HeyHey wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 7:37 pm
- Make warop specific gear extremely overpowered. This could be done with the addition of either very expensive new items or just buffing the already expensive items such as making the Mauler emp-proof, adding a stun immunity mod suit module, giving all guns 100% higher capacity magazines instead of the current ones
Nukies already have wizard-tier levels of overpowered gear, where they can kill you pretty much by looking in your direction for a few seconds; nukie ranged weapons are ridiculous and only don't feel that way when the crew directly counters them by putting windows all over the halls to block the bullets. If you choose to engage them in melee combat, they can pretty much instantly win by ctrl-clicking on you once(CQC) and also get access to one of the most powerful melee weapons in the game.
Their armor is SIGNIFICANT, especially in combat mode:
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Armor against explosions, acid, fire, etc. is omitted for readability. Do note that the nukies get 25 wound resistance in all modes.
Armor Booster adds:
MELEE = 25, BULLET = 30, LASER = 15, ENERGY = 15
Standard: MELEE = 15, BULLET = 20, LASER = 15, ENERGY = 15
Boosted: MELEE = 40, BULLET = 50, LASER = 30, ENERGY = 30
Elite: MELEE = 35, BULLET = 30, LASER = 35, ENERGY = 35
Boosted: MELEE = 60, BULLET = 60, LASER = 50, ENERGY = 50
Fighting nukies in-atmosphere, you're already losing nearly half your hits, especially in melee. Most war ops will be using the more expensive Elite modsuit, let alone the shielded variant that nullifies the first three hits in a fight. Here's the armor the crew gets: barely half of that at most.
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Magnate: MELEE = 20, BULLET = 15, LASER = 15, ENERGY = 15,
Security: MELEE = 15, BULLET = 15, LASER = 15, ENERGY = 15,
Safeguard: MELEE = 15, BULLET = 15, LASER = 15, ENERGY = 15,
Chief Engineer: MELEE = 15, BULLET = 5, LASER = 20, ENERGY = 15,
Engineer: MELEE = 10, BULLET = 5, LASER = 20, ENERGY = 10,
Atmos Tech: MELEE = 10, BULLET = 5, LASER = 10, ENERGY = 15,
Research: MELEE = 20, BULLET = 15, LASER = 5, ENERGY = 5,
Mining: MELEE = 15, BULLET = 5, LASER = 5, ENERGY = 5,
Medical: MELEE = 5, BULLET = 5, LASER = 5, ENERGY = 5,
Standard: MELEE = 10, BULLET = 5, LASER = 5, ENERGY = 5,
Just for kicks, adding the EVA Softsuit here:
Suit: MELEE = 0, BULLET = 0, LASER = 0,ENERGY = 0,
Helmet: MELEE = 0, BULLET = 0, LASER = 0,ENERGY = 0,
For nukies to be much stronger in direct combat, they'd have to be packing instagib rifles.
Heaven forbid they engage in indirect combat; they can vastly increase their odds by bombing the station before directly attacking, sabotaging the AI and telecomms systems, blowing up the engine, flooding plasma. Their kit is heavily geared towards quick smash-and-grab conflicts with the presence of a limited amount of quickly swapped ammunition, high-damage weapons that outperform anything the crew can acquire, and a variety of explosives for breaking into various rooms of the station.
Let's look at what the crew typically does to fight war ops:
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- They build windows all over the hallways. This forces nukies to avoid the halls; melee nukies will get bogged down by navigating the maze of transparent walls(or smashing their way through) and ranged nukies will find their weapons turned into melee weapons because bullets don't go through glass(lasers do).
- They change the AI's laws so it will fight the nukies for them. This gives them a system that calls out nukie entrance points, vastly decreasing the amount of time they have to act in any situation. It also allows the silicons to fearlessly run interference; bolting doors, reversing sabotage, door/firelock crushing, laser turrets in their upload, hacked beepskies, and a group of cyborgs that really want to ruin the operatives' day.
- They gather around the round's objective, the nuclear authentication disk. Usually it's on the captain, the most heavily armed crewmember by default, though in some cases it's given to the most robust player on the station instead. This presents a horde of bodies that the operatives have to chew through to get to their goal, which can prove lethal when combined with previously mentioned fortifications. This gathering also makes the nukies' impressive weaponry far less impressive; a bulldog shotgun can only kill the thing directly in front of you, and if that happens to be a teammate, you're SOL. The thing is, the crew's numbers advantage often works in their favor: nukies have a much harder time getting medical care compared to crewmembers, combat often works out in favor of the side with more players, and those better at combat are more likely to be crew-aligned simply because of statistics.
