Swarmer Horde Lavaland

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:27 am #232420

Holy shit its insufferable. They have fucking lasers like what the fuck. They will actually kill you. Not to mention theres usually 3 of them around so you get pelted by lasers very quickly and die who thought this was a good idea. Do they even give good loot?

Also pretty much infinite respawn so whittling them away does nothing

Supermichael777 · Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:07 am

Get Gud or Get ded scrublord.

Ranged mobs are kinda cancer though.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:27 am #232487

Supermichael777 wrote:Get Gud or Get ded scrublord.

Ranged mobs are kinda cancer though.

Had one spawn RIGHT NEXT TO THE BASE. We spent a full minute stabbing the fucking console its hp is fucking ridiculous

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:46 am #232491

Why stab it when ka shots do more damage?

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:53 am #232492

D&B wrote:Why stab it when ka shots do more damage?

We kept shooting it with kas for half a minute which seemingly did nothing so we stabbed it instead

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:02 am #232493

Dum Dum

What did it drop?

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:02 am #232494

D&B wrote:Dum Dum

What did it drop?

Nothing.

0 loot for the fucking effort

Post by **Armhulen** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:07 am #232495

just git good m-man

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:11 am #232497

Bombadil wrote:
D&B wrote:Dum Dum

What did it drop?
Nothing.

0 loot for the fucking effort

At least it wasn't the colossus

christ110 · Post by **christ110** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:12 am #232524

actually, a pretty good way of killing the swarmer hoard is to use a ripley with a plasma cutter...
which, shouldn't be too hard since plasma can be found on the station without mining. maybe have on of your buddy miners bring a couple of welders to keep you alive.

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:46 pm #232559

It is poor design to have a boss require a greater effort to get rid off with no reward for it.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:01 pm #232561

The swarmer spawner thing seems to have an absurd amount of health, i watched three people wail on it with survival knives as well as unload a single laser gun in to it, it took a really long fucking time

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:00 pm #232567

Aren't lasers just the worst possible thing to use though?

Since everything has burn res

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:39 pm #232570

Wyzack wrote:The swarmer spawner thing seems to have an absurd amount of health, i watched three people wail on it with survival knives as well as unload a single laser gun in to it, it took a really long fucking time

It has 3000 FUCKING HEALTH.

3000 MORE THAN ANY BOSS MOB

Remie Richards · Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:42 pm

Bombadil wrote:
Wyzack wrote:The swarmer spawner thing seems to have an absurd amount of health, i watched three people wail on it with survival knives as well as unload a single laser gun in to it, it took a really long fucking time

It has 3000 FUCKING HEALTH.

3000 MORE THAN ANY BOSS MOB

correction, 500 more than the average for a boss mob, please do your research next time, F-
500 more considering it literally can't move or attack? p.fair.

I was busy with work, and didn't get to start on the loot, it was merged ahead of time because people were enjoying it regardless of loot.

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:54 pm #232611

It not moving isn't that much of a disadvantage when there's more minions focusing fire on you.

Afaik none of the bosses can stun either as the yellow swarmers can, which is really unbalanced, almost broken

calzilla1 · Post by **calzilla1** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:08 pm #232613

Let it give out a few random functionally-useless items that give max R&D levels

TechnoAlchemist · Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:06 pm

Probably the worst megafauna that needs serious tweaking or removal

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:42 pm #232655

I think what it needs is a decrease in health and some kind of drop. As is, once the initial swarm has been battled through it turns in to a strange slog of miners and whoever else they conscripted standing around it in a circle wailing on it for a really long time. As soon as any more swarmers spawn they are instantly clicked to death so it is not like there is any challenge to be had at this stage of the fight anyways. I would say maybe drop the health down to 1500 but allow the swarmers to repair it. This will remove a good chunk of the pointless click grind while still making it more or less impossible for a miner to blitz in and instant kill it without drawing the ire of every single swarmer in the area.

