Time Gate on Purchasing Syndie Bombs

[Yakumo_Chen]

Very simple idea, probably easy to code:

Traitor Uplinks have Syndicate Bombs greyed out as a purchasable item until ~10-15 minutes into the game. The uplink's description of the item is updated to reflect this.
Another item is added to the uplink that lets you bypass the gate for a small TC cost, or is just a more expensive bomb you can buy right away.

Doesn't affect Nuke Ops uplinks, though they already have two pre-spawned for them on the ship (AND a Big Red Button!) so I can't imagine why you need more...

The reasoning behind this is manyfold:
-There are far, far, far too many traitor rounds that are outright ruined by a Syndicate Bomb blowing up half of medical less then 10 minutes into the game. There's usually a high chance of a 20 minute shuttle call resulting from this, almost guaranteed in lowpop when there's no engineers and nobody wants to fix the mess.
-Short rounds are unfun and bombing discourages longer rounds to happen. Time gating the bomb at the very least discourages this behavior. A good meta would encourage saving the bomb for farther into the round to encourage a shuttle call after objectives are completed and before Bad Things start happening that would generally ruin your chances of survival. I could see a bomb preferably putting an end to a round 30 minutes in, after destroying something like Science or the Brig and destroying lots of hard-earned research or just destroying the brig. The current meta is just 'grief brig or medical with a bomb, wait 20 minutes for the shuttle to leave'. That's no fun and you're wasting everyone's time.
-Bombs are creatively bankrupt. I have never seen a bomb used in a creative way. Everyone I see who uses it buys it to destroy a large chunk of a department, and then.... nothing. I have high doubts most people even use it for an assassinate objective, there's no rigging the bomb to go off right away (which you could easily do with a couple signalers), aside from taking out the core and using it with some C4 or something. Bombs are generally just used to damage the station and that's basically it. Why are you wasting your grief lottery on one single shitty bomb?
-Yes, you can do toxins in half the time you could wait for a bomb. But wait! Toxins can be easily monitored, or the Research Director can just outright say 'no bombs' and hide the valves and then the toxins scientist comes and tries to kill the RD as a non-antagonist for three rounds in a row because they don't like the station exploding and just fuck you Boris, you're shitty. Syndie Bombs have no oversight. You just buy the bomb and rig it. Usually a 60 second timer isn't going to be stopped by anyone in time (assuming someone is actually suicidal enough to try to disarm it anyway). Back when it ticked slowly, yeah, maybe, but now it uses real time and ain't nobody got time to stop that.
-Engine release was nerfed to encourage longer rounds. This is another step in the right direction. Rounds should be longer then 20 minutes, and people generally enjoy longer rounds. Longer rounds encourages creativity among antagonists (and therefore more interesting antagonists) and encourages people to actually do their jobs on the station (especially research-related jobs) and generally sets a better precedent for having more fun. If you got your objectives done early, great job! Why not ask for more (there might even be some extra TC in it for you~), or perhaps begin a project that will bring a hilarious and epic conclusion to the game's round! Do what I do and rampage through the station with a bunch of AI mechs, or release 20 different engines at the same time, or maybe kill the captain, steal the disk, trade all your TCs for the nuke codes, and blow it all to hell! You could do much, much better then blowing up a third of a department, maybe, if you placed it in a decent spot, with three quarters of your TCs.

-Finally, if you want to just ignore this text wall, and tell Yakumo to fuck off, you can buy the Early Bird Bomb and just blow up a third of medical anyway within the first 3 minutes of the shift. Sure, you'll be using basically all your TCs, but at least you made the round boring and unfun for everyone, or engineering patched it up within 5 minutes and you basically accomplished nothing. Did you even take out cloning? I bet you didn't.

[kevinz000]

FEATURE FREEZE IN 24 HOURS MUSH MUSH CODECUCKS CODE YAKUMO'S IDEA!!
@yakumo oh yeah feature freeze means no feature or balance prs until it ends, as only fixes and refactors would be allowed. 24 hours until no one can do it!

[onleavedontatme]

We could just remove them from traitor uplinks since they're low effort "time for a shuttle call" buttons.

[kevinz000]

go ahead kor do it
i'd love to do this but i just bricked my github client!

