Turn a bug into a feature: Cyborg Advanced Mop

[Mister_E]

Until https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/53175, all cyborgs could use the Advanced Mop board due to an oversight. It was a little known thing, and it caused no ire from anyone really. In fact, for those who knew about it, stations were much cleaner due to usually lazy janitors not even thinking about going through the effort of asking for more access and the usually droll and/or sisiphyian task of Janiborg could be split for all of their allies to share. I personally LOVED using the Advanced Mop and would always make sure to get it as soon as the rest of the Utility upgrades were available! Many a cobweb or line of roundstart grime used to be cleaned during that time, and the crew was always appreciative!

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I say that it was less an "exploit" and was more akin to a genuine upgrade for all borgs who WEREN'T Janiborg. Now you may be asking "ALL borgs? How could ALL borgs benefit from a mop?". Well, see what a sponge on a stick does for...

Standard: Provides a direct upgrade to the unaffected by the cleaning experience system's speed boosts and painfully slow bar of soap module. Who the hell would bother using that slow soap to clean when there's a mop?

Mediborg: On top of mopping blood because blood is yucky, it stops the spread of disease. Unless that isn't how diseases work. In which case WHY DON'T THEY WORK LIKE THAT?

Serviceborg: Cleaning up the inevitable puke gurgling out of one of their customer's mouths.

Engiborg: I forget, doesn't constructing things have a chance of leaving oil slicks? If not, uuuuuuuuhhhh something something less dust near the emitter mirrors. There's probably some use for keeping their workplace/projects neat and tidy!

Miner/Sec/Peacekeeper: And this is where we get to the other dimension of that mop: slippage. If I had a dollar for every crazed killer or syndie I've nonharmfully disarmed with my mop-fu, I'd be able to buy each of them a gift basket for the humiliation of getting thwarted by a little prediction or mindful movement. Mop slips last for about half the time a soap or banana peel slip does and the water dries quicker than a water bucket/fire extinguisher slick, meaning it isn't an "end combat immediately" kind of slip. And I may just be misremembering, but while soap and banana slips cause harm or potential injury, mop slips don't even have the movement delay penalty those have. NO LAW BREAKING! Also, it actually gives sec and peacekeeper borgs something to do during peace times, much less entire greenshifts, besides farting out cookies and pissing off non-humans with the disabler.

Clown: CLOWNBORG HAS NO WAY TO SET UP SLIPPAGE. AT ALL. What kind of clown doesn't whip out the slip?! Also, remorseful Clownborgies can use the mop to clean up smashed pies on the ground.
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Now, you may be saying to yourself "But won't that remove the uniqueness of the Janiborg? I mean, it's whole thing is cleaning."
You're right. It's so good at cleaning, all it has to do is wander around dragging its ass across the floor. IT DOESN'T EVEN NEED THE MOP! Why mop the floor when walking over the mess accomplishes the same thing? As a result, it couldn't possibly be out-competed by all its friends having a mop because you kinda have to stop to use the mop!

"Y'know, you've convinced me! But surely you don't mean rolling back the PR right? That was unintentional behavior!"
Bring it in line with the rest of the "Cyborg Utility" upgrades. Call it the "Cyborg Advanced Mop module", removing its association with the Janiborg specifically. It would also solve the problem back when this feature was a bug where the board wouldn't go poof after applying, meaning you could give multiple mops to one borg. After sharing said easter egg to a borg one round, he asked to get as many mops as he physically could carry. By the end of it, I think there was about 7 to 10 rows of mops.

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After the merge, I saw a few passing comments both on the issue report and in the discord about them missing the mop board for all and being surprised and amused that such functionality was a thing, from borg players and organic players.
Please consider making the Advanced Mop board a general cyborg upgrade like the ion thrusters and the self repair module. The organics barely clean up after themselves to begin with, and lord knows the janitor is stretched thin to the point of ambivalence as they are.

[wesoda25]

If you want to clean, go jannie borg.

[Mister_E]

If you want to clean, go jannie borg.

Can Janiborgs weld? How about fix breaches? Stabilize people in crit? And I'm sure the roboticists would love to haul their mechs back to robobay because the Janiborg got tired of waiting for the bulbs to burst. And then once more after some shit goes down and you need a Janiborg to clean up a fuckhuge mess.

It's taking something Janiborgs do just by walking around and letting other borgs do it by taking their time. It's an equal tradeoff. Everything else Janiborgs do can remain their own, I'm not talking about consolidating or replacing.

[ATHATH]

I personally like the omnimodule mop a lot, but just because a tool is useful for all borg types doesn't mean that all borg types should have it. By that logic, every borg should get a welder, since welder self-healing is amazing for pretty much every borg type.

That said, I think that the mop is minor enough that it could be brought back as an intentional upgrade in the utility section. If it does get brought back, though, it should have its force reduced- the ability to spend 0.8 seconds to slip a tile without spending your extinguisher slip is already good enough for combat (even though borgs can't really capitalize on knockdowns well, since they can't shovestun), and a 12 force weapon is a significant damage bump for some modules.

