About the new weapon kits crafting system

[JusticeGoat]

What if the wardens office starts with a gun crafting bench and it buffed crafting speeds, had a consumable called "weapons parts" can be obtained if you order some or dismantle a weapon that let you craft advance weapons without taking another gun?

Would give the warden something to manage in the brig when its quiet.

would be added to https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/56133

[cacogen]

Why replace the need for cargo orders or R&D to get new weapons with a weapon dismantle > parts > new weapons system? It doesn't make a lot of sense, destroys existing guns and allows the creation of new guns out of thin air. If we had weapon degradation and the bench enabled you to repair weapons or we had weapon crafting and mods that weren't based on slapcrafting or recipes you can do anywhere it might make sense.

A reloading bench like in New Vegas would be interesting if we didn't already have lathes. I've always wished weapon modding was more fleshed out but that probably wouldn't make a workbench for the warden desirable from a game design point of view.

Being able to dismantle weapons into sensical component parts and build them like modular computers, with parts that fail through use, would be an interesting mechanic suiting this game's depth and what's come before but again that wouldn't provide the warden with a need for a special workbench. It might provide the warden with something to do during downtime (e.g. fix guns with replacement components, upgrade guns with better components, build guns from scratch with the necessary components). Modular computers and constructible machines are good precedents for this.

[JusticeGoat]

Why replace the need for cargo orders or R&D to get new weapons with a weapon dismantle > parts > new weapons system? It doesn't make a lot of sense, destroys existing guns and allows the creation of new guns out of thin air. If we had weapon degradation and the bench enabled you to repair weapons or we had weapon crafting and mods that weren't based on slapcrafting or recipes you can do anywhere it might make sense.

A reloading bench like in New Vegas would be interesting if we didn't already have lathes. I've always wished weapon modding was more fleshed out but that probably wouldn't make a workbench for the warden desirable from a game design point of view.

Being able to dismantle weapons into sensical component parts and build them like modular computers, with parts that fail through use, would be an interesting mechanic suiting this game's depth and what's come before but again that wouldn't provide the warden with a need for a special workbench. It might provide the warden with something to do during downtime (e.g. fix guns with replacement components, upgrade guns with better components, build guns from scratch with the necessary components). Modular computers and constructible machines are good precedents for this.

I think you misunderstand me or you are un aware of the new update put out that nerfs sec protolathes, you can't directly print guns anymore its a kit that uses up a gun and some components.

flow goes as follows
>warden prints weapons parts kit from protolathe
>crafts it at the weapons bench, because it is a weapons bench he gets a buff to crafting speed and does not need to use a gun from the armory if he has spare parts.
normal crew who don't have such a bench are stuck with a slow craft speed and use up a gun still.

When he runs out of parts lets say it starts with 3 he needs to order more parts to make the advance guns from the protolathe.
you can take apart normal guns for parts but can't put them back together to make a energy gun, only used to craft with the kits you print from the protolathe.

[saprasam]

this system is yet another reminder of why should i care about actual guns when i can make a tube that shoots buckshot

[cacogen]

I have to apologise for my ignorance on this new braindead addition they made. I guess I didn't see the PR. It sounds similar to what I was suggesting although it sounds worse and like it's more shit directed at nerfing anything combat related. I assume because newer players can't handle death and rather than address the issues with death directly (e.g. lost job progress, having to sit out forever) they chose to make more game mechanics dissatisfying, impotent and clunky or tedious to use. I would hazard a guess too that this change is poorly thought out and implemented, as a lot of things are nowadays. But then maybe I'm just being presumptuous and cynical. I only just learnt about this, after all.

[JusticeGoat]

The pr needs to be balanced and i wish to buff the sec department in allowing the one who is supposed to manage the armory a faster crafting speed and a cheaper way to build these researched weapons with gun parts that can be ordered cheaper from cargo.

The change would still force the department to rely on cargo and slow down officers or random crew from printing boom sticks.

[oranges]

this system is yet another reminder of why should i care about actual guns when i can make a tube that shoots buckshot

way to go dude

[NecromancerAnne]

What if the wardens office starts with a gun crafting bench and it buffed crafting speeds, had a consumable called "weapons parts" can be obtained if you order some or dismantle a weapon that let you craft advance weapons without taking another gun?

In essence, the fact that it consumes a weapon/resources is largely why I did the change in the first place. Something needs to be acquired or sacrificed in order to get the end result. If that's a generic 'weapon parts' that you gain from dismantling other guns, that'd be entirely fine, since it consumes a gun in the process. If those weapon parts were ordered out of cargo instead of having to order guns themselves, that is also just fine assuming you were careful with the credit pricing, since it is effectively the same as ordering weapons out of cargo for gun crafting.

But to allow you to avoid losing something in this process to produce a brand new weapon from thin air goes against my intention with that change. It is entirely to quell heavily the ability to produce additional weapons outside of the limited weapons in the armory, and the ones you can order from cargo, or the ones you cobble from within maint. So, if that doesn't happen, who cares really.

