blobbernauts need a cap

[deputi]

Player controlled blobbernauts are okay, but they aren't costly enough for the amount of havoc they can wreak and pic related happens. I think capping blobbernauts would fix this because it would actually weaken the blob when a blobbernaut is killed.

[Zilenan91]

Yeah it eventually gets to a point where there are so many blobbernauts that the crew can never defeat them. They need to be capped at 3 per blob at the max.

[TechnoAlchemist]

Honestly I think the price of 20 is way too cheap for how good they are

[Zilenan91]

I don't think making them cost more will do anything, it'll just make people spend more on them since they'll be just as good. A cap would work perfectly for this.

[Incoming]

A factory node shouldn't make nuggets while a blobbernaut is alive, and one factory node should only support one naut at a time.

[Incomptinence]

Just make it cost more which will work because blobs actually need to consider their resources unlike RND where we set out to trivialise it.

[lumipharon]

I would go back to the system where making the naut killed the factory tbh.
currently you can just keeping shitting out nauts from the same factories with a relatively short CD, with regular spores getting shat out in between.

[PKPenguin321]

i'd prefer if we rolled back to before blobbernauts were sentient, scaling wasn't shit, split hivemind was still a thing, and blobs could pop early

[CPTANT]

Personally I think sentient blobbernauts are causing a lot of balance problems for blob. You can just sabotage the station in so many ways with a sentient mob.

[leibniz]

played as blob

blobbernauts for 20 when they dont consume the factory is insane
sentient blobbernauts is a huge buff in itself
20 is way too fucking cheap, make it like 50 or something

[Actionb]

i'd prefer if we rolled back to before blobbernauts were sentient, scaling wasn't shit, split hivemind was still a thing, and blobs could pop early

Sadly, I doubt that will happen.
Sentient blobbernauts are a huge problem and if the blob deploys them, it totally shifts the focus onto the nauts.
It's not blob mode, it's blobbernaut mode. Blobs without blobbernauts get wrecked, blobs with blobbernaut spam can hold even the weakest position.
Possible solutions:
- cap on the number of blobbernauts (remember, this cap used to be ONE)
- make blobbernauts unable to pull
- destroy the factory upon summon
- increase blobbernaut cooldown (by a LOT)
- make them require proximity to the blob (maybe via healthloss/tick when not on a blob tile?)

[CPTANT]

I would really prefer making them non-sentient again.

[Helios]

Well, how is the blob win rate being effected by this?
If it's still sub 40%, then I think they are a fine addition

[Incomptinence]

I dunno it is pretty new. Last stats were generated 9th of January and win rate for blob was about 23%. Low sample size though probably because basil don't blob but still like 500 wizard versus 50 blob rounds is a tad strange considering the 12.5% vs 9.4% probability.

[Incoming]

Well, how is the blob win rate being effected by this?
If it's still sub 40%, then I think they are a fine addition

That not how balance woooooooooooooooorks

[John_Oxford]

Like the other guy said.

Just add a counter for whenever a blobernaut isn't standing on a blob tile, and have it be like 10 brute a second.

[Zilenan91]

But that would be awful. That would kill any usefulness they might have ever had... unless they healed on blob tiles to compensate.

[Actionb]

But that would be awful. That would kill any usefulness they might have ever had... unless they healed on blob tiles to compensate.

Blobbernaut, as spammable as they currently are, should be considered expendable.
A big problem of the current meta is that once a critical mass of blobbernauts has been reached, it's GG. Another is that blobbernauts allow the blob to strike at far away targets. Again, suddenly the mode is about blobbernauts - and not the blob that is two screens away from the actual combat zone.
By taking health damage, they can still defend the blob, but can't run and go ATATATATATA on that scientist working on xrays on the other end of the station.

[Zilenan91]

yeah blobbernauts should be considered expendable, but that's not what they are. They can single-handedly carry a blob.

I think a good way to balance them would be to make them heal while on blob tiles, and take damage while off of blob tiles, and also make them capped at 3 per blob. A meatshield basically that can fight people who get near the blob.

[Davidchan]

Destroying the factory or giving them a dedicated 'spawn' blob block could work, tying them to the blob. Blob could return to said tile to regenerate, and if the origin tile gets destroyed, the blobnaut tied to it would crumble regardless of health? Probably put a range of 30 tiles or so that the blobnaut can freely move about without taking damage, but getting farther than that would would take ~5% health every few ticks, so they'd at most be able to venture away from their spawn tile for 2-4 minutes depending on lag. Blobs would need to be a bit more strategic in placing these tiles. Moving these tiles would be possible, at a cost of blob resources though and as well as a casting time on it so they couldn't be yanked away instantly if the crew starts making progress on the node.

Giving them a max Blobnaut cap would be fine, but if it's lower than 10 then the blobnaut needs some buffs or changes, starting with darkvision and blob hivemind.

The idea of taking damage on nonblob tiles strikes me as counter-intuitive, blobsnauts are supposed to be the heavy hitters, if they can't reasonably leave blobtiles to attack and disuade attackers they become useless as crew could just play hide and seek with blobnauts to force them to drain their own health.

[Zilenan91]

Nah, Blobbernauts would be perfect at a cap of 3. Their purpose currently is to make sure you survive that early/medium game so you can expand enough to win the game.

