Making bombs more useful/required for miners

[Screemonster]

I've seen a lot of discussion on the toxins threads about toxins ruining gamemodes, only being actually useful for traitors/blobfighting and so forth, and nobody ever actually brings the bombs to mining so people do things like taking all the TTVs at roundstart as toxins has literally no legitimate purpose.

What if there was a new turf, a different type of rock ("igneous rock", "basalt" or something) that spawned on the asteroid, that would give miners cause to actually really want a goddamn bomb?

Essentially, it'd have the following properties:

• Pretty much impervious to standard drills/pickaxes.
• Breachable (albeit slowly) with diamond-tier drilling gear.
• Reverts to rock when hit with an explosion. (reduced to sand in the destruction radius, rock/sand in the heavy radius, rock/no effect in the light radius?)
• Spawns in long, thin streaks akin to faults/fissures in actual rock.
• Possibly elevated chance of decent ores spawning on top of it or encircled by it? Otherwise, ore spawns on top like anything else.

In short, it'd appear like a long pain-in-the-ass obstacle to go around for a standard miner, possibly cutting off small sections of the asteroid if they get unlucky with the spawns, but not so common/impenetrable that it becomes impossible for miners to actually do their job without toxins, but holy fuck do they sometimes just want to crack that piece of shit wall open and get at the goodies behind.

Thoughts?

[Bombadil]

Sounds decent. Problem is delivery of bombs to mining.

Also the fact that meta faggots will steal all your valves when you start making a bomb or the HoS will arrest you for meta and not get banned after doing this shit TWICE

[Stan_Studnick]

Sounds decent. Problem is delivery of bombs to mining.

Also the fact that meta faggots will steal all your valves when you start making a bomb or the HoS will arrest you for meta and not get banned after doing this shit TWICE

Ahelp it when it happens, even if it remains an IC issue that doesn't necessarily mean they'll escape a jobban.

Alternatively you could request a "security escort" for the bombs (don't finish assembling them, so the HoS doesn't worry about detonations) and that way he's involved. Most of the conflicts people have with security could be solved by keeping them in the loop and keeping them updated, and plus it makes shitcurity behavior blatantly obvious when you're being nothing but cooperative while they're being assholes.

[Cobby]

The only problem is that this bars the Miner but doesn't stop the person in Toxins making Maxcaps for antagonistic/validhunting purposes all day.

What benefit does the Toxins person receive from giving you one of his/her bombs?

[whodaloo]

it gives toxins a reason to exist

[Scones]

gives toxins apologists an excuse

[Screemonster]

it gives toxins a reason to exist

That was kinda the reason for it. That and science have an incentive to make stuff for miners as it'll enable them to gather ores faster.

"I can see some diamonds just the other side of this seam, gimme a bomb to get at them."

(also an incentive to learn how to build something other than all maxcaps, all the time)

[Poorman]

There really is no reason for toxins to exist other than to give antags rediculously strong weaponry. There's no research goals involved with them, there's nothing. Fuck, maybe someone could add a blurb about Nanotrasen weaponizing the plasma on the research station, and making them worth a shit ton of cargo points. That seems like a reasonable idea.

[TechnoAlchemist]

There already is a blurb about that, SS13 is a plasma research station.

Toxins is specializing in the use of plasma in bombs.

[Poorman]

There already is a blurb about that, SS13 is a plasma research station.

Toxins is specializing in the use of plasma in bombs.

There's nothing mechanical to support the lore, and that shouldn't be the case if you can change it.

Plus it'd give another thing for science to interact with cargo, in addition to the new gear they can make and mechs.

[TechnoAlchemist]

There already is a blurb about that, SS13 is a plasma research station.

Toxins is specializing in the use of plasma in bombs.

There's nothing mechanical to support the lore, and that shouldn't be the case if you can change it.

Plus it'd give another thing for science to interact with cargo, in addition to the new gear they can make and mechs.

The mechanical thing supporting the lore is that you are in the science division making bombs with plasma.


But yeah I think that bombs should be able to give cargo points, probably based on their theoretical explosion size.

[bandit]

I play miner frequently.

