I don't know how is that possible but I forgot to suggest an inertial navigation system (in order to simulate compass). Before the mission, marines would set a reference point to serve as north on both axis. I believe the vertical axis is necessay because of risk of zero G operations where marines would get confused if someone reported a target in a 180 deg wide angle. Players don't need to know the details but they should have a 2 axis "compass"on their hud in order to be able to report targets like: soldier at 10 by 3, watch 9 by 6 (in most cases, 6 would mean the target is on the same level as marines but it depends on the calibration before the mission, and gravity conditions).

There are a lot of good ideas I've read over so far, and I kinda wanted to gather together a pile of them and mix in my own opinion. I'll try to make it easy to read.

ARMOURY

If there's an armoury, especially if it's a graphical one that you'll walk around in, it would make sense to have your body armour and favoured weapons in your... well, 'locker' I guess.

''The small things'

The small things are important. For example, little things like changing your boots to have softer soles to make you quieter when you walk (Sneaking past things can be useful). Heavy, reinforced ones that allow you to kick a shark creature in the teeth and not loose a limb. Or just be more resistant to bullet damage in the legs. How about light, springy ones that rebound well and are almost like sports shoes, they'd help you run for longer. And of course the standard issue boots, the general all-rounders. Little mods like that would be heaps of fun, especially if they affect the gameplay to some degree.

'Choices and progression'

Obviously, your choices are very limited as an inductee, however they would increase with your experience and rank, I mean, who'd let a grunt run around in all the specialised gear? Save that for the guys who can get the most out of it. You gotta be a higher rank to get keys to some of the specialised gear. For example, you could apply for clearance to the special sniper rifles and they'd want to know you were a good marksman first. Maybe you've already done well with the scouting parts of Bullseye and they'll say yes? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the "better" gear. I'm talking about stuff that is devoded to certain playstyles.

'Weapon choices"

To continue on from my last thought, I'll just toss out ideas of ways to increase a players options when it comes to specialising their weapons to their playstyle. Obviously, you have the sniper rifle with huge damage and amazing accuracy, but a magazine of three rounds and a slow working bolt action. How about an assault rifle with a far slower rate of fire than most, but far more accurate? Grenade launcher (if the player never team-kills). An auto-fire sniper rifle? Auto shotgun? Heavy minigun? Oldschool sawn off double barrel shotgun if you want to be different. Heck, even a fireman's axe or kantana for fighting shark creatures.

Maybe I took that one a bit far... I'll reign it in a little..

'Armour'

Another thought was about armour. You'd start of with your standard environment suit, and as you increased in exprience (and just got an idea of what different things do and how the game works), you could start to modify. You could start off by just changing weights and thicknesses of armour in different places. You could go for protection against crushing and impacts, or bullet damage, or peircing and cutting attacks. You could encase your legs in steel so you could wait for a shark to latch onto your leg, then shoot it. You could loose all the armour plating and carry a pistol, so then you can run forever and fit through any gap. These things will accentuate someone's play style, but not give them inherantly better gear. The trade-offs of my examples would be obvious, firstly, the guy who's totally solid with armour wouldn't be able to move, and the second, well, you could kill him if you sneezed in his direction.

To go in a different direction with armour mods, how about specially designed chest/shoulder pieces that reduce recoil? Maybe it'd slow you down changing weapons, but if it was an acceptable trade off for you....

'Carrying stuff & what you carry'

Obviously marines need supplies. Grenades. Ammo. Blood. Repair kits. Bandages (in liquid form, preferably). Satchel packs. Adrenaline. Morphene. Spare weapons. Marines also need to know how much is too much. You can't sprint if you're carrying too much... but carrying too much also makes you stronger. Over to uses for our equipment: Most are self explainatory. Put your ammo in your gun, then shoot stuff... or pass it to your mate. Pull the pin and throw grenades at ugly people... I mean... enemies...

Anyhow, on a more serious note, what do you do when your mate gets shot in the leg... but you've gotta go out through the airlock! He's got a hole in his leg, and a hole in his armour. What do you do? You inject your bandage^ in through the holes in his armour. Then you give him a shot of morphene to dull the pain, so he can stay concious (too much pain knocks you out) and quiet(some pain makes the character shout/scream. This attracts sharks!!). Unfortunatley, he's been bleeding badly, so you need to give him a transfusion to keep him consious. While one marine tends to the injured one's health, someone else can be working on sealing the damaged suit. Then you give him a shot of adrenaline, toss his arm over your shoulder, pull out your pistols, and make a run for the air lock and safety. Somewhat complicated, but it's just an idea... To inspire the good men at ZPS.

