sillicons

[Cik]

herein i complain about the current state of sillicons, especially focus on the slew of changes before the secborg removal intended to counter secborgs that remain completely in place as of this day that absolutely fuck over without any recourse any sillicon ever, and also to use as a copypaste when the inevitable retread of the fucking fifty nerf PRs constantly circulate on github as they are currently and will remain in perpe-fucking-tuity i'm sure.

okay, so a bit of history. at one point there was a mythical creature known as a secborg, painted red that most people hated because it got in the way of valids and occasionally renraku'd security when they were getting out of hand. it's gone now. however, for probably over one year prior to it's disappearance into the void, there were a large number of changes meant to circumvent it's chief advantage: that it was a combat/police cyborg and thus had a ranged option, first a taser, and then a disabler, and when emagged a lasergun tied to it's battery.

now, in the last year or so, there have been numerous changes tied to limiting the control of secborgs and/or the AI. i will now list all of these that i can remember.

door remotes
cheapening and strengthening of EMP (literally handed out like fucking candy to everyone)
multi-tile ion rifle
space suit proliferation
EVA is no longer restricted access
deaf/blind/mute when stunned (way back tbf)
RCD proliferation (holy shit they are goddamn everywhere now)
turrets remapped to be useless
engine way, WAY DEADLIER NOW HOLY SHI (probably not directly but it contributes)
bombs far more destructive, far cheaper, far easier to acquire (incl. c4/x4)

i will add more of these as i remember them.

so, of course the problem here is that now that borgs don't have a ranged option, they are vulnerable to a dozen instant death options that are cheap, plentiful and available to nearly everyone esp. antags, and they do not have any of the actual ranged options they used to. for completeness' sake, i will list these here:

flash, melee instant death
ion rifle, ranged multi-tile battery-drain instant death
EMP implant: silent undetectable full-screen battery draining instant death
EMP grenade: ranged full-screen(+)? battery draining instant death.
laser pointer: ranged instant death
EMP flashlight: undetectable ranged instant death
changeling scream: full screen undetectable ranged instant death

even before the secborg removal this was getting a little silly i thought, but after it it's absolutely ridiculous. borgs are pathetically easy targets, and the AI not much less so. even when they are rogue and they have their extra tools they are still pathetically weak. i can't actually remember the last time i won as antag AI except after being basically let live by the crew because breaking into the AI satellite is so trivial as to be a joke, and borgs are now absolutely hopeless at any sort of warfare. borg walks into melee, flip a coin 50/50 borg ded. crew outnumbers borgs conservatively like 40:3 yeah okay good luck

okay so, besides all the balance concerns, let's look at the borg modules, starting with the secborg replacement:

peacekeeper: does nothing of value, tools 100% useless. pretty cute.


engineering: good at it's job, but due to game culture it never really gets to repair anything, engineering is pretty pointless in general in fact. so kind of useless. subverted (laws only) it's garbage. subverted (hacked) it's okay in an ambush role, but if humancrew knows you're rogue you're 100% fucked with no recourse.

medical: probably the "best" borg module. subverted it's actually fairly lethal due to deathchems it has. regular three-law play is okay. at least it has an effect on the round. the downside is that it's about as effective as a medibot, which are usually everywhere. the only upside it really has is the surgical tools. shame that people needing surgery are really miners only and it doesn't have hands so it can't really do surgery. it also can't get blood for people or attach them to IVs, making it kind of bad after paprikablood. overall could use more functionality. i wish medical was deeper, i'd play it all the time if so.


service: meme module, does nothing besides look rather dashing.


AI: had most of it's ability to actually do something about it's laws removed outright; opposing security to save antags is now 100% pointless and nobody bothers. can be fun if the crew throws you a bone. otherwise it's just ;ai door the whole round with mostly nothing interesting happening. law uploads beyond three-law are vanishingly infrequent. subverting the AI is now basically pointless as it has no ability to actually do anything anymore. since secborg removal the times i've actually been subverted via console is zero, pretty sure. since you can't affect the situation there's very little borg/AI cooperation anymore. security/AI cooperation also pretty close to zero. as an antagonist it's okay if only because it has access to syndicate radio; fulfilling your objectives is possible due to ambush advantage and little else. if it's tator expect to be irretrievably ggnore'd 15-30 minutes in 30 seconds with no recourse, or if not then the engine goes rogue and kills you. survival is less likely than ever due to proliferation of tools to kill AI with.

