Lets finaly nerf EMP damage to IPCs

[Regen]

I don't understand how'd being put in 95% crit would help you in any way.

One clicks or two clicks, it doesn't fix the problem you're portraying. The change you are asking for won't fix what you're trying to fix.

[Dinarzad]

28 minutes ago, Regen said:

I don't understand how'd being put in 95% crit would help you in any way.

One clicks or two clicks, it doesn't fix the problem you're portraying. The change you are asking for won't fix what you're trying to fix.

Because the intent isn't to nerf Antagonist EMPs, but Envrionmental EMPs, things like the engine or more incidental sources like the Experimentor.
Something that won;t 1 shot kill someone, but put them on their ass for a bit before they get up.  To an Antag, they may as well be dead, they're harmless and helpless.
To someone just doing work and having one go off nearby, you have enough HP to survive one.

I've given up on trying to get EMPs themselves adjusted because Paradise has had a hate-boner for silicons for ages an that's a lost cause I'm not even going to try out.
But enough to survive a single EMP (With stun time) wouldn't exactly kill any balance and be a nice QoL change.

[Regen]

Perhaps I missed it, but I don't see anywhere where you say that's the reason, until now.

All examples used are VS antags, and all I see is "antags kill this and antag kill that", and if you're at 95% dead, won't you be pretty much out of the round anyways?

[Sothangel]

IPCs don't need this buff, I can't support this.

[Bigtimetripod]

Lets talk on a realistic ( boo! Its a game, get out! Listen dammit) standpoint. 

Why would someone with astma work in a flour mill? Answer is he will not.

 

Why would a person with allergies for bees work as a beekeeper? Answer is he will not. 

 

Why would a fecking IPC work on a damn SM engine if they know it shoots out EMP? Answer is they will not.

 

In short, its natural selection... But in case of SS 13, ye repeat the same damn mistakes and then complain. If a person with bee allergies gets stung working with bees, he doesnt get a chance to complain, cause hes most likely DEAD!

 

Lets get logical once again (why do people lack logic skill sometimes). If a thing thats only purpose is to kill and disable electonic things hits a eletronic thing, when why should the effect be any  way less lethal. If it would not kill, then it cannot be called EMP since it would be something else. Bug spray kills bugs? Check. Weed killer kills plants? Check. Does a fecking mouse trap kill mouse? Fecking check! 

 

New PR next week.MOUSETRAP INSTA KILLS MOUSE, PLOX NERF I DED. ADD DELAY TO MECHANICAL SPRINGS.

 

2cents

 

Edited July 10, 2017 by Bigtimetripod

[GutTC]

1 hour ago, Ziiro said:

I want you to think about this.

Any one person in could have an EMP implant in them. The EMP implant has a range of roughly 4 or 5 tiles, I think? You cannot stop them from triggering that implant unless they are dead. Better not stand that close to anyone. Ever.

An EMP flashlight requires someone to be on the tile next to you. Which, it is smart to never stand next to anyone, but you can't stop them from drive-by blinking you with it. As I've said before, I've even been killed in a crowded room using this method and my murderer walked away; no one saved me, or even noticed.

There is no counter-play. There is no gitting gud. That's the problem.

I do understand by that. But by what I said is to do all your best to keep yourself secure, it's true you cannot expect or attempt to counter the EMP hit n' run unless there's some rogue ones with an ion rifle or tossing around EMP nades but the best you can do is stay in a large public place nearby Security and such. You might get EMP'd eventually if you are somewhat a target but the higher chance is that most of people around you will witness of what happened some greater players will save your remains from the attack and have you revive in a quick repairing or that the traitor would just ran away without pulling you with them in middle of chaos and panic with luck that they forgot to hide their identity and get hunt down by beepsky or so. But if no one saved you, oh well, bad luck there. A large EMP title waves can and will triggers a lot of electronics and alarms causing a lot of attentions to everyone surrounding and it might not take long for Sec officers to show up in the scene.

Even organics do get spook when some traitors shows up next to them with a sudden parapen, minibomb-drop, shooting, garrote or double E-swords (anything at all really) right in front of them with tiny chances to expect or counter.

There's always the problems. We all would have to deal with being killed and have our corpses destroyed or hidden in a locker long enough to go rot or unable to be clone by default thanks to our weaknesses and any simple ridiculous ways of death. And all we can do is laugh at our own death because !FUN! and Deal With It. *snap

Edited July 10, 2017 by GutTC

[Citinited]

16 hours ago, Dinarzad said:

IPCs do not breath and are immune to radiation, can have body parts easily replaced and do not need welders. These are their objective upsides.

Everything else is a double-edged sword or a nerf. a Side-grade (As intended)
Chem immunity, means immunity to a lot of meme chem deaths, sure. And also means they have NO form of rapid healing, they cannot be SR'd or Cryox'd or use meth for speed bosts or what have you. They have easier access to "Bandages" with welders and cables but those are slow healing, have to be manually applied to every single body part and in large enough numbers CAN'T heal them, requiring "Surgery" to repair the internal damage.
They are immune to Virus's which also means they can't make use of healing viruses that are made all the time, no brain damage immunity, no constant regeneration with Toxic comp and toxin healing.
They ALSO take hugely increased damage.

