Flash and telebaton changes

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

It's really getting a pain dealing with people fucking around in your department. The telebaton and flash the heads of staff get are a joke. What are you even supposed to do with that? Stand there and just stunlock someone until security arrives 5 minutes later? You can't even type a propper message over coms in the short telebaton stun..

 

All this short stun weapons work somehow for security because they have cuffs to follow it up, but you can't do anything usefull with the one or two second stun a telebaton does. It's not even enough time to get a propper grab on someone. With the stun the flash did before you actually had some time to drag someone out of your deparment and close the airlock or put on some straight jacket. Now you just stand there clicking the baton every two seconds like a idiot and try to use that incredible short stun to try to type a message to get help.

 

Not to mention that when you fail to re-apply the stun in time the person is just going to disarm you and kill you with your own baton.

 

 

On a server that is harcore rp you could probably argue that calling security for every small issue would be possible. But since it's way to common to see people with stolen IDs or breaking shit around here, the heads should probably be more useful in that regard. Especially considering that security is understaffed like 80% of the time.

 

[Wintermote]

 

I agree that short stuns are pointless. If you are giving a weapon a stun capability, keep it decently long - otherwise just don't give them a stun capability. Frankly, the less instant stun weapons, the better.

 

I'd rather a telebaton that'll break bones than one that gently stuns someone.

 

[Plotron]

 

The telebaton has a longer cooldown to prevent the person wielding it from stunlocking two people.

The flash change made it harder to handle shit in departments - true.

 

It's easy to lose your telebaton.

 

All in all, I find it fairly balanced.

 

Also: haloss telebaton sounds interesting.

 

[Fj45]

 

The telebaton is pretty much useless for legit uses (throwing an idiot out) but great for condom heads.

 

The flash just needs to go back to what it was, great for greytide but easy to counter by anyone who knows what they are doing.

 

[Wintermote]

 

I'm confused about these flash changes you guys are talking about - what changed with them?

 

Do they not knock people over anymore?

 

[Fj45]

No, just blind people for a few seconds, so they are utterly useless.

[Blackmage199]

 

No, just blind people for a few seconds, so they are utterly useless.

 

I was able to outrobust a traitor with a gun, thanks to a flash and a saw. They're not useless, they just don't allow you to immediately win due to a stun.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

I'm confused about these flash changes you guys are talking about - what changed with them?

 

Do they not knock people over anymore?

 

Flashes induces a state of confusion on the person you used it on; using the flash in an AoE applies the same effect but at reduced effectiveness levels; AoE flashing then running away is insanely effective, especially when you factor in how long the blind on flashes last now; good luck being able to do anything when your movement is scrambled AND you can't see anything.

 

If you want something that is slightly more effective, I recommend ordering a pack of disablers from cargo; any head of staff can unlock them and they provide for an effective short-range method of stunning someone.

 

These tools are meant to be used as a defensive means and have short stuns to prevent abusive situations where one staff member is capable of keeping a whole slew of people pinned to the ground, especially when its not their job's designation. Furthemore, Head of Staff are compensated in other ways that aid them both offensively and defensively; CE has his armor and no-slowdown no-slip mags; RD has his reactive telearmor, CMO has their hypospray and syringe gun, and Cap+HoP+Captain really don't need explanation (by virtue of their very very heavily armored+armed status).

 

[belarion]

I think the telebatons are meant to be more for defence and getting away than for being a departmental sec officer.

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

These tools are meant to be used as a defensive means and have short stuns to prevent abusive situations where one staff member is capable of keeping a whole slew of people pinned to the ground, especially when its not their job's designation.

But doesn't that shift the abuse to the Head of Staff that has no other option just to stunlock the offender with that two second stun? The tele baton never was meant to be a acutal "weapon", like Fj45 said, it's just a condom stick. It doesn't even make sense that you can hit someone 20 times and he doesn't get any damage, it's just a RP tool to be a dick.

 

Furthemore, Head of Staff are compensated in other ways that aid them both offensively and defensively; CE has his armor and no-slowdown no-slip mags; RD has his reactive telearmor

This defences are meaningless in situtation where someone is beeing a dick in your deparment.

 

CMO has their hypospray and syringe gun.

I was very happy that we were over the point where CMOs had to make chloral every round start.

 

 

What i am getting at is that the flash is basicly useless to throw someone out of your department and i don't even know what to do with a two second stun. You can't talk in two seconds, you can't straight jacket him, you can't grab him, you probably can't even apply cablecuffs

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

But doesn't that shift the abuse to the Head of Staff that has no other option just to stunlock the offender with that two second stun? The tele baton never was meant to be a acutal "weapon", like Fj45 said, it's just a condom stick. It doesn't even make sense that you can hit someone 20 times and he doesn't get any damage, it's just a RP tool to be a dick.

