Plumbing Nerf is Bad

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41

Yeah: Plumbing will not be able to provide all-in-one emergency care of any kind, nor will chems in general. You’re thinking chems are going to continue working like they currently do where they just heal flat damage in a system where flat damage is all that matters. I’m going to implement a variety of injuries that are untreatable via chems alone, and chems will be incapable of healing past certain thresholds while these injuries are present.

“Cryochambers” will be replacing the functionality of sleepers, stasis beds and current cryopods and combine much of their functionality together, being the primary way of administering reagent-intensive treatments as well as chem-induced stasis. Cryochambers will be able to hook up to plumbing networks is what I meant by my initial comment, and they will be the fastest way of treating injuries that don’t require specialized care.

I’m not really up for elaborating beyond that until plan is finished and approved because so much of it is fluid and subject to change when it hits the initial wave of criticisms. It’s not ready for that wave yet.

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I hear you. I get that you’re not up to elaborating, because I know how these projects go. When I used bee code to open up my own training server so that I don’t have to make everyone on bee uncomfortable by asking admins to metacomm so that I can teach people specifics, I had to do some adjustements of my own.

My main concern here, as I told to mc_meileir, is rewarding knowledge and skill as well as enabling non-station alternatives for antags, ghost roles and otherwise disconnected roles. Essentially, I want to give the ability to be completely self-sufficient, to an antagonist who actually knows what they are doing.

Now, agreed, chemistry and plumbing is NOT that by any means. But at the very least antags can abuse it as much as crew. Could you tell me about any means of ghetto/rogue medical options that an antag/independent can use in order to keep protagonists ignorant of their wounds?

Right now, the closest thing I can think of is Syndicate auto-meds. Or more injectors. But that, I believe, is a very bad precedent and a crutch. Mostly because, as said, I truly believe that TC shoudl be used exlusively, or at least overwhelmingly, for a singular purpose: Create a specific gimmick/flavor of antagonist. If the antagonist either has to conform to specific action in order to have the station treat them, or, if the antagonist is going to be obviously capturing med every single round because there’s really no other way for them to take on security, fix themselves and return into combat … I think that this nerf is going to create as many problems as it fixes.

Essentially, I don’t mind med being rightfully re-instated as the primary medical operation. But I still do belive that there needs to be a way to short-circuit it. Locked behind skill, experience, roles … But it still needs to be there to preserve antag independence from the station and preserve antag creativity when it comes to using the ressources available for gimmicks without necessarily having to worry about day-to-day issues to the point where it’s going to encroach on the gimmick they want to carry out.

EDIT: I realize that I’m overstating my point here. Because antags can just as well use the singular fucking bruise pack to bring themselves back up. But i"m trying to think in the long term here. Assuming that we figure out med, and antags don’t have access to the short-circuit that is plumbing … What would you suggest to be a skilleful, rewarding and experience based way to short-circuit med for an antagonist who actually needs to stay cut off from the station?

EDIT 2: Apologies for the spelling errors. I’m drunk.

43

I will say that I disagree with this, however. Antagonists should be empowered to do gimmicks and the like, but I don’t like this ongoing notion that they should be omni-overlord masters of everything just for being an antagonist. A new wounds system should affect and hurt them as well if they manage to get hurt badly enough.

Each type of antagonist will need a way to treat serious wounds, but uplink traitors are far from being a concern on that front because I do absolutely believe part of the purpose of an uplink is getting an agent out of a pinch that they otherwise can’t, but with limited uses (in this case, limited TC).

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I also strongly disagree with this, and not just for medical. I believe all departments should be necessary and vital to normal operations. If a department becomes totally non-functional, the station as a whole should feel it and need or want to do something about it, not this:

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The station shouldn’t completely fall apart when one department goes down, but the impact should be felt. Everyone shouldn’t instantly die without medbay, but they are much more worried about sustaining serious injuries now.

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44

There’s quite a few scenarios where you need surgery without the patient being affected by ticks. I will admit these are usually rare but I do see them in long rounds. My favorite is when revival surgery is the only way to actually revive, and then a single tick kills them unless treated first.