You also forgot:

• Do not sense pain so will operate perfectly fine and under no slowdown until they are put into crit
• Are incredibly easy to revive, just weld and go
• Do not need to eat except if every APC they can find is out of charge, in which case they merely operate under a slowdown
• Can lose their head and not die from it
• Immune to a bunch of organ stuff like internal bleeding
• Immune to toxin, clone, and oxygen damage
• Have their own language that no other race can understand
• EDIT: also welding immunity

That's a bunch of upsides that need to be balanced *somehow*.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Citinited

[Dumbdumn5]

As somebody who's played an IPC for about 3 years now, I can say that, at this moment, I really like where IPCs. The only time an EMP can get a little annoying is working a job near maint like surgery or some parts of science, and an EMP goes off in maint, killing you through the wall. Aside from that, I'm a bit of a masochist for in-game death, and I like the nature of paranoia with 'literally anyone could have a completely concealed, nearly if not completely lethal implant or tool to kill me with so much as a glance.) 

Antags are in a good place in relation to IPCs because IPCs are absolutely phenomenal for utility jobs, engineering requires no source of oxygen and doesn't require any welding masks or goggles if unsuited, repairs are simple and often allow an IPC to recover near completely barring severe damage that requires surgery on some limbs, biosuits are unnecessary for the most part and IPCs can waltz around most of the more niche damage types like radition, environmental tox damage, and oxy damage, tox and rads which are very rare in-game and usually don't play a large role, but tend to be more difficult to deal with environmentally, are where IPCs shine when handling some more biohazard based emergencies when they do come up, and oxygen damage immunity is of limited use, as most of the time, where oxygen damage is, so is brute, though it is helpful DoT removal.

Combat-wise, IPCs are able to be killed by a lot of the memechems and mixes, and are actually hurt worse by some of the more noticeable ones, for example, facid will stay in their system and pretty much keep them from revival indefinitely, as the damage multiplier on burn damage will make the acid even more potent (I once got stung by a few syndibees in maint and the roboticist went through two electrical toolboxes of cable coil before giving up on me), firesprays do more damage and tend to keep IPCs down longer, etc. They take staggering amounts of brute damage, which makes it so that the application of brute force to the head is easily one of the simplest ways to mute an IPC by just bashing their head off in a few hits, etc.

IPCs are great where they need to be an bad where it makes a bit of sense for them to be, a lightweight metal skeleton that walks around and handles things that biological workers would shy away from, EMPs and common damage type vulnerabilities are good in terms of a balance between active and inactive damage types for IPCs. IPCs suck at tanking active damage sources, but shine where inactive sources would otherwise keep them down, making them a high utility and low combat race.

I can understand where the damage nerf is coming from, as the thing that's the most frustrating is usually deaths that you had no way of expecting, a good blast through a wall leaves a lot to be desired from at least seeing the combatant, and half the time the IPC isn't even the intended target, a changeling could be running from a borg or killing off a synthetic target and catch one in the blast, an EMP grenade could go off in the other room to disable the cameras or screw over a machine and the bot would be downed without even getting to see what was hitting them aside from a sound and immediate death. A good suggestion I'd heard about the discussion this morning in staff chat that followed this thread was the potential for implementing the universe square law, whereby distance would correlate exponentially with required power, meaning for every extra, say, two meters, the power of the source would need to be doubled.

The game doesn't always have to be fair to be fun, and a lot of the time, it's good to have races with more serious downsides and serious upsides to complement one another because it plays into making a specific gameplay style for each race, it gives the race a certain flavor. That said, it would still be nice to be able to survive inadvertent EMPs, or at least have more of a chance to run when a direct counter appears. Plant-B-Gone appears in a green bottle and is fairly noticeable, bug spray has its own in-hand sprite, syringes and syringe guns have highly noticeable sprites that make them easy to identify as threats, and even normal sprays have sprites that show up prominently and often give people the idea of 'I should stay a little further away from that guy.' Though a lot of EMPs are intentionally stealthy, as they have to compete not only with IPCs, but borgs and the AI as well, which makes it difficult to balance around items and visibility, though that's not what this thread is suggesting, really.

tl;dr

I like where IPCs are and as somebody who's been playing them for about three years now, I've come to enjoy EMPs as a downside due to the feeling they create. Much of what I would have to say about them in the negative sense, would be that the more unintentional 'through the wall' EMPs are more of a problem than EMPs stemming from active attempts on an IPCs life, as they're reasonably balanced towards utility at the detriment of combat ability. I don't think that the changes suggested are wholly necessary, but I understand where they come from and like the discussions about balance that arise from this sort of thing. I'll abstain from the vote and stick to writing and watching what's being said.

