/tg/Station 13

Flashes kind of suck right now, because eye protection is so common so their meta is kind of a shit place right now.

Here's what I was thinking

changes flashes to be a blind only, of about 10 seconds or so length, aoe viewers would be about 5, maybe it decreases depending on how far away you are. (i'm thinking this would only be in the direction your facing) as logically otherwise you would be blinded by your own flash.

remove all eye protections (and I mean all of them, sec would be the only people who might have flash protection).


They still stun borgs since that's the main silicon counter play meta.


Flashbangs both blind for a long time and confuse for a significant amount of time. Im thinking like 30 seconds blind and 20 seconds confusion, enough time to allow security to control a crowd with their disablers and riot gear.

The idea here is to position flashes as more of a defensive escape tool against rogue crewmembers etc, where you can blind people and then run away.

how would this effect Revs? Wouldnt it make it easier since flash protection getting deleted means >easy converts

Sure it would increase their snowball chance slightly. given they're at a 50/50 win rate I dont' think it would affect it much.

remove all eye protections (and I mean all of them, sec would be the only people who might have flash protection).

>tfw my weld mask lets me cut through steel but I get blinded by a little dinky flash.

Otherwise seems alright, I suppose. I'll miss my self-defense flash stun in robo, but I'll learn to live without it.

Consider my suggestion: Instead of focusing on the eye protection itself how about we instead buff the flash? By that i mean make it so the flash does have an effect on those wearing eye protection: that being that the flash will still blind and disorient them. But make it so the purpose of eye protection is not to make you immune to flashes, but make you resistant to flashes. You won't get stunned by a flash wearing eye protection but you will still be blinded, albeit, less severely than if weren't wearing eye protection. For example, if the flash blinds you for 10 seconds, wearing eye protection shortens that to 5.

Things like welding masks should act as heavy flash protection and should make nullify the flash like sunglasses do now, in my opinion.

I know that seems odd, but it's a concession to game mechanics over the immersion there.

The Respected Man wrote:Consider my suggestion: Instead of focusing on the eye protection itself how about we instead buff the flash? By that i mean make it so the flash does have an effect on those wearing eye protection: that being that the flash will still blind and disorient them. But make it so the purpose of eye protection is not to make you immune to flashes, but make you resistant to flashes. You won't get stunned by a flash wearing eye protection but you will still be blinded, albeit, less severely than if weren't wearing eye protection. For example, if the flash blinds you for 10 seconds, wearing eye protection shortens that to 5.

Things like welding masks should act as heavy flash protection and should make nullify the flash like sunglasses do now, in my opinion.

They're literally to common for that to be practical, that is why the flash is so minimally used in the first place because all the things that counter it are scattered everywhere.

I think more so than protection being common we should generally avoid having tools (especially stun capable) that are all-or-nothing in terms of protection, flashes are fairly easy to counter but if you dont powergame finding the proper protection beforehand they're as good as a stunbaton.
For the same reason having a stun on the spray can was a bad idea, even though face protection is trivial to find, you're penalizing people that don't rush emergency closets for gas masks at roundstart.

Could just remove sources of eye protection, starting with the sunglasses in maint. Metastation is really bad about this, the sunglasses aren't even randomized I their maint tunnels.
Remove the ability to craft sunglasses with HuDs. Using a HuD should have the tradeoff of not being flash immune (SecHuDs being the exception).
Plasmamen probably don't need to be flash proof. Welding helmets/masks could give partial protection instead of full, since you can't really make those in shorter supply.

flashes can't be a stun if we're removing the eye protections and I don't feel like going through the maps ripping out the eye protection buffs everywhere, it's easier to just overhaul the whole thing.

@mickyan and the respected man, I agree with your comment, this is a step in that direction as well, I do like the idea of eye protection offering differing levels of ablation of the blind, but I don't agree that there should be common "full" flash protections.

oranges wrote:flashes can't be a stun if we're removing the eye protections and I don't feel like going through the maps ripping out the eye protection buffs everywhere, it's easier to just overhaul the whole thing.

@mickyan and the respected man, I agree with your comment, this is a step in that direction as well, I do like the idea of eye protection offering differing levels of ablation of the blind, but I don't agree that there should be common "full" flash protections.

