Syndicate Lavabase Ruin (Lavaland)

[Kyet]

I'm considering doing a PR to update the syndicate lavabase ruin on lavaland.

Current ideas I am considering:

1. Removing the "syndicate cargo shuttle terminal" computer in the NE cargo area, as it does nothing, and when you interact with it, it just displays a "missing shuttle" error.
2. Removing the two sets of mining gear along the south wall. Aside from the fact they're typically unusable (how, exactly, are syndies on the base expected to cross the lava moat?), they also encourage syndies to break the rules by leaving the lavabase when they're not supposed to.
3. Adding some new areas. One person suggested a bigger explosives testing area - the current area is arguably too small to be testing maxcaps in.
4. Adding more designated job practice areas. Functionally the reason that the syndie lavabase is useful is that it lets you practice some jobs (viro, scichem) off-station in an area where it doesn't matter if you mess up. Perhaps, with some minor mapping changes, it could be expanded to allow the practice of some more jobs. Botany is somewhat off-limits as there is already a ruin for that. Still, perhaps other jobs (chef, xenobio, toxins, some parts of eng/atmos, etc) could be practiced here with a few map edits.
5. Extensive rework or removal of the syndicate comms agent. For example, moving them from the lavaland syndiebase to another ruin. Or giving them the ability to notify all syndicate on station that they exist (once per round, does NOT require the on-station traitors to have radio keys). Or adding some form of counterplay that command can use to eliminate comms agents that reveal themselves, but at a cost. So any comms agent who insists on doing stupid things like talking on common radio using an obviously fake ID can be dealt with without command having to ask CC to do so. Or removing their ability to change the PDA server password roundstart and lock the crew out of the PDA system. Or something else?
6. Adding some cryopods so that scientists/agents can cryo themselves if they need to leave. Unsure if this would free up new spawners for new ones to come in. At the very least though if they need to disconnect they can, without leaving SSD bodies behind.
7. Make the TG weapons_auth implants given to the lavabase syndies actually work. They're meant to stop anyone but the syndies firing their sniper rifles - but the implants don't work. Either the implants should work, or they should be removed. This might also reduce the incentive for miners to raid the base, as it will be harder (but not impossible) for them to get access to high grade syndicate weapons.
8. Removing the atmos canisters from the lavabase atmos setup. They're not even connected to the ports - they're only there for looks and when the lavabase blows up (which it does regularly) they create a much bigger fire (by additional O2/plasma) than would otherwise happen.
9. Converting the entire lavabase into a space ruin. Since syndies can't leave the lavabase and it shouldn't be worth miners attacking it... why exactly have it on lavaland anyway?
10. Add an emagged teleporter beacon, so that syndies who emag into teleporter can use the teleporter to get there. As well as possibly some method of getting back. So syndies can visit the lavabase more easily, without having to traverse lavaland.

If you have suggestions for syndie lavabase tweaks, or opinions about these ideas, post them here please.

[thatdanguy23]

1. It would be nice to get the syndicate cargo shuttle to actually function, but given how finicky shuttle code is, we're fine without it.
2. I approve of removing the mining gear for the sake of discouraging syndicates from exiting their base - however in the case of an ash drake or bubblegum being lead to the base, perhaps have some sort of emergency kit so that they can escape? Unless the intent is for them to die with the ship, which is fair.
3. Creating a section to let you practice engineering or atmospherics would work, but it would have to be a space ruin to do so - your worry further in the list about the atmos canisters creating a much bigger boom when the bomb goes off won't be a large issue if it's isolated in space. Otherwise, giving them the space and equipment to practice more on-station roles would be good.
4. Cryopods would be a nice idea.
5. Getting the implants to work would be wonderful, yeah. I suppose it wouldn't be as relevant if the syndibase became a space ruin though.
6. The emagged teleporter beacon is a great idea.