45

How many of them involve something that isn’t related to blood loss or something along the lines of an overdose?

And how many times is it NOT an oozeling because god damn does this happen to oozelings a lot due to either blood loss, extreme “poisoning” or both.

46

The last time I had to deal with it, it was brain damage, if that counts. Blood loss can be counteracted with saline and iron if you’re really pedantic anyway.

47

Brain damage can be solved by removing brain and splashing it with mannitol. You don’t need suspended body process.

48

Headspider/Xeno parasite infections, pyrotechnic poisoning, organ loss (usually a botched cloning) and corpses close to organ decay thresholds, and removing a chem implant without letting sec trigger it mid-surgery are the obvious ones.

49

INSERT SNIPPED IMAGE QUOTE YOU POSTED HERE

This … Is actually quite good. But the last part worries me. You’re not taking into account the fact that, unlike the station, the antagonist does NOT have a team to back them up. Any medical treatment must be acquired through lies, deception, infiltration, stealing or otherwise misdirection. Which, in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but, in my opinion, contributes to standardizing rounds.

This is bad, in my opinion, because it creates meta-opportunities. And I don’t believe that rules alone are enough to actually fix this problem. I’m too drunk to properly explain it, so instead I’ll give you a direct example. Feel free to criticise it as as strawman argument. I’ll come up with a better one if it’s really egregious.

Without further ago, let’s get into an example. I’ve several times, meta-figured out antagonists before they did anything due to cues. E.g.: I’ve seen a specific assistant ALWAYS buy bull and learn wires. Everytime th ey’re an antagonist. Because that’s the easiest way to learn wires without getting shocked. I’m not supposed to know that, but because bull is nearly the only way to circumvent insuls for an indepentent party … It’s so god damn obvious that it ruins the round. Even if I’m holding myself to rules, and my character doesn’t know that a specific character is an antagonist, the player, me, knows. Even if I limit myself as much as possible to make sure the round plays out as it is supposed … I can’t stop my experience from telilng me: Hey. This guy just tested a door for wires. Why? I have to make CONSCIOUS efforts to actually ignore the antagonist. My character doesn’t know, but I do. Even if I don’t want to use meta information, I can’t just kill my experience. I KNOW how to greytide. And I KNOW why people do this.

Same with med. What do you think will happen, from a meta perspective, if we force antagonists to actually visit med on heavy wounds without being able to short circuit it? Yes. Round related, rule related, the character doesn’t know that the person who just went to med with half of their body burned, did so because they were the gasmasked Assistant who got shot up by failing to murder Ian. But want it or not, because the loop is so predictable, the player knows. And to be honest, sometimes, this is so distressing, that I occasionally have to “self-antag”. Knowingly not report antagonists, because my meta knowledge SCREAMS: HE"S BAD!, but the round needs to be played out properly. Yet the antag player misses options to short circuit the system so that I can’t notice them.

It’d difficult for me to give you a full list of examples right now, but to be completely honest with you … I don’t think I’ve been surprised by bee antagonists. Not once. Simply because the rules and gameplay is so rigid that … It becomes meta obvious. To the poitn where, even when I obey the rules and avoid meta knowledge … The only thing I can actually do is force-cryo myself so that the unwilling meta-knowledge I have can’t actually affect the round.

EDIT: And this isn’t limited to just med or hacking. Using bull will make you shake. So you can obviously single out bull-hacking people. Even if you’re not supposed to. The gimmickness and rigidness of bee-code basically screams in my face: THEY JUST HACKED THIS DOOR! Same goes for certain antagonists and certain gear. My most played role is assistant, followed by security. On Acacia, I ended up being conscripted by players to be security, even when I join as Assistant and purposefully avoid involving myself into the crew/antag dynamic. Why? Because I KNOW an antagonist when I see one. And some players KNOW that I see it, if not see it as much as I do. My point here being, the less features, the less versatily we have, the more rigid gameplay becomes. The more obvious antags become. If before antags could abuse the same thing as crew abuses and go around unnoticed because they partake in the same OP things as crew does … Forcing them to go though med, to go through me, is going to be a red flag, meta wise. Even if I don’t want to use meta knowledge … I can’t stop my experience. It tells me: This guy is fucking bad. I’m not supposed to know it … But I do. Because that guy had no option but to expose himself to me.

