Fox McCloud

This has been something that has been discussed off and on, internally for a while--hopefully we can reach a decision soonish.

IPCs transforming into lesser form is more amusing---they just out and out gib.

This is a real possibility and not hard to do; another is ID Locking the booze machine--or we could do both. Firing 40mm no doubt.

Not good enough; clearly they need energy axes.

Bombs are fairly easy to make; and our ZAS (and even LINDA) doesn't exactly allow for long-term bomb constructing projects like Goon does (ie: a good canister bomb requires 45 minutes of work to make). If explosions were even more powerful, they'd have to be pretty damn hard or time consuming to make..but as it currently stands, those who know how to make bombs can end up using every single tank transfer valve within 10-15 minutes in---and every single bomb is max-size (or bigger). Explosions already got a massive buff when we went from recursive to non-recursive; they're in a damn good spot as they currently stand.

Some of this is to limit the availability of items or reduce access tot hem for most of the crew while still scaling it with a particular job population. A perfect example of this is both the hybrid taser and the telebaton. These only spawn on certain jobs to reduce the access to the items so they're not abused and have way less impact on the round if that class/job is not present. In other situations it's about customization; not everyone wants a t-ray as an engineer, a medical belt as a doctor---and for security, especially, there's 100 different ways 100 different officer's are going to want to configure their loadout (or even the order of their loadout). Inventory management and equipping is part of the game, as Dreadweaver said--the reason everything doesn't have to be equipped is to balance out ease of access vs customization and factoring in potential transfer as well---all while keeping down spam and access to high-impact items.

"Grant Emergency Access" on Authenticators exists for a reason.

Just my own opinions. If we are to do this, then I'd recommend these changes as well: Firedoors: -Transparent (will require sprite changes for IC reasons) -No ID lock -Can ONLY be opened/closed via crowbar (or fire alarm pulling) Transparency is mostly to see if there's gas/a fire or if the zone air alarm is flashing on the other side Ultimately means that yes, more idiots forcing the locks when they shouldn't, but it also means that you have some chance of escaping a fire or depressurization--if we re-add maintenance access without including this, a lot of people are going to start dying to atmos issues. They don't have maintenance access, currently

Pretty much this. It encourages player interaction and RP---and the vast majority of the time the scientists will make you one as it becomes available at data level 2.

We got the tech for when it comes to (re)gaining control of doors and sytems, it should be an easy copy and pastejob if you wanted to make the borg hack the doors open. This is a potential solution; I'm definitely keeping an eye on things and keeping my ears open to potential ways to balance this out. Generally speaking, there hasn't been much of a problem with the AI getting taken out at its new location (without resource+time investment)--Ops have to spend quite a bit of their time to kill the AI, which gives the crew massive time to prepare and the AI can still do a little bit about it (along with its borg)....the exception, of course, is the damn Syndiborg, who can do exactly as Plotron described.

There are some changes/nerfs planned for the Syndiborg in terms of his available weaponry coming up soon , but I'm not sure how much it will impact this specific issues you're mentioning here; it's more likely to impact the Syndiborg's on-station combat effectiveness.

Exactly this, so much. We already have a bit of an issue with pets doing things they should (pulling guns/IDs/bodies away from traitor, etc); this just further increases their potential, all for a secondary "fun" role. As for mice and cats? As Streaky said, runtime already pounces and kills mice.

What even. Either case, Crayons, cigs, and make-shift cigs definitely sound like a great idea here.

The knife cuts both ways in this scenario; it's also just as unfun when the Nukies arrive on station and get bolted into a depowered room and can't do much of anything for the rest of the shift either. Reason why I ultimately don't have a problem with this: Captain is under the same exact threat and also tends to die a horrendous death within a few minutes of the syndicate boarding the station; it's a risk associated with picking the job--it's just one that the AI has never been exposed to before on a regular basis. There may need to be changes to how early the AI gets notification of when someone has stepped foot on the AI satellite (via motion detecting cameras), but the whole intent of the AI sat is that it is not an impenetrable target anymore and is a valid target if traitor/nuke ops/etc wants to attempt to kill it; I really don't see why the AI should have a map status that gives it immunity to something that the entire crew has to deal with shift to shift. I can understand the frustration though; the best you can do (same goes for captain) in situations like this is to just scream your head off before you inevitably get lasered to death or your APC is is turned off; provided the crew reacts to your death, you bought them a huge strategical advantage by giving them an early warning as to what's going on. I definitely do have my eye on the Syndiborg though, rest assured, as I do feel it's in the category of "insanely strong", right now.

Get you whiny ass sissy butt over to the sec closets and unlock the damn thing yourself, your most high pompousness. What's the matter, afraid to get your "spess law arbiter"'s hands dirty? JERK! Sorry had to tease =p I don't see a problem with this; will ping Mark about it if he doesn't see this first--though, really; just grab a pair from a sec locker; it takes all of 10 seconds to do =p

More than ok with this; this will solve a lot of game balance issues as well.

I moved the sec hardsuits to the armory and medical hardsuits to medical secure storage; currently there's now 4 softsuits in EVA in their place. Still doesn't address the um...plethora of engineering hardsuits though.

