Remove IPC Damage Weaknesses, or...

[Streaky Haddock]

This may be controversial because IPCS are immune to toxins, viruses, bleed, clone and skeletal damage. However, IPCs as they are are tragically fragile for reasons that made sense when they were first introduce,  but are no longer apply.

For instance, IPCs used to be very easy to repair. They only required a welding tool and cable coil/nanopaste, had no internal organs besides their brain, so all you had to do was put them on a table, endure the failure chance and reassemble them on the spot. However, now, you are required to open up the affected IPC's chest and repair their internal organs. With the additional risk that comes with ghetto surgery of the attack proc'ing instead, or of regular surgery slippage, this makes IPC revival actually very hard.

IPCs not having to fear from genetics, viruses and toxins is not quite as one-sided as it seems. Legitimately dangerous and disruptive viruses are few and far between, and often very quickly dealt with by medbay (most nasty viruses requiring gold, salt, or mannitol) to cure. In addition, IPCs can't benefit from healing viruses which are actually very effective and provide a tangible difference to one's survivability.

In addition, IPCs can't benefit from any kind of genetic powers. The downsides there are obvious, in addition to ruling them out of the geneticist job without using a sentient test subject.

IPCs not suffering from tox damage is quite a powerful aid, I grant you. However, toxins damage isn't that common. Toxins Damage is inflicted via green spiders, radiation, drinking something dumb or someone aggressively trying to poison you. However, anybody with access to efficient and effective poisons likely also has access to resources to produce EMPs.

EMPS = Are area of effect and travel through walls. The majority of the time, unless you're at the very edges of the radius, it will scorch every single internal and external organ in the IPC's body, killing them instantly. Of the eight game-mode antagonists on our server, five of them have access to cheap and efficient EMPs. Traitors have EMP flashlights and EMP implants (the latter of which can be activated while stunned and cuffed), Changelings have the EMP screeh (which can be activated while stunned and cuffed), Cultists have the EMP talisman, Wizards... well, wizards are powerful against everything but it sucks to be EMP'd through a wall when you weren't even aware the Wizard was there, and Nuclear Operatives have access to traitor stuff and more.

This brings me back to the misconception that IPCs are "easy to fix." All other races can be pushed into a fully upgraded sleeper and every inch of them healed within moments. IPCs have to manually repair every inch of their body. When insta-killed with an EMP, the IPC needs the following repaired: Both Hands, Both Arms, IPC charging implant, Head, Eyes, Upper Chest, Microbattery, Brain, lower both, both legs, both feet. Many Roboticists don't know how to repair IPCs, many don't realise the brain is in the head. Many don't know how IPC surgery works. Many forget to fix or replace your power charging implant that goes in your right arm.

Given how commonplace EMPs are (it's easy to be killed by an EMP when you aren't even INVOLVED in the antag's business) and given how horrendously IPCs and EMPs are coded (as i've been told many times by the coding team) the terrible EMP weakness can't be modified or really removed. So why not remove the brute/burn weakness? I don't believe it makes sense anymore, given IPCs limbs propensity to pop off, and given how awkard they can be  to repair. Yes, IPCs can repair themselves so long as they've got a functional arm AND hand, but that still uses up a healthy amount of welding fuel and if they DO lose a limb, they can't re-attach it themselves. It also makes them horrendously vulnerable to things like space and frost oil. Frost Oil and Syndi-Bee Toxin will keep an IPC down for the rest of the round, as nobody knows what the hell degreaser is or  thinks to use it when an IPC is poisoned. Hell, the idea of IPCs beingpoisoned is so foreign to many people (IPCs included) that often they persistent dying upon revival is met with confusion and despair.

Not to mention, removing their damage weaknesses should be easy enough, since these things are coded far more simply. All it would involve is deleting some numbers and then their brute and burn resistance would be the same as most other races. 

 

Other alternatives, that I can think of, are more complicated:

A) Making IPC surgery easy as hell. Make roller beds and tables count as 100% success chance, make their surgeries quicker, etc. So they really can be reassembled in the field instead of laboured over by a labcoat that would much rather be dealing with a mech or cyborg.

B) Making Nanopaste heal every single part of an IPC's body, in and out. The exact number it heals I'm not too fussy about, so long as it's not necessary to agonisingly heal every single organ after the inevitable EMP.

C) Overhauling IPCs or EMPs or both completely. This is not a realistic option I know, but... eugh.