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50

Well, let’s actually take a look at all antags

Uplink Antags will have limited options available for TC to circumvent needing medbay, and additionally nearly all uplink antagonists do have teammates they can rely on even if it requires some cooperation via code-words. Many just have help outright though.
Blood Brothers You have at least one helper. If they’re down and so are you, you’re just kinda out of luck and that’s how BB should go anyway. Have each others’ backs or fail because you didn’t.
Changelings Don’t need anything extra. Inhuman regeneration is kinda part of their schtick already and I didn’t plan on changing that. Witnessing regeneration might be a bit easier now though.
Revolution Team antag, can and should rely on others within their team if injured.
Blood Cult Team antag, can and should rely on others (also more to this one related to blood theming)
Clockwork Cult Team antag again
Wizard Doesn’t need any extra enablers.
Heretic Needs a creative solution added to their kit to be in line with the mission statement.
Midround-only antags are either not-applicable or not necessary to enable further because they aren’t meant to be stars like mainline antags are.

Unless I’m completely overlooking something, Heretic is the only main-line antagonist that is truly solo and potentially helpless when badly injured. Everyone else either has support, options or both. (even if in the case of “solo” traitors that support is less guaranteed)

Does not require stasis at all, you’re just on a time limit.

Sounds reagent based to me so it’s covered by cryochambers.
(this is more or less what I meant by “along the lines of an overdose”)

Additionally, this can be solved just fine on our current system without stasis via blood filtering and/or purge chems. They might die in the process (blood filter works on corpse) and need a revival, but stasis is not required to treat this.

Not an issue in rework because actual death is permanent.
Rotting organs only affects their ability to to be transplanted.

Same as above with pyro chems.

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51

Okay. Fair points. But let’s adress them one by one.

This is the best point. And rightfully so, because I believe traitors is the most well-balanced antagonist that bee has to offer. The only counter-argument I have here is nitpicking. Specifically, codewords. This is more “skill issue” but … After some time … Well … After 400 hours as warden. I can guess code words heard on the radio about 20% of the time. It’s not a lot, but god damn is it enough. Second … The most important “healing” factor I’d wager you can acquire from the uplink is stimpacks (Yes, I know, it’s not healing, but I treat it as such because when used correctly instead of healing, stimpacks are damage mitigation, so, technically, healing, since you avoid damage instead of healing it). Beyond that, even if you have other traitors to rely upon, you STILL need the station to deal with overwhelming problems. As said, I’ve previously tracked down traitors simply by watching med for wounded people and observing what kind of damage they took. Doesn’t happen often right now because bruise packs are OP, but if we get baymed, it’s going to be SO fucking obvious that I’ll be capable of instakilling antags within the first engagement if I wanted to be a dick. Still. All of this is nitpicking and I do believe you are correct here. Traitors are the best antagonist Bee has to offer, IMHO.

UTTERLY FUCKING DISAGREED. I’m sorry Ruko, but NO. FUCK NO. BB is the reason for which I realized, yeah, antag isn’t for me on bee. Why? Because my very first BB experience was some random fuckwit who’d break into chem, fail to do a wat/pot grenade and get roflstomped by chloride. No. Fuck no. Bee community is NOT reliable enough to truly be able to rely upon your fellow BB. Yes, staff bans people who fuck up, but it ain’t enough. How many people hate/ask for bans from BB for this very exact reason? Sorry Ruko, but no. You can’t tell me that BB is a reliable team-mate. Sometimes they are, but it’s at best a 50/50.

