Dinarzad

No offense intended by this, honest to god. But. Just about everyone I see say "Plasmas should remain at 100kp" Are people who already have 100kp or already have plasmas, so it ... REALLY gives this air of trying to keep it exclusive, whether that's the intent or not. Can you (And others who feel the same way) please elaborate on WHY it should be so obnoxiously expensive? (Lore doesn't count, because Vox and Slimes are both pretty damned uncommon lorewise.) Because on the flip side of things here, assuming I played ss13 all the time, I'm sure I could get the karma relatively fast. But I don't. I usually play in the dead of night, to unwind. That's maybe 2 rounds, sometimes 3 before I toddle off to bed. And some nights I don't play ss13. Even assuming I got karma every single round, you're looking at, at LEAST 50-ish days of playing only ss13 every night. (Assuming 2 rounds with 1 karma on both rounds.) Add into that mix that karma is unreliable at best and the process goes from "Sure okay, lengthy but it can happen." to "Good joke" Fo someone just starting on the server, or someone just trying to save up an get them cuz they look really cool, it's REALLY fucking disheartening to see 100kp for... ANYTHING let alone a relatively mild fluff race. (I mean jesus, even magistrates aren't 100kp)

I'd say def. no lower then 45kp 50 to 60 would seem fair to me, while still being "Attainable" at least more so then the 100kp point they have right now. I mean you CAN get that, but it's ... terrible if they're your primary species goal.

I love everything about this post and I support it whole-heartedly.

Except to change an APC you need ins. gloves. Shit a Civvie is not probably gonna have, not legit ones anyway. So if you're an eingeer or work in Cargo you.... frankly can just get them no problem. And... also have way better alternatives like... flamethrowers or ordering a murder crate. Still a very far cry from a "Widespread problem everyone is abusing" as is being claimed.

Sounds like a great way to be arrested, also, again, that's not "But anyone can get access to them!" Anyone getting access is your average maintenance diver. If we're going into the whole "You can break in an get them", then why the fuck not just break into the sec checkpoint everyone ignores by arrivals? bust open that locker an you got like... fuckin flashes an sec gear in that as well as pepperspray refills. If you're busting into place, busting in to a room to leave evidence of a crime, a stunprod is... sort of the shittiest thing you could get out of that, since they're literally worse then stun batons in every way. I mean you can bust into the detective's office at that rate. EDIT: and my comment about batteries being 'not that easy to come by' was a poor choice of words. Batteries themselves are not DIFFICULT to find, but they're also not like Welders/cable coils with them being in every single fuckin' room forever and ever, because you need a certain size of sell to even work in a baton.

^ This. This is a solution in search of a problem, you get maybe 2-3 zaps from a prod before it goes out, if we're using purely maintenance gathered tools (After all, the crux of the argument is ANYONE can get them, right?) because mostly the only batteries that spawn in there are low grade, and they're actually not that easy to come by. "But just ask science" is NOT a valid argument, because this is a CONTRABAND weapon, any -good- scientist will laugh at you asking for a higher battery for a stunprod and he damn sure isn't gonna give you a slime cell to some fuck off random civvie. You may as well be arguing "Just ask Security for a laser gun and ANYONE can get them." That's user error, NOT a mechanical problem. If scientists/engies are giving out fuckin high-grade cells an xeno-bio experiments to people so they can make contraband weapons you should like. Maybe report them. Either to Security or to the CE/HoP. Because that's the fault of them throwing their gear at people, that's shit you cannot find in maintenance and thus not -everyone- can get. And if you're that job slot, well... that's the perks of being the job, same as a chemist makin' lube. And it's also still illegal so you can get fired or brigged for it. So now we're back to 'Report it'.

Why would gloves that stop a tesla/overcharged APCs, fail to stop a shittily prepared battery-powered stunbaton? If you've got the real deal ins. gloves, then you're not gonna get shocked and you, frankly, have much better improvised alternatives.

I wouldn't go as far as a backfire, but I'd go with a chance to just not work. At least you can whap someone with it then, having a chance to backfire makes it a net negative and thus totally worthless to spend time on. That said, they're not that bad to begin with, but I cvould get behind that nerf. After the Feature freeze that is (No major balance changing PRs allowed atm.)