okay so, the problems with sillicons particularly (i won't list things that the wider game effects, such as engineering being useless etc.) are:

non-rogue/rogue dichotomy is now too important. before you could feasibly arrest, assassinate or kill when you weren't rogue (subverted) now you can't. this IMO can be fixed by allowing traitors to upload syndicate software, or for it to be enabled by specific boards (onehuman?) otherwise, the AI is not great as a servant and is never subverted (which cuts down on sillicon fun, anti-sillicon fun and paranoia)

mediborg needs more functionality to actually interact with all the stuff it should be capable of interacting with, this includes blood and some sort of hand module for surgery. chemistry set might also be cool who knows

hard counters are simply too plentiful for a non secborg world. either bring secborg back or curtail this shit. i don't even mind death, but you can get enough EMP to kill 15 borgs for 2 tc for christ sake.

ranged option on something PLEASE I DON'T CARE WHAT IT IS

make peacekeeper actually be able to do it's job. i don't care about cuffs, or stuns, what i need to be able to do is separate people who are killing each other. that means (probably) an effective barrier (something that takes a while to beat down) the ability to push people apart (ripley gravgun?) a toughness module that can soak bullets or lasers. maybe. sky's the limit

if subverting the AI remains the way it is (no subversion tools) then the hacked law module needs to be far cheaper. at 14 TC it's a joke.

i don't really mind dying every round (which is good, because that's not far from what happens) but can we please maybe consider at some point making the AI less easy to kill? with traitor tools it's a 30s job and there is no defense against it.

more to follow probably

also stop making nerf PRs this shit is getting ridiculous

thanks

[ShadowDimentio]

No you're wrong silicons dunked me as traitor so now I want then gone from the game and all the players banned for breaking silicon policy I just made up

[kevinz000]

TL;DR: Why the FUCK is the best combat option for both non hacked and hacked borgs a welderbomb?

Secborgs - Not coming back. Thanks HG.
Door Remotes - Easy to counter, legitimately useful in certain situations but not in most.
EMPs - Borgs always had this weakness, but being able to buy 6 grenades and an implant of EMPs (8-9 in total counting implant.) is an semi-issue, as well as being able to kill the AI with no chance of retaliation in 1 minute flat with a RCD and ion.
Multi Tile Ions - Always happend, if AIs are getting owned by them then change the maps
Space suits - Non issue, expecially since meteor is back in rotation and goofball added Freon AKA gas of mass grief :^)
EVA - Well, it never was.
Deaf/blind/mute when stunned - Yeah, this is bullshit, at most a flash stun should be a stun and a blind, why the fuck would overloading OPTICAL sensors really even stop movement or literally knock a cyborg unconscious unless you "lore" that the receptors are wired directly to the MMI and flashing them just overloads the brain controlling them.
RCDs - Non issue as they're used for repairs, however, could consider making emagged doors only take 8 matter to remove while bolted doors take 42 each so you have to be careful.
Turrets - Blame mappers and Pudl for trying to make it worse (Did you see Pudl's map revert holy shit that just makes the AI useless in a fight).
Engine - Always this way but Tesla's pretty powerful. Don't see what we can do with this.
Bombs - 5 minute for 6 maxcaps were in before the secborgs were out. C4 was unused and can't be used to gib now so not that much of an issue. Also, C4/X4 were made to be unable to be signaller-detonated since some jackass made them into grenades.
Flashs + Ion : Well, to be fair, borgs are otherwise unstunnable and unslowable. There's two options here. Make borgs normally stunnable and more of them have normal stuns/nonlethal weaponary so they take stuns and give stuns, or remove ALL stuns, including emagged stuns and welderbombs, from borgs, and give them slowdown from damage.

Ranged options: Thanks Oranges, I gave PKborgs bolas but you took them out.
Cheap plentiful instant deaths: Read Flashes + Ion
EMP Implant: IC issue :^) no but it could use a price increase. Meh.
EMP grenade: Price increase, they're cheap because no one used them
Laser pointer: Shit item, either make it not stun, or only stun if you use special things on it as right now it's just RNG based on the power of the laser inside.
EMP Flashlight: Damaging emp flash, is melee.
Changeling scream: That's just changelings, can't do anything about it unless you remove emp vulnerability.

Modules:

PKborg: They were INTENDED TO HAVE BOLAS but they were taken out. They have more emagged modules then anything else and when used right are very, very deadly including a toxin injector and shock-barriers.
It could use a few tools. When hacked it has the only ranged stun that isn't a welderbomb being the harm alarm which will use 2500 power but stun, KO for about 1 tick, and confuse for 30 everyone who doesn't have bowmans onscreen. Even with bowmans you get confused. Gets shock barriers, and poisons and shit that's useful.

