Remove Telescience

[Tarhalindur]

Alright, there was already a recent proposal to nerf it. This isn't the same, so please read my proposal carefully before bashing it to hell and back.

What is Telescience?

Telescience is a Science mechanism that allows teleportation to and from a telepad to any given coordinates. If this sounds overpowered, that's because it is. For this reason, it requires a lot of math and is absent from Science roundstart, as a balance mechanism.

My proposal is that it is still overpowered, and should be removed, as the core concept of it is fairly flawed.

External Programs

As Telescience is mostly mathematical, it is possible for someone to create a spreadsheet or external program that does the math for you. In fact, this actually did happen on /tg/.

"But Tar," you say, "You're being a clown right now. Just ban external programs!"

Well yes, this could be done, and kind of already is thanks to the metagaming ban, except this would also ban scientific calculators. You know. The intended method of using telescience.

Unless someone writes down the math on an ingame sheet of paper or something, we can't very well go around bwoinking people saying "HOW DID YOU FIGURE OUT THE DIFFERENTIALS LAWBREAKING SCUM?".

Legitimate Uses

There aren't really that many legitimate uses for telescience. Basically just things like looting the armory, teleporting bombs into the AI core, teleporting bombs elsewhere...

Unless the AI is malfunctioning, there's not that many reasons for non-antags to actually use telescience. It's a solution without a problem.

I'm not sure if space loot is randomized (I've never gone exploring space before), but if it isn't then that's also a problem because you can essentially use telescience to get space loot without any effort.

Furthermore, there also isn't a real way to counter telescience. A traitor scientist armed with the math (or maybe one of those external programs) and the willpower to build a telescience set (which isn't that hard, it's just a telepad or two and a computer last time I checked) can snap their fingers and wipe out anything with practically no effort.

Can Telescience Be Saved?

Yes, Telescience is very overpowered. This is why it has been given it's downsides. Making it very hard has already been tried, and as I have shown, that won't necessarily work.

There aren't that many other ways to nerf it. You could, perhaps, make it frustratingly random, but then no one would use it and you might as well just remove it.

In conclusion, telescience is very easily exploited, is difficult to balance due to the very nature of it, has no real reason to be used by nonantags, and the main balancer (math) can be worked around.

For this reason, I am requesting that the telescience machines be made unavailable for building by the crew.

Thank you for reading.

[Kyet]

You do make a good case.

I've been considering creating an item/structure that, when powered, blocks all teleporting effects into/out of an area.

Primarily I was considering doing it for the syndie depot, but it could also work to balance telescience by making it impossible to just beam things out of the armory, for example.

Problem is, if we're at the point of altering the map (adding jammers) specifically to counter telescience, perhaps you're right that we should just remove telescience instead.

[MrMagolor]

Perhaps emagging the telesci console allows it to bypass those blockers (only the onstation ones), so that antags can craftily complete steal objectives, while still preventing powergamey Depot looting for even antags?

[Tarhalindur]

Well there's still the problem that, as stated, only antags have a real reason to use telescience under almost all circumstances.

As Kyet stated, if we have to arbitrarily limit telescience like that then perhaps it's time to get rid of it.

 

[ZN23X]

I mostly only ever see it used for is those public teleporter hubs to get around the station easier. Rarely used by antags by comparison. I've always liked the teleport hubs.

[Tarhalindur]

That's not telescience, those are telepads.

Those work by being "linked" to another telepad, if I am not mistaken.

[ZN23X]

My mistake

[Calecute]

With telesci you can get anything to/from any coordinate in any z level. So if you know your cordinates, you can get anything you want, or get something or someone anywhere you want. If people have suit sensors maxed you can also get anyone. One legit use for telesci is getting bodies in space or hard to reach places. 

I do agree it's too OP and it serves no legit function even thou i like playing with it. 

[Pokebro2000]

I would like to suggest, rather than removing it, we give it a non-antag reason to exist. I think describing it as a solution without a problem is spot on. We need to give telescience a reason for existing. 

