Get rid of the god awful Experimentor already.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

Seriously, what was it's intended use? As far as I know, there are 2 legitimate uses for it; making corgie spawners, and upgrading illegal tech to the point where you can create freedom/adrenaline implants. Otherwise it's a spit in the face to those who enjoyed telescience. If the intended purpose was to allow the eventual creation of the 2 implants, surely there's a better way to implement that, than to scrap an entire sub-department of science, and replacing it with a machine that explodes half the time. And don't tell me the strange objects add anything to the game other than something the clown might be interested in.

[Spacemanspark]

It's better than Telescience.

[Keroman]

The VERY occasional monkey spawner item is extremely useful for either xenobiology or the chef. But yeah, the Experimentor machine is so RNG-dependent that I don't ever bother with it.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

 

It's better than Telescience.

 

Telescience, ignoring the fact that it was OP, was FUN. The experimentor is shit and useless. I would much, MUCH rather it just be a completely empty room to build whatever in, than the crappy half assed experimentor.

 

[NTSAM]

Then lets just do that then. Tiny room with nothing to mess with.

[Scrat]

TBH the experimentor machine and computer should be construct-able just like Telescience now and not on the station by default so you can build it if you want to use it, otherwise the space is not hogged up if the space is better used for something else.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

 

Then lets just do that then. Tiny room with nothing to mess with.

 

I'd love it. Science can make whatever the fuck they want, but this way they'd actually have room. And hell, for those who want to build telescience it'd be even easier since they don't have to demolish the experimentor.

 

[Coldflame]

I don't play science a whole lot so I'm not sure how how telesci/experimentor impact the department round-to-round, but it seems like a good middle ground to leave an empty room there to build either telesci or an experimentor (or anything else science feel like building).

[NTSAM]

Actually yeah the empty room idea actually does sound pretty darn good.

[ProperPants]

 

I do play science a lot and I can tell you my order of priority would be

 

Telescience > this idea > everything else that can be thought of > empty room > experimentor

 

The experimentor is helltrash. I've died more times than I care to remember to it. Literally the only thing I can think of that it does that is useful is, if RNGsus blesses your peon soul, you can get illegal tech to 4 or 5 with the experimentor. Then Jack Price gets freedom and adrenal implants and becomes a demigod. Other than this, I don't know of a use for the damned machine.

 

I realize my idea is probably a bit ambitious, but I'd still rather have an empty room than the experimentor.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

There's really no reason to remove it.

 

It sitting there doesn't harm anything---likewise it doesn't typically impact anyone not in the room (barring relics, of course); if you use it and get hurt, that's on you---you're the one who decided to engage in using a risky piece of machinery to begin with--if you don't want to utilize or experiment with it, then you're not obliged to.

 

it having to be built every round also means that relics are likely to almost never be used again.

 

It's not "useless" it's one of the most overpowered pieces of machinery science has, but no one uses it, no one wants to learn how to use it, and no one wants to entertain the risks associated with it---so most rounds, it just sits (minus relics).

 

Also, Telescience being back on the station is not going to happen. It's overpowered as hell, and it's only "fun" for the telescientists stealing everything that's not bolted down.

 

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

 

There's really no reason to remove it.

 

It sitting there doesn't harm anything---likewise it doesn't typically impact anyone not in the room (barring relics, of course); if you use it and get hurt, that's on you---you're the one who decided to engage in using a risky piece of machinery to begin with--if you don't want to utilize or experiment with it, then you're not obliged to.

 

it having to be built every round also means that relics are likely to almost never be used again.

 

It's not "useless" it's one of the most overpowered pieces of machinery science has, but no one uses it, no one wants to learn how to use it, and no one wants to entertain the risks associated with it---so most rounds, it just sits (minus relics).

 

Also, Telescience being back on the station is not going to happen. It's overpowered as hell, and it's only "fun" for the telescientists stealing everything that's not bolted down.