Engineering: Yeah this is powerful enough you get to go around breaking and building shit. In combat, gets a neigh-infinite stunarm when hacked and without hacking it has its 15 burn welder or 10 brute extingusher, and it can welderbomb to roll 50/50 KO instadeath for the victim as it can self-repair. I can and will counter ion rifles with engiborgs if need be.

Medical: Holy fuck 10 units from this thing and I got critted. But yeah, it's just a sentient medibot with a 15 brute saw otherwise. It can be used for surgery in a limited manner but it doesn't have hands so you can't insert things, only remove. Can drag people but everyone else can too. Bloodloss mechanics makes it a bit weak. I'd say give it defibs and a blood synthesizer

Service: Absolutely fucking useless when emagged in almost all situations except when you can force people to drink your emagged beer. That shit insta-KOs. Otherwise, completely, and utterly useless.

Janitor: Nonemagged: HAHA have fun bashing people to death with a 3 damage weapon. Emagged: LUBE LUBE LUBE WEW WEW OP PLS NERF WEW WEW

Mining: Nonemagged: 25% stun chance from chest hit mining drill, KA that normally does 10 damage indoors and 40 in space with a ~4 tile range, but get someone to upgrade it and it does 40 damage. I shit you not.
Emagged: Stunarm, diamond drill or something, stunarm's the only useful thing you get. Use it and the mining drill. Oh yeah, can self repair and welderbomb.

Standard: Nonemagged: You get metal. And random crap/bullshit and a welder to welderbomb+repair self with. Otherwise you're just a crappier engiborg. Oh, and you get zipties but goodluck stunning someone without harming them.
Emagged: Your esword does 30 damage and knocks down 40% of the time aimed at chest with good dismember chances, high armor penetration, and sharpness. You still get fucked in fights most of the time though as you don't have a garunteed hard stun.

AI:Depends on the AI player,and crew robustness/powergameness/competence/intelligence. I can hold off the entire crew long enough to nuke easily with almost-0 malf points to use and 0 borgs and just my satallite. If the crew uses the ion + RCD combo then it doesn't matter how good you are at AI because that combo will fucking ggnore you as ions instantly DISABLES an APC and will drain it heavily. AI sat is strong enough but turrets could do with some shuffling, and the AI definately needs to be moved to the back, or atleast the APC, so you can't just cheapshot the APC with an ion which is a major issue. This is expecially on metastation where I can ggnore the AI in 30 seconds flat with an ion and hacking tools + gloves. If you need to murder everyone, get an engiborg to straight-pipe the plasma tank at 5066kPa into distro, as that'll be enough to burn the entire station down and KEEP it burning even if all windows break and there's breaches everywhere, as the sheer pressure will push everything else out. As traitor AI your powers are extremely powerful if you know how to use them, and turret upgrades means a 3 hit crit and 5 hit kill unarmored. Oh, and make friends with the other antags, as most of them have extremely, extremely cheap tools that can kill you in 10 seconds.

Issues: AI/borgs are basiclly really really bad in combat unless you have an emag to emag the borgs with, a combat software upgrade, or the AI's a traitor. This is probably there for balance issues but this just means subversion without combat software or an emag just means your subverted allies are weak. Do not allow them to be hacked by law boards as it'll just be used on valids. This doesn't mean silicons aren't powerful, just that you need special items to unlock their power.
Mediborg.. needs a goddamn beaker. Maybe defibs + blood maker? Oh yeah, item holder that drops the item if you so much get shoved and can't be used to use an item for surgery purposes.
Service borg needs to not be a literal joke.

Ranged options: Get oranges to allow energy bolas on pk borgs that self-remove after 0.5 seconds. It'll slowdown but not be too powerful. Maybe give the serviceborg a gun when emagged, as it's the most useless module when not emagged, AND emagged, as atleast janiborgs get lube when hacked.
Janiborg needs a combat option when not hacked. Come on, even a butler does more damage with its tray.

Peacekeeper does its job fine, as in, it can separate people who are fighting. Needs combat option when not emagged.
Nerf PRs don't have a place anymore.

[Incomptinence]

If nothing else the security borg's hacked module, laser gun, should have been moved onto a different module. I said it was absolutely stupid not to do so at the time, it doesn't even involve the dreaded stuns ffs.

Or hell all modules get laser eyes when hacked, that would rule.