[Granodd]

There's so many things I want to say on this topic, though restrain myself from saying seeing as I know that I won't really get anywhere when I say them, as it's one of the more unpopular opinions around here that usually gets responded to with either that I'm salty, or that I'm just wrong. I'll go ahead and say it anyways, and I'll try to keep it short.

The main thing about IPCs and how they're balanced sort of bothers me in the sense that people like to point out "all these upsides that they have" in justification of the major downsides that they also have. Though upon inspection, and you're open to disagree with this, the upsides that IPCs have are many, small quality of life things, a few middle of the road ones that are really great to have, but then two major downsides that really dampen those strengths. I'll try to explain what I mean in as short of a manner as possible because the last time I tried typing this it was over one-thousand words...
• No Pain
Extremely handy for walking over glass with no shoes (good) and not getting knocked down and screaming from a pain proc when someone hits you with something (very good). However it doesn't function really in the way you think it does beyond that. There is no pain-crit here like there is in somewhere like Colonial Marines, and as such pain doesn't mean that much. Normal races drop items from "pain" in broken bones, though so do synths when their arms are damaged enough. Not falling down from something hitting you (such as an energy sword) is good, though you'd need to have quick reaction and speed on your side to get away from it before it permanently downed you, seeing as you're made of paper mache. Suffering pain during surgery has zero downside as well, and is more of an RP thing at the moment, on top of the fact that they are still slowed down when damaged in the chest or leg region @Citinited
• No Breathing (Immune to Oxy Damage)
A few races have this, Dionae and Slimes being the other two that you can select. Useful against things like a lack of air or being choked. It's a nice thing to have, although in most cases it's simply the difference between wearing internals and not. Being choked on the other hand is a good upside from surviving wild greytide/traitor attacks, though the latter will more likely carve you up with an energy sword than spend his precious TCs on a garrote (or just buy the EMP items which are both costed at only 2 TC each).
• Immune to Chems, Rads, Viruses (Immune to Toxins)
All the things that plague the fleshy form. Such a great day to be robotic! Or is it...? Here's the catch on these things: they're fairly niche. Don't get me wrong, they're really convenient to have, but the instances in which being immune is actually noticed or considered an extremely good thing is few and far between. The most useful of the three is likely the immunity to chems, as it means Traitor McGee and his trusty RSG isn't getting you any time soon, but as mentioned before, he's likely not after you anyways if he's packing an RSG. More likely a flashlight. Spiders like to use venom a lot, though venom will only kick in if you survive a spider attack. The best case as both organic or synth is to run, as the poison will kill you if you survive, and you're unlikely to survive as an IPC unless you've got a good spider-killing tool. Immunity to chems also means none of the quick healing effects that they offer; even quicker and passive when compared to having to stand in place with welder/cable/nanopaste (which is arguably shorter than a visit to medbay). Of course chems require a bit of prepwork, equipment, and sometimes other people to acquire, though a savvy individual will always know how to get access to them. Donk pockets for instance are one of my favorites.

Immunity to rads is good if you work engineering, though not much else seeing as the only sources of it are the singularity, SM shard, grav-gen, rad-storm events, and that traitor medical scanner that no one buys. Organics can avoid them by wearing a suit, so the real upside here is being able to be near rads without a suit, which unless you're in space doesn't mean a whole lot.

Viruses are another rare occurrence, as most of the time a Level 7 rolls about it's something that's cured with salt or orange juice, and in the case of Brain Rot (the one 'deadly' Level 7), mannitol (which is an easy medicine to make). Virologists themselves can't release harmful diseases without being bwoinked unless they have hijack, and hijack virologist is not that common of an occurrence. Immunity to viruses also means no healing viruses, either. Though most of the issue here I feel is that our virology is really one-dimensional in the fact that diseases aren't impactful enough in addition to being easy to cure, on top of virology only being allowed to use biological warfare if they're something like hijack.

