Allow more roundstart borgs

[Cheimon]

At the moment, you can only have one borg spawning at the start. This frequently means there's a queue of two or three people who started the round with borg highest in their job prefences, but couldn't get it. It's frustrating for them (they basically have to wait 10 minutes longer than everyone else to start the round), it's pointless busywork for the roboticist, and it's annoying for the AI. So it would be more fun to let 3 people roundstart as borgs, or make it dependent on population (one per 20 people in roundstart, or something).

Having only one borg allowed to spawn at the start doesn't so much limit the number of borgs on the station as make it less fun for those who want to play as a borg. There's no need for it.

Pros:

- Cyborgs are useful, especially to the AI but also to the crew generally.

- Queuing to get borged at roundstart, and being at the mercy of the roboticist's ability to get things done, is not fun.

- The robotics lab's materials won't be used up quite so fast, allowing people to get borged later on if that becomes necessary, or more basic mechs, or all sorts of things.

Cons:

- Cyborgs are powerful, and people don't like it when they make things difficult for them (particular frustration has been expressed about security borgs that just want to enforce space law)

- The roboticist might have less to do at roundstart (although they can always make bots and basic mechs). I say 'the' because only one robo can spawn, the other has to latejoin. Another thing to fix?

- The roboticist would suddenly have a lot of materials to be villainous with.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Not a bad idea. Malf AIs are ridiculously underpowered anyway. Fund it.

[paprika]

Why not pop scaling?

0-20 readies - 1 borg, 20+ readies - 2 borgs, 30+ readies - 3 borgs, etc.

This would ensure that malf ais always have a chance to get 2 roundstart borgies.

[Reimoo]

Considering Sybil is constantly at 60+ player count a good fraction of the time, 6 borgs seems a little overkill. I think 1 borg for every 20 is a nice balance. Or perhaps the scaling could work exponentially. We might need some tweaking on that.

However, it's worth noting that this idea has been suggested countless times, including the population scaling. For whatever reason it continues to get shot down.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I think it should not be more than 3 in any case

[paprika]

Considering Sybil is constantly at 60+ player count a good fraction of the time, 6 borgs seems a little overkill. I think 1 borg for every 20 is a nice balance. Or perhaps the scaling could work exponentially. We might need some tweaking on that.

However, it's worth noting that this idea has been suggested countless times, including the population scaling. For whatever reason it continues to get shot down.

But 60+ people don't ready at roundstart. That's why I said 'readies'. Of course there will be a limit.

It gets shot down over and over because it's basically the roboticist's only roundstart job to make cyborgs for people who didn't get it.

[callanrockslol]

Considering Sybil is constantly at 60+ player count a good fraction of the time, 6 borgs seems a little overkill. I think 1 borg for every 20 is a nice balance. Or perhaps the scaling could work exponentially. We might need some tweaking on that.

However, it's worth noting that this idea has been suggested countless times, including the population scaling. For whatever reason it continues to get shot down.

But 60+ people don't ready at roundstart. That's why I said 'readies'. Of course there will be a limit.

It gets shot down over and over because it's basically the roboticist's only roundstart job to make cyborgs for people who didn't get it.

You're forgetting mechs, little robots that do silly things and big lazer robots that go insane and kill us all

[Cipher3]

You're forgetting mechs, little robots that do silly things and big lazer robots that go insane and kill us all

it's basically the roboticist's only roundstart job to make cyborgs for people who didn't get it.

[callanrockslol]

You're forgetting mechs, little robots that do silly things and big lazer robots that go insane and kill us all

it's basically the roboticist's only roundstart job to make cyborgs for people who didn't get it.

> not building 100 medibots at roundstart.

[Cipher3]

>Implying you can make mechs at roundstart though.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

You can make mechs at roundstart

[paprika]

odys and ripleys aren't mechs they're pussy magnets

[Neerti]

You need to wait on research to get the boards anyways.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Research can be done in a matter of minutes, you'll wait longer for parts to be built

Also odys are quite useful

[Cheimon]

Roundstart tasks for a roboticist who hasn't got anyone to borg:

- Make the three medibots with in-lab resources

- Make syringe guns and tasers for research, pester them to deconstruct them

- Get acid from chemistry

- Replace existing borg batteries and install headsets if they bring them

- As soon as the syringe guns are researched, you can start making a Ripley or Odysseus mech using in-lab resources. You can make two of either type before you run out of plasteel.

