Armour Wars: Episode 3, Revenge of the Balance

[Steelpoint]

Its been, well, a long time since the armour values were changed. Long enough for people to get a understanding of how the changes have been...

While I personally think armour values are, still, too weak. Armour still provides limited protection, barely letting you survive one or two extra laser/bullet rounds than otherwise. Especially in a game when stun is king it seems weird that defensive items are so lackluster.

I can wager what tone the first few posts are but I do urge you to leave serious feedback/consideration about the topic of armour defense, and if you think the current values are fine, or if you belive the older, higher, values were more in line with your ideal defense.

Also take the poll listed above with a grain of salt.

[Cheridan]

poll's pretty shitty bro. If I vote No it could mean that I want it to be stronger, or it could mean I want armor to be even weaker.

[Steelpoint]

Fair point, though I would be amused if someone wanted armour to be even weaker...

But also why I stated to take the poll with a grain of salt.

[MMMiracles]

Remove armor altogether, not like it matters with ranged stuns being a thing.


Shitpost aside, generic armor could use a buff because as it stands its more of a padded holster for a weapon and a hard bicycle helmet.

[onleavedontatme]

I think the basic vest is lacking.

I think most security stuff is pretty sad against projectiles (its like 15? resist for the hardsuit)

I think ops can get their resists too high in some cases.

I (obviously) don't think drastic changes are needed.

Remove armor altogether, not like it matters with ranged stuns being a thing.

That's always gonna be the the argument we come back to though, is that if you make armour too good at blocking lasers/bullets/melee, people are just going to use tasers+cable cuffs or wet floors+cable cuffs instead.

[Steelpoint]

In the interest of being open here are the current armor values for some basic armour items.

Standard Vest (Chest only)
melee = 25, bullet = 15, laser = 25, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

HoS Jacket (Covers whole body sans head)
melee = 30, bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

Captain's Carapace (Chest only)
melee = 50, bullet = 40, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

Those are the three most likely and debated armour items for on station personal. Below is the Ops hardsuit since it was brought up.

Nuke Op Hardsuit
melee = 40, bullet = 50, laser = 30,energy = 15, bomb = 30, bio = 30, rad = 30

[Tornadium]

I think the basic vest is lacking.

I think most security stuff is pretty sad against projectiles (its like 15? resist for the hardsuit)

I think ops can get their resists too high in some cases.

I (obviously) don't think drastic changes are needed.

Remove armor altogether, not like it matters with ranged stuns being a thing.

That's always gonna be the the argument we come back to though, is that if you make armour too good at blocking lasers/bullets/melee, people are just going to use tasers+cable cuffs or wet floors+cable cuffs instead.

Dunno what game you're playing but Lube/Wet Floors is the go to.

[Lumbermancer]

In the interest of being open here are the current armor values for some basic armour items.

Standard Vest (Chest only)
melee = 25, bullet = 15, laser = 25, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

HoS Jacket (Covers whole body sans head)
melee = 30, bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

Captain's Carapace (Chest only)
melee = 50, bullet = 40, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

Those are the three most likely and debated armour items for on station personal. Below is the Ops hardsuit since it was brought up.

Nuke Op Hardsuit
melee = 40, bullet = 50, laser = 30,energy = 15, bomb = 30, bio = 30, rad = 30

I think in practice 25 vs 30 or 30 vs 40 defense makes zero difference whatsoever.

[onleavedontatme]

Lets pretend we are shooting each other with 20 damage lasers.

You have 30 resist

I have 40 resist

I do 14 damage a shot to you

You do 12 damage a shot to me

I takes me 7.1 (8) shots to kill you

It takes you 8.3 (9) shots to kill me.

All else being equal, my extra 10 armour means I lived and you died.

In a game full of 1 hit kills, surviving an extra hit is huge.

Hell, the numbers still work out that the guy with 30 armour beats the guy with 25 armour. It still means that extra hit before death in which you can throw a flashbang, fire a taser, call for help, etc.

