Take away flashes disabling borgs

[GreenBoi]

6 minutes ago, Naelynn said:

3) Vaurca no longer have an obvious non-lethal means of taking them down, meaning: Prepare for Vaurca-sec-army

Small side-thing on this. Not enough vaurcae players for this to become an issue, and there are several other ways to take them down non-lethally, such as using normal pain. You DON'T want to flash them, it will just hurt their eyes and icly make them fucking pissed and non-compliant because the eye-damage doesn't go away like pain.

 

Now, for the thread as a whole. I agree with Cnaym's statements, and I also think that if a borg gets flashed while being normal tater- they'd deserve it. It's quite easy to hide your true intentions and if you see anyone you know typically has a flash, ergo sec and command, you should already expect them to maybe use it if you've been acting out- otherwise people don't have a reason to suddenly flash a borg.

5 hours ago, Randy said:

I mean.. a lot of times when borg players try to rp a situation where  gimmick thery might be doing (many times being non-lethal since murderboning is not allowed) players just run up and flash cheese them instead of actually having an interaction, plus for you to be flash resistant as an antag borg you need to enable overclock which cuts battery life in half, not the best thing if your evading crew.

Crew refuse to rp with borgs who are even the slightest bit iffy when they can just flash cheese them and drag them to robotics this is obviously terrible for any number of situations that could arise and limits strength to hard antag borgs only so no I dont think i am missing the point since a lot of the time its just flash, remove powercell, rebuild the borg over and over and over instead of an actually interesting situation playing out because thats usually what happens.

 

You can easily avoid suspicion- AIs automatically pass by you without caring because they assume you're fine and normal PLUS you get basically all-access.  At this point, a borg is a supertraitor and their only weakness are ions and flash. If people gang up on them- that requires them making the initiative and moving to the borg: at which point the borg could bolt them away. Your strength is the fact you are assumed to not be malfunctioning or have any law problems, using this and acting slightly out of line when no one is looking is key to making yourself not be flash-worthy since people, otherwise, don't care about the borg's feelings icly.

[Pratepresidenten]

38 minutes ago, Naelynn said:

I'm going to point out the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF REMOVING FLASHES:

1) Wizard/Cult/Vampire/Renegade/Panicking Non-Antag crewmembers all have to now be dealt with using weaponry exclusively.
2) Command staff loses a valuable defensive tool and is left only with the most boring option: Just give 'em a gun. A.k.a: YOU RUIN CHARACTERS LIKE THEA MARIETTI WHO DO NOT LIKE TO USE GUNS - Because now they no longer have ANY means of self defense despite being VIP [Command]
3) Vaurca no longer have an obvious non-lethal means of taking them down, meaning: Prepare for Vaurca-sec-army
4) Synthetic flashes [Devices used to construct borgs] no longer make sense - why are they synthetic when there are no 'normal' flashes?
5) Overall massive increase in pain on station as the primary non-lethal non-pain tool of security gets removed for handling minor infractions. Say hello to more heart attacks for medical due to random pain procs

And there probably is more that I'm not even able to think of.

What? This project isnt about removing flashes from the station crew?

[Pratepresidenten]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8191

PR Here, very WIP.

[BurgerBB]

I'm pretty insulted that you think my suggestion is a "Random balance change" and I honestly expect a better post from someone who wishes to become a server moderator.

I have news for you, all the posts in here were thought out. My post was thought out as I worked on the flash before and have expressed my disappointment the time when it was nerfed and also expressed concerns of the balance of it, some of which are being said in this thread.

The flash is dogshit against humantypes and super powerful against borgs. EMPs aren't as strong as everyone thinks they are against IPCs, and there would be MINIMAL difference if you add an extra ion rifle to the armory in order to defend against malfunctioning borgs. As for others affected by EMPs, there are now two ninjas now and the balance of was misaligned as there is only one ion rifle and double the antags. In the current balance right now, 4 security officers with 4 flashes is stronger than one with an ion because the flash gives an extremely long stun and can be stacked/spammed.

And it does. Frequently. The crew love to validhunt with flashes against borgs because no one gives a shit if a regular crew has a flash OOCly and ICly and it isn't really powergaming since they're easy to make and find and a borg who has changed laws makes them valid for it. On the other hand, something like an Ion Rifle, which is a lethal weapon, is something security only use in a last resort and if the borg shows hostility. The Ion rifle is also more dangerous to use ICly and OOCly, so you better have a very fucking good reason to use it.

What I find funny is that you can get a box of like 10 EMP grenades with a range of like 12  for 10TC or some bullshit. EMPs are common and VERY easy to make if you're a cargo tech or a chemist. They can also go through walls and can really fuck shit, even killing organics if the RNG hits just right.

Despite all that, when security gets 2 ion rifles, everyone loses their minds.

 

Source: Played AI with rogue borgs for a long time and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Played traitor borg several times and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Been here for 3 years almost.

 

 

[Cnaym]

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

I'm pretty insulted that you think my suggestion is a "Random balance change"

This thread was not made by you.

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

MINIMAL difference if you add an extra ion rifle

It would influence a ton of gamemodes. It would only help the stationbounds die quicker. Missfire, other antags, Ion laws and so on. 

