A Defense of the Exploration Crew Role
Prelude
First and foremost… this is the second time I’ve made a post like this. The first was when Shaft Miner received significant nerfs and removals to its department, and there I also attempted to argue why what was done went a little too far.
My suggestions and criticisms were immediately thrown off by Former Head Admin Ruko as being whining from a powergamer.
Part of me wonders why I’m even trying again, but I don’t want to sit here and do nothing. Maybe things will be different. I can hope.
First and Foremost: What is the issue?
If you are not aware, a recent PR by PowerfulBacon will see the Supercruise system updated. This update will result in the removal of Exploration Crew as a role, and see most of the tasks fulfilled by the Exploration Crew moved over to Cargo Techs instead. One of the ‘To Do’ objectives in his PR is to give the Exploration Shuttle and dock to Scientists, which I feel is counter-productive to a lot of the points Bacon makes. But let’s go over those points.
The Reasons Why
In the PR, PowerfulBacon gives four reasons for why Exploration Crew is going to be removed.
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“Discovery research was disliked by a lot of people”
Discovery Research was made to stop Tech Rushing and to a good extent it succeeds in this. People don’t like it for that reason; it stops Scientists from building ten Servers to rush the tech tree. Any variation of a mechanic like this is going to be disliked. This more complicated Cargo version (The other changes to Cargo like being able to pilot the ship are fine) will likely be hated much, much more.
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“Research disk collection being unreliable and exploration crews having no incentive to collect them”
As for Unreliability, that was the point, was it not? Most Research Disc Technologies are non-critical, very powerful upgrades. Having them appear once every few rounds was kind of neat, and made it special when you actually got to, for instance, see a built Phazon.
As for incentive… there’s many ways you could go about this. Make the Discovery Scanner both upload the disc for you and give you some Exploration Points. Add techs that benefit the Team more so they want to go and get them. But really, nobody would lose anything if they were removed and the Teams stayed. Though I think they’re quite a good and well implemented idea as is.
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“VIPs don’t get removed from the round, so just exist to screw about after being rescued”
A lot of people actively like this. Just being able to come in as an Assistant, hang around the bar and RP. I’ve had rounds in the past where I’ve played as a Syndicate Captain, and after being robusted, spent most of the round RPing in the bar about how my crew was wiped out by Blood Cultists. Centcom officials can RP just was well if not better as a psuedo command role. If there are issues like this, the text given to these roles can always be more defined in what their goal is.
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But all of these aren’t the reason that Exploration Crew is, in my opinion, being removed. That lies in the fourth point… which I’m going to go over extensively.
Exploration job powergaming
Powergaming. Directly taken from Rule 2 on the Beestation Wiki:
Powergaming" is considered to be the act of prioritizing “winning” rather than sensible roleplaying. Good roleplaying means that you have to embrace the possibility of “losing” for the sake of roleplay and/or preserving immersion. You should not be seeking gear you have no roleplay justification for having, nor should you ever generally be rushing into danger unless it is part of your job. For example, it makes sense for an Atmos Tech to don a hardsuit and enter a breached room to repair it. It makes sense for a Security Officer to acquire a gun from the armory and go fight to repel traitors. It does not make sense if the jobs are switched, and either case would be considered powergaming. Preemptively donning a hardsuit or acquiring a gun “just in case” is also considered powergaming.
I will be going off this definition as I attempt to argue why Exploration Crew isn’t a powergaming job, shouldn’t be removed for it, or could be adjusted instead of flat out given the cut. The first two sentences I feel are the most applicable. So let’s look at the armor and weapon the Exploration Crew has access to at roundstart.
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Exploration Hardsuit: Spaceproof. Armor values are as follows: “melee” = 35, “bullet” = 15, “laser” = 20, “energy” = 10, “bomb” = 50, “bio” = 100, “rad” = 50, “fire” = 50, “acid” = 75, “stamina” = 20
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Exploration Laser Pistol: Basic Laser Weapon. Deals 15 Burn damage in Anti-Creature Mode. Deals 5 damage in Cutter mode. Cutter mode allows breaking of rocks similar to a Proto-Kinetic Accelerator. Comes with a firing pin that only allows firing off station.
Pretty decent, but that gun is unusable on station, as it should be. So let’s look at the ways Exploration Crew can Powergame. Specifically things that you can find out in space.