- They cooperate with antagonists aboard the station who don't want to be nuked to death, willingly sacrificing themselves to heretics and traitors to make the crew in general more powerful.
- They concentrate the station's most powerful items on the guy holding the disk; generally, this means he has access to a hand teleporter, reactive teleport armor, the captain's self-charging laser pistol, and other incredibly useful utility items. The hand teleporter alone can be round-ending for the operatives, as once they sacrifice a ton of ammo and time getting to the man, he just leaves and closes the portal behind him before they can do anything.
Most operatives do not play around these tactics. Most operatives just charge in and start randomly butchering their way through the crew until they die.
This isn't an operative gear issue, this is a skill issue. All of these tactics can be played around in some way; the nukies just aren't willing to do it. Here are a few examples:
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- Bombs. Bombs, bombs, bombs, bombs. The nukies have access to a ridiculous amount of explosives. Fortified hallway? Bomb it. Twenty people in the same room? Chuck minibombs in there until they stop moving. The Captain is holed up in a ridiculously reinforced bridge? Send Cayenne in there with a macrobomb implant.
- Sabotage. You can access all of atmospherics for the low, low price of one brick of c4. Flood the distro with plasma and turn those fortifications into smoldering deathtraps. Very little of the armor on the station is truly fireproof(and some syndie armor isn't either, careful)! Take out their power and split their forces by having someone attack the engine room, or hire a saboteur cyborg to get the job done for you. That same saboteur cyborg can convert station-aligned cyborgs responding to the issue to your cause. No power means no lasers, no lasers means they have to rush you in melee, where you have far superior armor and weapons.
Additionally, the teleporter is far too powerful to leave intact. If you destroy the teleporters, the crew can't use the hand teleporter to juke you across the entire station. I usually make this my objective when I am a nukie.
- Prepare. There's an advanced camera console on the ship. Use it. Observe what the crew is doing; is the chief engineer sitting on a sofa in the supermatter chamber while the rest of the crew fortifies around him? He probably has the disk. Get a bomb. Did the crew move the AI? Is the upload secure? Are they trying unusual tactics? Did science build their own bomb to meet you in escape? These are all questions you can answer by using the camera console. Be prepared to be caught alone; buy a combat medkit for sustainability. You can buy permission to do science from your employers, giving you access to xenobiology, chemistry, and toxins sections of the base. This means extra BOOM in most cases, but a couple of your options give you a lot more creative wiggle room; there's a lot to do with your 20 minute war declaration besides shoot the shit.
- Subvert. The AI is powerful. It will know the crew's strategy and will be able to track the disk holder for you. It makes accessing areas much easier and can remotely sabotage crew efforts. Worst case secnario, custom-upload ANTIMOV as a hacked lawset, and laugh as the crew's "nuclear operatives are not human" law is turned against them.
- Do not overcommit. This is perhaps the most important thing on the list. The biggest mistake a nukie can make is not leaving soon enough. Jump into the station, split someone's skull open, drag their corpse back out and throw them into space. Whittle down their numbers one by one. War Ops isn't a race, it's a war. In the majority of conflicts, you get to choose where the fighting happens as the more mobile of the two parties. They will eventually have to leave their fortifications and move to the shuttle if they want to win, which is a very vulnerable structure for the five to twenty seconds that it's docked before they early launch it.
- If nothing else, listen to your radio. Pay attention. The crew will often tell you what they're doing before they do it. Your fellow nukies will check in on you occasionally, especially if they need help. Work with your team.
- Create a new hybrid nuclear operative / syndicate sleeper agent role that is a crew member antagonist who works directly with the nuclear operatives to sabotage the station. Currently traitors can buy a key to talk to the syndicate but they're under no obligations to help the operatives.
This is something I can agree with though; currently it's really hard to work together with the nukies because you can't add yourself to their faction. This means two things:
1) you aren't visibly a nukie to them and will inevitably become a casualty. No hud marker = you are dead.
2) they have to do some cheeky shenanigans to get you onto the ship if you want to evacuate with them, because you will be targeted by the ship's turrets.
A way of adding yourself to their team as a traitor would be nice, even if it only unlocked from a war declaration.