I don't have any ideas tho

[Medi]

10 minutes ago, Pokebro2000 said:

I would like to suggest, rather than removing it, we give it a non-antag reason to exist. I think describing it as a solution without a problem is spot on. We need to give telescience a reason for existing. 

I don't have any ideas tho

It has plenty of non-antag uses. In fact, it's more often used for teleporting people around the station between the departments then it is used for 'antag' purposes. As I previously stated, there's only a handful of jobs that kind of promote the use of teleportation. Within those jobs even LESS people use them who potentially could.

[Tarhalindur]

3 hours ago, Medi said:

It has plenty of non-antag uses. In fact, it's more often used for teleporting people around the station between the departments then it is used for 'antag' purposes. As I previously stated, there's only a handful of jobs that kind of promote the use of teleportation. Within those jobs even LESS people use them who potentially could.

Pretty sure you're also thinking about the telepads.

Sorry!

[improvedname]

tl:dr, people that has knowledge of telescience (basic math) are the only ones that know how to use it

VS

the 30 game mechanics that only resolves around clicking stuff without think work

Edited April 16, 2019 by improvedname

[Jazz]

Alright let me open up my comment with I have spent dozens of hours mastering telescience along with every single aspect of it (from hubs to quantum pads to z level loot to the depot etc). I've even edited the wiki and wrote the majority of the page itself. And yes, I am the guy who makes that "public hub" that has been mentioned before, so I can most definitely touch on that as well. I'm Crangus Pangaria btw.

After reading both the original post and people's comments, there are some discrepancies that need to be corrected.

On 4/15/2019 at 9:30 AM, Calecute said:

With telesci you can get anything to/from any coordinate in any z level. So if you know your cordinates, you can get anything you want, or get something or someone anywhere you want. If people have suit sensors maxed you can also get anyone.

1.) The telepad can only teleport objects from z levels 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So no, you can't teleport anything you want from any z level. And, as I will touch on with depot, there are areas where telescience is not permitted.

2.) A large amount of space ruins are procedurally generated, all non-procedural telesciencable loot can be found by a google doc I created here. After using telescience dozens and dozens of times for multiple rounds, I've found that the combat gloves are the most teleported item I get from space ruins (even though there's a free double barrel shotgun, white ship circuit board, infinite hardsuits, and abandoned crates).

3.) Anything important that should not be telescience accessible that is not procedural are on z level 2 (admin ship, abductor ship, golem ship default spawn). All procedural space ruins are on levels 7-whatever the max z level is, which again is not possible with the limited 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.

4.) As far as "if your suit sensors are maxed you can get anyone," this is true unless the target is inside something with density, say a terror spider cocoon or being buckled to the ambulance. That or they're on a z level not listed above, therefore making it impossible to even use the teleporter.

On 4/15/2019 at 6:01 AM, Tarhalindur said:

That's not telescience, those are telepads.

Those work by being "linked" to another telepad, if I am not mistaken.

They're called quantum pads to be specific, and yes they can only be linked to eachother hence their harmless nature and the reason why I use them as a "public hub" rather than say an actual teleporter hub or a public telepad setup.

On 4/15/2019 at 5:10 AM, MrMagolor said:

Perhaps emagging the telesci console allows it to bypass those blockers (only the onstation ones), so that antags can craftily complete steal objectives, while still preventing powergamey Depot looting for even antags?

There is a flag that can applied to an area that, when attempted to teleport to, will make the console bleep "ERROR! Target destination unreachable due to interference." This flag can be found in places like cent com, I believe the escape shuttle, the syndie depot, and probably more random places.

ALL AREAS ON THE CYBERIAD ITSELF ARE NOT PROTECTED BY THIS FLAG.

On 4/15/2019 at 4:28 AM, Kyet said:

Problem is, if we're at the point of altering the map (adding jammers) specifically to counter telescience, perhaps you're right that we should just remove telescience instead.

