/tg/Station 13

Am I the only one who hates these things? They're an item that doesn't really have a place in the game anymore, and they have some pretty big issues.

3 TC for a 4-use item. These uses are based somewhat on RNG: There's a 24% chance for these charges to do nothing upon use for a basic PDA. If the target PDA has any special cartridges, this chance is increased:
The captain's PDA therefore is very difficult to explode.
If the PDA has a syndi uplink, it will always fail. This is the reason for the RNG -- traitors having their PDAs get blown really sucks. However, if the RNG is removed then the carts can be used to determine which PDA belongs to a traitor (the one that gives an error). But because of this, you can easily COMPLETELY waste your investment because they all failed. The cart can also be rendered useless by the target turning off his PDA, or by telecomms being destroyed.

Let's look at other bombs: The detomatix explosion is a -1, -1, 2, 3, which is very weak. C4 is 2tc for a -1, -1, 4, 4 explosion, which is bigger but still pretty mild. A minibomb is 3tc (same price!) for a menacing 1,2,4,flame_range = 2 The syndicate bomb is only 2tc more for a 2,5,11, flame_range = 11 blast of mass destruction (if you don't know what these numbers mean, these are explosion ranges (devastation, heavy, light) measured in tiles).

If you want to compare to a non-bomb option, the revolver is a 6tc 7-use item that can crit someone in 2 uses and can also be refilled if you have the opportunity(!).


Personally, I think there are too many issues with this thing to bother trying keeping it. Even if the explosion was made more worthwhile and the RNG issue fixed somehow, I don't think "oops you got blown up from across the map, probably at random, probably at roundstart so at least now you know it's a traitor round!!" is a very interesting mechanic.

Don't use them.

Kelenius wrote:Don't use them.

Nobody does.

if only it still blew up your ID as well. then it would be (semi) useful.

The thing's really useful for stealing the HoP's ID.

Pls no.

Neerti wrote:The thing's really useful for stealing the HoP's ID.

Pls no.

Oh what smarts how

Neerti wrote:The thing's really useful for stealing the HoP's ID.

Pls no.

For the same price of 3 tc you can get an emag, which bypasses access restrictions as well as a plethora of other things.

One time paprika used it to ambush me when he knew I was chasing him so he didn't have to risk a gun fight

So yeah it has its uses for those who wanna get a little creative

On bay I used this as a nuke op to provide support for my dudes.
It's hella cool to watch some crew member run up and try to shoot my guys and I can just explode him and kick him to death

The principle is the same here
It's kind of niche though, could use buffing/changing

danno wrote:On bay I used this as a nuke op to provide support for my dudes.
It's hella cool to watch some crew member run up and try to shoot my guys and I can just explode him and kick him to death

The principle is the same here
It's kind of niche though, could use buffing/changing

If it were a nuke-op only tool, it would be possible to remove the awful RNG chance (no worries about bombing traitor PDAs in nuke mode) and it would become a much better item -- the closest thing an op can get to an airstrike.

Nuke ops get a free one on the military pda.

Which tells you how many crystals this random and weak item is worth.

I just wish they were more reliable.

Maybe if they didn't make you deaf or something as a counter balance.

They're hilarious during DA, use one on your target at roundstart and your target no longer has access to his uplink, gg no re.

They're like camera bugs, cheridan, only used by the elite of our community.

I thought traitor PDAs (and by extension DA) PDAs were deto-proof.

I wasn't aware an uplink made a PDA deto proof, which is kind of an unfortunate way to metagame during traitor rounds if you think about it.

That's why the RNG is there in the first place.

So it's basically a matter of byond RNG verses metagame.

i guess it's not so bad if you find another traitor using detomatix but i feel like it'll just be HE'S A TRAITOR LYNCH HE

someone once suggested a detomatix cartridge as a good way of stunning your assassination target, especially if they were running around the hallways.

it's niche, maybe lower it's cost (2 tc for 3 uses?) but it doesn't hurt exactly to keep it. It might be cool to have all pdas have the same chance of exploding, as a slight buff to it.

Detomatix cartridges are especially cool if the guy's in a cryopod.

Incomptinence wrote:Nuke ops get a free one on the military pda.

Which tells you how many crystals this random and weak item is worth.

They also get 2 free syndicate bombs and 2 free minibombs and 5 free stechkin pistols, etc... being free on the syndie shuttle doesn't mean shit.

As for the problem here, get rid of the RNG and/or reduce the cost to 2 TC's. I really think the traitormeta concern is hugely overblown, there's tons of stupid meta shit in this game we have to close our eyes to, im sure this is just going to be another one, and an extremely rare one at that.

Those other free items have a high chance of being used. The free detomax is often ignored or forgotten. Currently it is garbage.

I say this as a man who has killed with detomax.

It's ignored because people usually meta nukeops when PDA's start to explode.

Also hardly does anything if it does anything at all.

What if the mechanic was changed, because I like the idea of using PDAs against people.

Would a malfunction that electrocutes the holder and ejects the ID not be more suitable? It would solve the need to prevent it's use on traitors and you could retain any RNG necessary based on cards to make it fairer.

Maybe increase the odds based on proximity and whether it is in their hands, meaning you could combine it with some social engineering. The electrifying could even last 30 seconds or so, meaning you can shock people with a PDA just left lying around, or hand it to someone while holding insulated gloves (Which would protect against it shocking you if it is in your hands).

What I'm trying to say is, this will never get coded but I like the idea.

Removing the RNG should be safe. Remove the error message altogheter and just have nothing happen instead of a PDA exploding to keep metagaming to a minimum.

Why not instead of wasting your deto, there's a cooldown on using them so missing a shot with RNG means you have to wait and try again. Yeah, it could be used to find other traitor uplinks, but if the cooldown was long, I don't think people would spend TCs just to hunt for other antags. That way, deto cartridges aren't wasted, they can be used effectively while still keeping the rng so they're not 100% ranged win stun buttons, but you don't get that 'wow why did i waste my tc on this shit' feeling when you can't bomb people.

to what paprika said

Just give it a 30% or so chance of blowing up the PDA of someone that isn't the target and make that happen for traitors every time.

Make it send a debug message from the traitor that tried to blow them up if it hits the wrong person.

callanrockslol wrote:Make it send a debug message from the traitor that tried to blow them up if it hits the wrong person.

Albanian virus message.
"Hi,

This is an Syndicate virus. As you know we are not so technically
advanced as in the Nanotrasen. We therefore ask you to explode
your PDA manually and send this message to all your friends.

Thanks for helping us,
The Syndicate Hackers"

Last time someone used a detomatix on me I had green-yellow HP and was deaf for a bit so they don't seem ALL that powerful unless you're near something explosive or something.

RG4 wrote:Last time someone used a detomatix on me I had green-yellow HP and was deaf for a bit so they don't seem ALL that powerful unless you're near something explosive or something.

So basically an IED.


Seriously, IEDs suck. Has that been brought up enough?

I killed a group of people with several cartridges when they were basically standing in a big clump on goon. Like a summon nar sie clump.

I usually think of them as a distraction tool or a way to knock someone out before you go in for the kill.

I have used the knock out myself, wouldn't trust it after light explosion nerfs. Hell wouldn't trust a random weapon regardless, not to mention our pda interface isn't really ideal for having it running as a small window scrolled right on potential targets (refreshes screen on each use and reverts to the the top) pretty bad for a weapon hard countered is 2-3 clicks.