Rehaul Raider into Our First Overmap Ship Antag.

[Boggle08]

Maybe this suggestion is a bit premature, but the point is that this gamemode should get the priority to be overmap worthy, if or when we decide giving antagonists and hostile third parties access to ship-to-ship combat. Comparing raw equipment and resources, raider has always been a shittier merc on paper. This'll give them a niche distinct from that.

[Fluffy]

+1

either rework it as a ship to ship combat or add another antag mode that features ship to ship combat (including the ability to launch incursions to each other's ship and whatnot)

[greenjoe]

+1. I'd want to see the various ship-based antags to get overmap access (and the merchant, too, but that's a bit off topic)

[Carver]

Be nice to have Merc be overmap too, while having Raider's vessel be superior for ship v ship. Give each of them a different thing to excel at!

[Peppermint]

I think people are drastically overestimating how fun 'merc goes outside and shoots up the ship' would be for most players.

[Boggle08]

47 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

I think people are drastically overestimating how fun 'merc goes outside and shoots up the ship' would be for most players.

You're assuming that overmap combat won't increase the demand or appeal of playing in the roles needed for it. All of our antagonist roles are shipside, and because of that, security and medical are consistently populated to meet the opposition. Perhaps something similar will happen for cargo, engineering, and bridge crew roles. We won't know if there aren't going to be opportunities to use the new ship weapons.

 

Just because of how manpower intensive the new ship combat looks, it'd probably be wise to bump up the required readies for the antag change I'm proposing.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Boggle08

[Zelmana]

brb shooting out bar and kitchen windows with artillery

[Peppermint]

2 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

You're assuming that overmap combat won't increase the demand or appeal of playing in the roles needed for it. All of our antagonist roles are shipside, and because of that, security and medical are consistently populated to meet the opposition. Perhaps something similar will happen for cargo, engineering, and bridge crew roles. We won't know if there aren't going to be opportunities to use the new ship weapons.

 

Just because of how manpower intensive the new ship combat looks, it'd probably be wise to bump up the required readies for the antag change I'm proposing.

How many engineering players do you know just love meteor or other venting gamemodes? Bridge crew will have fun. Operations may also have fun, though non-miner roles are still pretty rare. And every other department standing in vented out areas twiddling their thumbs will be miserable. 

I predict it'll be fun for the first few rounds, then swiftly become fristrating.

[Boggle08]

58 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

How many engineering players do you know just love meteor or other venting gamemodes? Bridge crew will have fun. Operations may also have fun, though non-miner roles are still pretty rare. And every other department standing in vented out areas twiddling their thumbs will be miserable. 

I predict it'll be fun for the first few rounds, then swiftly become fristrating.

Engineering has the Leviathan. Between it and the demands of the new guns, optimizing the ship's power and subsystems will become extremely important. This is what I look forwards to as an engineer main.

As for damage control, Matt explained to me that the position for shells when they spawn into the local map is fairly randomized and inaccurate. Lots of 50/50 chance shots. Damage control is something I'm concerned about myself, one because our means of dealing with it has always been limited, and it can easily become tedious or overwhelming if it stacks up too fast. If it does become a problem, easiest thing we could do is map in a bunker with better damage control equipment for emergencies. RCD's and metal foam grenade launchers. Alternatively, we could get some new stuff, or change the way shots are calculated. Bottom line is that can develop contingencies to remedy this problem.

[Carver]

11 hours ago, Peppermint said:

I think people are drastically overestimating how fun 'merc goes outside and shoots up the ship' would be for most players.

I personally do not see the point of the mechanically implemented ship guns if our ship-using antags aren't eventually brought onto the overmap. Keeping them stuck ship-side is such a waste of a significant mechanical addition, and it could be balanced by - as noted, having Raiders be superior in ship v ship (Longbow? Flak Gun?) while Mercs could merely receive something token and defensive for their vessel like the Rotary Gun.

