/tg/Station 13

How do you feel about ranged stuns?

Examples of ranged stuns are:
Taser electrodes (hybrid taser, stun revolver, advanced e-gun)
Traitor mini-ebow
Ion rifle (vs silicons)
Syndicate shotguns
Detective's revolver

I've dialed them back a few months ago, and I would like to know if they need to be further changed.

Currently, the idea is:

If antags have access to ranged stuns, so should security, otherwise there is an immense amount of bullshit 'you got stunned so you lose and die by default.'

What I would like to do is:

I want to remove the stun from the ion rifle entirely, make it do more damage to borgs, and remove the security borg's taser (replaced with a disabler).
I want to remove stun taser slugs from syndicate shotguns, make buckshot or lead slugs the default for pure stamina/brute damage, rather than them having stuns.
I want to remove the mini ebow from the uplink entirely. Its only purpose was stunning and stamina damage wouldn't be very useful for stealth traitors.
I want to re-tool the traitors' uplink to be more useful tools instead of purely deadly/destructive ones. Destructive tools should be a lot more expensive.
I want to replace security's tasers with disablers so they can't one hit antags without the use of their stun baton. The problem here is that it SEVERELY raises the skill cap for playing security officer, because even when slowed down with a disabler, unless a perp is stunned, he can easily disarm and stun you in return with your own baton. This would be a mess for new security players or people suffering from lage.

I think now would be a good time to gauge what the impact would be from removing stuns entirely would be.
Replace stuns with stamina damage, make them slow you and immobilise you instead of stunning. You take 5 disabler shots? You drop your things and your muscles lock up for a few seconds. No more than 2-3, just enough to get in close with a baton. (Which won't stun, but rather, prevent you from moving if someone is pulling you.)

What does this achieve? More robust combat, less le insta-stun death, hopefully prolonged stamina battles that are much more realistic.
Stuns aren't fun. Remove them.

paprika wrote:I want to remove the stun from the ion rifle entirely, make it do more damage to borgs, and remove the security borg's taser (replaced with a disabler).

this isn't a horrible idea, but I've always seen the ion rifle as a tool to stun borgs so you can close in and apply flash/harmbaton
the ion rifle not stunning a borg means they can just get up and vtec away instantly though. syndieborgs are op anyway, let's not make them any better

removing secborg taser isn't a good idea though - disablers are bad at getting people down but good at keeping people down
i.e they're only robust against things that aren't moving anyway
secborg having to close to stunbaton-range for a proper stun = ungood

I want to remove stun taser slugs from syndicate shotguns, make buckshot or lead slugs the default for pure stamina/brute damage, rather than them having stuns.

buckshot is good point-blank, but slugs are better overall imo
have stun-taser slugs available via nukeops uplink (I think they are already)

I want to remove the mini ebow from the uplink entirely. Its only purpose was stunning and stamina damage wouldn't be very useful for stealth traitors.

wait wait hold up
you want to remove the ebow because its only purpose is to stun things
and stamina damage isn't useful

but the ebow doesn't do stamina damage, it does stuns? or are you thinking of removing stuns entirely and replacing them with stamina-damage
make it do 101 stamina damage or something maybe

I want to re-tool the traitors' uplink to be more useful tools instead of purely deadly/destructive ones. Destructive tools should be a lot more expensive.

more useful tools sounds fun

I want to replace security's tasers with disablers so they can't one hit antags without the use of their stun baton. The problem here is that it SEVERELY raises the skill cap for playing security officer, because even when slowed down with a disabler, unless a perp is stunned, he can easily disarm and stun you in return with your own baton. This would be a mess for new security players or people suffering from lage.

oh god no
tasers are good precisely because you don't need to be super robust to down someone with them
this just means you have to be a really good shot to play sec, and not enough people play sec anyway
... either that or they use flashbangs more than they do already

good: more tater tools, destructive things more expensive; slugs in nukeops shotguns; ion rifle hurting borgs more
bad: no tasers for secborg/sec, no ebow, ion rifle not stunning

I don't mind making stuns less primary but security is designed to absolutely wreck face if allowed to go toe to toe with someone. I think that removing violent tools from the uplink or making some of the stronger ones more expensive is a good idea as long as some method of high damage assassination remains is good, but removing security's ranged stun would make murderboning as a traitor easier rather than harder.

Security isn't really meant to be a fair fight, both because they are outnumbered and because they exist in part to encourage people to be subtle. People who want to be able to outfight security with any reliability miss the point, the lose condition of a traitor ideally is them both being exposed and cornered by security. Reducing taser ranges helped make the cornering part more important and seemed to be enough to give criminals a chance to escape security.

So a lot of the comments aren't really reflecting the poll here.

We have
"Replace stuns with stamina damage, [...] Stuns aren't fun. Remove them."
"Remove stuns. Don't remove radbow,"
Whatever point Vigilare is making.
And assuming Paprika voted too. "I want to remove... I want to remove... I want to remove..."

