/tg/Station 13

Super Aggro Crag wrote:wot r they going 2 do w/ the nantie lab

Fishimun wrote:Relevant Quote:
This is the absolute epitome of 'remove don't improve'. Absolutely everything you said was a problem that can easily be addressed or flat out the wrong way of thinking about this mechanic and its relation to the crew. Neutered circuitry is not "nanites 2.0" just because someone copy pasted a skillchip implanter booth in. Nanites are "Sentient disease 2.0", and the only real problem is that the wrong people with not enough knowhow don't consider them as such.

When someone walks into the nanite chamber (or gets thrown in or whatever), they are not wholly separated from the outcome: they have thrown their lot in with the nanite team and are now a lich with a phylactery, completely at the mercy of anyone able to enter the nanite room with the knowhow of how to configure them, yet still able to break the contract if need be. When a sentient virus decides to trigger its kill switch and goes loud, people are not 'detached from the outcome', they en-mass beeline for medbay and work together to make the cure while dealing with the symptoms. When nanites go rouge, everyone is just as capable of noticing and heading to science, lynching everyone along the way to the computer that just needs to be wiped clean, or have the AI do it for you remotely. If that's not an option you can still touch a shocked grill multiple times or get an EMP to cleanse yourself, everyone always have options to break the contract even if its not as direct as "eat these two randomized chemicals a health scanner spelled out for you". You get nanites in the same way you eat a "good virus" floorpill and are subjected to the outcome, the main problem you're perceiving with nanites (correctly) is that people don't feel the need to effect that outcome and make it as interesting and interactive as it potentially could be.

On LITERALLY every single station, the default nanite room is only 1-2 hacked maintenance doors away from being all access. That means any bored assistant or generic evildoer has the potential to access a console that can 'instantly kill' anyone with nanites in as few as 5 clicks. No seriously, the death simulation program is an instant knockout that makes them look dead, and can be paired with the Eclipse protocol to make it last forever. The problem is, people don't do that. The average player who hasn't done much with nanites won't know enough about them to sabotage things effectively. When the average non-nanitter sees the computer and interacts with it, they don't know what the giant list of 20+ programs do or what they could rewire to kill their target instantly and remotely: they're overwhelmed by all the signals and buttons and weird names and just delete all the programs and walk away, or smack the computer till it breaks (which doesn't immediately disrupt the nanites on people who already have them). This is contrastable to the otherwise very comparable sentient virus: the cure to a virus is usually clearly stated after a health scan and is intuitive to a new player who hasn't studied virology, so when they see and don't understand nanites they'll want to just 'cure' it and consider it 'destroyed' like a virus gets 'cured'. Nanite programming requires a level of competence to sabotage correctly as opposed to just 'delete', one I've noticed in my experience that even professional powergamers fail to do when they've had the inclination and opportunity to disrupt them and are right there at the console. This isn't caught in your 'sabotage metrics' because the bell curve of players knowledgeable enough to put in some secret remotely-triggerable instant-death button while also able and willing to risk getting caught and lynched for doing it in the average round is understandably extremely low. I'd reckon its even lower than what the graphs suggest, seeing as how forced speech is a 'suppression' program people add in as a meme to make people say 'nyan' or do flips.

Aside from direct sabotage, countering nanites when someone knows you have them is also easier when one has the knowhow. You listed off the rogue glitch programs and I agree with you that most of them are negligible. The damaging ones are outdone by healing which are still active in most cases, the inactive ones turn back on, added or removed programs get fixed when the cloud refreshes, on average maybe one of your programs turns off permanently till you manually fix them in the cloud. I noticed you failed to describe hypoxemia, though. Hypoxemia kills you. No really, just kills you. It causes constant oxyloss damage till you die of suffocation, can't be turned off till you remove the nanites, isn't stopped by chems like epinephrine or salbutamol. It just kills you, knocking you out at 50 oxyloss before it takes its time with a slow unavoidable death days later. Its a glitch of accelerated regen, the staple nanite program, so you're basically always at risk of getting it when your nanites get corrupted. And you know what corrupts nanites? EMPs, electrified grills, shocked doors, turret tazers, eta eta, oh and stun batons. That's right, stun baton shocks. Every time you're hit by a baton and your nanites get corrupted you have a 1/9 chance of dieing. A chance of guaranteed death when attacked by the most staple weapon in the game is a pretty 'reasonable risk' even without considering sabotage. Someone has nanites? Hit them with a baton, and while they're chainstunned / helpless for as long as your baton has charge also cross your fingers that they get a program that just flat out kills them. As well as countering everything that can be stunned, batons counter nanites too, though I understand its not completely intuitive or indicated.