I disagree with steelpoint on what armour values should be, but he's not wrong that they matter a lot in some scenarios (even if slips just throw the whole combat system in the garbage)

[Saegrimr]

I've played without armor values for so long that I honestly can't tell which is "more effective".

The only protracted gunfights I get into is when I get pulled into syndieborg in which case everything melts in about three shots, and the HoS gets my grenade launcher in the face.

[Steelpoint]

Good point Kor.

The point I'm making is that armour is useful, not in combat, but for attrition.

Its very rare your going into a fight with a non-stun weapon (if you have a choice) unless your weapon is very powerful in its own right (Most Ops weapons, shotgun with buckshot, etc). Your going into stun the enemy and then follow up with a kill/arrest.

Where armor matters is attrition. There are times where your being attacked by people who are not using stun weapons, or who are but they failed to do enough damage to crit you in time. Explosions, shotgun pellets, borgs hitting you with a wrench, a mob of assistant with spears.

The difference armour can make in those, far more likely to occur, scenarios is massive. Yet right now armour provides NO benefit in those scenarios.

A HoS being attacked by a group of assistants, or a cyborg, or similar, is just as quickly going to go down as the unarmored CMO is, for example. But also a HoS is going to die as fast as the CMO over the same period of time when being exposed to small bursts of damage from varying soruces.

A well armored HoS can survive and operate for far longer than a CMO can if he had good armour, but right now he can't.

Essentially, armor matters less for direct combat and more for long term attrition. The only time it matters for combat is against people who have no access to stun weapons, whom are usually low level antags or specially designed to not have stun weapons.

[yackemflam]

I'll still go with my thoughts
High armor
High damage
High damage = high stun chance for melee weapons
Everything is strong enough to be balanced
Higher numbers are also easier to balance

[WarbossLincoln]

Good point Kor.

The point I'm making is that armour is useful, not in combat, but for attrition.

Where armor matters is attrition. There are times where your being attacked by people who are not using stun weapons, or who are but they failed to do enough damage to crit you in time. Explosions, shotgun pellets, borgs hitting you with a wrench, a mob of assistant with spears.

This is a good point. A lot of fights are single shot stun kills, but a lot arent too. The more chaotic a fight is, the more lethal, non-stun attacks get tossed around. Revs with spears, greytiders with fire extinguishers, gangs where not everyone has a gun yet. Being able to stay away for 3-4 more hits could be critical. I think generally speaking the bigger the fight is the more damage matters. Stuns are still great of course, but when 5 people are fighting you can't always stun someone and then have time to kill/cuff them.

[Gun Hog]

Steelpoint, you need to consider all armored items, not just Security exclusive ones. Armor the rest of the crew can get, as well as antagonists.

[Steelpoint]

Steelpoint, you need to consider all armored items, not just Security exclusive ones. Armor the rest of the crew can get, as well as antagonists.

I would but there's not much else armour to cover. The original nerf only really touched security armour, and buffs here and there over time have mostly reduced the effects of the nerfs on most non-security armour (and things like riot armour and the bullet proof vest).

Some antagonists (wizard, ops and changeling) actually saw some armour buffs after the fact.

The majority of the crew cannot get access to armour, only security, a few heads of staff, the bartender and cargo can feasibly get access/have access to armour early on, with the exception of mining (a entirely different matter) and certain non-station roles (ashwalkers for example).

[Takeguru]

Mining is balanced around slapping goliath plates on their suits, so that's a bit different

Armor should definitely be brought back closer to pre-nerf levels, but there should also be more armor piercing tools about

Not in absurd abundance or anything, but just a few more

[Steelpoint]

If I was to spitball some proposed armour values based on what I talked about above here's what I would show.

Standard Vest
melee = 40(In total, 30 for vest due to 10 for suit), bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0
from
melee = 25, bullet = 15, laser = 25, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

HoS Jacket (HoS Should be hard to kill in melee and in general)
melee = 60, bullet = 50, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0
from
melee = 30, bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

Captain's Carapace(KEEP SAME)
melee = 50, bullet = 40, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0

I think antag armour is well placed and is generally superior to station based armour.