Yea the flag added to an area is the map altering bit that was specifically designed to prevent teleporting, so it kinda already exists....

 

As for the topic of calculators nobody friggen does the math by hand. It's not a question of "they're out there, and some scumbags are using them to robust telescience" its just plainly a part of telescience as it is. The actual reason why this hinders a telescience user is not difficult math but the fact that you have to manually enter target coordinates, press calculate, then enter the bearing and elevation. This stops users from pulling moving targets, as has been a real pain in the ass when I'm trying to pull a dead body being dragged by a spider... Also, absolutley nothing can stop people from using calculators, literally nothing within the realm of possibility.

 

Ok now for me bein mad

Whoever thinks that telescience has no non-antag purposes is absolutly undeniaably unequivalally wrong. There is no debate, there is a 100% productive and legitamte use for telescience. Telescience paramedic.

If anyone wants to argue with me I will literally join any round, fire open telescience with a one-way quantum pad leading to medbay next to the telepad (or have my own cloning setup next to the telescience setup) and count the number of bodies I save from otherwise permanent death. There is a good chance somebody who commented on this thread has been saved by me, or has used my quantum pad network, or has been unlucky enough to be a rogue AI.

Spoiler

 

As for telescience being easy to setup, yea it's stupid easy to setup. As soon as you get 6 bluespace crystals your friggen done, literally 3 minutes to build and calibrate the offsets.

 

As an antagonist I find telescience as an omega cheese, but only in certain circumstances. In order to properly use telescience to complete objectves, you have create stuff (eg bombs) to actually use it. This makes it slightely less robust, however still powerful. Personally after 500 hours of paradise I have never once been killed by telescience; however, I have used telescience to greentext myself as well as subvert rogue AIs.

 

My suggestion to nerf telescience (speaking from massive amounts of experience) prevents two of the most powerful aspects of telescience that I personally abuse.

1.) There is no area on the cyberiad thats protected with the no tele flag

2.) You get 20 something teleports per calibration

My suggestion: Make it so you have to re-calibrate for every teleport and add the flag to certain places like the armory and the AI sat.

 

If anyone has any questions regarding telescience or science in general, I am walking encyclopedia.

[MrMagolor]

See... Stuff like telescience paramedic, teleporting people that, in your example, are being pulled by spiders... Makes being an antag more hell than it is already. In fact, every single example you've given counts as powergaming in a sense.

 

And I think 95% of the station population wouldn't notice a difference if it was removed, besides the powergamers and/or turbonerds.

Edited April 18, 2019 by MrMagolor
Forgot to add something

[Regular Joe]

I'm not into sci, so got not much to say on the topic concerning mechanics, but I do however find telescience a positive thing.

Antag and crew-side, too. Crewside, namely, during mass casualty events, xenos, spiders, blob, as mentioned there. When the crew really start to be in the receiving end, the evils have already gained the upper hand and then telesci is an one way to keep on fighting. That is, mind you, probably the point when the one who would do such thing becomes aware of what's happening, unless they're very keenly monitoring the crewmonitor. I've seen Crangus to do telesaving (not many else, lately, around my times to play); it isn't that OP as the ones saved that way have a good delay before they can go back into the fight, because of their injuries. Otherwise they'd just die. Though spiders and xeno need their toll to reproduce, but then in other hand, there are prey with no sensors on, and I'd say things are already bad for the crew when a telescientist becomes aware of it - and when that point has been reached it's going to be anyway tough time for the crew to survive. And moreover, even if some Crangus then telesaves people, it needs a chain of other things to be present, to be an actual threat for those antags, namely, a working medbay.

