((OK, I admit it. I'm bored))

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It's these kind of 'surprises' from the AI that really add to the enjoyment of the Battlecruiser experience. I had a similar occurrence where I took my 2nd and 3rd 'smartest'(least dumb?) marines to pilot two of my shuttles down to deploy mining drones. I gave them the waypoint orders 1) Next WP 2) Deploy Mdrone 3) Halt. I saw them on their way and jumped off on a trading run through some hazardous regions.

So, I am monitoring the shuttles occasionally and I notice they are hundreds of kilometers or more from the last way point and they are up high in altitude. I thought even marines could understand a Halt order. A little while later I get a message that shuttle 2 has been destroyed.... I guess it was one of those 'Darwinian' moments.

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quote:

Originally posted by Cdr_Tane:

I gave them the waypoint orders 1) Next WP 2) Deploy Mdrone 3) Halt. I saw them on their way and jumped off on a trading run through some hazardous regions.

So, I am monitoring the shuttles occasionally and I notice they are hundreds of kilometers or more from the last way point and they are up high in altitude. I thought even marines could understand a Halt order. A little while later I get a message that shuttle 2 has been destroyed.... I guess it was one of those 'Darwinian' moments.

I had a similar experience. A Marine had actually retrieved a full drone , but had gone into a Halt state. I tried to get him to RTB, just so he'd break orbit, but he wouldn't. I hopped in a fighter so I could check on him, and pulled up Tacops as soon as I was in-system. There he was at a very high altitude, flying in little circles. I prodded him with a few more commands, then watched in horror as he plummetted to the earth.

Further investigation proved that the drone had been in a very hilly area. I now believe that the shuttle sustained damage during the recovery op, and failed as the poor marine struggled to fulfill my demands.

The memorial service is next Tuesday. Please, send no flowers; rather contribute to the PDMW fund (Poor Dumb Marine's Widows).

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.... And another thing. This to all you fledgling commanders who wonder why your marines can't get anything right. YOU should fly a shuttle out to whatever God-forsaken S#@$hole you've decided looks good for mining. Set that shuttle down and deploy your own mine. Don't forget to check the shuttle for damage when you rtb. It will give your engineers something to do.

All terrain looks pretty flat... FROM ORBIT!!

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  • 4 weeks later...

My marine "pilots" continue to amaze me (and make me LOL) with their lack of savvy. Something simple like ordering them out in a couple of shuttles to tow and deliver a couple disabled enemy fighters to GALCOM station becomes a major undertaking.

First they orbit their intended target for a while, presumably being stumped by calculating an approach vector to an object that is Dead In Space. Then once one gets his tow to GALCOM, orbiting GALCOM and flying through the station structure on a sightseeing tour before FINALLY delivering his tow.

And those are the smart ones!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I noticed that unless I'm watching the shuttles through TacOps, when I send them down to deploy mining drones they often have issues landing. But when I either watch them through TacOps or target them and view them with F10, they're fine. Maybe they feel me watching them...

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Yep.....found out that the Marines are better at walking around the ship than flying anything too.

coulda swore I put Lace in there as a pilot to nab that Ter/Ins fighter with the tractor beam!

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