Rnd techwebs

[SpaceManiac]

Is the deconstructor broken to only allow accumulation of points?

Had the alien surgical tools and they added 0 points to the alien related tech. Not sure what the purpose of the deconstructor is anymore out side of a generic points adder.

The UI overhaul testmerged on Sybil right now also fixes decon for abductor tech, so at least it isn't broken anymore. It does still seem a little unfinished though, there's no Syndicate research for example.

[kevinz000]

i'll add some more DA uses that don't make it outright "shopping list" while/until we make new machines to gain points with.

also i made a pr that allows proper linking of department stuff to rnd consoles. it is optional but the rnd console interface is better

[Mark9013100]

A bit divided on Research not being able to print some of the stuff they research but eh.
Civilian protolathe should be moved to the HoP's office.
A few departments still need circuit imprinters, like medical.

[kevinz000]

Not every department has one for a reason. Engi has one because they're supposed to build and maintain. Science has one but they only have science related things in it.

[Oldman Robustin]

Machine creation is frustrating because we can "designate" certain departments like science and engineering as machine custodians all we want but at the end of the day its 100% artificial since you're just shoving shit into a metal frame using parts that are available at every autolathe.

Its also a hassle and so it is extremely rare to get someone else to actually show up in your department and build a machine for you.

One solution would be to try and streamline the process. We could spend many hours coding something where dept. heads can request machinery, the request console would actually place "phantom" construction and engineering goggles could "see" those phantoms for construction purposes (it would also work great for new walls or doors). Could take it a step further and with the Dept. Budgets I plan on adding, reward engineering/science for filling these requests "to specification".

Alternatively we could just simplify and make machine creation more accessible, since machines are often an important aspect of letting players do something interesting about their round and I view machine construction as one of the single great barriers against more creative behavior by players. You can "do anything" in SS13 but we make it a huge pain in the ass to do anything beyond what you're given at roundstart, that's how 99% of rounds seem to play out.

Edit: Random sidenote but cargo tech disk prices are just silly right now. Cargo scrounges for tanks and shit (that we actually need) for a thousand credits then I take a 30 second roundtrip to RND for 50,000 to 200,000 credits that costs the station absolutely nothing.

[kevinz000]

strange I calculated 500k over the entire techweb wtf

[calzilla1]

As a QM I love the departmental protolathe. Now if I want ro cuck yhe scientists, my miners wont mutiny on me!

[Noka]

Okay, reading back over this thread, here's some of the stuff I'm wanting to point out.

1) Isn't deleting the "Reset Research" button just ignoring the problem? What happens if I detonate the science server - does science build a new server? (Does it even have the tech for that?) If the science is just in the air, can I get a research console board, break the seclock on it by emagging it, and then run off to the abandoned station or something and just fuck with R&D unsynced? Sure, I can't delete research, but I can constantly use the points gained...

Additionally, isn't that snowflaking around the primary issue (antags can full-reset research to remove round progression)...? Not to just throw around snowflaking charges but I recall it was a major complaint of goofguns and I feel like removing a sabotage method is a similar level of "I don't like the potential implications people bring up, so I've unnecessarily removed features or made things that entirely flaw my rebalance uncommon!"

Maybe have rounds have a stacking point gain, where you gain like 1 per tick at roundstart but gain an extra 1 per tick every 10 mins (no that isn't real scaling numbers kev please don't do that) but like, it would make sabotage valid while not completely murdering the crew, especially if costs were rebalanced to be low -> med -> high rather than a flat 2500 all the time. (There'd even be an easy lore explanation of "Nanotransen values you, crew. But not every station is perfect. The longer your station remains afloat, the more tech data Nanotransen sends you to decrypt! After all, if you're still functioning that long into a shift, you're doing systemically better than approximately 99.9999% of all other Nanotransen stations, and we salute you.")

2) honestly, this isn't a research nerf. as a lot of people in-game point out, the departmental lathes... can be made by science. (please don't snowflake departmental lathes too; not because I don't think it's a valid solution, but I feel like that's taking a lot of "But These Consoles Are Different" that's kinda ass). Yeah, it takes effort, but like... it doesn't take more effort than originally doing research would.

