Armory re-mapping and autorifle removal

[Steelpoint]

Bottom post of the previous page:

While correlation does not imply causation, I think looking to the more recent statistics for the game would help see what, if any, impact the rifles have had over the course of the past few weeks.

For example, did you know now Nuke Ops have a 52% win rate? Furthermore Nuke Ops have a identical 50% win rate on low and high pop! Whatever has been done to do that, the rifles or other features, is really good considering the biggest problem with Ops was the horrible win rates, at low pop Ops won at a 80%-100% rate but on high pop Ops won at a 20% rate. To go to a pure 50% win rate on virtually all pop levels is fantastic.

Cult has a 34% win rate overall, while I would love to discuss it the fact that cult saw a major overhaul precludes any ability to confidently talk about it.

Traitors, Changelings and Gang are really hard to talk about. I can see Traitors have a 26% win rate, as in doing all their objectives. However that's 300+ people out of 1100 people, with Traitor being the most played antag. Ling and Gang don't translate well to stats.

Blob has a 56% win rate, and overall goes from 80% to 48% ish win rate as the pop gets higher.

Rev has a 84% win rate, nuff said.

-----

While again, correlation does not imply causation. But I can say that the rifles have not made the game lopsided for Sec.

[lumipharon]

I didn't say that.

What I did say, is that rifles don't even effect every round, since half the time they don't get used (most of the armoury for that matter).

You saying that ops have 50% win rate regardless of pop now doesn't really matter unless you can pull out a chart or something to show how win rates have changes over time.

Further more, high pop win rates were afaik lower then that before. How do you imply that giving sec more guns improve op win rates at high pop, unless they're constantly raiding the armoury for them?
And if that's the case, by the same logic they can just do it all the time at low pop, and face roll even harder.

[Xhuis]

Autorifles make combat easy for the people who have them, not just security. Earlier this week, I played as a hacked drone and was able to steamroll everything because I had the autorifles. Lasers didn't compare to the spray of bullets I could send flying down a hallway. In the end, I failed because an admin forcibly stunned and reset me!

Tornadium, if you're going to shitpost, do it on singulo, not here. You don't need to personally insult everyone else to back up your fact-lacking opinion.

[Steelpoint]

Its a shame I did not take a picture of the stats a month ago. I can say with full confidence that the win rates for Ops was 80% to 100% whenever the server population was under 40 or 50 people. Over that number their win rates dropped drasticly to a 20% win rate down to a final 8% win rate on really high pop.

Also how the heck do Rifles make it easier to kill people? They deal the same damage as Lasers and have the same rate of fire, their only advantage (now) is they have eight (8) more rounds per magazine than the Laser and they have a 50% chance to bypass shields and swords. Double ESwords have a higher block rate of 70 to 80%

Also when I do get to my other PR (Which I won't post until this current PR is resolved either way) I intend to change the bullets used by the Auto Rifle from 9mm to 4.6×30mm, identical but you won't be able to print ammo out from cargo.

[Zilenan91]

Something else to note about the rifles now that the armory got redesigned, they're very vulnerable to being stolen by antags, they're behind a small wall with a shutter and two rwindows with rwalls leading to space. C4/blow up the walls, and you got yourself some autorifles.

[lumipharon]

Because being able to spam 60+, or previously 240+ shots vs maybe 20 shots from the HoS (the best armed normal crew member) is a huge ass advantage.

I fully believe what you say about the previous stats. What I can't believe is steelrifles changing the odds so heavily, and as I said above, even if they do, ops raiding the armoury would completely reverse that advantage against the crew, which would be even worse.

[Zilenan91]

Going back to winrates, for everything but Ops, Cult, Blob, and Rev, they can basically be discounted. Most people just don't care about greentext unless they're in a team antag, and in the case of cult, it does have an abysmally low winrate, but they very very consistently murder THE ENTIRE station almost effortlessly, so that's basically a win for them. As for Blob, just being a Blob works into your greentext, so that's good, for Ops, the same, and for Rev, it's more or less the same as well.

[Super Aggro Crag]

i thought thematically nanotrasen was supposed to specialize in energy weapons and the syndicate specialized in having more projectile weapons but i guess themes don't matter when people want to be able to spam dem clicks for 60 brute a shot.

[Steelpoint]

Technically NT and the Syndicate have always had access to alternative weapons, ballistics and energy respectively. There's always been overlap.