#DroneLivesMatter (Serously though, people who fuck with drones for shiggles, 's a dick move yo.)

The problem here is, that's not a valid reason to nerf something. That's not Xenos being OP, that's people/ERT being stupid. Don't blame the xenos for crew incompetance. And the problem here is, again, Not the fault of something being OP but again, user error. If you're in a group of three, and outnumbered or equally numbered, you should not have engaged. This isn't any different then 2-3 crew trying to take one 2-3 changelings grouped together. The antag is specifically designed to isolate and pick at stragglers. Them being good at that is NOT overpowered, that's them being good at the thing they're SUPPOSED to be good at. And if your guns need recharging an you are anywhere NEAR the area infested by xenos... well I mean how is it the xenomorph's fault you chose a really poor path to go recharge your gun? Unless an infestation has gotten so huge it has taken a whole department, xenos can't travel THAT far for hosts, because they can't ventcrawl with you unless they eat you, and eating you kills you fairly fast, so a long distance crawl will just end in them dying. Again: Xenos are NOT that bad, the problem is crew apathy and uncooperativity. People rushing off alone into the tunnels to hunt them or ignore the problem altogether. The Insta-stun spam should be nerfed, pretty much everyone has said that, but beyond that and it's just making the antagonist too weak to do anything, all because some people are salty they got killed in the tailing 20 minutes of a video game all about dying/lethal scenarios in a space station.

The Spit should probably be a blind, tbh. Think Jurassic Park. The person can still move/shoot, but it'd be significantly harder for them to move around, or at least would highly discourage most people from still going after the Xenos. Given spit is mostly the purview of Sentinels and Queens (Guarding the Hive) They mostly want just that, to force people out, not to murderfuck them, that's the role of the Hunter.

Xenos aren't actually that bad. They just suffer fro mthe same problem Swarmers have. The "It's not important until it effects me" syndrome, where the majority of the crew doesn't give a single flying fuck until said Swarmer/Xeno is negatively effecting them, an then they're raring to go weld every vent and assault the nest. Like.... 15 minutes after the fact, when they've already spread an grown into a much more annoying infestation. Nerfing the disarm spam, sure. Nerfing the monkey infection and you may as well rip them out of the code altogether, cuz good fucking luck infecting anyone (Especially with the disarm nerfs) and not I-FUCKING-MMEDIATELY getting called the fuck out over the radio and having all the players who actually know how to respond/work together, swarm in to kill the lone queen and her singular Hunter. Which is the ideal case, because half the time the Xenos fuck up communication and end up with a Queen and a drone. Like seriously, this thread is a salt mine.

But this isn't how it works - I've taken Voxygen plenty of times, because I haven't noticed they're a Vox or even thought "Oh yeah they need their internals" and I've seen plenty of others do it. If rectified quickly, it isn't a terrible thing mechanically - Couple of points of toxin damage, but sometimes bungling of putting the tank back into the pocket, not being able to set internals, so removing it and whatever is on the belt... Sometimes adds up to 30 - 40 points, which can spell the end of any particularly battered Vox. But that's the point, it was an accident, not a malicious act. It's a momentary accident that is usually benign, and if a Vox -is- some how killed through sheer bad luck from an officer either accidentally removing their tank, or from a legit shitcurity officer going "idc lol", Then they are well within the range of medical care, defibbing, mostly. Having your life tied to a breath tank is the risk you sign up for by playing a Vox, you accept and understand, that some people are gonna fuck up with you, either new players who have no idea, or just occasional accidents liek that. It's like playing an IPC and *nobody* knowing how to reconstruct them when they die, you've no idea how many times I've seen them tossed into morgues or into cloners. That's just part an parcel of the package the Vox player signed up for. If we put prompts on THIS, then why wouldn't their be prompts on dumping IPCs into Cloners, or on trying to take off a Plasmaman's suit?

I disagree. This is a user error, not a mechanical error and doesn't need a prompt all to itself, because unlike say... Bags of Holding, it really only screws up the one person. The solution is to train the newbie officers so they learn, usually they only do it once, or do it by mistake and then stop. Those that continue to do it, are either stupid or trying to fuck people over, both of which are easily solved with a handy dandy mechanic called "Fire them."

