Balance syndi borg

[orelbon]

I was having a round as AI today and everything was going fine the typical open this lock that and suddenly i see a syndicate agent teleport into the bridge in instinctively go to warn security and the command staff when i head energy sword sounds and think, SHIT THEY'RE IN MY CORE, so i switch to my core and the syndicate borg was there happily pounding away at my chassis, my first instinct was to flash him but he soon just cut power from my APC, so that was it 10 minutes into the game and all i was able to do was open and close a couple of doors. what im asking isnt a removal of the syndi borg but a rebalance as in its current stage it can easily get into my satellite avoiding all my motion detectors, and my turrets all because hes synthetic. he can also bolt close/open , shock and deactivate doors, making the need for an AI greater. furthermore he has an energy sword that can kill a person in 4 hits, if anything i would like to see the ability for AIs to defend themselves against them, or if anything slow them down, like the cameras recognizing that they are foreign borgs and having the motion alarms go off, because even if you can warn the crew of the impending doom you won't be able to provide assistance considering you have a syndi borg knocking at your front door. over all i think that a rebalance would create better game play for the AI as well as the syndicate considering they don't have to strategize much to take the AI out if they have a sindi borg.

[Jack Fractal]

 

Last two times I played AI, this happened to me as well. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, is that a vampire? No it's just an incompetent Doctor, better check the - aaarghsyndiborginstantdeath!

 

You can turn your core lasers to lethal and set them to kill synthetics. I suspect that this is what you're 'supposed' to do, despite the enormous meta of doing so for no in-game reason.

 

The syndie-borg with it's all access pass to the doors and machinery of the station is also always the best return on investment for telecrystals. It's staggeringly lethal too, especially against civilians. I saw one massacre all of medbay in about a minute and a half. I regularly see them get double-digit numbers of kills.

 

They're cool, and I like them, but they miiight need to be toned down a bit.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's just as frustrating and annoying that Nukes show up on the station and everything instantly gets bolted+shocked and the nukies can only advance at a snails pace because literally every single lawset fully allows it against nuke ops. It's a no win situation no matter what is done--but I'd rather error on the side of maximizing enjoyment of the mode for the most amount of players possible over a single role.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect, by any stretch, but the alternative is just a bout as bad--if not worse.

 

[M3hillus]

Firewall the the AI chamber door, and add a button that the AI can push to open it (a-la malpracticebay)

[Earthdivine]

 

Syndiborgs are actually at their weakest as of right now. The removal of a ranged weapon and needing to Ebow+Esword to kill anything really hampers it's kill power and the Syndiborg itself cant actually access Air Alarms or APC's (Though this was a bug and may have been fixed).

 

Though the best thing to do to stop this, coming from someone who gets pulled for Syndiborg very often, is to make the motion sensor on the AI Sate actually worth a damn. It pings the borgs and AI far to late if someones actually there, and by the time they get the message the borg's already in the core.

 

[PPI]

 

Perfect, here i can come with the idea that the laws are shit, crewismov the most, it's shit cause it removes the spirit of what Asimov was.

Oh, nukesquad comes onto the station, WELL they are human, have to obey, huehuehue.

 

therefore i would want crew replaced with Humanoid or Sentient, and xenos, blobs and borers are neither, oddly enough lings will get ai protection, and defining the law with more just makes it impossible.

 

Alternativly Nanotrasen Certified Races, ie all races Obey all Nt Certified Races would put the ai balance right, but it sounds really icky so yeh.

 

That would fix most issues.

 

[davidchan]

 

All access really is the problem of the Syndiborg. There should be a difference between a Syndicate made military borg and a NT made borg that has been hacked or subverted.

 

Syndiborgs have Emags last I checked. Stripping them down to civilian access and giving them hacking tools (Screwdriver, wirecutters, multitool, crowbar) would allow them to go just about anywhere given enough time, and not just sprint right into the core or high secure areas. Giving them a welder and wrench to boot would allow them to tear down walls oh-so-silently, giving Syndicates new routes and methods to assault the station.