[Yakumo_Chen]

I mean, yeah, I'd advocate for its removal too, but it felt like a better idea at least suggesting it be nerfed first.

[kevinz000]

here
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/25408
sorry can't do better i bricked my github rip

[calzilla1]

If you do, don't remove it from the screwed bundle

[captain sawrge]

Just get rid of all the stupid fucking traitor WMDs please so the rounds can at least have a chance of going on longer than 5 seconds

[kevinz000]

If you do, don't remove it from the screwed bundle

Done

[ShadowDimentio]

Bombs are rarely ever bought, and when they are there's 60 seconds worth of time for someone to try and disarm it. The only plausible reason someone would want them removed is because they got dunked by a bomb and are mad.

Get good.

[Aloraydrel]

I don't think you've read anything in the thread.

[D&B]

Don't do half compromises, if the bombs are removed, then remove toxins too. They can do far worse in less time.

[Dr_bee]

Don't do half compromises, if the bombs are removed, then remove toxins too. They can do far worse in less time.

It typically requires SOME time and you can be caught, plus if the RD is doing their job they should heavily restrict TTVs and monitor toxin's like a hawk.

If you want to nerf toxins just reduce the number of TTVs they get at roundstart or put most of the TTVs in the RD's office, if you really want to bomb the entire fucking station, order more TTVs from cargo.

[cedarbridge]

Don't do half compromises, if the bombs are removed, then remove toxins too. They can do far worse in less time.

>open PDA
>get bomb
>turn on bomb
>boom


>go to toxins
>fuck around with valves and mixes and shit for a while
>acquire a few bombs
>smuggle said bombs out of toxins
>boom

Neither of these are comparable and saying that pressing a button on your uplink is slower than toxins is literally what.

[Iatots]

Don't do half compromises, if the bombs are removed, then remove toxins too. They can do far worse in less time.

>open PDA
>get bomb
>get to isolated area
>watch out any witness
>turn on bomb
>wait a minute and a half
>boom


>go to toxins
>cool oxygen for a minute
>at the same time heat plasma for a minute
>acquire a few bombs
>smuggle said bombs out of toxins
>boom

Neither of these are comparable and saying that pressing a button on your uplink is slower than toxins is literally what.

FTFY

[D&B]

Lmao you don't even need toxins, you just need a heater and some pipes.

The most you'll need from toxins is the TTV, and thinking you need toxins to make the bombs is both stupid and uninformed.

>Get 4 pipes and connectors
>Get into maintenance and connect one pipe for cooling oxygen
>Finish cooking your oxygen, heat your plasma with your other two pipes so it doesn't get mixed with plasma
>Put it together, blow shit up.

[captain sawrge]

Lmao you don't even need toxins, you just need a heater and some pipes.

The most you'll need from toxins is the TTV, and thinking you need toxins to make the bombs is both stupid and uninformed.

>Get 4 pipes and connectors
>Get into maintenance and connect one pipe for cooling oxygen
>Finish cooking your oxygen, heat your plasma with your other two pipes so it doesn't get mixed with plasma
>Put it together, blow shit up.

At least then there's some actual form of gameplay involved rather than "press this button to just have the WMD handed to you"

[cedarbridge]

Lmao you don't even need toxins, you just need a heater and some pipes.

The most you'll need from toxins is the TTV, and thinking you need toxins to make the bombs is both stupid and uninformed.

>Get 4 pipes and connectors
>Get into maintenance and connect one pipe for cooling oxygen
>Finish cooking your oxygen, heat your plasma with your other two pipes so it doesn't get mixed with plasma
>Put it together, blow shit up.

At least then there's some actual form of gameplay involved rather than "press this button to just have the WMD handed to you"

This entirely.

[kevinz000]

ITT people think one click booms are good

[DemonFiren]

people are dumb

[Tokiko2]

What if the syndie bombs didn't cause breaches? You'd still end up destroying machinery, walls and crewmembers but you'd no longer make departments completely inaccessible to anyone without a spacesuit.

[cedarbridge]

What if the syndie bombs didn't cause breaches? You'd still end up destroying machinery, walls and crewmembers but you'd no longer make departments completely inaccessible to anyone without a spacesuit.

