Dinarzad

I would disagree that it's a baseless claim to make, when a claim of it making a mechanical impact was part of the original post. It's making an argument that the system has at some point caused either his or someone's Diona character to die instead of healing off of the brighter normal lights. This is further implied with the comment of it being "Nice from an RP perspective but for an overall game experience it is preferable to be disabled." as this is more or less acknowledging that the RP side of things is not the argument being made, but the mechanical impacts it has. Affected has commented on the performance side of things, which is that it doesn't really impact much if anything other then the initial swap of lightning modes, their other argument is not about how it is from an RP stand point, which leaves only the mechanical argument left to be of any concern, so, I disagree that it's a ludicrous take to have on the argument so far. A bit assumptive that he plays a Diona, sure, but still not -that- ludicrous of a take. And the mechanical argument itself can be unraveled by the counterpoint of just using the PDA you spawn with, using the PDA light is enough light a Diona suffers no problems. The effort of removing the system seems unwarranted, it still does add -some- RP value as you and the OP have stated, and the actual negative impacts are incredibly slim.

As a person who has been gone from existence for like a year and a half or some ungodly number an only just coming back, here's an opinion that carries no weight to it, cuz Iunno how this stuff works anymore, I'm old: I don't think any one job should be "irreplaceable" for a department. Where if that job where not present it would cripple the function of a department. And I feel like limiting the reliability of the Detective's gear/abilities to him and him alone, opens the door to that problem arising. If a round has no Detective, that should not impair security directly; the absence should be felt, but not cripple. And I think it does that right now. Right now a Detective is a guy dedicated to putting a case together so that Security knows who the right guy to arrest is, and when that guy inevitably starts to scream "Shitcurity" over the radios and gets the IAA and the Captain breathing down your neck, you can pull out all the little bits and bobs necessary to tell everyone else to cool it cuz this is a dirty crime boy. The Detective makes the life of an Officer easier but is not -required- by the Officer in the event no Detective is not in a given round, if necessary an officer can do it themselves, it's just riskier and more annoying cuz that's bogging down their loadout with other gear. Or at least he SHOULD be making it easier, if he's doing his job right. ((We're sort of entertaining the hypothesis of 'How things are intended to work, not accounting for derp officers or Detcurity.))

No, if it wasn't an accusation it simply put, is not an accusation. It was unintentionally misleading, perhaps, but it was never an accusation. It was interpreted as one but that doesn't change what it is. You can also misinterpret factual evidence and data, that doesn't change what a fact is or the data itself, it means the interpretation was flawed or the fact was presented erroneously (Which I have admitted to) it does not suddenly change what the fact was to fit that flawed interpretation. And none of this addresses my point, it serves to prove it even more. Everything said was reduced and boiled down to one single snippet, one "Sound bite" of my post that was easy to jump on. The exact same thing that Necaladun was just talking out against. One admitted error in my post and nothing else I said is addressed or referred to or evidently seems to even matter and you want to tell me that "You don't have to spend minutes carefully crafting a post"? Apparently I do need to, because in one fuck up in said post, and nothing else I have to say is going to be addressed and it's additionally gotten me called a liar, when a lie was never the intent. So yes. I apparently do need to be particularly precise and careful with my wording, since my wording is going to be picked apart and subject to semantics, instead of the point itself, even now that it's been clarified. This is again, exactly the point people have when they say they feel like they're walking on eggshells when dealing with administration. You have not acknowledged the point itself, you have instead fixated on a single error that was already addressed, dodged the issue that was being raised and doubled down on focus on me and how I failed to portray my argument properly (Which is already acknowledged and even apologized for at this point.) Instead of addressing the concern, you have chided me for making a mistake. So the mistake in presenting the argument negates the argument altogether, which is itself, a fallacy. Do you really not see why that kind of behavior makes people nervous to bring up any issues or anything that might be even vaguely controversial, let alone to make sure their notes are accurate? If this were a situation occuring in-game and going onto my notes, I would have no way of knowing the remark was misinterpreted, I would be unable to correct it and future admins would be working off erroneous information. This is what people mean, this is an example in motion of that entire argument.