But again this is just my opinion, and I ain't doing jack to armour values at this time.

[paprika]

I prefer armor being weak. Reason being is that if it's too strong it's almost a hard counter to most shit, and it makes the game too easy. I haven't had any trouble playing the game as a sec officer but it definitely feels like I'm on an equal playing field as everyone else.

Most of the time you'll be knocked into crit. The old armor values only really mattered when it came to the HoS, who could tank double eswords and shit. While I think it's good to keep traitors from being 'used to how many hits will crit an enemy' it's still trivial to hit someone till they're dead. High armor really only helps in situations where you don't get stunned anyway.

Rather than playing armor value tug-of-war with the design lead of the codebase, you should code armor durability so you can have bulletproof vests that are 90% resistant to bullet damage but the ceramic plates break/kevlar shreds after each shot and it's eventually rendered useless. It'd be really fun to have durability on hardsuits so we could make them super armored but fall apart and lead to suit breaches when people shoot them enough, too. That's an aspect of space combat that could be really fun.

[Zilenan91]

I think higher armor values with lots of AP weapons or an ability to add lots of AP to weapons is a good system. It rewards preparation.

[Steelpoint]

I think higher armor values with lots of AP weapons or an ability to add lots of AP to weapons is a good system. It rewards preparation.

I could add in AP alt ammo for some guns, maybe make them deal a little less damage (and a little more expensive) but they go straight through armor.

Esword already goes through most melee defence, I think it has a AP of 50 so only the Riot Armor (right now) offers any defense.

[lumipharon]

I never understood the logic behind the armour nerfs.
People always said "stuns are OP", which in isolation is true, but nerfing armour does not address that issue any any way, shape or form.

Stuns by definition, are a 1 hit fall over. So it doesn't matter how weak armour is, or how powerful non stun weapons are - unless they can crit you in one hit, stun weapons are still 'better' in the extremely simplistic theoretical of 'who falls over first'.

The only time where weakened armour/more deadly weapons WITHOUT being 1 hit crits really matters vs stuns, is where you can crit that stun weapon wielding scrub before they have a chance to react. (ie: whipping out a revolver and double tapping them before they can think about moving). aaaand that's just a ggnore. Which is what people don't like about stuns to begin with, only in this case you can't scream for help, or get back up while your buddies keep them distracted.

Tl;dr Stun weapons will always make someone fall over faster than damage based weapons, regardless of how good or bad armour is.

Genuine way of making stuns less effective is shit like the whole stun duration nerf, the range nerf etc. Hell, one of the best ways to further weaken stuns would be to IMPROVE armour - or more specifically, their stun resistance.
Or you could go more exotic, and have like, a battery powered anti-stun armour - at the cost of power it could absorb a stun or 4 (depending on cell), which would make it a much nicer middle ground between "nodefence" and "hahaha100%reflectshield".


Also before someone says it, no I'm nt saying armour shouldn't have been reduced at all, merely the most commonly spouted justificationfor it makes no sense, and so should be ignored when it comes to balancing armour.

[ShadowDimentio]

I think armor should be cranked way up on appropriate armors, to the point where throwing the damage they're resistant to takes a notable amount of additional effort.

[Steelpoint]

I never understood the logic behind the armour nerfs.
People always said "stuns are OP", which in isolation is true, but nerfing armour does not address that issue any any way, shape or form.

Stuns by definition, are a 1 hit fall over. So it doesn't matter how weak armour is, or how powerful non stun weapons are - unless they can crit you in one hit, stun weapons are still 'better' in the extremely simplistic theoretical of 'who falls over first'.

The only time where weakened armour/more deadly weapons WITHOUT being 1 hit crits really matters vs stuns, is where you can crit that stun weapon wielding scrub before they have a chance to react. (ie: whipping out a revolver and double tapping them before they can think about moving). aaaand that's just a ggnore. Which is what people don't like about stuns to begin with, only in this case you can't scream for help, or get back up while your buddies keep them distracted.

