/tg/Station 13

One of the things people complain about is how short the rounds are on /tg/ with many rounds having the shuttle be required to be called 20 minutes into the round.

part of this problem is toxins.

Nearly every other round some jackass makes maxcaps and destroys half the station. It takes significantly longer to repair the damage caused by 6 large explosions on the station than it does to make the bombs.

The inclusion of default heaters and coolers in toxins on many maps takes away a significant part of the challenge that bomb making used to be. So you end up seeing more round ending bombs more often.

So what should be done?

Restrict the tank transfer valves a bit more.

Reduce the number of starting TTVs in toxins to one, this gives enterprising scientists enough TTVs to make one bomb to test or traitors one free large explosion.

give the armory control over the majority of the TTVs on the station. This way science will have to get approval from security if they want to do any repeated bombing and in doing so they get outed as the person working toxins in case of any explosions.

and finally remove the default heaters and coolers from toxins. You should at least be required to use the heaters and coolers in maint or be required to build your own heaters and coolers if you wish to go that method instead of using a burn mix.

Restricting the unfun mechanic that is 6 fucking maxcaps every round would help extend round at least a little bit, as the station would be harder to bomb to shit less than 20 minutes into the round.

Science department already gets enough powerful stuff without oversight anyway.

Toxins should just be removed honestly.

It is a purely grief oriented department and its function is no longer as urgent since we moved to lavaland.

D&B wrote:Toxins should just be removed honestly.

B-b-but mining!

i feel conflicted over this since
1, it does have a purpose in-game. when im a miner, and some scientist hands me a hyper-cap, i get really, really happy.
2, its the only science dept involving real science, and actual experimentation.
but
1, it does nothing but end the round early in most games

christ110 wrote:i feel conflicted over this since
1, it does have a purpose in-game. when im a miner, and some scientist hands me a hyper-cap, i get really, really happy.

See, the problem with that from my experience is that nonantag scientists mostly just make bombs and then horde them so they can suicide bomb the shuttle at the end or detonate them prematurely either on accident or for extremely stupid reasons and get banned as a result.

Kinda tricky given a good chunk of the reason toxins exists is specifically so antags can make bombs with plausible deniability.

With xenobiology, there's far more interesting ways for scientists to wreck the station and/or get themselves killed if they really want to cause trouble, anyway.

Use the turbine in maintenance for exactly the same thing, that excuse is spent Hangar.

Professor Hangar wrote:Kinda tricky given a good chunk of the reason toxins exists is specifically so antags can make bombs with plausible deniability.

With xenobiology, there's far more interesting ways for scientists to wreck the station and/or get themselves killed if they really want to cause trouble, anyway.

With my idea toxins would be going away, it just would require a small amount of player interaction to get the resources to blow up half the station, as you would either have to order TTVs from cargo, ask the armory for them, or somehow make ghetto bombs using the atmos system and canisters.

If you REALLY wanted to blow up the station with toxins bombs, then you need to put in more effort.

The reason the singularity was changed with the supermatter was because it was too easy to release and cause insane damage, toxins is now similar.

You should still be able to cause havoc with it, but it should require more legwork than it currently does, just like how sabotaging the SM to get a singulo takes a bit more legwork than the previous "cut two wires and set the particle accelerator to 2"

Just nerf tank bombs a little. Keep the devastation range the same, but reduce the medium/light ranges (Make 3/7/14 into 3/5/10) and repairing bomb damage will become more reasonable.

Also fill the drone dispenser more often. And stop red-alert shuttlecalling when the damage is already half-repaired.

RandomMarine wrote:Just nerf tank bombs a little. Keep the devastation range the same, but reduce the medium/light ranges (Make 3/7/14 into 3/5/10) and repairing bomb damage will become more reasonable.

Also fill the drone dispenser more often. And stop red-alert shuttlecalling when the damage is already half-repaired.

Nerfing the bomb will mean there's even less of a purpose to use it on mining (like literally whenever that happens), you're forgetting we actually put a hard cap already on explosions, so nerfing it into the ground would simultaneously make all other explosions look bad, remove the possibility to make bombs via harder ways that are worthwhile for the effort.