 

As it was originally conceived, the telebaton was a robust no-cooldown "I win in every situation" combat weapon; it stunned you for a short, random duration, but had no cooldown--additionally, when set on harm, it would do a whopping 15 base damage and still stun them. The nerf shifted it more towards a defensive weapon that you could utilize to run away (or stun-lock a single individual); you have a choice--either to stun someone and do no damage, or harm-baton them for a decently robust 10 damage. People could have been (and did) just as much of jerks with the previous flash than the current telebaton; only difference is now Head of Staff can't stunlock multiple groups of people for a 30+ seconds at a time.

 

This defences are meaningless in situtation where someone is beeing a dick in your deparment.

 

And the entire game isn't balanced around this--there's other factors involved, and when you give a job/class tools to deal specifically with one thing, it will have consequences in dealing with others (for example, upping their defensive capabilities for dealing with looters will invariably increase their combat effectiveness as a lone individual)

 

 

I was very happy that we were over the point where CMOs had to make chloral every round start.

 

They don't "have" to; again--they have the baton and flash--I'm pointing out that they do have another option if they want to lean back on if they so choose; expanding their base power (ie: returning flashes to their previous state) is an overall increase in power, which is not what I want; there's been a crap-ton of powercreep on Paradise in the past 6 months, from various features and requests; nerfs/changes/reworks like this help bring it back to a more sane level.

 

 

What i am getting at is that the flash is basicly useless to throw someone out of your department and i don't even know what to do with a two second stun. You can't talk in two seconds, you can't straight jacket him, you can't grab him, you probably can't even apply cablecuffs

 

The flash stuns them for 1 second and makes them drop what they're holding in their hands; the telebaton stuns them for 3 seconds--cablecuffing takes 3 seconds; the heads of staff are far from defenseless; they just can't go around flash-stunning an entire mob now--I'd also point out the telebaton goes through anything; unlike the flash, there's no defense against it other than to not get hit (on something that doesn't need to be recharged+can fit in your pocket).

 

And again, if you want something that you feel is more "robust"; grab a disabler crate--they're a cheap, incredibly effective way of dealing with people at a safe distance---and all heads of staff have the security clearance to purchase them.

 

Furthermore, the two Head of Staff who don't have access to quick melee knockout (CE and RD, namely, if you factor in CMO's hypospray and syringe gun), do have super super easy access to all the tools and equipment necessary to make a stun-prod, which carries a 5 ssecond stun on it.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

With the instant push and disarm mechanic taking out the tele baton is more of a risk towards the Head then it is helping. At best you can stunlock the guy, at worest he disarms you first hit and uses it to murder you. Even if best case happens, i still don't know what a stunlock that you have to reapply all the time is good for. Why not make the flash have a longer cooldown so it can only stun one person and make but giving you at least some time to react.

 

The result is the same a stunlock of a single person, but with the previous flash stun duration we had the ability to do actually do something useful with that stunlock. Like getting help or dragging him out.

 

The flash stuns them for 1 second and makes them drop what they're holding in their hands; the telebaton stuns them for 3 seconds--cablecuffing takes 3 seconds

Counting in the time you loose for registering that your baton did actually hit + the time you need to change hand + the time to land a click on the sprite will allow anyone to just spam resist and get another chance on the disarm proc.

 

And again, if you want something that you feel is more "robust"; grab a disabler crate--they're a cheap, incredibly effective way of dealing with people at a safe distance---and all heads of staff have the security clearance to purchase them.

Probably a bigger bitch than it is worth. Cargo techs will make you get signatures for sure, then you have to explain the HoS what a disabler is, then you have to convince him that you should get one, to which he will say no.

 

Furthermore, the two Head of Staff who don't have access to quick melee knockout (CE and RD, namely, if you factor in CMO's hypospray and syringe gun), do have super super easy access to all the tools and equipment necessary to make a stun-prod, which carries a 5 ssecond stun on it.

Stunprods are for people that do not have the rights to propper weapons (it's contraband), implying that i am upto something bad when i construct them.

 

there's been a crap-ton of powercreep on Paradise in the past 6 months, from various features and requests; nerfs/changes/reworks like this help bring it back to a more sane level.

I don't want to roll out the whole argument about the new instant but short stun mechanics, but in my opinion this had not made the game any better. I am just talking about the visual and rp effect of that change right now (i explained my views on it from a game mechanic standpoint in mels threat) I see some security unable to arrest civilians because of the short stun durations, they keep reapplying stuns until the eventually manage it. It forces really stupid looking situations, like hitting someone with telebaton every two seconds for like 4 minutes until security arrives. People runnig out of the cell the whole time because you not even have enough time to get out of the cell and close the windoor.

