Caravan Ambush Ruin (poll inside)

[FantasticFwoosh]

Well we might as well have a conversation about it. I have my own feelings but i want to hear yours.

This is relevant to github PR Removes space pirate ruin #25853

Please partake in the the poll.

[Lazengann]

Could you add a picture

[kevinz000]

Excuse me, what? Are you the PR author? Why are you bothering with this? Drama?
Anyways, I believe that Tacolizard is just once again trying to do things without fully being knowledgeable about how balance works with that object fully.
"free loot" is a very bad way to describe that a ruin that can easily leave you dead in space without preparation.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Im bothering with this for the purpose to try and defuse the drama around it by just gathering opinions of others.

Prepare to take it, yeah that doesn't exactly work and is the exact reasoning that for that is the same as readying up a 15 minute meta to steal all the loot from the Space Battle away mission which was removed after it became standard practice to go in there and steal almost free double eswords by cheesing the ruin.

- Random ruin, you must have meta-knowledge somehow or by chance somebody had to confirm it existed by space travelling, not many people really have the opportunity to do that in fast paced rounds. So no preperation, approximating that the space traveller with be wearing a EVA space suit & have a tool box not sure what they might find out there only on their person.

If any assortment of very strong mobs don't render you dead including 340 health syndicate commados & syndicates with rifles destroying your EVA space suit with damage and whatever pea shooter of a gun you brought from the station, you are given a large haul of unbalanced loot. There are also 20 damage per bullet round firing turrets on most of the ships. Yeah good luck with that.

> Edged weapon dismemberment also means that critical damage could cut you apart from the laser cutlass/sabre.

If it's made to be exceptionally or virtually impossible to beat, then what is the objective of going there & exploring it? Other than to say that it has no original assets & could be improved by other mappers to add more aesthetic definition to it.

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TL;DR.
Quite strong mobs, turrets that spit out 20 damage per shot, risk of being dismembered and left for dead way out in space, not feasibly doable without exploits, people had to ask for pictures just to know what we were talking about. Pirates riddled with bugs. Out in the middle of space. etc.

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This is coding feedback = feedback, why are you questioning whether it is my PR or have any authority to speak about it? Stop stirring please. Tacolizard not having knowledge contrary to you or oranges or anybody else how?

[Bombadil]

Its muh legacy memes again

[MMMiracles]

I know the syndicate storm troopers still drop all their gear, but syndicate mobs gib when they die, out-right denying all their loot.

Also, the ruin spawns with a GPS in the central shuttle so you can confirm its existence by just looking at GPS, like most content ruins. Going to a GPS called 'distress beacon' out in the middle of space unprepared and getting shit on by the resistance there sounds like your own fault, honestly. Not sure where you're getting the 'eva suits break from bullets' either, unless your confusing the space pirate's death message with real EVA suits.

You should probably look into the shit you're complaining about before actually complaining, to be honest.

[FantasticFwoosh]

All armor will fall apart from resulting damage it takes as per phil's damage changes, the usual EVA gear wouldn't be protective enough to sufficiently fight or withstand prolonged damage and eventually will become tattered. The syndicate commando's in that case are the unbalanced loot drops, and usually traitor objects have no place in the normal course of the round without first having a syndicate antagonist on board.

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- No suit, no travelling in space unless you of course steal another space suit. Those turrets might be low damage, but in an non-combat space suit its still going to blow holes in passing travellers. The weapons the high health mobs possess are also very strong.

- Besides from being bugged, the pirates (*edit) do gib (I checked the code entries, delete on death) and have also quite strong equipment, including what is in the boxes, there's enough to fully equip with a clearing sweep of the compound three people in full commando gear with additional weapons and loot gathered.

It is helpful that you defended your case with logical points. Going off your comments and taking account GPS co-ordinates, how is this any different to "space battle", because if this became common knowledge and it became a issue of station crew scanning each round to look for said ruin & analyse a viable attack route with preparation, then besides the obvious difficulty barrier, there is no difference in people heading out there slathering on ointment or burn treatment in order to try and tank hits.

- Though relatively the interest & awareness of this ruin is quite low

- I retract previous point on edged weapons, my mistake.