Again. It was never intended to be a verbatim quote of an actual incident. It was an exaggeration used to illustrate a point of view people have on not being able to see their notes and to be mildly funny. I am sorry if my attempt at humor has backfired that horribly, it wasn't intended to BE an actual example. But that reaction in and of itself, from multiple admins is a reason why so many people feel they're walking on eggshells. I made one comment that I DIDN'T carefully spend minutes crafting and that got misconstrued and it was immediately jumped upon and, in this case, got me called a liar. Is it really that hard to believe after that kind of reaction people get concerned what gets put into their notes and would like a chance to correct it?

My apologies, that was not intended to be an example of a message I received, mostly meant as a display of what not being told notes can cause confusion wise, albeit with an admitted bit of exaggeration to be somewhat funny. As for the rest of the post, no admins are not here to parent or discipline anyone. But neither do you HAVE to. Just providing access to notes offers a chance for SELF-Correction. No parenting needed, it's a chance to see a big ol' list of fuck ups you're making, or even a list of positive things you do, that can be encouragement to keep doing those things. It's merely giving the player information on their behavior, and then them making an informed choice of actions from there. It provides self-correction opportunities which would lower the workload of admins, even if only by a fraction.

"You did something bad, stop doing that." "Oh, okay what did I do?" "You don't need to know what, just stop doing it." Not being able to see your own notes leads to confusion and bewilderment. It's curbing another avenue for problem players to recognize a downward spiral and any chance for them to right that behavior. It focuses solely on the punishment for doing something wrong rather then giving that player a chance to self correct. The inability to talk about bans on discord in addition to not being able to see what you've been doing wrong, it's stacking the deck as much as possible into preventing a problem player from correcting his behavior BEFORE it comes to a head and requires a ban, instead of taking the "Ounce of Prevention" we've opted for multiple pounds of "Cure", it's ultimate more work to deal with all those ban appeals from people who had an oopsie then to give those people a means of self-correction before administrative intervention is needed. It's giving people the tools to solve their own problem before Admins have to. In addition, if a player has access to their own notes, they run out of excuses for continued misbehavior real fast. A player can't claim they didn't know something was a problem, when they had full access to see those notes and see that it WAS a problem, they could have seen it at any time and didn't care and continued to break rules and tow lines anyway, which helps lead to more open and shut cases, it's a more telling sign of someone's attitude as a player and whether or not they're any good for the server.

@Christasmurf Pretty much yeah. White blouse, black skirt. I confess, my suggestion is a little more selfish because I have a character that is meant to be kinda "Goth" in terms of dress style, but when it comes to clothes there's really not much to use for that, at least not without going full on an using the Victorian stuff.

An actual black skirt. The one we have is a red skirt with a black jacket, and the closest one that isn't something like the blueshield's jumpskirt, is to use the purple plaid one with a black hoodie over it.

Arcana: Magic obsessed nerd Shalqouir: Exasperated Robot Goth

Not right now, but we have a PR up to add them in.

