RCD changes and opinions

[das bread]

seeing so many rounds go very quickly to one side or another based on rapid removing of doors, walls, and floors has spurred me to question the viability of RCDs as of their current state.

Maybe restrict access to technology levels?

[das bread]

Share your takes here, maybe suggest the changes you'd like to see to the item!

[BottomQuark]

Engineering main here.

As of now RCD is critical for engineer's efficiency.

There's a breach?

Slapping it with RCD takes 0.1s.

Making metal rods then metal floors and applying it in correct order takes like 5 seconds.

This gets elevated when you have to make new room for BSA.

Engineering is not that interesting department anyway. RCD makes it a lot easier and pleasant.

IMO RCD itself could be restricted to tech levels, and could be made in protolathe, but cardridges have to be available in autolathe. And the tech lvl would need to be low.

I cannot speak about the RCD balance as I am biased. RCD my beloved.

 

IIRC

@Miraviel made forum post couple months ago about changes in protolathe/autolathe/etc.

Cannot search it since I'm on phone. There were people talking about RCD me included. No idea if that post led to a PR on GitHub or not tho

[TheBadPerson]

I almost never see RCDs impact the flow of a round in a major way. If access or flanking is that serious of an issue for the sec vs antag dynamic, welders, access upgrades, or the AI will basically always be an acceptable response. 
 

The primary use of RCDs I see is purely engineering use, and I don’t see a need to nerf personally.

[Miraviel]

RCDs are somewhat necessary now, as Quark said, the alternatives are very clunky.

If I were to change anything about it, I would make them slower when it comes to removing things, especially airlocks. Otherwise, I find them fine.

If we wanted to make people less of a "we are not building station goals until we get an RCD", I think the alternatives should be made more comfortable to use. The duffelbag change helped engineering a lot, you can now bring a lot of materials on you - it is just not many people know about the slowdown changes (sadly). The usual chokepoint for me when building new places is circuits. They take up too much space in the bag. If there was a box or a satchel for example, that could exclusively hold basic engineering circuits/items (camera assemblies, apc/air alarm/fire alarm circuits, power cells), I'd be more inclined to build things away from cargo/engineering without the magical RCD.

[BottomQuark]

On 3/18/2023 at 11:03 AM, Miraviel said:

If we wanted to make people less of a "we are not building station goals until we get an RCD", I think the alternatives should be made more comfortable to use. The duffelbag change helped engineering a lot, you can now bring a lot of materials on you - it is just not many people know about the slowdown changes (sadly). The usual chokepoint for me when building new places is circuits. They take up too much space in the bag. If there was a box or a satchel for example, that could exclusively hold basic engineering circuits/items (camera assemblies, apc/air alarm/fire alarm circuits, power cells), I'd be more inclined to build things away from cargo/engineering without the magical RCD

Slowdown changes?

 

Also I think a bag designed for electronics like that would be great!

I tho disagree that it would change how people use RCD. It's kinda touching a different issue - limited space in bags. While it could allow people to have plasteel and other materials in their bag, it would still make no sense to make floor/walls manually (excluding stuff like reinforced walls etc.) due to how fast RCD works.

My usual setup is:

- Replace welding tool with advanced welding tool from YouTool

- Put on mask from the box in your bag and place extended oxy tank into your pocket. Throw away the light

- Place anythn u want to into your other pocket slot (f.e. air analyzer)

- In this box place stack of wires, APC board, battery and 2 airlock electronics.

- In your bag I get stack of metal, stack of glass, RCD and RPD

That leaves you with some extra space to place additional stuff there, I place there my hardhat when I put on hard suit.

With this setup you can do 95% of emergency repairs. When you make new room or you have to fix a lot of stuff you can just craft locker out of metal and dump there 5 matter cardridges, stack of wires and electronics you need. Usually one locker is enough.

 

I find this "play style" enough to fix everything. Getting stuff into locker is not a big deal usually and is quick enough.

That being said RCD is my go-to tool and I use metal and glass only when I run out of RCD fuel.

I dare to say everyone who plays engineering has similar set up.

 

If staff thinks this has to change...

I would propose thing Miraviel mentioned - increase deconstruct time. I don't think it's a nerf for engineering, more for people that want to use RCD to breaking and entering.

If we would want to slow down engineering, increasing RCD build time would be a way to go. That being said I don't think this would be beneficial change.

I actually wonder, does staff think RCD is a problem as is?

[henri215]

Why is the RCD a hacked autolathe item instead of protolathe?

It never made sense to me having items that are clearly upgrades and complex being put as hacked items.

[Generaldonothing]

RCDs are normally fine when used as part of an engineers kit imo, it's good for dealing with simple fixes and that's nice. 

Only stuff I kinda don't like is

1. People spamming RCDs in areas for stupid reasons. If RCDs were changed to be do after once and had a lower total construction time it would probably be fine

2. RCD matter carts aren't really that expensive, but that applies to a whole lot of items and especially ammo. We really could go with just a blanket increase on reasource requirement so people actually need to consider what they make