Pretty much this. Besides all of this, we have Cyborgs already in the game and they're nothing like IPCs, IPCs are different for a reason. If you want to RP someone's brain in an IPC Chassis, there's not really anything stopping you from making an android lookin' IPC an just rolling with it, hell if you wanna go the Eclipse Phase route, you can say their personality or memories were uploaded or mimiced in the positronic unit. But mechanically speaking, IPCs have plenty to differentiate them as it is, other races need far more attention at this point, Plasmamen, Grey and Kidan most of all.

You insert the data cable from the door jack into a camera. (Since it's called "Door Jack" most people don't know you can, 's a misleading title.) OR at least you can in other server codebases, but like door hacking, it's really not worth it. Still takes 1 full minute, alerts the AI an all it does is turn the camera off. Better off to just clip all the wires, take the alert an them remember the on/off wire for the others. pAI can hack open bolted doors now actually, you can still hack it. It just doesn't lift the bolts, so nothing happens. Perrrrsonally, I'd lower door hack time to 30 seconds at least, and bolted door time to 1 minute. If unbolting happened at all. Truthfully, I'd rather hacking a door didn't just open it, but gave you access to the door's controls until you were unplugged from it. Bolt/Unbolt, Shock/Unshock, open or close. It's 1 minute (Or thirty seconds if changed) and giving a huge brute force hack alert to the station AI for control over a single door, it would hardly break things to let them do more then just open/close an airlock. That way it's not necessarily just a "BnE" tool, but you could hack an airlock to disable safeties an Timing or shock them an leave traps. Makes for more insidious gameplay traitor side, and as an engineering companion, you can help fix it. It's a LITTLE off topic but, I don't think one or two new abilities will cut it, TBH, I think more what needs to happen is we need to decide what do we WANT out of pAI's period. Are they intended to be "Smartphones" that have a spread of functionality, more general purpose. Gathering/Relaying information (Station alerts, Fire Alerts, etc.) acting as a weak light. (Less then a flashlight, more then a PDA light.) Low grade medical shit (Bioscan), Their sick Google Translate powers (Maybe making them pick a few languages, to off set their increased functionality elsewhere.), being able to connect to other devices to interface/hack them. OR are they more secretarial? In which case to be worth it, they need Read and Write Record access (Otherwise what's the point?) They need access to the comms of their master, otherwise, again, what's the point of a secretary that can't even answer the phone? They need their translate function as they have it now and the sort of things someone liek the Warden, HoP, CMO or Captain might -legitimately- want from a pAI, something specifically meant for more management/paperwork-ish roles. Because right now, pAI are trying to do both, and are failing at both, they need to pick a lane of the highway an stick to it, whichever one it is. Tiny Helper AI full of everyday general use functions or High-quality secretarial unit intended for sophisticated leader types. A couple module changes/tweaks isn't gonna be enough I feel. (Sorry for the off-topic wall there.)

Except a smartphone can actually be used as some sort of light, or take pictures, or connect to the internets/computers. If SS13 had smartphones, pAI would be pretty obsolete, save for having something to scream innanely when danger occurs. Back on topic: Would be nice, but unfortunately, Host Bioscan as it is right now, is not as hood as even an un-upgraded Health Analyzer. They can only see flat damage numbers and body temperature. I'd be all for making it function like a normal HA though. While a neat idea, this will probably not happen. The coding for it, is... sort of infeasible with shitty BYOND code. Plus it'd be a substantial balance change, which makes everyone heave a gut because pAI are not allowed to have fun and do things you're "A side role", even thoguh Ghosts can join as a fuck ton of other way more involving things. But. I digress. Even just dealing with chess tables an shit is a major headache in BYOND, so this is prolly out of the scope of things. Would be nice, might need limitations though. No interacting with anything requiring a log-in for example, would keep pAI's from jacking into Command stuff or Record stuff. (While I think pAI's SHOULD be able to alter records, it's a point of contention for how easy it could be used to dick people over, AKA: Set everyone to arrest in sec records.) Might be easier to just add that functionality into the data jack they already have. IT can hack into and access Airlocks and cameras, so making it like this USB port thing to activate Computers/MAchines would make that module a lot more desirable, without making the hack more powerful. You would -think- a "Pocket Secretary" would be able to do that, but the problem is the pAI does not have a "Headset" it talks into, it acts instead as a Station Bounced Radio. So there's no real way to add or alter the channels it can talk on, not anymore then a SBR can anyway. And the problem with making it some sort of special SBR that can tune to departmental channels, is then it can tune into ANY channel. It'd be having a free Sec/Command radio in your pocket as a greyshirt or traitor. So. POSSIBLE (Maybe)P, but it'd require overhauling how pAI communication in general works.