I'm not sure why so many people keeping taking this as "YOU WANT TO REMOVE THE EMPS!?!?!?!??!" That's not even vaguely what people have suggested or mentioned neither in this thread nor over the years and the very fact people keep saying that just misleads OTHER people so it becomes a deafening echo chamber of misinformation. It's like spooking ONE individual causes them to shout something that was in no way even involved in the initial suggestion which spooks the rest of the group and causes horrible stagnation. Nobody wants EMPs to no longer be a weakness. At all. What people do want is the vulnerability LESSENED down OR for other Vulnerabilities to be reduced. I will say this again to make sure it absolutely cannot be misconstrued yet again. I and others do not want EMP's removed as an IPC Vulnerability. I do either want EMP's reduced in how much of a vulnerability they are, or I want the other nerfs that have stacked up over the years to be pulled BACK. Because all those "BUT THEY SO OP" points people keep making ignore how much of a double-edged sword almost all of them are and how most of the advantages they used to have no longer exist. Virus immunity? No Jesus Viruses either, it balances itself. Frankly beneficial viruses are infinitely more common then bad, so it's more of a nerf then a perk. Genetics immunity? No X-ray vision powers or hulk or whatever other powers. It balances itself. No Pain? A perk. No Breathe? A perk Immune to Chems? You're also immune to every single healing or beneficial chemical in the game, it balances itself. You do not get the good and you do not get the bad. Radiation immunity? A perk You take 50% more Brute and Burn damage, the most common sources in the game? A major con. You heal yourself with Cables/Welders? A perk. Welder immunity? A perk Your limbs pop off with the slightest provocation? A major con. You have "Blood" in the form of Oil, this blood does not regenerate naturally. A con. You cannot heal yourself if damage is over an easy to achieve threshold due to your damage multiplier? A con You can still "Break" limbs and require surgery to fix? A con. You can be instantly killed from a large range away through walls? The biggest con that you can put ON a race. You can survive without a head? Well your head pops off laughably easy and leaves you blind and deaf, so again, it rather balances itself. The theme here is only OBJECTIVE good things IPCs have are pain immunity, No Breathing, Welder Immunity, No radiation and they can heal themselves through light damage, with easy to obtain tools. But given your damage multiplier is so high you almost always need to get fixed up by a roboticist. Two to Tree hits with a toolbox is enough to put an IPC into a lethal situation. And over time they've had "Blood" added into them and being able to "Break" bones in the form of a damage threshold they need internal repairs for and are no longer able to heal via surface applications of welders or cables. I have Breath immunity, No organs (Other then a 'brain'), Regrowable limbs, Welder immunity AND 'blood' that I both regenerate and can refill from any basic sink as a slime person. And I STILL don't take 50% more damage from the majority of sources, don't have an instant kill mechanic and can still benefit from genetics and viruses and healing chemicals, while also being immune to Vampires. Sure seems funny lookin' to me on the outside. Their "Easy to break, easy to fix" design philosophy was up-ended in increments over a long period of time as now they bleed like humans and break bones like humans, except UNLIKE humans they also can instantly die through walls and take nearly double damage from the sources that 95% of crew will experience in an average shift. Is it, therefore, so absolutely outlandish to ask that something be done since they were previously acknowledged as being relatively balanced and were then nerfed? Is it absolutely unfathomable to think that telling people "Well yeah it's broken design and it's not fun but I mean you CHOSE not to have fun...." is a REALLY poor argument for game development and balancing? If you have to make something unenjoyable to play for the sake of balancing it, then the balance is shit and needs to be revised. If you can't manage to kill an IPC, then I am sorry, but you're not trying. 2 TC for an EMP Flashlight. It's dead, Punch in the chest a few times, it's dead. Tool box it in the chest twice, it's dead. I can and have killed IPCs before while actively trying NOT to kill them, it's really not that hard. It is poor balance and I have grown increasingly annoyed with people making up specious reasons to excuse it. It is BAD design. I cannot make staff change it and I cannot make staff change their mind on the direction they've gone with it, but I absolutely refuse to just pretend like it is good just because of that. The very fact that this debate has come up several times over several years is living proof of it. It comes up again and again and again and it does so for a reason.

Worth remembering that on /tg/ bone breaks aren't really a thing so being whapped once or twice is not an immediate death sentence. That said, even over on /tg/ you'd really just be using the Crusher to get the killing blow, not fighting something the entire time with it. Use the gun to do the bulk of the fight and when you think it's just about dead start using the crusher. This is easier with a med-hud as it should so the boss' HP that way. Megafauna are meant to be the ultimate encounters, high risk high reward. If you die your corpse is fuckin gone-zo, but the rewards for a kill can be great. This ultimately means melee is never going to be perfectly viable, just because the damage required to make those monsters that much of a threat is going to make melee struggle to compete, and lowering that damage would make megafauna simply too easy for the rewards they dish out. It's an unfortunate side effect but one I don't think that could be fixed without breaking other parts of it in worse ways.