 

Every single person I've talked to in-game has said it's useless barring getting adrenaline/freedom implants. It's a waste of space, and I'd kill for just an empty room at this point. You say it's overpowered, how? It constantly blows up during rounds, spits out harmful mobs, gas, radiation, heat, and spawns cats. You talk about not wanting to make "relics" useless when they largely already are. Hell, it's not even mentioned on the wiki.

 

[ProperPants]

 

To add to what Cupcakes said, I would be willing to play around with it and learn it, except it's not that I don't want to entertain the risks associated with it. The machine doesn't hurt me—I would love for it to just hurt me, then get healed and keep trying. It just kills me. Instantly dead, 10 minutes into the round, and no one comes to find me because no one dares enter that godforsaken room.

 

As for the relics, there are a few that are nice, and some that are trash. Diona nymph and monkey spawners are the best I've seen come out of those. The teleporter strange object is random and ends up sticking you in walls sometimes. The toy that shoots out 10 other toys in all directions is irritating. Maybe there's an effect that can be seen in the code that I haven't seen, and maybe that effect is good, but I can't fathom what those strange objects can produce that can be called overpowered.

 

[NTSAM]

 

You're off your god damn rocker if you think the EXPERIMENTOR is overpowered.

It's quite literally a suicide booth or a useless trinket stand.

Put thingy in, press buttons until you die. Alternatively, put thingy in, press one button, get shitty other thingy that serves no purpose but killing you or annoying others and/or yourself.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

>Is the path to get the super OP adrenaline implants

 

>>claims that this isn't overpowered

 

[NTSAM]

I've not seen them used for that even once. It's literally so shitty some people would rather stay away from it instead of risking their health to get an implant.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

 

>Is the path to get the super OP adrenaline implants

 

>>claims that this isn't overpowered

 

There are much better ways to add a way to get those, then put in an otherwise useless machine people abhore. If that was the sole purpose of this being added in... I just feel there are other more fun things that could have been done instead.

 

[ProperPants]

 

I've seen it used for that literally once. And I do agree that the implants themselves are OP, but looking at everything the EXPERIMENTOR can do

 

• kill you

• maim you

spawn corgis

kill you

turn useless objects into annoying objects

spawn cats

kill you

spawn space bears that kill you

explode and kill you

spawn bees that kill you

EMP everything in the room and possibly (not sure about this) things in adjacent rooms

kill you with an EMP if you're an IPC

spawn butterflies

kill you

 

I would not dare call the entire machine overpowered, or even high risk-high reward because of the fact that it's RNG. I would rather adrenaline implants have to be acquired by deconstructing the captain's antique laser pistol—I'm almost certain getting implants would happen more often if that were the case. Yes, it doesn't hurt anyone by just being there, and none of us are admins or coders so we can't do anything, but the principle of the machine is infuriating. That room would be better served as an extension of medical. I'm fairly certain that the reinforced wall on the left of the room is the only thing separating it from the psychiatrist area—no maintenance tunnel in the middle or anything.

 

[NTSAM]

 

Also, the relics are trash mate.

 

They either:

 

 

• blow up, possibly killing you in the process

• give a useless "heaty" message

spawn a stupid pet

spawn ten other toys in all directions (Why the fuck is this a thing? What would it ever be useful for other than annoying a crowd?)

poof in a flash

teleport you randomly (which can easily kill you.)

spew foam shit everywhere (Which doesn't even let you escape seeing as how you're in Ground Zero of the dispense radius and moving anywhere will slip you.)

 

 

If we absolutely MUST keep an experimentor somewhere at round start, make these little turds do something that is actually worth the damn trouble. I've taken to personally dumping them in the grinder just to make sure no god damn idiots spam corgis in my lab when I'm working on shit.

 

[Scrat]

 

[*]EMP everything in the room and possibly (not sure about this) things in adjacent rooms

 

 

Teeny note here. It DOES EMP things in adjacent rooms. If the experimentor EMPs, it will fry the message monitor in the room just above, and as a nosy RD that is always extremely annoying, especially since I've found no way to fix or deconstruct EMPd machines (I assume there is some way I have yet to try).