Then we've got "removing security's ranged stun would make murderboning as a traitor easier rather than harder." which i'm assuming is for maintaining or increasing stuns.

But we're at 2 votes for "I like the current stuns.
and 3 votes for "We need MORE stuns."

I haven't voted on this poll at all.

I don't really know what people want is all. I'm trying to effectively retool the combat so every instance is 'i died because someone got the better of me or was more skilled'. not 'he had a taser and shot me so i died because i couldnt do anything'.

I think it's possible, obviously not every instance of combat is going to be balanced, but it shouldn't be so skewed towards antags that they can completely dunk people with no effort or chance of the person on the other side of it winning the fight.

I personally feel that taking down perps with a disabler is too damn difficult when they're yakkety saxing around. I can't go in with a stunbaton because any assistant will just disarm me (unless they're holding a large weapon, which is a different situation), and if I have to hit them with 3 shots instead of 1 (ie disabler instead of taser) it's just that much harder.

This may make me unrobust, but I feel like most of security isn't robust enough to reliably use disablers to take people down. Making ranged stuns less available makes it a lot harder to stop someone, makes fighting someone roughly unchanged, and makes it much easier to run away. You will see a lot more yakkety saxing and also a lot more flashbangs as a result by security.

I'm not certain that it would be an awful change, but I don't have a problem with the current status quo. For that reason, I've voted that I like the current availability of ranged stuns.

As a further note, if it's intended that disabler stuns should only keep people down long enough to use a baton, you will have to consider whether the baton nerf (ie making power drain while it's left on, thus mandating it be left off until absolutely necessary) is a good idea. The issue is that you will need the person on the ground for a little bit longer than previously, since flicking a stun baton on is an extra (and slightly fiddly, without hotkeys) process. The baton sprite is thin and easy to miss if you're in a tearing hurry and a bit adrenaline-fuelled.

I'm not sure what people who say 'remove stuns' are really thinking because there's a thing we call Security and non-lethal takedowns.

Removing stuns and only having stamina damage essentially makes the combat on the sever VERY similar to how gooncode does combat. IIRC goonchems like crank essentially give you resistance against stamina and etc. So you can soak up taser and disabler shots while taking chems. My idea? Lets not remove stuns because that is /tg/ and it makes it /tg/, don't be pseudogoon.

You have to remember pap, that people will always go to the path of least resistance. That is to say, the method that has the least chance of failing, requires the least skill, and requires the least clicks.

For example, currently the e-bow is a shotgun. You gotta pump it between shots, so it's no longer very good at just booping multiple people down as they charge you.
If ranged stuns are removed (in particular for this, e-bows and tasers) then this is what you're left with.

Robust sec officers instead of tasing will prime flashbang, throw and ggnore antags all the same.
Nonrobust sec will pull out disablers, and try and spam people down. (Also have fucking fun trying to deal with multiple perps with a disabler, jesus christ how horrifying)

Traitors, rather then e-bow people, will whip out a revolver. This then becomes simple maths - it's much faster to crit someone (which is effectively a permanent stun, in terms of an actual fight) with 60 brute bullets, as opposed to 34 stam disabler rounds, which heal naturally over time anyway. This means sec is now always at a disadvantage - disablers require more shots then a revolver, and flashbangs require 5 sec prime (although the real robust ones can hide out of the firing line while priming). Of course the traitor will ideally need an autolathe to get more ammo, but that's hardly difficult.


Also it is always worth noting, that trying to balance combat away from stuns ALWAYS makes it more difficult for sec to do their run of the mill jobs - not dealing with mcmurderboner, but dealing with criminals, greytiders etc. Old stun nerf made it harder to hold down 1 (or more) people, gave you less time to close and cuff etc. This required several further changes to somewhat address (faster cuff times etc), but it is still objectively harder then it was with old stuns. Removing ranged stuns altogether makes saxxing away even more awful since you have to now hit them multiple times to take them down. Basically it will be awful for sec officers, and/or will require further balance changes to address this issue.


In melee, sec officers have always (usually) had the advantage, as they always have stun prods. The only other melee stuns are head only batons, and stun prods, so they're never really at the 'disadvantage' (except shit like hulks and lings)
Shoving/disarming people also becomes stronger then it already is, with a lack of ranged stuns, which is the best way to hold back the tide of unarmed plebs swarming you.

Another point to raise, is that pepperspray is a ranged stun. Although the range is only 3 tiles, it can hold a shit load of sprays, and if there aren't any other ranged stuns then it has the advantage.


TL;DR, people will always do what is easiest and least risky. It has to be seriously considered if a post range stun world would actually be better then what we currently have.

I really would love if pepperspray was used more widely, and heads of staff got that or something.