Tl;dr Stun weapons will always make someone fall over faster than damage based weapons, regardless of how good or bad armour is.

Genuine way of making stuns less effective is shit like the whole stun duration nerf, the range nerf etc. Hell, one of the best ways to further weaken stuns would be to IMPROVE armour - or more specifically, their stun resistance.
Or you could go more exotic, and have like, a battery powered anti-stun armour - at the cost of power it could absorb a stun or 4 (depending on cell), which would make it a much nicer middle ground between "nodefence" and "hahaha100%reflectshield".

Improving armour's stun defense would be hard to push through. The only armour in the game that has good stun defense is the ablative vest and Deathsquad armor, off the top of my head.

[ShadowDimentio]

DO NOT FUCK WITH STUNS

[PKPenguin321]

armor has been fine since the last tweak and i've seen 1 other person complain about it since then, why is it suddenly worth messing with again

[Steelpoint]

armor has been fine since the last tweak and i've seen 1 other person complain about it since then, why is it suddenly worth messing with again

> 9 people think the armor change is bad (or at least not good enough_

> 7 people think its fine

Even taking the poll with a pinch of salt that's more than one person at minimum.

Also the only reason I put this discussion up was when a bunch of people in game complained about how useless armor is.

[lumipharon]

armor has been fine since the last tweak and i've seen 1 other person complain about it since then, why is it suddenly worth messing with again

Just because it's not game breaking enough for people to continue complaining about after 6 months, doesn't make it anywhere near ideal.

I personally don't even care about armour in game as the defences are so pathetic - it's primary use now is a gun holder and fashion.
The only reason why I don't constantly bitchabout how useless it is, is because it wouldn't achieve anything.

[PKPenguin321]

armor has been fine since the last tweak and i've seen 1 other person complain about it since then, why is it suddenly worth messing with again

> 9 people think the armor change is bad (or at least not good enough_

> 7 people think its fine

Even taking the poll with a pinch of salt that's more than one person at minimum.

Also the only reason I put this discussion up was when a bunch of people in game complained about how useless armor is.

i dont complain about not having more metal sheets in engineering at roundstart, but if you put up a poll to add more then of course ill vote yes
you're kind of begging the question when you say "oh yeah well EVERYBODY complains about this just look at this poll that i just created about something that wasnt an issue until i created it!"

[Steelpoint]

There's a world's of difference between the availability of metal sheets versus the strength of armor.

What do people think of my above proposed armor values?

Unless I get a somewhat consensus/approval I won't be touching armor values.

[oranges]

less armour, than currently please.

[Davidchan]

I'm curious where this 'We need more armor' is coming from? Nuke Ops, Cult and Changlings are the only ones who get comparable armor to begin with. The base armor vest doesn't need improving either, the armor made for actual combat and shoot outs is in the armory, the vests that are handed out round start are just for minor scuffs.

Non-Sec crew outside of the Bartender and HoP don't even get armor unless you count the bombsuits, and it's not like we have crafting recipies for ghetto vests that could be made from library books or metal sheets. Why buff security across the board when only 3 of 14 gamemodes even feature antags with guns? I can understand the desire for better protection but Security is also the only ones to even get that protection outside of hardsuits, which are terrible for combat given how much they slow you down.

If craftable armor and riotshields were a thing, or jumpsuit modifications that functioned similarly, then I'd be fine with upping sec's base armor, but aside from that it seems the only thing that could be down without throwing the balance completely out of whack is toning down Syndicate Guns a bit in the damage department.

[onleavedontatme]

Mining is balanced around slapping goliath plates on their suits, so that's a bit different

Armor should definitely be brought back closer to pre-nerf levels, but there should also be more armor piercing tools about

Not in absurd abundance or anything, but just a few more

I actually nerfed the miner suit as well when I updates mining. It caps at 60 melee instead of 80.

the ceramic plates break/kevlar shreds after each shot and it's eventually rendered useless. It'd be really fun to have durability on hardsuits so we could make them super armored but fall apart and lead to suit breaches when people shoot them enough, too. That's an aspect of space combat that could be really fun.