And then, it's an odd game mechanism. More mechanisms mean more fun for the nerds who want to explore their usage in different situations. Also, as a mechanism, it is only available for the people who make effort into learning it and who then, during the shift, spend their time to make the machines and work around. That's so one viable strategy to be used, then. You could do big bad or big good things otherwise, not to mention genetics, well, many things if you know what you're doing. Few days ago xenobiologist made a ton of alienqueens, hivelords and spacebears to fight blitz nukies. Crew won, though not only thanks-to them. Then again, that kind of stuff happens once in a blue moon, as a telemaster scientist is quite rare, after all.

Maybe it could be, as a first aid, nerfed the way Jazz suggests it, by making teleporting just less powerful by reducing the calibration interval from the twenty shots. So that you just couldn't teleport hordes of people rapidly, but rather you had to decide on which you use it, on which you don't. More cool way to do nerfs would concern the math side of it, but that might be hard to do so, that it reasonably adds to the difficulty, though as I'm not playing sci I've really got nothing to say on that topic. Just wanted to say that imo telesci is quite cool. Nerfing instead of removing, if you'd like that, personally I'm fine with it as is.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Regular Joe

[Dinarzad]

54 minutes ago, MrMagolor said:

See... Stuff like telescience paramedic, teleporting people that, in your example, are being pulled by spiders... Makes being an antag more hell than it is already. In fact, every single example you've given counts as powergaming in a sense.

 

And I think 95% of the station population wouldn't notice a difference if it was removed, besides the powergamers and/or turbonerds.

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.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Dinarzad

[bryanayalalugo]

45 minutes ago, Dinarzad said:

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

Science in GENERAL is full of issues, but that isn't the topic on hand.

45 minutes ago, Dinarzad said:

And lastly, the counter to Telescience is pretty easy.

Not if you are a blob or a regular AI (who can have their cameras removed to shut down the area the telescience equipment is in), none of which can easily move their cores, and especially the AI getting the coordinates to where it is is largely trivial since it has the same spawning point each round. Traitor AIs, while they can counter telescience, can only do much, besides fully disabling science (e.g. destroying all the RnD consoles). I had been a traitor AI where in two times I have died, it was due to telescience, one from where a crewmember teleported in in the wall behind my core, with no chance of me being able to attack the crewmember, the other time ended with me being hit with a BSA after a gps was teleported in (which I wasn't nor have I armed the doomsday device.

1 hour ago, Jazz said:

2.) A large amount of space ruins are procedurally generated, all non-procedural telesciencable loot can be found by a google doc I created here. After using telescience dozens and dozens of times for multiple rounds, I've found that the combat gloves are the most teleported item I get from space ruins (even though there's a free double barrel shotgun, white ship circuit board, infinite hardsuits, and abandoned crates).

That's just overly cheesey, knowing the near exact spots items are in.

 

Chances are that telescience will not removed, considering how hard it is to even nerf science (and even /tg/ of all places thought telescience was a issue and removed it).

[Dinarzad]

25 minutes ago, bryanayalalugo said:

Science in GENERAL is full of issues, but that isn't the topic on hand.

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?
 

Quote

Not if you are a blob or a regular AI (who can have their cameras removed to shut down the area the telescience equipment is in), none of which can easily move their cores, and especially the AI getting the coordinates to where it is is largely trivial since it has the same spawning point each round. Traitor AIs, while they can counter telescience, can only do much, besides fully disabling science (e.g. destroying all the RnD consoles). I had been a traitor AI where in two times I have died, it was due to telescience, one from where a crewmember teleported in in the wall behind my core, with no chance of me being able to attack the crewmember, the other time ended with me being hit with a BSA after a gps was teleported in (which I wasn't nor have I armed the doomsday device.

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?
 

25 minutes ago, bryanayalalugo said:

That's just overly cheesey, knowing the near exact spots items are in.

 

Chances are that telescience will not removed, considering how hard it is to even nerf science (and even /tg/ of all places thought telescience was a issue and removed it).

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?

Edited April 18, 2019 by Dinarzad

[Tayswift]

Imo, we should not rely on OOC factors to ensure an interesting play experience. Right now, telescience's power is only offset by the fact that it's obscure and not many people bother with it. But like with telecomms, we reduced the complexity and also its power to make it more accessible and less frustrating to deal with when someone who knows the system too well comes along.