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Electronic Firing Pin: While you would be lead to believe this would allow the Crew to fire their weapons on station… that isn’t the case. Attempting to remove the Firing Pin from the Laser Pistol destroys it. So finding these doesn’t matter; you need to find other firearms.
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Blood-Red Hardsuit: This Hardsuit can be found at a specific ruin in Unknown Signals, in a floor safe along with Syndicate Secret Documents. Its armor values are impressive: “melee” = 40, “bullet” = 50, “laser” = 30, “energy” = 40, “bomb” = 35, “bio” = 100, “rad” = 50, “fire” = 100, “acid” = 100, “stamina” = 60
I would definitely agree that this is a very power game-y item that you shouldn’t be able to get your hands on… if after all their nerfs, Shaft Miners can still acquire them randomly from killed Legions. Exploration Crew have a lot harder of a time finding the Hardsuit then Miners do most of the time as well, as they have to find the specific ruin, know it is in the safe, and invest no small amount of time into breaking the safe open.
And if this is still too powerful, there’s two options. Easiest: Remove the hardsuit from the ruin. Keep the documents, and the ruin is still useful. Or remove the nearby Stethoscope, making the safe impossible to crack unless you somehow brought one already… but that seems like more powergaming rather than less.
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The Omnilathe: Not counting how difficult it can be to actually get the Lathe running on station having to link it to the main Ore Silo, Miners once again have easy access to this by purchasing it from the Golem Ship. Exploration Crew have to farm the exceptionally rare Charlie Station ruin, and then hope none of the ghosts take roles meant to make use of it. I recall this Lathe being in a different Station layout before and thought it removed before stumbling upon it once again… if it is too strong, it should be removed.
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The Hierophant Gun: While it certainly has potential, the weapon is just as rare as it is clunky to use. Odd projectile patterns that are clearly telegraphed and do middling damage.
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The Vault: I’ve played Explorer a lot… and this is the Holy Grail of space ruins. It was added for whatever reason a decent bit before Mining was nerfed, and I never understood why. The things inside are ridiculously powerful. To those who don’t know, the final room in the ruin contains the following.
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An Anomaly Core. It is Typeless; used almost exclusively for Phazon production.
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A Hypospray identical to the one the CMO uses.
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A Dueling Pistol Case, with two revolvers.
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A Saber SMG
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A Bicycle
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An Advanced RCD, which has more ammo than a normal variant and can deconstruct reinforced walls.
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An RLD, which dispenses lights.
I’m not going to argue for this. It should probably be removed, even if it can be fun.
- Paper Wizard Robes: If you can do this entire dungeon and beat the boss with your dinky laser pistol you deserve it, champ. That being said I’ve never seen an Explorer get very far trying to get this, let alone actually use it.
I probably missed a few, but those are the ones that I know from my experiences. So let me talk about the good about Exploration Crew.
Why It Should Remain
This is from personal experience, from what I’ve done with the job by myself and alongside others. My reasons are subjective, but I think you can ask anyone who’s tried the job and they’d agree with some of these.
- It is an incredibly good box to roleplay in
One of the most satisfying things about Exploration Crew is how tight-knit the Team tends to be. Wether its three experts, or me having a pair of newbies along to teach them the ropes, it feels rewarding to actually work as a team to accomplish missions. Go exploring, find cool things. Maybe we have some moments here and there; someone gets blinded by a Rune in a Ratvar Ruin, and me and the other guy defend him. Maybe we stumble across a Corgi Planet, and come back home with a cargo bay filled with dogs (And a grill). I still have more hours in Shaft Miner than Exploration Crew, but this is the thing that makes this job so special. Miners were encouraged to spread out and discouraged from working as a team; if you died, you were likely on your own. As Scientist, RD, even part of Sec… it can feel distant. It’s nice to have just a couple people to call your team.
- It’s fun to have a dedicated ‘explore space’ job.
Curator used to have to just get approval from the Head of Personnel to explore space. Even then, it wasn’t guaranteed. It is such a relief to know that I can pick a job and know that no matter what, I’ll get to explore space. Who would’ve guessed that exploring space in a space game is fun? Doing just Objectives lands you in very fun situations that feel diverse from round to round and challenging at times, especially when alone. It’s something you can easily sink hours and hours into without doing much else. Giving Scientists the ship and responsibilities may be fine at first… but Scientists already have so, SO many different things to manage. Xenobiology, Toxins, R&D, Nanites, let alone niche practices like circuits or, perhaps, using the dedicated shuttle Science already has access to. Yeah, to those who don’t know, there’s a whole extra wing to the Mining base dedicated to Science. And it’s got a fully functional Science Ship. And Fulp Station and Delta Station even have a pre-placed Dock to call it up to the station at the start of the round!
