Science needs a major rework and cutbacks/nerfs

[Supermichael777]

Science in its current form is ridiculously powerful.
its to the point that a rev or gang that starts with science access is basically guaranteed victory.
the list of things science can do for your team antag:
Totally lock down and subvert/destroy silicons.
provide you with infinite disposable foot soldiers via slimes ether sentience potion slimes or adamantine golems.
all the top tier gear.
an impregnable fort made completely of r walls.
as many death chems as you could want.
6 max-cap bombs.
canisters of super-heated gas.
tools for days.
mechs
flashes
stun-prods

they are still dependent on cargo to get some of their gear, however they can produce a great deal of this without ever leaving their little fort

Proposals:
cut out or severely nerf their gear. not the production of the gear but the actual gear itself. give some of it downsides that make just slaping it on the moment you can not a good idea.
remove stun-prods entirely, their meme tier garbage weapons that make all other crew v crew combat pointless.
remove the ability to use the clamp and drill in a lethal manner or lock it behind e mag.
cut out some of the internal rwalls and remove the lockdown shuters/double airlock. spots include betwen mech bay and robotics, the firing range and toxins, xenobio low security pens on non-mant/space facings.
-remove slime-sentience potion or make sentient simple animals mandatory pacifists.
-remove upgrade system for slime extractor.
-nerf the ridiculous mineral chain upgrades
-make ttvs the same as gibonite in terms of requiring two hands to haul around. considering they are made of to full scuba sized tanks this isn't much of a stretch.
-make combat mech weapons require firing pins

I don't expect or demand that these changes be made, these are merely points of major power-creep and a few suggestions on how it might be toned back. The changes I actually want have a - next to them

[InsaneHyena]

> Suck out any fun from playing science and nerf it to the point of being unplayable.

Yeah, good idea, let's do that.

[lumipharon]

I play science.
A lot.

It's way too powerful, it can do every department's job better then they can - unless someone managed to remove this retarded feature, they can still upgrade the entire station THROUGH CAMERAS.

Tier 4 upgrades made certain shit more powerful then they were intended to be, and making almost every machine upgradable has broken balance is a shitload of different areas of the game - these are machines that were not designed to be upgradable, it should come as no surprise that getting quadruple results is dumb.


Honestly I wouldn't mind so much brokenly strong shit, if R&D was gated in a much more intelligent way, for example:

Getting tech levels to 5 are achievable through the current, easy means (deconning shit readily obtainable on station/R&D itself, like plasma sheets, chem dispenser boards etc).

Getting to levels 6 & 7 would require shit not obtainable inside R&D, but still reliably obtainable shit (ie: combat shotguns from cargo, bluespace crystals from mining, bluespace slime core etc etc).

Level 8 & 9 would require shit that is rare and not reliably obtainable, such as anomaly cores (not guaranteed to get the event every round unless it's long as fuck), high end traitor shit, xeno brains, ninja suit etc etc.

Level 10 would be Special snowflake and/or badmin shit (mech teleporter, energy axe etc).

Also remove the blood drain function from the experimentor, since it can and does fuck R&D balance.


With these changes, you could gate shit behind clearly defined levels of entry, based on how powerful X item is.

[onleavedontatme]

I play science.
A lot.

It's way too powerful, it can do every department's job better then they can - unless someone managed to remove this retarded feature, they can still upgrade the entire station THROUGH CAMERAS.

Tier 4 upgrades made certain shit more powerful then they were intended to be, and making almost every machine upgradable has broken balance is a shitload of different areas of the game - these are machines that were not designed to be upgradable, it should come as no surprise that getting quadruple results is dumb.


Honestly I wouldn't mind so much brokenly strong shit, if R&D was gated in a much more intelligent way, for example:

Getting tech levels to 5 are achievable through the current, easy means (deconning shit readily obtainable on station/R&D itself, like plasma sheets, chem dispenser boards etc).

Getting to levels 6 & 7 would require shit not obtainable inside R&D, but still reliably obtainable shit (ie: combat shotguns from cargo, bluespace crystals from mining, bluespace slime core etc etc).

Level 8 & 9 would require shit that is rare and not reliably obtainable, such as anomaly cores (not guaranteed to get the event every round unless it's long as fuck), high end traitor shit, xeno brains, ninja suit etc etc.

Level 10 would be Special snowflake and/or badmin shit (mech teleporter, energy axe etc).

Also remove the blood drain function from the experimentor, since it can and does fuck R&D balance.


With these changes, you could gate shit behind clearly defined levels of entry, based on how powerful X item is.

I don't know shit about tech levels, but that sounds sane to me. Tech levels feel so arbitrary right now.

It sounds like a massive amount of work to fix all of that though.

[PKPenguin321]

It's way too powerful, it can do every department's job better then they can - unless someone managed to remove this retarded feature, they can still upgrade the entire station THROUGH CAMERAS.

this got removed literally within a week or two after the BRPD got added, people really need to stop using it in arguments

but yeah science is basically a textbook definition of powercreep

[Scones]

Yep

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Anyone with the roundstart job "Scientist" Should be auto-banned if they say the words "Recall" while they're in the science wing.

[firecage]

Only if anyone who calls the shuttle because they are bored or nothings happening also gets banned.

[CPTANT]

The addition of tier 4 upgrades done in June was basically the definition of powercreep. And to celebrate this new tier of upgrades science got an infinite material spamming crusher, meaning they have half the materials in infinite supply anyway.


