/tg/Station 13

Debate it here instead

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50632

Is "wow, now they're using tools to hack the doors instead of an emag, just like how everyone else (who doesn't have AA or a silicon friend) does it" really more interesting than "he used an emag to get into the captain's office, so now the detective knows that if he analyzes the prints on that door, he can potentially identify someone as a traitor because they didn't cover their tracks well enough"?

This has to be the most pointless PR ever. If someone wants to waste 6tc to open doors 3 seconds faster than the time they would spend hacking, then they should have the option to.

Any links to the PR?

In reality the "hacking" meta needs a rework. Using tools should have a delay, similar to using surgical tools (could be faster for engineers, slower for everybody else), which would make things like C-4 and emag better alternatives.

Istoprocent1 wrote:Any links to the PR?.

added

The emag is used a lot, but that's okay. The implication that it's necessary by calling it a "tc tax" is pretty blatantly wrong and while the item is good it's not overpowered. It opens doors, literally anyone with a screwdriver, multitool/cutters, and crowbar can do that. It has a other unique functions, but opening doors quickly is the main one and its not like it doesn't have drawbacks. It leaves the door stuck open and is very obvious. I really don't see how this makes the game any more "interesting" and the idea that opening a door needs to be complex or interesting is stupid. It's just a door we don't need to make people play a game of tetris to get through without access.

Emag is okay and should definitely stay IMHO. PR in its current form is kinda bad.

>fast access through doors
>doesnt blow up half the station fnr
>leaves obvious marks
>leaves prints

If emag plays are too fast and furious for goof, then there is always an option to make it a limited use item.

his premise is utterly wrong, there's no 6 tc tax
dont want an emag? dont buy it
i dont get it
experienced tiders use tools anyway, emag is funny for the chaos is causes when you just open every door you come by and watch the assistants go everywhere
as others have pointed out there's no need to remove functionality from it

I do not like this idea. I feel like there's a valid point to nerfing the emag for opening random doors, but removing it isn't really the way to go I think. Maybe make it take time?

Or limited uses before it's completely bust is a better change

Change is fine but it should be done like in https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50636/files but I'd say make the emag cheaper; it's a minor item now as its main purpose was removed. Maybe 5tc instead of 6.

edit: I also made my own take; I think this might be a valid option too It seems github is can down so I cant PR it yet because github is dying but ill link it once its ready

Of the emag PRs we have up currently, I feel like all of them are just treating symptoms, and not the cause of the issue itself.

I sincerely don't get why every time this comes up I've been shouted down from the heavens for even considering this, but the problem doesn't just stop at "emags are able to open a door in 1 click". Lets say that any of the following PRs are merged:
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50638
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50636
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50632

If a player has a set goal in mind, the emag, or it's respective replacement will not be used to open doors, ever, because of the inherent cost added to the action. Instead, you'll see the rise of several cheaper alternative items, such as the syndicate toolbox (1tc, comes with a multitool, combat gloves, and full toolkit), EMP flashlights (a 4tc, rechargeable EMP tool that can be used to knock out power or randomly open doors), or honestly just the E/D-sword and players just bashing doors down. From an efficiency standpoint though, player who are capable enough were already just using toolkits and bolting everything open beforehand. The only players who were using emags in the first place were ops, or players who haven't mastered and memorized hacking in the first place. This will make hacking a more important and relevant skill for traitors to learn, which will result in EVERYONE on the server being able to hack. Not necessarily a bad thing, having a skilled playerbase who know more skills and tricks of the game isn't all that bad, but it brings up the revolving door argument that comes up every time this discussion comes around: Hacking is a memorization game that you have to do every shift, can instantly succeed at with zero/next to zero penalty, and remains the same for the entire shift.

There was at least a few PRS that have attempted to fix this problem that we're setting ourselves up for, with the best one I can find being this one:
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/35126
Applying this, but on a department-wide scale. For example, the wires for all medical doors would be the same (Yellow test, Green Bolts), except for the CMO's office, which would be truly random. Then hopping over to science, all the regular science doors would be the same (Purple test, Violet Bolts), RD's office truly random as well. Rinse and repeat, with things like maintenance, public and RCD'd/Built doors having their own common wirenet as well.

Source: My braindead "fuck around until the antags show up" assistant 'gimmick' for the past 2 years has been to break into people's departments and steal shit. I can break into 95% of the most secure areas on the station in a matter of second due to the global wirenet being the absolute same for all doors, everywhere.

