We literally just removed smoke machine because of revenant salt

Oldman Robustin · Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:23 pm

I poured too much energy and love to give something for chemists to do besides be button (now, macro) pushers to it killed by a speedmerged PR for one of the dumbest fucking reasons imaginable.

Idiots kept claiming it would be a WMD, pouring vaguely defined "deathsmoke" into the shuttle every round. Of course they were wrong, being able to purge the machine in a single click, see through the smoke, and literally every player in the game starting with a hard-counter in their backpack (i.e. internals) meant that the smoke machine was almost always limited to chemicals people would "consent" to breathing - in any other scenario someone with a gas mask or internals would just walk up hit "PURGE" then beat the shit out of the chemist, if you wanted to "ambush" people with a deadly smoke mix it was always better to use grenades because it would let you disburse more chems in a single smoke, would give the victims no warning or chance to react, didnt require you to lug a large machine around that needed to be powered/anchored etc. The single-tank reactive nature of the machine also meant you couldn't pull off the deadliest mixes since they would react immediately.

Thats why, in the months since it was added, we've still seen shuttles getting hellfoamed, exploded, etc. by chem grenades but the smoke machine generally remains a niche device. Which was fine, I wanted niche, I didn't want it to become the new standard for chem distribution.

So for months the smoke machine has been a low key player in chemistry and after a couple initial nerfs nobody ever talked about it because it was about as offensive to gameplay as an emergency shield generator, I've played hundreds of rounds since it was added and it never had a material effect on my round, the worst thing side-effect I have experienced from it is:

1) Getting too drunk with the bartender poured vodka into the public healmix I had created
2) Getting too fat when I loaded the machine with ground up donk pockets

So why was a removal PR speedmerged?

1) A revenant, the virtually unkillable grief ghost, had apparently pissed a chemist off enough to have them lug the machine around and dump salt in a bunch of rooms to prevent the revenant from entering them.
2) A clock cultist was annoying that holy water smoke had made their almost infinite teleportation less than infinite
3) Space cleaner smoke made it hard for slaughter demons to coat the entire station in blood and just kill everyone with instant/unlimited jaunting

It is unfathomable to me that someone actually used three of the most annoying teleportation mechanics as a justification for removing something from the game. Who in their right mind actually sat there and said "Gee it sure is rough being able to scan the entire station with almost omniscient vision and teleport at will, but that god damn OP smoke machine means that someone can actually expend time and energy to limit my most annoying mechanic! I won this ghost antag lottery for INFINITE grief, what the fuck!"

The machine still exists in Techwebs but just like when Shiz moved it to Tech Storage as a circuit board, it was a functional death sentence for the machine since its just too niche for anyone to go through the trouble of a chemist gathering parts when the whole appeal of the machine was a "slightly more efficient way of generating smoke", in the minutes you spend trying to assemble the machine you could've just made 10x grenades with 5x the potency of the machine anyway _ especially since macros has been it easier than ever to make smoke mixes. Never mind the fact that literally anyone can just do the exact same thing with an e-cig at roundstart, or just use circuitry to make multiple automated smoke machines, Kevinz has spent months trying to get the damn thing removed just to spite me and he finally pulled it off in a 24-hour speedmerge.

Karp · Post by **Karp** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:35 pm #389122

*unleashes aoe killsmoke*
*kills 60 people at escape*
*salts revenant*
*permastuns everyone with 2000 units of lsd and neurotoxin*
pssh... Nothing personnel station.

Here's a rematch...
*lubes half of the station*

It'll take years before you hit my level...

SpaceInaba · Post by **SpaceInaba** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:47 pm #389125

SpaceInaba · Post by **SpaceInaba** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:49 pm #389127

1) cry me a river just ask science to make you a board for it or make it yourself
2) if tell me you havent walked down the hall and been race changed into something stupid you're a liar

Post by **Atlanta-Ned** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:52 pm #389130

Smoke machine is objectively bad, this is a good change.

SCP coffee machine is next.