But now we are at this point its probably better to buff the other departments than the nerf science. *cough cargo overhaul cough*

[firecage]

And to celebrate this new tier of upgrades science got an infinite material spamming crusher, meaning they have half the materials in infinite supply anyway.

....CPTANT, tell me, how long ago have you actually played?...

[CPTANT]

And to celebrate this new tier of upgrades science got an infinite material spamming crusher, meaning they have half the materials in infinite supply anyway.

....CPTANT, tell me, how long ago have you actually played?...

Yes I know this got fixed a month ago, was talking about the situation in the summer.

[JackHunt]

Hey, more chaos, more lethality has been a thing for a while. Give other departments progression systems and it can be balanced that way. Imagine if medbay or eng or cargo scaled like R&D. It'd be nice.

[lumipharon]

They do.

Do you now how they do?
By R&D upgrading or replacing their shit with the superior shit they can make.

[Luke Cox]

Hey, more chaos, more lethality has been a thing for a while. Give other departments progression systems and it can be balanced that way. Imagine if medbay or eng or cargo scaled like R&D. It'd be nice.

This is the best solution. I'd rather the other departments be buffed than have science neutered. Ideally, all the departments should be codependent, like an economy of sorts. Mining and cargo are responsible for gathering raw supplies. Science uses those to make equipment. They then upgrade machines, making the station run smoother. Medical benefits the most from this, and the fact that they keep you from dying and in the round is a damn good incentive for science to aid them wherever possible. Engineering's job is to keep the whole thing running smoothly. I can think of two things I would change/add:

1. Get rid of the crusher/recycler exploit. It breaks the supply chain and makes science absurdly overpowered. A fully upgraded crusher should refund the exact materials used to make the item, not give you extra or make new ones somehow.

2. Move manufacturing to another department. Science can still make machine parts and be responsible for providing upgrades, but manufacturing items should be the responsibility of another department. Add a new job to cargo that revolves around making items from science's research. Promote QM to a full head of staff. Everybody is happy.

[Bombadil]

Hey, more chaos, more lethality has been a thing for a while. Give other departments progression systems and it can be balanced that way. Imagine if medbay or eng or cargo scaled like R&D. It'd be nice.

This is the best solution. I'd rather the other departments be buffed than have science neutered. Ideally, all the departments should be codependent, like an economy of sorts. Mining and cargo are responsible for gathering raw supplies. Science uses those to make equipment. They then upgrade machines, making the station run smoother. Medical benefits the most from this, and the fact that they keep you from dying and in the round is a damn good incentive for science to aid them wherever possible. Engineering's job is to keep the whole thing running smoothly. I can think of two things I would change/add:

1. Get rid of the crusher/recycler exploit. It breaks the supply chain and makes science absurdly overpowered. A fully upgraded crusher should refund the exact materials used to make the item, not give you extra or make new ones somehow.

2. Move manufacturing to another department. Science can still make machine parts and be responsible for providing upgrades, but manufacturing items should be the responsibility of another department. Add a new job to cargo that revolves around making items from science's research. Promote QM to a full head of staff. Everybody is happy.

1. Jesus christ this hasn't been a thing for a month god damn. It only produces iron and glass anyway.

[Luke Cox]

I must be out of the loop on that then. It used to give you everything except plasma.

[Amelius]

> Suck out any fun from playing science and nerf it to the point of being unplayable.

Yeah, good idea, let's do that.

QFT. Holy shit this thread is horrible and you should feel bad. I'm not even taking this seriously because it's absolute insanity.

[PKPenguin321]

They do.

Do you now how they do?
By R&D upgrading or replacing their shit with the superior shit they can make.

we should really rework upgrades then (mechanic job when?)

[Amelius]

(mechanic job when?)

Mechanic I found was always a really neat idea. Basically, the job description is being a kleptomaniac, ESPECIALLY if you're an antagonist, and you could do stupid shit like mass-produce fake mustaches. Here, we'd probably just have the clown manufacture a million syndie balloons, or even a trillion emags, running around slipping people and putting emags in their pockets. Not that there's even the slightest bit wrong with that.

[Luke Cox]

(mechanic job when?)

Mechanic I found was always a really neat idea. Basically, the job description is being a kleptomaniac, ESPECIALLY if you're an antagonist, and you could do stupid shit like mass-produce fake mustaches. Here, we'd probably just have the clown manufacture a million syndie balloons, or even a trillion emags, running around slipping people and putting emags in their pockets. Not that there's even the slightest bit wrong with that.

Mechanic job in engineering that's responsible for upgrading machines (which now requires a new tool or something so they have to do it), manufacturing job in cargo that has a protolathe. Two new jobs and making cargo a full-fledged department would be amazing.

[Incomptinence]

Mechanic job idea isn't bad we need a way to siphon research benefits out to the rest of the crew outside of overt antags like wiz/blob. With ore redemption points having near totally weened miners off of science shit the whole department is turned basically into a self congratulatory circle jerk over benefiting themselves with fat gear through grinding their jobs isolated from most external threats. Science is the top location for shifty shit enormous amounts of space behind rwalls, shutters and several rooms large enough to have camera focus changing leading to large surveillance dead zones with no indication to any observer the cams were even tampered with. About the only weakness is the department is so huge and obtuse to observe that the occupants rarely have every room watched.

Our processing jobs aren't exporting anything most rounds other than the standard allotment of cyborgs. In rounds slow and united enough for them to help others they just shit out silver bullets of absurd potency.