X-ray Lasers

[Dinarzad]

 

MAY AS WELL PREFACE THIS

With yes this is kind of an 'i ded pls nurf' in that I just got done being a random event blob where my salad was thoroughly tossed by about 4 X-rays.

Also dis gon b long

I'm sorry for that. Sort of.

 

But. That aside. Let's kind of do a small review here of the X-ray laser and why this is a lot of shitting bulls in one location.

What does it take to MAKE said weapons.

It takes 5 Material, 5 Biological and 6 Combat research to unlock the X-ray laser. The hardest part here is the bio research, honestly.

It takes only Gold and Uranium to print them.

Stuff's common as cookies to anyone who spends 5 minutes on an asteroid.

 

What do X-ray Lasers DO (AKA: Why are you taking the time to even type this shit up?)

X-ray lasers fire a nigh infinite (If not infinite) traveling projectile that travels through all the things. Walls. Entities/Mobs. Blob tiles. IF you knew the exact compass direction, you could fire an X-ray from RnD and hit a blob over in the turbine. You'd also hit a lot of OTHER people, but you absolutely CAN do it.

An X-ray fired from the Bridge, can reach Arrivals at the very least (Seen it happen.).

See the problem?

 

Almost infinite distance, goes through EVERYTHING, and the only partial limiting factor is, they take charge and eventually have to be recharged. Not that that EVER comes into play because unless your have a hard time clicking on a thing, you're not going to miss because you can just shoot people/the blob through a wall, from down the hall or from back at Sol Central. Especially a blob, because it can't move, it is a stationary entity.

They deal regular laser based damage in addition so just a few shots and you're in a bad, BAD way.

 

So my question here is: What REALLY limits these things? Why are these still untouched, when we just got done having people go up and down about how BS Phazons are at being able to just lol through walls and go wherever you please and destroy people whenever you please, to the point they now take an anomaly core to make?

What defense -is- there to this? And don't just say "lol suk less and blob" because it doesn't matter what you do, or what you play, there is NOTHING you can do to defend against this, unless you kill the people shooting you. Which. They can do through walls. And down the hall. and through your blob spores.

Doesn't precisely seem entirely fair for something you can get in 20 minutes of round start. "But wait! this take the help of a lot of crew to make!" I hear many Scientists cry.

No.

It doesn't.

 

It takes someone to go out into Xeno-Arch, Which can be the RnD person themselves, To get ore. Which they have supplies to do at the old Xeno-arch labs. That's it. Robotics helps speed it way up, mostly in the biological research with mech syringe guns. Actual miners means it gets sped up cuz Science can focus on the RnD part while miners mine. Science -can- and -does- do it all itself on a regular basis if the "Cooperation" is inconvenient or unavailable. Hell, you can get the stuff to print mining drills with the bare starting equipment to Research if you really want. I've USED those drills to GET Research levels before, without mining.

 

Science can, all by itself, make unholy death weapons, with zero effort that the only counter-play TO said weapons is "Don't let them get those weapons." And if you're a blob spawned in engineering or the turbine, good fucking luck doing anything to inhibit them in that goal.

So. My proposal is this. Don't REMOVE X-rays. I think they're a valid weapon and a vital counter play to blob (Which can end a round in record time sometimes due to a low win requirement and the fact that once they hit a certain size there's so many spores it gets to be fuckin hard to fight back at all.).

But for the love of Cthulhu balance them, please. They either need a short range, short enough a blob has a chance to at least smack people around and defend itself, or it needs to have A LOT of Damage fall off when it goes into those obscene long range, maybe doing less damage everytime it penetrates something.

 

Because right now, any random event blob is just a neat side note that is instantly annihilated, and any round start blob has to win in 20-ish minutes or just ghost, because they got those 3 x-rays printed, you lose. It's not interesting or fun, for any party involved and it encourages ALL KINDS of shitty gameplay.

(And let's be honest X-rays are -only- used for the blob and rarely at best for anything else)

 

[Plotron]

X-rays are griff.

[Spacemanspark]

 

I'm fairly sure that, when these were finished, they were only meant to go through mobs, and not walls. Somewhere along the line, however, that changed, most likely intentionally.

I think that if we were to nerf it, that would be how.

It would also get rid of a LOT of friendly fire. It really sucks to be fixing something after a blob broke it and all the sudden PEW PEW PEW in your face... along with the ten other dudes standing near you.