Also to reiterate the rifles deal the same damage as laser's deal per shot, 20 damage.

[Amelius]

Well the alternative is to make Energy Swords/Shields not deflect projectiles, but also only have a 50% chance (overall) to block any projectile, energy or ballisitc. In addition Jugg's would lose their deflection but gain a health boost. As well as several other minor changes.

Funny thing is when I proposed that I was told it was shit.

> Nerfing the double esword whose sole purpose that sorta-kinda justifies it as a 8/16 TC item is the ability to force almost everyone into melee with you, especially pertaining to stuns; at the slim cost of being extraordinarily loud to wield or use, preventing purchase of adrenals so you only get one shot, and gets countered by batons or disarm. Only useful as bait, and very rarely used due to their inefficiency.
> Nerfing an eshield which costs 19 TC apiece to use RNG and being effectively unpurchaseable, when ops get around 120~ average for everything.

Giving juggs a health boost instead of RNG deflect would be good though.

[Steelpoint]

If I knew a way to make Eshields block 100% of taser bolts but only 50% of anything else then that would be fine.

But ultimately I just like the concept of the rifles for tac equipment, and I honestly think the guns are not horrid to use especailly with the changes I have, and will, be effecting.

[Tornadium]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

We've already communicated our opinion pretty clearly to Tornadium without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking person making the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking arguments provided.

[Tornadium]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

We've already communicated our opinion pretty clearly to Tornadium without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking person making the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking arguments provided.

Which came first, chicken or the egg?

Were you in IRC for this at the start? If so you'd know it was me and steel trying to talk reasonably to people like Lumi and they just threw back YOU'RE RETARDED SHUT UP the entire time.

So yeah.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

We've already communicated our opinion pretty clearly to Tornadium without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking person making the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking arguments provided.

Which came first, chicken or the egg?
(Egg everyone knows this one)

Were you in IRC for this at the start? If so you'd know it was me and steel trying to talk reasonably to people like Lumi and they just threw back YOU'RE RETARDED SHUT UP the entire time.

So yeah.[/quote]
That's all Lumi is capable of doing though.

Just because people dislike something you like doesn't make them wrong. It also doesn't matter how many times you clearly communicate your opinion if the person on the other end of them thinks they're wrong

[whodaloo]

so when is xhuis' PR getting merged anywho

[Tornadium]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

We've already communicated our opinion pretty clearly to Tornadium without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking person making the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking arguments provided.

Which came first, chicken or the egg?
(Egg everyone knows this one)

Were you in IRC for this at the start? If so you'd know it was me and steel trying to talk reasonably to people like Lumi and they just threw back YOU'RE RETARDED SHUT UP the entire time.

So yeah.

That's all Lumi is capable of doing though.

Just because people dislike something you like doesn't make them wrong. It also doesn't matter how many times you clearly communicate your opinion if the person on the other end of them thinks they're wrong

That's not what we're discussing though, We're discussing their complete lack of capability to defend any point they make and refuse to acknowledge or answer points made against them.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

That's not what we're discussing though, We're discussing their complete lack of capability to defend any point they make and refuse to acknowledge or answer points made against them.

"I do not like the words they say" is not the same as "They will not acknowledge my points"

"I think their arguments are bad" is not the same as "They have a complete lack of capability to defend any point"

[InsaneHyena]

Remove the fucking rifles and never add them back.

[Jacquerel]

To be honest I don't care about balance and I mostly just want to go back to "Station uses beams, Syndies use bullets".
Giving everyone tacticool rifles isn't fun, I don't go to space to use non-space-related guns.

[Tornadium]

That's not what we're discussing though, We're discussing their complete lack of capability to defend any point they make and refuse to acknowledge or answer points made against them.

"I do not like the words they say" is not the same as "They will not acknowledge my points"

"I think their arguments are bad" is not the same as "They have a complete lack of capability to defend any point"

Except that's not what happened.

They made a point, we made a counter argument which they then refuse to acknowledge as credible despite being backed up by raw numbers.

[Steelpoint]

To be honest I don't care about balance and I mostly just want to go back to "Station uses beams, Syndies use bullets".
Giving everyone tacticool rifles isn't fun, I don't go to space to use non-space-related guns.

Then you'll have to go back to when the game was initially a atmospherics simulator.

Nanotrasen have always had ballistics ranging from revolvers, shotguns, SMG's and matabas's.