I am not sure anything can be done for straight law subversion without backlash. Even if nothing else was fucked with the speed up of atmospherics processing has straight fucked the ability of AIs to suppress humans with burning plasma. The number of times I have walked down a scorched corridor with nothing protective but my internals and come out near mint condition on the other side is getting kinda sad.

[Ezel]

Emagged peacekeeper bots should get dragnets tbh

[Ezel]

RIOT I MEAN HARM CONTROL!!!

[Anonmare]

I'm against mediborg having a defib on the grounds that'd not make sense for it to have under Asimov basic. Under Asimov, corpses are not Human and the mediborg shouldn't really bother with them since defibbing a corpse would produce a Human in harm. Definitely needs a blood synthesiszer and a "manipulator" to be able to do surgery with. Maybe just give it a white list of what it can manipulate and is considered a hand when used directly on a surgical patient (for removing appendixes and crap).

All borgs should have a fire extinguisher or a mini-extinguisher in my opinion. And a hug module.

Service Borg needs a lot of love and it's emagged option is naff. Perhaps give it an e-bow or a laser gun, it's honestly so weak that even with a powerful emag option it still wouldn't be picked over the other modules. Maybe if it had some hydroponics tools and the ability to interface with vending machines it'd see a little more action.

PK borg needs its bolas back, if they're really such an issue - give the bolas a 1-2 second removal time.

I'd also say give the engiborg wire cuffs when emagged, it's supremely hard to get any cyborg conversions right now since it's become veritably impossible to keep any person restrained long enough to get them converted ever since secborg removal and the engiborg will burn through their battery like a spark in plasma gas if it needs to keep stunning someone. Yeah standards have zipties but you need at least two borgs for that and you only start with one at best.

RCDs are either too prevalent or too effective in my opinion, I recall them having 180 energy and only needing 45 to get through a bolted door (meaning they can get through about 4 doors at full charge) and you can get three fully loaded RCDs from an Engivend with a little hacking, plus there's one in EVA storage with enough matter cartridges to fully load it and mroe can be made in autolathes. In addition, they can be refilled with common metal and glass and it's usually more cost-effective to do so.

Ideally cyborg modules should fulfill a specific role in combat, like secborgs being the AI's front-liners and the engiborgs the healers.

[Luke Cox]

@Kevinz: See if you can get bolas re-added via PR then. I don't know why the fuck they were removed.

[ShadowDimentio]

People got dunked and mad.

[kevinz000]

Alright well I'm going to fix up my cyberimplant PRs/make my jetpack idea that i'l be posting or not later compile then work on silicons because they need more love :V

[Ezel]

Goonborgs are perfectly balanced
Fragile assfucks which can lose limbs

[Cik]

No you're wrong silicons dunked me as traitor so now I want then gone from the game and all the players banned for breaking silicon policy I just made up

yus pls remove ultimate canca

Seriously though I've only heard of this fabled opposing security to save antags regaled to me by a scant few from a time before time itself and never first hand myself. Still grr grr upset about the round start all channel buff AI got.

it used to happen all the time, but vanished because admins came down on it and also it became impossible.

i still do it all the time as a borg though. it's a part of the laws.

[onleavedontatme]

Development goes in cycles, with everyone trying to add their own solution at the same time and not really working in concert, so things tend to swing in power wildly. Silicons got several years of uninterrupted buffs and became the focus point of every round, now we are over correcting in the other direction. In a couple months they'll probably start getting buffed again (or maybe now is the time!)

[onleavedontatme]

I think the anti borg tools should probably be nerfed a bit, blind/deaf/stunned/damage chain until death is awful and frustrating.

[ShadowDimentio]

I liked where borgs were a knife's edge of hypercompetence and hypervulnerability. You could dunk endlessly and get dunked enlessly. A ying to yang.

[Cik]

The knowingly aiding antags clause or something? I forget how that one goes? You need IC reasons for doing so (which I assume laws would aid but not cover completely)?

to a sillicon, antags don't exist. humans exist. and you must always protect them.

that means that if a lizard sec officer attacks a human, two things must immediately happen: you must safeguard the life of that human, the lizard must be killed or mortally wounded to prevent him from harming more humans (if that is a risk), and if you must die in the accomplishing of either of these things then you must willingly do so, it is your duty to fall on your own sword or the sword of another if necessary.

if it's a human attacking, you grab the guy getting hurt and RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN while also trying to make sure that the guy you're running away with doesn't escape if he's harmful.

this was pretty easy as a secborg, but now it's sometimes not really possible to contain people anymore.

anyway it's a tightrope job most of the time. releasing harmful people is harm but you also have to protect prisoners from harm. however, immediate harm always supercedes theoretical harm. so you must take the guy and run somewhere he will not be killed.

likewise, if someone was in the room next to the armory and dying, you must let him into the safe armory to save his life (if no other option) because present > future harm

if you're even thinking of the word "antag" while playing sillicon you're playing the whole fucking thing wrong sillicons care about laws only, none of that metagame horseshit.