"They call me Cuban Pete. I'm the king of the rhumba beat. And I'll teach you to chick-chicky-boom, chick-chicky-boom."

• There's like 5+ toxins rework suggestions out there, it should be a coding freeze objective to atleast suggest something.

Drones can't fix the damage because it was done by a traitor, its interfering.

Would there be a way to make it so mid to low quality bombs do less damage on the station but at the same time do increased damage on lavalands?

Drones can't fix the damage because it was done by a traitor, its interfering.

Pretty sure that's straight up wrong. The drones' laws state they're supposed to maintain and repair the station. In other words, fixing the damage done by bombs is fine so long as they're not doing something like dragging people to safety or bodies to cloning.

Drones cannot *interfere in the affairs of another*. After the bombing happens, it's no longer someone's affairs.

A drone cannot disarm a bomb, that would be interfering in someone's affairs, but they can repair the damage which is not interfering (Example: Someone snatching a candy bar out of your hand is interfering. Someone picking up the litter, after you throw it away, and putting it into the trash isn't).

But that's another altogether different problem.



The best solution, in my opinion, is to give toxins 2-3 TTVs and put another 3 in the armoury. Cargo can already order more TTVs, they don't because there's almost never any reason to.

3TTVs would be more than enough, even assuming you use up one or two for testing. One maxcap easily cripples a station and de-populates lavaland.

I'd rather we avoid messing with the bomb equation for explosive making until it's clear that too many people know it.

Replace toxins with crystal farm, it's like botany but for crystals. You can grow gibonite there.

Lumbermancer wrote:Replace toxins with crystal farm, it's like botany but for crystals. You can grow gibonite there.

That is not terrible, add more stuff to manufacture gibtonite further (see mining DMI for unused gibtonite tnt bars) and that's nice, perhaps gibtonite should be a component in constructing REAL high grade explosives like C4, and partially tie into the construction of bomb cores.

Endgame should be making crystal blobbernaught esque monsters, diamonds and parts (like lasers such as the BSA and e-guns etc) for stuff. Random outcroppings of crystals on lavaland to gather and collect besides fetching more gibtonite.

Geologist?

The only issue with Toxins is that there is no legitimate reason for it to exist. Maybe if well constructed TTVs could be sold to cargo for a large sum then maybe you have an excuse for it to exist.

But right now anyone who uses Toxins is either.

• A antagonist wanting to blow up half the station.
• Someone hoping an antagonist comes along that is powerful enough to warrant using the bomb (Wiz,ops).
• A newer player who's bombs will barely scratch the tile it detonates on

I'm not against Bombs since I feel they are one of the more reliable ways for Traitors to attempt to force a shuttle call (along side other actions like selective assassination and destruction of strategic targets), but I think Toxins is just there because its been there forever.

Hell I'd suggest lowering the cost of Syndicate Bombs (considering last I checked they were less powerful than a maxcap TTV) and then removing Toxins.

Also before anyone says "But Steelpoint we did used to have cheap Syndi Bombs, remember how shit it was?"

I should note that in the day those Syndi Bombs were around as powerful as a maxcap TTV and its never been easier for the crew to repair station damage from explosions. If the Captain is going to evacuate because of a single Bomb then the fact a single bomb can force a evac call is merely a symptom of the problem of Command staff wanting to call evac on the drop of a dime.

Stop being such whiny bitches and wanting to remove everything thats ever killed you fucks.

I am usually in favour of being killed but toxins is pretty dull.

I'm pro parasting and pen and "badaboom ur all gibz" is less interactive.

Also it's in the straight up round ender category where there is less time to actually be dead and be chill and observe things bit maybe ghost role a bit cause shuttles coming baby because bombo bot did his rote routine and people are explicitly prohibited by policy from interacting with him over it until the max caps crack the world. If toxins wasn't a sacred space I would love for the bombs to only go off because people were lazy but it's the most obnoxious thing under meta protection.

You can watch toxins like a hawk tell the sec team exactly who it is, if the first bomb is luckily reported fast that is. Have a showdown with the bomber in maint again by pure luck and they they probably set one off on themselves to avoid capture and try to kill you (had this happen dodged it kept him stunned on his own dirty trick) when cornered.
If they are actually knowledgeable at the game beyond low to no effort max cap making they can have one on a voice trigger to reward you with being blown up point blank if you even pull off stopping them.

