Toxins - Land of Excellence

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

As a dedicated Atmospheric Technician, I have come to hate Toxins and anyone who sets foot inside it. Don't get me wrong, I know that it's possible to be competent, hell, even good at it, but it always looks like the one department with carte blanche to make bombs attracts all the idiotic chucklefucks.

 

Gee, I wonder why.

 

This particular shift, I knew for a fact I'd be in for a treat. Barely 5 minutes in, midway through the renovations in the piping system, I see the little green circle in my alarm computer turn red. Slightly worried, as the system wasn't properly set up yet, I rush to the central computer to check for the alert.

 

Precisely one red triangle. 5 minutes in.

 

In the Toxins Mixing Room.

 

I sigh, and click the triangle, only to cringe when I see the meter indicate the room has a plasma spill. I proceed to verbally castigate whoever was in there, only to then kindly point out that medbay should probably look into it. I select the Cycle option, hoping to scare off whoever was in there, and go back to working in the piping.

 

All's well for about twenty more minutes, and I not only completed the setup, but also cleared away everything I didn't need (including the internal windows), making the Atmospherics room look quite spacious and much, much better looking. I stock up on metal and glass, pick up a pipe freezer, and am halfway to my chair when I see another alarm go off.

 

I start praying that it isn't Toxins.

 

But it is. And, even better, it was yet another plasma spill.

 

At this point, I cease caring, and just panic siphon the room, intent on permanently locking away whatever idiot kept releasing plasma into the atmosphere. When the room's pressure dropped to around 10 KPa, I shut off all the vents and scrubbers and call it a day.

 

The shift went on without a hitch, with Science oddly quiet about me essentially locking away one of their departments. This, of course, was the Universe's way of telling me to fuck off, because at the one hour mark everyone can hear a massive, echoing explosion. With everyone else scrambling to figure out what happened, I check the alert computer and see no new breaches. On a hunch, I check Toxins, and find that it's dropped to 0 pressure.

 

I grabbed my axe and set off, hoping to see a small hole, only to then realize that literally the whole Toxins Mixing Room was gone. Pretty much everything from the SE solars to the main Science department was empty space, with the launch room floating a way's away. Gibs all around.

 

I stare. I feel like crying.

 

10 minutes later, I'm leaving the scene, having spent all my metal in making a string of walls blocking off the hole, duly ignoring everyone else as they desperately tried figuring out what had just happened.

 

No more atmos alerts happened that shift.

 

It was a good day.

 

[Adrkiller59]

 

Plasma spills in the toxins research room have been an ancient tradition since ever, and the bane of any engineer/atmostech wishing for a green alerts console.

 

The entire toxins lab should be moved to the toxins test chamber, more explosions happen in the lab than in the chamber anyways.

 

[davidchan]

 

Plasma spills in the toxins research room have been an ancient tradition since ever, and the bane of any engineer/atmostech wishing for a green alerts console.

 

The entire toxins lab should be moved to the toxins test chamber, more explosions happen in the lab than in the chamber anyways.

 

Toxins and Research Test lab both need to be moved to the test chamber away from the station, or better yet down to the Asteroid/Outpost. I gave up working in Xenobiology the third shift in a row where some idiot blew up the test chamber, destroying my Slime processor, fridge and Xenobio Airlock in one fell swoop, usually cutting power to my area since the APC and/or wires that feed it were caught in the explosion.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Plasma spills in the toxins research room have been an ancient tradition since ever, and the bane of any engineer/atmostech wishing for a green alerts console.

 

The entire toxins lab should be moved to the toxins test chamber, more explosions happen in the lab than in the chamber anyways.

 

Alternatively, reinforce the walls of the Mixing Room so they don't blow up so easily.

 

[Jack Fractal]

 

Isn't the whole point of Toxins in the first place to have it explode every round?

 

I thought that was what it was there for.

