Rebalancing Bluespace Pipes

[AnonymousNow]

Bluespace pipes have recently been added, but it seems that they've already caused a considerable amount of salt, to the degree that a PR is already up for their removal.

It seems rather sad that a feature with such potential could be removed because a few people have figured out how to use it to great effectiveness, especially so shortly after its addition. I said as such in the PR, and Fwoosh invited me to post my suggestions here; I figured that this would be a great opportunity to invite other suggestions as to rebalancing this feature.

The main points of contention were that it "Literally lets you teleport gas anywhere on the station with zero gating, research requirements or mineral requirements". If this is the case, then there's plenty of opportunities for rebalancing in making it more difficult to acquire.

- First of all, a mineral gate would be a good idea. It would require materials to build, including bluespace crystals - likely more than other items which also require such crystals, due to being a constant portal open at a considerable pressure.
- A research gate is also wise, particularly if it involves relatively high bluespace research, such as requiring bluespace crystals.
- To this end, the Rapid Pipe Dispenser Machine could be upgraded to produce Bluespace piping, with the above materials and research requirements.
- The number of bluespace pipes that could be created could be set to a cap, even a low one at a pinch. It would be handwaved by dimensional stability or requiring paired-up frequencies in order to operate, attached via a multitool.
- Finally, removing the ability to build them, and instead making the only instances 1. Random Occurences/loot in Lavaland and 2. A single, consistently placed pair of bluespace pipes on the map every round, at a fair distance to each other, already built into the system and likely to cause catastrophic and obvious disaster if improperly removed.

These simple solutions help to, at the least, come up with ideas for fixing bluespace pipes without them needing to be removed. Of course, this isn't just limited to my ideas - you likely have better ones swimming around somewhere. Feel free to post them!

This thread is dedicated to Fwoosh, who went from zero to pissed so fast that I'm wondering if bluespace pipes killed his family.

[christ110]

Add a bluespace routing Machine to engineering that sucks up power (so much that it has to be wired into the engine) to keep the pipes running, add channels, and have the required power for the router increase as channels are added.

[Dr_bee]

I mentioned in the other thread that cargo gating may be a good idea.

However thinking about it, just having 2 pipes at roundstart available to the CE with no ability to get more would be another solution. It would mean you need to do at least SOME pipework to flood burn mix. It could also be added as a traitor objective if you do that solution. Think, are they as powerful as other traitor objectives like the advanced magboots? if yes, limiting them to a certain, unreplacable amount would be a good idea.

Having them require significant power should be added either way, So much so that it would drain the APC in under 3 minutes without the engine running full blast and the APCs set correctly. It would give a tell as to where they are via the power monitoring console.

[Cobby]

QoL features with no gating...

[Armhulen]

QoL features with no gating...

yea

[lzimann]

Limiting it to a pair would already make wonders, and a range limit would also be nice imo.

[Armhulen]

Limiting it to a pair would already make wonders, and a range limit would also be nice imo.

The whole point is that it has infinite range

[Anonmare]

What about having two bluespace pipes, connecting atmospherics and the mining base together?

[CPTANT]

Large power drain would be good.

Like serious power drain.

[Cobby]

Then you could sabotage by just spamming pipes? They should be gated through availability rather than high maintenance

[cedarbridge]

Limiting it to a pair would already make wonders, and a range limit would also be nice imo.

The whole point is that it has infinite range

They were pitched in the original PR as a means to get atmos fixed after being bombed (lol) but really they were added so you could flood plasma from science maint.

[Qbopper]

make it so that if you try to pipe plasma through it the receiving pipe just explodes and kills the person who laid it, this is foolproof

[Anonmare]

make it so that if you try to pipe plasma through it the receiving pipe just explodes and kills the person who laid it, this is foolproof

>Using plasma
>Not using superheated CO2
>Not using super cold N2

[Qbopper]

make it so that if you try to pipe plasma through it the receiving pipe just explodes and kills the person who laid it, this is foolproof

>Using plasma
>Not using superheated CO2
>Not using super cold N2

yeah, exactly

so if you're dumb and low effort enough to hook it up to the plasma tank you get punished as you deserve