/tg/Station 13

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Kor wrote:I didn't realize it completely bypassed the pen cooldown as well. That's probably a bigger issue than converting sec honestly.

yep. successful gangs with a lot of influence will barely use the pen, they'll just buy a ton of implant breakers and use them on everybody (even people without implants) simply because it's faster.

Lumbermancer wrote:I have a feeling that some security people actively try to get caught by gang and get converted. I mean fuck, I once saw a detective that got converted and deconverted twice. You'd think after first time you'd be careful.

And you can't rally tell whether they done it on purpose, or are they just stupid. That's why breaker has to go.

You can't say 'oh, okay, we'll remove the breaker' without addressing the problems that WILL crop up as a result of removing it. It's a sign of poor foresight and would ruin the gamemode, but you haven't proposed anything to replace it.

But yeah, honestly, it's less that sec tries to get caught and more that people are retarded. Even after I convert 'easy prey' they're always useless, don't communicate, get deganged immediately, and/or sit around doing nothing (recently I've started partially looting sec officers, because I find it's much more useful than relying on them). It's pretty obvious if they intend to get caught, since they won't holler that they're being converted, unless they're the noncommunicative type (i.e. they don't speak English).

Mostly, people are just flat-out stupid. You don't know how many times I've ran around with a double esword on a massacre and no one gave a flying fuck even if they're the one being attacked, security or not.

I don't like the idea of one gang stealing gangsters off another gang.

Doesn't seem very thematic that you can leech of another gang, and kinda makes the whole conflict very bloodless outside of executing gang heads and similar.

It discourages going lethal over stunning and converting everyone.

Amelius wrote:It's pretty obvious if they intend to get caught, since they won't holler that they're being converted.

That's the point, they really not yell for help when being attacked, and I learn about their deconversion only when I spot them without implant. Yesterday I played as HoS. Detective got converted twice, two officers and Warden got converted too. None of them yelled for help. Captain got converted as well.

I don't consider myself very robust, but they tried to nab me whole round but they failed. They finally managed to convert me after they rushed armory with 5 people (Detective, Warden, Sec, CE and Captain).

It's fucking stupid, and I refuse to believe they did all they could to prevent getting converted.

Steelpoint wrote:I don't like the idea of one gang stealing gangsters off another gang.

Doesn't seem very thematic that you can leech of another gang, and kinda makes the whole conflict very bloodless outside of executing gang heads and similar.

It discourages going lethal over stunning and converting everyone.

If implant breakers were changed to remove loyalty implants/gang status instead of removing both of these AND converting, then it would make pens have an actual point. As it stands right now, you just spam breakers, tossing that shit out like candy to all of your gangers, and suddenly you have the whole station. They need to not convert.

Steelpoint wrote:I don't like the idea of one gang stealing gangsters off another gang.

Doesn't seem very thematic that you can leech of another gang, and kinda makes the whole conflict very bloodless outside of executing gang heads and similar.

It discourages going lethal over stunning and converting everyone.

Is this a problem? The result is that you have constant contention over human resources with little bloodshed mixed in. It also means that a disadvantaged gang, with good leadership can come back from poor circumstances, rather than simply be overwhelmed by larger numbers. The sole difference between cuffing and implanting someone, v.s. shooting them in the face is that one person is now out of the round.

In fact, doing as you say would, even more so than currently, emphasize spamming conversions as fast as possible and increasing your control as fast as possible, since smaller gangs will, eventually, have no way of spreading their influence or coming back from poor circumstances. Then the rounds would start fizzling out midgame because of all the bloodshed, resulting in there would be like one dude protecting a dominator on a station of 10 alive people.

That is not the solution. If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve creating a hundred new issues in it's place, then please, provide it and reason why it would work.

Part of the problem with calling for help is that you generally haven't been able to since stuns disrupted your radio use.

The only stuns that disrupt radio use are ones that prevent you from talking are cultpaper, sling glare, chems, and others that aren't as bad. All tasers do is just make you stutter, but people can understand you.

Okay, so let's say you've been stunned in maintenance. The cuffs and the implant are literally happening *right now*. It's early in the round (presumably) so it's almost certainly the gang head doing this, and he'll almost certainly have a breaker.

You have two options. One, you scream, alerting security and pissing off everyone around you. If you manage to get something coherent out ("backup to arrivals secpost") rather than something useless ("help"), security may come. If they come, you will probably be converted already. You will fight and quite possibly die, and you will have given away your new teammates, who will be equally pissed off at you.