 

My only objection is the syndicate comms agent, and that's just because removing it would be kinda lame. I understand the comms agent role is abused to be stupid over the common channel, but punishing traitors for something out of their control by removing an IC advisor isn't a great idea. Unfortunately I have no suggestions to replace this. Removing their ability to change the PDA server password would be very good, though I'm not sure how to achieve this.

 

I say it would be neat to implement a working shuttle and the teleporter because I can imagine that, in the case of a traitor requiring additional gear or ordering a crate, they would have to enter the base to retrieve it, or would have to send their stolen goods back on the shuttle in order to have their objectives be valid (or create new ones that tie in with the base) - at least on the rounds where the syndicate base exists. This is just me dreaming of a neat thing that's not totally feasible, mind you.

[AffectedArc07]

Heres my weigh in on each point

1. If the console doesnt even work, I say purge the hell out of it
2. This seems like an administration issue which I cant comment on
3. A bigger bomb test area is needed, or make a "bomb testing machine", which can simulate bomb explosions (Or rather, warp them to an area on Z2 and measure the explosion that way, then relay the stuff back)
4. It might be nice for more off-station jobs but at the same time adding stuff like a atmos setup would be too complex for a ghost role in my opinion
5. The syndicate PDA console should be read only, and the radio channels should be read only aside from the syndicate radio channel (as in they can provide intel for other traitors). Or make it so it broadly states in the ghost role rules that you have to stay stealthed and you will likely be rolebanned if you dont. I can see the comms agent still being able to speak on the channels being an ok thing (Such as impersonating a dead member of security)
6. Cryopods are good but would likely need tweaking to make them free the ghost role slot, and to make sure someone cant cryo then take the exact same slot for infinite equipment
7. Fully agree with this point, its not referenced anywhere else and hurts me on an internal level
8. Sure
9. No comment
10. Maybe a traitor item which allows a traitor to put down their own teleporter (similar to the briefcase launchpad) where they can travel to and from the lavabase.

Edited July 25, 2020 by AffectedArc07

[Carthusia]

I LOVE the emagged tele idea.

I've always found it odd to say be a bio weapons scientist on the lavaland outpost, but then you have all these horrible, evil, and lethal viruses you've made all shift, but almost no way to get them to agents in the field to use.

 

I also kind of like the idea of other jobs there as well, areas where you can practice and not have to worry about rushing it on the main station.

Though if a chef was ever added to the outpost, they would need a couple of  grower plots and a seed vendor/nutrient vendor for the plants as without RND or botany, any chef operation is extremely limited, so at least allowing them some ability to grow crops keeps them going, trying new recipes and lets them learn how to be self sufficient when botanists are AWOL while also learning the basics of botany while not going into the inner depths of the systems.

 

Maybe add more "evil" kinds of seeds to a syndie base botany lab if one is added? Just seeds that grow into monsters, explosives, poison gas grenades shaped like potatoes, basically all the horrible evil stuff you would just LOVE to experiment with aboard the station, but under normal circumstances they are a no-go. The syndie base provides an agent who teleports in a bag FULL of evil killer tomatoes grown to not attack them, that would be pretty cool.

Edited July 25, 2020 by BlackDog

[Eler00]

I always figured the shuttle console was there as a fluff thing, to explain how the base is supplied, even if no shuttle is available at the moment.

[McRamon]

My 2 cents:

1) moving it to reachable space will create outpost/mechanic war each round. I dont think its good idea. Though having it on lavaland is also pointless. Not sure what to do about it, maybe surround it by field simmilar to syndicate space ruin, which can be deactivate/reactivated by syndies inside

2) monkey cube dispenser

3) firing range to test ballistic weapons 

4) holodeck, but with more combat oriented options for syndies to practice

5) little botany area to practice botany wmd

6) totally agree with making all they have read only. They should have zero impact on round outside of maybe some help to syndicate agents on cyberiad.