But they can be obvious in different ways. Which … is very difficult to balance. I remember ACTUAL shadowlings. Or un-nerfed lings who’d be capable to truly merge into the crew and instakill everything. This isn’t true anymore. Lings are also one of the good antagonists on Bee, so for the most part I’d still agree that lings have enough tools to not need station for the most part though. I’ll partially concede this one. To me, lings are the most obvious because of a community issue rather than gameplay issue. Any person who isn’t doing their job is either a ling, a rookie or LRP. Either way, they’re trouble and should be watched. Theoretically, it means that lings aren’t as obvious … But with our community, it’s not the gase.

Worst. Example. Fucking. Ever. Sorry again Ruko, but Revs are obvious as FUCK. Not only that, but revs are a glorifies team-death-match mode. It’s BEYOND just being obvious antags, they’re legitimate round ruiners. I’ve literally watched a round be under 10 minutes yesterday because Revs are such an obvious fucking TDM mode. Yeah, they have a team, but revs are SO fucking broken that that isn’t even something that should be considered in priority in the first place. Before unfucking Rev teamwork, one shoudl unfuck Rev core gameplay.

See revs. Slightly less obvious due to needing a longer time to convert, forcing players to not just flash people in the open for TDM. Otherwise still obvious as fuck.

See above, again.

Even fucking WORSE than the above. This is not even TDM. Yeah, the wizard doesn’t NEED the station. But that’s because the wizard IS a team-death-match antagonist, all on their own. I’ve only seen two varieties of Wizard round: Wizard goes completely docile and becomes ghetto head of staff helping the station. Or wizard roflstomps everything. There is no in between. I think wizard is the most useless antagonist, ever and creates completely pointless rounds. This is beyond just med, combat or … Wizard is broken in EVERY SINGLE CONCEIVABLE WAY.

Odd one. Heretic Thralls are decent, but because Heretic has a murderbone clause, our community tends to be obvious as fuck with is as well. It’s not as bad as revs or cult but … There’s really no way to mistake a heretic for any other antagonist.

Disagree completely. I’d say midround antags, specifically because they are much less on the nose, are the ones with the best results. The best antag round I’ve had is when a crafty Solo Op abused my (at the time) rookiness, captured the disk, captured AA, began to run the station as acting captain … And then told me: Hey. Warden. By the way. I’m the enemy. I’d say that because those antags are unremarkable and much less on the nose than the other ones, that is actually what makes them engaging. Unlike lings, heretics or wizard, you never actually know when they are here or not.

52

I’m not saying there is currently something that can help with advanced injuries, I’m saying it will be easy to add something that does. A complete self surgery kit with a mirror that comes with an extra boost to success, as an example.

I didn’t say they were reliable, I said the point of the mode is relying on your BB. I’m well aware of how utterly shit BB is and how so many people have it disabled that it’s the only antagonist people still get forced into against their will unless they request a ban from it. I tried to make a case for removing BB.

However shit we both think BB is though, I have no plans to make it easier than “rely on your teammate” because that is the point of BB whether we like it or not.

I’m afraid I don’t see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand, which is whether or not antagonists are permanently fucked by serious injuries. Being part of a team automatically guarantees you aren’t permanently fucked because there is someone else who can treat your injuries, even if via ghetto surgery instead of good surgery.

You want antagonists to be able to get necessary care via means that aren’t medbay so they don’t have to rely on deceit or being sneaky… so I’m pointing out they can get it from their team instead of relying on medbay, stealth and deception.

That sucks because unless the staff stance has changed, that was the official staff stance on midround antagonists and isn’t something I can change.

The only mid-round this even really applies to that I can think of is ninja/nightmare, which are the only humanoid ones I can think of that doesn’t have an uplink. Nightmare has regen and ninja is close to wizard levels of power and likewise really doesn’t need to be capable of going indefinitely after injury imo.

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53

Going back on this because you’re nitpicking things without a full picture when the full picture isn’t even available yet and this conversation is far more energy than it’s worth to me right now.

The time for criticism, feedback and improving will come and that time isn’t here yet. No more responses from me at this time and getting into conversations like this before I was at that stage is why I initially said that.