If they're really knowledgeable about the game they'll have several hidden around the station connected various to voice triggers, timers and mousetraps.

Yeah pretty much but the killing word on managing to face the fucker is the cherry on top.

Grenades use basically the same trigger toys to set off a variety of effects including their own explosions so it's what toxin bombs do but more effort and more variety.
I swear we've had more balancing to acid death nades than bombs.

I'm basically not sure about any further nerfs to bombs, because as it stands it bombs are more powerful, infinitely more fiddly versions of grenades. And even a scientist (who spends five minutes on R&D) can put together their own personal grenade factory.

I dont think we should completely remove the toxins department, as some of the most fun Ive had in the science department has been trying to make a hot enough burn mix for a large bomb.

Just currently it is way too easy to make a maxcap and even easier to make 6 of them.

restriction of the valves and removal of the in-department heaters and coolers would be a much better game-play decision than screwing with the bomb math, Screwing around with the atmos system is fun, just currently the "make six maxcaps and ruin the round for everyone" meme is being run into the ground.

The problem with reducing the number of valves is that it sucks for people who actually experiment instead of just using guides.
"Oh that was a minor explosion.. well, time to AFK until next round."
So maybe it's better to put them in the RD office instead.

leibniz wrote:The problem with reducing the number of valves is that it sucks for people who actually experiment instead of just using guides.
"Oh that was a minor explosion.. well, time to AFK until next round."
So maybe it's better to put them in the RD office instead.

Reducing the number of valves with no way to construct more is basically shooting yourself in the foot with a partial removal. Get that suggestion off the table please, also i dont think the RD office needs much more reason to just be a lockup for all the shit scientists want but shouldn't touch.

Alipheese wrote:Stop being such whiny bitches and wanting to remove everything thats ever killed you fucks.

I only want to remove shit that disproportionately affects the round.

In other words, everything that you can't shoot with a taser.

The bomb formula states that: range = (presure - 5000)/1000. You can fiddle a little with that 5000 upping it around 12500 or so. That way it would affect more to smaller, fast, easy to produce max cap bombs and let those big fucking ones for mining more or less unaffected.
Pd: And don't fucking mess with the burning ecuation for plasma, it's complicated enough by itself.

InsaneHyena wrote:In other words, everything that you can't shoot with a taser.

Not an argument.

Lava creates a problem on lavaland in which unless you are detonating inland, gibtonite & the blast wave can throw minerals INTO lava or disperse them far enough as to be a pain in the ass to collect. So really bombs for their intended purpose doesn't work.

Alipheese wrote:Stop being such whiny bitches and wanting to remove everything thats ever killed you fucks.

Not a proper argument

FantasticFwoosh wrote:

leibniz wrote:The problem with reducing the number of valves is that it sucks for people who actually experiment instead of just using guides.
"Oh that was a minor explosion.. well, time to AFK until next round."
So maybe it's better to put them in the RD office instead.

Reducing the number of valves with no way to construct more is basically shooting yourself in the foot with a partial removal. Get that suggestion off the table please, also i dont think the RD office needs much more reason to just be a lockup for all the shit scientists want but shouldn't touch.

It isnt a partial removal, it is moving most of the valves under control of another department. If someone is legitimately experimenting with toxins then they should be ok with getting more valves from cargo or the armory. If either gets too stingy with the valves that will provide a much more interesting conflict than just leaving them all in toxins.

Plus being way too stingy with them probably should be a policy issue. I mean you arent supposed to confiscate them at roundstart right now, so why not just change it to "unless there has been active bombings at least give the scientist one valve"

by moving the valves it is giving the other parts of the station a bit more say and information about the goings on in a room that can end the round.

We could give them archaeology instead but then Librarian doesn't get it

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:We could give them archaeology instead but then Librarian doesn't get it

See EI atleast 5 different archeology threads in the ideas forum. If coders cared about toxins they'd already have acted on it.

This post seems like it's to a specific round rather than in general. I feel like the current amount of bomb's actually been pretty low lately.