You have clearly never looked at the Tool Storage room mid-round. That places becomes a barren wasteland. Wrenches an the like are still there, and they are also worthless for what we're talking about, welder and cables are the only thing that matter. Cable is easy. Welder is almost always gone, even then the hacked super welders you get from enabling contraband on the youtool vendor. Just because you say things doesn't make them true. I can also say "Fixing organics is easy, stop saying it isn't, stop being biased" but it really doesn't do anything for an argument except be needlessly confrontational. You act like people who play IPCs some how don't know the systems or mechanics required to heal organics as if they didn't play a human to get the required 15 karma to unlock IPC to begin with, or that they haven't moved on to other races since then. So instead, let's do a comparison. your AVERAGE Medical injury is solved by one, perhaps 2 Synthflesh patches, maybe some Charcoal or a broken bone which needs surgery. Your AVERAGE IPC injury requires a trip to robotics, because even though the damage isn't that bad, it's over the threshold to be unable to be repaired with surface welding/cables, so basically, suergery on all the effected areas, and refilling any lost oil because unlike organics, the oil will never regenerated. Here's the problem. all that septic surgery and dead organs you just mentioned, how painful it is to revive? Welcome to every single IPC who has ever been EMPed, ever. Given you SAY you are repairing IPCs I should think you would know that an IPC who is hit by an EMP is fried across their entire body, every single 'organ' every single limb. But with IPCs we don't have the magical macguffins of chemistry to lean on, no Synthflesh, no Mitocholide, nothin. So that means surgical repairing every single limb, brute and burn, manually repairing every single organ with nanopaste (Assuming Science is polite enough to give you any, they mostly tell you to fuck off.) or printing out every single organ to replace. It is a very long, very painful process, except instead of happening because you weren't found for 30 minutes, it happened instantly when you died because lol good joke. Sounds pretty similar to finding a long desiccated corpse that gets SR'd to me. [CITATION VERY MUCH NEEDED] This is 100% untrue in every single respect. IPCs that take damage over a certain threshold can no longer fix their own bodies with welders or cables and it absolutely requires a roboticist to open the limb up and do an equivalent to broken bone surgery. So no. You cannot fix that on the spot and you still need mandatory surgery just like organics. The whole point here was "Easy to damage, easy to fix" right? Well then why in Nar-sie's tits is this a thing? Sure sounds to me like IPC repair and Organic repair are sounding very, very similar except one of thme is paper and the other is not. What the actual fuck is this logic? "If you don't like it just stop playing it." Like.... like what? Uhh. No. How about if something is very obviously so obnoxiously and hilariously not fun to play as that you have to tell people not to play it, maybe that's a sign your design is actually fucking bad. Like shit dude, why do anything at that point if you don't like it just go somewhere else screw iteration and improvement. Why should we even make any more PRs, clearly the people just need to learn "Love it or leave it" right? Shit dude, you right. Lemme just go make code changes to give Security Death Squad gear, because I mean lore wise, Cyberiad is an EXTREMELY Valuable asset, conducting highly advanced research on one of the most versatile and profitable materials in the known universe, the thing that MADE NT a mega-corp, clearly they'd want their station adequately protected and this is an RP game so we don't need to worry about silly things like game balance! You try making that excuse to any fucking game designer or even just coders here about any other system and just watch it be laughed out of the room. If you have to admit that it's broken and unbalanced and try to make excuses for that, maybe that's a sign it's ACTUALLY broken and unbalanced and that's not a fucking good thing.

Yeaaaaah, nah. I would be profoundly against that. What you are suggesting is that characters shouldn't exist at all. Because that's what this suggestion would achieve. Your look is randomized, your name is randomized, you get to decide nothing about yourself. And frankly that's just a terrible idea in general when it comes to trying to achieve roleplay, if you don't care about your own character that you are playing, you're not going to care enough to roleplay it. Arcana, my slime, is named Arcana because she's obsessed with magic. Like, REALLY obsessed with magic, will hoard items she things are magical or enchanted an would do a LOT of things in order to learn the secrets of the Wizard Federation. She also may or may not have a pet fish named Cantrip. That above information exists BECAUSE I was able to name and create MY character, not be given some random hunk of failure from SS13's randomization. This is what you'd be expressly removing from the game by mandating Randomization and denying people the ability to make characters. The cons far and away blow the pros out of the water.