XDTM · Post by **XDTM** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:53 pm #389131

I'm pretty sure the reason for its removal is that it's now buildable, and as a niche item and not a job necessity it doesn't need to be given for free at roundstart anymore.

Oldman Robustin · Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:23 pm

SpaceInaba wrote:1) cry me a river just ask science to make you a board for it or make it yourself
2) if tell me you havent walked down the hall and been race changed into something stupid you're a liar

Re 2: Literally never happened, I've been racechanged by thrown plants, xenobio carp, etc. but never smokes. I just swept 60+ rounds of logs for any instance of it happening this month and haven't seen a single example yet.

XDTM wrote:I'm pretty sure the reason for its removal is that it's now buildable, and as a niche item and not a job necessity it doesn't need to be given for free at roundstart anymore.

I've been buildable since Day 1 when Shiz tried to remove it by putting boards in Tech Storage.

That rightfully failed was because it would see as much as people who build arcade machines from tech storage. Most jobs get convenient machines that aren't necessary for their duties at roundstart. Xenobio doesnt NEED teleportation computers, Medbay doesn't NEED sleepers, Engineering doesnt NEED an RCD Vendor or preset cooling/filter loop, Mining doesn't NEED a voucher vendor... these are all machines designed to provide convenience/added utility to that profession.

Deitus · Post by **Deitus** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:07 pm #389150

Atlanta-Ned wrote:Smoke machine is objectively bad, this is a good change.

SCP coffee machine is next.

ITT Robustin once again calls out stupid shit and raises good points while admins vaguely define them as bad and ignore arguments made in contrast with the usual "we just know better(TM)!"

Man I hate reruns

Stickymayhem · Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:39 pm

I'm ok with the smoke machine being a buildable item. It takes a bit of effort to get something useful. It also gives chemistry something to achieve while things are quiet if they want.

The smoke machine is a great addition to the department, but a small amount of effort to get it is no big issue, and by raising the barrier to entry slightly, it will stay interesting, useful and powerful without being omnipresent.

The dumb whining about it being op is still dumb though.

captain sawrge · Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:04 pm

Deitus wrote:
Atlanta-Ned wrote:Smoke machine is objectively bad, this is a good change.

SCP coffee machine is next.
ITT Robustin once again calls out stupid shit and raises good points while admins vaguely define them as bad and ignore arguments made in contrast with the usual "we just know better(TM)!"

Man I hate reruns

admins have 0 control over the code

bman · Post by **bman** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:27 pm #389169

"this thing can be used as an interesting counter to a dumb ability let's remove it it's op"

Ayy Lemoh · Post by **Ayy Lemoh** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:07 pm #389176

I hate the smoke machine because I worry that it'll be used for some deathmix however I have rarely seen said deathmix appear. The closest, that I can remember, is some asshole using morphine. The best use that I saw was when I was observing and someone put restorative nanites in the mix.

However, saying some of this stuff is just retarded:
"lol cry me a river"
"smoke machine is objectively bad"

Now if we wanna remove an overpowered chemistry machine then remove the scp 294 ruin, make it harder, or make it anchored because that thing is too overpowered when I see it literally on the station and not in space.

Oldman Robustin · Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:21 pm

captain sawrge wrote:
Deitus wrote:
Atlanta-Ned wrote:Smoke machine is objectively bad, this is a good change.

SCP coffee machine is next.
ITT Robustin once again calls out stupid shit and raises good points while admins vaguely define them as bad and ignore arguments made in contrast with the usual "we just know better(TM)!"

Man I hate reruns
admins have 0 control over the code

Dunc said it got a quick merge because of admin support.

Both Naksu and Dunc cited admin remarks as their chief reason for making it happen.

When I pressed Naksu for examples, Salt blocking a revenant, space cleaner blocking a slaughter demon, and holy water blocking clock cultists were the examples I was given for why it shouldn't be around at roundstart. Unless Naksu adopted some brilliant strategy where he only offered the worst justifications possible, that's literally the strongest arguments I saw from them.