This is actually really easy to code. I made the hitreaction stuff very versatile and nobody has used it, very sad.

[Steelpoint]

I'm curious where this 'We need more armor' is coming from? Nuke Ops, Cult and Changlings are the only ones who get comparable armor to begin with. The base armor vest doesn't need improving either, the armor made for actual combat and shoot outs is in the armory, the vests that are handed out round start are just for minor scuffs.

Non-Sec crew outside of the Bartender and HoP don't even get armor unless you count the bombsuits, and it's not like we have crafting recipies for ghetto vests that could be made from library books or metal sheets. Why buff security across the board when only 3 of 14 gamemodes even feature antags with guns? I can understand the desire for better protection but Security is also the only ones to even get that protection outside of hardsuits, which are terrible for combat given how much they slow you down.

If craftable armor and riotshields were a thing, or jumpsuit modifications that functioned similarly, then I'd be fine with upping sec's base armor, but aside from that it seems the only thing that could be down without throwing the balance completely out of whack is toning down Syndicate Guns a bit in the damage department.

As I've been explaining armour is not actually that great for combat scenarios, but is better suited for longer term attrition.

Having good armour can allow you to survive a lot more attacks over a longer period of time both without being slowed down by injuries nor having to retreat to heal and recuperate.

Right now that's rarely the case for security, as most of their armour is lacking (with only Riot Armour and the Bulletproof Vest (only vest) offering good defense) for long term attrition. This can be less for Officers (you may want to be encouraging Officers to wear Riot/Tactiacl gear for more specific circumstances) but also more for the HoS (and Warden to a lesser extent) as the HoS is just as unarmoured as a standard Officer, which is a bad thing in my opinion.

Antagonists are really well armoured, such as Nuke Ops where their defense is great for longer term attrition, in terms of taking occasional hits from spears, bullets and batons. But is not so powerful to withstand being stunned and shot at ten times by a Laser. Whereas the Deathsquad Power Armour (for example) is so powerful that even being stunned and lased is insufficient to kill them as they'll get right back up very quickly.

To come back, armour is best for attrition than combat. As stuns are king in combat and unless your a Deathsquad Operative then being stunned is oft the end of that battle for you. But armour can let you operate for a longer time when being attacked by anyone who fails, or is unable, to stun you, such as Rev's, Nuke Ops, Wizard, Gang and similar.

--------------

In a theoretical scenario, if I was given license to do whatever with armour with a guarantee of it being permanent. What I would do is buff the HoS's armour to be on par with most other antagonist armour, slightly buff the Warden's, bring up the defense of helmet items for the specialist armour (riot and bulletproof, as well as laser proof). As well as slightly (ten to fifteen points) boost the armour of standard armour, but also buff tactical armour and laserproof armour to also cover the arms as well as the torso of the user.

Thus this heavily encourages Officers to wear their standard armour for the beat shift, yet retreat to the armoury to swap to the far more specilizaed, but effective, armour for more specific circumstances (bul armour for gang and ops, riot for rev, etc).

Edit/TL;DR: Expanding on what I said. I would buff the Bullet Helmet to match the Bullet vest, add in a ablative helmet, and make riot, ablative and bullet armour cover the arms as well. I would only buff the melee, laser and bullet damage for the standard vest by ten or fifteen points. HoS Armour would be buffed to either match or be slightly worse than Antagonist armour (by five or so points), Warden's armour would get half of that. Captain's Carapace would cover the arms. Also any antagonist armour that is ineffective would get a pass over.

This would make low tier vest armour actually useful but still pale to specialist armour. The HoS would be more tanky for long term again. Warden and Captain would be a bit better off. Finally specialist armour will be more worthwhile.