Actual sunglasses on demand/spawn: No way, The loadout is meant for purely aesthetic or fluff item stuff, nto to have any real impact on the game itself, even the starter pAI was removed for that reason. Now a set of faux sunglasses that had the style an look, but not the functionality, I'd be more then okay with. we already have fake changeling arm blades an fake out Disintegrate spells an stuff, so a set of fake sunglasses should be passable.

That's what I liked about the SM. It's a very potentially deadly engine. If you don't set it up correctly, you go boom. I also like how complex it is to set up. That's supposed to be the point, imo. Tesla/Solars for "Easy mode" (Set and Forget.) Singularity for "Medium" difficulty (You set it up easy but you have to go peek in every 30 minutes or so, to make sure everything is fine an plasma tanks are good. There's maintenance to be done, though not much.) And Supermatter for those that want a 'Harder' engine, takes a lot of maintenance and know how to really work. Ideally you also get more power for doing "Harder" engines that take more work, but the problem is right now, so long as you make enough power to fuel the station.... I mean the excess is just wasted. You can only fill up so many SMES units as back up power before it all just is effectively wasted electricity, so the extra work and risk of a supermatter isn't worth it compared to just throwing up Singulo or Tesla an shit. Back on topic: I wouldn't mind engies that want to be able to build an SM engine being able to do so, at least it gives themselves a 'personal challenge' to do if nothign else. Plus gotta learn somehow, so. If it blows up, you can pretty much just go turn on the solars an be mostly okay. (Explosion is fuckin huge so it probably will take out the one by mechanic office tho.)

This sounds even worse to be honest. As long as they can only squeeze through doors naked, they'd put themselves at a disadvantage to use it. The ai and borgs can bolt a foor remotely, they can't seal vent. I'm also not sure that vent crawling leaves forensic evidence, but slime residue on a door would be an obvious sign. Bolted or welded doors would keep them out. The metagame potential for ventcrawling is ridiculous. Aside from it being stupidly easy to get into atmos and tinker with the pumps to keed the pressure right, there is no way to track a person in the pipes, slime people are just going to hang out in the pies and harass people, validhunt by watching anyone suspicous and if your kill target is a slime good luck finding them if they are idling in the bar vents where you can't find them, it'll lead to traitors intentionally fucking up atmos to drive out slimes or kill many people not on their objectives. With door squeezing, none of this an issue. No people randomly breaking into atmos so they can have a free peeping maze, no infinite evasion of sec and antag, the ai can better track people, and drones, swarmers, xenos and anyother ventcrawling mob/antag isn't getting premptively screwed because departments are welding their vents round start to keep out annoying or shitter slimes Well. That all makes sense to me, I guess. Wouldn't oppose it if that was decision instead.

That's the risk you take/price of ventcrawling, IMO. You can only go a short distance/can't do it when seriously injured because you'd just die in the pipe.

It's worth reminding people before this goes on too long: The original Slimey vent-crawl was removed WAAAAAAY Back in the day, back when Vent-crawling was an instant teleport. Vent crawling is NOT that anymore, not only must you manually work your way to a location, but you have to account for the atmosphere inside the pipes. I don't own slimes so I can't claim to know what they can and cannot survive, but bear in mind, pipe shenanigans could be -lethal- or be made lethal to pretty outright ICly disable such abilities.