Syndicate have always had energy weapons ranging from ebows, energy guns and energy swords.

Not to mention the tech crossover between the two factions.

The whole NT/Energy and Sy/Ballisitc is only true if you looked at the two iconic weapons for the factions, the energy gun and c20r. Otherwise the argument falls apart horribly.

[Jacquerel]

Yeah they can get guns of other kinds, but they chiefly don't.
Tasers or Lasers have been the sec armament of choice for years, with the sole exception of the detective who uses a revolver because he's a gritty noir detective.
The bartender uses a shotgun, but he isn't security staff so I don't care. There are sometimes shotguns in the armoury on some maps but they're not really regularly used.
If you want a bullet weapon on the station you typically have to go out of your way to get one, either by buying it or crafting it, so they're not the typical loadout.

Similarly, while operatives can bring eguns with them if they like, all the guns traitors can buy just use bullets. The only traitor weapon that doesn't is a pocket crossbow, which I don't personally regard as "a gun".

I know it's not 100% consistent, but it's much better than encouraging security to just get big rifles out of the armoury at the sign of trouble.
Making them as quickly available as the laser guns is tipping it too far in that direction for my liking.

To be honest I'd also be pretty happy if any of the remaining bullet guns R&D produces were replaced by retrofuture weapons too, but that's probably never going to happen.
"Stun Pistols" and "Temperature Rays" interest me much more than "A big rifle that fires bullets good", even if functionally they could be pretty much the same thing.

[DaemonBomb]

Technically NT and the Syndicate have always had access to alternative weapons, ballistics and energy respectively. There's always been overlap.

Also to reiterate the rifles deal the same damage as laser's deal per shot, 20 damage.

All the Nanotrasen roundstart ballistics are non-tacticool, ornate, and are built less to be a space age ballistic weapon and more as a nostalgic olden weapon (See the Detectives revolver and barman's shotty). Compare the Riot Shotguns with the Bulldog. Compare the Autorifles with the Bulldog.

Which group would you assume made the Autorifle, the one that made the riot shotgun, or the one that made the bulldog?

Also, the only energy weapon can think of that the Syndicates use are

E-swords (Which has no Nanotrasen equivalent and honestly a laser sword represents an entirely different design philosophy than a laser gun, a laser gun being developed to be a less destructive, more efficient, "cleaner" thing than a ballistic weapon, whereas a laser sword is a more destructive sword. Hell, they don't even do burn damage. ),

Ion Rifles, which are the most Nanotrasen-y weapon in the game, showing the syndicate as a pragmatic group that is willing to use anything to get what they want, even if it involves making use of the enemy's tech,

Ebows, which don't look anything like the other energy weapons, don't function anything like any of the other energy weapons, don't do burn damage, and are more or less a more syndacate-y alternative to the taser.

and Energy Guns. The energy guns are the only one I don't have a response to, but they aren't used all that often anyways, and when people think of Nuke Ops, they think of ballistics and explosives.

The Autorifles look like syndicate weapons. This may seem like a minor "Muh immursions" argument, but it really does seem silly equipping Sec officers with tasers and machine guns.

[Steelpoint]

Well I'm happy to debate immersion.

I originally went with using these sprites, which are far more in line with the style of NT Energy Weapons



However I was convinced to use these more tactical looking sprites made by Ausops.



If we want I could look into modelling the Auto Rifle to adhere to a older style of 21st century weapon, if we want.

[Jacquerel]

Don't you explicitly want a bullet gun to circumvent syndicate anti-energy countermeasures?
I'm looking for an energy weapon, so I think my desires are just sort of incompatible with yours.

[onleavedontatme]

There hasnt "always" been overlap.

For years now yeah, but nowhere near the length of the games existence. Science used to build eguns and temperature rays. Nuke ops had revolvers. Security had goofy looking eguns and tasers and ran around in sneakers.

To be fair to steelpoint though, retrofuture was on its way out before he started playing let alone coding. He isn't the one that added jackboots, rigsuits, bullpups etc.

[Malkevin]

Arguing that autorifles are OP because they hold more shots than a laser gun is a silly argument anyway, seeing as one of the biggest complaints about lasers being completely useless is that they don't hold enough shots.

[lumipharon]

Clearly you weren't here for round one of this shit a month ago.

I've already communicated my opinion pretty clearly to these people without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking people make the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking counter arguments provided.