[Wyzack]

+1 to buffing armor. I am still slightly mystified as to the whole "stuns make lethal combat pointless so lets make it even easier to kill stunned people by nerfing armor" thing

[Armhulen]

+1 to buffing armor. I am still slightly mystified as to the whole "stuns make lethal combat pointless so lets make it even easier to kill stunned people by nerfing armor" thing

Maybe stun resist??

I don't know, I likr armor buffs.
I'm always okay with sec buffs because it encourages stealth.

[ShadowDimentio]

DO NOT FUCK WITH STUNS

[paprika]

Shadow why are you so spergy about this? What do you find appealing about the current state of stuns?

[MMMiracles]

something something change is bad i don't know really, 1-hit ggnore stuns are boring tbh.

[Super Aggro Crag]

make armor great again

[Davidchan]

Antagonists are really well armoured, such as Nuke Ops where their defense is great for longer term attrition, in terms of taking occasional hits from spears, bullets and batons. But is not so powerful to withstand being stunned and shot at ten times by a Laser. Whereas the Deathsquad Power Armour (for example) is so powerful that even being stunned and lased is insufficient to kill them as they'll get right back up very quickly.

CultArmor is okay and only statted like it is because Cults don't have ranged weapons outside of their runes and need to run into melee combat if they need to assault a department to grab their sac target. Traitors rarely use armor, and if they do they steal it from the Armory, Revs definitely don't get armor, gangs don't get armor. Nuke Ops are heavily armored because there is at max 5 of them, vs a crew of 50+ with 7-10 of those people having guns, stun weapons and their own armor. The rest of the crew is involved with the round too, so crying that Antag Gear>Security Gear is pointless because they aren't the only ones on the station fighting back antags. If the game was all about antags vs security there would be 15 officer slots, but there is only 6. You're entire argument for why Sec needs better armor is because nuke ops. But nuke isn't the most common round and if Security isn't using their most valuable asset, the crew then they pretty much deserve to get shot to death one by one when they don't coordinate.

I don't even know where to begin on your 'suggestions'. They clearly come from a player who plays sec, but not a player who plays much outside of it. Giving HoS antag level armor, when what he already has a better gear load out than the Captain, is a terrible idea. It's just going to encourage more HoS's to validhunt to the extreme instead of doing their job to coordinate security. Increasing base armor by ten points is pretty ridiculous too, Security gets 4 items that can stun and a flash for borgs/disorienting, their armor is only there to let them take a hit or two if they mess up, not something they can coast on. Even outside the realm of stuncombat a Security guard can get access to shotguns and laser weapons if the Warden/HoS are doing their job instead of validhunting, and antags like gang/rev don't get any armor to speak of. Why does a basic sec officer need an extra 10% resist when the rest of the crew don't get this?
Wearing armor should be a zero sum gain. You're either banking on your own ability to dodge fire and damage while dishing out your own, or you're wearing encumbering armor to soak up an extra few hits while moving slower. The current speed loss for standard vests is minimal, HoS and Warden don't even have major encumbrance issues despite having much better armor.

[yackemflam]

CultArmor is okay and only statted like it is because Cults don't have ranged weapons outside of their runes and need to run into melee combat if they need to assault a department to grab their sac target.

Cult usually are stealth in the first place.

Traitors rarely use armor, and if they do they steal it from the Armory, Revs definitely don't get armor

gangs don't get armor.

Yes they do, their outfits give armor.

Nuke Ops are heavily armored because there is at max 5 of them, vs a crew of 50+ with 7-10 of those people having guns, stun weapons and their own armor.

You can buy more ops.

The rest of the crew is involved with the round too, so crying that Antag Gear>Security Gear is pointless because they aren't the only ones on the station fighting back antags.[/quote
Problem is that antags CAN take on sec + the station because the station hardly have anything to defend themselves against stun based combat.

If the game was all about antags vs security there would be 15 officer slots, but there is only 6. You're entire argument for why Sec needs better armor is because nuke ops. But nuke isn't the most common round and if Security isn't using their most valuable asset, the crew then they pretty much deserve to get shot to death one by one when they don't coordinate.

Its antags vs sec in the sense that sec is the first AND last line of defence of the station.

