Telescience

[DanteRU]

Telescience needs to be fully removed from gamecode, because it's an unbalanced piece of crap that you can create in first ten minutes of the game, and then use it to fuck all antags, especially nukies and rogue AI, using metaknowledge and exploits to have admin-like powers without real counter. Discuss.

[D&B]

I DED

[DemonFiren]

very mad

[cedarbridge]

Telescience needs to be fully removed from gamecode, because it's an unbalanced piece of crap that you can create in first ten minutes of the game, and then use it to fuck all antags, especially nukies and rogue AI, using metaknowledge and exploits to have admin-like powers without real counter. Discuss.

Losing to telesci as a rogue AI is like losing to the borg console as a rogue AI.

Literally git gud.


Nukeops I have more sympathy for since its really just bouncing a gps around until it phones home in order to subvert the "stay off the damn shuttle" rule. It takes advantage of the ghost tools we use to move ghosts and admins to the syndie shuttle for things. I can't really see a good way of fixing that apart from just saying "don't do it." because otherwise we'd just have to snowflake GPSs not to phone home.

[CPTANT]

Getting a bomb teleported in me was literally one of the most memorable deaths I've had in the game.

[danno]

to be fair, iirc the person who added telescience (goofball i believe) admitted he added it just to grief

[Grazyn]

Using telescience to steal the nuke/teleport on the syndie ship should be treated just like we treat other syndie ship-related gimmicks: you went out and found the ship yourself, placed a gps, went back and used the relative coords to teleport inside to bypass the turrets? It's cool. You used pre-written coords and just fished from the fixed ship spots? Exploit.

[PKPenguin321]

I have fond memories of fully upgrading telesci, building a crew monitoring console, and making an autocloner or two and collecting and reviving all the corpses
Also of warping the minerals from mining directly to science
Shame it was so exploity

[Saegrimr]

because it's an unbalanced piece of crap that you can create in first ten minutes of the game

Haha remember when science had one prebuilt roundstart because it was standard? Good times.

[InsaneHyena]

> got dunked
> Whined in ghost chat, then in OOC chat literally for an hour
> Claims to be a veteran player, whines about "new unbalanced stuff" like telesci
Acquire skill

[ShadowDimentio]

>Not leaving your core and hiding in maint

Bad player, promote the scientist that killed him

[DanteRU]

> got dunked
> Whined in ghost chat, then in OOC chat literally for an hour
> Claims to be a veteran player, whines about "new unbalanced stuff" like telesci
Acquire skill

Lying is bad, you know. And telesci is unbalanced, stop memeing.

[ShadowDimentio]

Telesci

1: Isn't available at roundstart
2: Only useful in fighting stationary targets

All you had to do was disable R&D or move literally anywhere and you would have won.

[DanteRU]

You're saying like avaiable in first five minutes doesn't equal to avaiable at roundstart. Also, no one forces you to attack not stationary targets with telesci, you can just attack the nuke, for example.

[Screemonster]

I appear to have perished and will only have satisfaction when the object of my oppression has been nullified in a manner similar to that of a martial weapon, parodied in the form of Nerf™-brand plastic-foam replica armaments.

[DemonFiren]

I appear to have perished and will only have satisfaction when the object of my oppression has been nullified in a manner similar to that of a martial weapon, parodied in the form of Nerf™-brand plastic-foam replica armaments.

[DanteRU]

I appear to have perished and will only have satisfaction when the object of my oppression has been nullified in a manner similar to that of a martial weapon, parodied in the form of Nerf™-brand plastic-foam replica armaments.

Yeah, you can only meme without seeing the problem. Until this happens to you.

[leibniz]

Making stuff buildable instead of making it good is our classy way balancing RnD.
You see, effortlessly robbing any area and teleporting bombs everywhere without exposing yourself to any risk is balanced because usually people are too lazy to do it.

So purging this stuff is one of the mandatory stuff you have to do as AI, this is how it is.

[Lumbermancer]

I don't know new telescience. Do you still use coords like in the old one?

[MMMiracles]

The only antags this can fuck over are stationary ones, anyone who manages to make effective use of telescience against highly mobile targets like nuke ops deserve a god damn medal for accuracy and timing.

As a rogue AI, if you somehow managed to allow science to get the materials and research to put together a functional telescience machine without ANY intervention, then you deserve to have a bomb dropped on your core.

[Screemonster]

If you want to keep telesci off the ops shuttle, make a teleport-scattering field generator device or something that redirects nearby teleports elsewhere and stick one on the shuttle. I think VG just blacklist certain areas (like the armory) to stop steal-the-armory memes.

But really if you're a rogue AI and you let science get to the point where they have a functioning telesci setup then you need to git gud. If they did it in a way that you couldn't stop, then you just got outplayed.

[DanteRU]

Good luck winning the round after revealing yourself in first three minutes of the game.

[cedarbridge]

As a rogue AI, if you somehow managed to allow science to get the materials and research to put together a functional telescience machine without ANY intervention, then you deserve to have a bomb dropped on your core.

Or blow up the console/pad
Or kill the nerd who built the console/pad
Or depower the room
Or use one of the half dozen cyborg assholes you have at your command to deconstruct the console/machine
Or use one of the half dozen cyborg assholes you have at your command to kill the nerd who built the console/pad

You don't even have to stop them from building it. You just have to stop them from using it against you. At this point the whole excuse rogue AIs are making here is that they should be allowed to entirely ignore the science department and make it out unscathed. That has never been the case for malf AIs. When malf was its own gamemode, one of the first priorities was to get rid of the RD and Captain so nobody with access can reach the borg console or make a spare. Additionally, getting rid of the RD would free the AI from a coordinated effort from the science department to undermine whatever plasmafirehelldeath plans it had set up. That also meant keeping track of who made bombs and where they went. That meant watching telesci to see what loot they had collected or extra consoles/machines they had set up. If you don't have the time or attention to gather information and monitor all of the threats against you, you need to reevaluate why you have AI open as an antag option in your personal prefs. Alternatively get good.

[DanteRU]

Stop being a smartass, i was going to take measures against telesci, but RD metaed that AI is rogue, and quickly jumped in front of the core with intelicard while i wasn't watching.

[Screemonster]

So now it's meta? On what grounds do you say that? If he zapped in there to card you and check your laws pre-emptively then that's a "ban for meta" issue, not a "nerf telesci" issue.

[cedarbridge]

Stop being a smartass, i was going to take measures against telesci, but RD metaed that AI is rogue, and quickly jumped in front of the core with intelicard while i wasn't watching.

If the RD used meta knowledge to determine that the AI was rogue, what does that have to do with telesci? Did telescience tell the RD "The AI is rogue, card he"? If not, that's not a telescience issue.

[Reece]

[InsaneHyena]

I was roboticist in that round, and I've built around five or six cyborgs, every single one of them with auto-module change. This guy had victory handed to him on a silver platter, and he lost purely due to incompetence. Once again, acquire skill.

[MisterPerson]

Making stuff buildable instead of making it good is our classy way balancing RnD.
You see, effortlessly robbing any area and teleporting bombs everywhere without exposing yourself to any risk is balanced because usually people are too lazy to do it.

So purging this stuff is one of the mandatory stuff you have to do as AI, this is how it is.

It's a pretty objectively terrible way to "balance".