 

Alternatively, Syndicate borgs could wirelessly hack the network to gain access to the Station, but in doing this the AI and Borgs would get some kind of warning and thus time to react.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

Strip the syndiborg of it's remote abilities, one would think NT would not allow every borg in the histroy of ever access everything they own. That a emaged NT borg has remote access makes sense though, but is the AIs own fault if it not checks up on it's borgs.

 

The Syndiborg should get a hacking tool that potentually grants access to everything, maybe with a 4 tile reach or something like that. It needs like 5 seconds (maybe longer for airlocks) to hack something and the AI gets notified about the attempted hack (just like a pAI hack). Time to potentually bolt airlock and cut power or set turrets to lethal borgs, or whatever the AI comes up with.

 

[orelbon]

 

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's just as frustrating and annoying that Nukes show up on the station and everything instantly gets bolted+shocked and the nukies can only advance at a snails pace because literally every single lawset fully allows it against nuke ops. It's a no win situation no matter what is done--but I'd rather error on the side of maximizing enjoyment of the mode for the most amount of players possible over a single role.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect, by any stretch, but the alternative is just a bout as bad--if not worse.

 

i think a good way to balance it would be for syndies to be able to get emag cards maybe make it cost enough that you can get maybe two and buy whatever else your need, and remove that ability from the borg, or change it to what some people are saying, like the pAI hack which takes a while (but it would be buffed on the sindi borg) so the AI can have a chance to react.

 

[belarion]

 

Just give the AI core its shutter back, and hide the button in the CE office or something.

There boom balanced!

 

[Rumiluntti]

 

Nobody gets a chance to react when nukeops make ther alpha strike. If they decide to jump in your general area, you are fucked.

AI is no different in this regard, making the core safer with shutters and stuff would make malf mode even more annoying than it is now.

 

[Fj45]

I really liked the old shutter design as bad AIs could be easily killed with a bit of coordination.

[Fox McCloud]

 

Nobody gets a chance to react when nukeops make ther alpha strike. If they decide to jump in your general area, you are fucked.

AI is no different in this regard, making the core safer with shutters and stuff would make malf mode even more annoying than it is now.

 

This is also another valid point; if Syndi's literally speed-purchase things and bum-rush the bridge at the very start of the shift, there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it---though it's investing a lot of resources into a plan that could also potentially blow up in their face.

 

[davidchan]

 

I really dislike the shutters, to be honest. They can be a complete bitch in malf rounds and the only reliable way to deal with them is EMPs before crowbarring them.

 

And this all just circles back around to why the Syndicate Cyborg has Captain level access to begin with. None of the Operatives do, and it makes little sense for a non-NanoTrasen synthetic to get full access to a NanoTrasen high secure facility. Borgs have Emags, and giving them a screwdriver and multitool would allow them to unbolt things. Just give them a full toolset and remove the Full Access and the Cyborg would be much more balanced and still a valuable asset to a team. It'd be like a militarized version of R2-D2.

 

As for alpha strike, Syndicate speed rushes almost always rely on the borg to open the doors to the teleporter, either the AI Sat or Telecoms. Very rarely, if ever, do you see them build their own teleporter.

 

[Plotron]

 

I posted a thread about this several months ago and had the same response.

 

Usually when I play AI I get killed in three ways: either nukeops Syndie borg (rare), a huge toxins bomb or Syndicate minibomb to the left or right, destroying half of the minisat (the core usually survives the first explosion, but becomes very vulnerable), or a backdoor entry through the maintenance/SMES room involving tedious deconstruction or sabotage.

 

I'd rather get bombed than die to a borg, frankly.

Thanks for the idea of flashing the borg as it enters; will do it next time. Would the turrets engage it if I changed the settings?

 

All I'm asking for is a simple firewall/hacking thing for Syndieborg so it won't access the AI Core in a single click, so the time to kill will be the same as with the bombing method (~60 seconds).

 

PS

I had a Syndieborg emag the bolted door once - guess what, it didn't go well for the nukies.

 

[BadApple797]

As the AI cut enviro power in your core, bolts cannot be lifted

[Plotron]

Even better. Will absolutely do, thank you!