I suggested that the welding mask offer full flash protection less because it's, well, a welding mask, and more because the welding mask obscures your vision and the reward should be that it's more effective than sunglasses.
But yeah if you make it so the flash does work on the welding helmet but doesn't flash as well than if you were to flash sunglasses that's just as good

Partial flash protection is actually a pretty good idea. It wouldn't be too hard to code either, I think.

@oranges: What do you think of something like this? I'm not 100% sure what the effects would be exactly but this gives a good gist of it
Flash on unprotected mob: Stuns like it currently does, also blinds for a while as the OP suggests
Flash on mob with slight protection (sunglasses, plasmaman, space helmets (only ones that currently offer flash protection)): Half the stun, does a flash overlay like it currently does, applies confusion like AoE flash currently does
Flash on mob with half protection (welding masks/helmets/goggles): No stun, flash overlay like it currently does, applies confusion like AoE flash currently does
Flash on mob with full protection (being blind, SecHuDs): No effect
AoE flash could work similarly but without ever hard-stunning and maybe being fully blocked a tier earlier.

PKP's list seems decent.

Where does rev-proofing lie? Do you need full flash protection, or is half-protection fine? I quite like not being converted as robo, since it makes it harder to do what I want in robo (make borgs) without being directly against the team antag.

Can we make it impossible to flash yourself? Half the time I fight with a flash, I do it with my hood down just to keep from self-stunning like a noob.

Should really be moving away from full stuns, a lengthy blind+confusion(maybe also slowdown?) is almost as effective (possibly more so for crowd control) without taking control away from the player with a single click

I'm probably in the minority that finds flashes and especially pepper spray useful as sec. Pulling out a stunbaton is always a big risk that someone might yoink it from you or you might stun yourself, so I like to use weapons that can't be turned around on me like pepper spray and flashes for dealing with low level tiding and vandalism (plus it escalates the situation less than using a stunbaton because those put everyone on edge). I'm not fully sure what use just blinding (or confusing for that matter) someone without immobilizing them would be since they'll probably just run around in random directions which won't help with cuffing

The flashbang change sounds neat tho.

Would be nice bc it would mean that I no longer have to spam flash to confuse someone running away enough to baton them. Overall would be a cool change but the fact that it makes 0 sense kinda sucks.

Also like shaps I dislike having to take out a stun as sec which can be used against me. I only use my baton/gun when absolutely necessary. Pepper spray is unreliable due to the way reagent sprays are coded so that kinda sucks.

I don't believe there should be a stun, Im intending it to be a defensive weapon for crew who want to escape someone else attacking them.

oranges wrote:Flashes kind of suck right now,

not really
i also dont see how removing the stun from them makes them not suck.

terranaut wrote:

oranges wrote:Flashes kind of suck right now,

not really
i also dont see how removing the stun from them makes them not suck.

if you're not going to read the post then please don't bother commenting, or I'll put you on post approval.

I dunno if sec really has need for a defensive weapon used only for escaping since they're generally equipped for confrontation, but I imagine heads of staff might use it for that when they don't want to pull their baton

yeah it's not intended for sec, at all, sec is loaded with offensive weapons, stunbatons, disablers, pepper spray, flash bangs.

This is for general crew

Would you plan on expanding access to flashes to more jobs around the station? Cause as of right now outside of security, only heads of staff and robotics have access to them. If you take away robotics ability to print them and just give them a box full at shift start then let crew members buy them from cargo for ~$100 a piece, that might be a good way to let general crew get ahold of one with a bit of work without flooding the station with them, while also adding more reasons for people to buy from cargo

(this is all probably a bit tangential to the thread tho)

yeah, but also, I don't think that robotics can print flashes, they only print synthetic flashes dont' they?