Two, you keep shtum. The AI and security aren't alerted to the fact you're compromised, you remain safer, you don't get into an immediate fight, and you stand a better chance of surviving this. If you're lucky, the fact an immediate fight doesn't brew means you're able to help convert the rest of security, and save their lives.

What is my point? My point is that when you get captured by a powerful gang, you have to bear in mind that even though you are not in the gang right now, you are going to be in a few seconds. If you're looking after number one, screaming isn't necessarily a good idea. It will help security, but it won't save you. In fact, the rational thing to do is quite often to remain silent, affording better circumstances to the side you're now on.

Also, some people just have slow typing reactions, and when they do type aren't any good at getting something more useful than "help" out.

You're about to get forcefully brain washed, and made to summon an elder god(and die)/overthrow the corporation (and IC wise probably die to squids later)/whatever it is that gangs do. Probably do drugs, and die from cocaine overdose or something.

While I would choose conversion over death, I'd also rather get converted and hopefully get deconverted later by the sec you alerted, even if you'll be fighting against it tooth and nail in the future.

Either way it's not a big deal though.

It kinda is, because of the fact that we're a lightRP server, the majority of the players won't give a shit about IC reasoning behind what's happening. They think, "Well, I won't die when I do this, so let's kill people," and then they get implant broken.

Aside from that, it's still a huge problem that implant breakers convert along with break the implant.

Can we decrease stun time from slipping?

Seriously the last 3 gang rounds have been

- Wet floor en-route to brig
- Stand in maint
- Wait until officer walks by
- Ziptie
- Convert

Cheimon wrote:What is my point? My point is that when you get captured by a powerful gang, you have to bear in mind that even though you are not in the gang right now, you are going to be in a few seconds. If you're looking after number one, screaming isn't necessarily a good idea. It will help security, but it won't save you. In fact, the rational thing to do is quite often to remain silent, affording better circumstances to the side you're now on.

You are loyalty implanted. That is all.

The rational thing to do would be to warn your fellow Security Officers you've been captured before the Gangsters can remove your communications ability.

Staying silent only helps the Gangsters, the enemy.

Prior to implantation you are still loyal to NT.

Not screaming out that you're being converted is actively working against NT at that moment in time.

It's not active at all. It's practically a textbook example of passively not helping NT.

Loyalty implants aren't magically forcing you to do everything in your power. You're not an ai-like slave to the law of "you must not, through inaction, harm nanotrasen". You can be implanted and be a traitor, a cultist, and a changeling. All they do is prevent weak brainwashing, and override weak brainwashing (rev).

Additionally, depending on the circumstances of your capture, shouting out often causes officers to wander in and get killed or converted one by one. This entire thing is situational.

Cheimon wrote:It's not active at all. It's practically a textbook example of passively not helping NT.

Loyalty implants aren't magically forcing you to do everything in your power. You're not an ai-like slave to the law of "you must not, through inaction, harm nanotrasen". You can be implanted and be a traitor, a cultist, and a changeling. All they do is prevent weak brainwashing, and override weak brainwashing (rev).

Additionally, depending on the circumstances of your capture, shouting out often causes officers to wander in and get killed or converted one by one. This entire thing is situational.

So shout

"Being converted by X, Lots of gangsters. Don't try to save me".

Meekly accepting conversion is just utterly shitty.

And when does anyone ever get something that coherent out? Most of the time all people can spell is 'help' and maybe 'maint' or 'arrivals'.

I'm assuming they're actually making an effort and taking your headset pretty quickly. Obviously if it's just one guy with a prod and he's taking his time things are different anyway.

I might say exactly the same for the opposite. When someone gets arrested for a crime, why don't they all constantly scream out for help on the radio? Why don't they get absolutely everyone to assist them? Meekly accepting conversion is just utterly shitty, after all. What kind of revolutionary/ganger/changeling/cultist wouldn't do everything in their power to avoid getting converted by sec? The answer is that you're sometimes in a situation you can't change. You're not obliged to squeal on the radio, and it may be in your best interests not to.

There are many reason as to why its a good damn idea to call out you've been captured, even just a help is good.

• Let Security know there is a hostile force on the station, triple so if you are the first to be captured.
• Allows Security to know they've just lost a man, or are about to lose them.
• Gives the Hos/Warden/AI the chance to check suit sensors.
• Gives a heads up to Security on you being missing, especially if you turn up later conveniently without a loyalty implant.
• Puts pressure on the attacker.

