Require Slimes to Play by Regular Antag Standards

[LtGerbal]

As a CE, I can testify that the mortal enemy of any experienced engineer and engine tech is the slime.

They can put a player into crit in seconds (and kill them only a few seconds later), they're difficult (if not impossible) to kill alone, even with fire extinguishers, and they get a pass to basically just grief as much as they want. It's just not fun.

I cannot count the amount of times a slime is the only reason an engine totally delammed. Destroying the air alarm, the APC, the pipes, the filters, and even the doors to the SM chamber. I've seen them do it all. And to add insult to injury, I have never seen nor heard of a slime even get a note for delamming an engine. In fact, I have seen multiple admins justify their right to delam at will simply because "They are considered an antag."

I've seen slimes go around station and kill handfulls of people for no real reason other than "unga", including the captain, and get told nothing. Even hijackers, terrors, blobs, and xenos get told to ahelp before hand as a rule of thumb. Slimes can spawn and instantly make a delam unsalvageable in actual seconds with no repercussions.

Who is this fun for besides them?

The slime's ability to kill a healthy individual in mere seconds with said individual having a slim chance of getting away is just not fun.

The slime's ability to trash the station without repercussions is fun for nobody. Sure it gives engineers work to do, but it's all easy work until you get ambushed, eaten, and left for dead in maints. It's not fun to get ambushed, eaten, and left for dead in maints. I would know. Happens to me all the time.

It's not fun for the entire crew to have their round cut a full hour (or more) short because an amateur antag pulled a pipe up and winds up spawning a slime that trashes the air alarm, the APC, the door, and every pipe they find, and becomes responsible for a tesla being spawned. We came to play a game, not go home early.

So, if we're not having fun, who is? Just the slime? Isn't the point of a game to have the most people have fun as possible?

I know that the hijacker and other critter antags like terrors, xenos and blobs are allowed to kill at will, but they actually have a reason.

I have my own opinions on hijacker's abilities in this regard, but that's a whole other post. Not to mention that that horse has been beaten, burried, dug up, and beaten again.

DISCLAIMER:
I don't think slime should be removed.
I don't think slimes shouldn't be allowed to kill people or to cause damage to the station.
 

What I DO think:
Slimes should be held up to some sort of standard. If there is a standard in place, I am not aware of it and I have certainly never seen it enforced. 

Maybe these unknown standards are regularly enforced, but I find the notion that in my personal experience, and in the personal experiences of people I have spoken to about this, that we have never seen a slime player actually get in trouble or even talked to for these actions difficult to believe.

If you guys have had different experiences, please feel free to share.

And if there ARE standards they are held up to that I am not aware of, please make me aware of them so I can ahelp it in the future.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by LtGerbal

[Rurik]

I can attest to the pyro slimes being an absolute nightmare to fight if the controller plays to kill. 

Even if they don't randomly murder without warning, and give off semi-rp lines like "You look tasty" before going for the kill, they'll still get the kill most of the time unless the victim books it immediately.

Personally I don't mind this by itself, I even kind of like it, however a problem arises when said dangerous as fuck slime decides "I'm going to kill every engineer that tries to fix the SM, and I'm going to do it at meth speed from the heat." Or they systematically begin to kill all of science, or medbay, targeting doctors and people in surgery, etc etc.

If the above happens, the slimes impact on the round can drastically outweigh what is meant from a non-major event mob.

[Charliminator]

3 hours ago, LtGerbal said:

the air alarm, the APC, the pipes,

This is against the rules already. Ahelp this.

[Rythen]

Yeah this really falls under rule 6 with playing antags responsibly.  If you think a slime is going over the top with their actions then be sure to ahelp it and it can be addressed on a case by case basis.

From my perspective, slimes shouldn't be attempting to destroy components of the engine to try and cause a delam.  However, being that they are spawned by the engine, I do think it's expected that they may indirectly contribute to a delam by attacking engineers who are trying to repair it.  That's part of why (in my opinion) they are an event that happens during delam just like the lightning and other anomalies that are meant to be a hindrance.

However, as Rurik mentioned, if the problem is moreso that they are too fast and hard for engineers to deal with then maybe that needs to be considered as a balancing thing to reduce their effectiveness a bit?  I haven't honestly spent a ton of time in engineering myself since the SM came out so I don't have a lot of first hand experience how strong they are or how difficult they are to deal with.

I'm not sure if it already exists but it might be a good idea to add some text that appears when someone takes over a pyro slime to give them some sort of idea what they should and shouldn't do.  In my opinion they should be behaving like a slime that's looking for easy sources of food and not seeking out high value targets and causing most damage possible.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Rythen

[Leanfrog]

10 minutes ago, Rythen said:

However, as Rurik mentioned, if the problem is moreso that they are too fast and hard for engineers to deal with then maybe that needs to be considered as a balancing thing to reduce their effectiveness a bit?  I haven't honestly spent a ton of time in engineering myself since the SM came out so I don't have a lot of first hand experience how strong they are or how difficult they are to deal with.

 

Simple mob slimes are nuts, regardless of whether or not they're spawned by the SM, to list a couple things, adult slimes can do around IIRC 20-30 brute damage with their basic attack, if they have fed on something their attack can also stun people, their latch does genetic damage, completely immune to laser weaponry, have a "backup" life if they're defeated as an adult splitting into 4 slimes all of which are hostile mind you, and laser weapons/hot temperatures make them go faster than meth, it's not so much an issue with pyro slimes being too strong and moreso that simple slimes are busted but usually aren't too much of an issue because they can normally only become sentient via potions.

[PeakPerformance]

Besides delamming the engine which defo is a rule break, I think slimes reaaaaaaaallly need a nerf to deal with the mass murdering.

Some form of objectives/ROA would be nice too, cuz there's a definitive difference between seeking to feed and unga murderhobbo everything in sight, but if you can somewhat deal with one alone that should be enough to incentivize more careful stealth/ambush gameplay, rather than "I pop out of vent, my first hit stuns you for ten minutes and breaks five bones in your body, even if you can react I can easily tank 2-3 extinguishers and dip."