Save the story, Remove the nukes.

[Naelynn]

Currently there are two nuclear devices that can be used via different game modes.
 - Merc Nuke
 - Malf Nuke. [No, it's not station self destruct, I have never seen this actually used by NT outside of Xeno non-cannon events]

I suggest that their presence actively makes the game worse and they should be removed.
More detailed reasoning below
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Chapter 1: The Merc. Nuke
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The Merc nuke can be used precisely for one single gimmick: Nuke Ops. This gimmick boils down to: Give us what we want, or we blow up the entire station, you, us and everyone else.

Role play options presented by this:
 - Give mercs everything they want because you don't want to die
 - Fight mercs because you don't want to die

That's it. There is nothing else left for you as a crewmember to do because the mercs managed to find a way to not only hold everyone on the station hostage, they are holding the station itself hostage. 

Solution? Remove Merc. Nuke. It contributes nothing anyway and exists only to be a bait towards bad rounds. No need to replace it with anything.

_____________________________________________________________________

Chapter 2: The Malf. Nuke
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The Malf nuke is a bit more of a complicated beast, as it exists primarily to give Malf. an end game. However, this single part of it's toolset has served to spawn countless memes [Stealth malf delta rush, 1:50 delta ...] because of how thoroughly annoying it is to play against. 

As soon as the malf begins the delta hack, everyone in the round knows what is going to happen, because there is literally no other way for this to do. 

Malf finishes the hack -> Goes to delta -> Upgrades borgs to combat [Combat module is horribad by the way, it needs a buff] -> Threathens nuke -> Station evacs or storms the core.

The only possible deviation from this is that borgs don't become combat. That's it. This is not an engaging story loop after everyone has seen it for the billionth time. Removing this one single aspect of Malf play would greatly improve station's outlook on Malfs as every single round vs Malfs would no longer end in the exact same way.

However, Malf should probably get something else 'end game' back for it's troubles, as the nuke hack is currently integral. On the other hand, synthethic takeover exists. So, not sure Malf needs something else.

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Chapter 3: The Nuclear Problem
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Finally, we come to my synthesis of the above points.

Nukes do not create an interesting story. Every single time a nuke appears in a round, the round's enjoyment and quality plummets.

This is due to the above mentioned issues as well as the fact that as soon as the nuke is brought up, the nuke BECOMES the gimmick, regardless of what the gimmick originally was. It doesn't matter how well planned the gimmick is, it will be overshadowed by the thermonuclear fire provided by the bomb. 

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Chapter 4: The Final Solution
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1) Remove Merc nuke and SAT. 
2) Add dirty corporate secrets to SAT to explain why it's so difficult to get into. Requires captain's disk + captain access to get inside.
3) Consider adding new end-game mechanics to Malf.
4) ADD ABILITY FOR NORMAL CREW TO GO INTO CODE DELTA - Delta becomes an extreme alert mode that resets all cyborgs and unlocks combat module. Used by station to aid in extreme situations.
5) Rework text on Code Delta
 

[GreenBoi]

The Malfnuke is infact the SAT because you can stop it if you go to the physical SAT as Captain.

 

Past that, though, I don't see how the nukes are that bad. Mercs usually NEVER use it period- Malf is the only one people have to worry about potentially using it oocly, but the class malf nuke doesn't happen all the time and is moreso a side-effect of bad planning or uncreative planning. You can do generally interesting things with this mechanic, and the realization (even though it's cheesy since everyone knows oocly) that there's effectively a bomb on your station that could have rigged to blow whenever, without your knowledge is a lot better than just "Oh, NanoTrasen has BIG secrets" "Well duh, it's a fucking mega-corporation, these things don't exactly have souls."

 

Sidenote, combat cyborgs were removed because of how OP they were for crew to have and how easily they could be unlocked if command staff talked together for half a minute. I don't think anyone is going to put them back in because they're really not for crew-usage and are better suited as a tool for the lesser-equipped antags to use as defense/offense.

[ben10083]

TBH I feel that the malf nuke wouldnt be a problem if malf didnt have to go delta to get combat modules.