^See Serenity, last battle with the Reavers. Simon gives Zoe a 'bandage', which appears to be a foam dressing that expands, then firms up to seal the wound.

MARINES

This is all about what your character is like. All marines would have their basic training, and proficiency in the standard weaponry. So training modules would be great for the marines who want to specialise in other weapons. This would obviously be linked to their overall performance, for example, "That was a lot of ammunition you burned through marine! I'll book you into a light machine gun course." This could lead training on the pros and cons of LMGs and tips and tricks.

'Marine sizes'

Now, customising your weapons and armour is fine, but what about different sizes of marine? A light scrawny guy can crawl through a venitlation shaft that the support machine gunner can't. Also, a little guy is a smaller target. However, the big guy can handle far more armour and won't get knocked over by the recoil from his oversized gun. Interestingly, a big guy who's a sniper would be able to handle the recoil of a larger caliber weapon than a small guy. But he'd make more noise as he snuck into a good nest before his squad attacks. A lean, lightly armoured marine could probably run further than his 200kg counterpart too.

'Perks and levels - Weapons'

A quick summing up of general thoughts I've seen on levels and perks advancement:

*Make them performance based, make them something that we can loose.

*Nobody wants to work hard shooting every enemy in the left eye so they can get some awesome accuracy perks, and just loose it all because of a bad day.

My take on those two ideas is one word: Compromise. I reckon those perks should come easily with the lower levels, and be almost impossible to loose, but the really really awesome perks.... well, they shouldn't be something that you can achieve by playing for hours and not improving at all. How about faster reloads if you never fully empty your magazines and still just drop them? How about going for fast reloads, recoil reduction and a huge spread with a shotgun if you suck at aiming. Maybe you could use SMGs heaps and just 'spray and pray' until you get to use Light Machine Guns (LMG), then work on getting a minigun.

'Perks and levels - Loosing them (Oh no!)'

Yes, I do think you should loose the high levels of these perks. The highest levels should be heavily performance based. If you are at the top of your game and you can take the punishment from the stock of your auto-shotgun without loosing accuracy, then you suddenly change your midn and only use a silenced pistol with sub-sonic rounds for ages, your shoulder will get tender real quick when you go back to your shotgun. Perks should be hard to loose and easy to re-gain, but when you stop going to the gym, you start to loose the tone and muscle bulk you gained. If you change to only firing wildly from the hip, you're going to loose some of the precision you gained by lining up every shot. You shouldn't loose a perk because of a bad day. You should loose it if you don't use it... or at least try to use it.

'Perks and levels - Other'

Now, what about other kinds of perks? Carrying capacity? Sprinting endurance? First Aid? Picking locks(or hacking electronic doors)? Armour weight? Stealth? The more often you patch up a mate so he can limp back to your dropship with you, the better you are at it. The more often you carry too much to run for long, the better you get with it. The more you wear your 'running boots' and run around, the better you get at it. The more often you sneak around, maybe there'd be a key or combination to walk quietly, the better you are at it.

'Medics, do we need them?' or 'Training and it's effects'

Do we really need dedicated medics? How about having a limited number of courses you can do when you begin as a marine? So you start off learning say, pistols, SMGs, shotguns and assault rifles, basic first aid, basic armour repairs, grenades, and regular armour. If you're accurate, and you want to, you can do a course in sniper rifles. If you want to be a support gunner, you can do a LMG course. If you want to help your friends, you can do your advanced first aid. If you want to fix stuff, you can do a technician's course in a number of different diciplines (hacking, armour repair, remote piloting, etc). If you just love blowing things up, you could do demolitions (this would cover cutting holes in doors, as well as just blowing stuff up).

Of course, you could only choose two of those straight after basic. But if you show a profficiency to anything (you help mates, you shoot accurately, you 'spray and pray', you fix folks stuff, you use grenades well, you start to modify your armour) then you'd be offered the advanced training course that allows you to do more in that field.

This could be fun for the developers, as they could gradually create and release extra training where they feel inspired.

'Teamwork'

I haven't played all that many co-op games, but one idea I had was instead of just having stats on people, having an in-game, virtual dossier on your teammates before a mission to begin to establish your squad tactics.

Conclusion

Suggestions were asked for. I summarized my favourite ideas and suggested most of mine. I love where IM is going and I can't wait to find a new job and become a spearhead!

I hope my ramblings are helpful to someone.

I still believe.