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Yea, I mean people comment saying "telescience is more often used to send bombs across the station" but is it really? Have you really seen somebody actually in game with your own eyes seen someone teleport a bomb across the station? Because I haven't personally. Maybe it's just me, but it seems to niche of an activity for any old antag to robust with it. You really have to know what your doing, and most people aren't up to par. I'd argue its easier to robust with chemistry rather than telescience.

I still stand by every argument I've made thus far as to why I'm against removing this. Furthermore, I'm gonna put out there that this feels like it's "Looking for reasons" to remove a system. That bad experiences were had, so some people want it on the chopping block, that it has little to nothing to do with it being "Overpowered" in actuality. Because the facts don't add up, especially when a fix to the proposed issues was put forward and subsequently ignored. The problems proposed have been corrected and debunked several times an the legitimate ones have had a proposal put forward to fixing them, but apparently nuking this is just the only way to be sure for some reason. That doesn't seem like "Balancing" an OP system is a goal to me, that seems like it's about removing one that's made people upset because they happened to be on the bad side of it, those few rare times a month it happens. I'd respect this idea a lot more if it came across being honest with ourselves. If we wanna say "Hey, we just don't like this system, we think it's not fun. We don't think how it works is fun and that it can't be made fun in it's current form." Then I'd at least respect the honesty put forward, because that's just as valid a reason to propose something's removal as anything else. But this? Saying it's "Because it is too strong" ? This feels like we're looking for "Boogey-man" situations to emphasize how secretly OP the barely used system is and trying to use those outlier rare circumstances as justification that the entire thing is broken. Because the majority of arguments made in favor of removing this system are grounded mostly in anecdotal evidence or are assuming that a LOT of variables line up perfectly to make telescience this unstoppable god of death, and the facts simply don't match that accusation. It is factually easier, faster and simpler to do a lot of spooky antag things by hand, then it is through telescience. It is easier to dispose of bodies unless you happen to specifically be an antag scientist and telesci is already set up, and saved coordinates to space to use in just this sort of rare circumstance, which the vast majority of players do not have. It is far easier to dispose of targets with any number of science weaponry or antag specific weaponry, it is impossible to use telescience to do mass bombings unless you are, specifically An Antag Scientist with Hijack due to the nature of server rules. That is a lot of variables that have to line up for it to be worth the effort or in the case of bombings, even allowed. When it comes to blobs and rogue AI, AI do have a problem, that's true. AI also have a means to counter it via cyborgs and sabotaging APCs, but it's still true that it's a hard counter so to speak. Blobs however, unless you know the precise coordinate location of the core, dropping a bomb in, is liable to kill as much crew as it is blob, and you can't exactly drop in a max cap even then, you will not be looked at kindly icly, oocly or from administration. So we're talking precision, pin-point blob execution and that is not as easy or feasible as it sounds, not compared to just massing flashbangs, X-rays and mechs. The facts of the matter are that any proposed issues made against telescience thus far exist in multiple game systems right now, and there's not a single peep about them. I bring up Chemistry a lot in comparison to this because for every single complaint of "I could get a bomb dropped right on me and die instantly and there's nothing I could do about it." there's a dozen more complaints related to hellmixes and memechem formulas where one application of a spray bottle or one click of a syringe gun is instant death. For every complaint of telescience stealing victims from antags away, there's a dozen more accounts of Virology basically patenting immortality and distributing it to the crew/command/security. None of those departments are removed. They get changed, they get tweaked, but we never even dream of removing them, I wouldn't want them removed. Virology has the worst of it right now, but that's because a major system change is more what staff are looking for (Swapping to /tg/ virology if I recall discussions correctly.) But it still is not removed. A proposed tweak to fix the problems of stealing items easily has been made, why is that being overlooked? We've made far more sweeping changes for far less issues before but adding a single new "Jammer" item or using the no teleport flag or combination of both is a bridge too far? So I'm again going to ask, because I've never really been answered on the topic. What is the difference here? Why is it perfectly fine for those systems to have outliers where they can be potentially extremely powerful, but Telescience is just a bridge too far? What makes 1 click deaths from a spray bottle any better then 1 click deaths from a console, when they are far, far fewer in number and farther between then those other systems everyone is seemingly okay with?

I don't really see it used much at all, but for all the very good reasons stated mostly by Jazz that I've seen I'm against removing it. There's plenty of ways to nerf it, such as adding that no teleporter flag as was stated by Jazz. It's often useful for body retrieval. I rarely if ever see it used for much more than that. As Dinar said, if you're going to look at one OP thing look at others. Chemistry is hilariously overpowered on its own and all it takes is opening a wiki, looking over chemical combinations, and making them. Congratulations you now have death in chemical form.