The only reason you would not call out for help is if you simply want a easier time being a antagonist, which in my opinion means you should not be playing Security. Your job is to maintain the peace and ensure the safety of the crew and station. Intentionally by preforming a action, or by inaction, that jeopardizes this means your not fit to be in a security role.

Your not some two bit mercenary that swoons with the flow of cash, your a loyal employee of the most powerful corporation in the known universe who has been placed in a position of ultimate trust and responsibility.

Don't play a role where other people rely and need you to act and preform to your best, and then turn around and let them down by barely putting up a token fight when your attacked and captured.

In my opinion.

> Not squeling on your attackers because it adds more challenge for when you're converted.

No seriously, this is the primary reason why I do it. If I don't squel like a stuck pig when someone tries to convert me, then it becomes TOO easy as a converted antag - ESPECIALLY when converting you to instawin was the entire gang meta for months. The whole 'you're loyalty implanted so you ought to do it' is more of a side argument that I don't care as much about.

Cheimon wrote:And when does anyone ever get something that coherent out? Most of the time all people can spell is 'help' and maybe 'maint' or 'arrivals'.

But that it is enough to know that officer has been compromised, so I don't heave to learn about it the hard when when I stumble upon him in maint, and realize he is without implant only after he tases me.

Okay, these are some reasonable arguments and I realise I'm basically just playing devil's advocate. I think this will be my last post on this.

But I do think, Steelpoint, that you're expecting a bit more of security players than the role requires. If you're not willing to do absolutely everything, even when you've lost, then don't play security? By that logic we ought to hold many other jobs to higher standards too. How many engineers release the singularity by accident? How many doctors wander off to the bar? How many clowns just wander around wordlessly slipping people? How many botanists simply use the job to mass produce weed and banana peels? Apart from the engineering one, I don't normally see this much condemnation for how these people play their roles. I'm in security because it pays, it's engaging work, and because stopping petty crime is something that needs to be done. At the end of the day, I'm not obliged to pointlessly sacrifice my life for it. If I've already made my resistance and lost, I am in no way obliged to make things harder for myself, which (as people have admitted) squealing does.

There are plenty of good reasons to cry wolf on the radio. But security officers aren't obliged to roleplay questing knights, always seeking justice and a fair fight. It's totally legitimate to be a two-bit mercenary as well. I'm loyal enough. But I'm not enslaved.

Steelpoint wrote:The rational thing to do would be to warn your fellow Security Officers you've been captured before the Gangsters can remove your communications ability.

Staying silent only helps the Gangsters, the enemy.

Except admins have stated that loyalty implants have literally no point except to make rev more bearable. The time they said this was when I was asking in OOC about why loyalty implants don't deconvert cultists, and they responded with that they were designed explicitly for rev and that was it, even though they would make it so the cultist... wouldn't be a cultist anymore if the implants actually did what they say they do.

Admins don't know shit.

If you want to be a antagonist then don't fucking play security.

I mean, if you really want to go all out in making it easier for yourself in the rarer case you get captured and converted, why are you playing a role that is protected from many antagonist positions in the first place?

Play Assistant, or literally any other non-sec or command role, if you want a easier time as a antagonist.

That's not what we're saying, we're saying that nobody wants to die, get their shit stolen, and get spaced. This is what would happen if you scream before you get converted because everyone is gonna know you're now insta-valid when you yell, "HELP GANGS ARRIVALS MAINT!" as a sec officer. This has nothing to do with wanting to play an antagonist.

Lumbermancer wrote:Admins don't know shit.

Considering I literally worked with Mport in creating implants (I contributed sprites for thexample implanted machine and some of the flavor text), yes I think I know pretty well what their intent was.

Hell is paved with intents.

Zilenan91 wrote:That's not what we're saying, we're saying that nobody wants to die, get their shit stolen, and get spaced. This is what would happen if you scream before you get converted because everyone is gonna know you're now insta-valid when you yell, "HELP GANGS ARRIVALS MAINT!" as a sec officer. This has nothing to do with wanting to play an antagonist.

Thank you. I mean seriously, not screaming is not the same as

[going] all out in making it easier for yourself in the rarer case you get captured and converted

It's not going all out to do anything. It's literally just not adding an extra layer of challenge. It's the lack of something. It's rarely even an active decision.

Dear god nerf the slipping stun time.

I am not touching slipping times, lest I get saddled with a thousand "muh care free enviroment" or "lol he buff sec".

It is annoying. Prehaps it might be interesting to look into tieing slipping stun times with if you are or are not wearing any shoes.