3) Also gonna just point this out; the best way to streamline machine upgrades would be to create an autosynth RPED (sync to the console with use?) and have it have a higher fabrication cost for some things compared to the normal or upgraded lathes. It'd make a lot of sense to have an active, portable RPED that can be carried around (and eventually stolen by a traitor to be used for evil).

[Dr_bee]

The inability for the science department to make AI and cyborg upload boards seems like a bit of an oversight when they are the place you are supposed to print law boards from, and maintaining the AI being the job of the RD. It currently makes it hard to regain control of an AI via research outside of stealing the boards from secure storage.

[kevinz000]

If science has department lathes it means they stole it from other departments.

[Noka]

okay, kev, here's what i was trying to get at:

if there is no departmental lathe board available to me, where do i go to fabricate one

if the answer is "it is impossible" then please answer me this corollary:

wouldn't that make it incredibly effective for anyone who has sec access to detonate the departmental lathe and the spare board?

you seemed concerned about people force-resetting research and screwing the entire system so i was curious about your opinions on that

(also, if you say engineering then here's a second corollary: does that actually stop powergamers from going engineering, setting up the engine, and then printing off lathe boards and fucking off?)

[onleavedontatme]

We have not come up with a good solution to replacement lathes yet

[TribeOfBeavers]

Could you make it so printing items from departmental lathes requires access to that department? It would allow engineering/science to make more boards without allowing them to just build them all for themselves.

If someone wanted to build all the lathes for themself in a space fort or whatever it's still possible by collecting (stealing) IDs or using the spare or probably an emag.

Also I'm not sure why the possibility of losing the lathes permenantly is such a concern when that is exactly the way it worked with old RnD anyway. If the boards were stolen and the machines destroyed (usually by swarmers, I never saw anyone else bother), there wasn't really a way to get new ones from what I remember.

[Noka]

Well, the problem is just that departmental lathes are insanely powerful compared to most machines, yes?

Keep the checks and balances already in place. Sec lathes should auto-lockbox things it detects are harmful, so on.

The major nerf this provides would be that you can't easily hide you're fucking with other departments' shit like this. In old-research, you could print a gun lockbox & run off, and nobody would realize you'd even made it if they weren't there or watching.

In departmental lathe-land, seeing science (or engineers) next to a sec lathe they built immediately tells you they're trying to make their own mini-armory. That opens up the time for sec & others to respond, not even mentioning that siphoning off the resources for a seclathe might actively be difficult for anyone who isn't science. If the lockbox stuff remained, it'd also mean that sec can infer they're able to hack open lockboxes, which suggests traitorous activity.

As it is, I think that's enough of a solution already to science powergaming for weapons & other shenanigans. There's no reason to get rid of the previous security measures, and there's no reason to snowflake departmental lathes' boards.

I don't like the old sci powergame farm, but I think there's value in making it excessively difficult to get away with, instead of excessively difficult to do.

RE: Tribe, that's not wrong, but the seclathe is dangerously close to space because of where sec is usually put. The research department stuff tends to be harder to get through to; there's at least a room or two between it and space, and assault from places like the escape angle still require you busting down the front area that gets grates. Sec, you could space the lathe area & then destroy it.

I'm mostly thinking about things like ops, where they start out spacewalking and with a lot of potential spots to go with. My primary worry is that seclathe becomes an easy target and being irreplaceable makes it all the more reason to attempt to destroy it ASAP.

[kevinz000]

disorganized thoughts because it's 1 AM.

lockboxes are dumb we switched to pins for a reason why have both?

so far i've never seen a department lose both its lathe boards anyways.

deleting the research reset button is to prevent someone from erasing 90 minutes of timecapped progress with 90 seconds of sabotage.

lockboxes hasn't been a thing for years.

this is a research nerf how do you possibly think 90 minutes timecapped unlocking is as powerful as being able to max it in 10 minutes?

also welcome to tg no one gives a fuck if science has more lathes, they're already labeled and if people see you with more than one they know it's not going to be your spare. if sec cared about this stuff robotics wouldn't be able to make combat mechs without getting interrupted. i personally don't like access locking things, if it was added i'd add a way to bypass it because access hard locking is dumb and like doors things access-locked should have a way of bypassing it.