Be patient and stop trying to pull apart everything that makes it bad before you see all of it at once.

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54

They also have the power of occult forces that control the powers of flesh and blood, so having powers that heal isn’t unreasonable.

I do think that lings fall into two categories(you will see both in round).
The ones you talk about.
The ones who remain subtle enough that you weren’t even sure who they spawned as or assumed the identity of(I definitely hope people play closer in this direction, however).

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55

This was original purpose of changelings, not being the combat masters that they slowly turned into.

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56

I am aware. It’s certainly a way that would make them more standout.

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I agree here. But the problem that this creates, in my opinion, that this self-surgery kit will become a “must have”. If you make it cost 5 TC, it’ll effectively mean that most traitors only have 15 TC + healing to work with. Which isn’t inherently bad in and of itself, so I’ll concede here. As said, it’s my personal opinion that TC should be primarily used for gimmicks. If you disagree, then I can’t tell you anything else than let’s agree to disagree here. I concede.

I partly agree, but I also partly disagree. We can both agree on one point. As it is right now, BB is NOT working. Yes, I agree that the point of BB is to rely on your team-mate. But if it isn’t working … I mean. If you can’t break a wall with your forehead, why insist on continuing to do so instead of getting a sledgehammer? I don’t think it’s effective to keep running BB as is because it’s supposed to be played in a specific way. The practical truth of the matter is, the community doesn’t give a damn about how it’s supposed to be played and the mode is broken. Now we can either try and enforce rules on the community as it has been done (with debatable effect) or we can try to change the purpose of BB to actually make it work while taking our community into account. I concede however that this is not a topic for this thread.

Because TDM modes cancel med entirely. Because people do NOT roleplay during revs, nukies, cult or xenos. It’s all about clicking the sprite and make it horizontal before yours goes horizontal. Medical isn’t even taken into account. It’s an afterthought. If I’m not dead, I go back to 100% health. When people play revs, people play Doom, not SS13. Why it’s relevant? Because Revs completely nullify any balance discussion we have about med. In essence, balancing med is pointless if the mode itself disregards med in the first place.

I won’t comment on that beyond saying that I get it. I was a GM for a corporate game some decade ago. I disagreed with the direction completely and couldn’t change anything at all. Even when genuinely interested in improving the project, I’d be ignored. I’m going to bite my tongue on this one because I don’t want the powers that be to nuke the both of us. Next.

Hey man, I’m sorry. I’m kinda drunk and … You probably noticed, I tend to be a self-righteous asshole. It may come from a good place but I get how it gets really overbearing and annoying. I’m sorry I pushed you into replying and debating with me, but for what it’s worth, I appreciate the insight. Especially from you, considering you’re a former staff team insider. Thanks for your time, for your insight. Nothing personal, brother. Peace.

I have yet to see a ling who accomplished their objectives without the station even realizing there’s a ling on board. Then again, I’ve yet to see a rev round which isn’t TDM, despite many players telling me it does exist. I’ll concede here and say that my experience is anecdotal and is likely not enough to generalize, however.

58

I never said they don’t get caught, however, they definitely sneak around a lot more than others.

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59

No no, it’s not that at all, it’s been a good conversation it’s just that I don’t want someone going back and quoting something that ended up being changed and spending… let’s see now, two hours it looks like, going back and forth to explain something that will be available for you to just read yourself in its entirety in the near-ish future.

It’s a massive rework that touches a lot of things and discussions always end up trailing as different dots get connected. Especially troublesome when it reaches a dot that hasn’t been resolved yet (Heretics in this case)

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60

Heh. I feel like you’ve just given me some spoilers. But it’s more likely that I just haven’t been paying enough attention. Either way … Thankyou for your time. I’ve drank enough so I’ll excuse myself from the thread and get some proper sleep sometime today. Peace.

EDIT: @Syrox01 > Sorry man. I don’t have the energy left in me to keep this going. I’m drunk and delirious at this point. If you do not mind, let’s discuss it some other day, yeah?

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