[Spook]

I've been personally trying to roll comms agent to prevent trolling and testing the waters of the sorts of people who play bio weapons and writing down what they want to see and what we would fax for, after discussing with a few people I've got a general idea of things players want to see from this when they play it and il bring my thought about the changes aswell.

Things people want.

1. More diverse weapons, even if its non lethal, almost every shift I see people gravitate towards the donksoft for wars and even drop their snipers to have more donk. Slow, powerful weapons suck to have and the stetchkin is honestly the prefered weapon by most people. (Snipers mostly used for the scope and the pest removing ability being the 1 shot)

2. People want more stuff to do. Be it a botany section, cooking, or bomb making. Making chem bombs and being basically unable to test them is terrible, and when you do its large damage to your station or it blows up chem and gets boring. If you have a fridge with a ingredients and only 3 boards and a microwave lacking all the kitchen machines why even have it? Either give all the required things for cooking or remove it and give liquid food rations and donk pockets with syndicake snacks.

3. More protection, people get paranoid as they should when they hear an RCD or a miners KA too close to the station, this can be fixed with the space idea but then again, that comes with its own issues. After this paranoia is comfirmed everyone takes out their sniper and don't hang out in bar/rp and wait for people to attempt to raid the station and get deleted by a 50.cal. No fun for either side and I've tried to keep people alive/fulton pack their body to station for revival.

4. More RP. I see this as a perfect RP lavaland spawner be it reluctant kidnapping and put on the station or be it a loyal syndicate agent whos well known to other syndicate station personal. I've personally got 2 I try and keep as a passion project and this brings me to my 5th point.

5. Name picking and more speices picking. I'd love to be able to pick a name, and have a title aswell as being a species I've unlocked via karma, being a diona is fun till its not and having some varity in species and names instead of 3 idiots named SYNDICATE BIO WEAPON AGENT and one bigger nerd whos named properly with a voice changer would be a nice change. Even if a pretense is forced apon the name I would think that would be better. (Such as officer for comms agent and operative for the bio agents. Having a prompt and a title added might be confusing but adds alittle specialty to it)

6. RnD or something progressive to do, kind of like the kitchen thing but having a box of deluxe parts and being able to make more for investing time and effort into a small portion of the station would feel rewarding and give you something to do. Faxing needs to seem like a last resort for an item, you have an amazing idea and everyone on station agrees or you need confirmation to blow the station from a hostile invasion.

7. An armory. Sounds bad and it is alittle but gives the station broader jobs, some people just like guns in this game and would LOVE to give them to agents on the cyberiad who would teleport in (from the idea of station being in space and having a teleporter) Even if its just ammo and a few guns having a shooting range for that one guy who wants to try weapons or even RP a cranky old man who "back in his hay day" had more "reliable" weapons would be fun and interesting and give alittle more life for being an agent. Not just NPCs who agro for opening a locker.

Onto the ideas of Kyets post.

1. Yeah its trash.

2. Yes.

3. My post has ideas.

4. Again, chef or armory or RnD just something causal and something progressive, one of each for the 3 agents to divide (sci chem being one and viro already existing and never used could be removed... but then again BIO WEAPONS.)

5. Remove their voice changer, allow name picking and I like the idea of them having the ability to announce their presence to on station agents. The jobs fun when done properly and not trolly with the correct people. I admit I used to use it to be memey but have been refraining and been having alot more fun since most admins seem to see me not using my voice changer abusively and sometimes recieving an access tuner to aid agents via the on station cams. Comms agent should really be intel and slight assistance instead of "haha funny AI rogue" I also think alittle attention should be given to their loadout being alittle lack luster being just an esword and stetchkin, possibly spawning with alittle more ammo and an esword could be enough.