I'm fine with the current level of stuns. The hybrid taser/disabler change turned out better than expected, but I'm not sure about extending it further.

I gotta ask - why is fights being skewed towards antags a bad thing, at least in the case of traitors? I assume we're not touching ling/cult/etc here. I get wanting to promote more nuanced or subtle playstyles, but when you go violent against a crew of 70 players that would jump at the chance to dunk you faster than you could say 'valid salad', don't you need every edge you can get? Especially since outright murderbone already tends to be a made-to-lose strategy for most people that attempt it.

antags should be hard mode, not newbie-friendly at all

killing someone and getting away with it should be difficult because typically that's your only traitor objective

here's an idea: what if security had a stunning weapon that still affects someone on a near miss, like the lasher from ps1.
that way unrobust security is still able to deal with hostiles without needing instadrop electrodes or pixelclixz skills.

Pretty decent idea. Lasher OP though

Riley wrote:I'm fine with the current level of stuns. The hybrid taser/disabler change turned out better than expected, but I'm not sure about extending it further.

I gotta ask - why is fights being skewed towards antags a bad thing, at least in the case of traitors? I assume we're not touching ling/cult/etc here. I get wanting to promote more nuanced or subtle playstyles, but when you go violent against a crew of 70 players that would jump at the chance to dunk you faster than you could say 'valid salad', don't you need every edge you can get? Especially since outright murderbone already tends to be a made-to-lose strategy for most people that attempt it.

Because if traitors objectively have the advantage, that means they can run around and murderbone/go loud, safe in the knowledge that they can ownzone sec. Which makes the station go to shit real fast. It's pretty bad.

It also makes the asymetric nature of the game suck. Traitors just going face to face makes the game a deathmatch.

Security with great stuns allows the spycraft of the game to exist, because it makes overt nefarious actions almost certainly futile without support.

That is the key. Traitors shooting up sec is fine as long as it is guarenteed to fail if the traitor doesn't have a clever plan like traps or starting riots with identity theft. Even without stuns SS13 is not really set up to support a shooter like enviroment where one dude can theoretically take down a bunch of people by being awesome. So while combat skill matters to some degree, it should ideally mostly matter for muddied fights with more things up in the air. If you are in a hallway trying to just gun security down and are upset that you can't outfight them you misunderstand what security is there for.

I really like where stuns are now. The range reduction makes it so that you can more easily evade sec without making them actually easier to fight.

Removing hard ranged stuns will lead to more people getting slowed down with damage or outright critted than it would more stamina damage. If I'm going to spray down the halls and slow them down it may as well not wear off automatically.

callanrockslol wrote:Removing hard ranged stuns will lead to more people getting slowed down with damage or outright critted than it would more stamina damage. If I'm going to spray down the halls and slow them down it may as well not wear off automatically.

That is a good point.

If we make stuns less desirable than outright using lethal force, then people are going to resort to using lethal force which will lead to more people dying.

Honestly the direction combat has been moving in has just been making murderbone easier and easier.

It is now possible with a modicum of luck and average skill, to ruin security's day unarmed and get away with it most of the time because their counter-measures are just getting weaker and weaker.

The game has been changing so drastically in these ways recently that I've become apathetic to any further changes, so I don't particularly have any opinion one way or another. It's just an observation.

EDIT: I don't mean this negatively. I appreciate that the game is probably improving, but it's hard to get attached to any particular idea or thing in game anymore.

Sticky is right here, unarmed/melee combat was always pretty robust and telling them to sit the fuck down with a taser shot was basically the only saving grace.

If your response here is to "nerf unarmed/melee" then we're going to very bad places here.

Ranged stuns are stupid and make armor worthless when you can just get insta stunned and cuffed anyway. The shills who voted in the polls just want to keep their meta-game and will eventually get used to the change. The only insta stuns should be melee weapons like stun batons and prods, it would make them actually useful again.

mikecari wrote:Ranged stuns are stupid and make armor worthless when you can just get insta stunned and cuffed anyway. The shills who voted in the polls just want to keep their meta-game and will eventually get used to the change. The only insta stuns should be melee weapons like stun batons and prods, it would make them actually useful again.

The nerf to security's ranged potential far outweighs the greater emphasis on their armor changes like this provide.

Yeah, any more nerf to stunning will make life even shittier for security, i feel like they are at a good place right now. Without instastuns it becomes borderline impossible to engage more than one opponent and win. This is important both for traitors battling a sec force and sec force battling horde enemies like cult and revs. Stunbatons are incredibly useful in dealing with yakkity sax shitters and the like. Please please please do not take away our stuns

Security should get a gun that shoots bolas to legcuff people at range, making mob control easier after the inevitable flashbang drops

Or just bolas

y/y?

At least sec borgs cant insta stun people anymore, that shit was OP and almost all of my deaths were from emagged sec borgs who stunned me and dragged me into space.