 

[Adrkiller59]

It is, hence why it should be moved to the toxin test chamber.

[Plotron]

 

Get rid of it alltogether. Make it a Xenoarch satellite for lulz.

 

There's much more shit to blow up in Mining anyways.

 

[Spacemanspark]

What's funny is that toxins is supposed to make bombs for miners.

[ArgyleSweatShop]

The dumb part of that is that there is way too few transfer valves to do that. Bombs don't mine ore, they just destroy the tiles. And the bombs also aren't big enough to really damage because of the bomb cap.

[MarvinMartian34]

Is it just me, or is toxins and telescience really only used for fucking up, antag objectives, and selftagging? I've never really seen anything good come out of any of those. Sometimes telescience can teleport injured and dead corpses to medical, but that's about it.

[Adrkiller59]

 

From what I know, in theory toxins research is supposed to develop weapons with plasma. And telescience is bluespace related research.

 

In the practice, toxins is "blow up stuff yourself everything", and telescience is "steal everything".

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Is it just me, or is toxins and telescience really only used for fucking up, antag objectives, and selftagging? I've never really seen anything good come out of any of those. Sometimes telescience can teleport injured and dead corpses to medical, but that's about it.

 

 

That's because most people have no clue how to use those Departments, and those that do stay away because, frankly, they're not that useful for anything but highly specific circumstances.

 

[davidchan]

 

The only time I've ever seen Toxin's do something remotely useful is a scientist blowing up a Malf AI/Subverted AI, or throwing a bomb at a nuke squad and detonating it. In both of these cases, the Scientist is validhunting and it's reasons like these we have RnD lockboxes in the first place (which are still stupid and need to be removed.) Aside from that, they never do anything useful, I know lots people would be mad if Toxin's went away, but I'd honestly rather see it removed or replaced with something else entirely.

 

Telescience, how ever, I have seen do very useful things without going around stealing every object not bolted down or locked up. If you know the math and can basically be a Transporter Chief from Star Trek and quickly send people around the station where they need to be. It's depressing that Telescience can't send people onto Gateway missions and pull them out if it gets too hot, but the code isn't perfect.

 

Telescience can;

 

Retrieve injured or dead people from difficult to reach places, such as space, a plasma fire, a spider/hostile mob infested room.

 

Send such people directly to medical bay, to the Cryogenics tubes or Surgery where they are they are needed.

 

Send personnel immediately to an area they may be needed, such as; Security to the Armory during a break in or to the general location of a group of Nuke Ops or Raiders massacring crew, Engineering to the site of a breach or gas leak. Medical Doctors and EMTs to the site of a mass casualty that would take to long to teleport individually (such as a bombing)

 

Do Cargo's job for them by (almost) instantly sending crates or objects to the requester.

 

And of course, Antag Scientists can always quickly and remotely steal objectives or items, flood the telepad chamber with toxin and abduct security and command one by one to kill them off in a revolution, or send a slime to someone who has been pissing you off.

 

[Garoon]

 

*As a relatively decent atmospheric player*

Whenever I'm a scientist and someone's already 'claimed' R&D for themselves, I tend to migrate to the Toxins lab. When I make the bombs, I actually try to use them out on the 'roid and clear out space between those big mineral veins. Mostly because, let's be honest, there is NO practical use for my kind of bombs on the station proper, unless I specifically want to cause destruction and mayhem with a 3, 7, 14 or whatever bomb.

 

Now telescience, that is something Mijhead, or anyone else interested in it can play with, I'm not touching that with a 5 foot pole

 

[davidchan]

To my understanding Telescience is just Trig. Teleport a GPS to coordinates, read the actual coordinates, find the offset. If you're good at math, pretty much the entire station is yours to play with, especially if you know the coordinates of 'fun' things like the Clown bananium shuttle or the space teleporter, for example.

[Surrealistik]

Toxins should absolutely be shunted off station to a satellite or the research outpost.