Proportionally to other ruins this isn't a problem but there's not the same level of loot in other ruins where its not intentional (although many may not like the strength of mining loot, it is not intended for non-miners really)

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- Harder space battle (but thankfully nobody cares enough to actually try to speedrun it for loot.).

[Lazengann]

All armor will fall apart from resulting damage it takes as per phil's damage changes, the usual EVA gear wouldn't be protective enough to sufficiently fight or withstand prolonged damage and eventually will become tattered. The syndicate commando's in that case are the unbalanced loot drops, and usually traitor objects have no place in the normal course of the round without first having a syndicate antagonist on board.

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- No suit, no travelling in space unless you of course steal another space suit. Those turrets might be low damage, but in an non-combat space suit its still going to blow holes in passing travellers. The weapons the high health mobs possess are also very strong.

- Besides from being bugged, the pirates (*edit) do gib (I checked the code entries, delete on death) and have also quite strong equipment, including what is in the boxes, there's enough to fully equip with a clearing sweep of the compound three people in full commando gear with additional weapons and loot gathered.

It is helpful that you defended your case with logical points. Going off your comments and taking account GPS co-ordinates, how is this any different to "space battle", because if this became common knowledge and it became a issue of station crew scanning each round to look for said ruin & analyse a viable attack route with preparation, then besides the obvious difficulty barrier, there is no difference in people heading out there slathering on ointment or burn treatment in order to try and tank hits.

- Though relatively the interest & awareness of this ruin is quite low

- I retract previous point on edged weapons, my mistake.

Proportionally to other ruins this isn't a problem but there's not the same level of loot in other ruins where its not intentional (although many may not like the strength of mining loot, it is not intended for non-miners really)

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- Harder space battle (but thankfully nobody cares enough to actually try to speedrun it for loot.).

Back when space was completely static people would go to the derelict in a fire suit and navigate by landmarks to get a free retro laser(recharges itself) and warp in anywhere using the abandoned teleporter and I don't even think it was a problem then, let alone now that space is tougher to navigate and the gear is defended by deadly turrets and mobs.

[D&B]

I agree it's free loot. Armed NPC's would be dangerous if they were able to use their weapons in an effective manner, but this ruin is easy to cheese and loot from.

I'd rather have it be more surrounded by stronger hostile NPC's if it's kept in. Not only is it easy as fuck to locate (due to GPS shenanigans) once you circle and lose the npcs you get free guns and mats (free hardsuits if you make the NPCs shoot each other, which is not hard)

[Remie Richards]

Fwoosh, simple animals can't dismember people.
pirates do not actually have energy cutlases.
syndicate commandos do not actually have c20rs/smgs/shotguns.

These are merely part of the mob's sprite, to make them look correct, they don't even wear clothing either.
You may be getting confused due to most "human" simple animals dropping a real human corpse with (most) of their gear on it, but they don't have -any- of these things while alive.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Fwoosh, simple animals can't dismember people.
pirates do not actually have energy cutlases.
syndicate commandos do not actually have c20rs/smgs/shotguns.

These are merely part of the mob's sprite, to make them look correct, they don't even wear clothing either.
You may be getting confused due to most "human" simple animals dropping a real human corpse with (most) of their gear on it, but they don't have -any- of these things while alive.

I have already retracted my statement on dismemberment in the previous post, i checked the code (i actually forgot to edit that part about pirate cutlasses my bad) you are correct on those statements. Heh, the mobs will have to improve before they are THAT good.

The map picture shows two ranged syndicate commandos with what the code cites as "unrestricted syndicate bulldog shotguns", the one on the bottom of the screen on the asteroid and to the left inside the shuttle (bash the door down) with two other syndicate shield & sword mobs.

The only barrier then is either using the syndicate pin yourself with the remaining ammo in the barrel, and then taking the shotguns back to the station to decon for level seven traitor tech which of course lends itself to some pretty devastating weapons. And also a energy shield & supplied nuke op suit.