We've already communicated our opinion pretty clearly to Tornadium without insults. Kinda hard to remain polite when its the same fucking person making the same fucking points and continuing to ignore the same fucking arguments provided.

Which came first, chicken or the egg?

Were you in IRC for this at the start? If so you'd know it was me and steel trying to talk reasonably to people like Lumi and they just threw back YOU'RE RETARDED SHUT UP the entire time.

So yeah.

I don't go into IRC except to ask for admins when none is on, so you're completely full of shit.

Edit: And my principal argument this entire time is why are autorifles, and all their ensuing balance issues, the best solution to the issues that steel introduced them to fix?
I have not had a SINGLE answer to this question that extends beyond "I like ballistics".

[Amelius]

Arguing that autorifles are OP because they hold more shots than a laser gun is a silly argument anyway, seeing as one of the biggest complaints about lasers being completely useless is that they don't hold enough shots.

There's a huge difference between 'laser guns suck because they do lowish damage and have such low capacity you can kill only one person with it, we should buff it' and 'let's give sec 5 ballistic weapons that bypasses expensive counters to energy weapons with double the base ammo capacity while being reloadable in the field, resulting in an insanely high ammo capacity and more net damage than lasers (after taking into account most easily-accessible armor has lower ballistic resistance than laser).

[onleavedontatme]

How is 20 damage lowish. That's higher than almost any other weapon on station with the added benefit of being ranged.

[DrPillzRedux]

My issue with the rifles is that they have more range and can reload quickly, unlike lasers. Plus they shred anyone without armor, yet are useless against ops because of their armor. It gives sec an unfair advantage against revs, who must scrounge weapons, and gangs, who have to spend a TON of points to get guns.

[Zilenan91]

If the revs are smart, they'll just make pneumatic cannons on the 3rd power or spears to kill sec with massive bleeding/imbed damage. Gangs have pistols (which should honestly have their ammo price reduced ever so slightly) and Uzis which are robust and completely fine as-is, with the pistols doing 25 brute 8 to a clip, Uzis doing 20, I think 40 to a clip.


On the topic of aesthetic, due to me playing for only a few months in total, security never really HAD an aesthetic. To me, they were never this buddy-buddy team of dudes who'll share a donut with you if you let them use your stuff or give them information. No, they were dudes who would indiscriminately gulag you, perma you, space you, mow you down in the hallways, hide your body in the HoS' locker, or shove you on meatracks simply because they can. The current, much better aesthetic of being this unfriendly PMC-looking thing is far more true to what people actually play them like than what people say they play like, and from a gameplay and roleplay perspective, you don't fuck with dudes with rifles, lasers, and armor.

Then again, I'm just a dirty lizard who isn't protected by asimov or as strongly by server rules, so what do I know about Nanotrasen.

[Steelpoint]

My issue with the rifles is that they have more range and can reload quickly, unlike lasers. Plus they shred anyone without armor, yet are useless against ops because of their armor. It gives sec an unfair advantage against revs, who must scrounge weapons, and gangs, who have to spend a TON of points to get guns.

Lasers and Rifles have the same unlimited range, reloading is a true advantage of the rifles but don't forget that now Sec has to order ammo from cargo. Aside from magazines being smaller there's little difference between carrying five Lasers and one Rifle and four magazines.

Last time I checked all armour in game has more bullet defence than laser defence, aside from the ablative armour.

Against Ops its a interesting trade off since while your bullets deals slightly less damage (5 dam versus 7 with laser) but your bullets have a 50% chance of going through shields and single swords.

Revs I don't think its a massive issue since Sec are just as good against them with Tasers and Lasers as are they with Rifles (Revs maintain a 84% win rate, so the rifles are not too OP).

Finally Gangs already get their own Uzi's that are better Auto Rifles, dealing around the same damage and having burst fire capability. In addition they can spawn free armour that has 30 bullet defence.

[DaemonBomb]

snip

Just cause they act like Nuke Ops shouldn't mean they look like Nuke ops.

[Amelius]

Also, as an aside the new new new armory redesign is really fucking dumb. The hardsuits are in a cordoned-off area where people typically break in, meaning you'll NEVER be able to get the hardsuits to fight the armory invaders, and you cannot even see that they're breaking in until they already have, even if you're sitting in the central armory. As warden, it's JUST far enough offscreen that you can't hear the sounds of welding/etc. coming from the back area, and you cannot see the back area from the warden's office or the armory entrance. Ensuring a breakin isn't in progress forces you to walk all the way to the back. Also, the glass seperating the warden office and the armory is vanilla, rather than rglass.