Edit:
This PR is almost exactly is what I described. https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/47368

The justification for the PR is baffling. If you feel the Emag is too overpowered and you want to nerf it, okay, but the justifications seem arbitrary as hell. What the fuck does 6 TC Tax mean? That only makes sense if you consider its functionality vital, and if you consider its functionality vital, then why would you then go and remove that functionality? If anything, calling the Emag's cost a "tax" implies a need for TC cost reduction, not a functionality nerf.

But okay, let's say you want to nerf the Emag anyway for Reasons. Here are some ideas of which you could incorporate Any or All:

1) Replace the frying of electronics with a Greytide Virus effect. This would make fixing doors easier, meaning it'd be less useful as a mass chaos tool and more in line with an explicitly elicit access tool while still leaving evidence of wrongdoing.
2) Cooldowns. A 5/10 second cooldown between uses would mean breaking through double-layered doors would be more risky.
3) Charges, either fixed or recharging. Saw this proposed on the github just now.
4) Unique noise. When you emag a door, have it play a unique sound. Something like Access Denied, EMP Noise, Access Granted, Crowbar Opening, all in quick succession. This would make it far more conspicuous.

Does oranges support nerfing the emag? If so, why?

The emag is one of the best if not the best, anti murderbone tools the game currently has.

It excels at sabotage and escape, whilst keeping the murderboning down as a traitor just gets in and grabs their objective, then bolts out.

The downside of this is that there are obvious signs that a door has been emagged, and now the security team will be on the lookout for a traitor in their midst. Maybe even use multiple options to try to catch them, like random searching, or getting the detective to see what fibers are left on the door.

Heck, even hacking into a very very important area already has a downside, since it automatically alerts the ai to anyone who's been in there.

Do you want a more deadly form of AA? That already exists, in the form of the agent card.

Everyone you kill/down, you can take their access with the swipe of your ID. It's cheaper too.

I remember seeing an oranges design document somewhere around here stating in their traitor ideas thread that they would want sabotage to be the first line of traitor tools, whilst they'd have to do some objectives to get access to their other ones.

Why remove the best non-lethal sabotage tool? That only incentivizes the other options, and most of those are lethal.

Like using a high damage weapon to break down a door, using explosives to break down a door, using your guardian buddy to break down the door. Killing someone for their access, then using that to get into the door.

It just doesn't seem very right for anything. Not to mention the limited amount of tools without making antagonists breaking into cargo and causing some lethality over there, will simply replace the emag being bought with a syndicate toolbox more often than not at best.

Or an e-sword at worst.

I prefer to use the emag to LOCK doors rather than open them. If I know the bolt wire, then I can force that door shut until someone deconstructs it. The very rare instances where I want to emag a door open would be when I need to get myself into sec for whatever reason. I rather like getting a storage implant, emp, and emag for subterfuge funsies.

I think the problem with the emag is that there's significantly less VALUE in other TC items. The idea is to make tators consider other options, right? If you want to nerf the emag, then you need to either increase the cost, decrease the cost of other subterfuge TC items, or make the other subterfuge TC items better. The emag is an all-around item that can be utilized in any situation, but other such items are very niche in their application. Why not add a short progress bar on using an emag on a door? Or if emagging doors is removed, maybe drop the TC to 4?

Or maybe remove the emag entirely for "1 use, 1 TC emags"? Gives tators an option to feel they have a choice, fills inventory slots, and allows for more interesting set-ups? Nukies could then get access to actual emags and hey, balance is achieved!

the problem with all these "insert tc for more charges" emags is that this functionality already exists in a more lethal option

c4 - x4 charges. 1 tc = 1 door bomb.

So yeah, these nerfs are just an increase in the lethality over sabotage gameplay

I like the recharging idea the most. Give it 2-5 max uses and it recharges one of these every 30 seconds or whatever.

Having a charging system would be neat putting it at around the same power level as the emp light which is similar in how it can break open lockers but also do things like stun borgs while the emag can do all its wacky emag things and doors at the cost of the extra 2tc.

I'm kind of vehemently opposed to all nerfs without rhyme or reason. Including the charging system, since so far I'm not sure what that would hope to do.

The "machine breaker" functionality of the emag doesn't seem to be targetted at all, and the charging system would hurt that.

What does goof want with this PR anyways?

Edit: From being a speed reader, I now see that goof wants people to use other items instead of the emag, so they don't go "Ah I always have to buy an emag!" every round.

Refer to my previous posts about the majority of other options being lethal. Like the door bomb x4/c4, or simply using a weapon to cut down a door at a rapid rate.

You don't want the 6 tc tax turning into a mandatory strong lethal weapon tax.

Chainsaw arm could also work.