also what do you mean "sec and others"? when cargo was selling all the materials without giving anyone any even sec didn't care, why do you think any other department will do things if they see science with their spare boards unless sci broke their main boards?

as one of the worst/best depending on how you look at it science powergamers pre-techwebs i can tell you that short of hard-access locking it to science (which is horrible) or lockboxing things (which is horrible) there's not going to be enough people caring on tg servers to try to stop you. even with lockboxes scientists got weapons if they really tried and were smart about it. after lockboxes were removed it's trivial for me to get guns and other things as scientist and no one including security will generally care unless i start going around shooting people and griefing everyone.

[kevinz000]

also if ops roll in and you didn't already print off an arsenal it's generally time to take what you have and fight instead of try to secure your gun printer and start making guns.

[LifeReign]

Current problem: New UI looks nice, but breaks constantly and takes a good 30 seconds to load every time you want to use it. It takes awhile to update when you research stuff, and frequently has connection issues.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Applying common sense, instead of mass deleting research (because it takes time) fill out the systems to give control to the RnD server room to be able to view all tech tree progress & delete/hide segments without nessecarily disabling it pernamently. EI viewing the tree & turning off a vital node will grey out but not remove those further above it without explicit RD access to delete things 1 node at a time.

The old system was disjointed where you could disable features individually (specifically have no of 1 item until re-researched with decon) but only as a matter of what order it was researched & the UI was really bad with a enormous list of everything in the autolathe & elsewhere besides robotics & protolathe.

Formerly the RD could already blacklist departments in science from using servers, so should be able to remotely remove server access to department lathes once bugs about getting them all connected up are cleared from git. Server room controls have been ass even pre-techwebs for a while & the RD could probably do it from their head-desk to give him something else to do and role responsibility for being a patron that tech is distributed fairly & safely.

[delaron]

Could we also adjust how the department lathes eat most high value things if you make the mistake of clicking on the lathe to access the screen but had something in your hand?

Lost a hand tele to that mistake. Is this intended or would a confirm option be in order?

[PKPenguin321]

We have not come up with a good solution to replacement lathes yet

make them producible through R&D but only allow one of each departmental lathe to function should more than 1 exist on the station so you have to steal/destroy the other one if you want a new one and you can make a new one if the first one is destroyed by some third party

[Cobby]

We have not come up with a good solution to replacement lathes yet

Engineering lathe and cargo can buy a replacement engy lathe but it’s id locked and costly so you wanna keep your eyes peeled

[oranges]

Could we also adjust how the department lathes eat most high value things if you make the mistake of clicking on the lathe to access the screen but had something in your hand?

Lost a hand tele to that mistake. Is this intended or would a confirm option be in order?

that sounds horrible

[Arianya]

The circuit printer (and only the circuit printer?) seems to not refresh itself after a search. Requires clicking on the machine again.

Also additional servers don't seem to be generating more points? The research console continued to state a generation rate of 2442, even though two extra servers were built and visible from a R&D server console.

[Mark9013100]

When deconning materials such as metal sheets in the DA, it'll only decon it for 2000 instead of how many more sheets there were. Probably a small thing but it'd be a nice failsafe incase directly inserting materials in the lathe becomes bugged.

[SpaceManiac]

Also additional servers don't seem to be generating more points? The research console continued to state a generation rate of 2442, even though two extra servers were built and visible from a R&D server console.

Yeah, they don't. There just needs to be one to get the fixed income, I assume it was done this way for balance reasons. There's a lot of dead code relating to server count scaling but it isn't enabled and even if it were it doesn't work.

[Oldman Robustin]

Now that the UI has been updated I'll probably start working on Dept. Budgets.

I'll probably try adding them one department at a time because its a lot of work. Basically im racking my brain for dept. goals and new tech to justify hitting those goals.

We can afford to give lathes better stuff now that it's not just "Property of RND Whores". I have no qualms about Medbay getting access to Medbeam Guns, Security getting access to the Rocket Launcher/Tranq Rifle, Engineering getting the ARCD, when its endgame tech. that goes to the proper department. But it also means adding new nodes, balancing the costs, and then coming up with goals that are dynamic and not just cut-and-dry routines.