Lastly there's genetics. The decloner (which doesn't have an often enough debut) won't work on you, you can work in xenobio with (mostly) no fear of the slimes, and genetic powers are unavailable to you.
• No Bleeding
I will admit that this one is probably one of the stronger more useful ones to have, given that loss of blood can really shaft you. I would consider this one of the few practical strengths that IPCs have. It would hold more weight if they were a bit more hardy and could survive combat on the same par as everyone else. The only other race I know of that does this better is Dionae.
• The APC's Natural Predator
We rely on engineering and not a cook. That's really all this is. As of a recent PR, knock off our right arm and we're completely incapable of doing it at all unless we get back that limb and/or visit robotics. A quality of life thing that's been very slightly made worse than its previous variations due to recent PRs.
• Can Survive Without a Head
So this is one that I hear a lot from the opposite side, and it really bothers me. Surviving decapitation is a great, great strength. The catch: this would mean so much more if this wasn't a daily occurrence for a race whose limbs stayed attached about as well as a lego set. Decapitation to an IPC also means different things than to an organic, so comparing the two is like apples to oranges. Removing their head is effectively just blinding them, which can be done to anyone with eyes and a screwdriver in nine hits. IPCs don't go blind after nine hits from a screwdriver, but their head does pop off after eleven. You could pop it off in roughly four with a toolbox, whereas you'd need something heavy duty like a chainsaw or dual-bladed energy sword on anyone else. The decap proc to organics is RNG, though if whatever you're swinging does enough damage, it'll knock off a synth's head in one hit. The same's true for practically every other limb they have, especially the hands and feet. In the end, this practically just means that you can blind an IPC (in addition to removing their ability to call for help on their headset) much easier than you could anyone else.
• Can Repair Yourself
I touched on this one briefly in a previous point. Very handy to have, albeit tedious as you need to target every limb, actually have access to a welder (which disappear often in the presence of civilians) and cables; and in the case of limbs popped off, a buddy and a table. This is the same for anyone else who's repairing you, though it does go slightly faster, but with the same tedious targeting ordeal. A good strength to have, though overall is better for prolonged engagements, and would mean much more if you didn't stack on damage and lose limbs harder, better, faster (not stronger) than everyone else.
• Don't Decay
Basically just that. We don't decay and we can be brought back with enough welding fuel and cable wires. Ultimately this means death is an inconvenience, but only if we get found by someone who can save us (you'd be surprised how many people do not know how to fix a robot). It's our version of cloning, and we don't have an "auto-process" feature either. Better to have early in the round as opposed to when science has upgraded the cloner. If you get debrained, you can't ghost at all for fear of losing your ability to re-enter the round at all, as posibrains are a ghost role. Normal brains aren't, though I'm unsure if ghosting from one prevents you from re-entering it (someone will need to help clarify this).
• Weak to EMP
Everyone's pretty familiar with this one so I'll not really say too much besides that it goes through walls, has a nasty tendency of popping out of nowhere (changelings + EMP implant), and is widely accessible (uranium+iron mixes, ion rifle, cult rune, traitor/nukie items, changeling screech, singularity, and if you're silly enough to get near it, the EXPERI-mentor).
• Increased Brute/Burn Damage
50% more in both regards. Most races only have one or the other. We've got both. The highest brute mod of any race, though not quite on burn (slimes take 300% more cold, while Drask take 400% more burn if I remember correctly, though this is to specific types of heat. The burn mod on IPCs however takes into effect both, which covers a slightly larger range than the other two, placing them in a de facto third place for highest burn weakness). What does this truly mean though? Their limbs popping off is mostly thanks to this, as is their ability to die extremely fast. Immunity to oxy and toxin damage is great, though they're the two least common forms of damage in a game where combat is a frequent occurrence, the two most common forms of damage being brute, closely followed by burn.

This is where that "practicality" thing I mentioned comes into play. If you just look a the surface of things: yes, IPCs do have the most strengths compared to any other race. Though when you sit down to really analyze those strengths, you find that only a few of them mean a whole lot of anything outside of convenience, and the ones that do are made not nearly as effective due to their two major weaknesses. In my humble (and likely disagreeable) opinion, if the brute/burn mod was cranked down a notch, and the EMP tweaked to where it was still your bane (two strong pulses as opposed to one, which is still better than plant-b-gone for dionae due to its ability to transcend walls in addition to an AoE radius), but wasn't one-shotting you through a wall, then they'd be in a more balanced position.

Also, whoops, remember when I said I'd keep it short? Well I tried, and I didn't necessarily lie, but oh well.

(edit):
• Don't Go Blind From Welding
I mean it's handy, but again, something you can completely avoid as an organic with welding protection in the form of goggles or a welding mask. If anything this is a benefit to if you don't have access to these things and you're trying to keep stealthy by not asking for welding protection so no one knows you're welding. Chances are though that no one truly cares, though. I mean I always wear welding protection even as an IPC because the white flash is highly annoying and "effectively" blinds you for three or so seconds, which isn't good if you're trying to keep an eye out for things.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Granodd

[Anticept]

4 hours ago, Dumbdumn5 said:

 

I can understand where the damage nerf is coming from, as the thing that's the most frustrating is usually deaths that you had no way of expecting, a good blast through a wall leaves a lot to be desired from at least seeing the combatant, and half the time the IPC isn't even the intended target, a changeling could be running from a borg or killing off a synthetic target and catch one in the blast, an EMP grenade could go off in the other room to disable the cameras or screw over a machine and the bot would be downed without even getting to see what was hitting them aside from a sound and immediate death. A good suggestion I'd heard about the discussion this morning in staff chat that followed this thread was the potential for implementing the universe square law, whereby distance would correlate exponentially with required power, meaning for every extra, say, two meters, the power of the source would need to be doubled.

 

The term I used is inverse square law. Hehehehe. And it's inversely proportional to the square of the distance. That means if you double the distance (radius), the intensity must be EXPONENTIALLY increased. That means it's much harder to make HUGE emp bombs, as the amount of input material goes up exponentially as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

I want to know what the universe square law is. Maybe we're a projection on a 2d screen of intergalactic proportions?