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

The crew love to validhunt with flashes against borgs because no one gives a shit if a regular crew has a flash OOCly and ICly and it isn't really powergaming since they're easy to make and find and a borg who has changed laws makes them valid for it.

There are two flasher devices for the entire none security crew. They are restricted to engineering  and robotics.

Someone picks it up at roundstart: Ahelp

Someone runs around trying to flash and destroy the borg instead of getting away from it: Ahelp

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

What I find funny is that you can get a box of like 10 EMP grenades with a range of like 12  for 10TC or some bullshit. EMPs are common and VERY easy to make if you're a cargo tech or a chemist.

Making EMP grenades as cargo tech?  Ahelp

Making EMP grenades as chemist? Why not? Not like they would run around trying to catch a borg, right? If they do: Ahelp

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

Played AI with rogue borgs for a long time and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Played traitor borg several times and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Been here for 3 years almost.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7093

The antag borgs got recently buffed by this. They are no longer afflicted by flashes anyway. Toogle it on, see crew and sec fail, slice them in the leg once or twice, laugh at them crawling towards medical.

19 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

The crew love to validhunt with flashes

To come back to this and trying to word it without a personal attack against you or the thread creator. If your gimmik is "I am broken and will hurt you!" without much RP provided or heck attacking a command member without knowing the basics of antag borgs, then the flash is for you. It will force them to try and repair you because you are expensive and easy to repair. Giving you RP instead of an early dead chat. If your gimmik as normal borg is "I am CoolBot McCurse and will call the RD a cunt today" then the flasher is also for you. Sorry but failing to roleplay a borg will always lead to this or destruction. Lowpop even wipes AIs on extendo if they cannot behave.

On the other spectrum anatag borgs have found many hilarious ways to get arround their restrictions or even use the perceived weakness as a trap to lure in the lonely RD with a false sense of safety. There is a lot of git gut mentality from my side, but making an informed decision requires to a lot of information into account, not only personal experience.

Source: I have played for a year now, so I may not know anything about the game. I also always ask stupid questions. Oh and I play the stupid borg who wiped out entire crews, while flying under a fake Ion law. I've overwritten the internal self destruct as none antag more times than I can count, I managed to get borgs removed from expeditions, which does not work if you know how to overwrite the safety and so on. Overall I am having a good time with borgs as it is, maybe those more experienced with playing them can post here.

[BurgerBB]

The post I was quoting seemed to be deleted so now it looks like I'm addressing someone completely different.

There is a psychology in using non-lethals vs lethals. Security and the crew at large are more willing to use non-lethal methods more often than lethal even if they have roughly the same outcome. Flashes are incredibly strong, and honestly it would be very fair to say that the strength of the flash combined with the access card of robotics leads to the same general outcome of someone's gimmick getting shut down.

 

As I said I've had experiencing playing borg antag and experience playing AI. Whether or not the borg is killing is irrelevant; you will easily get shut down with a flash.

[Cnaym]

2 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

As I said I've had experiencing playing borg antag and experience playing AI. Whether or not the borg is killing is irrelevant; you will easily get shut down with a flash.

The last bit is just wrong. As established. Antag borgs can completely disable the flashers already. They have a button for that.

[Seeli]

I am not a fan of removing flash disabling borgs. Sure, flash can be misused and abused, with flash spamming, but like anything, punish those who do so.

There needs to be a way to NON-FATALLY disable borgs for a sec or two, so antags or crew can escape, emag the borg, remove the power cell, smack the borg, whatever. If the options for a brief disable are ion or shoot/bash them to death, then basically the options between are killing and killing. I do not like this and do not think that flash disabling borgs should be removed.

[Pratepresidenten]

46 minutes ago, Seeli said:

There needs to be a way to NON-FATALLY disable borgs for a sec or two

The disable is randomized between 5 to 7 seconds.
It used to be a flat 10 seconds or so.

[ben10083]

 

6 hours ago, Pratepresidenten said:

The disable is randomized between 5 to 7 seconds.
It used to be a flat 10 seconds or so.

Actually for awhile it used to be 7 seconds flat, which was a problem since anytime they flashed the borg again it reset the timer. It was then changed through this pr: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/4954 to be randomized from 3,7. Now it follows this formula ( flick("e_flash", M.flash) ) from this pr: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8191. 

[sonicgotnuked]

Flash blinding is still a really powerful tool. It allows you to basically white out a screen for a solid chunk of time and place some thought into the fight instead of simple stun lock and beat up.

 

After reading up on the thread, I am going to change my mind and say that flash shutting down of borgs should be kept for the non-antag borgs. I've specifically given traitor borgs the ability to become flash immune. the malf AI can make borgs flash immune. It will still require the little bit of extra work to add these immunities.

 

Now onto the ion rifle: there is no need for a second one. It only takes a single shot on the lethal setting to shut down an aut'akh or IPC. It infact blows off limbs. 

 

The only issue that comes with flash cheese now a days is when the AI or borg is inexperienced. Perhaps everytime a borg that has overclock available gets flashed, it'll have only 1 stun before switching on to prevent future flashes.