Even without the hull breaches, most people don't remember map layouts or have the autism required to reconstruct medbay and all medbay machinery. Even worse for things like telecomms. Instantly deleting two things that nobody but the most determined will even bother repairing is an instant shuttle call.

[BeeSting12]

i would say git gud but the truth is if a traitor needs a syndie bomb to force a shuttle call he needs to git gud too

[Qbopper]

The only thing I like about syndie bombs is defusing them and even that's a meme thanks to the "haha guess the wire or die fucker" mechanic

would not be opposed to this/removal

[cedarbridge]

The only thing I like about syndie bombs is defusing them and even that's a meme thanks to the "haha guess the wire or die fucker" mechanic

would not be opposed to this/removal

But at least we have bomb suits so you can die but not get gibbed and never get revived anyway because that bomb took out cloning and cyro :^)

[ShadowDimentio]

itt: the same people that brought you "nerf the dual esword" bring you "remove bombs"

You spend half your TC to attempt to blow up one area. I don't care how much you hate your department getting blown up, this traitor just fully committed to making it happen and qqing about how it's """low effort""" and """just pressing a button""" is fucking stupid and brushes right past how the traitor spent HALF his good boy points to do it.

Traitors are supposed to be dangerous and destructive menaces to the station you hugboxer casuals.

[Qbopper]

Bombs are cool

Syndie bombs are signficiantly less so in my opinion

Please stop posting strawman arguments when people you disagree with say they dislike things

[ShadowDimentio]

I mean I'm not an incredible fan when my department occasionally gets blown up by a traitor, but that's just life on SS13 sometimes and it's not like the bomb the traitor used is completely unfair.

[Cobby]

The only thing I like about syndie bombs is defusing them and even that's a meme thanks to the "haha guess the wire or die fucker" mechanic

would not be opposed to this/removal

But at least we have bomb suits so you can die but not get gibbed and never get revived anyway because that bomb took out cloning and cyro :^)

What are you a sissy?

[Luke Cox]

What if you could just buy a Syndicate TTV or something?

[cedarbridge]

What if you could just buy a Syndicate TTV or something?

Nobody would buy them because they're useless outside of cryo and you already get enough valves in toxins to maxcap the station on most map layouts anyway.

[Luke Cox]

What if you could just buy a Syndicate TTV or something?

Nobody would buy them because they're useless outside of cryo and you already get enough valves in toxins to maxcap the station on most map layouts anyway.

Thought it might be a good compromise for traitors who are too afraid or retarded to break into toxins. We could also make Syndicate bombs 18-20 TC items since they can cause a significant amount of damage to the station almost instantly. 11 is way too cheap imo

[PKPenguin321]

itt: the same people that brought you "nerf the dual esword" bring you "remove bombs"

You spend half your TC to attempt to blow up one area. I don't care how much you hate your department getting blown up, this traitor just fully committed to making it happen and qqing about how it's """low effort""" and """just pressing a button""" is fucking stupid and brushes right past how the traitor spent HALF his good boy points to do it.

Traitors are supposed to be dangerous and destructive menaces to the station you hugboxer casuals.

this is just suggesting to put them behind a time gate so you cant rush a bomb roundstart
ive seen it happen where there will be a new round just starting to unfold, interactions being made on the bridge, beautiful friendships being made
then a guy in a gasmask runs up dragging a syndicate bomb that's at 2 seconds on the clock and everything evaporates and there's a giant hole in the middle of the station 2 minutes into the round
its fuckin stupid
but you can still use bombs, you just cant rush them roundstart like that anymore

[ShadowDimentio]

Them's the breaks sometimes, that traitor spent half his TCs to bomb the station at roundstart and now isn't going to be doing much else for the rest of it. A tradeoff was made.

Also you lot are severely overestimating the amount of times this happens. This isn't back when DA had four bombs going off a round, you maybe see one roundstart bombing every 25 rounds. Why? Because it's not a very effective strategy nor is it a very fun one.

[cedarbridge]

Them's the breaks sometimes, that traitor spent half his TCs to bomb the station at roundstart and now isn't going to be doing much else for the rest of it. A tradeoff was made.