 

Anyways, on my own personal thoughts on this. EMP is crazy powerful indeed, and I had thought about implications of reducing the effectiveness to IPCs by half, but it still doesn't leave them in much good shape at all.

But, on that note, there's some things that don't leave organics in good shape either. Maybe it's not so much the EMP itself that's the problem... maybe it's because it's so damn available everywhere and useful for more than just IPC killing... maybe that is the root of the problem. EMP discharges sec weapons and kills their headset, knocks out borgs temporarily, scrambles cameras, causes hilarious results with doors, can be used to mislead killing a death alarm person by setting it off with good timing, kills turrets, kills AI, burns out flashes.... see what I'm getting at? Why WOULDN'T you want to carry a pocket EMP?

Edited July 10, 2017 by Anticept

[Dinarzad]

6 hours ago, Citinited said:

You also forgot:

• Do not sense pain so will operate perfectly fine and under no slowdown until they are put into crit
• Are incredibly easy to revive, just weld and go
• Do not need to eat except if every APC they can find is out of charge, in which case they merely operate under a slowdown
• Can lose their head and not die from it
• Immune to a bunch of organ stuff like internal bleeding
• Immune to toxin, clone, and oxygen damage
• Have their own language that no other race can understand
• EDIT: also welding immunity

That's a bunch of upsides that need to be balanced *somehow*.

Pain really does not cause a whole lot of stuff. Not really a buff that matters, but a very very small one, granted.
Cloning. Just dump them in a machine and it does the work for you. Feed them a pill and they get up. Put a defib unit on their chest then toss them in cryo. Not a buff, a side-grade.
Everyone needs to eat except Diona. IPCs eat at an APC, humans eat at a vending machine/Kitchen. A single IPC can knock an APC down to 50% capacity pretty easily too. This is not a buff, a side-grade.
Can lose their head and not die from it. And be blind and much worse until a head is replaced, and it and other limbs also pops off like a Rock'em-Sock;Em Robot's. I'd rather have my head harder to detatch then die in 3 hits to the chest.
Bleeding comes up so infrequently on paradise, I sometimes wonder if it really wouldn't just be better to ditch it altogether. But regardless, they're NOT immune to "Organ" problems as they HAVE organ equivalents in their chassis. Microbattery = Heart, etc. The only time bleeding ever comes up is Vampires or Internal bleeding, and vamps have bigger problems and internal bleeding is by far one of the rarest cases to come into medical bay.
Immune to Toxin and Oxygen damage. You mean the things I mentioned in the very post you're quoting me where I said those WERE part of their upsides? Cloning damage has maybe three sources in the entire game, and it literally is fixed by putting someone in cryo, which ALSO fixes every other thing wrong with them, except bones.
Having a Language is *NOT* a buff, and if we're going to try and make fucking Trinary out to be this huge advantage, I'm going to openly mock people who try it, because the IPC OP Salt meta will be complete at that point.  Every single race has a language, save for Plasmamen, even humans. That no one else can understand So please just don't even.
Welding immunity was also listed.

A bunch of upsides that have to be balanced somehow. By EMP Vulnerability and taking fuck tons of extra damage.
Again, you;re spinning things to make it sound like I and others are trying to Get EMP vulnerability removed entirely, so that you can people on your side, and in so doing misrepresent the facts and mislead people, and frankly this is an old schtick from a lot of people and it's getting real old. The salt mine needs to fucking stop so we can at least have a fuckin discussion about it, without people instinctively going bucking up or dishing out ultimatums.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Dinarzad

[Da Dman234]

Alright, I'm not really for or against this but I'll give you a platform with which to better explain your argument with a question, since I'm curious.

 

What difference would being put into crit make? I fail to see how being put into crit makes any difference whatsoever, minus a couple minutes in repair time. You'll still be disabled on the ground, and your radio will be off, how does this make any difference for the player in any situation other than when an antag attacks them; in which case the IPC can better scream "X DID THIS TO ME, LYNCH". A lot of people see IPCs as balanced, and I haven't really seen you give a convincing reason as to why you should have this other than "EMPs are strong and other races die in two shots instead of one". Each race has numerous upsides and downsides, and it's not really fair at all to compare them.

[Regen]

1 hour ago, Dinarzad said:

The salt mine needs to fucking stop so we can at least have a fuckin discussion about it, without people instinctively going bucking up or dishing out ultimatums.

Aren't you contradicting yourself in the same sentence?

The salt train needs to stop whenever people doesn't want to buff IPC's as well.

 

You have yet to actually rebute what I said, every example given is vs antags, not vs general machinery and "naturally" occuring EMP's.
"I want to not die from an EMP instantly, just make it do 95% damage so I can be in an immobile, helpless state, just not dead" is what I hear. Your compromise to EMP's will not solve the problem when fighting an antag with an EMP weapon, nor will it really do anything against naturally occuring EMP's, you're focusing on the wrong thing, and just going in circles, throwing jabs at people.