[Arianya]

Idea: make servers give more research points but also have a immense power cost.

Pros:

- This allows science an expansion route to their point acquisition if theres an imminent need for it
- It makes science vulnerable to external forces (Piss off engineering by stealing their lathe? Say goodbye to your power!)
- You can make a bitcoin joke

Cons:

- Science will probably use inducers or something to cheat this.

[kevinz000]

What exactly would Dept budgets do?

[SpaceInaba]

Time to beg cargo to order parts for an engine and set up a singulo in science just to finish R&D within 20 minutes.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Now that the UI has been updated I'll probably start working on Dept. Budgets.

I'll probably try adding them one department at a time because its a lot of work. Basically im racking my brain for dept. goals and new tech to justify hitting those goals.

We can afford to give lathes better stuff now that it's not just "Property of RND Whores". I have no qualms about Medbay getting access to Medbeam Guns

Throwing out a method of creating ointment & bruise packs along with other medical stuff in a medical lathe idea thread long ago could help you with atleast a template of some of the close to exclusive stuff medbay has. Chemistry just dumps chems into the medical department lathe, print out more epi-pens if you need it etc doctors swipe minerals for items by importing sciences existing list of medical related RnD designs and to stock chemistry with ready sources of uranium.

[cedarbridge]

Now that the UI has been updated I'll probably start working on Dept. Budgets.

I'll probably try adding them one department at a time because its a lot of work. Basically im racking my brain for dept. goals and new tech to justify hitting those goals.

We can afford to give lathes better stuff now that it's not just "Property of RND Whores". I have no qualms about Medbay getting access to Medbeam Guns

Throwing out a method of creating ointment & bruise packs along with other medical stuff in a medical lathe idea thread long ago could help you with atleast a template of some of the close to exclusive stuff medbay has. Chemistry just dumps chems into the medical department lathe, print out more epi-pens if you need it etc doctors swipe minerals for items by importing sciences existing list of medical related RnD designs and to stock chemistry with ready sources of uranium.

Why would we design a setup where chemistry (the department that handcrafts pills and patches) dump random chems into a vending lathe that generates generic versions of the things they should already be making? That's silly.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Because they can't make or replace simple first aid medication and usually they besides the CMO are the only people with access to chemistry. First aid equipment is direct & superior to patches & brute/burn damage type pills anyway.

You'd never have to import first aid packs specifically for them again, just walk up to medbay & ask for a top up.

[cedarbridge]

Because they can't make or replace simple first aid medication and usually they besides the CMO are the only people with access to chemistry. First aid equipment is direct & superior to patches & brute/burn damage type pills anyway.

You'd never have to import first aid packs specifically for them again, just walk up to medbay & ask for a top up.

Nobody orders first aid kits for medbay because chemistry exists. What are you even talking about?

[SpaceInaba]

cedar please remember fwoosh has not touched the game in like half a year

[FantasticFwoosh]

Nobody orders first aid kits for medbay because chemistry exists. What are you even talking about?

Chemistry isn't always manned & simply having the additional medical first aid supplies lets you minmax healing patients whilst conserving time & resources by applying a patch first without overdosing your patient if the chemical you are using is potent with overdose effects.

Im a chad doctor who goes out and finds patients heals them on the spot when in need with first aid, or stabilizes them to run to medbay, versus the virgin chemistry/cryotube lurking doctor.

[TribeOfBeavers]

If chemistry isn't manned how are they going to make the chems to dump into the lathe?

If chemistry is manned why would they bother dumping chems into the lathe instead of just making their own brute/burn patches?

[FantasticFwoosh]

CMO would fufill the role on highpop with no chemists, memory serves doctors get chemistry access anyway on skeletal crew ID access. Really for doctors own purposes & the applicative way it differentiates chemistry stuff from first aid supplies.

I've already mentioned this once before but you can apply unlimited bruise packs/ointment ontop of patch healing without exceeding a overdose to which it is more convenient for stabilizing a patient quickly.