 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Guest

[Plotron]

 

It would also get rid of a LOT of friendly fire. It really sucks to be fixing something after a blob broke it and all the sudden PEW PEW PEW in your face... along with the ten other dudes standing near you.

Suddenly all welder fuel tanks turn into welder bombs.

 

[liran424]

 

MAY AS WELL PREFACE THIS

 

What defense -is- there to this? And don't just say "lol suk less and blob" because it doesn't matter what you do, or what you play, there is NOTHING you can do to defend against this, unless you kill the people shooting you. Which. They can do through walls. And down the hall. and through your blob spores.

Doesn't precisely seem entirely fair for something you can get in 20 minutes of round start. "But wait! this take the help of a lot of crew to make!" I hear many Scientists cry.

No.

It doesn't.

 

Don't REMOVE X-rays. I think they're a valid weapon and a vital counter play to blob (Which can end a round in record time sometimes due to a low win requirement and the fact that once they hit a certain size there's so many spores it gets to be fuckin hard to fight back at all.).

But for the love of Cthulhu balance them, please. They either need a short range, short enough a blob has a chance to at least smack people around and defend itself, or it needs to have A LOT of Damage fall off when it goes into those obscene long range, maybe doing less damage everytime it penetrates something.

 

Because right now, any random event blob is just a neat side note that is instantly annihilated, and any round start blob has to win in 20-ish minutes or just ghost, because they got those 3 x-rays printed, you lose. It's not interesting or fun, for any party involved and it encourages ALL KINDS of shitty gameplay.

(And let's be honest X-rays are -only- used for the blob and rarely at best for anything else)

 

Where to start?

Firstly... R&D got X-rays 20 minutes into the round? I don't recall getting minerals on board and shipping them to R&D was so quickly... but lets say you're right and minerals actually do get in a blink of an eye to R&D. Second, good job in getting the research levels maxed out I must say but I think you're missing the point of the X ray gun or just don't know the stats of the gun so I`ll list them:

1) It does 15 burn damage on hit + radiation damage (causes toxin damage and random mutations)

2) passes through walls (as you already know)

3) killing someone outright with it will empty the power-cell (the starting power-cell.. I think you can replace the power cell to a one with higher capacity)

 

So you see you can't nerf it because it already has low damage compared to other laser weapons, the X ray is the perfect weapon against the blob (you can see this in the wiki) and generally if there's a blob event mid round you can't blame the crew for having a head start

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

Where to start?

Firstly... R&D got X-rays 20 minutes into the round? I don't recall getting minerals on board and shipping them to R&D was so quickly... but lets say you're right and minerals actually do get in a blink of an eye to R&D. Second, good job in getting the research levels maxed out

 

Let me tell you right now that this whole thing is very much possible, and not really that hard.

I know myself that I've gotten enough materials in on the first haul, and in twenty to thirty minutes or less.

And yes, there have been people that have maxed out research that fast.

 

[Plotron]

 

So you see you can't nerf it because it already has low damage compared to other laser weapons

It has nearly unlimited firepower potential, considering that the X-rays pass through mobs easily and deal this damage to many targets in a single shot.

 

[Dinarzad]

 

Where to start?

Firstly... R&D got X-rays 20 minutes into the round? I don't recall getting minerals on board and shipping them to R&D was so quickly... but lets say you're right and minerals actually do get in a blink of an eye to R&D. Second, good job in getting the research levels maxed out I must say but I think you're missing the point of the X ray gun or just don't know the stats of the gun so I`ll list them:

1) It does 15 burn damage on hit + radiation damage (causes toxin damage and random mutations)

2) passes through walls (as you already know)

3) killing someone outright with it will empty the power-cell (the starting power-cell.. I think you can replace the power cell to a one with higher capacity)

 

So you see you can't nerf it because it already has low damage compared to other laser weapons, the X ray is the perfect weapon against the blob (you can see this in the wiki) and generally if there's a blob event mid round you can't blame the crew for having a head start

 

I can assure you, RnD is almost always maxxed out within 20-30 minutes of round start. It's actually, shockingly easy, there's I believe a third-party tool for it in General Discussion somewhere, and if not I know there's a spreadsheet someone made of the exact list of items you need to deconstruct, twoin fact, one if you have Robotics help and one if you do not.

 

And actually just after I made that post, there was another blob round, A Game Mode type blob. Sure enough, in 20 minutes RnD Had X-ray lasers available. The only reason the crew never got to use them was a lack of uranium because science was too lazy to go mine it themselves and most the miners had left to go fight the blob (And died.)