The salt argument fails when you yourself get mad and salty.

[GunDOS]

I'll say this, I don't think IPC's need a buff or nerf. They need a rethink, or at worst a fix.

If something has to be nerfed to change EMP's effects as @Fox McCloud suggested. I would table that we remove the ability for IPC's to self repair and make it a requirement that they be fixed via surgery in robotics. I would then change EMP's effects to taking a 1/3 of an IPC's health and temporarily blinding and deafening them.

Though I doubt many of you would be happy with this idea. I believe it a decent compromise between everyone. As said in Star Trek "You know it's a compromise when nobody is happy about it, but everyone gets a bit of what they want"

[Anticept]

One drawback to that, is there's not enough roboticists to handle any more than a minor station event.

[Allfd]

I can offer a different position.

Radiation should mess up IPC far more then it does any other species.  Random charged particles kinda knock electrons everywhere.  Also, this can be bad enough that it results in random capacitor discharges.  Further, significant damage is caused to the arrangement of atoms in many semi-conductors, resulting in permanent damage.  A lethal dose for a human will kill you over days, for electronics its instant.  Its not always a hard failure, however the more complicated the electronics, the more damage.  A very simple circuit can survive a good amount of radiation that throws its frequency clock off a significant amount.  A high end computer processor can take only a small fraction before being permanently damaged.

Even a little bit of radiation could cause permanent damage as it throws the signal to noise ratio down the well and alters the very behavior of complex circuits.
 

 

[Urlance Woolsbane]

I rarely play IPC, so I'm neither an expert nor overly invested in their mechanics, but I think it's ludicrous that plant-men and skrekbirbs are space-proof while literal robots are not. I think that granting IPCs pressure immunity would go a long way towards balancing them.

[Anticept]

24 minutes ago, Urlance Woolsbane said:

I rarely play IPC, so I'm neither an expert nor overly invested in their mechanics, but I think it's ludicrous that plant-men and skrekbirbs are space-proof while literal robots are not. I think that granting IPCs pressure immunity would go a long way towards balancing them.

Actually, this is a big problem in space. Anything that generates heat needs careful consideration for radiating that heat away. There's no air to take the heat away, so the only option is surface area so that it radiates on its own.

So it might not make sense at first glance, but unless IPCs have a circulatory system carrying heat away from their internals, it wouldn't bode well for them to spacewalk. OOC, our blood plays a critical role in this; it doesn't just carry oxygen, it also carries heat to the skin.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Anticept

[Urlance Woolsbane]

4 minutes ago, Anticept said:

Actually, this is a big problem in space. Anything that generates heat needs careful consideration for radiating that heat away. There's no air to take the heat away, so the only option is surface area so that it radiates on its own.

So it might not make sense at first glance, but unless IPCs have a circulatory system carrying heat away from their internals, it wouldn't bode well for them to spacewalk.

I don't think we're going for that level of realism, though. No one gives a second thought about cyborgs being space-proof, and they're much closer to what IPCs are than anything else.

 

EDIT: That said, this presents an opportunity to flesh out IPCs and borgs, by giving them some sort of heat-handling component.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Urlance Woolsbane

[Dinarzad]

2 hours ago, Regen said:

The salt argument fails when you yourself get mad and salty.

Regen pls
Did you know people can use words like "Fuck" without being furious?
Because people that go "Holy fuck dude" when their friend does something cool in a game, actually AREN'T mad.
It comes across as trying to dismiss arguments you don't like under the basis of assumed emotional state, Ex: "Well I don;t have to read/listen to anything they say because they're 'mad' so it;s clearly just raging gibberish with nothing behind it at all. It REALLY stifles conversation.
So unless you can pinpoint the spot where I am 'Salty' aside my use of crude words...?

As for the rest of the post, I literally just gone done explaining, it's not the difference between 95% dead and Dead
A single EMP would be enough to JUST keep an IPC on the cusp of falling over in major crit, enough for 2 to kill but not enough for 1 to leave you "Immobile" by any stretch.
And would include a hefty stun factor, so that EMPs caused by antags would give them plenty of time to do the rest of their work on the IPC, since buffing their survivability against antags is NOT the goal.
Examples are versus antags because that's the train everyone and their mom is jumping on "But muh buffs". So that is why the exampels are showing it won't do diddly against antagonists out to kill an IPC target. Versus an environmentally caused EMP, or just against an IPC who wasn't the intended target but got caught through a wall, the odds are that another EMP will not occur before you can pick yourself up and crawl to get help.
In addition it means the Ion rifle is no longer instantly lethal to IPCs, so it could FEASIBLY be used to take down an IPC crewman without the whole 'lol murder' aspect behind it.

 

1 hour ago, Saul Argon said:

I'll say this, I don't think IPC's need a buff or nerf. They need a rethink, or at worst a fix.