Maybe we could add some upgrades that'd be mutually exclusive with it that'd add other handy things to have? Like, I dunno, a granitabliuri hypospray, or something that makes an EMP around you (that affects you as well) when you use it. There's potential here, but I have a feeling that this is just gonna get shut down for being "powercreep" (which, well, it kind of is).

[cacogen]

Mess being tedious and impractical to stay on top of is one of those longstanding issues with the codebase nobody seems interested in dealing with. I can't code for shit so my contributions towards the problem over the years (e.g. speeding up soap and cleanbots) seem to have not done fuck nor shit. Decals are easy and satisfying to clean as a janiborg but they're not the only mess you have to deal with and on high pop rounds even those can be impossible to stay on top of (e.g. bloodstains in and around medbay).

Janiborgs should just pick up trash (i.e. actual trash, not anything their bag can hold) when they pass over it. All cyborgs having access to the advanced mop is good too. I think that mop slips but if that becomes a reason not to do it then just remove that from the cyborg version (or non-janiborg cyborg version) to shut them up.

Oh, and make the janitorial chem sprayer unlockable via R&D (I'm guessing this hasn't happened). There's no reason an actually effective cleaning tool for humans should be limited to an admin spawn. There's nothing more insulting than doing your best to stay on top of the mess only for some asshole to be spawned in with an actual fun tool who just nukes the mess like it's nothing and steals your job. They of course don't deal with the trash because it's not fun to pick up. Which the retards in charge would probably tell you in their infinite, disingenuous wisdom is retroactively deliberate. Because the game isn't supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be a boring fucking chore.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

the point of borgs is them being super specialized on their department (but not enough to be an upgrade to the job) as they have limited inventory
if station is a mess and your module isnt needed swap to janiborg, or law 2 borgs to do it

[cacogen]

Janiborgs basically make janitors obsolete and always have. Cyborgs are better than their respective jobs at the cost of only being able to do a fraction of what a human can do. Most people don't like swapping modules compared to waiting for their chosen module to become relevant again. I don't see what negative effect making sure more borg types can clean has. In certain cases they have access to items outside of their specialisation that overlaps with those of other borgs, but usually in a less powerful variant.

[Mister_E]

the ability to spend 0.8 seconds to slip a tile without spending your extinguisher slip

Ackshually, borg extinguishers don't leave any liquid on the ground at all! Crazy, I know. Okay maybe they exist after you increase the dispense amount.

swap to janiborg or law 2 borgs to do it

If you've ever played borg for more than as many rounds as you can count on one hand, you'd know that the roboticists are NEVER at the robobay. Fat chance they'll lug their gygax across the station just to turn you into a janiborg, THEN do it again after you're done dragging your ass across the station.

Also,
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Silicon_Po ... rotections
Section 3, subsection 1
"Ordering a cyborg to pick a particular module without an extreme need for a particular module or a prior agreement is both an unreasonable and an obnoxious order."

The only time there's an extreme need to clean messes is if a (s)laughter demon is on the loose. In any other case, why not just let the borgs use a mop right then and there?

[wesoda25]

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if borgs could get a normal mop that doesn’t slip through upgrades.

[Mister_E]

But the slippage gives utility to the security/nukie fighting borgs, all without breaking laws!

Because if someone's job is to fuck everyone and everything up, surely they're gonna leave themselves vulnerable to a light bulb right?

Hell, that's the reason you hardly see Peaceborgs in the first place. Because they do jack shit without other, usually gun firing law breaking, humans wrangling in the peace! With the mop, the borg has a chance to disarm the perp and drag their weapon away for the short while they're on the ground! Remember, mop slips last half as long as soap/banana peel slips.

And don't you start thinking "But wouldn't that make cyborgs OP in combat?". Because if you do, then nukies should be trembling at the mere mention of the Janitor.
Besides, mop-fu is a game of prediction. Very, very, VERY rarely have I ever had the time to utilize mop-fu on a target closing the gap on me. At that point it usually ends up in the action being interrupted and me standing there like an idiot as my chassis gets a few new holes.

[cacogen]

Personally I'm not against it keeping the slip but if it's necessary to remove it to get it through I think it's worth it.

[ATHATH]

the ability to spend 0.8 seconds to slip a tile without spending your extinguisher slip

Ackshually, borg extinguishers don't leave any liquid on the ground at all! Crazy, I know. Okay maybe they exist after you increase the dispense amount.

Ackshually, they do, and I've extinguisher slipped as a cyborg many times.

[RaveRadbury]

It would seem that the intended design of borgs is that they shouldn't be able to round themselves out and that their functions should be strictly focused on their module.

[Mister_E]

oh fuck me sideways

Meaning you'd better ball and chain those robos to robotics or there's gonna be ahelps about robos not hauling their mechs back down to robotics for module changes once you inevitably get bored of doing one thing for twenty minutes

[cacogen]

They already have modules that exist outside of their specialisation. Blanket "rules" like this are unhelpful. A mop is a mop. Remove the slip on behalf of the 5% of players who will successfully use it to stop a baddie if necessary.

[vkalls]

I personally think this would be cool, but it kind of just makes Janiborgs less unique and doesn't really line up with the rest of the modules' very specialized tools. You wouldn't give a crowbar to all of the modules, though they could all make use of it.

[cacogen]

They should all have crowbars because getting trapped between depowered airlocks sucks