I don't think becoming combat-capable is necessary (Or even desirable) but the modules they're supplied with at current are dubiously useful at best. I mean, their 'host bioscan' module tells you even less then an un-upgraded health analyzer or even just a medical chip inserted into a PDA. That's... sort of depressing. It just sort of says "Hey. There's damage here" and their body temperature and that's genuinely about it. No read out of what limb is damage like analyzers, nothing. pAI becoming capable of attacking or defending someone was never my intent to imply. What I would like pAI to supply is information. Currently the information they can provide to people is questionably useful, Records access is rarely needed except for Security, and they don't look at it half the time either. The one use there would be helping over-burdened Wardens with managing Security Records, but they cannot write Records, only read them. (To prevent ghostly griefing, which is understandable, but drastically impairs usefulness.) The atmos analyzer is never needed, the people who need to worry about atmospherics have far better tools to handle it then you do, and the analyzer tool you have is incapable of scanning anomalies, so just grabbing a basic one available literally everywhere on station, is still a better option then you. I would prefer pAI become more utility or information tools, something akin to an SS13 equivalent to a Smartphone. And I would honestly sacrifice the "Living Death alarm" aspect if that helped achieve it, I don't feel that's exactly interesting gameplay for anyone, the host, the pAI or the antag being foiled. I would much rather pAI can hear the radio, but be unable to speak on it, if it meant giving them some TLC in the terms of more impactful modules.

Given all the other ghost roles we have added into Paradise since pAI's, them being intentionally designed in such a manner seems increasingly more questionable, when comparatively, you can spawn as an ash walker and literally hunt miners in your territory or golems, or plant people or any number of roles that not only provide things to do, tangible things with tangible gameplay and rewards, but still enable you to roleplay. You can get the same experience as a pAI as a sentient creature (A pretty common event roll.) Except the sentient creature could also be something on the level of Sergeant Araneus and be capable of doing things beyond talk. I understand Paradise is not a democracy, this has been established frequently enough. But I also hope you'll understand that this response gets increasingly harder to take seriously and harder to swallow as time goes on and more and more ghost roles are added that blow anything a pAI can do out of the water. Particularly when there's only one or two on station to start with and almost nobody bothers to actually print out more.