 

I'm in agreement that the chance of getting the two implants is 9/10 not worth the effort, when said 9/10 you'll get nothing, killed, or a trinket that is mildly interesting at best. There has to be a better way to get these implants. Regens I think was one who suggested rare materials that would make creating the implants (he was being general about R and D however) fairly difficult, like how you don't see too many Phazons since you need to disarm an anomaly to complete one.

 

[CureZen]

 

While I'm loathe to agree with Fox about much of anything, I dunno about bringing telescience back. Theoretically it's supposed to be incredibly difficult to figure out the neccessary inputs for any given square. And this would balance out that extreme power level by slowing down the teleportation rate; but ever since that fuckin excel file was made that does all the math for you instantly, even on calibration. Any idiot who got their hands on a labcoat could slap a humanized monkey in a suit with max sensors and grab a hand held health monitor to steal everything short of the singularity. Even faster if they just meta'd the knowledge of where everything was. At least now it's not just open to the grey tide, and honestly building it isn't actually that difficult.

 

That being said the experimentor is faaaaaaar from an adequate replacement, and to be frank it's actually anti-fun. Most of you don't recall that this is actually a milder version of it. It used to be able to shoot fire balls and the EMP blast was not nearly so limited in size. And it's STILL a PoS. At best, you get some dumb objects that serve only to cause a mess and some research you can be arrested for; at worse the thing explodes after producing eight cats, glitching itself requiring deconstruction and reconstruction, and emp-ing several times and freaking out the A.I. because it makes an alarm every. damn. time. It's annoying to me as the bloody psychiatrist because EVERY TIME it gets used I eventually have to evacuate my office because the wall got blown off and the whole damn place is exposed to a vacuum.

 

It may be RNG but it plays HEAVILY in favor of killing you and inconveniencing others, and should you succeed the reward is just NOT worth it. I'll be honest I didn't even know you could get implants and I've spent DAYS with the fucking thing because I was convinced it had a hidden purpose. (Which after delving into the code itself... no, no it does not) I concur with the rest, as the present code stands, empty building space would be a more constructive use of that room.

 

[Shadeykins]

 

Nobody wants the telescience to be brought back.

 

People just want the EXPERIMENTOR either gone, or to be less useless.

 

[davidchan]

 

Maybe we've updated our code, but the trick to the expirementor was that it would randomly upgrade things on a failure, that is to say, actually upgrading the machine thinking it would work better removes the most powerful function.

 

To my knowledge, 'Discover' and 'Irradiate' are the only two functions that matter, everything else only works to destroy said object or release any random number of horrors. Mutating items upgrades them, often removing a downside of an item or just making them more powerful in general. I haven't had a chance to test and play around, but I'm sure somewhere is a table that has all the possible outcomes and upgradable items.

 

The real problem is the elitism that goes on. People who know how to use the machine to its fullest refuse to help others learn how to do so, and those who tried to trailblaze himself have been met with a number of fatal/terrible consequences that make the machine seem unuseable. It's goonchem all over again.

 

[Kyet]

 

The EXPERIMENTOR is terrible.

 

I can remember many rounds where its RNG effects were quite annoying (EMP, spawned monsters, etc).

I cannot remember a single round where I saw it be useful. Not even one.

 

I too would consider an empty room more useful/fun than the EXPERIMENTOR.

It really is that bad.

 

It isn't even fixable. Every individual aspect of it is bad.

Random behavior, heavy weighting towards bad outcomes, bad outcomes not being limited to the room it is in, terrible 'rewards', etc.

I can't think of a single good thing about it.

 

Adren/freedom implants are designed to help antags escape custody.

Normal crew don't need them. Traitors can simply buy them from their uplink.

Cult have stunpaper, changelings can buy a stun-reduction ability.

I just don't see who is supposed to find this machine useful, even in the rare event it does work without killing you first.

 

[Kluys]

Isnt it possible to litterally destroy the experimentor with a few basic tools in about a minute of time?