[lumipharon]

A cap wouldn't help when the blob can just create fresh ones the instant one dies.

[PKPenguin321]

or we can not cap and instead roll blob back to a more decent revision

[ShadowDimentio]

Personally I think blobbernauts are fucking dumb.

In theory it's good, but in practice it makes a cycle where every blobbernaut is a catatonic crewmember corpse, and the more of those there are the harder it is to fight the blob, which in turn makes more blobbernauts which make more catatonic corpses and so on.

Capping them won't fix this. Hell, it'd make it worse because then instead of the crew all playing blobbernaut, they'd just be ghosting around, hoping a blobbernaut dies so they can play one.

[PKPenguin321]

Personally I think blobbernauts are fucking dumb.

In theory it's good, but in practice it makes a cycle where every blobbernaut is a catatonic crewmember corpse, and the more of those there are the harder it is to fight the blob, which in turn makes more blobbernauts which make more catatonic corpses and so on.

Capping them won't fix this. Hell, it'd make it worse because then instead of the crew all playing blobbernaut, they'd just be ghosting around, hoping a blobbernaut dies so they can play one.

This is a problem with pretty much every ghost role (notably swarmers), and isn't exclusive to blobbernauts. Your point is still valid, though.

[Actionb]

Personally I think blobbernauts are fucking dumb.

In theory it's good, but in practice it makes a cycle where every blobbernaut is a catatonic crewmember corpse, and the more of those there are the harder it is to fight the blob, which in turn makes more blobbernauts which make more catatonic corpses and so on.

Capping them won't fix this. Hell, it'd make it worse because then instead of the crew all playing blobbernaut, they'd just be ghosting around, hoping a blobbernaut dies so they can play one.

I haven't really thought of that. Good point.
The more people the blobbernauts kill, the more ghosts will want to be alive again. Once you have been a blobbernaut, you cannot go back to being anything else.
The more people are dead, the less likey it is to be defibbed/cloned by another crewmember, so the choice of becoming a naut or not is not a hard one to make. Considering that blob mode is all about fighting a war of attrition, this is a classic snowball.

When blobbernauts were introduced, they were kind of a fire-and-forget shocktrooper. As a blob, you used them to scatter a group of people that were a danger to you, buying you some time. The more I think of this blobbernaut business, I want it to be like in the early days again.

[Cobby]

blobnauts needs to just be removed. they're unfun, unbalanced, and can be spammed.

I just finished a blob round and people in deadchat were asking for a 'never for this round' button on blobnaut because of how many the blobs were churning out.

This also just encourages half-ass fighting the blob and dying so you can play as one. We have a variety of items to bring players back into the game that are indifferent on gamemode and don't give people antag status [and the ones that do <gateway> don't give them simple mob benefits AND high HP], and blob already has split mind to bring that one player who badly positioned themselves the chance to get back into the round.

[Gun Hog]

Split was removed. Blobbernauts are the only way the blob side can get more players back into the round. I disagree with you, blobbernauts are VERY fun to play. They are also interesting to fight, it is simply that fighting an army of them can be a bit too much. They do not need to be removed entirely, perhaps just capped. I am a major fan of things that allow ghosts to have a role in things, else the salt will simply collect and prematurely end the round by causing restart votes/admin spam due to all the complaining.

EDIT: Abolish the popup system in favor of the alerts version. It is much less distracting and is much more tolerable when spammed.

[Actionb]

They do not need to be removed entirely, perhaps just capped.

A cap just wont work. People becoming a blobbernaut cannot go back to being human to fight the blob. A cap would just slow down the rate at which corpses turn out to be without a soul. Unless the spawned blobbernauts are really cautious (maybe due to the health loss when away from a blob tile?) and never die, you still get less and less people fighting the blob - not only because they're dead, but also because they simply cannot do anything else anymore but be a blobbernaut and by that, help the blob.

[Cheimon]

The thing is that a cap will reduce the amount of people willing to ghost to try and play as blobbernaut, since the chances of getting the role will be much lower. It will partially work.

[CPTANT]

anyway the cost of 20 is just waaaay too low.

You can either spawn 4 pieces of blob or spawn a blobbernaut.

yeah.....

[Davidchan]

Is there any way to code the resource cost of blobnauts to be variable? Cost of new Blob naut is 20+(15x) where x= number of active(alive) blobnauts? So, blobs could field as many blobnauts as they want, but if they get a lot of them its probably going to be cheaper and more effective to just expand their nodes or make factories instead?

[leibniz]

Joan updated:
Blobbernaut creation costs 30 points, and does much more damage to the factory.
Blob factories regenerate at half normal rate.
Blob reagents tweaked;
Ripping Tendrils does slightly more brute damage, but less stamina damage.
Lexorin Jelly does less brute damage.
Energized Fibers does slightly more burn damage.
Sporing Pods does slightly more toxin damage.
Replicating Foam will try to replicate when hit more often.
Hallucinogenic Nectar does slightly more toxin damage and causes hallucinations for longer.
Cryogenic Liquid does more burn damage.
Synchronous Mesh does slightly less damage with one blob but massive damage with more than one nearby blob.
Dark Matter does less brute damage.
Sorium does slightly less brute damage.
Pressurized Slime has a lower chance to emit water when killed and when attacking targets.

[deputi]

Result of the "nerf"