Check the attitude at the door, please, don't put words in my mouth to make me sound like a tantruming child so that you can argue against non-existent points. 1: New Crit is not OP. I never said it was, I would like for you to quote me the exact line where I said the words "This system is OP pls bufs." What I did say was you are objectively wrong in IPCs surviving longer and better in Old Crit then new. This is not only different, but is something not addressed, so let me tackle it here. "IPCs actually survive longer and better with the old crit system compared to the new crit that other people have to deal with." Saline-Glucose is incredibly common arounn the station, you get them out of Syndicakes. You can have Sal-Glu and Epi (emergency medipen) on your person at all times, that solves two or three stages of Shock right there, so unless you literally screw around so long in crit that you go into a cardiac arrest and require a defibrillator, you can postpone your state for incredible amounts of time with extreme ease. Unless an antag is sitting directly on you and killing you, you have ample time to do emergency care, if you DO have an antag sitting on you, then it doesn't really matter if you're on old crit or new, you're very dead. Even still you can sit in crit and be whapped on for such lengths of time as to have seucrity arrive and rescue you, I have not only seen this, I have done this and had it done to me. Your claim is wrong. The math doesn't support it. It just doesn't. I claimed you were putting a spin on things to prove a point, and this is exactly what I meant. You glanced over all the perks of new crit to make things sound better then they are. Yes. If a crew dies it can take a bit to repair them an get them back on their feet. Except that literally half of the things on your list are handled via instantly applied chemicals which drastically cuts down on recovery time, the only things absolutely requiring surgery would be broken bones, internal bleeding and dead organs. Damaged organs can sometimes be faster via surgery, but Mito is still an option if it's a particularly heavy moment and you cannot spare an operating room. Missing limbs more often then not, get shipped to robotics and the surgery to put them on is like... 2 steps. It's really not a big deal. You ever tried to fix a dead IPC? Particularly one killed by an EMP? Because they don't just die, they super-die. Every single limb and organ takes damage, every single part of them needs surgical repair because the damage is almost always over the threshold at which they suffer 'Broken robot bones' and can no longer be repaired externally. And unlike carbon crew, IPCs can't just be slapped on the face with a synthflesh patch or two an call it a done day for the external injuries you have to go into surgery for every. Individual. Limb. Ask anyone who has played robotics for any length of time, the surgeries are not any harder then for human crew, but they sure do take a lot of time. Additionally if someone is super fucked, you can clone them. Unless they are a slime or a vox they can be cloned. Even plasmas can be cloned if you know what you're doing, though I suppose in fairness, most don't. IPC, whether they have -800 damage or not, there's nothing to do but sit there and surgically mend every single limb and patch all the myriad of dents an dings. Even more additionally, the claim was never New Crit was OP, but that you were ignoring the point, and the point was how long you can survive in it. This is, in essence, a buff to someone's "Effective HP" they essentially have more then they had before, because now you can survive in the state for far longer then before, where IPC are in the same state they were. This is a buff to any new-crit races, and it;s why there's been talk of slimes and IPC again in the first place. Just because you keep adding "Well the only..." to a pro or a con doesn't matter. The amount of pros or cons literally doesn't ever matter, it is what those pros and cons are that matters, the merits of each. If we gave plasmamen 7 down sides and gave them the "only" perk of being able to fart nuclear bombs that killed all antags on all Z-levels, I'd venture to guess that most people would say they were crazy OP whether or not they had only a single upside or not. 2: I'm making it out that way, because it is that way. Any race operating on New Crit got a buff to effective HP, while IPC not only did not, but they're for some reason operating on blood that you can get from 2 whole places on station. Robotics, or Cargo. You could get some from chemistry, but why Chemistry would have enough oil on hand to fix 'blood loss' for an IPC when it isn;t medical's job and oil is a necessary component in a lot of meds? Which it is essentially blood loss, by the by so you can add "Blood loss" to things IPC are no longer 'immune' as it will kill them very dead if not handled. The "Ease of repair" part of IPCs keeps fading more and more and yet, none of the "easy to break" part ever does. This seems just a touch silly to me and is not something to be glossed over. 3: I literally, at no point in this thread or on Github, said IPC should get space immunity. In fact, I can link you my exact reply on the git where I believe I said the words "I don't think IPC should get or need the ability to have immunity to space." At no point in my reply was it mentioned. What I did mention was corrections to a myriad of highly biased argument points, and that they were highly biased argument points, because they were either ignoring key highlights of those features or were being very clearly spun in a manner that suited the narrative, rather then just being talked about objectively.