The original tried-and-true armory was effective. Hardsuits were located in the back, so hardsuit denial was viable, but doing so was a highly visible and obvious task, since the moment you stepped into the armory from space, the air alarm would go off and the warden could just about see you. Now I have to engage in pseudo-meta and grab a hardsuit before anyone may or may not break in because of how poorly positioned they are.

[Zilenan91]

If you can't see the back of the armory by this point then just git gud. You can find the time to walk five feet to look inside. Hell, Hippie has it where you can't see inside the armory directly, you need cameras for it if you don't want to get up every five seconds to check. For example, I know Metastation has a camera in space outside the armory, so that's really fricking good.

[Amelius]

If you can't see the back of the armory by this point then just git gud. You can find the time to walk five feet to look inside. Hell, Hippie has it where you can't see inside the armory directly, you need cameras for it if you don't want to get up every five seconds to check. For example, I know Metastation has a camera in space outside the armory, so that's really fricking good.

You do realize the armory changed again like, a day ago. They back of the armory is behind rwalls, and a shutter where the autorifles are.

[CPTANT]

New armory/brig also doesn't seem to contain any movable security barricades at all. And the huge blindspot in the back is horrible. The camera there can't even see the whole back wall of the armory.

[Steelpoint]

I'll look over the brig to make sure the removal of the auto rifles, which was merged, did not accidently get anything else removed.

Saddened by the removal of the rifles without further chance to balance them, even my proposal of making EMP's lock the firing trigger until reloaded, but eh what can you do.

[Helios]

I'll look over the brig to make sure the removal of the auto rifles, which was merged, did not accidently get anything else removed.

Saddened by the removal of the rifles without further chance to balance them, even my proposal of making EMP's lock the firing trigger until reloaded, but eh what can you do.

Don't worry, wait until the win rates for the station get a bit low on something, then use it as an excuse to add them as a red alert measure

[InsaneHyena]

Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead! Can't believe it took so long, though, but it's a welcome change anyway.

[Steelpoint]

The rifles are still in the game, some alt maps still have the rifles on the map and you can order in crates of the rifles.

[Steelpoint]

Well either way I'll be interested in both what Kor has in mind for the rifles and how the in game stats will alter in the next month now the rifles are all but removed.

The EMP idea was still good, but now we'll never know............

[TheNightingale]

If it makes you feel any better, a crate of autorifles is one of the first things I request from Cargo as Sec now. They're just too tacticool to pass up.

[Steelpoint]

Doing that is on my round start to do list along side ordering some loyalty firing pins and a plasma cutter from RnD.

[Zilenan91]

They're quite useful during Gang as well.

[Gun Hog]

Doing that is on my round start to do list along side ordering some loyalty firing pins and a plasma cutter from RnD.

It would make you my favorite HoS if you supported Science enough to let us do that. I will never forget the day Xhuis removed autorifles from the armory, and the Comdom with his Sec buddies stormed cargo to get autorifles, ignoring me when I, as the RD, told them that I had SABR guns, AND that I could provide alt ammo for their weak little pop-rifles.

To this day, it utterly baffles me how some Sec players absolutely refuse to get or even ask Science for upgrades or even ammo.

[CPTANT]

Doing that is on my round start to do list along side ordering some loyalty firing pins and a plasma cutter from RnD.

It would make you my favorite HoS if you supported Science enough to let us do that. I will never forget the day Xhuis removed autorifles from the armory, and the Comdom with his Sec buddies stormed cargo to get autorifles, ignoring me when I, as the RD, told them that I had SABR guns, AND that I could provide alt ammo for their weak little pop-rifles.

To this day, it utterly baffles me how some Sec players absolutely refuse to get or even ask Science for upgrades or even ammo.

getting stuff from science as sec requires a couple of things:

1. Someone to actually be there.
2. someone got research levels up
3. there is enough material to print stuff
4. The scientists to not be assholes.

[Zilenan91]

I tend to have trouble with number four. I've had RDs start trying to baton me to death for asking for better drills as a miner. All I'm gonna say is any number of people trying to fight miners in melee is a bad idea.

[Malkevin]

research is second only to medbay for being a den of scum and villainy when you have actual need to break the big guns out.