It should also probably have damage indicators like airlocks and other objects do, when i first saw people fighting it I had no clue if they were actually damaging it or not until it disappeared. I think it is a cool idea, it just needs some tweaks

Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:46 pm

is lowering its health not the easiest thing to do ever? literally lowering a var
i'll go do it right now

Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:49 pm

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/21975

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:38 am #232693

Remie Richards wrote:
Bombadil wrote:
Wyzack wrote:The swarmer spawner thing seems to have an absurd amount of health, i watched three people wail on it with survival knives as well as unload a single laser gun in to it, it took a really long fucking time

It has 3000 FUCKING HEALTH.

3000 MORE THAN ANY BOSS MOB
correction, 500 more than the average for a boss mob, please do your research next time, F-
500 more considering it literally can't move or attack? p.fair.

I was busy with work, and didn't get to start on the loot, it was merged ahead of time because people were enjoying it regardless of loot.

But once your attacking the swarmer core that means all the surrounding swarmers are dead at least the lethal ones

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 11:14 am #232762

AFAIK they're not even hostile unless you attack them first. And they should be treated like any other megafauna boss, you wouldn't taunt a colossus if it was neutral and sitting just outside the outpost. Also, unlike other bosses, swarmers die to explosions, so you could just maxcap the beacon to clear the whole area of swarmers, then spawnkill them while chipping at the beacon. They already to a pretty good job at killing themselves with all the gibtonite they set off on their own

Iatots · Post by **Iatots** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:00 pm #232764

What if swarmers carried the ore they mine back to base, and every X nuggets a tech item is added to the loot table? The swarmer beacon could use "swarmer satchels" to hold all the ores, which would be better than the normal ones but not as good as bluespace, as well as not being a good tech item itself.

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 4:35 pm #232791

Make them player controlled.

christ110 · Post by **christ110** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 5:05 pm #232806

Remove melee stun swarmers and vastly increase the spawn rate of the normal/miners swarmers but keep the laser swarmers. Reduce the health of the beacon.

Add an item to the mining vendor/rnd that modifies miner ids to make them friendly to swarmers (doesn't effect swarmer event as those are player controlled.) And maybe a second item which when attached to the beacon makes the swarmers kill normal fauna. (May need balancing.) Mega fauna/tendrils is a big no-no as that will prolly kill the beacon in the process.

This allows miners to potentially choose to keep the beacon around because they mine all of the exotic ores and leave them around for collection, or kill the beacon/swarmers for tons of blue space crystals. Besides, cargo and xenobio can get more metal so the swarmers eating all of the metal off of lavaland isn't an issue.

Remie Richards · Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:05 pm

Grazyn wrote:AFAIK they're not even hostile unless you attack them first. And they should be treated like any other megafauna boss, you wouldn't taunt a colossus if it was neutral and sitting just outside the outpost. Also, unlike other bosses, swarmers die to explosions, so you could just maxcap the beacon to clear the whole area of swarmers, then spawnkill them while chipping at the beacon. They already to a pretty good job at killing themselves with all the gibtonite they set off on their own

A fair guess based on what you'd see in game, but incorrect.
MINING swarmers are completely passive, until they "learn" that you're food.
Ranged and Melee Swarmers always hate you, always, they do not learn, they just hate.

Mining swarmers learn what is/isn't food by attacking it, usually the rocks are far more interesting than you, so you should be fine on this regard.
However they also respond to the call backup ability of the beacon and the hostile swarmers, which if they get to you before you're killed is enough for them to all learn that you're food.

tl;dr green = starts passive, learns to eat you, learning shared between all of them. red & yellow = hates you forever.

Reece wrote:Make them player controlled.

Congratulations!, you've just won the award: "Completely missed the point"

Bombadil wrote:-snip-
But once your attacking the swarmer core that means all the surrounding swarmers are dead at least the lethal ones

This is true, but the beacon had around 2000 HP originally, and towards the end of development of the PR I added 1,000, based on how some people *were* just rushing down the core.
That's also where Red and Yellow Swarmers came from, my reactions to how people were dealing with the boss, the HP just wasn't brought back down.

For what it's worth, I'm not against PKP's pr dropping it to 750, but when I get around to the loot the HP is going back up to atleast 1250, which is still well under average for Megafauna.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:14 pm #232834

Duh, didn't know that yellow and reds knew only hate. Still, a good sized bomb should be enough to annihilate every swarmer around the beacon

onleavedontatme · Wed Dec 07, 2016 12:43 pm

I turned it off serverside, will turn back on once there is loot since the prevailing attitude seems to be "I feel cheated by this given the challenge" right now.