The thing is that sure it can be strong, but that is from chance... most of the time you don't get anything good till end of round, and even then you're dying from Genetic DMG and Toxin and Burns, the RND just makes it boring.... Genetics is a fun role to play and you have to be willing to focus on it. It can be extremely difficult to play, but this RNG update makes it boring, dull, and just purely random.... I got Xray on 2 different block... the first one it was sharing with Buff, then the 2nd it was sharing with mute... and I got it the 2nd time on a CLEAN!!! SE!!! This RNG takes away the realism of genetics and makes it so boring that it's unplayable, whenever I go genetics I notice I am the ONLY geneticist that stays in genetics and does the job.... others take off running around the station etc... PLEASE bring back old genetics or at-least make it less RNG and for the love of all things holy make the Genetic, Toxin, and Burn DMG less unavoidable ...

It makes sense that if you have the ship you could just fly away therefore "escaping" for the purpose of antag objectives. This has the benefit of giving antags a way of green texting even on rounds where the station is condemned and gets nuked (terrors, xenos, mid round blobs out of control)

PS also please lower the Injector time...

While i know Pets are Ghosts and Ghosts arent supposed to do much other than spectate from how i see. I still feel like Selecting Observer to Ghost and Select Pets could make Pets abit more interesting. I myself really like playing as a pet. As boring as others might find it to play, i think it add's abit to the roleplay of the whole station with players controlling the different pets and Heads pets. I had alot of engagement with CMO by playing Runtime and its fun. What i do miss though it bieng able to do just a few things. First of all to eat stuff. Bieng able to eat means your owner could feed you. Adding more engagement to the pets. Second is Biting/clawing. Depending on type of pet. Not all might have. But cats can claw. Cats and Dogs can both bite in real life. Damage can be minor, but it could add to the game. One example of when this could be is when an scientist tries to abduct you. Doing bad things maybe. Who knows what that certain scientist have in mind. If you roleplay as scared you would wanna bite or scratch them maybe. Just a slight self defence. This would give people abit of an oh shit momment where they probably have to think abit more than just grabbing a pet without making sure they are comfortable like real life. I would love to try to make pets more of a fun thing lively thing on the station. Ontop of this i think playing as pets should add playtime to unlock some ghost roles. So basicly 3 suggestions. Clawing/Biting Eating/Drinking Pets count for playtime for ghost roles maybe?

One idea I can see being used is to create 'Bluespace Inhibitors'. Essentially they are wrench-able machines that, for a bit of power, create a bubble around them that prevents any teleporting in or out of the area. Attempting to do so redirects the person/item begin teleport to a spot outside of the bubble. They could be set up round-start in places like the armory, AI core, telecomms control room, plus additional ones can be researched and built by science. I've seen these used on other servers, so they may make for a goo way to balance telescience.

2 images of Terry awooing

Yes... just an interesting pose

Hello everyone! Furasian here, I have currently put out a poll to see if we can set a foundation for what the SEC Instructor should look like. Here are two options I've developed based on discussions here... Since we've weeded out the idea of SEC Instructor being a centcomm asset like the NT Rep and Blueshield I've currently taken those two appearance options out until otherwise. I am currently looking at two options, feel free to add more in the discussion! Option 1: 1980s copper- A true sign of a veteran! You've done your time and got some stripes. Now you stand with your fellow officers like the grumpy veteran you are! You smell bribes and loafing around so get those coppers on the streets to write those damn tickets! WHAT?! What do you mean we don't write tickets on this station?! Inspired by the pixel game Beat Cop, the true image of the tough old days, where you had to actually take fingerprints to a machine to get DNA instead of a handheld device. These rookies have it easy compared to the days you were on the street! Option 2: Drill Instructor- STAND AT ATTENTION! You lead these maggots and turn them into hard core officers! This is a paramilitary organization! If they don't like it they can leave! YOU ARE NO LONGER BLACK, OR YELLOW, OR GREEN, YOU ARE NOW RED! YOU ARE NOW DARK RED! Inspired by well.. Drill instructors. https://www.strawpoll.me/17878229 Vote now! Let your opinion shape this job the way YOU WANT it to be shaped! I've seen a couple discussions about the job along with a couple of ideas on the discord, reminder to post them here on this thread so it's all together in one location instead of being buried in the chaos that is discord THE VOTE WILL CLOSE ON 05/01/2019 (ONE WEEK FROM NOW)

A fun "Your character here" commission thing...