 

Edit: Also this is very stream of consciousness, but IPCs get fucked p hard in Blob/Nuke Ops rounds. It's not uncommon to get one's arms shot off in one hit by Nuke Ops, and one shove from a blob will... also make your limbs pop off.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Streaky Haddock

[Shadeykins]

I'd also like to throw in here...

Chemistry. Access to stims, healing over time, etcetera. These are more or less completely denied to IPCs. While degreaser exists, IPCs can't make use of any of the incredibly useful traitor stimulants.

Lack of access to meaningful chemical reagents and a proper balance to this is honestly a big deal, and is the primary reason why I personally stopped playing IPC almost altogether.

I wouldn't mind seeing EMP's become less of a fuck you to IPC's in terms of repairing them after the fact. As it stands, you'll have an easier, faster (and probably more successful) time SR'ing and fixing someone who came out of an emagged recycler.

[Tayswift]

Removing the damage modifiers could be a good idea, but since combat is mostly stun based it's not as big of a deal.

I think EMPs should be tweaked a bit to deal massage damage and a lengthy stun, but not kill straight away (credit to @Ziiro for the idea). This would allow IPCs who are targeted by EMPs to be killed easily, but will make life a little less painful for those who accidentally get caught in EMP blasts or those times when someone cuffed in processing EMPs you in front of half of security because fuck you, go spend 30 minutes in robotics for doing your job.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Tayswift

[Sampaiii]

I honestly like this better than just changing or lessening EMP weakness by itself

people always try to argue "IPCs are super easy to fix!" as some kind of gotcha thing to leave their weaknesses as they are, and it just feels like they're quoting the wiki or something. even if someone is "easy to fix" it means nothing when no one knows how to fix them, and yet people say this as if just dragging an ipc into robotics will magically make them alive again...? (honestly, thats how it feels when I express hating EMPs and someone brings up the 'easy fix' argument with me.)

i know having less damage weakness wont fix roboticists not knowing part of their job, but.... at least it might make life a little less painful when someone decides to go ham on you or breaks out the EMPs.

 

[Streaky Haddock]

Except I've been told on multiple occasions that because IPCs are so awkwardly coded that to remove the IPC weakness would require a complete  re-code. So I'm operating on the presumption that option's just not on the table.

[TrainTN]

I think both alternatives A and B, combined with toning down (but not removing) IPC damage weaknesses would work out fine. It would at least help amateur roboticists fix them so that they actually are easy to fix, provided RnD bothers to give them and medbay nanopaste.

[Spacemanspark]

IIRC it'd require changing all of two values to make brute and burn damage do or less damage to an IPC. @Streaky Haddock

[Rumiluntti]

IPCs are immune to memechems.
EMP flashlight is like the IPC version of sleepypen.
You can literally run to maint with 1 hp and heal yourself full with the shit you find everywhere.
You are fully functioning until you are completely unable to function at all (ded)

IPC surgery should be 100% success even on a dirty table in maint. They are robots, it's not like they wiggle from the immense pain or anything. They can't get infections so it would be pretty cool.

[Streaky Haddock]

EMP x Sleep-pen is a terrible comparison.

IPCs are not immune to meme-chems, only ones that cause tox damage.

No, IPCs can't literally do that, as they have internal component damage now which require surgery and if their arms are damaged they can't hold the welder.

[davidchan]

While I do agree that removing the damage at this point would be a long overdue buff to IPCs, I'd honestly prefer that it stayed. It's part of their thematic and removing it takes away part of the fun of IPCs, learning to live with being cardboard tubes held together with tinfoil.

What I'd prefer instead would be for IPCs to get some other kind of buff to aid their survival. Specifically, the ability for IPCs to self surgery/reattach limbs and/or the removal/shortening of that gawd awful self repair timer, or making so limbs can't malfunction UNTIL it requires internal repairs. Alternatively, adding some mechanic so that if a limb gets overhealed, the remaining healing goes to another limb, allowing them to be repaired similiar to borgs without the frustration and time sink of manually targeting every body part.

 

1 hour ago, Rumiluntti said:

IPCs are immune to memechems.
EMP flashlight is like the IPC version of sleepypen.
You can literally run to maint with 1 hp and heal yourself full with the shit you find everywhere.
You are fully functioning until you are completely unable to function at all (ded)

This isn't true. Once a limb has 20~ damage you can't repair it externally and you can't self heal until the surgery has been done. And since IPCs can't self surgery from some nonsensical reason you can disable their arms and legs before even putting them into soft crit. Compare this to any carbon mob who can break a limb but still heal themselves back to 100% health, an IPC has to walk around with that damage until they find someone they can trust to do the surgery.