I double checked and the flash robotics prints is just a 1 line definition that changes nothing from the base flash, (assembly/flash/handheld) and it's the same one in head lockers and sec gear. I'm a bit confused why /handheld even exists as a separate item, other than typechecks in other parts of the code maybe. But yeah, there's only one kind of flash

Shaps-cloud wrote:I double checked and the flash robotics prints is just a 1 line definition that changes nothing from the base flash, (assembly/flash/handheld) and it's the same one in head lockers and sec gear. I'm a bit confused why /handheld even exists as a separate item, other than typechecks in other parts of the code maybe. But yeah, there's only one kind of flash

iirc it used to burn out faster or something, real old leftover code

What the fuck is a synthetic flash anyway? Like are other flashes harvested from a living thing? People have been joking about this since "synthetic" flashes were added. And yeah they were basically just 1-time use flashes added to Robotics so they wouldn't have access to "real" flashes but could still build cyborgs. So someone thought multi-use flashes would be too robust but had no problem giving them 6000 HP mechs that shoot death lasers. Just a bit of a history lesson for you all.

I've always personally hated how much of the crew was flash immune even when sunglasses weren't so common in maint and everyone was a human. Flashes as self-defense sounds solid. If you want to relore flashes so they work through welding helmets, just say they're hypnotic or memory erasing instead of just a bright light. Or we can relore welding helmets to "activate" only while you're welding and not all the time. Lore/fluff is easy to fix if that's the only holdup.

well I am learning from my mistakes and trying to get feedback before opening PR's, so that's mostly why the thread exists

Making robotics buy flashes to create borgs would not be fun, especially when you're trying to rebuild all the borgs because some asshat with all access thought it would be funny to turn the borgs into fireworks.

For the record, half the maps have an abandoned robo, where you can print all the flashes you want to your heart's content. We could add them to vending machines (like the one with other assembly items) and just call it a day.

We should still keep sunglasses even if their flash protection is removed. They can help when welding a wall AND can look cool. It would be a shame if they were removed.

Also I think lessening how many flashes there are would be nice if they're buffed to blind for, like, 30 seconds. That would be annoying if they were still just as common and easy to get as before.

EDIT:
There is a special flash called memorizer. It's typepath is /obj/item/assembly/flash/memorizer. As far as I know, it is admin only and is only a cosmetic difference that is similiar to MIB flashes. They also have no inhand sprites. There is nothing else different as they will last as long as a normal flash. I feel like these should be buffed to be even better flashes due to their reference nature and since they're admin only. There is also a flash implant that exists. It can't run out HOWEVER you can't spam it due to it having to recharge. That's something to note, in my opinion.

zxaber wrote:Making robotics buy flashes to create borgs would not be fun, especially when you're trying to rebuild all the borgs because some asshat with all access thought it would be funny to turn the borgs into fireworks.

For the record, half the maps have an abandoned robo, where you can print all the flashes you want to your heart's content. We could add them to vending machines (like the one with other assembly items) and just call it a day.

Yeah I don't intend to make robotics have to buy them.

Ayy Lemoh wrote:We should still keep sunglasses even if their flash protection is removed. They can help when welding a wall AND can look cool. It would be a shame if they were removed.

Also I think lessening how many flashes there are would be nice if they're buffed to blind for, like, 30 seconds. That would be annoying if they were still just as common and easy to get as before.

I don't intend to remove sunglasses, and I don't want flashes to blind for that long.

i seriously dislike the idea of welding masks not protecting you from flashes. would engineering hardsuits suffer the same fate?

I think instead of removing eye protection, having the flashes effective at different levels like PKP suggests would be best. It would be nice to know that my flash will still be semi-reliable if it's the last thing I have on me and the other person is masked (But that also opens up the idea of removing sechuds from the checkpoints since they would need to be full flash protection and metagamers would obviously want only the protection that works fully). I think that PKP's incremental protection idea compromises on what TheRespectedMan says and also what Oranges wants.

I also agree with Shaps here:

Shaps-cloud wrote:I'm probably in the minority that finds flashes and especially pepper spray useful as sec. Pulling out a stunbaton is always a big risk that someone might yoink it from you or you might stun yourself, so I like to use weapons that can't be turned around on me like pepper spray and flashes for dealing with low level tiding and vandalism (plus it escalates the situation less than using a stunbaton because those put everyone on edge). I'm not fully sure what use just blinding (or confusing for that matter) someone without immobilizing them would be since they'll probably just run around in random directions which won't help with cuffing

The flashbang change sounds neat tho.