Something a bit more... gruesome, which I'll leave behind a spoiler.

I'm not taking a side or trying to shoot you down, I think what you said makes a good point. I'm just going to clear things up with your comment @Abydos All loot on z levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are not procedural. All important loot that should be not accessible to the public is on z level 2. All procedural loot is on levels 7-something, which is completely randomized. Loot on 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 is 100% consistent every round and all coordinate locations are on my google doc. The white is where it is until somebody installs the circuit and pilots it (omega rare). Again I don't understand why the syndie depot keeps coming up, you cannot teleport to or from the syndie depot, it has that no tele flag. Bluespace wormhole projector can instantly guaranteed teleport you back. The hand tele also works but it leaves a fat portal behind, so that's what the AI would notice. As stated earlier only loot on z levels 7-something are randomized. Any capacitor works, the quadratic one unlocks power 80 and allows for less crystals to be needed to unlock power levels. Fun fact: Projectile physics doesn't take a steven hawking. But whatever I get your point cause nobody in their right mind would do it by hand....(yea I did before I knew about calculators...) Umm I mean if it's happened to you before then it exists but from my experience and after looking through the code to confirm there is no "random chance" for the teleporter to loose calibration. The exact number of teleportations after pressing the recalibration is a random number between 30 and 40. All teleportations that take place between those numbers use the exact same offsets and they don't change. Once you run out of teleports it literally won't work until you recalibrate. Also doing the GPS meme with calculators takes 20 seconds if you know what your doing.

There does seem to be a lot of miscommunication based on telescience within the topic, much like Jazz said. I think trying to break each and every complaint / pros for telescience will show that it's not as "Robust" and "Broken" as people claim it to be. Telescience is nearly broken by itself from the start, unless you're a super computer that knows everything wrong / right and how to do telescience immediately, you'll never successfully do it without a program. But a program itself doesn't even help you to begin with, the programs that you are talking about only help you with coordinates that you ALREADY have.. and even then, nearly every program (Such as one that I've used myself) you need to calibrate both the program and the telescience in-game to even make it successful. Fun fact: You know that calibrate in telescience for the crystals? There's a chance that after every teleport, that the calibration turns wrong, especially if you re-calibrate the crystals, as it will change the whole of telescience, meaning you have to redo from the start. "Sadly, teleportations (the exact number is randomized every calibration) the Telepad will decalibrate. This means that the telepad simply will not work, and when you hit recalibrate again, you will have to recalibrate your offsets." In a way, it certainly can help traitors but this is ENTIRELY subjective. You can say that a traitor can use telescience for anything.. stealing an item / object, stealing a locker, stealing <insert whatever here>, teleporting a person or even teleporting a bomb onto someone to blow them up. But EVERYTHING is subjective in this way. Let's just magically say that you know the coordinates for where an item you have to steal is.. what's to say the item is still there? What's to say someone hasn't already taken it or walking around with it? What's to even say you got the right coordinates? How are you going to take it off the person constantly walking around, with their coordinates changing every second? Another fun fact: Unless that person has sensors onto full, they'll NEVER have full coordinates to figure out where you even are. And even if you did manage to get lucky and say teleport a bomb onto someone / somewhere and it goes off, if that person survives / is SR'd / cloned, they'll scream of a magical teleporting bomb, and who does that point the finger to? Whoever is in science, meaning a full crackdown on science and telescience being deconstructed. And there is a delay on teleporting, both in receive and send.. of at least 3-5 seconds, enough time for anything to go wrong or happen. As Jazz pointed out, this can easily be fixed by marking an area with the teleportation block flag, which most important areas in the game usually do have. Plus what exactly are you going to do? You're a traitor or just someone mucking about, and you teleport yourself to any of theses locations (And their respected outcomes): Syndie Outpost: You teleport over, 1) You die to a syndie NPC. 2) You get shot to death by a turret. 3) You just realized you stranded yourself on a place with no communication, no space suit, and didn't tell anyone you were doing this because you wanted the selfish loot to yourself. 4) You have someone to help you back, but mucked up by moving and forgot which tile exactly pulls you back, as there's no communication at all. Armory: You teleport over, 1) You get robusted by Armsky and announce your presense to every officer in security, you get arrested. 2) You teleport guns to yourself.. infront of all your co-workers who then report you to security. 3) You do it stealthy like, until security notices their stuff is missing and comes to the conclusion. Vault: You teleport over, 1) Realize your an idiot and got yourself stuck for the Ai to find and get arrested. 2) You bring the nuke to you, good job.. now how are you going to hide it from everyone? AI Upload: You teleport over, 1) Immediately stunned by turrets and robusted by the heads on the bridge. Everything is subjective in the location you choose and the preparations you make for it, and even if you are FULLY prepared, there's nothing to say you'll ever succeed or win. Especially if you're doing it alone. And as stated before, EVERY z level is designed to change. Maybe one round you have the white ship in z level 1 near the station.. maybe another round it's at z level 3 near the engi outpost. And some z level specific stuff don't spawn at all, it's all randomized, the locations too. No, the same situations happen as described above. How are you going to save someone from a spider if they are constantly moving? And as far as I'm aware, you can't teleport cocoons, meaning whatever people the spiders have.. will be stuck there unless freed. And what exactly are you going to use telescience for against the spiders or xenos? Trying to teleport someone to you, one spider stands on the tile.. you have a new friend come to bite your face off. It's really not.. do you know the materials and such needed for it? 1x Telepad Control Board 1x Telepad board 1x Console screen 11x Cable Coil 10x Metal Sheets 2x Glass 5x Bluespace Crystals 1x Quadratic Capacitor So not only do you need the glass and materials to make the telepad boards, you also need Bluespace crystals.. which is rare on mining to find, requiring a full 5 meesh, xenobiology to be ontop of slimes or artifical bluespace crystals which even then costs diamonds and uranium. But also a Quadratic Capactior, which you can only get by Power level 6/7, which also requires xenobiology. And then there's the random off-shoots of when you even make it. It just seems like there's a lot of miscommunication, and not taking into account various factors, while complaining about something because "It's OP". Robotists with materials in 30 minutes, can make Gygax's for all of security. Science with materials in 40-50 minutes, can make enough AEGs, X-ray implants and various other stuff for security to last them all shift. Chemisty + Science chem + Toxins can make enough bombs, explosives, grenades and the like (Especially Science Chem with reusable cases) in a flat 5 minutes to destroy, kill, or breach multiple areas on the station, especially with the latest update to chem dispensers. Medical, with sciences help, can have 4-6 cloning pod cloning people all at once. Genetists can randomly fire hulk and start smashing everything in sight. A traitor with the right know how can literally build themselves an AI upload. And those situations are deliberate and happen every single round, yet, no one calls them "OP" for the sake of "They help" when they literally make certain people / crew / antag's life a living hell. Imagine you're an antag, got all the best loot, best gear, holopara, suit to survive in space while taunting and having ago at security about how you're getting away with things. Then all of a sudden one the officer has an x-ray laser gun, with x-ray vision / implant and manages to get you into crit within a few shots that you can barely react too. Telescience is constantly random, it's barely OP.