A large part of the problem with nanites is its reputation with different mindsets on the station, and how the current tribalism tends to counteract sabotage. As your data shows, nanites are more often than not good, and at this point people know it. There's often a public chamber next to medbay cementing the perception that they're for healing, they'll statistically be programmed by a non-antag who has no reason to make them bad, as explained above even when sabotage is done its usually done sloppy and fixed quickly, and has consistently been this way for most of nanites lifespan. The people who get nanites trust them as a near guaranteed benefit and don't care to learn more. The people who don't trust nanites don't get them and don't care to learn how to counter / sabotage them. The people who do nanites learn very quickly thanks to it being basically a copy-pastable virus symptom list, and they continue to make beneficial public nanites in the same way good viros enjoy making public beneficial viruses. Or maybe they're purely selfish: the 4500 nanite-tech-point requirement that scales based on the number of people using them makes it a 40 minute wait to get the tech by yourself. Its entirely possible scientists don't give a hoot about the public except as point generators, and only want them going in so they can get their tech faster: it benefits them to make the public ones always beneficial so they always have consistent point generation. As an antag, in most cases why would you want to break that trust, instead of benefitting from it? Its free permanent regen, everyone likes regen, and as an antag they have more opportunity to leverage the advantages while avoiding the downsides. The risks and complexity of sabotaging correctly are usually not worth learning nanites for the average newbie as opposed to just getting the free regen and rolling with it: for the cost of an 8 second injection and a phylactery only you'd want to disrupt you have an advantage over everyone who didn't get the jab. If your target has nanites, observable with health scanner / sec hug / diag hud / noticing their hp regenning, as an antag you usually have an advantage over them with your array of gamer tools already. Best case scenario, you sabotage the nanites with a remote-kill-button for your personal use, and now they WANT everyone to still trust the nanites and keep them visibly beneficial to encourage that (Though do note that best case scenario just killed you when a stun baton hit RNG turned on your death-sim nanites and leaves you permanently in a coma). Mass grief is funny for 15 seconds but gets immediately noticed and fixed by anyone who can access the computer and turn everything off. Breaking the computer or deleting the programs puts everyone on equal ground until the original naniter notices immediately and comes to reset everything. For the average antag, the tradeoff of permanent regen for a few random other crewmates getting the same is acceptable, why expend any effort or risk to disrupt that? Thus they go unsabotaged, thus the vast majority of rounds they're a benefit to most people who get them, thus more trust and less reason to sabotage.

Unlike virology, where viruses can very easily be made to spread and encourages / forces players to think / learn / interact with virology mechanics to counter them, nanites are mostly optional. Virology has all of medbay at any given moment to detect / cure / counter / teach / explain virus mechanics, while nanites are generally completely handled by whoever called dibs first in the nanite room with no further need for interaction save breaking in to fix sabotage. There are ways of spreading nanites (viral sting and the alien-tech spreading program) but requiring glitched experisci / illegal tech items / EXTREME rng alien tools makes these unfeasible for 99/100 rounds. Part of the reason I believe sabotage isn't widespread is because nanites aren't widespread: only people who willingly get them are subjected to them, and that's never a majority of the station. The benefits of good regen outweighing the benefits of turning a few random nanite-supporters into coma victims discourages sabotage, but if everyone was subject to them you'd bet your butt there'd be more people adding in a kill switch if it dropped everyone on the station, directly comparable to how sentient viruses will inevitably go delta. The requirement of willingness to be injected makes nanites more like a non-spreading "good virus (1u)" pills dumped outside medbay, where players consensually trust and reap the benefits and generally don't worry much about the dangers or think anything more of it besides appreciation.

There are solutions to these problems aside from 'nuke from orbit'. The glitch program numbers can be fudged up or down to be effective, or given properties to make them noticeable say adding them as a nanite wasting program till they have x hp left. Players with nanites injected or those using programs can give off a text indication they're nanited or triggered certain programs if Hud UI / noticing their constant regen isn't enough. There are ways to break the perceived public universal trust of nanites: Sabotage could be made easier and more effective, even to the average unga bunga ant egg, where say the expected case of deleting all programs or breaking the console could cause guaranteed errors, while still rewarding the clever saboteur who can add secret kill switches. Bad programs could be subtle, so you and others don't notice the effects immediately and have to accept constant jeopardy of something like "Am I taking double damage from everything?" instead of "oh that guy fake died nanites rogue lynch sci". There could be more achievable ways of spreading nanites, forcing the playerbase mentality to fear, understand and react to them in the same way we fear, understand and react to viruses. If getting chain detonation tech was reasonably achievable, and not hidden behind 2-3 glitched explosion requirements + illegal tech + 450000 tech points, I guarantee you there'd be some interesting nanite play. We could discourage mindless inject-and-forget public chambers if public chambers were removed entirely / pushed down the techweb / removed the nanite-only-tech-point system, requiring the manual have-your-friend-inject-you-and-set-you-to-the-right-cloud computer injection system by default in the nanite rooms to become the norm which would encourage more learning / teaching about nanites. Or nanites could just have generic downsides and tradeoffs that make you not want to have them by default, like getting hungry faster or requiring metal organs to produce nanites faster or constant reinjections required that cause people to think about what kind of nanites they want to deal with maintaining. Everything is fixable with some creativity, I don't think it warrants immediate execution.