There definitely have to be IC limits for instant teleportation from anywhere. Maybe it costs resources and has a cooldown or it can't teleport alive mobs or things above a certain mass or size. Maybe only pocket size items can be teleported. Teleporting a GPS in and then using the BSA is frustrating for the AI player but it also seems kind of creative and potentially interesting, as it's using resources that aren't always available. However, teleporting in a player into a wall behind the AI is kind of boring and gamey. It might be nice to find a way to limit telescience enough so that we can get rid of the frustrating parts but keep some of the more interesting uses, if possible.

Nevertheless, "improve don't remove" is not always practical, and in my opinion, as it stands right now, telescience's removal seems like a net benefit to the gameplay experience. If we can't figure out a way to make telescience a fun mechanic, then it should be removed.

[Jazz]

My god the bricks of replies this post is getting....

Alright lemme just knock out some conjectures out there about robusting helpless antags with telescience. I have never ever won terror spiders or xenomorphs while doing telescience paramedic, nor have I ever seen anyone besides myself participate in telescience during such events. Literally friggen everybody ghosts to try and posses spider bodies and xeno bodies, which is probably the only reason they win a good portion of the time. I have done telescience paramedic with my own self sustaining cloning setup multiple times during crisis, and every single time the crew lost. Because I don't know if anyones noticed but do terror spiders and xenomorphs have a hard time winning? Have you ever actually legitimately yourself in game seen someone use telescience to robust a spider or xenomorph in such a gamebreaking way that you actually took the time to think to yourself, "hot damn telescience is really making it difficult for these antagonists..."

Also just to be clear there already exists a flag that can be applied to any area that prevents any and all teleportation, hence replacing this "jammer" yall keep talking about. If you want to add a jammer for actual players in science to go and build to protect the AI then by all means I'll code it for ya.

 

4 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

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.

Fun fact, mining ruin locations are not proceduaral and that toolbox you speak of is on that google doc I posted previously. Also fun fact, precious metal spawns are also not procedular (however it works by probability so it may or may not spawn in the pre coded locations).

 

5 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

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

I got some private mixes that I spent hours on if yall wanna see instant death.... I even teleported one of those mixes onto my target once and it was messy... Chemistry is omega broke but again it's still around because it takes practice, motivation, knowledge, and access to actually use it to your advantage. Same with telescience.

6 hours ago, MrMagolor said:

 teleporting people that, in your example, are being pulled by spiders...

I said you can't teleport people being pulled by spiders...

 

By the way this is how you robust the AI via telescience (imagine I swiped it with an intellicard). That's using a bluespace wormhole projector by the way.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Jazz

[Abydos]

There does seem to be a lot of miscommunication based on telescience within the topic, much like Jazz said. I think trying to break each and every complaint / pros for telescience will show that it's not as "Robust" and "Broken" as people claim it to be.

 

Quote

"Telescience requires programs outside the game"

Telescience is nearly broken by itself from the start, unless you're a super computer that knows everything wrong / right and how to do telescience immediately, you'll never successfully do it without a program. But a program itself doesn't even help you to begin with, the programs that you are talking about only help you with coordinates that you ALREADY have.. and even then, nearly every program (Such as one that I've used myself) you need to calibrate both the program and the telescience in-game to even make it successful. Fun fact: You know that calibrate in telescience for the crystals? There's a chance that after every teleport, that the calibration turns wrong, especially if you re-calibrate the crystals, as it will change the whole of telescience, meaning you have to redo from the start. "Sadly, teleportations (the exact number is randomized every calibration) the Telepad will decalibrate. This means that the telepad simply will not work, and when you hit recalibrate again, you will have to recalibrate your offsets."

