Overmap Mercenaries and Raiders Discussion Thread

[Kintsugi]

Do you think mercs and raiders should get overmap-capable shuttles? I am personally of the mindset that we should give them such, on the condition that they must nonetheless engage the crew in some way, instead of flying around the overmap and doing their own thing. One thing to consider is that it may be necessary to buff security voidsuits - security's voidsuit armor is paper-thin for anything other than melee combat, which means a boarding operation is nearly-suicidal.

[ClemTheDuck]

i like the idea, big agree that sec voidsuits would need a buff to be able to contend with antag voidsuits tho

 

[WickedCybs]

It would be a good addition and I believe other servers like Bay show that it can be done well enough. Some essential facts would have to be accepted though, that you can try shielding them from negative overmap affects as hard as you can and things will still go wrong and they might not know how to pilot. The initial introduction period will probably be rough unless anyone trying it out has flown a shuttle already. I also don't think they should be "magic" shuttles. They should ideally be like anything else on the overmap, having stuff like atmos and power. Or at least, the former.

Docking near another ship you're chasing is also extremely powerful at the moment and how it works must be changed or it'll be really annoying to deal with. There's seemingly no escape if you're locked onto other than the other ship deciding to leave. The tethered ship has to be able to break free. Maybe give them a few minutes until they're able to escape so the boarding party still has time to assault.

For the security voidsuits. Maybe it could be protective but still worse vs standard plate. If it's freely accessible, it'll probably be used as extra armour but it would be nice to have a space suit that's good for more than just melee on the crew-side. Other than a sec voidsuit buff, it could be nice to give security one heavier voidsuit or a hardsuit that's able to take more of a beating.

[Myazaki]

Quote

Do you think mercs and raiders should get overmap-capable shuttles?

In general, yes probably but not right now. But I think it is important to consider a few things - Things that are way more important than voidsuit balancing:

• Does it significantly add to the time it takes them to get to the Horizon / get their plan going?
• What mechanics should we add to support it? (Cloaking devices, transponder changes, ship weaponry, docking codes, ship tethering...?)
• What will the consequences be? This post was made right after a really cool round in which sec did a boarding action vs. the Orion ship -- How do we make sure that the antagonists still interact with the non-sec, non-pilot crew? Will it mean they antagonize the SCCV Horizon less? Do we really raider/merc round to look like that one did frequently or will it lose its novelty quick?

The mercs/raiders should also probably have a choice between an overmap ship, or another way of getting to the Horizon similar to their current method (e.g. breaching pod, teleporter, direct shuttle etc.).