Part of the reason why Sec carries around a flash is to use it as a tool to make arrests (which don't always have to end violently) and flashes are better to use than stunbatons because they can't be used against you. The idea of removing stuns from flashes completely negates them as a tool for arrests and relegates them only to be used in dealing with borgs. For example, if you were going to be clicking a desworder with a flash to blind them it would be just as simple to stunbaton them.

Perhaps a compromise here would be to have synthetic flashes which do what oranges suggests (and can build borgs) and regular flashes for security? Additionally, since I know the idea is to try and remove most stuns from the game if not all of them, it might be a good idea to think on ways security can arrest people without stunning them. I can't currently think of a way that would work

Honestly the only times I've ever seen some antag or some such be successful to any capacity is because they powergame'd all the protections they needed for the round already. Sunglasses, bowmans, whatever. If they can't acquire that then usually boxed spacesuit is enough. The helmet has both. Otherwise they find it in the places it makes almost no sense whatsoever. Laser tag helmets and shit.

All in all, you're still powergaming to acquire this shit because not having it is such a massive compromise that you're going to fail from the onset if you don't get it. One of my first acquisitions in most rounds is arrivals sec locker for the bowmans and shades. I don't even use the sec huds, I usually just deconstruct them into shades so I can make healthhudglasses.

If anything, if we are taking out flash stuns, I think it would be a good idea to also remove more openly available protections from public sources and keep them in sec. And actually make stealing them from security a genuine risk. since they're no longer stuns they're not AS vital, but security shouldn't run the risk of fucking themselves over with their own equipment. Sechudglasses probably should be the only glasses that block flashes. (might actually make them worth a damn over healthhudglasses)

Same goes for operatives. Their masks and suits should probably provide the same protections. They actually have flashbangs (and tear gas) as well on their ship but nobody uses those as an op because everyone and their mother powergames for the protections.

This seems like a nice healthy change to me.

PKP's idea of having a tiered set of flash protection seems solid to me. Especially in the case of darkened welding gear. If you're willing to sacrifice your vision range constantly in order to be resistant/immune to flashes, I think that sacrifice deserves a reward.

A related proposed change would be to add a 1 second "use" time for shifting welding goggles/masks on and off, so you can't just click the icon whenever you see someone walk up to you. I think that'd be a fair compromise for more "common" flash protection.

I'd also note that while I agree with oranges that flashes don't need a stun, they do need some kind of mobility effect to be effective as self defense weapons - a 5/10 second blind isn't going to mean much when the person can move at the same pace as you and can still hear doors opening/footsteps/etc.

A confuse is one option, or a temporary slowdown? Just a suggestion.

wasnt this something that happened?

PKP's idea isn't bad but sechuds should not be the ONLY full flash-protection, you're just going to have the crew rushing sechuds instead of sunglasses, and it's dumb for sec to have a weapon that works on everyone except for themselves.

Also, what about Nuke ops? will the crew be able to run at them with flashes, and repeatedly blind them with flashes? Will you be able to repeatedly flash someone to reset how long they are blinded for?

also it would probably be best not to combine a flashbang change and a flash change, flashbangs definitely could use some changes but it would be best to have a separate discussion about that

i like these changes but wearing thermals/night vision goggles should still stun you if you're flashed. balance wise i haven't put any thought into it but i think the idea of a super high tech murder man being stopped by a bright light is funny

oranges wrote:

terranaut wrote:

oranges wrote:Flashes kind of suck right now,

not really
i also dont see how removing the stun from them makes them not suck.

if you're not going to read the post then please don't bother commenting, or I'll put you on post approval.

i've read your post i simply disagree with it. security being immune to flashes is good and intended as you yourself have said
lawyers have sunglasses because they move through the brig which has portable flashers every now and again
the captain should probably spawn with sechuds, since every captain gets a pair anyway and just discards his regular glasses
people in hardsuits having flash protection is a side effect of them having weld protection which is fine since they might be required to do welding work in EVA conditions. the tradeoff for actually using them as flash protection is the slowdown (remember when helmet and suit were seperate items and people just wore the helmet for flash/welding protection without the slowdown? remember when EVA suits had welding protection too? i member).
the QM and HoP spawn with glasses.
there's some in sec and one in the lawyers office.
barman gets a pair.
some in maint.

personally i think its fine. aside from sec you'll not have 10 people with flash protection. i regularly use flashes to deal with people i find annoying and generally security doesn't mind me having a flash because they know it's no danger to them. i like that it fits that niche of a stun weapon that security usually doesn't bother with.
allowing me to blind the barman and the qm with them at the cost of not having them be a stun anymore really doesn't make them better whatsoever in my opinion.
citadel (and possibly other downstreams) have flashes in the way you describe them, if i understand confusion right. you're blinded for a moment and any movement is, i think, randomized. at least it feels that way. it's more annoying than dangerous especially since i can still take out a weapon and fire at any would-be assailant.