If something has to be nerfed to change EMP's effects as @Fox McCloud suggested. I would table that we remove the ability for IPC's to self repair and make it a requirement that they be fixed via surgery in robotics. I would then change EMP's effects to taking a 1/3 of an IPC's health and temporarily blinding and deafening them.

Though I doubt many of you would be happy with this idea. I believe it a decent compromise between everyone. As said in Star Trek "You know it's a compromise when nobody is happy about it, but everyone gets a bit of what they want"

This is literally the opposite of balance. This is "Soft removal". It's also not even slightly a compromise.

"EMPs now take are lethal in two applications instead of one, but provide a long stun on top of their damage, in exchange you can't self heal at all and even the lightest ding requires surgical intervention."
Read that out loud to yourself. Imagine it;s a Vulpkanin or Unathi or some other race that is way more commonly seen, and then imagine how ludicrous that would be.
This refers back to what I said the last time that idea was brought up, "Playability" cannot be ignored when it comes to "Balance". If you give IPCs in-built pulse rifles in their eyes, but in exchange gave them Diona speed and this  "No healing" feature, you would see few if any IPCs, or how Kidan have a tremendous lack of player base due in no small part to the fact they can't wear anything on their eyes, drastically impeding almost every job on the station.
Making something feel terrible to play, means nobody will play it. That has nothing to do with balance or buffs or nerfs, that's straight gameplay design

[Granodd]

There's something about the polarization that this topic causes that peturbs me, fills me with a faint sense of hoplessness, and at the same time a drive of determination to get others on the other end to agree with me, or in the least understand my side. Not only that, it's a topic that has clear sides on the "for" and "against" fronts, but a lack of cohesion in the people in their respective sides. The people who are against the current state of IPCs have varying degrees of "spirit", as well as how much they want changed, whereas the other side either has a simple statement that they think it's fine the way it is, or giving ultimatums if anything were to be changed at all. It is obvious to me that more people think that IPCs are just fine the way they are than those who want to see a difference, but regardless I still hold my stance that something should be changed for the better without knocking another major weakness into the race.

On the topic of what @Da Dman234 asked, as for improving/adjusting/nerfing how EMP interacts with IPCs to where it was no longer an instakill, it's not hard to see why anyone would want to change an instant-death mechanic into anything but. In the end, it's still a game, and in any game there is, instant-death mechanics are hardly, if ever, fun; and when they're used as a form of balancing something, it just seems a bit heavy-handed. I mean adjusting EMPs to what's been previously mentioned is certainly not the biggest improvement, but it's marginally better, and at the same time, is about as much as people on the "pro-IPC" side (let's call it that) believe they can offer without being instantly shot down. And to me, that's slightly disheartening. I wish that these discussions didn't feel so uphill and one-sided, any proposals to remove what would otherwise be seen as a not fun mechanic being dismissed in a number of ways ("IPCs are just fine the way they are"; "Oh look more IPC whining/salt"; "Maybe you should just not play the race you like"; etc.)

I don't want to paint myself as a victim here, anything but, though I do still want to present what these sort of discussions are like to me. I suppose the one question I'd like to pose to the opposite side is how the strengths IPCs have add up to justify the great downsides they have. I already put forth how I thought they didn't really add up, and in a way were devalued by the presence of the weaknesses, but I'm still curious to hear. The closest analogies I can give of "doesn't add up" is someone in CS:GO trying to trade a bunch of Sand Dune Glocks for someone's Crimson Web Karambit knife, or someone trying to pay for a meal at McDonalds with nothing but pennies. Eventually you'll get to the worth that you're after, though you're likely not going to get pleasant reactions. In this instance, I don't feel like the worth is quite equal between strengths and weaknesses, and those who do I still view with skepticism.

In the end, I suppose the only thing I'd want for IPCs (and I say "I" as everyone on the side of changing IPCs has their different views of what should and shouldn't be) is for them to not fall apart so easily to practical things like melee combat and the like while still retaining their other strengths, as when actually applied, those strengths don't mean much in this atmosphere. EMP, while I strongly disagree with the whole instant-death thing, is maybe my second grievance with the race, and I have more issue with how fragile they are to everything else. If they retained that one "Achilles heel" while becoming more durable in the brute/burn category, I would say then that they're more appropriately balanced. Sure people want their robots to be space-faring like the Vox, but as @Anticept sort of pointed out, machinery gives off heat, and in space, there's no where for that heat to really go. In the Bay code, IPCs actually need heatsinks to attach onto their voidsuits similarly to oxygen tanks. Though EMP in the Bay code doesn't instant fritz them, instead heavily damaging them, while high damage causes limbs to malfunction and sputter (causing them to fall over or drop things); they also take less brute damage, but their posibrains are located in the head, so decapitation there means the same thing to them as it does to organics, and on that same note, don't lose limbs as easily as they do here. In a way, I do like how Bay handles its IPCs, though at the same time, they don't have the ability to repair themselves (on Aurora at least, though this is hard-coded with the explanation of "this is against H&S regulations", which to me just feels silly).