Even WITHOUT MINING, they STILL Got X-ray lasers in roughly 25 minutes.

 

and in the end the Crew didn't even NEED them anyway, the Blob was shit fucked because it got spotted relatively early, it couldn't expand because the crew basically penned it in and it's resources were not enough to let it rebuild and expand, and it HAS to expand a certain distance from the core to be able to build a node to get more resource blobs.

 

Killing someone with an X-ray gun emptying the Cell out is not really a downside, when you can fire the weapon, safely, from an infinite distance away. There's no counter measure to it, no real DANGER to yourself in using the weapon. To use an E-gun, you have to be a visible threat, you have be RELATIVELY close (At least on screen, to aim it.)

To use an X-ray, you can safely be behind two walls and still empty that clip and what is anyone gonna do about it?

 

And make no mistake, I don't BLAME the crew for doing their job and starting in late generally means you're gonna have a hard time. But at the same time, what is the point of the random event if it is LESS impactful then Revenant spawns, Swarmer Spawns, Virus outbreaks, Vine outbreaks, spiders or radiation.

Spiderlings and Radiation storms have more chance to kill crew then a late round blob, because the blob can't even get started and even if it DOES get started, you have the X-rays. There's ZERO danger, ZERO threat.

People flip the fuck out more over non-lethal Swarmers, because at least Swarmers have a meaningful impact on stuff by nom nom nomming their departments.

 

[Knivarn]

 

As none of you are asking the important question that's on your mind right now, I'll do it for you.

 

Do riot shields block X-ray gunfire?

 

[Habalabam]

 

Just want to add in my five cents that an Xray gun make short works of a malf AI, too. And the AI core starting location is known, so you just have to measure out a strategic tile once and then fire from there.

 

Maybe the xray gun should pass over AI core and BLOB core.

 

Or implement the feature I've been asking for for a while. RnD should not reach the top science tiers without seizing some sort of round depending or random opportunity. Maxing out to insta-win without ever looking up from the table doesn't encourage much interaction.

 

[Scrat]

 

As none of you are asking the important question that's on your mind right now, I'll do it for you.

 

Do riot shields block X-ray gunfire?

 

Riot shields do not block laser projectiles and have a very small chance to block ballistic ones, IIRC

 

[pinatacolada]

Milfs can shunt and blobs can move their core. If it got spotted right after the blob burst then no wonder the blob got rekt.

[Belario]

 

The problem is it's too powerful for it's availability, perhaps have it require illegal tech to make?

It'd still be makable once people figure out how (if you know where to look ), and it'd put pay to all these 30 minute blob rounds we've been having.

 

[Dinarzad]

 

The problem is it's too powerful for it's availability, perhaps have it require illegal tech to make?

It'd still be makable once people figure out how (if you know where to look ), and it'd put pay to all these 30 minute blob rounds we've been having.

Not only it's availabilty, but it doesn't even take any serious materials to create, just gold and uranium.

Even the top tier stock parts take a little diamond to make.

 

[Sotrennel]

 

Milfs can shunt and blobs can move their core. If it got spotted right after the blob burst then no wonder the blob got rekt.

 

The problem is, how can you move your core, if x-ray lasers annihilate all blob tiles?

 

[liran424]

Still don't see any good reasons why to change (for better or worse) the X ray rifle... only complaints

[pinatacolada]

 

Milfs can shunt and blobs can move their core. If it got spotted right after the blob burst then no wonder the blob got rekt.

 

The problem is, how can you move your core, if x-ray lasers annihilate all blob tiles?

You move it to somewhere the crew, and especially the AI, doesn't know. You're not dodging xrays, you're relocating, so that, by the very least, you buy time.

 

[Dinarzad]

 

Milfs can shunt and blobs can move their core. If it got spotted right after the blob burst then no wonder the blob got rekt.

 

The problem is, how can you move your core, if x-ray lasers annihilate all blob tiles?

You move it to somewhere the crew, and especially the AI, doesn't know. You're not dodging xrays, you're relocating, so that, by the very least, you buy time.

 

Something you can't do without nodes/resources (A lot of them, 100 to relocate)

Which is extremely hard to gather up, considering nodes have to be X distance from core to be grown. And if the crew has spotted you at this point, expansion is somewhat of a trial since they're shooting you in all your gooey bits at once with an X-ray laser rifle.

 

Relocating is not an easy option to do unless you're already very established or the crew is understaffed.