/tg/Station 13

Heyo all !

The new system making science able to refine raw anomaly cores into real cores and then use them is awesome, really and honestly. It's just great to be able to make again BoH, phazons or fun armors.

I think it's safe to say it is still a work in progress as the different cores, depending on their rarity and values, should have different needs of radius. That's at least what I read in the forums, but not something I have yet seen in the game.

But there's a huge problem right now in terms of balance with this whole system, and it lies in two major points.

Point 1 : the blast radius necessary to refine the anomaly cores is way too low and easily bypassed by anyone remotely competent in toxins. I personnaly think it is abnormal we can spam tiny bombs using only T2 freezer and heaters with o2 and plasma to make stuff as powerful as reactive stealth armors, BoH and phazons.
From what I have seen, blast radius necessary for almost all cores is around 6. A shitty bomb made with T2 freezers and heaters reaches "17 radius" (as per the machine states at least) without struggling. Either that or there is some problem in the coding calculating this ? Because said bomb is not even a maxcap (5 10 20), its like 2 6 9, which is garbage in my opinion.

Point 2 : The value of all raw anomalies costs nothing but 5000 credits at cargo. Some of them should be worth more than this (looking at bluespace, pyro and vortex anomalies as they are the rarests and the most seeked after). Of course, any competent cargo should be able to pour out massive amount of money and discard this point, but being able to buy phazons 5000 credits a piece is a bit over the top. Those are endgames extremely powerful mechs and should be treated as so : something you can't just spam that easily and without effort.


I am not saying to remove the whole new system in place, I honestly like the fact science can be more in control of making anomalies and exploit their cool powers and possibilities. I also dont dislike the fact sci can now have new reasons to keep healthy releationships with cargo and have more reasons to come order stuff from them other than just whining about mats.

But it is critical to me that those two points I raised get adressed and recognized.


Now only a child would complain without proposing anything back, so here is what I suggests as solutions to the problems i've seen with the current system :

Point 1 : raising the radius demanded drastically, especially for rare and powerful anomalies. In my opinion the most powerful ones should definitely require the intervention of tritium in the bomb mix.
Bluespace : 80
Vortex : 60
Pyro : 60
Flux : 40
Gravity : 40


Point 2 : raising the price of the anomalies at cargo
Bluespace : 10 000
Vortex : 8000
Pyro : 8000
flux and gravity could stay at 5000.

The reason i see flux and gravity as less problematic is they are pretty common anomalies to pass by the station.


TL;DR : we need to balance the raw anomaly core before toxins becomes a powergaming house and sci shits out tons of phazons every shifts.

there is no point increasing numbers when you have to just put numbers in a excel sheet to get the right mix, second point is wyci

Darkhal wrote: From what I have seen, blast radius necessary for almost all cores is around 6.

You're flat out limited to creating hard cap maximum of 8 of each core.

Each anomaly core made of the same type requires an increasingly powerful blast radius.

Off the top of my head, the final bomb of a given core type needs to be a maxcap.

Just correcting you on this point.

Additionally, I believe oranges is going to lock more items behind anomaly cores. Unless I am mistaken, the idea is that anomaly cores have a hard cap on the maximum number of a specific type that can appear in a given round - Rare items are balanced around this limited availability - More items will be given anomaly core requirements to craft, meaning more items have to be made from the same limited pool of cores.

Dont you think it is broken that it is by the 8th anomaly of a same kind you actually require a maxcap ?
Vortex and pyro can be used for the same purpose so you could get 16 stealth armor and only need 2 real maxcaps for the last 2

Getting the right mix including tritium sure wouldnt be any problem for any competent toxins scientist, but at least it would be harder to obtain than just getting a freezer and a heater. It would also force some kind of exchange with atmos in case you need more o2 or tritium, that or careful management of your ressources.

Maybe at least increase the progression of the radius needed ? Because so far I haven't met any trouble getting the anomalies from weak bombs anyone could make.

I'm not opposed to adjusting the min and max of the requirements.

But we don't want them to be too hard to make, as the cores are meant to be used for any high end item to control precisely how many of each exist.

If you think there's too many reactive armours then nerf the number of raw cores available down to 2-4.

the balance of cores arent bound by difficulty to obtain, but the limited amount.

The issue in terms of phazon everyround would be techwebs or the mineral requirements to make a phazon rather than the anomaly production. I dont think that becomes a non-issue if you lower it to a few cores since theyll just not be able to make the other items while still rushing the phazon.

I think you don't understand the point of the system.

That two things share a core is actually unfortunate, they shouldn't, that's a mistake made before I had finished fleshing out my new anomaly system.

It's entirely an arbitrary hard limit, if you only want one or two phazons, then only make two cores available, that's all this system is intended to do, cap the maximum amount available of a high end item.

The phazon core should then ideally retain the old reliability of the BSA core which is that you couldnt be guaranteed such in a round, as noclip mechs are designed to be "balanced" around the unreliability.