[TribeOfBeavers]

Right, but if they have chem acess they can just make their own meds...

You can apply unlimited chemistry brute and burn patches though, they don't have an OD threshold unless you're using trek chems (which I never see anyone do anyway).

They only upside of the med kit ones is that they're instant to apply on other people instead of taking a second (which seems like an oversight to be honest, no other meds are that fast). The chem ones are straight upgrades otherwise.

[cedarbridge]

They only upside of the med kit ones is that they're instant to apply on other people instead of taking a second (which seems like an oversight to be honest, no other meds are that fast).

Less of an oversight and more that they didn't get touched when the chem overhaul was done.

[ShadowDimentio]

Why not just give science their old lathe back that can build everything, but leave the department lathes scattered around? It'd give science more of an incentive to stay on top of research and to man the station because people could come to request stuff and the faster the research is done the more toys they get, but the rest of the station would be gaining things just as well as R&D so it's not just them with all the fancy toys any more.

There, a solution that makes everyone happy.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Science will just steal all the materials again to solely fund the omni-lathe.

[SpaceInaba]

in my experience department lathes have solved nothing because people
1) don't want to go get materials
2) come to science anyways to ask for items that we cant print unless we have the lathe for it
3) gives us their lathes anyways when we ask almost every time without fail

[Dr_bee]

in my experience department lathes have solved nothing because people
1) don't want to go get materials
2) come to science anyways to ask for items that we cant print unless we have the lathe for it
3) gives us their lathes anyways when we ask almost every time without fail

The problem now is mostly mineral distribution.

Mineral costs need to be toned down across the board, as right now 3 miners cant bring in enough for the greedy cargo and science department lathes, let alone the less used engineering, security and service lathes.

[Saegrimr]

The problem now is mostly mineral distribution.

Mineral costs need to be toned down across the board, as right now 3 miners cant bring in enough for the greedy cargo and science department lathes, let alone the less used engineering, security and service lathes.

It's less the cost of minerals and more that people grab EVERYTHING and drag it back to their department.
"I need 500 uranium points to make this item, better grab the two full stacks of uranium"
"MINERS WHERES THE FUCKING URANIUM"

[Hathkar]

The "Release All" button on the ORM could use removing. This way people can only take 50 stacks at a time, instead of the entire mineral load in one click. It's not much, but it'll help a little bit.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Or you could just make the maximum amount of sheets a cap individually defined on mined resources vs metal & glass that rises but stays beneath the threshold when upgraded with bins.

100 metal, 100 glass, 75 titanium/gold/silver, 50 uranium, 50 plasma, 25 diamond etc.

Players will go to lengths of breaking the ORM to purposefully make it break open all of its stacks then just scoop it up in such a case, if you remove the equal maximum quantity by establishing a cap on materials beside, then hoarding players cannot justify themselves inserting everything into the machine as nessecity and people at fault can be identified & resources reclaimed to be redistributed.

[Arianya]

The "Release All" button on the ORM could use removing. This way people can only take 50 stacks at a time, instead of the entire mineral load in one click. It's not much, but it'll help a little bit.

Yeah as far as I can tell that button has encouraged nothing but bad habits, because who wants to hit 6 buttons to get a more then sufficient portion of minerals when you can hit one button and get all the minerals

[Mark9013100]

Is the hydro tray board not implemented in it's relevant node? It can't be found in old!circuit printers.

[Armhulen]

The problem isn't that people don't want to get minerals, the problem is that there's an access requirement to getting the materials, kinda like how the virologist had to burgle all their mats but 3 departments worse

[SpaceInaba]

tbh it's a super logical strategy if you're gonna have a long round to have the RD or some science mook jump out the airlock and go get the white ship so they can grab the universal R&D boards from the derelict and take them back to science considering nobody other than cargo actually stocks their lathe

I like techwebs because it requires less work to get equipment it normally was annoying to get but departmental lathes just don't really work as intended I. Other departments now have the power to print their own stuff but nobody, not even sec actually does so most of the time. This may be different on the psychopaths who play on bagil's insane fucking population but on sybil literally nobody except me stocks non science lathes.