[Carver]

I'm fine with nukes due to them ending the round, though I don't believe they're exactly the most impressive objective you can aim for. For the Nuke Ops, I prefer when it's used as a round ender rather than a tool of intimidation as there's really not much one can say to it. If you were using it to threaten the station then I'd completely expect NT to send in the best of the best (AKA anyone but the crew) to stop you, assuming Command actually faxes them the situation.

[Butterrobber202]

The Nukes are an organic "villain" ending to the round. I'd say they should stay, its hard enough to get the entire merc team to agree to even acknowledge the nuke exists, much less to use it lmao.

[Naelynn]

Thank you all for your replies - I genuinely do, but I feel like I didn't manage to get my point across as [to me] it feels like you guys are often addressing points I didn't even raise in the first place.

@GreenBoi
 

6 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

The Malfnuke is infact the SAT because you can stop it if you go to the physical SAT as Captain.

I think this is reference to me calling the station-self destruct Malf-nuke. 
My point is that the station self-destruct is pretty much never used for anything BUT Malfs, and for Malfs the stories it tends to force are played out so much it's become beyond stale and an actual meme.
 

6 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

Past that, though, I don't see how the nukes are that bad.

No matter what the storyline may be, as soon as the nuke is brought in the nuke becomes the primary gimmick. The nuke is -TOO DANGEROUS- to ever be reasonable story telling device. It's like saying that a villain in a book is going to destroy the world. That story is ridiculously boring, because the stakes are too high to actually be real. 
If the nuke goes off, the antags ALSO die and no one gets a good story. There will be RIDICULOUS amount of collateral player deaths who had nothing to do with the incident AND any storylines that may have been happening are ended. 
If the nuke doesn't go off, it has completely ruined whatever other gimmicks may have been going on due to how large of a threat it is. EVERYONE has to focus on the nuke as soon as it comes up because it can just kill everyone in the round as soon as it is activated.
The story loop it promotes is -NOT- interesting.

6 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

You can do generally interesting things with this mechanic

Please post a good nuke-gimmick example. I play antags boatload, and there are none that I could have thought of that either weren't lrp-bad or played-out to hell.
Keep in mind, the gimmick has to be realistically executable with 4 mercs, each of one will want to go do something else. It has to be simple enough for everyone to get in few minutes, has to allow enough freedom for people to improv the details and has to be interesting enough to appeal to the crew [We are a Role Play server. The story is a priority]. Finally, the gimmick should involve more than just command staff/security because otherwise you might as well be running [Maximum Stealth] gimmick because most of the crew won't get to interact with the antagonist in any way.

6 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

the realization (even though it's cheesy since everyone knows oocly) that there's effectively a bomb on your station that could have rigged to blow whenever, without your knowledge is a lot better than just "Oh, NanoTrasen has BIG secrets" "Well duh, it's a fucking mega-corporation, these things don't exactly have souls."

Yes, but this could be made way more interesting if the nuke is replaced with a Virus bomb. [a.k.a: All organics in blast radius become ill with randomly generated virus (class 7) and it has to be treated ASAP. Synthethics are unaffected and will be fine.] And that's literally something I came up with in like 3 seconds. 

6 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

combat cyborgs were removed because of how OP they were for crew to have and how easily they could be unlocked if command staff talked together for half a minute.

Fair point! Didn't remember them being in originally - thanks for the heads up. I was trying to suggest some things there.

 

@ben10083

4 hours ago, ben10083 said:

TBH I feel that the malf nuke wouldnt be a problem if malf didnt have to go delta to get combat modules.

Divorcing the nuke and combat modules would be great, yeah.

 

@Carver

3 hours ago, Carver said:

If you were using it to threaten the station then I'd completely expect NT to send in the best of the best (AKA anyone but the crew) to stop you, assuming Command actually faxes them the situation.

Yeah but that never happens. Admins will never send HAPT just to deal with nuke threat. I've ran a few nuke ops round, and at best it was randomly Phoenix instead of TCFL spawn.