This isn't even factoring how robotic/prosthetic limbs malfunction at around 10 damage causing you to drop what ever you're holding at seemingly random intervals, it can be impossible for an IPC to repair themselves because the self heal timer is way to damn long.

Edited January 16, 2018 by davidchan

[Granodd]

This is a topic that I've been known to go on about for longer than I should, given how strongly that I feel about it. As such I will legitimately try to keep what I've got to say brief as to avoid a giant wall of text the last time I went on about this sort of thing.

Being a long time player of both IPCs and more recently humans, there are very drastic difference between the two (as there should be). Though I've found that in that time, I actually prefer to play my human more than my IPC, despite the vast amounts of immunity and quality of life that IPCs tend to have. The first reason for this being that I found out that the strengths that IPCs have in comparison to other races is not as special as they're made out to really be. A lot of things that organics have to worry about I've found can be avoided - or in the least - alleviated with proper planning or attention. The second reason was because I didn't die instantly to an EMP when they happened, though I'm not going to really talk much on EMPs here at all. And the third reason, while less important to this discussion but equally as influential to me, was the ability to roll for more antags than what my IPC could (yea I like to be the bad guy a lot, sue me). Also some reason about "cyka blyat".

EMPs, as awful as they can be sometimes, do make sense as a weakness, and shouldn't be removed any time soon. EMPs could certainly use a tweak, though until we can find a clean way to do that, are fine as they are for the time being (as much as they make me a grumpy man). IPCs severe weakness to brute and burn, however, is something that doesn't quite make much sense to me, and seems like the easiest issue to fix with IPCs. Now, a weakness to burn damage (the high temperature type, not freezing, though I think both still apply as it is currently), does make sense to me on an IPC, as computer bits don't do well with super high temperatures (it's why most computers come equipped with fans); but a high brute weakness (in the way that it is implemented at the moment) makes little sense to me, especially given the fact that a porous-boned space bird is more resilient than a man made of literal metal, yaya. If IPCs had a higher resistance to brute, but a stronger weakness to burn, I feel like that'd be a better version of their current damage modifiers.

To touch on what Streaky mentioned in the beginning of his first post, and what others have also said...
• [Immunity to Viruses]: Bad viruses that actually cause any sort of actual issue and aren't just cured away with one of the known wonder cures are few and far between.
• [Immunity to Toxins]: A nice quality of life, though not something you'll get unless you get into a fight with a spider, someone is actively trying to poison you, or you drink something dumb.
• [Immunity to Bleeding]: Actually really nice ever since the blood refactor. Though most stuff that causes bleeding just outright murks you because of your high brute weakness as an IPC.
• [Immunity to Clone Damage]: IPCs can't get cloned (or prescanned for that matter), and the only enemies I know of that can inflict this are slimes and abductors with their gun.
• [Immunity to Skeletal Damage]: I suppose this means "you don't have bones", though what do broken bones really do, anyway? They make you drop things in the case of your hands and arms, move slower if in the legs, and cause organ damage in the head and chest. IPCs escape the head and chest bits cos they have no bones to shift around there, but their legs and arms still operate in the same way as organics, though it only needs to be high brute/burn damage to cause the slowness or dropping of things.
• [Immunity to Radiation]: Not a common thing that you encounter, though I've heard some people mentioning that IPCs should be susceptible to it, which I could agree with if they traded out rad immunity for being space proof (though we know that'll never happen given how space immunity is a huge balance issue all its own).

The last things I'll say that bother me with IPCs is how easy their brains are to pop out by antags, that their brains come out with their speaker defaulted to off, and that every other race can recover from body destruction whether with prescanning or insertion into a surrogate body with the brain. That last one you can technically get around with some janky cheese mechanics, though I don't really count that, as I know it's hardly intended in the code. All in all, IPCs could use a balance adjustment of some kind.

[Pennwick]

Personally I like the fragility of IPCs. It gives them so much more flavor over the other races. Any shift where I get decapitated but still make it to the shuttle still makes me giggle. EMPs are a pain and I would love to see them changed to nearly killing IPCs instead of outright killing them in one go but in the same way I've gotten so used to it that the weakness has kind of grown on me.

There are two other improvements/tweaks to IPC life that haven't been brought up in the thread:

• Better documentation of repair techniques:  Nothing is worse than getting dragged into robotics to lie there for the rest of the shift while the Robotocist stares blankly at your body or assumes you're beyond fixing. A IPC Repair guide book could go a long way to improving awareness of new roboticists. Even better is if it could be combined with a new poster or two that espouses the  fact that IPCs can be repaired no matter how damaged the chassis is.