Other Explorers have their own reasons, and we would so, so much like the job to stay where it is. We’ll take adjustments… just let us keep this. Please?
I would end this request here, but I want to say one more thing. Not just about the Exploration Team either. I’ve one more reason for why I would like the Exploration Team to remain… something I feel is ideologically opposed to what coders seem to want. I’ll be drawing a lot parallels to the long-past changes to Shaft Miner and how they apply here.
The Importance Of Gimmicks
If you didn’t pick it up from what I’ve said or my past post… I used to play a lot of Shaft Miner. I adored the job, before it was nerfed. Is the job unplayable now? No. Not by any means. But for me, it lost its charm. Why?
- Because I feel the game is fun when you can be whacky and still roleplay.
People love their gimmick antags, and I do too. But my reason for picking Shaft Miner, and now Exploration Crew, was because I could have fun with gimmicks without having to roll lucky on an antagonist. Let me use a particular example.
Way back when, the Drake Blood Potion was a chance drop from the Ash Drake Megafauna, who currently only drops this item. However, it had four effects instead of three, the removed effect being the one I found interesting. On use, you transformed into a Lesser Ash Drake. As a Lesser Drake, you had a fire breath, decent melee attack and the ability to swoop up and land to deal damage in a small area.
This transformation was dogshit terrible.
All of those perks sound great. But in reality, as a Drake, you are extremely slow, your only ranged attack is a firebreath that is easily dodged, does low damage and doesn’t apply many fire stacks, and has an unbearably long cooldown, as does the Swoop. Your hitbox is massive, and you still have the same 200 health. Though you can keep attacking for the second half, you’ve no way to heal yourself outside of chomping corpses. And if you transform back below 100 HP? Instantly in crit. Even in high pressure environments it is more efficient to just use a Proto-Kinetic Accelerator with a few upgrades if you want to kill somebody. Bonus points if you’re a Traitor, and buy the pressure upgrade.
But it was fun because it was impractical. Other than just chilling as a Dragon and RPing, attempting to actually use the transformation effectively was extremely difficult. It wasn’t practical, it was just a gimmick. And a lot of other items that Megafauna used to drop were just like this.
The Lava Staff, another Ash Drake Drop, was nearly worthless. It allowed you to turn tiles into lava and back after a lengthy channel. It did some decent burn damage… but why not just put a Knife on the end of your PKA and use that if you’re going for that approach? I’ve used this item once: making a Space Bar using a Capsule, and flooding the back counter with lava while wearing a Hekk Suit to be immune to it. It took forever to set up, took a ton of Mining Points to even buy the thing… but it was a hilarious gimmick the crew liked.
Exploration Crew has much the same gimmicks. An example? Take Clockwork Marauders. You can find them on Ratvar Ruins as enemies, and using a Light Pink Extract’s Sentience Potion… you can let a ghost control one. Their only benefit over most Xenobio Gold Extract mobs is that their shield blocks a couple projectiles before being busted. It takes way too much effort for too little of a reward.
I have still procured armies of sentient Clockwork Marauders to roleplay Clockies as a Traitor. Because it’s silly, and more fun than whacking people with a double E-sword and a Stable Bluespace Extract.
Then there are artifacts, items that can have so many different applications for interesting gimmicks. Artifact that turns Plasma into Hypernoblium? Help Cargo amass enough money to buy eighteen Bicycles. Casually explain to another Explorer that an artifact may end up sending them to a Tear in the Fabric of Reality. I wish there were more cool uses for artifacts like this.
Can Mining do gimmicks at the moment? For sure. But they’ve so much less to play with than they used to. Could Science do gimmicks if they just had the Shuttle as an option for themselves? Of course, but hold on, I have to explain to the third Medical Doctor to come by this shift that we can’t get them their Cryogenic Research until Cargo gets it from their Research Loot Crates.
End
To anyone who actually bothered to read all this, thank you. I tried my best to be concise, and really, at the end of the day, don’t want my favorite job to get effectively removed for a second time. Like I said, I don’t expect a lot out of this. Maybe I can get called off again for being a powergamer by an Admin again. Then I can make that ‘two nickel’ joke.
To all of you Explorers racing to scan that Artifact… I wish you the best of luck. It was fun while it lasted.