Alipheese · Post by **Alipheese** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 12:53 pm #233110

Here's an idea. Build walls around the console/you. They can't shoot you id youre in a 1x1 box with only 1 side open with the console being that 4th wall. Or im just retarded as I've never seen it myself

onleavedontatme · Wed Dec 07, 2016 1:43 pm

Swarmers tend to eat walls.

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 3:39 pm #233148

Still feels like adding stuns to megafauna is broken .

If it's gonna be stationary put it behind a ruin or something.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 3:41 pm #233150

Swarmers are not really megafauna though. They are not mega, they are not fauna. They are really more like a sci-fi tendril with tons of health than anything else. The stuns certainly make it harder, but it is not like the swarmers have a gg no re gib option like the other lavaland bosses do so the stakes are not nearly as high

Copybass · Post by **Copybass** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 3:47 pm #233155

Some weird shit happened last night with some swarmers, I don't think any Ash Lizards actually spawned but swarmers still overtook the spawn building, ate everything inside but the human body and the initial eggs, and then the tendril ended up directly inside the mining base where it spawned more eggs.

Don't know if it all was because of the swarmers or what but it was hella weird.

calzilla1 · Post by **calzilla1** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 4:07 pm #233160

Are swarmers 1 hit kill with the KA?

Hatfish · Post by **Hatfish** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 12:27 am #233243

No, they're somewhere around 2-3 hits unless you maxed out your damage mods.

DrPillzRedux · Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:32 am

There's no point in protesting against it. I made a thread about this before and Remie refuses to back down on how bad it is.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 4:57 am #233357

Also its totally more lethal. We have fucking swarmers running around with lasers which miners dont have a resistance to. Also the whole teleport and stuncuff you shit. Which is really bad if a fucking ash storm starts

Post by **Cobby** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 7:44 am #233400

Needs a reward warranting the difficulty, although I'm sure remie won't disappoint.

Remie Richards · Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:02 pm

DrPillzRedux wrote:There's no point in protesting against it. I made a thread about this before and Remie refuses to back down on how bad it is.

What is there to back down about?
(And how have I refused? the "literally the only negative feedback I've got on this" comment in your thread? because that was true)

People said to make it a ruin, it's a ruin
People say the HP is too High, it was lowered, and I'm ok with that
People said to give it loot, I'm giving it loot (probably one of the community ideas + one of my own)

Don't really see how I'm "refusing" and "not backing down"

Instead of protesting, you can offer criticism, criticism can be worked with.

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:34 pm #233492

Not really a ruin if its in an open space.

Or did you enclose it in something?

calzilla1 · Post by **calzilla1** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:12 pm #233499

Reward: a remote control swarmer and a disk to make more via auto/protolathe

Gun Hog · Post by **Gun Hog** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:40 pm #233504

It is not enclosed, that be like a noose around their necks! They need to spread and consume! It is a "ruin" in that it uses the ruin system to spawn the beacon and its surrounding area. It will not always exist, like the other ruin types. Note that Kor may have disabled the swarmer ruin until it gets loot coded.

Remie Richards · Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:50 pm

Yeah, code ruin, which means it has a much lower odds of actually spawning, compared to other megafauna.

Not decided on which community loot idea to do, probably leaning towards the swarmer RCD
probably the borg upgrade too, But altered so that it produces Brown/Purple (mining colours!) Swarmers that deliver the ore to their owner.

As for my personal loot idea, I was thinking something that takes in ore and can produce different ore from it.
So you put in 300 plasma and 200 iron and that gives you like, 250 "atomic slurry" (each ore being worth about 50% of it's original), and at varying costs you can produce say, Uranium out of that "atomic slurry", this would go well if miners were struggling to find a particular ore but had plenty of another.

Thoughts?

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:57 pm #233509

Sounds shit to put it bluntly.