• Difficulty in healing widespread damage: Its been repeatedly stated that IPCs inability to be treated chemically is a weakness. Why not create some new chemicals that do just that. Its more likely that they'd be produced in a Protolathe or Fabricator than in Chemistry but it would give them an equivalent to the healing drugs. Something like tiny repair nanites that come in an auto-injector. Make it roughly as effective as Saline Glucose and you can take care of that tiny bit of widespread pressure or burn damage. Perhaps also buff Liquid solder to fix all internal components. This way it wouldn't be such a pain to fix minor damage and the healing probably isn't enough to be combat useful, especially considering the ease of knocking out limbs outright.

[Ziiro]

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

On 1/16/2018 at 7:45 PM, Pennwick said:

• Better documentation of repair techniques:  Nothing is worse than getting dragged into robotics to lie there for the rest of the shift while the Robotocist stares blankly at your body or assumes you're beyond fixing. A IPC Repair guide book could go a long way to improving awareness of new roboticists. Even better is if it could be combined with a new poster or two that espouses the  fact that IPCs can be repaired no matter how damaged the chassis is.

I'm pretty sure this is still correct. If you could figure out how to get it into an in-game book and make it spawn in robotics, that would likely solve the issue.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Ziiro
info

[Shadeykins]

Guides exist on the wiki as well for IPC's, in multiple places in fact - both in the surgery guide, and the guide to robotics.

[Calecute]

One thing that came up while i was in robotics these days was healing positronic brain damaged. It is not covered in surgery or robotics guides in the wiki. After trying some things (Including, unfortunatly, welding the poor posibrain) I called the RD and he fixed the IPC, but the guy was on robotics for a long time because of the lack of documentation on this. (BTW you need to use Liquid Solder(a chem) on the posibrain).

[TrainTN]

15 hours ago, Ziiro said:

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I'm pretty sure this is still correct. If you could figure out how to get it into an in-game book and make it spawn in robotics, that would likely solve the issue.

There are a few in-game books that don't seem to work at all, like the engineering guides and the bartender's recipe book. If someone were to go fix all those, it would be convenient to throw in a book about IPC repair as well.

1 minute ago, Calecute said:

One thing that came up while i was in robotics these days was healing positronic brain damaged. It is not covered in surgery or robotics guides in the wiki. After trying some things (Including, unfortunatly, welding the poor posibrain) I called the RD and he fixed the IPC, but the guy was on robotics for a long time because of the lack of documentation on this. (BTW you need to use Liquid Solder(a chem) on the posibrain).

I had this problem once as well, forgetting that IPCs could take brain damage at all and that Liquid Solder exists. And I'm still not sure how you even apply Liquid Solder and Degreaser, is it possible to inject IPCs with a syringe or are medical patches the only way? It's unclear without trying yourself.

[Calecute]

I did not see the RD doing it, but I asked about it and if I understood correctly you need to take the posibrain out and throw the liquid solder on it. But it would be nice if someone could confirm it. 

[Calecute]

I tested it out and while you can't use chems as an IPC in the tradicional way drinking them from glasses works wonders. You can just drink Liquid Solder and you'r brain comes back.

[Jountax]

I thought the standard way of fixing internal components (use a screwdriver) worked for the posibrain. That's how you fix every other internal component, I don't see why the posibrain would be different.

[ZN23X]

I play both an IPC and human so I experience this from both sides. Also taking into account that for most of my human's existence they've had a mechanical heart so also die to EMP. 

Let me tell you the noticeable benefits when I play my IPC. I don't suffer slowness from being in pain. I never need to wait in line at medbay for a surgery room to be freed up. The surgery time for my IPC vs my human when either are severely injured is about 1/3-1/4 the time (the human taking longer). No internal bleeding, which I deal with far more frequently than EMP. Never need to wait for cloning. Cannot put enough emphasis on waiting for a surgery room, especially when something big happened and there's lots of people who need it. Being able to be rebuilt on any table anywhere is a huge plus.

Not to mention, aside from really murder boney antags, I have zero reason to fear vamps or clings. I've frequently had vamp and cling rounds where I'll run into one in maint as my paramedic IPC and they completly ignore me because I'm useless to them.

Yes dying instantly from EMP sucks. So does wordlessly being stunned and killed. Not quite as fast, both are still awful. Any fast kill tactics people use feel like crap. Maybe I've just died so many times and so frequently that it doesn't bother me as much. Whereas players who rarely die are more devastated when they are dispatched as quickly as EMP does the job.