See, but you can't have it both ways. We can't say "Telescience has no non-antag uses!" And then immediately follow up with "The non-antag uses make antag life hell." It either has them or it doesn't have them, that is a binary state. Telescience, as Jazz has said far better then I could, has legitimate uses, mostly body retrieval. And as for making antag life hell, there's really only the antag to blame for that. Because without suit sensors to get a coordinate to shoot for, you can't teleport anything back, so if you forgot or neglected to remove suit sensors, well... Even without a teleportation device the paramedic or pod pilot can easily go retrieve that body. So that's kind of a wash either way, and is still on the antag for not turning off the sensors. Secondly, I don't think it's entirely fair to say "Remove Telescience cuz it's OP" as some others have. Because if we're gonna talk about 'no counter' antagonist fuckery (Even though in my years of playing on paradise I have never once seen it happen.) then we also have to talk about CHEMISTRY. The nature of "Hellmixes" and other meme chems that cause near instant death with a single click have been the source of more salt then telescience ever has, but we don't see anyone really up in arms are railing to get Chemistry removed. It's just a facet of the game that we have all adapted to, and changes have been made to mitigate it's OP nature. Why should Tele-sci be any different? Why is it when another system is OP we just make adjustments, but when Tele-sci is questionably OP, we just go to delete it outright without even a token attempt at a balancing pass first? Why? And lastly, the counter to Telescience is pretty easy. Move. Turn off suit sensors or just move around and the guy is never going to get a lock on you, especially since the crew monitor console now updates every 5 to 10 seconds these days instead of it's early more frequent refresh rate. In terms of countering theft, I see no reason why just adding a "Jammer" item should be so outlandish, we've done more intensive additions and reworks to curb chemistry or botany, but again, nobody is screaming to remove those systems. If it comes to dropping off bombs, well, it's against server rules to do that unless you have hijack and at that point the bomb was gonna happen either way. Also bear in mind the requirements to build Telescience. It's easy to put together but to get telescience not horribly limited for range, you need bluespace crystals, which means either mining comes through or xenobio pulls through. And if you're relying on bluespace slimes you are rolling dice to see how fast it happens. It;s not HARD but this isn't EXACTLY a "No effort required" project, particularly if you ARE going to antag with it since you need to keep it secret or the AI is just gonna blab about it and turn off the APC. I am open to the idea of nerfing it somehow, but the idea of removing it entirely for these reasons is, to me, entirely silly and borderline hypocritical in some ways.