IPCs at the moment are in a tolerable position, where playing them is still something I can enjoy, though I am constantly reminded of things that I wish were different. I don't know what their future holds, though I do in a way hope it's something slightly better.

[EvadableMoxie]

It isn't very fun or very fair for antags to be able to kill you in a way you realistically have zero chance to protect yourself from. However, IPCs getting killed by EMPs is hardly the only case for this.  Unless you're an engineer who gets to run around in a hardsuit all day, chances are any antag with a syringe gun has the means to instantly kill you with no chance to fight back.  Hell, if they have a revolver and shoot you in the back odds are you'll be dead before you can react. On top of that, we have so many ways to stun people, from batons to slipping, and once stunned you can easily be restrained and then killed.

So when people complain about EMPs not being fair to IPCs, they are right.  It isn't fair.  But SS13 isn't fair to anyone.

[Malphystoh]

15 minutes ago, EvadableMoxie said:

It isn't very fun or very fair for antags to be able to kill you in a way you realistically have zero chance to protect yourself from. However, IPCs getting killed by EMPs is hardly the only case for this.  Unless you're an engineer who gets to run around in a hardsuit all day, chances are any antag with a syringe gun has the means to instantly kill you with no chance to fight back.  Hell, if they have a revolver and shoot you in the back odds are you'll be dead before you can react. On top of that, we have so many ways to stun people, from batons to slipping, and once stunned you can easily be restrained and then killed.

So when people complain about EMPs not being fair to IPCs, they are right.  It isn't fair.  But SS13 isn't fair to anyone.

i was ready to summon a Lynchmob but then I finished reading your statement. 100% agree. Life ain't Fair. Spesslife surely ain't either.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Malphystoh

[Shadeykins]

18 minutes ago, EvadableMoxie said:

It isn't very fun or very fair for antags to be able to kill you in a way you realistically have zero chance to protect yourself from. However, IPCs getting killed by EMPs is hardly the only case for this.  Unless you're an engineer who gets to run around in a hardsuit all day, chances are any antag with a syringe gun has the means to instantly kill you with no chance to fight back.  Hell, if they have a revolver and shoot you in the back odds are you'll be dead before you can react. On top of that, we have so many ways to stun people, from batons to slipping, and once stunned you can easily be restrained and then killed.

So when people complain about EMPs not being fair to IPCs, they are right.  It isn't fair.  But SS13 isn't fair to anyone.

Cheers, one of the big draws on SS13 is its lethality and the knowledge that mistakes can sometimes be fatal, even if they're not your mistakes. I don't think we should be handwaving this.away, it's why the ghost role exists and why we have such an abundance of various midround antags/ways for ghosts to get back into the round.

Constructs, blobs, xenomorphs, ERT's, borers, maintdrones, pets, and all sorts of things exist solely because the game design in and of itself recognizes that people are going to die, and they're going to die a lot. You can't win every battle. Heck, you don't even have a chance of winning most of them - and that's part of the charm on SS13.

A lot of times, it's better to just cut your losses and run.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

2 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

It isn't very fun or very fair for antags to be able to kill you in a way you realistically have zero chance to protect yourself from. However, IPCs getting killed by EMPs is hardly the only case for this.  Unless you're an engineer who gets to run around in a hardsuit all day, chances are any antag with a syringe gun has the means to instantly kill you with no chance to fight back.  Hell, if they have a revolver and shoot you in the back odds are you'll be dead before you can react. On top of that, we have so many ways to stun people, from batons to slipping, and once stunned you can easily be restrained and then killed.

So when people complain about EMPs not being fair to IPCs, they are right.  It isn't fair.  But SS13 isn't fair to anyone.

Organic crewmembers somehow manage not to die to memechems, revolvers, etc. with such alarming (and salt-inducing) regularity. Those things take a modicum of effort to employ, and aren't so horribly ubiquitous. An IPC faces the prospect of instant death from ion guns, revenants, chemical reactions, changelings, emp-flashlights, and more. All this in exchange for immunity to memechems, viruses (one of the game's tamer threats,) and hungry vampires. Oh, and newbs who think they can die by decapitation. YMMV, but freedom from memechems seems like the only one of those that's worthwhile. Oh, and there's also the lack of bones, but you've got a weaker body in return. You won't break your hand, but it will go flying off with ease.

Anyhow, I think a major issue with EMPs is their sheer ubiquitousness. Don't get me wrong, I adore capricious and bountiful death in SS13, and think that the game as it stands is far too safe. But even I think that regular, nigh-unavoidable, simplistic, instant death is a tad much, especially when there's little in the way of buffs to show for it. No other species has such a bete noir. Diona, for example, are vulnerable to darkness, which is hilariously easy to avoid, and Plant-B-Gone, which you have to go out of your way to use on one. Their real weakness is their slowness, but it leaves them with a fighting chance. Vox rely on voxygen, and that's an hilarious non-liability. Heck, even plasmamen seem considerably better off than IPCs, although admittedly few people play them.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Urlance Woolsbane