EMPing my mechanical heart used to allow me to function for a few seconds before passing out till they changed it. Giving me enough time to say "My heart!" before collapsing. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that implemented for both IPCs and mechanical hearts, but other than that I don't feel any change is needed.

I feel like most IPC complaints probably come from players who only play IPC because if they played organics, they'd notice the benefits I do.

Having a mechanical heart gives me zero gameplay benefits. It part of my fluff and sometimes leads to interesting situations. Watching confused players try to figure out what's wrong with me. Dying to a hijacker because I'm the last one on the shuttle, I've tased and cuffed them, but they have an EMP implant  (Ohhh the SALT in deadchat cuz I allowed that antag to win REEEEEEEE!!) So have my differences as an IPC. I've never had my humans limbless torso brought to the shuttle and central, still being able to talk the whole way.

Edited January 20, 2018 by ZN23X

[Ziiro]

1 hour ago, ZN23X said:

I feel like most IPC complaints probably come from players who only play IPC because if they played organics, they'd notice the benefits I do.

I quit playing IPC and stuck with organics (Sometimes slime, sometimes vox), because IPCs are simply terrible. Despite synthetics/robots being my go-to choice in any game that offers it. Literally all of them.

Additionally, for another codebase, I have ported them and fixed them myself, because I am so convinced they will never be fixed here.

IPC strengths, as outlined point by point in Streaky's original post, rarely shine in actual gameplay.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Ziiro

[Dinarzad]

Just now, Ziiro said:

I quit playing IPC and stuck with organics (Sometimes slime, sometimes vox), because IPCs are simply terrible. Despite synthetics/robots being my go-to choice in any game that offers it. Literally all of them.

Additionally, for another codebase, I ported them and fixed them myself, because I am so convinced they will never be fixed here.

IPC strengths, as outlined point by point in Streaky's original post, rarely shine in actual gameplay.

A lot of this. I stopped playing IPC in favor of moving more to Grey or Human, because I got sick and tired of no counter-play 1 shot kills, and nobody having the faintest idea what to do on an IPC to heal them other then "WELL I WELDED IT AND IT'S STILL DEAD RIP I GUESS WHATEVER"

The amount of dangerous toxins is FARRRRRRR Outweighed by the amount of healing chemicals, and even then, IPCs can still suffer chemical based damage, that's the entire reason Degreaser had to be made. Disease immunity is usually more con then buff, given you miss out on the super stronk beneficial viruses virology makes. Lethal viruses are scarcely ever made, since virologists are only really allowed to incite mass death with them if they have the hijack objective.

Initially it was fine cuz IPCs were so easy to repair/self-repair. Easy to fix, easy to kill. Seemed legit. But that's been nerfed through the floor, use times on self-healing, plus their primary boon, never needing surgery, is now effectively moot because after a damage threshold you need "Surgery" to repair the internals of a limb. Add to that how many Antags have ranged EMP options, which go through walls...
IPCs just ... aren't much fun to play anymore.

So. No. Most IPC complaints come from people who have played both (And they HAD to, to unlock IPCs in the first place) and have come to a realization that IPCs just get a raw deal in more ways then people really think.

[ZN23X]

If you think I didn't point our anything Streaky failed to mention then you clearly didn't take the time to read my entire post. I even left some stuff out but nobody wants to hear that anyways since what I wrote was apparently already too long. 

That all being said, I don't actually care of they get buffed, and am also fine if they remain the same, so my presence here is unnecessary. I severely apologize that I already enjoy IPCs as they are.

[TrainTN]

2 hours ago, Ziiro said:

I quit playing IPC and stuck with organics (Sometimes slime, sometimes vox), because IPCs are simply terrible. Despite synthetics/robots being my go-to choice in any game that offers it. Literally all of them.

Additionally, for another codebase, I have ported them and fixed them myself, because I am so convinced they will never be fixed here.

IPC strengths, as outlined point by point in Streaky's original post, rarely shine in actual gameplay.

Out of curiosity, what changes did you make to IPCs that you considered "fixing"? I'd like to know how you balanced them yourself.

 

[Shadeykins]

1 hour ago, TrainTN said:

Out of curiosity, what changes did you make to IPCs that you considered "fixing"? I'd like to know how you balanced them yourself.

 

Off the top of my head the primary one is EMP's don't kill - they do some damage and stun them for a long enough time where they can be easily killed, but it's not outright death.