Also you lot are severely overestimating the amount of times this happens. This isn't back when DA had four bombs going off a round, you maybe see one roundstart bombing every 25 rounds. Why? Because it's not a very effective strategy nor is it a very fun one.

Your TC aren't sacred and neither is your roll for antag status. The fact that so much of antaging is trapped behind TC is pretty tragic. Its part of the reason I have more sympathy for toxins bombs than TC purchased bombs. One requires interaction with things already on the station. It requires a player playing as an infiltrating agent to make use of his surroundings and accesible materials to betray the station he's on. Putting 90% of the stuff traitors want to use behind TC is dumb and just leads to cases where the traitors aren't taking what they know about a department to terrorize the station but rather just rolling for antag on assistant because they're getting the same loot AND maint access to run and hide after.

[ShadowDimentio]

You're actually retarded if you think that "90% of stuff is locked behind TCs". Kudzu, all of science, cargo, engineering thanks supermatter, chemistry, virology... The list is utterly endless, it's just that antag rolls are infinitely more likely to net a bunch of unrobust people that don't have the skill required to use these other options that they instead have to rely on TC items as to not be completely worthless.

If for some ungodly reason we gutted all the traitor items and just had traitors being an average crewmember with a free valid pass the world wouldn't be nearly as rosy as you imagine, the advanced options wouldn't be used any more than currently and the average unrobust antag would bet stomped under my boots as HoS even faster and more efficiently than they are currently.

[darkpaladin109]

If the problem's people buying bombs roundstart and causing early shuttlecalls, then don't remove bombs but just make it so that people can only buy them later on in the round.

[captain sawrge]

it's just that antag rolls are infinitely more likely to net a bunch of unrobust people that don't have the skill required to use these other options that they instead have to rely on TC items as to not be completely worthless

>give someone a bunch of creative ways of fucking things up, such as everything you just listed
>but also give them a button that lets them just circumvent all the work required to do this in lieu of a bunch of readily available WMDs you can buy anywhere
>players never have to learn and never acquire skill or become More Robust because everything is just handed to them instead
>complain that traitor is boring but also complain if any changes to it are made


Explain to me how handholding someone to the point where they don't even need to figure out toxins testing and can just buy their own premade bombs is less hugbox than forcing people to make them themselves.
Explain how giving people near range immunity bundled with one of the strongest melee weapons or a ranged two shot kill with seven bullets is less hugbox than forcing them to be more clever and prepared for their stupid round-ending murderstreak.
Explain how giving someone an infinite use hack-anything device is less hugbox than making them hack doors or find access.
Explain how giving someone an infinite ammo ranged stun is less hugbox than making manage ammo and choose when and where to use their shots and recharge.

Traitors have fallen to the game design trap where the most effective options are also the least interesting and everyone has dug their heels in so firmly against removing this stupid garbage and I can't begin to fathom why.

[Armhulen]

it's just that antag rolls are infinitely more likely to net a bunch of unrobust people that don't have the skill required to use these other options that they instead have to rely on TC items as to not be completely worthless

>give someone a bunch of creative ways of fucking things up, such as everything you just listed
>but also give them a button that lets them just circumvent all the work required to do this in lieu of a bunch of readily available WMDs you can buy anywhere
>players never have to learn and never acquire skill or become More Robust because everything is just handed to them instead
>complain that traitor is boring but also complain if any changes to it are made


Explain to me how handholding someone to the point where they don't even need to figure out toxins testing and can just buy their own premade bombs is less hugbox than forcing people to make them themselves.
Explain how giving people near range immunity bundled with one of the strongest melee weapons or a ranged two shot kill with seven bullets is more hugbox than forcing them to be more clever and prepared for their stupid round-ending murderstreak.
Explain how giving someone an infinite use hack-anything device is more hugbox than making them hack doors or find access.
Explain how giving someone an infinite ammo ranged stun is more hugbox than making manage ammo and choose when and where to use their shots and recharge.

Traitors have fallen to the game design trap where the most effective options are also the least interesting

It still costs half of their tc, they're paying for an easy bomb.

[captain sawrge]

That's neither mine nor OP's point.

