Make Dead Cyborgs More Obvious

[Surrealistik]

 

A dead cyborg should be a lot more obvious than it is, and definitely should be recognizable at a glance; had my corpse ignored quite a few times recently because a living borg is virtually indistinguishable from a dead one unless examined.

 

Possible ways to do this:

 

• Sparking chassis.

• Smoking/Smouldering chassis.

Blinking red light on chassis.

The Cyborg can choose to eject its MMI from its chassis when its systems are critically damaged.

Some combination of the above.

 

 

[magicpussycat]

 

 

• Many small corgis could leap from the corpse, barking "The Cyborg is dead.", over and over, for thirty to forty minutes afterwards.

 

 

[Plotron]

 

• Blinking red light on chassis.

• The Cyborg can choose to eject its MMI from its chassis when its systems are critically damaged.

 

[MrFinnT]

 

*eject MMI* *killer grabs it* *spaaaaaace*

 

otherwise any inficator would be nice. smoke would be good. dont know if a constant animation could cause lags.

 

[Surrealistik]

 

• Many small corgis could leap from the corpse, barking "The Cyborg is dead.", over and over, for thirty to forty minutes afterwards.

 

 

Even _this_ would be preferable to the current state.

 

*eject MMI* *killer grabs it* *spaaaaaace*

 

In the event of a griefertag, or one that needs to make sure you're silent, yeah. To be fair though, you can control _when_ you eject, so you do that and start screaming bloody murder _after_ shit dies down.

 

[davidchan]

 

Could we get a destroyed sprite like Exosuits have? Once they reach the 'unsalvageable' state they could revert to a default cyborg, the head nearly fallen off and the other parts obviously damaged or gone.

 

Ejecting the MMI would be useful, though under the current build you can remove the MMI from a broken/destroyed borg and it will become an endoskeleton with the arms/legs attached, you just need to rewire the torso and build a new head and input the flashes and wala, you have a new borg ready for an MMI/Positron. I suppose the 'eject' button would have to destroy the endoskeleton and leave it as a random pile of parts/debris.

 

As someone who plays science/robotics a fair bit, I'd prefer to see there be an option to recycle/repair otherwise destroyed parts since mining NEVER does their job.

 

[Tornado1555]

 

Definitely there needs to be some distinction between "alive" and "dead" cyborgs. Smoking would probably be preferable to the shorting out effect, because then a damaged cyborg would be a massive liability around a plasma leak. Still, smoking chassis would probably be a pain to sprite.

 

And regarding your idea @davidchan , recycling damaged parts sounds like a very good idea... although it would have to be at a really low effectiveness, because if not, an occasional mining shift would be rendered quite worse off in terms of necessity. But having something to recycle parts (like the disposal does in cargobay) would work.

 

[Surrealistik]

 

The blinking red light + MMI eject are definitely my favourite combo. A new sprite for destroyed cyborgs in addition would be ideal, but the light would help a lot in the meanwhile, and it would be pretty conspicuous.

 

I've got no beef with recycling a damaged chassis; should be easy enough to code; just have the chassis parts/robotic debris turn into metal sheets when a welder/wrench is used on them.

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

As someone who plays science/robotics a fair bit, I'd prefer to see there be an option to recycle/repair otherwise destroyed parts since mining NEVER does their job.

 

With the exceptions for things like plasma, gold, diamonds, etc, you can order most of the materials you will need (metal, plasteel, glass) from cargo in stacks of 50.

 

Getting mining to actually mine more would be a bit nicer, for obvious reasons, but really only would set you back from research and really advanced stuff by not having them.

 

Back on topic though, smoking/sparking sprites for dead borgs would be entirely feasible and probably a great way to communicate it's state. If you are worried about continuously animated sprites causing lag, I must point to Tajaran tail-wagging, conveyor belts, the singularity, practically every machine with a screen, and much much more that all have looping animated sprites. Adding smoke or sparks to a dead borg would be equivalent to any of these in terms of excess load, which is to say virtually non-existent.

 

EDIT: It is possible to create a sparking effect on the sprite without actually producing the in-game sparks. The broken sprite for the kitchen grill has a animation where it appears to spark or fizzle or something, but doesn't actually spawn sparks like a damaged robot arm.

 

[davidchan]

 

If there is a method akin to a carrot and a stick to get mining to do their job and gather the minerals needed to max out science (max max, not bonus max), upgrade every machine on the station and hand out Night Vision, Bags/Belts/Satchels of holding and every other good thing, I don't know it. Mining is not a difficult job and it has practically no dangers compared to other code bases. Boring, I give you, but using the large drills and the way the RNG works, you should at least be able to make 100 sheets of metal and glass, and get 10 sheets of silver, gold and uranium. Getting a Diamonds is a bit more work, but doable. And yet, I see so many shifts where a crew transfer is called and mining/cargo does nothing to support science despite multiple requests being made. I have no problem giving miners Night Vision Mesons, Bags and Satchels of holding, Diamond drills and hyper power cells for their mechs. IF they give me the materials to make the shit.

 

As for damaged borgs. Sparks seems preferable to me. Small amounts of smoke wouldn't be bad, but the borg shouldn't resemble a tire fire. I'm still more inclined to making the sprite reflect the damage like how humans are (I.E. red marks and open wounds on players in areas they are damaged.). If Armor is damaged, scratches and scuffs or burns on the chest and sides. If camera is out, sparking from the head/face area. Radios and Comms never seem to get damaged except by EMPs, and I've only had an actuator blown once by an e-sword. Making this damage more obvious to the crew would go a long way, and having a unique sprite for a destroyed/unsalvageable borg would have a similar effect to finding a destroyed Mech, players dragging it robotics for repairs or scrapping. I'm not suggesting each unique model and style/appearance to have it's own icon, but the just the basic/default borg sprite to be redone a bit to show the borg is inoperable and falling apart, literally.

 

[Surrealistik]

I'm all for that david, but base level functionality would be preferable; then we can move onto more complex aesthetics. The main thing is making sure my burned out chassis doesn't get passed over at least ten times before someone notices that it's been blown to hell.