[Screemonster]

if your complaint is that the syndicate commando PVE mobs are too OP then tweak the mobs or replace them with a less OP mob rather than removing the entire ruin altogether

this is like getting a hangnail and chopping your entire finger off

[PKPenguin321]

Fwoosh, simple animals can't dismember people.

while i'm aware the pirates with cutlasses don't dismember, didn't this functionality get added to viscerators? or am i misremembering

[Remie Richards]

Fwoosh, simple animals can't dismember people.

while i'm aware the pirates with cutlasses don't dismember, didn't this functionality get added to viscerators? or am i misremembering

Yes, this is actually true, thanks to the limb_destroyer var, but the only simple animal using it are Viscerators (and the only other mob using it at all are xenomorphs (does this even happen??))

[FantasticFwoosh]

The pirates & the syndicate aggro each other very easily, notably none of the pirates here exploded and they dropped laser guns when they died.

The space bulldog commandos also died quite quickly to the pirates, so there is a strategy there. The bulldog has 8 rounds and a electronic pin.

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Infact with a RCD, you could just remove the floor of the pirate main ship and all the pirate mobs will die.

> A game admin also told me that there are grenade launchers and weapons etc, within the destructable boxes in the ships too

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You know what? im going to put my money where my mouth is and actively in the next few cycles of the game run a station round and then explore space to expose flaws in the system by using mining objects to get there & collect loot.

[Oldman Robustin]

My vote is a firm NO until we get more space ruins that aren't just abandoned rectangles with absolutely nothing of interest inside.

This is pretty much the last reason to venture into space. I'm not wild about it but we need more middle ground designs where you can get moderately cool shit at moderate risk instead of 10 useless abandoned rooms and then one crazy lethal spot with tons of guns.

[FantasticFwoosh]

I mean farming 2000 mining points for a mining suit (with a upgrade jetpack & plate resistance) and using a KA to navigate space (plus other goodies) also invalidates much of the arguement in the ruin's defence because most of the mobs on that map are atmos reliant, meaning you can just open a door and they die. The ones in space could probably be taken out with a damage upgraded KA.

[Lazengann]

Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist again

[FantasticFwoosh]

Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist again

My therapist assures me this is healthy behaviour, i also pay them $50 a hour.

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I am most definite this problem exists, to cite Oldman's point it is also indicative of map design qualms.

[Lazengann]

You complained the mobs were "near unbeatable stuff for a normal spaceman in a EVA suit" but now your complaint is that they're too easy?

[FantasticFwoosh]

Its not a normal suit, i directly used the standard EVA suit & no weapons as a comparison, but a well armed miner (who would have access to jaunter & stuff etc) could probably clear it out in a logical manner by exploiting the living shit out of these mobs. Im currently researching into it with in-game play.

- Miners given this stuff & whatever easy to grab mining loot they find.

Remove floor, all the pirates inside the ship die & drop like 4-5 las guns, bait the esword pirates using a jetpack and KA them, kill the non melee & weaker combatants first etc, spam survival pens and tank as much melee damage as possible with your upgraded suit and shoot the melee commando on the far side with bulldog rounds after jetpacking out of there, scoop up his energy shield and sword and if you haven't already started hacking the boxes apart loot & dispose of any mobs out of your way.

Mining suit jetpack (combined 4000 points for mining suit, not hard to get with upgraded orm) does not require a back slot and just works off internals/additional supplied.

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It would still be tough, but the point to be made is that without preparation its non-explorable because you are going to die, and if you do prepare and actually successful claim what is there, its extremely unbalanced loot with risk to throw the round off course. Prep to powergame which was exactly the issue with space battle, rather than moderate preperation in a model like Oldman is suggesting with the stakes & rewards juuust profitable enough to bother doing it (like the sky bulge ruin)

[Lazengann]

Assistant space explorer tip: If you just hit them with a baseball bat while they're in space you'll never see them again

[FantasticFwoosh]

Assistant space explorer tip: If you just hit them with a baseball bat while they're in space you'll never see them again

Rebounds off local terrain & energy shield melee blocks could obstruct you there.

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Edit (21-5-17) Serves as no suprise as lots of time later this ruin's grenade launcher has Lzimann moaning about it in IRC and people have learnt how strong the loot is that they cheese it very very often.