Remove/drastically alter Ninja Dead Man Switch

[Snoopy11]

As the title says, I can't honestly think of any other antag mechanic, or default state of being, that ruins the round type more than the Dead Man's Switch.

It is the biggest fuck you to a round, more so than generally the ninja themselves. 

It also presents two real problems:  Meta or die. There is no other option than those two, if you successfully manage to incapacitate a ninja by force.  You either die when you hold them to the floor, or they die in the medical room, and explode everything around it.

 

I can see why it was put in, to stop people from grabbing the ninja hardsuit and pissing around with it.  But now that we have combined game-modes, such as intrigue, having a ninja suit can add to it; what if a traitor scientist, roboticist, anything tator-like got their hands on it?  'OH SHIT HE'S BACK AAAAA.'

Of course have it locked behind an emag.

 

Honestly, this is one of two things which ruins the gamemode, and makes myself a few other members of the community cryo the moment we know it's the round type.  This one is the salt in the wound.

[Alberyk]

Change it how?

[Snoopy11]

I recommend:

A, remove it, to allow for traitors to snag the equipment.  It already has a crushing mechanic and will crush people to death if they wear it.  

B, reduce the explosion into a single tile gibbing, with a smaller radius capable of inflicting wounds on only those nearby.  It's a big explosion for a smallish suit, it rips up floor tiles, and vents everything nearby.

C, Remove it, and make it purchasable as a TC option.  A middle ground option which allows for people to inflict punishment on us from beyond the grave... the fuckers.

 

A is my preferential. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Snoopy11

[DriedMilk]

poopy way of getting cheap frags. I don't recall a single moment where I enjoyed a ninja SDing.

My main qualms with it are:

-It can gib people in a decent radius

-Rips flooring which then escalates into vacuum thus heavily injuring or killing anyone due to popped lungs.

IMO, it's SD should only be able to kill the ninja alongside it's hardsuit rather than slapping anyone around the ninja with a gib or a popped lung.

 

 

[melodramatize]

God, yes, please. I vividly remember how upset I was in a round where I was playing medical intern and sec brought in a ninja and the second I tried to scan him with a health scanner he exploded and I instantly died. It wasn’t fun for me, and I hadn’t had any interaction with the antag previously so I had no reason/way to know we were dealing with a ninja and I was pretty sour about it because that effectively ended the round for me when I was really just wanted to learn some medical mechanics. 

[Butterrobber202]

I don't see why the Ninja exploding should be enjoyable for the opposing team tbh.

 

It's final "fuck you" to the people who killed them. It's actually a really good bargaining tool as to why the Ninja should /not/ be killed.

[stev]

I'll just add that the round that triggered this, the (first) dead man's switch explosion which knocked out a chunk of Security wasn't triggered by death or anything - that was a purposeful, manual suicide bombing that would've just been done with another type of explosive if the dead man's switch was made unavailable. 

[Doc]

31 minutes ago, Butterrobber202 said:

It's actually a really good bargaining tool as to why the Ninja should /not/ be killed.

This is effectively irrelevant because I've seen a ninja inform security they even have a self-destruct device a grand total of once, ever, in years- and if they don't do that, it's metagaming for sec to act like they know the ninja's about to put a crater the size of a half-power TTV in the station whenever they die.

The main issue is not killing/hurting security. As a sec main, I'm perfectly fine getting gibbed for killing the ninja. The issue is the fuck-huge explosion doesn't magically just hurt the people who attacked the ninja, it kills anyone in a pretty sizable radius around them and vents any room within six or seven tiles, at least- something that happens so often in medical particularly because dying ninjas are carted there, it's practically a meme at this point, which generally instantly ends the round because a good deal of medical are dead or severely wounded, and all the facilities that would be used to rectify it are destroyed or a 15-30 minute repair job away from being able to be used.

My suggestion is to change the module to an actual dead-man's switch bomb. Like, the ones we already have, not just "the ninja explodes when they die." Have the ninja be able to activate it, some sort of red-text message comes up saying "x's suit begins whirring and beeping rapidly, and they hold a thumb over a bright red button produced in their hand!" or something equally intimidating, and then they detonate it if they get downed. They should also be able to deactivate it without detonating it, obviously. Optionally, also put it on the ninja uplink for TC, not for free.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Doc

[Carver]

Just have their suit fry on death and be rendered unusable. 'Rewarding' a death/failure with a bomb that ends the round of everyone nearby is a meme.

[Rushodan]

I'm not for removing it, the ninja bomb kinda adds to their spoopy aesthetic and as far as I was aware was designed to prevent the 'enemy' from getting access to any of the ninja's technology or body (kinda like the predator bomb but less nuclear). I actually like the damage it does too, gives some more drama to the round (and stuff for engineering to do).

I am however up for something along the lines of what doc said, a big warning and a few seconds to get away when the deadman switch is popping off. Give us a scary red message and maybe something visual that clearly indicates 'this boi about to explode'. That way the only case where someone dies is if they are either stuck right on the ninja for some reason or if they are just straight up not paying attention and watching netflix in the other tab.

Cheap death bad. Fancy explosion that is escapable good.

[Sparky_hotdog]

Maybe this would defeat the point, but I'd suggest something which teleports the ninja's body back to their start location on their death. Asset denial, but not a big F you to someone unlucky enough to be nearby. Would also make some sense to me, as the hardsuits are super advanced, so why would you choose to destroy them if recovery was an option?

[Spider]

I suggested something like this two years ago. Nothing came of it. Maybe we can add like an ominous beeping, or any indication that an explosion will take place.

[NerdyVampire]

I support red flashy warning, but I'd prefer it happens at the point of no return. It starts when the ninja dies, and gives you X seconds to get away OR get the body into disposals/space/any remote area.

 

[Aticius]

Just remove it. It serves only to make people upset. There is no rationale behind keeping the DMS and many, better, solutions exist to the problem it was originally made for.

 

This is simply a hold-over from when Ninjas were adminbuse way back in the day, and wasn't ever designed with regular play in mind. (much like ninja.)