Simply put goof, instead of making a nerf for such a silly reason as not wanting people to buy this item every round because it's good. You could simply make a wiki page listing the alternatives since there are many like you said.

I dislike the majority of the alternatives for the bloodshed they cause though. But if you prefer them, who am I to diss your horizontal tea?

Istoprocent1 wrote:In reality the "hacking" meta needs a rework. Using tools should have a delay, similar to using surgical tools (could be faster for engineers, slower for everybody else), which would make things like C-4 and emag better alternatives.

Unironically this.

Personally I'd like to see emags temporarily meddle with a door's access restrictions instead of bolting them open until someone rebuilds them, maybe leave the smoking panel permanently. Shift has to be pretty quiet for engineers and engiborgs to actually bother making doors with the right access, and the effort it takes for a traitor to open all airlocks on station, including external ones, is quite minimal in comparison. It's a bit like someone grabbing a hardsuit, fireaxe and smashing all windows from space. This is something of a slippery slope since there are so many ways for someone to get the station breached fast and without much trouble.

I play a lot of silicon so take this with a pinch of salt, I mostly see emag as a "oh god the station is leaking air!!!!" problem. Especially when terry gang goes FREEDOM MAN.

>github PR says to discuss the change in the forum thread instead
>forum thread says to discuss the change in the github PR instead

stupid pr that has now triggered unnecessary debate on how to fix things that aren't broken

If we HAVE to change the emag (which is dumb because it's fine in it's current form) just make it so that it doesn't break doors, so that a bored traitor can't just break every single door in the station.

Haven't really looked but does the PR still allow you to short out sealed airlocks to permabolt them? Would like it if that feature was kept.

You know given this partially resolves blitz ops by slowing down their movements considerably, I am actually more on board with removing emag door hacking. In theory.

HOWEVER this still brings up considerable issues with the game mode that will come up.

Emags serve as an in and an out, as it removes whichever door you emag from being utilized, especially from AI's. AIs just generally have way, way too much power to completely seal rooms that ops cannot resolve without having a silicon of their own. Which means for ops the tax moves from the emag to the more expensive and ghost limited silicons. Saboteurs in particular. Or they are taxed on an obscene amount of c4 which is extremely compromising due to being a grenade. This means elances and even minor explosions will blow up their c4, so they either don't carry it on their person or buy it in the field. Generally speaking, because we do not enforce players protecting their own lives to any degree, we cannot stop players validhunting at the cost of their own well being. This means suicide bombs are frequently employed against ops. Both welder bombings and more. This is especially true for crew cyborgs, who have no personal risk to themselves when they welder bomb. Which makes any carried bomb by operatives an immense liability and c4 is included in this. So simply giving the ops more c4 on the shuttle isn't a solution. It's a trap.

Which leaves buying c4 in the field, which means leaving a lot of tc in the uplink for this purpose. This means opening a laggy window to buy this c4. Which means it leaves them vulnerable to being shot as their window focus moves to the uplink. And still taxing their tc.

The same can be said for hacking doors. The insinuation that ops need to hack every single door on their way yo the disk is not only unrealistic but borderline out of touch with how difficult it is to follow a mobile target while you yourself lack access.

Ops in some situations can hit key targets to obtain access but these are additional variables and issues that result in the ops potentially failing. The only get around is a nukie silicon. And if the AI catches them, they are not getting any doors open without that borg. The AI can stonewall extremely hard. To an obnoxious degree. Sometimes even straight up cost them the round as they pushed every button simultaneously to seal the room shut and flick on and off the APC to keep them trapped.

Even killing the AI can prove to be fair too difficult to be worth doing, as it can scream to it's borgs that ops are killing it. So even if you take out that variable, you very likely expose yourself by doing so. Which means it's a syndicate borg or it's nothing.

It's not just an issue of external entry but also internal station movement and additional hurdles, and creates more checklists for success and purchases that prove to be mandatory.

Once the call is out, ops are in trouble, and with limited mobility warops will have a lot of trouble actually assaulting the station when everyone knows they are coming and have mobility on them.

And ops will move far, far slower than someone who could be the most mobile person on the station due to his incredibly high access and possession of the hand teleporter, allowing him to go just about anywhere he needs if the teleporter is set correctly. This person being the captain. Nobody else will have this access under normal circumstances unless it is war ops, so as long as the captain remains in inaccessible locations and uses his roundstart equipment, he can be nigh uncatchable even if the ops are stealing access via their agent cards. Ops can't really disguise except going to dorms and dressing as an assistant, which might very well become the meta without emags.