 

 

tl:dr:

How is making the stuns incredible short any better? I still can stunlock indefinite and potentually switch between lethal hit and stun hit to kill (or use a second weapon to damage), but i can't do anything really useful with it except for murderboning. And if i am able to murderbone, i could as well be able to propperly restrain someone. Also you never could stunlock a giant pile of people with the flashes before, because the blub would just blow if you use it to quick without giving it time to cool down. You could actually easily blow it when beeing to hasty stunlocking a single person.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

With the instant push and disarm mechanic taking out the tele baton is more of a risk towards the Head then it is helping. At best you can stunlock the guy, at worest he disarms you first hit and uses it to murder you. Even if best case happens, i still don't know what a stunlock that you have to reapply all the time is good for. Why not make the flash have a longer cooldown so it can only stun one person and make but giving you at least some time to react.

 

This isn't an argument you can make uniquely to the telebaton; it's the same thing for the old flash as well; someone could just as easily disarm you and turn the flash against you while beating you to an absolute pulp; the risk is still the same--the only difference is telebaton's stun cannot be countered and you can't stun-locks multiple people at once. This is the telebaton's purpose; a defensive weapon that can be used to deal with a jerk every now and again (which it does even more effectively than the old flash as you cannot block it)

 

The reason the flash is different is that it serves a completely different niche; it's for crowd control and defensive purposes or to be used in conjunction with an offensive weapon---flash batoning is incredibly effective as they'll be disarmed and confused (by the by, the flash's confusion state fully stacks).

 

 

Counting in the time you loose for registering that your baton did actually hit + the time you need to change hand + the time to land a click on the sprite will allow anyone to just spam resist and get another chance on the disarm proc.

 

Resisting does absolutely nothing to reducing stun time, duration, or the cuffing process; if you get hit by the telebaton and the person is actively trying to keep you stun-locked, there's nothing the person can do to prevent from being cuffed.

 

Probably a bigger bitch than it is worth. Cargo techs will make you get signatures for sure, then you have to explain the HoS what a disabler is, then you have to convince him that you should get one, to which he will say no. For people that do not have the rights to propper weapons (it's contraband), implying that i am upto something bad when i construct them.

 

These are both IC/"RP" there's still nothing stopping you from trying either, especially stunprods (likewise, from experience, heads of staff almost never catch flak for using a prod in a defensive/throw out hooligans manner..especially if they don't run around like a derp with it out all the time).

 

I am just talking about the visual and rp effect of that change right now (i explained my views on it from a game mechanic standpoint in mels threat). I see some security unable to arrest civilians because of the short stun durations, they keep reapplying stuns until the eventually manage it. It forces really stupid looking situations, like hitting someone with telebaton every two seconds for like 4 minutes until security arrives. People runnig out of the cell the whole time because you not even have enough time to get out of the cell and close the windoor.

 

Security has multiple weapons for a reason; the taser is meant only to temporarily disable before applying a stun baton (and at close range the stun on the taser is still long enough to arrest someone); if someone is having trouble walking out of the cell without the person bolting up, then they need to adjust their SoP of the order in which they process prisoners or utilize their baton if they're that worried about the prisoner being feisty.

 

How is making the stuns incredible short any better? I still can stunlock indefinite and potentually switch between lethal hit and stun hit to kill (or use a second weapon to damage), but i can't do anything really useful with it except for murderboning. And if i am able to murderbone, i could as well be able to propperly restrain someone. Also you never could stunlock a giant pile of people with the flashes before, because the blub would just blow if you use it to quick without giving it time to cool down. You could actually easily blow it when beeing to hasty stunlocking a single person.

 

You can stunlock, but only a single target; ALL stun weapons are effective "murderbone" weapons; up to and including the old flash--the difference is the telebaton allows the head of staff to deal effectively with a single person (and very effectively in conjunction with new flash) while not allowing him to take on hoards of people by himself as with the older flash (and yes, I realize the bulb would burn out, but a few flashes in short order wouldn't come anywhere close to this).

 

[Plotron]

 

1:0

The win goes to Fox. Eloquent, comprehensive. big picture, good counterexamples. Little if nothing to add.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

I could keep argueing but i don't see it leading anywhere. There are a bunch of people that agree with me, you just need to take a look at the threat mel made, or even this one, but ultimativly it's your call.

 

You obviously won't change your mind on this and frankly i don't care enough to keep going. I have made my point and i guess i will have to accept it as is.