Security borgs are almost across the board equal to or worse then flesh and blood officers. For every "Upside" they have (The typical cyborg perks) They also have a glaring downside. For one, they have the least amount of modules to do their job. Comparable, if not beaten by Standard module borgs. A medical borg has all these tools, same as an engineering borg, even JANITOR borgs have more in them. Security borgs are VERY Binary in what they can or cannot do. They have a Flash, A Taser, Handcuffs, Hailer and Baton. That's pretty much it. Now just looking at those five things, you're probably noticing an a few things missing from your standard officer's loadout. Police Tape and Pepper Spray, mostly. So that means that they can't even cordon off an area to keep civvies from jumping in blood puddles with their set of stolen galoshes. They ALSO are lacking in any form of Riot or Area control like a flashbang or the aforementioned pepperspray. Again, limited to spraying tasers, or playing Whack-a-tator. Something Fleshbound officers can acquire very easily, if not have one on hand for emergencies. The sole "Advantage" they have is being a cyborg. Space-worthy, no breathing and immune to chemicals and borggy's all Access Pass. You also make up for this by needing to periodically run off to recharge, and being cripplingly vulnerable to laser points and flashes. (You can aim for a borg's sensors and end up blinding them just like a flash does with a few tries) and clipping a single wire to turn off AI control. On top of being emaggable (And if you do so, you get a metal servant that now has a laser Rifle.) And if you have opposition with ANY kind of EMP? The very easily acquired EMP, either via chemical, Traitor or innate means? (Traitors have EMP options readily available, and lings can EMP all day friggin long.) Or you;re in a nuke squad so you have an ion rifle, well then G fuckin G, no fuckin re, you lose the game. Go home. You have no method of dealing with any antagonist beyond a traitor, vampire or maybe a Wizard. Aliens? you go the fuck home, good luck whacking a hive of xeno morphs. Blob? Good fuckin joke. MEDICAL Borgs handle those threats better then the SECURITY Module. Frustrating to play against, because shitters gonna shit? Sure. Absolutely, you can't just disarm spam to push them over, steal their baton an run off giggling as you can for the more typical Shitcurity officer. Overpowered? Objectively not. Not with the lack of any versatility, Their exploitable weaknesses and their inability to do anything other then the Non-Lethal option, even when a Lethal option SHOULD be taken (Rogue Mechs, Blobs, etc.)

So... you're going to not let them do the role they took to try and learn in, because they don't know how to do it all that well yet. But you're also going to do nothing whatsoever to fix that problem, and just shove them off. I understand not wanting to spend your round having to teach someone else how to do things, that's fine. Not everyone is in a mood to teach like all the time an some people want to join a round to have their round be enjoying, not playing at being a college lecture. You don't HAVE to teach anyone a darn thing, you play to have fun, no one will blame you for having fun an not taking time out of your day. ... But the EXACT thing you DON'T like, you're doing to someone else. Yeah. You logged you with the goal of playing the job you were assigned, not being a teacher. ...... And then you shove some newbie out, preventing him from doing that same exact thing, because he wasn't super tops leet pro right off the git-go. If you don't want to teach new people that's fine, but don't -sabotage- them trying to self-learn when you don't want to take the time to teach them either. People have to learn, and the wiki is nice but it is *NOT* The end-all and be-all of learning SS13, it has several finer points not labeled and even some not finer points. There is no instruction on it talking about the Tesla engine as far as I know. It ONLY talks about the Singularity. Some some new engie, who has never engie'd before, would have no idea there's no major differences in setting up the Tesla engine compared to the Sing. So maybe "Read the wiki" is not the ultimate solution, and those people who are 'failing their way through RnD' or 'Scrubbing up the engine set up' are trying to get better at it. Especially when RnD upgrades not being sent out is the most first world problem in all of SS13, the station runs perfectly fine without them, they're neat bonuses for Science being on the ball, if people have gotten to the point they can't live without them, then that's on them, not the fautl of the guy trying to learn how to do more stuff/how more of the game works. This is EXACTLY how you get a lot of people going "I have never done that department before, I'm too scared to try". We were all just as "Scrubby" once upon a time, but nobody elects to remember that part when they forcefully throw people out of RnD, or in some cases outright FIRE someone for not being the best.