Also, lone ops get utterly trashed by this. What the fuck are they meant to do with 25 tc when most of it is spent on c4. You aren't going to see a lone op gingerly hacking doors open. They'll just do the assistant outfit and wait for the captain to go to some part of the station where nobody will hear the CQC knockout.

Additionally, if you simply reinforce enough of the stations doors, you basically stonewall ops hard enough that they'll lose by default. Ops can't weld anything because someone had the bright idea to make all nightvision goggles blind people through hardsuit helmets. This means to weld anything they need to remove their biggest advantage over standard crew. The ability to see in the dark the moment they spawn. If you reinforce the doors through only a few important locations and do the teleport mobility trick I described, you unironically can just wait out the timer and catch the nukies in the midst of tearing down the doors they can't get through quickly without explosives. And if they do actually do that, you can waste that investment entirely by moving to the next secured location. This isn't even hard. You havr a lot of plasteel you can find station wide to accomplish this and takes very little effort. More or less, if you want to stop the ops getting in, you dont even need to try.

All in addition to this, reinforced windows are the primary external window, which are made of unobtainium and require bullets to destroy as even eswords are not exempt from their snowflake special damage reduction. If every single obstacle the ops face must be destroyed with their precious ammo, that is still a tax and will leave their killing potential more and more exhausted for when they finally are met with resistance. Though windows are easily shot out with their stechkins, for doors, which are usually cycling so usually are in sets of two, you'll need to use some bigger firearm like slugs or a revolver to smash it open. And that takes time and is extremely obvious. And also expensive.

TL;DR Dark Ripley tactical killdozer for ops when.

cacogen wrote:stupid pr that has now triggered unnecessary debate on how to fix things that aren't broken

Including a debate about normal hacking now, which I find really funny, because I can already see an emag nerf PR going through to encourage more people to use hacking, then a hacking nerf PR going through, then any emag nerf reversion PRs made because of that hacking nerf PR going through getting denied because it's "too soon". God, I really do hate this place sometimes.

You guys remember the coder PR craze where we wanted normal hacking to be nerfed and sabotage to be reserved for tator tots only to stick it to the greytide.

At maximum potential, it was changing ALL the door wires to be random, so no two doors would have the same power lines and bolts.

That culminated in a bridge and sec buff where all of those doors now have reinforced grilles to make hacking harder.

Crazy how one coder can make the pendulum swing ey?

bro they was hella right door hacking is only harder than emag because you need tools

when the wires to get into doors can be relayed over comms hacking is not exclusive to people with gloves. we could, of course, make every wire shock if you don't have gloves, but nobody is happy with that solution

To everyone making counter nerfs because they dont like goof gutting one of the most well recieved and essentially "Core" of what all traitor items strive to be:

Please do not. You're fleshing out this very weak and unsupported idea that this item should be nerfed, by actually balancing this nerf. Here is my most recent metaphor explaining this:



Thus, until we get maintainer confirmation that this actually the direction they want to go in, and they want the best sabotage anti murderbone item being gutted. I'd sincerly hold off on the re-balanced nerfs.

The current form is here
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50636

I don't mind the current PR since it lowers the cost of the emag, but I'd like to see the card be rechargeable similar to the EMP flashlight. Four or five max charges but it regains one every thirty seconds. Forces some planning ahead to get through double layered airlocks.

BeeSting12 wrote:I don't mind the current PR since it lowers the cost of the emag, but I'd like to see the card be rechargeable similar to the EMP flashlight. Four or five max charges but it regains one every thirty seconds. Forces some planning ahead to get through double layered airlocks.

For reference, here's how Fulp did it:
TheSwain/Fulpstation#273
TheSwain/Fulpstation#295

is ATHATH the swain from newgrounds

BeeSting12 wrote:I don't mind the current PR since it lowers the cost of the emag, but I'd like to see the card be rechargeable similar to the EMP flashlight. Four or five max charges but it regains one every thirty seconds. Forces some planning ahead to get through double layered airlocks.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50640

Honestly I think emag is kinda over-rated, I personally never buy it except as a nuke op or if I want to hijack. Considering how its ability to open can be matched with a spear and 3 tools I always sort of saw it as a TC trap, certainly not a "tax" as goofball dubbed it. In most situations you use it to get all (or rather no longer have to use it once you get all) and any good traitor can get AA without an emag soooooo.

the goal is to encourage that.

I think if the emag does recharge, it should be on a longer cycle, so it's useful as an emergency get the fuck out of dodge tool, but not the skeleton key it was previously.


nukeops can just get a syndicate jaws of life like the CE has

another concern is how much of the game is balanced around the emag existing in the first place. someone pointed out how nuke ops are gonna be pretty boned and i have to agree to an extent, hacking with tools can at times force you to drop your guard which can be instant death for a fluke op and other options like C4 are too slow and loud
maybe give ops a superemag or something so they can be exempt from this

oranges wrote:the goal is to encourage that.