The flash happens but the eye damage does not. This is also true for Slimes, as they do not possess organs other then their core, so though the flash occurs, they have no eye organ that can be damaged and are essentially immune to welders in that way. This is a hell of a state to say "The only problems they have are" to. 50% more brute/burn damage, the most common forms of death on the station, is nothing to scoff at, fatal EMPs are a means of instant death surpassing Metal Gear Plant-B-gone and bug spray because, unlike those 2 chemicals, EMP's can occur through walls. It's why for a very long time IPCs in science were horrified to hear someone was fiddling with the Experimentor. Oh and they still have to deal with "blood" an "broken bones". Yes, they do still deal with that because of that cranked up brute/burn damage it is exceptionally easy to damage their limbs to a point they'll require Robotics surgery to repair and the downsides are EXTREMELY close if not identical to have a broken bone. They are broken bones in all but name. You also glanced over the myriad of other cons, like unable to benefit from healing chemicals or Genetics powers, you mentioned them very off-handedly within the pros section, they're not minor downsides, they're very real ones and it comes across as though you're trying to slip them under the radar or discount them, in addition to listing things that are not really perks as perks. "Recharge / Hunger from any APC." This is not a perk. This is a neutral side-grade to the omnipotent power that is chicken soup/hot chocolate, being able to easily replenish hunger from APCs is kind of moot when you can get a small can in your bag that takes you from starving to stuffed in about 5 clicks. Additionally, doing it from an APC drains the power, you can be a living power sink to some very vital areas if you're not careful. You can regen from a cyborg recharge unit, but there are not many of those and it's a long walk. Hot Drink vendors are flippin' everywhere, there's at least 1 in every single department. "Brain located in their torso, so taking off their head merely blinds / deafens them, which can easily be re-fitted back on." Is again, not a perk, but a side-grade. 3 toolboxes to the area that's hardest to miss and you have some major problems. They survive decapitation, sure, but given that decapitation is hilariously easy to achieve, it really damn well better be. "IPCs actually survive longer and better with the old crit system compared to the new crit that other people have to deal with." This is an objectively false statement. New Crit enables people to survive in a critical state for laughable amounts of time, to the point some people rack up well over 400 points of damage before finally dying. What you are referring to is ease of revival not the point mentioned about New Crit (Which explicitly stated that people survive longer IN CRIT. Coming back from the dead was not mentioned and it also isn't that hard, tedious, yes, hard, no.) As for this "They can survive space if they have coils/welders" is just being silly. Sure. And so could humans if you just have a buddy with perflurodecalin, and some synthflesh or one of those genetics powers that IPCs can't get an some syndi-cakes. Just because you preface major cons with "Your only downside" doesn't make those downsides any less intense. I mean if we analyzed Kidan an went "Well your only downside is not being able to wear extremely vital eyewear, I mean come on!" That wouldn't make playing Kidan any more enjoyable (And there's a reason you barely see any.) The benefits gained by IPC are nice, the Cons are also immense, downplaying that does no favors for anyone and is arguing in bad faith, but we also can't sit here an pretend like IPCs haven't gotten a nerf bat out of the blue in the form of suddenly having 'blood'.

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?

It absolutely is the topic at hand. You can't just ignore those other systems, that have the EXACT same problems as the system you are focused on when suggesting it. You need to justify and explain why this one system is different and needs to be removed entirely compared to those other ones. Particularly when Chemistry is not exclusive to Science and Botany can be just as broken to the point it was recently nerfed down. If all the things about Telescience you listed are problems, then why is it NOT problems over there, why has nobody ever suggested we delete those systems but you are suggesting we delete this one? What makes it a special case? That's the point of it. It's a counter. You can't exactly do anything against flashbangs as a Blob either, or EMPs as an IPC, Cyborg or AI, or do much about thermite and tossing in a bomb into the satellite. These things exist, you're not supposed to be omni-powerful with no chance of failure. And, again, that's why the proposed idea of a "Jammer" exists solves this very problem of yours, so it is no longer a problem. So it doesn't need to be removed because the problem is now solved, no? It's knowledge that anyone is capable of learning by game experience. Is it cheesey to know the exact same information about mining ruins? Cuz I can tell you exactly where to get a suspicious toolbox with free combat gloves on the mining asteroid, or where ruins tend to be at (Which chould include scarab eggs, so free holoparasite) That information is inevitable because them ore someone plays the more they are going to memorize and learn this kind of stuff. As for /tg/, as people are so fond of reiterating, we are NOT /tg/ and we have the people willing to put in the tools to prevent all the issues you just brought up, but the idea is being instantly shot down for what reason exactly?

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.