As for the suggestion. A workbench to craft these weapons faster seems entirely arbitrary but not necessarily impossible to implement. You'd just have to have craft check for tool speed for nearby tools, and have the workbench count as one of the tools you can use with a heavily boosted speed for the sake of this crafting time. But what is the point? It's not a particularly long craft time at about 20 seconds for an individual gun. If you want to improve crafting speeds to produce more weapons at once, maybe still look into my suggestion, since our current set of tools allow for fairly fast tool times. But they're already not that long to begin with.

I have to apologise for my ignorance on this new braindead addition they made. I guess I didn't see the PR. It sounds similar to what I was suggesting although it sounds worse and like it's more shit directed at nerfing anything combat related. I assume because newer players can't handle death and rather than address the issues with death directly (e.g. lost job progress, having to sit out forever) they chose to make more game mechanics dissatisfying, impotent and clunky or tedious to use. I would hazard a guess too that this change is poorly thought out and implemented, as a lot of things are nowadays. But then maybe I'm just being presumptuous and cynical. I only just learnt about this, after all.

If our forum join dates are any indicator, we probably have both played at roughly the same periods of time. So lemme just say that I'm not a stranger to the old state of play, given I was around just before the taser removal and played primarily on Bagil during it's population peak and during Imsxz's reign of terror. I also ran into a lot of the older guard by moving about the community for a good while, and learned and saw how they played and listened to how things were before I played. And all that while, I kept seeing similar patterns of behaviour, and changes that seemed to address those patterns but not in any useful or constructive way. You'd be immensely incorrect to assume I haven't put a lot of thought into any change, because primarily it's entirely things that I've utilized myself because they're so effective and so strong. And I've talked a lot about most changes with other people who care enough to learn the game inside and out to get a good impression of where to aim. The gun kit pr was something I had been talking about back in late 2019 or so, and part of a larger idea I worked into something smaller scale and more manageable.

Some of the tricks and techniques you might be using are things I discovered and spread around, because I'm not a coward and I don't hide my secrets. I much prefer if people knew what holes the game has and how to exploit them. These same techniques, tricks or tools are the ones I specifically aim for when making balancing changes, because I know them well enough to know how to probably fix them or make them better, and I hate being too strong or too weak. I don't get hung up over defeat, and I don't think any individual change to balance is any sign of the games decline. It's just natural progression, and you shouldn't put so much emotional investment into the game's minor balance changes, nor that it is impossible to walk back any given change if someone thinks it is the wrong direction to go in. That's fine too. I am not that overly committed to it either way. I just thought infinite guns was maybe a little much.

[NecromancerAnne]

this system is yet another reminder of why should i care about actual guns when i can make a tube that shoots buckshot

way to go dude

Nobody tell him about the pipeguns.

[cacogen]

I wasn't here for this imsexc guy. But there have always been a lot of murderbonerers. It's /tg/station's highest honour to make everyone else sit out and watch you. For me, it was Z*r*ss with the emag, ebow + C4 with brainless gib every night. Sitting out for twenty to forty minutes didn't feel so bad when it was fun to watch and everybody else had to too.

But the game has been nerfed to shit since then. I don't know why. I assume people don't like dying, which has always been shit in this game. So every viable strategy must be destroyed. Everything must be disempowered in stupid ways. You can't even put a gun in your bag any more. It's the belt slot or the armour slot, and if you're in a job with a lot of shit to carry enjoy shuffling your inventory around with a gun you can't drop without going somewhere private but can't temporarily store anywhere else either. Why was the ability to print guns nerfed when you can't carry more than two at once anyway? I gave up on combat a long time ago because of bad latency but my issue is the game continues to be gutted for reasons I don't understand. It seems especially ill-intentioned (or dumb) when the people doing it have abused these things themselves and want to pull the ladder up to prevent other people from doing it too. As though only they get to have fun.

[NecromancerAnne]

For me, it was Zaross with the emag, ebow + C4 with brainless gib (standard then) every evening.

Yeah he hasn't changed. He's onto sleepy pen and detomatrix now if he ever plays. I also have unforunate history with him so I'm gonna keep any talk about him from me brief.

But as we know, the game has been nerfed to shit since then. Why? I don't know. I can only assume people don't like dying, which has always been shit in this game. So now every viable strategy must be destroyed. Everything must be thoroughly disempowered in stupid ways. You can't even put a gun in your bag any more. It's the belt slot or the armour slot, and if you're in a job with a lot of shit to carry enjoy shuffling around your inventory throughout the round with a gun you can't drop without going somewhere private but can't easily store anywhere else either. Why was the ability to print guns nerfed when you can't carry more than two at once anyway? I gave up on combat a long time ago because I have always had bad latency but the game continues to be gutted for reasons I don't understand. Especially when the people doing it have abused these things themselves and want to pull the ladder up to prevent other people from also having fun.