6. Cryo pods are a needed addition no matter what, even just one in a recluse corner would be amazing. 

7. I honestly really dislike this idea, Im not that savvy with the code behind it but it seems like alot of work to prevent crew from using loot gained from raiding them, I feel raiding them should be a full assault sort of thing with syndicate crew knowing and preparing alittle and crew gaining large quantities of S class should be reserved to loud assaults not welding in stealthly and stunning the crew, killing them and stealing it all. A shield idea sounds good, still breakable but would cause alot more noise then welding or removing a wall with an RCD.

8. Duh.

9. That seems like alot better of an idea, giving the ability to be a few things. Larger, have more items, have a bomb range if needed, being more recluse and being a point of a large scale attack if its extended and an event is wanted to be used on the base like reverse nukies. 

10. If number 9 is to be followed through this allows easy access for agents, allows identification of actual agents then people who are faking it to break in (authenticator computer to open a door) And generally would make this area alot safer then depot since the depot being in "Green" and the mechanic just showing up turns it delta, this would be a player controlled, RP dependant spawner with tons of potential and preventing miners from getting even more powerful then they already are.

In closing I really enjoy lavaland spawners in general but syndi bio especially since it allows actual RP and general safety from miners even if its only for 40 minutes. Its alot better then being a diona growing gat fruit, better then the beach could ever be and has more safety then ashwalkers. I really and honestly hope to see new development about syndicate bio weapons and alittle more love given to other spawners if this one ends up really good.

Thank you for reading!

 

[Grimstock]

As I has played T-Comm Agent and as Bioweapons Scientists previously and accidentally blew myself up like two or three times already whenever I was trying to create explosive grenades for the Traitors to use, here are my cents as one of the syndicate personnel you should looking into while revising;

1) As bioweapons scientists whenever I decided to roll out as one, I have a bad habit of blowing myself up and possibility blowing up my following scientists along with the chemistry area. So to gross over my complains about whole destructionness of my attempt at creating bombs, I actually would be appreciative to see notes on a table about creating explosives without blowing yourself or the chemistry lab up into smoke. Or creating toxic smoke bombs, that's a petard I wouldn't want to backfire. My usual experience as a scientist tends to be awful and I'd imagine blowing up the lab is also awful for other people I worked with who decided to play as a Scientist.

2) On top of being a bioweapons scientist, I actually would be also appreciative of being able to teleport syringes that are loaded up on deadly chemicals or anaesthesia to help our agents to put their intended victim to sleep. So a solution for scientists would be to implement a area inside the Syndicate Base that would teleport grenade-sized explosives or syringes. My experience as a scientist tends to be tad confusing if I want to directly supply a Traitor.

3) As a T-Comm Agent, and moving away from being a scientist, there seems to be not much to do beside monitoring the comm chatters. Suckiness of the fact is that should the game feature Traitors and the cost of getting the syndicate comm does put a small dent into the crystal budget, you can't really make contact to them without getting a PDA from somewhere in order to start communicate with them. So as a solution to the problem, or at least for me that is, is to have Traitor players who are spawned when offer of T-Comm for the ghosts to spawn as should be given free, if modified, syndicate encryption key so that they can communicate with the T-Comm Agent so that as one I or someone else who decided to be a T-Comm Agent would be able to help and provide intelligence to the operatives on Security Officers' locations and either or not there are people in the room the Traitors are outside of and want to hack the door or e-mag into.

4) On top of the base having its own shuttle, well..... the controls I think should be locked and only unlocked upon T-Comm Agent's fax to Syndicate about utilizing  it to infiltrate Cybranid in order to accomplish a goal or two the T-Comm Agent want to accomplish physically. As Admins, if they were to stray from accomplishing their stated goals according to their fax and you are feeling some sort of cringe then as a counter to Agent not accomplishing their goal and doing f alls then there should be a internal macrobomb that could be remotely activated or activated by the agent themselves should they ended up getting captured by Security or one of the crew with stunprod and cable coils restrain.

 

Alright, those 4 are all I could think of giving to the Team Syndicates and furthering what they can do as a support network for Traitors.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Grimstock