9 hours ago, Zelmana said:

brb shooting out bar and kitchen windows with artillery

Perhaps this would just further highlight a noted design flaw in the service areas. Chef was given shutters which helped against Carp quite a bit, it couldn't really hurt for the Bar to receive some token shutters as well (or perhaps a crew bunker for code red, given hanging at the bar during an active emergency was always silly).

[Gem]

i disagree with this suggestion.
while i like the concept of overmap antagonists, i don't think putting the raiders on the overmap is a good idea as this will remove focus from the ship whereas right now they are forced to go to the ship.
locking raiders to the overmap also implies removing their choice of boarding stealthily, which is also a minus. (edit: unless turning off the IFF lets them be invisible.)

Edited November 8, 2022 by Gem

[greenjoe]

I'd had thoughts on how antag ships could be stealthy on the overmap, actually
some kind of cloaking device that only works for X amount of time
so if they want to sneak aboard, they can, but if they want to fly around and harass others, they risk the cloaking device burning out and revealing themselves
(I imagine they could also use the IFF name change thing to disguise their ship as something else?)

[Peppermint]

I'd much prefer hostile third party ships like the Sol pirates being allowed to fuck with the horizon and other ships, albeit with rules around how/when, rather than retooling mercs/raiders to do so for the reasons I outlined and Gem stated as well. It's going to be fun the first few times, but after that will get boring really quick. Back to the old days of grab hostages, fly off, brag, and repeat. Just with a lot more holes.

[Carver]

On 08/11/2022 at 10:57, greenjoe said:

I'd had thoughts on how antag ships could be stealthy on the overmap, actually
some kind of cloaking device that only works for X amount of time
so if they want to sneak aboard, they can, but if they want to fly around and harass others, they risk the cloaking device burning out and revealing themselves
(I imagine they could also use the IFF name change thing to disguise their ship as something else?)

I had very similar thoughts. Maybe cloaked for the first thirty minutes or so, with the option to disable it and go in entirely visible from the beginning if they so choose. If they can name their own ship it would be wonderful as well.

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, Carver said:

If they can name their own ship it would be wonderful as well.

I think that's literally a thing for third party ships already so very doable

[Confused rock]

Still really want this, and have almost been tempted to do this myself before realising it's WAY outside my skill level and I hardly even know how to TEST an antag.

[Dreamix]

I think this would be interesting to try, to see if it'd actually be a good idea at all. Maybe it will, maybe not, we'll see. Bay has overmap antags, but they have a different antag and server culture so like yeah.

Raider is perfect for this, cause they don't have a lot of gear on spawn like merc, so they wouldn't need a big base. Or they'd not need any base at all, and could just be a ship spawned on the overmap near Horizon, with all the gear they need inside. 

[Granodd]

Raiders were always the more pirate-leaning of the two between them and Mercenaries. The strength of Mercs was always lent to their superior personal gear, which means they would favor actually boarding onto the ship and doing things.

Having Raiders operate more like overmap antagonist pirates with a weaponized ship that poses a credible threat that also has the option of boarding if they wished would make them stand out better from Mercenaries while also helping them feel less crap in comparison.

Edit: just having access to an overmap ship as an antagonist opens up a lot of possibilities too, in the event that the raiders don't want to act like pirates, which sometimes happens with more creative gimmicks.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Granodd

[Fluffy]

Implementation (as an alternative mode with mercs, not raiders) PR is up, to be maintainers discussed: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/15585

[Confused rock]

I really hope this goes through, the ship combat system is great but still so rarely sees use. The details of what ship it is and mercs vs raiders can be changed later (and it would be cool if it could eventually have variety in what weapons it's armed with), what matters is there is a reasonably common avenue for ship combat. People involved get to get their goblin out too, so people aren't too over-eager to use the weapons otherwise. People will learn the systems, enjoy them, and find it easier to use them. As cool as the ship combat is, right now it's hard to think of it as one of the biggest additions of the year 'cause there's basically only super rare situations outside events where it can happen.

[greenjoe]

I would hope overmap mercs would get access to a more generic ship then a Solarian one, so they can use it for their gimmicks more easily