I don't even know where to begin on your 'suggestions'. They clearly come from a player who plays sec, but not a player who plays much outside of it. Giving HoS antag level armor, when what he already has a better gear load out than the Captain, is a terrible idea. It's just going to encourage more HoS's to validhunt to the extreme instead of doing their job to coordinate security. Increasing base armor by ten points is pretty ridiculous too, Security gets 4 items that can stun and a flash for borgs/disorienting, their armor is only there to let them take a hit or two if they mess up, not something they can coast on. Even outside the realm of stuncombat a Security guard can get access to shotguns and laser weapons if the Warden/HoS are doing their job instead of validhunting, and antags like gang/rev don't get any armor to speak of. Why does a basic sec officer need an extra 10% resist when the rest of the crew don't get this?
Wearing armor should be a zero sum gain. You're either banking on your own ability to dodge fire and damage while dishing out your own, or you're wearing encumbering armor to soak up an extra few hits while moving slower. The current speed loss for standard vests is minimal, HoS and Warden don't even have major encumbrance issues despite having much better armor.

Buff the standard officer then and nerf the hgher ups maybe except warden, since wardens are also thrown into the mix, even if they don`t want to valid hunt.
There are also no speed loss for wearing armor except for hardsuits/riot armor

[Zilenan91]

An idea here, if buffing armor is considered a bad thing with current stuns why don't we buff it and go back to RnG armor. RnG armor will give defense to stuns in some way by blocking the hits and be statistically as protective as what we have now.

[Steelpoint]

There is literally no difference between RNG armour and current armour. Stuns were never RNG based afaik as well.

After the feature freeze I'll look into proposing a PR for more discussion on the topic.

[Davidchan]

gangs don't get armor.

Yes they do, their outfits give armor.

I can't find anything on the git that says gangs have armor, but I haven't dug fully into the module. If I'm wrong so be it, gangs shouldn't get armor if revs/non-antag crew can't get ahold of it either.

[Steelpoint]

gangs don't get armor.

Yes they do, their outfits give armor.

I can't find anything on the git that says gangs have armor, but I haven't dug fully into the module. If I'm wrong so be it, gangs shouldn't get armor if revs/non-antag crew can't get ahold of it either.

Its a bit obscure in the code.

But the gang uniforms that can be spawned in provide some very robust protection for the wearer.

[MMMiracles]

The system for gang uniforms chooses from a list of suits/uniforms and then applies the armor values.

melee = 20, bullet = 30, laser = 10, energy = 10, bomb = 20, bio = 0, rad = 0

If you're lucky enough to get a uniform then that applies to all limbs excluding the head. Slap on a security vest for a very modest 45 melee, 45 bullet, and 35 laser on the chest.

[PKPenguin321]

gangs don't get armor.

Yes they do, their outfits give armor.

I can't find anything on the git that says gangs have armor, but I haven't dug fully into the module. If I'm wrong so be it, gangs shouldn't get armor if revs/non-antag crew can't get ahold of it either.

it's kind of hidden inside the gangtool code. when a gangtool spawns in the selected uniform, it applies the armor to it on creation via the gangtool.

[Steelpoint]

I think a minimum of buffing the bullet protection so a officer can at least survive one extra revolver round would be a positive change.

I'm thinking over what to propose with the other station armour, but does anyone here think antag armour needs any alterations?

[ShadowDimentio]

Shadow why are you so spergy about this? What do you find appealing about the current state of stuns?

Because stuns are the axis of combat in this game. You either stun somebody to win (tasers), you deal so many fuckloads of damage that they drop dead (ops), or you're some weird outlier (blob).

Fucking with stuns is a fast way to pull the rug out from under everything and have really shit rounds until it gets removed. I'm not entirely opposed to tweaking things, but it'd need to be handled with a surgeon's precision.

And to answer your question, yes I like stun combat just fine. It's a system that works, unlike stamina.

[Davidchan]

See April Fools where stuns were removed as a joke and it made various roles and antags usless.