Raider/merc tweaks and buffs(ish)

[kyres1]

I will be honest and say I have rarely (if ever) seen the raider's stealth suit or the merc's crimson suit contribute much positively to any given round. They are both extremely powerful assets, with crimson suit resists going through the ceiling with some basic equipment already installed, and the stealth suit being unbeatable in the hands of someone remotely robust.

In both cases, these pose things that at round start are frequently rushed by specific players for no other purpose than to be given a superior kit over their teammates. Whether or not this is out of mistrust for their teammates or what is irrelevant - it's rushed every, single, time, without delay. The amount of times you will see a stealth suited raider as the sole survivor in a heist round worries me, as their teammates are nowheres near as equipped (being given standard voidsuits or unequipped hardsuits in place of the stealth suit) and left in the dust if they weren't fortunate enough to grab it first.

The suggestion here is to solve this with the following -

Remove the crimson hardsuit from merc suit storage. Instead, 65 TC could buy someone a fully equipped crimson hardsuit with the commando loadout, which includes some pretty snazzy (and very powerful, worthwhile) stuff. In merc rounds, this means the team would have to actually discuss who obtains the powerful asset and why, instead of it ending up in the hands of whoever ran to it first.

The specific price would prevent two from being purchased and take TC from everybody, instead of leaving 2 people's uplinks untouched if one decides to have their buddy be given the hardsuit.

Replace the stealth suit with an equipped hazard RIG, and replace the present RIGs in the raider ship with their equipped variants. This means the mining RIG would have an inbuilt drill/maneuvering jets (i think?) and an additional equipped RIG should be added as well to help compensate. In this case, I suggest using the EVA RIG, as its sprites are already present and it has an equipped variant that isn't too strong.

If I recall correctly the equipped hazard RIG comes with a taser and a utility grenade launcher loaded with flashbangs and smokebombs.

[Chada1]

For a potentially intersecting idea for Heisters, see: 

 

 

[NG+7 Gael]

Personally not too fond of the idea of making them even MORE bare than they are now, so, rather I'd like to see something similar to the OP's suggestion where all of the raiders are more or less on the same playing field and can choose who to give the stronger equipment to, if anything. Opening up more options with some TC would make it a lot easier to come up with interesting ideas and gimmicks I'd imagine, which is also a good bonus to the idea. Especially if the raiders decide to not spend the TC on a suit, but get other equipment that would aid in the mission.

[Carver]

So the nuke ops get a flat nerf and the raiders get an odd switch of equipment. I like the latter, but don't really care for the former.

[kyres1]

6 hours ago, Carver said:

So the nuke ops get a flat nerf and the raiders get an odd switch of equipment. I like the latter, but don't really care for the former.

Hardly a nerf to give them the equipped variant of the hardsuit. It has a combat injector, laser cannon, military actuators, maneuvering jets, a grenade launcher, thermals and probably more.

[TheSleepyCatmom]

Just gonna put this here.

Mercsuit:

initial_modules = list(
		/obj/item/rig_module/mounted,
		/obj/item/rig_module/vision/thermal,
		/obj/item/rig_module/grenade_launcher,
		/obj/item/rig_module/ai_container,
		/obj/item/rig_module/power_sink,
		/obj/item/rig_module/electrowarfare_suite,
		/obj/item/rig_module/chem_dispenser/combat,
		/obj/item/rig_module/fabricator/energy_net,
/obj/item/rig_module/actuators/combat

 

Hazardsuit:

Also armor stats: armor = list(melee = 60, bullet = 45, laser = 30, energy = 15, bomb = 60, bio = 100, rad = 45)

	initial_modules = list(
		/obj/item/rig_module/vision/sechud,
		/obj/item/rig_module/maneuvering_jets,
		/obj/item/rig_module/grenade_launcher,
/obj/item/rig_module/mounted/taser

 

Compared to Stealthsuit they get:

armor = list(melee = 50, bullet = 15, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0)

Edited April 11, 2019 by TheSleepyCatmom
Edited for clarity. I'm a noob at this.

[Carver]

14 hours ago, kyres1 said:

Hardly a nerf to give them the equipped variant of the hardsuit. It has a combat injector, laser cannon, military actuators, maneuvering jets, a grenade launcher, thermals and probably more.