It's funny you mention latency since I too have had dreadful latency my entire time in the game. I play from Australia, so I almost always have had to fight tooth and nail to compete with others who are seconds ahead of me, and learned how to play the game when I couldn't visually acquire projectiles inflight while tasers existed. I just had to learn to predict. I too got frustrated with the game and felt somewhat similarly, but I learned that I was trying too hard to fight like people I couldn't compete with on their terms, when I should have been approaching conflict in a way that worked on my strengths and didn't require me to have beat someone else's latency. And it works surprisingly well, even when we had fun stuff like instant hit batons.

It's easy to conclude that because these tools were how you felt you could compete, they were necessary to ever be able to play the game or engage in combat. But, in reality, they were only ever keeping you from learning how best to approach conflict by letting you catch out anyone who didn't know any better about the game's razor edge meta, built largely on oversights, forgotten tools and poorly conceived cause and effect.

These are tools largely dictating how combat is carried out, make most other similar tools utterly obsolete, and can singlehandedly roundend the entire station if you want to carry yourself with them. Because someone packed that much power into the tool relevant to other tools (CQC is a good example given it could carry you through ops on it's own if you wanted), or they just weren't updated when other sweeping changes were made (EMP defibs before their nerf but actually they're still stun batons+ since they spam disarms on you after one hit).

And if people who know that have a head on their shoulders, they'll do as I am doing and not let you utilize those tools where they can help it, or they'll use them against you when you're not acknowledging them as the threat they are. They're not for you, and you're not their best user, since the people who actually have the capacity to kill everyone won't easily fall for it. They are going to be used on you, and you will lose to them if you're not working against them. Remaining on even terms with these players is fighting around them or through them. The game is plagued with endless rocket tag, and you'll see a series of Zaross' for years to come as a result. A weird cycle of, to paraphrase a quote from a very old admin, the same playstyles with different and new faces placed upon a pedestal and copied repeatedly. We chose to elect one as our headmin, after all.

Anyway, removing instagibs is honestly maybe to your benefit so you don't feel so miserable about fighting.

[saprasam]

this system is yet another reminder of why should i care about actual guns when i can make a tube that shoots buckshot

way to go dude

Nobody tell him about the pipeguns.

psa: i already knew
and i think it’s hare-brained

[cacogen]

Yeah he hasn't changed. He's onto sleepy pen and detomatrix now if he ever plays.

That's funny. He'd use the parapen then too.

Because someone packed that much power into the tool relevant to other tools (CQC is a good example given it could carry you through ops on it's own if you wanted)

CQC has always been bullshit. The reasons given for the removal of stun gloves (e.g. can't detect it, can't disarm it) remind me of CQC. Nerfs aren't inherently bad.

But, in reality, they were only ever keeping you from learning how best to approach conflict by letting you catch out anyone who didn't know any better about the game's razor edge meta, built largely on oversights, forgotten tools and poorly conceived cause and effect.

I feel like the meta in the age of 20 second tasers and instant stun batons was much simpler and easier to copy. People were more willing to share strategies too. I assume because they didn't fear them getting nerfed to shit.

The game is plagued with endless rocket tag

Yeah, it's glass cannon. Again, make death less consequential on the player sitting out. But that would be a significant, controversial change and in the event you choose the path of continuing this death by a thousand cuts thing of slowly gutting the game, at least in the case of a gun nerf its power (done endlessly) or the vulnerability of certain targets to it (I don't think most people even understand armour values, the game doesn't explain it) instead of making them tedious to obtain and clumsy to manage in your inventory.

[NecromancerAnne]

Armor is basically utterly lacking in feedback, as you can't reasonably determine if the person is actually armored or by how much. Some suits are deceptively well armored, like wizard robes and security winter coats, or even firesuits. They are invisible values which takes code diving to drudge up what armor means and what items have what values, and armor also only has relevance in specific situations, which someone not checking code won't be able to identify.

The majority of the most valuable and powerful weapons are notably able to ignore armor for their functionality, so armor mostly is irrelevant. But given the values some armor sets do have, if it suddenly did matter, a lot of armor would turn people into walk juggernauts.

[saprasam]

Armor is basically utterly lacking in feedback, as you can't reasonably determine if the person is actually armored or by how much. Some suits are deceptively well armored, like wizard robes and security winter coats, or even firesuits. They are invisible values which takes code diving to drudge up what armor means and what items have what values, and armor also only has relevance in specific situations, which someone not checking code won't be able to identify.

The majority of the most valuable and powerful weapons are notably able to ignore armor for their functionality, so armor mostly is irrelevant. But given the values some armor sets do have, if it suddenly did matter, a lot of armor would turn people into walk juggernauts.

lol imagine if hardsuits actually were useful in combat

[NecromancerAnne]

They are useful in combat. Just in very specific situations that are less common than the need to move quickly. Depressurized rooms, dangerously overheated rooms, fighting against chemists/botanists, fighting in zero-g + jetpack. Not nearly as straight forward but still useful. Especially suits like the captain's swat suit especially. And why nukie suits tend to be so valuable due to allowing for faster movement.

Anyway this is grossly offtopic.

Gunne spam bad, building guns in the armory better is...okies? Yeah that's whatever.