Post by **oranges** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:28 pm #389188

better make a forum thread about it

Post by **oranges** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:29 pm #389191

the real irony is robustin acting suprised that his pr's are just sitting on the tracker instead of getting merged lmao

Oldman Robustin · Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:34 pm

Ayy Lemoh wrote:I hate the smoke machine because I worry that it'll be used for some deathmix however I have rarely seen said deathmix appear. The closest, that I can remember, is some asshole using morphine. The best use that I saw was when I was observing and someone put restorative nanites in the mix.

However, saying some of this stuff is just retarded:
"lol cry me a river"
"smoke machine is objectively bad"

Now if we wanna remove an overpowered chemistry machine then remove the scp 294 ruin, make it harder, or make it anchored because that thing is too overpowered when I see it literally on the station and not in space.

The smoke machine is unique in that it uses a special smoke effect that is much, much tamer than full blown grenade smoke. The reagent distribution is capped, the smoke isn't opaque (aka it doesnt block clicks), its got a much lower alpha so you can see where the machine is.

The first point (capped distribution) is why you don't see deathmixes that actually work. If you split reagents into a "mix" then the smoke machine just dilutes the existing chems to make room for the new one. A single chem in the machine will give you about 1u per tick (1.8s), but if you end up trying a mix of 4 "deathchems" you'll only be distributing about 0.15u of each chem per second.

Meanwhile if you just make a chem grenade you get the full potency of every reagent inside, which can flood your body with lethal amounts of the poison in seconds - all with the benefit of the grenades being portable, stealthy, and all but impossible to prevent. Machines require a powered area, a long-ass wrench time, and anyone - including the AI/Cyborgs can see whats inside the machine and immediately destroy its contents. With macros you can now easily make a deathmix grenade in 2 clicks, fully assembled grenade in under 10 seconds, hence why only newbies would ever resort to the smoke machine for their big antag play when grenades are so much more effective.

I'm re-adding the machine in a PR that will take out turf reactions. This will gut some of its utility but also take away any remaining ground for bitching about it (I wish), no more easy carpet, floor cleaning, lube, blessing, etc. the small side benefit is that it also removes the same shit from vape pens, which I've always hated.

Stickymayhem · Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:43 pm

Oldman Robustin wrote:
Ayy Lemoh wrote:I hate the smoke machine because I worry that it'll be used for some deathmix however I have rarely seen said deathmix appear. The closest, that I can remember, is some asshole using morphine. The best use that I saw was when I was observing and someone put restorative nanites in the mix.

However, saying some of this stuff is just retarded:
"lol cry me a river"
"smoke machine is objectively bad"

Now if we wanna remove an overpowered chemistry machine then remove the scp 294 ruin, make it harder, or make it anchored because that thing is too overpowered when I see it literally on the station and not in space.
The smoke machine is unique in that it uses a special smoke effect that is much, much tamer than full blown grenade smoke. The reagent distribution is capped, the smoke isn't opaque (aka it doesnt block clicks), its got a much lower alpha so you can see where the machine is.

The first point (capped distribution) is why you don't see deathmixes that actually work. If you split reagents into a "mix" then the smoke machine just dilutes the existing chems to make room for the new one. A single chem in the machine will give you about 1u per tick (1.8s), but if you end up trying a mix of 4 "deathchems" you'll only be distributing about 0.15u of each chem per second.

Meanwhile if you just make a chem grenade you get the full potency of every reagent inside, which can flood your body with lethal amounts of the poison in seconds - all with the benefit of the grenades being portable, stealthy, and all but impossible to prevent. Machines require a powered area, a long-ass wrench time, and anyone - including the AI/Cyborgs can see whats inside the machine and immediately destroy its contents. With macros you can now easily make a deathmix grenade in 2 clicks, fully assembled grenade in under 10 seconds, hence why only newbies would ever resort to the smoke machine for their big antag play when grenades are so much more effective.

I'm re-adding the machine in a PR that will take out turf reactions. This will gut some of its utility but also take away any remaining ground for bitching about it (I wish), no more easy carpet, floor cleaning, lube, blessing, etc. the small side benefit is that it also removes the same shit from vape pens, which I've always hated.