Welding helmets should still grant flash protection, you are sacrificing visibility while its down and can see only up to 3, barely 4, tiles. Plus it's unintuitive that something that makes you immune to the bright flash of a welding torch doesn't apply to a flash. Flash protection *is* too common but I don't think that security ought to have the monopoly on it.

For the longest time I thought Plasmamen had their flash protection moved to a toggle but apparently I hallucinated the whole thing.

Flashes should still stun, maybe not for very long but the stun should remain, otherwise rogue (non-engie) cyborgs simply cannot fight someone with a flash, the flasher only needs to get them once to lock them into a long chain-stun. Especially non-emagged ones where not even the engie borg can compete. Plus it makes the autoborger even more worthless, especially without a robo console as then there's no stuns, period. And good luck trying to autoborg multiple people in crit with a 2 minute cooldown between each conversion when people can *succumb on demand and deny you a body.

Arianya wrote:A confuse is one option, or a temporary slowdown? Just a suggestion.

Flashes already confuse currently and it is indeed pretty effective at impeding movement

I'd rather give all the borgs a stun arm combat upgrade (isn't this already a malf power) than keep the stun on the flash

oranges wrote:I'd rather give all the borgs a stun arm combat upgrade (isn't this already a malf power) than keep the stun on the flash

Currently it's a malf module for engiborgs yeah

Anyone here ever have their retinas photographed? Bright enough light in the eyes is like being hit in the face.

Also whatever happens to flashes, flashbangs do need something done to them. I've literally only ever seen them used for shuttle grief and it'd be nice if they had utility beyond that. Actually, I did once see someone try to stun nuke ops with them. You'd think you'd see them in situations like cults or revs storming sec, but I just don't see them used that way. I've seen more cults assaulted with boh bombs, come to think of it. Tiders will just use actual bombs instead of going to the trouble of breaking into sec to steal flashbangs, so they're likely to stay mostly-sec gear.

On meta, at least, there are a grand total of two (three?) pairs of guaranteed sunglasses in maint. There's also a fully-stocked robotics-type printer (I forget what the thing is called) for flashes in the abandoned robotics area. You can literally print a dozen flashes with the crap sitting in the lockers nearby. I did that and started a self-defense store once. I was kinda surprised sec didn't seem to care since they usually associate flashes with revs--maybe the roundtype was already known. I don't remember.

Then there're laser pointers but nobody bothers with those.

removing most eye protections from flashes will probably make flashbangs get used by sec quite a bit more.

flashbangs are already good and every /good/ security member will already use them and i doubt that's going to change much
ironically what made them significantly worse is removing the 1s timer option because you need to cook it for 2 seconds now without having it go off in your hand

oranges wrote:I'd rather give all the borgs a stun arm combat upgrade (isn't this already a malf power) than keep the stun on the flash

Or bring back secborgs? eh? eh?

joking aside, secborg baton has a superhigh energy cost when used so that would be a good baseline for other borgs if the "combat upgrade" gets added. The malf engieborg stun arm has a piss tiny energy cost which allows for chain stunning, which would be a buff to borgs over the flash.

you need to be careful icarus

Biggest changes I see are the removal of a stun from the game, and borgs no longer having their easily accessible one. Tbh I don't know how big a deal this change will really make, I don't see that many people going to flashes for stuns, I think it'll hit borgs the hardest. I'd probably say people currently get blind protection mostly just so they don't get borg stunned?

I think they'd still be good as an arrest tool.

In fact I think they'd be too good. With it being very difficult to get protection from the blind it would be very easy to AOE blind people then get an easy baton hit while they cant see shit.