Cargo changes and budgets severely shifted rev balance

[CPTANT]

The rev balance has shifted over time simply because it is now so much easier to buy tons of mindshield implants. You can easily order 5+ crates where before you were happy when you got 2.

It makes it a lot harder for the revs to win now because mass implanting becomes almost trivial.

Perhaps it is time to increase the cost of mindshield implants to restore the winrate more to what it was historically.

[cedarbridge]

Crossposting some of my thoughts about cargo and pricing for items/budgets in this thread: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22768

[RG4ORDR]

Rev is a bad gamemode, I have 0 sympathy for Revs seeing as they usually outnumber security or fight a severely undermanned sec squad.

[CPTANT]

Rev is a bad gamemode, I have 0 sympathy for Revs seeing as they usually outnumber security or fight a severely undermanned sec squad.

Not any more.

[Anuv]

Not so much revs but it's really bad with hivemind. Way way too easy to mass implant

[oranges]

Rev is a bad gamemode, I have 0 sympathy for Revs seeing as they usually outnumber security or fight a severely undermanned sec squad.

Not any more.

wtf I had people yelling at me just last week that sec was a dead dept

[Ayy Lemoh]

Rev is a bad gamemode, I have 0 sympathy for Revs seeing as they usually outnumber security or fight a severely undermanned sec squad.

Not any more.

wtf I had people yelling at me just last week that sec was a dead dept

Best case scenario, security will have 10-11 people, not including warden and HoS.

Assuming only security and heads of staff are loyalists, that means it is basically somewhere between 14-16 man group versus 50+ dudes on Bagil. I also noticed how Sybil gets maxpop sometimes so it would still sometimes be 50 revs versus a few loyalists. Keep in mind, this is the ideal setup excluding non-sec/head-of-staff crewmembers. In reality, it may be closer to 1-5 sec officers, including HoS and warden, but I don't have evidence to back this up. What I do know 100% guaranteed is that 10 or more sec department members is fucking rare.

Yeah, it seems like mass implanting isn't an issue except perhaps for hiveminds, who are already able to fucking destroy loyalty implants.

[Shadowflame909]

The worst part about hivemind is that if you destroy a loyalty implant. It freaks out the person who's implant you've destroyed.

So that skill is only useful for murder or robbery. IE throwing away the HoP's ID into a hallway which you reside in a locker, and then having the HoP send themselves down disposals.

[donutstation]

It also messed up war ops. I liked it more when ops didn't have to fight the whole crew armed with combat shotguns and bulletproof armour.

[Ayy Lemoh]

It also messed up war ops. I liked it more when ops didn't have to fight the whole crew armed with combat shotguns and bulletproof armour.

Hey, this sounds fair and actually interesting!

[CPTANT]

Rev is a bad gamemode, I have 0 sympathy for Revs seeing as they usually outnumber security or fight a severely undermanned sec squad.

Not any more.

wtf I had people yelling at me just last week that sec was a dead dept

Best case scenario, security will have 10-11 people, not including warden and HoS.

Assuming only security and heads of staff are loyalists, that means it is basically somewhere between 14-16 man group versus 50+ dudes on Bagil. I also noticed how Sybil gets maxpop sometimes so it would still sometimes be 50 revs versus a few loyalists. Keep in mind, this is the ideal setup excluding non-sec/head-of-staff crewmembers. In reality, it may be closer to 1-5 sec officers, including HoS and warden, but I don't have evidence to back this up. What I do know 100% guaranteed is that 10 or more sec department members is fucking rare.

Yeah, it seems like mass implanting isn't an issue except perhaps for hiveminds, who are already able to fucking destroy loyalty implants.

Those assumptions simply don't hold. Revs don't start with the entire crew converted (and loyalists start with vastly superior equipment). Every implant shifts the balance 2 members in favour of the loyalists. It's easy to get 5+ crates of implants in the first 1/2 cargo batches if heads use their departmental budgets. So suddenly loyalists recruit faster than revs.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Every implant shifts the balance 2 members in favour of the loyalists. It's easy to get 5+ crates of implants in the first 1/2 cargo batches if heads use their departmental budgets. So suddenly loyalists recruit faster than revs.

How does it shift two members to your side? You only implant one dude per conversion.

Also loyalists may be able to recruit faster than revs if everyone just goes to cargo however they can't reliably convert as fast as some maniac running in the hallways with a flash.

This seems like it just means that cargo is a high value target. That kinda makes cargo more important compared to just "ok let's buy some atvs, null crates, and build a singularity/tesla. Maybe we'll buy the station project if we feel generous today."

[terranaut]

Every implant shifts the balance 2 members in favour of the loyalists. It's easy to get 5+ crates of implants in the first 1/2 cargo batches if heads use their departmental budgets. So suddenly loyalists recruit faster than revs.

How does it shift two members to your side? You only implant one dude per conversion.

If you have 5 revs and 5 loyalists and implant a rev you now have 4 revs and 6 loyalists. Odds went from even (well not really because Loyalists have better gear) to 2 in favor of loyalists with one implant.

Also loyalists may be able to recruit faster than revs if everyone just goes to cargo however they can't reliably convert as fast as some maniac running in the hallways with a flash.

Compare:
The maniac running in the hallways will need to stay alive to keep the conversions going. If he dies, his team might straight up lose. His conversions are easily undone by using a stunbaton and an implanter on someone.
Loyalist conversions are much longer lasting, requiring either surgery + flash (from a specific person) or death + flash (from a specific person). Anyone can use a mindshield. The loyalist team generally has more victory/loss critical members, all of which can just hide out somewhere if necessary and aren't required to convert.

This seems like it just means that cargo is a high value target. That kinda makes cargo more important compared to just "ok let's buy some atvs, null crates, and build a singularity/tesla. Maybe we'll buy the station project if we feel generous today."

Cargo has always been a high value target for any conversion type gamemode.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Post

Hm, alright.

[confused rock]

Not so much revs but it's really bad with hivemind. Way way too easy to mass implant

That’s literally secs only option on shitmind though. You kill all revheads, round ends. You can find who to implant/kill. by implanting obvious revs. You kill one hivemind, the last remaining hive goes onemind (bad). You have no way to know who to implant.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Rev is a bad gamemode,

bad and wrong. revolution is the only good conversion mode as it is not reliant on snowflake mechanics or toys, and has always been the only mode that almost never needs code changes because it's perfect as it is.

I don't consider ease of buying implants to be a big deal as any non-rev miners will inevitably bring plasma to resell (and there is a bunch of it avaiable to sell already) and cargo is a big target for both revolution and security because of the implant wagon.

The bigger problem is often security pop or worse, revs not doing any revving.