You can get a crap load of ores with just an advanced plasma cutter and an upgraded ORM. The usual motiff of fighting megafauna is "I just beat this so I hopefully get something that benefits me/makes me stronger."

It's why so many people complain about colossus. Too much danger for a shit reward, since activating the crystal can take a large amount of time, and sometimes the effects are underwhelming.

Maybe drop an upgrade disk or something that allows mine borgs to be loaded with pAis and upgraded with ka modules. Or make it drop one of the admin only implants since those would require you to trust someone enough to put them in.

Gun Hog · Post by **Gun Hog** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 6:22 pm #233537

Remie Richards wrote:Yeah, code ruin, which means it has a much lower odds of actually spawning, compared to other megafauna.

Not decided on which community loot idea to do, probably leaning towards the swarmer RCD
probably the borg upgrade too, But altered so that it produces Brown/Purple (mining colours!) Swarmers that deliver the ore to their owner.

As for my personal loot idea, I was thinking something that takes in ore and can produce different ore from it.
So you put in 300 plasma and 200 iron and that gives you like, 250 "atomic slurry" (each ore being worth about 50% of it's original), and at varying costs you can produce say, Uranium out of that "atomic slurry", this would go well if miners were struggling to find a particular ore but had plenty of another.

Thoughts?

Yay! RR! I like that spin on my idea and RCD one! The 'slurry' one is only good if it can make bananium or diamond, a well equipped miner will usually not struggle to find other mineral types.

D&B wrote:Sounds shit to put it bluntly.

You can get a crap load of ores with just an advanced plasma cutter and an upgraded ORM. The usual motiff of fighting megafauna is "I just beat this so I hopefully get something that benefits me/makes me stronger."

It's why so many people complain about colossus. Too much danger for a shit reward, since activating the crystal can take a large amount of time, and sometimes the effects are underwhelming.

Maybe drop an upgrade disk or something that allows mine borgs to be loaded with pAis and upgraded with ka modules. Or make it drop one of the admin only implants since those would require you to trust someone enough to put them in.

Mining borgs already can be upgraded with KA modules, they just have a smaller capacity for some reason. (80 instead of 100).

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 6:44 pm #233542

Gun Hog wrote:
Remie Richards wrote:Yeah, code ruin, which means it has a much lower odds of actually spawning, compared to other megafauna.

Not decided on which community loot idea to do, probably leaning towards the swarmer RCD
probably the borg upgrade too, But altered so that it produces Brown/Purple (mining colours!) Swarmers that deliver the ore to their owner.

As for my personal loot idea, I was thinking something that takes in ore and can produce different ore from it.
So you put in 300 plasma and 200 iron and that gives you like, 250 "atomic slurry" (each ore being worth about 50% of it's original), and at varying costs you can produce say, Uranium out of that "atomic slurry", this would go well if miners were struggling to find a particular ore but had plenty of another.

Thoughts?
Yay! RR! I like that spin on my idea and RCD one! The 'slurry' one is only good if it can make bananium or diamond, a well equipped miner will usually not struggle to find other mineral types.

D&B wrote:Sounds shit to put it bluntly.

You can get a crap load of ores with just an advanced plasma cutter and an upgraded ORM. The usual motiff of fighting megafauna is "I just beat this so I hopefully get something that benefits me/makes me stronger."

It's why so many people complain about colossus. Too much danger for a shit reward, since activating the crystal can take a large amount of time, and sometimes the effects are underwhelming.

Maybe drop an upgrade disk or something that allows mine borgs to be loaded with pAis and upgraded with ka modules. Or make it drop one of the admin only implants since those would require you to trust someone enough to put them in.

Mining borgs already can be upgraded with KA modules, they just have a smaller capacity for some reason. (80 instead of 100).

MINEBORGS.

From the V E N D O R.

christ110 · Post by **christ110** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 7:03 pm #233549

D&B wrote:
MINEBORGS.

From the V E N D O R.

You mean mine BOTS, as Borg's and bots are totally different.

D&B · Post by **D&B** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 7:08 pm #233550

Fug

(((((((

Remie Richards · Thu Dec 08, 2016 9:56 pm

Just tried implementing some of the loot.
Really not happy.

this might take a while, sorry guys.