Quote

"Telescience can easily help traitors"

In a way, it certainly can help traitors but this is ENTIRELY subjective. You can say that a traitor can use telescience for anything.. stealing an item / object, stealing a locker, stealing <insert whatever here>, teleporting a person or even teleporting a bomb onto someone to blow them up. But EVERYTHING is subjective in this way. Let's just magically say that you know the coordinates for where an item you have to steal is.. what's to say the item is still there? What's to say someone hasn't already taken it or walking around with it? What's to even say you got the right coordinates? How are you going to take it off the person constantly walking around, with their coordinates changing every second? Another fun fact: Unless that person has sensors onto full, they'll NEVER have full coordinates to figure out where you even are. And even if you did manage to get lucky and say teleport a bomb onto someone / somewhere and it goes off, if that person survives / is SR'd / cloned, they'll scream of a magical teleporting bomb, and who does that point the finger to? Whoever is in science, meaning a full crackdown on science and telescience being deconstructed. And there is a delay on teleporting, both in receive and send.. of at least 3-5 seconds, enough time for anything to go wrong or happen.

 

Quote

"People abuse telescience to get into areas / locations"

As Jazz pointed out, this can easily be fixed by marking an area with the teleportation block flag, which most important areas in the game usually do have. Plus what exactly are you going to do? You're a traitor or just someone mucking about, and you teleport yourself to any of theses locations (And their respected outcomes):

Syndie Outpost: You teleport over, 1) You die to a syndie NPC. 2) You get shot to death by a turret. 3) You just realized you stranded yourself on a place with no communication, no space suit, and didn't tell anyone you were doing this because you wanted the selfish loot to yourself. 4) You have someone to help you back, but mucked up by moving and forgot which tile exactly pulls you back, as there's no communication at all.

Armory: You teleport over, 1) You get robusted by Armsky and announce your presense to every officer in security, you get arrested. 2) You teleport guns to yourself.. infront of all your co-workers who then report you to security. 3) You do it stealthy like, until security notices their stuff is missing and comes to the conclusion.

Vault: You teleport over, 1) Realize your an idiot and got yourself stuck for the Ai to find and get arrested. 2) You bring the nuke to you, good job.. now how are you going to hide it from everyone?

AI Upload: You teleport over, 1) Immediately stunned by turrets and robusted by the heads on the bridge.

Everything is subjective in the location you choose and the preparations you make for it, and even if you are FULLY prepared, there's nothing to say you'll ever succeed or win. Especially if you're doing it alone. And as stated before, EVERY z level is designed to change. Maybe one round you have the white ship in z level 1 near the station.. maybe another round it's at z level 3 near the engi outpost. And some z level specific stuff don't spawn at all, it's all randomized, the locations too.
 

Quote

"Crew abuse telescience to win <insert spawned antag here>"

No, the same situations happen as described above. How are you going to save someone from a spider if they are constantly moving? And as far as I'm aware, you can't teleport cocoons, meaning whatever people the spiders have.. will be stuck there unless freed. And what exactly are you going to use telescience for against the spiders or xenos? Trying to teleport someone to you, one spider stands on the tile.. you have a new friend come to bite your face off. 

 

Quote

"Telescience is too easy to make and abuse"

It's really not.. do you know the materials and such needed for it?

1x Telepad Control Board
1x Telepad board
1x Console screen
11x Cable Coil
10x Metal Sheets
2x Glass
5x Bluespace Crystals
1x Quadratic Capacitor

So not only do you need the glass and materials to make the telepad boards, you also need Bluespace crystals.. which is rare on mining to find, requiring a full 5 meesh, xenobiology to be ontop of slimes or artifical bluespace crystals which even then costs diamonds and uranium. But also a Quadratic Capactior, which you can only get by Power level 6/7, which also requires xenobiology. And then there's the random off-shoots of when you even make it.