Explain this to the layman Basically TG switched from GPLv3 to AGPLv3 license for their code; without being overly complex here, AGPLv3 closes a loophole that allows people to take TG's code and go closed source with it. We're free to use and port over TG code in the future, provided we adhere to one thing; that we stay open source--I talked with TG directly to make sure we were on the right side of the law and their own community. The alternative is that we are closed source, but actively have to provide the source code to anyone who can connect to the server if they request it (a pain in the butt). I'm sorry if that's too wordy or isn't clear enough; if you want me to clarify further, let me know. I'm not sure if this means we can have a line or two hidden here and there or not, but...quite frankly that's not really a slope I feel is good to go down--and the general nature of secrets is, they get revealed and spread around just as much so as if they were open source anyway; hell, even Goon's flagship stereotypical secret chem (Initropidril) is publicly posted on SA now. I believe best for puzzles/chemicals/etc to be difficult to make/complete/do rather than difficult to discover in terms of overall balance, because inevitably, if secrecy is used to balance something, that secret will get leaked eventually, then you end up having to nerf the thing itself or go with the "difficulty in doing the thing" route anyway. I'm not saying we can't have fun loot spots (like Dave's syndi outpost) or that we can't have fun away mission or puzzles to figure out, they just won't be closed source and will likely be difficult in approach rather than difficult in solving.

See this is why I made this post, everyone told me it was not possible to get more crystals. Teleporter station hubs have them and they can be made in R&D, for absolute certain---if they're not available in R&D, then that's a mes up and will be corrected as soon as we can get to it.

This has been covered already; 4 bluespace crystals and a fully upgraded telepad covers something like 95% of the station ; Telesci starts with 3 to limit their potential. If they'd like to expand their reach they'll have to create or steal 1 more bluespace crystal; likewise, they'll have to get R&D levels up to make better capacitors for the telepad. You can created more bluespace cyrstals at R&D. Telesci is already borderline gamebreaking and is a horribly powergamey tool; it was deliberately nerfed for a reason.

The one change I'd very strongly consider making is elimination of hardsuit punctures; currently, as it stands, you get shot or bit a couple of times and your suit loses pressure protection, effectively making them worthless for their intended purpose once they take the slightest bit of damage. This was, I believe, Bay's "solution" to the incessant usage of hardsuits.

Yeah, they switched from GPLv3 to AGPLv3 about...3 days ago, I believe? So I'll definitely need to look into the specifics of it to avoid the very hot-water issues you mentioned (especially since I had no idea this was coming)--this will likely impact Bay as well, as they have a crapton of TG code still and still actively port a few things here and there (though I realize all code prior to the license change is still licensed under GPLv3 and everything we've ported thus far is still under GPLv3). Yeah, I'm aware of this; Para has always been a server with a lot of beta-related features and we typically have a number of bugs and issues because of it, at times, so things being in a less than ideal state is kinda the norm here; we do make attempts to correct it over time. Generally, if it's not server-breaking, we'll get by. Either case, will be good to see you stop in some times!

Exactly this this, to an absolute T.

This isn't about realism, it's about balancing the game and giving meaningful distinction between job classes. If it were realisitic, then HoS's hat would have no armor, engineers wouldn't have rad resist on their clothing, hardly anything would be completely fireproof, etc. Rig suit covers literally the entire body (there's only two adminus related armors that I can think of that cover everything; Cap's spacesuit and the SWAT suit in the armory), provide complete immunity to space, has built in flash immunity, hot+cold resistance, rad protection, virus immunity, a free slotless flashlight, and it has an ultra-low permeability coefficient (and they still have all these things). It's just not overlapping with security armor anymore and has a bit more slowdown to compensate for it having massive utility and is still armored. For comparison, here's armored vests, which only provide damage resits and nothing more---and only protect the chest+groin: Old rig had similar armor values (with laser being the only noticeably lower value) while still retaining its massive utility; you literally had your cake and could eat it too. If you want better amor for your head; grab a red hardhat; it has better armor values and offers pressure protection--but you lose out on other utility.

They exist to provide basic protection EVA protection in addition to some light resistances to outside threats in addition to providing radiation and heat resistances. They're not meant to be something players get to run around in 24/7 to shrug off laser fire and melee damage. Engineers job is to repair the station; they're not security and don't deal with threats that constantly put them in danger. The hat, in the example you provided, is the Head of Security's hat--who has those armor values due being sec and the additional risks of his job; heads of staff are always compensated for the enhanced risks of their position in some way, shape, or form. With the exception of the lasertag helmets, the items you listed are all security related (the forensic technician jacket is just a really crappy version of detective's armored jacket). Oh, almost forgot Rig helmets also provided flash immunity And yes, I realize you can take damage from slamming into a wall, but that's not what the hardsuit is for; that's what magboots are for as they take damage from slamming from 100 to 0, by virtue of eliminating getting slammed against the the wall to begin with. It's still generally more robust than most non-security armor on the station in addition to being pressure and flash immune; I'm pretty sure the only thing that's non-sec that has decent armor values outside of this is the bomb suit (which is non spaceworthy and offers no flash protection+still slows you down) and I think the mining rig.