Alright let me open up my comment with I have spent dozens of hours mastering telescience along with every single aspect of it (from hubs to quantum pads to z level loot to the depot etc). I've even edited the wiki and wrote the majority of the page itself. And yes, I am the guy who makes that "public hub" that has been mentioned before, so I can most definitely touch on that as well. I'm Crangus Pangaria btw. After reading both the original post and people's comments, there are some discrepancies that need to be corrected. 1.) The telepad can only teleport objects from z levels 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So no, you can't teleport anything you want from any z level. And, as I will touch on with depot, there are areas where telescience is not permitted. 2.) A large amount of space ruins are procedurally generated, all non-procedural telesciencable loot can be found by a google doc I created here. After using telescience dozens and dozens of times for multiple rounds, I've found that the combat gloves are the most teleported item I get from space ruins (even though there's a free double barrel shotgun, white ship circuit board, infinite hardsuits, and abandoned crates). 3.) Anything important that should not be telescience accessible that is not procedural are on z level 2 (admin ship, abductor ship, golem ship default spawn). All procedural space ruins are on levels 7-whatever the max z level is, which again is not possible with the limited 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. 4.) As far as "if your suit sensors are maxed you can get anyone," this is true unless the target is inside something with density, say a terror spider cocoon or being buckled to the ambulance. That or they're on a z level not listed above, therefore making it impossible to even use the teleporter. They're called quantum pads to be specific, and yes they can only be linked to eachother hence their harmless nature and the reason why I use them as a "public hub" rather than say an actual teleporter hub or a public telepad setup. There is a flag that can applied to an area that, when attempted to teleport to, will make the console bleep "ERROR! Target destination unreachable due to interference." This flag can be found in places like cent com, I believe the escape shuttle, the syndie depot, and probably more random places. ALL AREAS ON THE CYBERIAD ITSELF ARE NOT PROTECTED BY THIS FLAG. Yea the flag added to an area is the map altering bit that was specifically designed to prevent teleporting, so it kinda already exists.... As for the topic of calculators nobody friggen does the math by hand. It's not a question of "they're out there, and some scumbags are using them to robust telescience" its just plainly a part of telescience as it is. The actual reason why this hinders a telescience user is not difficult math but the fact that you have to manually enter target coordinates, press calculate, then enter the bearing and elevation. This stops users from pulling moving targets, as has been a real pain in the ass when I'm trying to pull a dead body being dragged by a spider... Also, absolutley nothing can stop people from using calculators, literally nothing within the realm of possibility. Ok now for me bein mad Whoever thinks that telescience has no non-antag purposes is absolutly undeniaably unequivalally wrong. There is no debate, there is a 100% productive and legitamte use for telescience. Telescience paramedic. If anyone wants to argue with me I will literally join any round, fire open telescience with a one-way quantum pad leading to medbay next to the telepad (or have my own cloning setup next to the telescience setup) and count the number of bodies I save from otherwise permanent death. There is a good chance somebody who commented on this thread has been saved by me, or has used my quantum pad network, or has been unlucky enough to be a rogue AI. As for telescience being easy to setup, yea it's stupid easy to setup. As soon as you get 6 bluespace crystals your friggen done, literally 3 minutes to build and calibrate the offsets. As an antagonist I find telescience as an omega cheese, but only in certain circumstances. In order to properly use telescience to complete objectves, you have create stuff (eg bombs) to actually use it. This makes it slightely less robust, however still powerful. Personally after 500 hours of paradise I have never once been killed by telescience; however, I have used telescience to greentext myself as well as subvert rogue AIs. My suggestion to nerf telescience (speaking from massive amounts of experience) prevents two of the most powerful aspects of telescience that I personally abuse. 1.) There is no area on the cyberiad thats protected with the no tele flag 2.) You get 20 something teleports per calibration My suggestion: Make it so you have to re-calibrate for every teleport and add the flag to certain places like the armory and the AI sat. If anyone has any questions regarding telescience or science in general, I am walking encyclopedia.