It just seems like there's a lot of miscommunication, and not taking into account various factors, while complaining about something because "It's OP". Robotists with materials in 30 minutes, can make Gygax's for all of security. Science with materials in 40-50 minutes, can make enough AEGs, X-ray implants and various other stuff for security to last them all shift. Chemisty + Science chem + Toxins can make enough bombs, explosives, grenades and the like (Especially Science Chem with reusable cases) in a flat 5 minutes to destroy, kill, or breach multiple areas on the station, especially with the latest update to chem dispensers. Medical, with sciences help, can have 4-6 cloning pod cloning people all at once. Genetists can randomly fire hulk and start smashing everything in sight. A traitor with the right know how can literally build themselves an AI upload.

And those situations are deliberate and happen every single round, yet, no one calls them "OP" for the sake of "They help" when they literally make certain people / crew / antag's life a living hell. Imagine you're an antag, got all the best loot, best gear, holopara, suit to survive in space while taunting and having ago at security about how you're getting away with things. Then all of a sudden one the officer has an x-ray laser gun, with x-ray vision / implant and manages to get you into crit within a few shots that you can barely react too. Telescience is constantly random, it's barely OP.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Abydos

[Jazz]

I'm not taking a side or trying to shoot you down, I think what you said makes a good point. I'm just going to clear things up with your comment @Abydos

 

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

EVERY z level is designed to change. Maybe one round you have the white ship in z level 1 near the station.. maybe another round it's at z level 3 near the engi outpost. And some z level specific stuff don't spawn at all, it's all randomized, the locations too

All loot on z levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are not procedural. All important loot that should be not accessible to the public is on z level 2. All procedural loot is on levels 7-something, which is completely randomized. Loot on 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 is 100% consistent every round and all coordinate locations are on my google doc. The white is where it is until somebody installs the circuit and pilots it (omega rare).

 

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

Syndie Outpost: You teleport over,

Again I don't understand why the syndie depot keeps coming up, you cannot teleport to or from the syndie depot, it has that no tele flag.

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

Realize your an idiot and got yourself stuck

Bluespace wormhole projector can instantly guaranteed teleport you back. The hand tele also works but it leaves a fat portal behind, so that's what the AI would notice.

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

And some z level specific stuff don't spawn at all, it's all randomized, the locations too.

As stated earlier only loot on z levels 7-something are randomized.

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

1x Quadratic Capacitor

Any capacitor works, the quadratic one unlocks power 80 and allows for less crystals to be needed to unlock power levels.

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

Telescience is nearly broken by itself from the start, unless you're a super computer that knows everything wrong / right and how to do telescience immediately, you'll never successfully do it without a program

Fun fact: Projectile physics doesn't take a steven hawking. But whatever I get your point cause nobody in their right mind would do it by hand....(yea I did before I knew about calculators...)

1 hour ago, Abydos said:

You know that calibrate in telescience for the crystals? There's a chance that after every teleport, that the calibration turns wrong, especially if you re-calibrate the crystals, as it will change the whole of telescience, meaning you have to redo from the start. "Sadly, teleportations (the exact number is randomized every calibration) the Telepad will decalibrate. This means that the telepad simply will not work, and when you hit recalibrate again, you will have to recalibrate your offsets."

Umm I mean if it's happened to you before then it exists but from my experience and after looking through the code to confirm there is no "random chance" for the teleporter to loose calibration. The exact number of teleportations after pressing the recalibration is a random number between 30 and 40. All teleportations that take place between those numbers use the exact same offsets and they don't change. Once you run out of teleports it literally won't work until you recalibrate.

 

Also doing the GPS meme with calculators takes 20 seconds if you know what your doing.

[necaladun]

We've tried all kinds of changes and nerfs for telescience over the years. Although it's better than when it was round-start setup and just using the normal station co-ords....it's never gotten to a place where I'm ok with it.

 

I'd love some form of star-trek-style beam-me-up-scotty system. But I've never been happy with how it is in any incarnation we've made.

 

I'd support removal.

[bryanayalalugo]

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/11374

[Mitchs98]

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