So no shoes is 10 seconds, with shoes is five or so seconds.

I recall someone also suggesting years ago to make Security Jackboots offer good slipping protection, so 2 or 3 seconds. Good to drop their gun but not to cuff them.

clown pda slip is the most rediculously long shit, it's the same as pre-nerf taser stuns I believe, which is like double the length of most stuns today.

Especially since if the clown times his PDA throw well it's pretty much unblockable.

There just needs to be a hotkey for walk/run toggle, I'm amazed it's not there. Can it be coded?

That won't fix it because throwing glasses of water/PDAs is instant and spraying bottles is basically instant. Amelius, the player behind Emily Ranger, has said that they use slips fucking constantly because they're so ridiculous. They're the opposite of a good game mechanic because, "you walk here, you die."

It is hilariously effective against security, especially in maint.

Hint: People use slips all the time now because everything else was nerfed massively, not because everyone suddenly discovered that the pest spray from botany can down an entire sec team.

Then nerf slips. The reason everything else was nerfed is because stuns are uninteractive and shit. It's the slow removal of stun combat in action.

You shouldn't be able to slip cuff.

Under pretty much any circumstance.

Nerfing is horrible when there are no alternatives provided.

If you nerf slips there should be other (preferably lethal) ways of taking someone out.

There already are lethal and incredibly easy ways to take people down.

>the guys armed with tasters and flashbangs complaining how unfair stuns are

When was the last time someone got slipped by water (water that anyone even at a jogging pace can see), then somehow being unable to even move a finger, then get cuffed and dragged away by someone?

I've only been subjected to this tactic once in the last few weeks (a low-pop Rev round where yours truly was the only Head) but I have seen the tactic used very extensively.

When you have antagonists picking slipping with water over guns, you might see something wrong. Maybe.

Steelpoint wrote:When you have antagonists picking slipping with water over guns, you might see something wrong. Maybe.

Oh, I always wondered when the nerfcrew were going to nerf slips to the point of uselessness like they nerfed everything else. Especially anything else non-sec can get. They're balanced, they're fucking visible for christ sake and are hardcountered by WALKING, or moving around it of all things. Make it so they don't last enough to cuff? Great, you didn't solve the 'problem' but instead you just removed the last territory-denial getaway weapon non-sec even has left, and instead of slip -> cuff it'll be slip -> stun cuff, further requiring a stunprod to do anything markedly vaguely resembling murder in this game. It was even nerfed not that long ago to have a sizeable deployment delay and a really really loud sound on the level of an esword that it always had.

Chemistry? Grenades were nerfed severely, foam and smoke is pretty much useless and the only viable grenade combinations that are worthwhile are clf3 and phlog variations. Thermite was nerfed but still viable, lube is still unnerfed but probably not for long. Genetics? So many crap blocks were added you'd be lucky if you get a power or two in a half hour, especially with DNAIDS gone, and there's that prospective nerf in the works on git. Science? Unreliable, but all the guns were gated behind the armory or a trillion points in cargo unless you're a traitor and you purchase an emag, instead of simply an armory-access ID. Probably the next target with the nerfbat since bombs are actually viable for mass-destruction, and no one seems to care that everything is gated behind minerals that mining doesn't come with half the time, and R&D takes more than half the round to get to levels where you, as an antag, can do things with it predicated on acquiring firing pins. You can no longer perform self-surgery, so yes, no self-augging and instead you, as an unallied antagonist, have to trust your life to random folks to do a time consuming process. I mean, when was the last time you saw someone augged? Augs were nerfed fairly severely anyways.

Mining can't even get stims that work in their hardsuits any more for christ sake because apparently being rewarded for mining with a limited use item that made the work more bearable and had viable antagonist usage was OP. Even the mining mobs were nerfed, the goliath no longer stuns if you walk over a tentatcle.

Sec on the other hand, had their taser cap slashed to 5 and ridiculously unbalanced disablers with nigh infinite ammo added in their place, which render juking a security guard's shots outright impossible, even if they blindfire. Flashbangs were buffed to rely on ear and eye protection, missing one still nets a long stun (I believe it used to only stun without eye protection since we didn't have bowmen's until recently), and eye cover and ear cover are hard to find and usually come with massive downsides (earmuffs make you deaf, welding goggles/helmet makes you partially blind). Flashes were made spammable in an AoE and disorients (the latter may have been reverted), so anyone without active eye protection can, out of nowhere, be blinded forever with no counterplay in combat. Sec received the massive buff of having an armory of 20-bullet autorifles with 2 extra mags per rifle, hardcountering any on-station antagonist relying on melee (read: almost all of them until they get that sweet, sweet sec gear with a mandatory stunprod), and making flashbang -> massacre 4-5 people very easy to accomplish as they are extremely spammable.