And they have to pay for it. This is a key detail.

[DaTimeSmog]

The Crimson Hardsuit would be absolutely worthless as a 65 TC item, as it would make it extremely costly due to 3 members being required to nearly spend all their TC simply to upgrade one member, but also puts it on the same level as the combat borg, which to my current knowledge would be cheaper to buy and comes pre-equipt. I would rather say, increase the RIG module costs for mercs and simply hand them enough RIGs so everyone can atleast have one.

In this case you're suggesting a very extreme nerf to the mercs.

 

[DronzTheWolf]

On 12/04/2019 at 09:10, DaTimeSmog said:

The Crimson Hardsuit would be absolutely worthless as a 65 TC item, as it would make it extremely costly due to 3 members being required to nearly spend all their TC simply to upgrade one member, but also puts it on the same level as the combat borg, which to my current knowledge would be cheaper to buy and comes pre-equipt. I would rather say, increase the RIG module costs for mercs and simply hand them enough RIGs so everyone can atleast have one.

In this case you're suggesting a very extreme nerf to the mercs.

 

If we gave enough RIGs for them all to have one, it would mean everyone on a merc team would:
1. Be immune to broken bones, since it splints all broken bones by default
2. Be able to run full-team with laser cannons, since any one RIG module can be bought
3. Be able to use any two kinds of goggles while also being flash proof. You ever seen Mesons + Thermals? That's hard to stop.

[kyres1]

On 12/04/2019 at 08:10, DaTimeSmog said:

The Crimson Hardsuit would be absolutely worthless as a 65 TC item, as it would make it extremely costly due to 3 members being required to nearly spend all their TC simply to upgrade one member, but also puts it on the same level as the combat borg, which to my current knowledge would be cheaper to buy and comes pre-equipt. I would rather say, increase the RIG module costs for mercs and simply hand them enough RIGs so everyone can atleast have one.

In this case you're suggesting a very extreme nerf to the mercs.

 

 

On 12/04/2019 at 05:39, Carver said:

And they have to pay for it. This is a key detail.

but you get like 100 TC worth of stuff. This way, it just makes it a team decision who obtains it. It's far from a nerf.

Edited April 16, 2019 by kyres1
it's more like 100TC, i originally put 200

[Carver]

1 hour ago, kyres1 said:

 

but you get like 100 TC worth of stuff. This way, it just makes it a team decision who obtains it. It's far from a nerf.

And if you otherwise wouldn't have been interested in that specific stuff, you're now saddled with shit you might not have wanted. It's a team decision as is anyways, considering they can just gang up and threaten whoever took it first if the others believe they're incompetent.

[Evandorf]

I have to agree with Carver. Most of the time you will likely have merc teams use their own TC to gear themselves rather than pool their TC for one crimson hardsuit. The result would be its use would drop from 75-100 percent of merc rounds to maybe 30% (approximately the same percentages you see a syndie borg get dropped).

It would be considered a nerf because the overall effectiveness of the merc team would be statistically reduced across all merc rounds.

I think it would be too much to give every merc a crimson hardsuit but maybe if you're concerned with people rushing the existing one you could add it to the uplink so a second could be purchased.

[Itanimulli]

The hardsuit is hardly used in a 'fully prepped' state as is. Most people just like the QOL it brings; you stick jets in it, maybe an electrowarfare suite, and you're all fine.

The stealth suit is, as far as I am concerned, there because most heist rounds end with everyone but one/two heisters dead.

I'm against strange and (subjectively) needless changes, chiefly because that just leaves more room for security to meme people.

And I thought you people were trying your hardest to keep that from happening, no?

[kyres1]

4 hours ago, Carver said:

And if you otherwise wouldn't have been interested in that specific stuff, you're now saddled with shit you might not have wanted. It's a team decision as is anyways, considering they can just gang up and threaten whoever took it first if the others believe they're incompetent.

Makes sense. I'm sold on that end, then. I don't think changing the merc hardsuit is necessary.

[Arrow768]

The heister/raider part is implemented here:
https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6344

Regarding the mercs: It might be possible to add a limit on how often a item can be bought from the uplink.
That would make it possible to reduce the price of the crimson suit to something more reasonable