I've long wanted an "Advanced pAI" item, something that takes high research an more expensive materials, but is actually useful to have around, beyond simply shrieking over general chatter anyway. It's data jack cable instead becoming a wireless transmitter, It's medical suite giving far more information, like a portable body scanner or Health Analyzer with the augment, etc. The concept behind a pAI is great. Be someone's personal Cortana an be more or less a sentient smartphone. The execution of them, leaving so limited, makes them of dubious value beyond just someone to talk to. An Advanced shell/pAI Upgrade can be locked behind much more stringent requirements to balance out the additional utility it provides, since not everyone is liable to get one.

That changes absolutely nothing. Okay. cool. SR is easy to get and defibs have more time to work with. Neat. That does nothing to impact how utterly trashed a body can be an the time needed to restore it. The other thing a LOT of people keep missing is, traitor isn't the only game mode. You won't have time in a lot of circumstances to do the things you're asking medical to do, I will openly DARE medical players to, on Blob/Wiz/Nukie rounds, don't use the cloner a single time. Not once. Do it all manually, and let me fucking know how much of a corpse pile up you have backing up. You'll have doctors not even bothering with revival as they're too focused on dealing with the influx of people fighting the blob or will have to focus entirely on reviving tons of corpses manually that healing the living will be pushed to the wayside. This isn't a good thing. I know a lot of people want death more impactful, but in Blob style rounds getting the entire crew involved in the fight is the ideal and expected strategy, it's not like valid hunting a changeling in maintenance where they just shouldn't have been involved. Everyone likes to say how brain-dead easy and quick the cloner is, but in the gif in this very thread, look at that corpse pile up. That shit isn't gonna go any better if you remove cloning, if anything it'll get worse. Cloning is "Fast and easy" according to people, so how well do you imagine it'll go when you have to SR an Defib every single corpse, blood transfusion a LOT of them from internal bleeding left unchecked, repair any broken bones (Potentially all of them if the body is trashed enough or was spaced long enough.) and all done on a single corpse before moving on to the next body. And that assumes Surgery isn't having to tend to LIVING patients in the mean time and can focus solely on those dead/newly revived people to fix up. It'll be a complete fucking nightmare the moment anything even slightly resembling a crisis rears it's head. The "Delete cloner/make it not roundstart" idea continues to be one of the worst possible suggests to ever grace this forum. It accounts for NONE of the reasons it exists and calls for removal of a core system without any thought for the literal years of development that has gone on around that system. What you're asking for is the equivalent of "Just rework Atmos." So much game design has gone on with the idea of cloning existing you're asking for an effective rework and re-balance of basically the entire game. Every traitor item, wizard spell and more were all balanced with the idea of cloning existing, of death being relatively quick and simple to reverse. This is beyond just changing medical this can, will and MUST change **EVERYTHING** or else it'll be half assed and more broken then anything. Baystation removed cloning and it still split the server down the middle, and this is a high RP server, full of people with the mindset of making death spooky scary and a big dramatic RP moment. Paradise is NOT High RP, we're full of people who want to play a 'game' as much as we have people who want some lighter forms of roleplay. This idea is dead in it's cradle, it solves nothing, breaks everything and is in general woefully unaware of it's own glaring flaws given I have never once seen them properly addressed

The original idea put forth had a mechanical benefit, but it had to be removed before being merged as a PR.

Solves nothing, causes even more problems and is a scapegoat people like to lean on for what they deem "Not skilled gameplay" as if we were some kinda Dark Souls experience. It's fine. It was fine. It will continue to BE fine. Cloning as a system continues to be used in almost every single codebase that SS13 has, with Baystation having removed it relatively recently, and even for a High RP station it pissed a lot of people off. So unless y'all are aiming to get in on the HIGH RP Perma-death action, maybe look at other codebases an put more thought into why the system exists as a whole an find ways to improve medical that don't involve pointlessly gutting entire systems because some people can't stand not getting specifically colored text for 10 seconds at the end of a round. I was pretty sure games were meant to be fun, but sure, being dead for 5-10 minutes or more as every single corpse that doesn't die in medical has to be given SR an gone through that whole long proceadure, will be ever so fun. I mean it's so fun NOW to be stuck in crit, right?