3 hours ago, Carver said:

I'm fine with nukes due to them ending the round

I suppose - they do end the round. But the amount of rage/salt in the chat after a nuke goes off clearly shows that people are not okay with these endings. Queue up as merc and run a NukeOps gimmick - if I'm not on the team to boycott it you might be able to do it. 
The reason I boycott nuke runs is because they LITERALLY ALWAYS end in either player complaints, bwoinks, personalized salt over discord/pms or any combination of the above.
 

3 hours ago, Carver said:

For the Nuke Ops, I prefer when it's used as a round ender rather than a tool of intimidation as there's really not much one can say to it.

I agree with this in my original post - They do not create interesting RP. We are an RP server. Thus my suggestion to just delete them.

 

@Butterrobber202

57 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

The Nukes are an organic "villain" ending to the round.

But they're not. Villain ending implies that things went the antag's way. The antag is dead, as is everyone and everything on the station. 

57 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

I'd say they should stay, its hard enough to get the entire merc team to agree to even acknowledge the nuke exists, much less to use it lmao.

Yes. If I'm on the team, I boycott it. Can't speak for anyone else. The reason for my boycott is because I am not interested in dealing with the ahelps/disheartened players who got 0 rp from antags just flexing on them with a giant bomb. It's a hostage situation except the hostage is the entire station and crew.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Naelynn
Typo...

[Butterrobber202]

@Naelynn

 

you can activate the nuke, then leave the station via the ship, therefore the antags survive.

[Naelynn]

5 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

@Naelynn

 

you can activate the nuke, then leave the station via the ship, therefore the antags survive.

That is a fair point, but please do tell how does that further any story?

[Butterrobber202]

4 minutes ago, Naelynn said:

That is a fair point, but please do tell how does that further any story?

that depends solely on what would happen in a round with this exact case happening, we'd have to look at the events leading up to it.

[Naelynn]

6 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

that depends solely on what would happen in a round with this exact case happening, we'd have to look at the events leading up to it.

I cannot deny this as there are too many hypothethicals.
Tl;dr: in my opinion this would kill mostly any story there may have been on the station, but I can imagine an extremely rare series of events that could lead to this being a well recieved ending... but it is so unlikely of a possibility that I don't think it's worth accounting for.

And even more so, if mercs/malf has such a good gimmick that they need a nuke for, they can always a-help for one.

[sonicgotnuked]

On the topic of malfunction, it takes at least 20 minutes to finish system override and it takes ANOTHER 20 minutes of the nuke to actually go off. (10 minutes hacking the SAT, another 10 with the actual countdown)

This PR has been merged for multiple months by now:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7563

 

In short, it replaced code delta with code yellow inside the advanced encryption hack and gives the cyborg combat modules in the synthetic domination. This PR specifically made combat borgs not be bound to malf code delta and it has reduced the amount of code delta memes significantly since. I understand it didn't fix all of malf problems, but it significantly helped.

Onto my second point, stealth malfing the nuke will get you bwoinked. It's regulated, the nuke is regulated, and the only time I've seen poor nuke play from malf is when the malf player is inexperienced.

 

Now onto merc. I rarely see their nuke used in general other then a few rounds here and there over the months. The "Give us everything you own or blow up" gimmick has generally never been enacted as its own standing point. ICly, nearly ALL mercs take nuking the entire station an extremely expensive and unmoral thing to do since you're basically blowing up a load of civilians who have nothing to do with your squanders. I've seen some very interesting gimmicks before with the nuke. Not necessarily to blow it up, but I've seen it used as a last ditch effort out of desperation and a bargaining chip.

 

Now onto the station side SAT.

The SAT is the rarest used of it all. There are only a few rounds in a six month time period that has the entire station blowing up.

 

My proposal 

1. Make EVERY nuke process a hard set ten minute timer. Think like the CM self destruct process which has a 10 minute countdown.

2. After 5-7 minutes, the entire cancel button locks down. You have to dig into the nuke and disarm it manually (with a chance to instantly detonate)

 

Having a specific admin type allowance is not reliable nor feasible because most of the time when staff understand the full extent of a round, they're involved. Getting the nuke code itself for the station side SAT only has two methods. Via a wishing well from xenoarchilogy, or the view variable verb.