[Cik]

i'm not sure it was the admins i guess,

just the zeitgeist shifted

before the great nerfening, sillicons were able and expected to hold the shitcurity in check (being the most powerful force on the station next to security itself) and to go to bat for the downtrodden masses against them if they decided to be turbohitlers, which they pretty much always did (they had to, as there was no transfer room and AIs usually watched them like a hawk)

after repeated antag buffs / security changes, security were no longer something that really NEEDED to be kept in check, because nobody plays security, they're not that powerful and because the turbohitler subsided with time (maybe due to no one playing security) so opposing security was no longer necessary often enough and everyone cried about sillicons preventing validhunting on either aisle

then secborgs were removed, so you're still technically obligated to do that but mostly unable, which is where we are now.

i was never actually banned for locking down security, but as time went on i did it less and less, and so did everyone else that frequently plays sillicon (that i know about)

[oranges]

silicons will never be good in combat again. Know your place as a glorified toolbox

[Incomptinence]

The whole reasoning that they shouldn't was that they were immune to regular stuns.

There is no basis that asimov should be non interactive in a violent environment in fact that is nonsensical.

I believe that if silicons became vulnerable to conventional stuns they could regain combat relevant modules.

I have yet to see an argument against this so feel free to come forward with a reason as to why this could never happen.

[Ezel]

At goonstation you can stin them with a stunbaton

[Davidchan]

The whole reasoning that they shouldn't was that they were immune to regular stuns.]

This reasoning dates back to when Flashes also stunned and knocked non-silicons prone. The mute and power down was just added in to balance, and when flashes got nerfed the coders already had hate boners for borgs and didn't adjust them to regular stuns.

The entire reasoning for borgs being nerfed into the ground is just utter bullshit, and I've yet to see a single valid example of why they shouldn't be combat capable that isn't antag-salt about not being able to murder the entire crew with 2 op items.

[Scott]

The whole reasoning that they shouldn't was that they were immune to regular stuns.

There is no basis that asimov should be non interactive in a violent environment in fact that is nonsensical.

I believe that if silicons became vulnerable to conventional stuns they could regain combat relevant modules.

I have yet to see an argument against this so feel free to come forward with a reason as to why this could never happen.

In video games, homogenization removes the reason for different things to exist. It's bad design.

[Cik]

silicons will never be good in combat again. Know your place as a glorified toolbox

thanks for that well-reasoned defense of your position

:^)

[Incomptinence]

At goonstation you can stin them with a stunbaton

Might be an alright compromise but my idea have common anti borg ranged stuns aka making them vulnerable to tasers. Since everyone with a stun baton has a flash I don't think they are lacking for melee stuns.

In video games, homogenization removes the reason for different things to exist. It's bad design.

People have shown they can't tolerate variety around here. I would prefer thing be homogenised than flat out irrelevant.

[ShadowDimentio]

If only sec had some sort of ranged weapon that could stun borgs already.

[Ezel]

At goonstation you can stin them with a stunbaton

Might be an alright compromise but my idea have common anti borg ranged stuns aka making them vulnerable to tasers. Since everyone with a stun baton has a flash I don't think they are lacking for melee stuns.

Thats not the problem sec deals fine with borgs
The problem is here bad traitors getting cucked by them

[Davidchan]

At goonstation you can stin them with a stunbaton

Might be an alright compromise but my idea have common anti borg ranged stuns aka making them vulnerable to tasers. Since everyone with a stun baton has a flash I don't think they are lacking for melee stuns.

Thats not the problem sec deals fine with borgs
The problem is here bad traitors getting cucked by them

That doesn't sound like a problem at all.

[Luke Cox]

In my eyes, the fact that the uplink has a billion EMPs and other anti-silicon items yet still can't seem to beat them is living proof that silicons were never imbalanced and that people just can't fucking git gud. I've lost many traitor rounds but I can't recall a single one where it was to silicons.

[cocothegogo]

I hate secborgs but this thread makes me want them back

[Armhulen]

I love secborgs and this thread makes me want them back