Mate this is dumb. You are voluntarily nerfing smoke machines now just to get them in roundstart. There's no reason it has to be a roundstart machine at all. Leave it with that excellent utility and give chemistry a tiny bit of progression.

Post by **oranges** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:46 pm #389199

robustin can't accept things not being the way he wants them, so he will continually argue every point people raise until they stop bothering or until he self sabotages.

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:58 pm #389203

robustin i'd advise breaking up with fwoosh/oxford/whoever

Selea · Post by **Selea** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:59 pm #389204

Yes it is removal.Because barely anybody construct machines since techwebs.
AdI don't like this change.

Post by **Cobby** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:14 pm #389214

Selea wrote:Yes it is removal.Because barely anybody construct machines since techwebs.
AdI don't like this change.

Transcending history, and the world, a tale of short rounds and progression, eternally retold.

Qbopper · Post by **Qbopper** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:34 pm #389231

oranges wrote:robustin can't accept things not being the way he wants them, so he will continually argue every point people raise until they stop bothering or until he self sabotages.

this is why the best thing to do is to just not read his posts lol

bman · Post by **bman** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:20 pm #389256

are you guys seriously pretending that if you put it into techwebs someone's actually gonna use it?

iamgoofball · Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:33 pm

bman wrote:are you guys seriously pretending that if you put it into techwebs someone's actually gonna use it?

SpaceInaba · Post by **SpaceInaba** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:53 pm #389286

you guys dont even play lol

Selea · Post by **Selea** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:05 am #389296

Cobby, There is actually reason, why machines rarely costructed now:
1.engies don't want to use their omni printer for some reason.
2.dept lathes rarely will get any resources to build something.
3.When you've got gimmick with certain machine, often you need to search for which of dept lathes has certai design.

Possible solutions:
1.give BSRPED to engies.Who knows, maybe they are need power of bluespace to actually start working?
2.return circuit printer to science.At least they are willing to construct something.
3.Make special job-mechanic to fuck with machinery upgrades/construction.

Post by **Cobby** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:15 am #389299

Selea wrote:Cobby, There is actually reason, why machines rarely costructed now:
1.engies don't want to use their omni printer for some reason.
2.dept lathes rarely will get any resources to build something.
3.When you've got gimmick with certain machine, often you need to search for which of dept lathes has certai design.

Possible solutions:
1.give BSRPED to engies.Who knows, maybe they are need power of bluespace to actually start working?
2.return circuit printer to science.At least they are willing to construct something.
3.Make special job-mechanic to fuck with machinery upgrades/construction.

Go engineer and show people omni printer.

Kekhi is fixing material hoarding

The smoke machine should go to medical, yes.

Nabski · Post by **Nabski** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:03 am #389310

So it's currently buildable. I just watched people on Terry make one to fight a revenant.

Then again they managed to finish two DNA vaults in the last 24 hours which I suspect hasn't been done on bagil in a good while.

Dr_bee · Post by **Dr_bee** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 2:05 am #389334

Making you actually need to build it was a good change. Put it in the medical autolathe so it is easy to build and it will be fine. It should require interdepartmental cooperation to build such a powerful tool.

Selea · Post by **Selea** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 2:02 pm #389524

not very powerful,tbh.

Dr_bee · Post by **Dr_bee** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:38 pm #389737

Selea wrote:not very powerful,tbh.

It is the best way to mass spread holy water and salt to fight cultists and revenants and allows you to either AOE heal or AOE poison with very high chem efficiency. It is powerful.

Post by **Cobby** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:26 pm #389762

> not very powerful

> but if you remove it I implore you to instead make large balance changes to a couple of jobs

umm?

Shadowflame909 · Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:40 pm

It's really easy to counter a smoke machine. if you see a shitload of smoke you just put a gas mask on in your box and equip your internals. You're safe! The only thing people should really be salty over is it affecting tiles. Get it? Salt?

Karp · Post by **Karp** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:50 pm #389779

Never thought of that! Lemme just not breathe the lube on the floor gamer

Selea · Post by **Selea** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:37 am #389848

Cobby, because I've mentioned , that now presents problems with construction of all the machinery.

Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:27 am

As stupid as this all is you gotta hand it to robustin for the correct use of "literally" in the title

duncathan · Post by **duncathan** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:05 am #389906

actually it's not correct because we didn't remove the machine, simply its place on the maps

also smoke machine is cool and good as-is imo and nerfing it like robustin wants to in exchange for roundstart makes it hella boring

Post by **oranges** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:08 am #389915

They changed the definition of literally to match how people use it, and now we have no word that describes what literally previously used to mean.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

duncathan wrote:actually it's not correct because we didn't remove the machine, simply its place on the maps

also smoke machine is cool and good as-is imo and nerfing it like robustin wants to in exchange for roundstart makes it hella boring

The machine was removed from maps. You have to really contort to say that’s not a form of removal

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 11:46 am #389936

oranges wrote:They changed the definition of literally to match how people use it, and now we have no word that describes what literally previously used to mean.

This is just like "sex" and "gender", isn't it.

Lumbermancer · Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:08 pm

I don't know much about smoke machine, but revenant is shit and should be removed.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:41 pm #389951

Griefghost is the most fun I've had in ages, but then again I'm probably one of the very few people who actually RP as revenant and try to talk people into going to *sleep.

Oldman Robustin · Mon Mar 12, 2018 5:12 pm

iamgoofball wrote:
bman wrote:are you guys seriously pretending that if you put it into techwebs someone's actually gonna use it?

The thing sat in chemistry every round for months and it was still getting used in <10% of rounds.

Within those examples about 50% was what I'd call "silly" uses like using it for carpet, color reagent, booze, drugs, etc.

The others were mostly distribution aids, giving out a virus cure, cleaning the floor, etc.

I don't see anyone going through the trouble of gathering metal/parts/wire/board and building one for these marginal uses.

I made the damn machine and love to experiment with it but even I wouldn't go through the trouble when chem macros can let me make a smoke grenade thats 10x as potent and much easier to deploy.

So now im in another purgatory where I get to wait around for a month so I can post "I told you so" data and pray that Dunc won't be a dick about it.

The "nerfs but keeps it roundstart" PR wasn't how I wanted it to pan out either but since the chief complaint was about turf and the creator of the removal (Naksu) liked it, it felt like a better compromise to at least keep it around as a niche medicine/reagent distribution tool rather than not having it around at all.

Shadowflame909 wrote:It's really easy to counter a smoke machine. if you see a shitload of smoke you just put a gas mask on in your box and equip your internals. You're safe! The only thing people should really be salty over is it affecting tiles. Get it? Salt?

Its sad because its actually EITHER. If you have working internals (everyone does) OR a gas mask, you aren't affected by smoke. It's one of the only things a gas mask actually exists for.

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:40 pm #390120

Next robustin pr: gas masks make you fly.

SpaceInaba · Post by **SpaceInaba** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:06 pm #390134

lmfaomgbbq

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:47 pm #390202

You people get salty over the most autistic, retarded shit.

That said, removing the smoke machine is pretty retarded too. I think I've died or seen people die to it a grand total of zero times.

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:02 pm #390207

Luke Cox wrote:You people get salty over the most autistic, retarded shit.

That said, removing the smoke machine is pretty retarded too. I think I've died or seen people die to it a grand total of zero times.

You must not be very observant.

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:05 pm #390211

kevinz000 wrote:
Luke Cox wrote:You people get salty over the most autistic, retarded shit.

That said, removing the smoke machine is pretty retarded too. I think I've died or seen people die to it a grand total of zero times.
You must not be very observant.

I'm sure it's happened, but I doubt that it's rampant enough to warrant gutting the entire thing. You can do just as much with a couple of smoke grenades (which are portable and concealable to boot). Making it buildable but not available at roundstart is the sane thing to do here. The fact that this got speedmerged is a glaring red flag to me.

Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:07 pm

didnt get speedmerged

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:09 pm #390214

Somebody lied to me on the internet. How could this happen?