Fund the fuck out of it.

Also maybe associate it with special rooms. Want to get that sweet loot? Better get a bomb.

How would it react to gibtonite?

[Jacough]

How about giving research the ability to make mining charges? R&D prints them off from the protolathe and then fills them up with hot mix from toxins. The catch is that the mining charges require a depressurized environment to work properly otherwise the blast they make is about as significant as a welder bomb.

[Screemonster]

I play miner frequently.

Fund the fuck out of it.

Also maybe associate it with special rooms. Want to get that sweet loot? Better get a bomb.

How would it react to gibtonite?

Having it be a barrier to some of the fancy loot would be pretty neat.

As for gibtonite? For simplicity's sake I'd probably have it react to explosions in general so miners have some other recourse if toxins don't fuckin deliver (even if that means hauling ass back to the station to get a welder tank, and every motherfucker following you to see what you're so desperate to crack open)

Other thing this could do to affect round progression is that with more legitimate reasons for toxins to actually hand bombs off to other crewmembers, a bomb going off somewhere on the station wouldn't necessarily be "LYNCH TOXINS" any more - miner tators could be just as likely to be responsible. Folks wouldn't even be able to meta the size of the hole like "PLAYER X KNOWS HOW TO MAKE MAXCAPS IT MUST HAVE BEEN THEM" as the person that made the bomb might not necessarily be the person that set it off.

[Fayrik]

Having recently played miner, I believe the larger hurdle here isn't miners needing bombs so much as being able to actually get a hold of them.
Toxins in the other side of the station, which means to get a bomb, a miner would have to ask at the research window, have the toxins guy hand over to the research guy, assuming their both legit and the bombs don't go missing there. Maybe even hand over to the QM or a Tech if the miner isn't on station at that time. Then it needs to be carried across the station, off Z and transported to the detonation site.
...All before the tank ruptures and kills anyone near it.

Toxins is great, for antags. But it's clearly not been set up for the miners.
Delivery, imho, is our number one issue here.

[invisty]

The obvious solution would be to put a beacon in the cargo bay and give science a teleporter.

[Falamazeer]

The obvious solution would be to put a beacon in the cargo bay and give science a teleporter.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

But seriously, Why not give science a similar setup to cargo in general, a mule or two, lockable crates and whatnot, so they can distribute those guns that never actually get to sec already as well.

Seems a bit redundant sure, but they are both supposed to be geared towards supply right? at least on the surface.

[Drynwyn]

The obvious solution would be to put a beacon in the cargo bay and give science a teleporter.

>implying science needs to be given a teleporter

So the RD just has teleporter access for shits and giggles then?

[Zilenan91]

The obvious solution would be to put a beacon in the cargo bay and give science a teleporter.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

But seriously, Why not give science a similar setup to cargo in general, a mule or two, lockable crates and whatnot, so they can distribute those guns that never actually get to sec already as well.

Seems a bit redundant sure, but they are both supposed to be geared towards supply right? at least on the surface.

This sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it'll just have scientists who work in toxins mailing their bombs to all the departments then blowing them all up at the same time.

[Xhuis]

What about mining charges? Have them buildable from basic materials at the mining outpost and dig a decent amount. A while back I was working on modular ones with different upgrades but I scrapped it.

[Saegrimr]

What about mining charges? Have them buildable from basic materials at the mining outpost and dig a decent amount. A while back I was working on modular ones with different upgrades but I scrapped it.

Its less about giving miners bombs, and more about giving toxins a reason to make bombs in the first place. Which is by making them useful for mining again.

[Drynwyn]

I like the idea of putting dense pockets of ore behind walls that require bombs to destroy, as it allows non-antags to convert bombs to a fuckton of ore rather than just a ban.

[LNGLY]

Another way to make toxins good for non-antags is to make N20/CO2 bombs viable again. In old atmos they would actually make everyone in the room unconscious, now they just disappointingly spurt out a tiny bit of n20 or co2 that fades away.

[callanrockslol]

Using bombs for mining is shit right now, all that happens if dead miners, rebalance asteroid wall durability 2015