I think if the emag does recharge, it should be on a longer cycle, so it's useful as an emergency get the fuck out of dodge tool, but not the skeleton key it was previously.


nukeops can just get a syndicate jaws of life like the CE has

This, I like this.

Wow now even more insulated rushers and C4 doesn't even destroy a door or wall half the time

One option could be the one that oranges mentioned, which is recharging over time.

Another one could be that Emag starts with X charges (for example costs 6TC and starts with 6 charges) and works the way it has been working thusfar. In order to get more charges player could load raw telecrystals into the emag (1TC = 1 charge), which solves the issue of "muh nukies", while preventing John Doe stimming up and emagging everything for shits and giggles.

Giving nukies door breaching charges (a completely new item, which blows out doors quickly without causing too much collateral) could be one of the options to mitigate the need to go through doors quickly. Boosting the "whatever shotgun shell that comes in the ammo bundle" against doors would be an option as well.

With the emag change the manual door hacking game should slow down as well.

I'm definitely a fan of "limited charges + recharge" instead of "full removal" or "limited charges + TC to recharge".

It stops it being a skeleton key but leaves it as an insidious tool of sabotage. The exact values for how fast it should recharge or its max charges is going to be an interesting balance point though.

Also if C4/X4 is too loud/not effective at it's job I feel like that's a question of "what role is C/X4 intended to serve and what can we do to better help it serve that purpose" - if it's intent is to blow open doors/walls why is it unreliable (especially as a disposable item)? But that's for another thread really.

Based change, the emag being this elusive item where it not only opens doors easier than tools but also does a lot of VERY DIFFERENT stuff to a LARGE VARIETY of objects has been a distaste of mine for a while.

Just copy the code from a wizard staff and give it 3 uses that take a few minutes to recharge, easy. You need at least 2 for borgs.

If we make the emag have a recharge delay or limited use, please don't tie emagging other things to it. I'd hate for the other uses of emags to be nerfed just because we decided to keep door breaking.

As an aside, it'd be neat if broken airlocks could be crowbared into a open and passible state. The motor certainly isn't working at that point anyway. Might be useful for ops if C4 regularly breaks, but doesn't remove, airlocks.

Istoprocent1 wrote: Another one could be that Emag starts with X charges (for example costs 6TC and starts with 6 charges) and works the way it has been working thusfar. In order to get more charges player could load raw telecrystals into the emag (1TC = 1 charge), which solves the issue of "muh nukies", while preventing John Doe stimming up and emagging everything for shits and giggles.

The whole reason people rarely buy C4 is because most of the time spending a whole telecrystal to break into one room one time is too expensive. Is opening a door without access really so powerful it should cost a telecrystal every time you do it?
From what I can tell one of the main problems people have with the emag is people being able to do emag runs and break far more doors than the crew can fix, and just giving the emag a recharge time would fix that.

Istoprocent1 wrote: Giving nukies door breaching charges (a completely new item, which blows out doors quickly without causing too much collateral) could be one of the options to mitigate the need to go through doors quickly. Boosting the "whatever shotgun shell that comes in the ammo bundle" against doors would be an option as well.

Nuke ops are severely outnumbered by the crew and their one advantage is having better equipment, an antag like that really shouldn't have to expend some limited resource like ammo or breaching charges just to get on the station in the first place.

Cobby wrote:Based change, the emag being this elusive item where it not only opens doors easier than tools but also does a lot of VERY DIFFERENT stuff to a LARGE VARIETY of objects has been a distaste of mine for a while.

Most of the functions the emag has are so situational there's nowhere else to put them besides as another function to an item that already has a bunch of other functions.
I like stuff like being able to emag a comms console to message the syndicate and ask for more objectives or whatever if there's an admin on but if a traitor item did that and only that it wouldn't be anywhere near worth it.

that begs the question of should they have been added in the first place if their only sensible way to be invoked is through a magic item that "messes with the electronics".

6tc is a lot already how the fuck are you supposed to get both emag and kill-kill or stun-stun guns

while emag is the most popular item, it is only that by virtue of being a get out of jail free card

how can you justify buying a 6tc utility item that DOESNT DO ANYTHING to you if you follow your objectives, go contracting or do late stage abortions on the entire crew? Nobody emags borgs because borgs will die to one flash and snitch on you also fuck giving silicons free antag

cobby and oranges agree on everything and it's always something anti-fun