The only untouched major sectors are cargo and engineering, but engineering doesn't have much in the way of lethal instruments sans stunprods in the first place, only utility, and the former.


We have inverse power creep, ESPECIALLY for non-sec. Everything gets weaker all the time. The game used to be 'everything is scary and lethal, be afraid', and now I don't even give a fuck if a random blood-covered assistant comes after me in my office because there's nothing he can do to me before I can shut him down. Stun combat was OK, but it worked. Removing stuns won't and doesn't work, and seriously, after all these nerfs the only reason I still play here is because I'm addicted.

Note: Slips also rely on the targets to move toward you and chase, whilst being close enough to follow you, which also means they're close enough to hear water being sprayed before it's actually deployed. If they don't dodge or start walking, that's their fault. Same with if they run over an obvious, previously-wet tile in the middle of the hall - they get a good 10 tiles of reaction there to stop. The counterplay to slips is *gasp* dodging the slip. What you want is for sec to be able to make multiple mistakes in combat and still win against an antag that does everything right. Your sec bias is showing.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Hint: People use slips all the time now because everything else was nerfed massively, not because everyone suddenly discovered that the pest spray from botany can down an entire sec team.

Oh wow, a coder finally grasps the concept of reverse power creep that I've been going on about for years.

This is the inherent problem of open sourced development, to a exent.

Paprika intended a series of changes to move the game away from stun based combat, as well as other coders, but neither Paprika nor the other coders ever got around to finishing. Yet the changes they did make were never removed.

I still think, to this day, that we need to sit down and hammer out a clear direction in combat and lethality that the game and server should go in. But that will never happen as we get different people making different changes that pull the game in different directions. From stun nerfs, gun buffs and nefs to armour nerfs or buffs.

Its confusing and gets no where.

Steelpoint wrote:This is the inherent problem of open sourced development, to a exent.

Paprika intended a series of changes to move the game away from stun based combat, as well as other coders, but neither Paprika nor the other coders ever got around to finishing. Yet the changes they did make were never removed.

I still think, to this day, that we need to sit down and hammer out a clear direction in combat and lethality that the game and server should go in. But that will never happen as we get different people making different changes that pull the game in different directions. From stun nerfs, gun buffs and nefs to armour nerfs or buffs.

Its confusing and gets no where.

It is not inherent to open sourced development, the problem is caused by having nobody at the top making fundamental design decisions.

A guideline for the direction the game has to go is indeed badly needed, but the current feedback forum is just an impotent tool for such things. Things get discussed, everyone disagrees until nobody cares anymore, thread sinks to the bottom of the forum, everyone forgets.


ps: why the fuck were gas nades ever nerfed? I have literally NEVER been killed by a gas nade, the only gas nade that ever hurt me were acid nades which were already removed.

True, the only real "head" the game has (in development) is Cheridan and even he has stated he wants to stay out of major balancing concerns, until he wants to in certain circumstances.

Everything else is really different people throwing their own changes at the wall and seeing if it sticks long enough to get merged. With no real long term goal of the game's direction, even my Sec Auto Rifle PR's are guilty of this.

As said, a guideline and a design overview of how we want to the game to go is needed, well needed if we want the game to move in a particular direction.

Video Game development is hard and design by committee is a shit-producing nightmare.

Development works best with a clear direction given by a benevolent dictator (A director).

But you guys whine whenever you're given a direction you disagree with. So nobody bothers.

Then I guess its a case of us figuring out who, or whom, are best at guiding the game in one direction and giving them the long term benefit of the doubt.

Your right, good game development comes from a clear vision by one or a small group of people, not from dozens of people fighting over changes at every turn and corner.

Maybe us players have to suck it up.

Ikarrus wrote:Video Game development is hard and design by committee is a shit-producing nightmare.

Development works best with a clear direction given by a benevolent dictator (A director).

But you guys whine whenever you're given a direction you disagree with. So nobody bothers.

Nobody actually ever set a series of design goals for the game.

We have only had people trying to push the game into a certain direction without ever correctly relating it to long term goals.

A lot of the controversial (read: plain nonsensical) changes such as Goofchem, the Nuke ops locked suits or macro bombs failed so hard exactly because they did not have clear goals in mind or actually worked against the stated goals.