Taser Redux Suggestion

[Guest]

So, here's my suggestion. Tasers as they currently stand are essentially stun-based energy weapons with very few shots, so an officer has to land 2-3 of them to make them count. 2 slows and then eventually puts the suspect into paincrit after a brief duration. If it hits the head, I think it's an instant down. 3 shots is required for any other body part.

Anywho. These are also pretty damned good against those with weapons. 3 shot down for a brief firefight, the guy with the lethals loses because being robust is about who can land the stun first.

Kind of annoying. Security has too much reward and not enough risk in terms of their stun gear, namely the taser, actually, given you don't need to be very close to land 2-3 taser shots.

My proposition: Make tasers function more like modern-day tasers do. They fire a dart-like projectile out of the weapon, connected by a cable from dart to main conductive unit. Upon connecting with a suspect, the suspect is immobilized for 5 seconds while experiencing high levels of paincrit. After 5 seconds, they drop to the floor until the paincrit wears off, convulsing violently. The officer would then disable the shock of their taser (or prolong it, being the son of a bitch they are), and then detain the suspect.

The risk here: the officer has to connect the blow and maintain the connection for those five seconds, and not move in any direction that would disrupt the connection. Moving forward toward the suspect is okay, provided you're walking. Otherwise, you break the connection. In addition, if the suspect is wearing insulated gloves and possesses wirecutters, they have a 50% chance of successfully cutting the cable and rendering the taser useless until a replacement is found. Any paincrit sustained between getting tased and cutting the cable still carries over.

In addition, it makes it impractical to use the taser in combat with armed suspects. Given that, one, tasing someone with a gun will cause them to fire their weapon in reflex repeatedly in the direction they are facing, randomly. (meaning, never directly at the person 3-4 tiles in front of them that is tasing them, though it can happen because RNG) Two, the officer is extremely vulnerable as well against additional armed suspects.

That's about it, then. Thoughts?

[Jamini]

You'll just encourage security to use more lethal weapons. Something not needed.

I prefer to think of our tasers as energy-based LtL rounds as opposed to real life tasers. 2-3 hits is perfectly fine, as it gives the target some room to manuver without making tasers worthless and forcing security to escalate to lethals faster.

Oh yes, windows hard-counter tasers. If you have an energy weapon, this is a very exploitable weakness. We should all use it more.

[Guest]

Energy carbines in my mind will still retain their stun bolt mechanics, in my mind. Energy pistols could probably be added to the armory as well, to be dispensed on code blue. They're rather weak lethals and much better when using the stun function. Meh.

Kind of defeats the definition of a 'taser' if it's an energy-based bolt. It'd just be an energy pistol without a lethals knob.

And besides, the shit a sec team can pull off by working together with the dart-propelled tasers would be interesting. Given that you could torture someone as long as you wanted, for example, putting them into paincrit and eventually escalating into death after a sufficient amount of time.

[Jamini]

I have actively heard complaints that current tasers are too weak from some officers. If given an option between current mechanics or lasers, I do not think electrodes will be used. (Much like how things are currently, mind)

Modern tasers have fairly significant health risks on the person they are used on. If you have the ability to create a takedown weapon without those risks, why wouldn't you?

 

It'd just be an energy pistol without a lethals knob.

 

Is there anything really wrong with this, fluffwise? If anything, I'd think a security force would PREFER knockdown electrodes over modern tasers. (Or at least HR would insist they use such a thing.)

[TishinaStalker]

... If they think that a ranged 2 or 3 hit (regardless of what the target is wearing) stun weapon is weak, then they clearly don't know the definition of strong.

[Jamini]

... If they think that a ranged 2 or 3 hit (regardless of what the target is wearing) stun weapon is weak, then they clearly don't know the definition of strong.

 

It used to be one hit. People argued QUITE fiercely to protect the one-hit tasers and batons on bay before they were changed. You have no idea.

Mind, these are also the same people that got exceedingly upset that engineering had access to their own stunning weapon (at the cost of their shock protection on their gloves) and went on to drastically change how stungloves worked and eventually removed them. Hell, I had people complain pretty heavily on Unity when I made our stungloves deal burn damage equivalent to the charge of the cell you used and be a one-shot wonder. XD

[Susan]

The current tasers are weak, and it's not regardless of what someone's wearing. Siemens_coeficient is a value used to mitigate the damage from tasers; cult robes are entirely immune to it, nuke ops have a buff against it. If your target is wearing armor you will need more than 3 shots to down him. Tasers only have a 5 shot clip. If you have to fight more than a single person, and more often than not you do, you're entirely screwed.

Leave them as they are.

[Guest]

Okay, another idea.

Leave tasers as they are, but add this as an option.

[Skull132]

I'd say the taser is fine. Due to what Sue pointed out. I may review the nuke op's gear and the coefficient their armour has (it might be a little low, but that might also be a placebo effect I'm assuming off of), but beyond that, they're fit for purpose.

The argument of being able to bring a taser to a gunfight and walking away is slightly exaggerated. Properly geared ops will suck up the hits and return the favour with bullets. A larger issue is a stunbaton, imho.

[Conservatron]

i think stunbaton should change to first hit, 3 seconds till pain crit

second hit down

and automatically turn off when dropped (or thrown)