I'll "start" a bomb mix almost every time I'm in science (same as feeding the first set of slimes in xeno). I've taught 3 new people how to do freezer/heater only mixes in the last month. Even with all that I can only think of three bombings in the last week.

One of them I was expecting the guy to bomb things and turned on the radio so it would announce his explosion. Nothing.

Make more bombs.

Everything about restricting tank transfer tubes but giving them 1-2 is retarded since if you know what you're doing you can duplicate them (with a decent success rate).
Changing the cap just moves it in favor of grenades, which are so much easier to make already.

If sec are competent they can just arrest anybody walking outside of science with a canister bomb (who is not the RD) immediately, but thats a attention draining job. Yes you can shut down toxins and make them stop working, but for a few rounds after a major bombing incident the vigilance used by secuity against bombers will rise, peak then wane to a ebb of suspicion.

Which is a meta-problem with toxins in itself is that traitors accurately wait for the most opportune time to abuse bombs and make the station inhospitable with large holes. Im supportive of toxins being reworked for said reason, given we have alternative bombs from uplinks, and even gibtonite/chemical bomb assemblies we can construct ourselves to substitute.

The valve bomb itself should be the item to be removed, a concealable maxcap that isn't heavy, fits inside a bag etc is not a balanced object as we are seeing and there's a department dedicated to making them.

Dr_bee wrote: ...

I dont think there is much meaningful conflict to be had.
Sec has no motivation to provide TTVs to anyone, if you mess with them you get gulag'd or lasered for trespassing.
MAYBE putting them in the RnD sec outpost in a locker is better but officers would just hide them at roundstart unless you spell out "fuck off, its meta" on the rules page.

FantasticFwoosh wrote:

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:We could give them archaeology instead but then Librarian doesn't get it

See EI atleast 5 different archeology threads in the ideas forum. If coders cared about toxins they'd already have acted on it.

What do you mean by this

Toxins is fine. Blowing 6 holes in the station is par for the course when compared to superviruses, hell kudzu, R&D, xenobio, etc.

I don't even know the last time I saw a proper carpetboming of the station.

ShadowDimentio wrote:Toxins is fine. Blowing 6 holes in the station is par for the course when compared to superviruses, hell kudzu, R&D, xenobio, etc.

I don't even know the last time I saw a proper carpetboming of the station.

Because its a instrument to make people leave, hence you don't see the carpet bombing. Are you a Cuban Pete alt?

Being irresponsible with high explosives is its own reward.

You mean it's the only reward.

Lumbermancer wrote:You mean it's the only reward.

You blew your minerals away into lava by making the explosion too strong, or subsequently blew yourself up/interesting things on lavaland (if toxins would EVER deliver bombs in the first place)

I refuse to believe anyone uses bombs to mine. Back in the dark ages of mining asteroid? Maybe. These days? You probably throw bombs at the fauna.

Lumbermancer wrote:I refuse to believe anyone uses bombs to mine. Back in the dark ages of mining asteroid? Maybe. These days? You probably throw bombs at the fauna.

So its agreed its a excuse to traitor exclusivity under the clause its something "scientists would do" like how you might "accidentally" make a dangerous triggering weapon out of parts in the test lab (which nobody also uses, Metastation omitted it entirely)

Then maybe "moving" (aka deleting completely) the toxins department to atmos would be an adequate solution? Atmos it's already capable of everything toxins can do but better, requiring a little setup first. TTV's could be ordered form cargo or bought from the syndicate

If toxins is really supposed to be used for mining, then it should be easier to send bombs to mining. In fact, all of sci should have a way to bluespace teleport things into a cargo section of the mining base.

Please, be more efficient.

Science gets a special bluespace pad. Mining gets special bluespace beacons (that only work on lavaland) for points.
Mining places beacon, toxins puts bomb on pad. Zap. Toxins or Mining push button, boom.
Optionally add a device that can be attached to signallers/transfer valves/igniters/whatever that triggers on teleportation for the authentic BSA feel.

Fulton balloon bombs that dangle & hover for a while before releasing their cargo (for it to explode)

only if their yield is a full ton

D&B wrote:Toxins should just be removed honestly.

It is a purely grief oriented department and its function is no longer as urgent since we moved to lavaland.

is this bait?

why dont we just remove everything fun already