Once you've made a mech or two, the roundstart is really over. But there's plenty of stuff to do in the roundstart that doesn't involve borging people.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Who needs tasers, just make durand boards. Acid is literally free and almost infinite, metal is not.

Also I believe borgs now get headsets by default, but I could be wrong. They should, in any case. And Ais should track all channels anyway.

[miggles]

Because you can't make Durand boards at roundstart.

[cedarbridge]

Ironically, I can't get over the feeling that even increasing the number of roundstart borgs would just add borgs on top of the borgs the robo already makes. Consider that even with additional roundstart borgs, you'll probably still get at least 1-2 dudes in line at robotics at roundstart wanting to get borged. So, in high pop, that would be 3+x, where x is probably about 1 or 2. 5 borgs close to roundstart is quite a lot. Though, at current rates, 5 borgs at all is quite a lot.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Because you can't make Durand boards at roundstart.

So? Make flamethrower to advance combat and then make some boards or DA other shit like flashes. I don't remember what exactly I used to DA after flamethrower for combat, but I never asked for tasers, that's for sure. Now, syringe guns are awesome because they advance whole 4 techs and that saves a lot of pain.

[Cheimon]

Who needs tasers, just make durand boards. Acid is literally free and almost infinite, metal is not.

Also I believe borgs now get headsets by default, but I could be wrong. They should, in any case. And Ais should track all channels anyway.

They get the standard radio channel, but they don't have access to other radio channels until they get the relevant key installed. AI tracking won't necessarily help a borg.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Err, reroute all channels to AI private (or whatever), tell borg to switch. Borgs don't really need the ability to talk in common anyway.

[Gun Hog]

You can already route all channels to AI private, and having them still hear and talk on Common is easily done as well. You just need the right script installed!

[Cipher3]

Because you can't make Durand boards at roundstart.

So? Make flamethrower to advance combat and then make some boards or DA other shit like flashes. I don't remember what exactly I used to DA after flamethrower for combat, but I never asked for tasers, that's for sure. Now, syringe guns are awesome because they advance whole 4 techs and that saves a lot of pain.

The tasers referred to here are the mech tasers produced from the robotics exosuit fabricator - not security tasers.

[callanrockslol]

You need to wait on research to get the boards anyways.

Do what we did in the before time and ask cargo for the ripley boards.

I bet a bunch of people don't even know that you can make 2 ripleys at roundstart by doing that.

[ShizCalev]

1:15 ratio. Do it.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

The tasers referred to here are the mech tasers produced from the robotics exosuit fabricator - not security tasers.

I know. What does it change?

Do what we did in the before time and ask cargo for the ripley boards.

I bet a bunch of people don't even know that you can make 2 ripleys at roundstart by doing that.

But research takes less time and resources. Any competent cargo tech would refuse. 2 Ripleys? What for?

[Neerti]

You'd get told to git gud by the qm.

[Konork]

Who needs tasers, just make durand boards. Acid is literally free and almost infinite, metal is not.

You know, thinking about it a bit more, I think the idea of using tasers is from before the mining overhaul, where metal might as well have been infinite, and when it came to the miners who you could pretty much bribe with better gear and the chemists who didn't really need much from science, the miners were probably more likely to get you the stuff you need.

[paprika]

Ordering ripleys from cargo should give you the full mechs imo, they're fucking useless anyway.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Never seen a chemist who refused me stuff and wasn't busy

[Cassord]

Ordering ripleys from cargo should give you the full mechs imo, they're fucking useless anyway.

THIS. They're so slow, they're pretty much useless, and it takes so few hits to destroy one. Someone with a wielded axe could just run up to you and tap you a couple times and poof, say goodbye to your precious mech that you spent ages buildling and getting the circuits for. Same thing with the odysseus, only it's slightly more useful (WHY DOESN'T IT MANUFACTURE IT'S OWN SYRINGES???). Buff mechs 2014.

[iyaerP]

Given what miners face on the asteroid, ripleys should come with twin UAC-5s and a PPC

[cedarbridge]

You need to wait on research to get the boards anyways.

Do what we did in the before time and ask cargo for the ripley boards.

I bet a bunch of people don't even know that you can make 2 ripleys at roundstart by doing that.

Yes, and then you'd have two mechs to stop around making noises and being useless for pretty much anything else.

[MisterPerson]

Get back on topic, please.