[Qbopper]

it's just that antag rolls are infinitely more likely to net a bunch of unrobust people that don't have the skill required to use these other options that they instead have to rely on TC items as to not be completely worthless

>give someone a bunch of creative ways of fucking things up, such as everything you just listed
>but also give them a button that lets them just circumvent all the work required to do this in lieu of a bunch of readily available WMDs you can buy anywhere
>players never have to learn and never acquire skill or become More Robust because everything is just handed to them instead
>complain that traitor is boring but also complain if any changes to it are made


Explain to me how handholding someone to the point where they don't even need to figure out toxins testing and can just buy their own premade bombs is less hugbox than forcing people to make them themselves.
Explain how giving people near range immunity bundled with one of the strongest melee weapons or a ranged two shot kill with seven bullets is less hugbox than forcing them to be more clever and prepared for their stupid round-ending murderstreak.
Explain how giving someone an infinite use hack-anything device is less hugbox than making them hack doors or find access.
Explain how giving someone an infinite ammo ranged stun is less hugbox than making manage ammo and choose when and where to use their shots and recharge.

Traitors have fallen to the game design trap where the most effective options are also the least interesting

thank you for summing up my points better than I ever could

[ShadowDimentio]

If for some ungodly reason we gutted all the traitor items and just had traitors being an average crewmember with a free valid pass the world wouldn't be nearly as rosy as you imagine, the advanced options wouldn't be used any more than currently and the average unrobust antag would bet stomped under my boots as HoS even faster and more efficiently than they are currently.

TCs exist as a crutch for an unrobust crewmember to either lean on to not be completely fucking useless or for a robust crewmember to wield to augment their destruction. It IS NOT the be-all-end-all of equipment that you seem to believe it to be, as the options that exist on the station if you get creative will fucking annihilate some unrobust chucklefuck mindlessly relying on their traitor gear, as robust counterplay beats gear every time.

[captain sawrge]

If for some ungodly reason we gutted all the traitor items and just had traitors being an average crewmember with a free valid pass the world wouldn't be nearly as rosy as you imagine, the advanced options wouldn't be used any more than currently and the average unrobust antag would bet stomped under my boots as HoS even faster and more efficiently than they are currently.

TCs exist as a crutch for an unrobust crewmember to either lean on to not be completely fucking useless or for a robust crewmember to wield to augment their destruction. It IS NOT the be-all-end-all of equipment that you seem to believe it to be, as the options that exist on the station if you get creative will fucking annihilate some unrobust chucklefuck mindlessly relying on their traitor gear, as robust counterplay beats gear every time.

Wrong

[ShadowDimentio]

Give me an example where a robust crewmember using on-station gear effectively can't beat a traitor mindlessly relying on gear alone.

[captain sawrge]

You have done nothing to address my points and have instead created a bizarre hypothetical scenario where two extremes face off as if this somehow proves anything.

[Tokiko2]

If making airpump singletanks is apparently too hard for a traitor, then perhaps they shouldn't be able to explode the station in the first place? Explosions are quite disruptive. They depressurize a lot of areas which make them deadly for anyone without a spacesuit and usually tend to end the round. We don't have singulo or megafauna spawners in the uplink either, even though you can destroy those with on-station equipment too.

[Dr_bee]

On a side note, having actual hard-mode traitor rounds would be kinda fun if you think about it. all the licence to griff none of the TC bullshit. youd have to think on your toes a bit

[Jacough]

Maybe we could make the set up for syndicate bombs very convoluted and dangerous in terms of setting it up. Like it could come with a note with randomized instructions that must be followed precisely otherwise the bomb will either just deactivate permanently, fatally shock the guy setting it up, or even explode prematurely.

[Luke Cox]

Sawrge has a point. Traitors should absolutely have the tools to fuck with the station, but it should require some creativity and/or skill. I wouldn't mind some kind of atmos-sink that sucks up air and uses it to fuel a bomb or something.

[Qbopper]

Maybe we could make the set up for syndicate bombs very convoluted and dangerous in terms of setting it up. Like it could come with a note with randomized instructions that must be followed precisely otherwise the bomb will either just deactivate permanently, fatally shock the guy setting it up, or even explode prematurely.

maybe make it so it makes noise/something slightly obvious? could be interesting to see people try to defend it as they planted it/set a trap