Nanites are cool, man. Have you not seen the cool things that have been done with them? Triggering 20 flips and spins per second every second? Instant relay chat systems for everyone on the cloud? Fake death timers and revival setups? Chat synthesizers and WGW spammers? Mind control hostage taking setups? Automatic revival setups for ghost seances? Injecting captured xenos with suppression programs and giving commands with skull echo? Multi-cloud relay-signaling systems based on voice / health triggers? Neutered circuity isn't nanites 2.0 (Its not even old circuitry 2.0), its apples and oranges for the overall experience that they bring to the game. God knows this is going to (understandably) be TL:DRded, but a few sketchy statistics shouldn't be grounds to kill a cool part of the game.

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Yenwodyah wrote:virology next please

Pandarsenic wrote:

Yenwodyah wrote:virology next please

Reading the PR, I do enjoy my "10-minute healing virus speedrun and then I'm a normal doctor," but I'm not sure that virology is substantively different from most of the complaints raised about Nanites in the PR.

Rohen_Tahir wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

And their creator doesn't like them either.

ArcaneDefence wrote:nanites are too strong because no one sabotages them > people learn nanites > people abuse nanites > people learn to sabotage nanites > no one uses nanites > no one sabotages nanites

XDTM wrote:

ArcaneDefence wrote:nanites are too strong because no one sabotages them > people learn nanites > people abuse nanites > people learn to sabotage nanites > no one uses nanites > no one sabotages nanites

See, that'd be somewhat acceptable, but the step between "people abuse nanites > people learn to sabotage nanites" never seemed to happen outside of a small number of specialized players

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Yenwodyah wrote:virology next please

saprasam wrote:nanites were for losers

Flatulent wrote:

saprasam wrote:nanites were for losers

t. got nanites and was forced to say nya repeatedly

Armhulen wrote:

Flatulent wrote:

saprasam wrote:nanites were for losers

t. got nanites and was forced to say nya repeatedly

t. spent 8 seconds in a reskinned locker and got free healing and autorevive

Tlaltecuhtli wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Flatulent wrote:

saprasam wrote:nanites were for losers

t. got nanites and was forced to say nya repeatedly

t. spent 8 seconds in a reskinned locker and got free healing and autorevive

t.spent 3 minutes in cryo instead (lol)

Armhulen wrote:

Tlaltecuhtli wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Flatulent wrote:

saprasam wrote:nanites were for losers

t. got nanites and was forced to say nya repeatedly

t. spent 8 seconds in a reskinned locker and got free healing and autorevive

t.spent 3 minutes in cryo instead (lol)

let the medbay gremlins have their fun

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Agux909 wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

Woah bravo there sir, post of the month you saved the thread. I feel overwhelmed by the echo of unlimited wisdom and usefulness sprouting from you post. Every coder now feels embarrased to exist because of your much NEEDED wise words, you sure teached'em all, you genius, IQ lord.

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

Timonk wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

I mean he could have spent equal amount of time trying to find a solution instead of spending that very same time removing all the nanites files instead

Rohen_Tahir wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

I mean he could have spent equal amount of time trying to find a solution instead of spending that very same time removing all the nanites files instead

Not true. Excising something like that from the code is pretty fast (thanks to OOP), probably took less than half an hour.

Rohen_Tahir wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

I mean he could have spent equal amount of time trying to find a solution instead of spending that very same time removing all the nanites files instead

Not true. Excising something like that from the code is pretty fast (thanks to OOP), probably took less than half an hour.

Flatulent wrote:the time coder saved not fixing nanites is time spent ruining the game further

Timonk wrote:

Rohen_Tahir wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Timonk wrote:

Agux909 wrote:All reasoning and arguments are pointless. The coder doesn't like nanites and the headcoder was like yeah do whatever I don't like them either. So they go away.

All that's left is to seethe and cope until we get used to it. Staple TG experience.

Makes me almost want to remove that quote i have in my signature

It's a stupid quote, nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

I mean he could have spent equal amount of time trying to find a solution instead of spending that very same time removing all the nanites files instead

Not true. Excising something like that from the code is pretty fast (thanks to OOP), probably took less than half an hour.

Depending on how much he could have come up with in half an hour of thinking about this problem, he could have found a solution. We are still not including the elaborate text of why he wants to remove it in the half hour so he could have considered it even longer

Armhulen wrote:Nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

Tearling wrote:

Armhulen wrote:Nanites had 3 years to improve and they only got worse and nobody wanted to do anything with them and then when someone opens a removal they're like YOU SHOULD HAVE IMPROVED IT FIRST

My couch had 3 years to improve but it only got worst. I had the ability to fix it, but I chose not to, because I'm lazy. Despite the fact that my couch was still comfortable I threw it out because my couch was not gameplay, it was an outcome. Yes, I'm still seething over the Nanite removal, and I will be for the next 2 years.