Suit sensors nerfing/adjustment/removal discussion

[greenjoe]

Since there has been some talk about this recently, I've thought it may be an idea to make this for a place for people to put down ideas for possible ways sensors could be 'nerfed'

[OolongCow]

They don't need it, because there's nothing wrong with them. They only warn people who aren't being naughty medical members once someone's already dying, at which point, medical should be allowed to come get them. If anyone's concerned about people surviving when they shouldn't, then just kill them instead of hoping they'll bleed out? It's the exact same thing as letting them bleed out off sensors, except you can't "well ackshually 🤓" the admins over it. If you don't want people to die, you WANT medical to come get them. If you WANT them to die, then just kill them. 

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Cut out, or at least heavily simplify, the vitals part, keep the location tracking. Gives people more leeway to do nefarious deeds without completely cucking the responders. They won't notice someone being dragged off to a suspicious location, the list on highpop is already enough of a sensory nightmare to keep track of. Also lets you remove those useless middle options in the sensor selection menu.

Actually, now that I think about it, it would be kind of cool if location was tied to the ID Card rather than the suit sensors. Opens the door for a lot more emergent opportunities.

[Evandorf]

There are already ways to circumvent the sensors. Radio jammers work a treat and can be crafted by anyone using parts from  the public tool storage.

[Carver]

Use the tools available per what Evandorf said. Sensors are useless so long as you're willing to invest telecrystals or time/risk (since acquiring components can catch the notice of someone if you're careless).

[Ramke]

I don't think they need nerfs either. Antags have plenty of tools to work around it as Evandorf said, Lings can paralyse and turn off sensors while they're sucking, antags can turn them off at gunpoint or in cuffs, radio jammers, etc.

I will be honest, I think the only thing the current set of nerfs that will go through will achieve is that the blame game over "why aren't you sitting in the box and watching sensors" will increase. Nobody who actively plays the game wants to do that.

[BravoBohemia]

I threw my hat in this ring already back in the medical department discord but I’ll just repeat what I said there, despite it being an almost carbon copy of what Ramke just said. Sensors monitoring is perfectly fine as is, there’s no need to add any restrictions as there’s already plenty of ways to get around it as an antag, which could be said about a lot of things but I won’t get into them in this post. If a traitor or changeling or merc wants to be covert, they have those tools available. All the proposed change is going to do is punish medical players for not setting aside their round staring at a console in the penalty box for when people who wouldn’t scream for help over the radio anyways start to tank in vitals. Not to mention this is something medical players are harped for to begin with both in and out of character. 

[Omicega]

If a security player played to win the same way it feels like the average medical player does these days, that department would have been wiped clean years ago.

There has been serious skill creep and feature creep in medical over the past one or two years. Back through 2021 and the early parts of 2022, I felt a lot more casual (and pleasant) to play. We still had brainmed (that really hasn't changed too much, has it? Or maybe I'm misremembering), but the RIG didn't see the light of day except on blue or above, the IV drips didn't hold super-EPPs, the auto-compressor was good for keeping blood flowing but would never restart the heart, and a ton of other things I either can't recall or can't be bothered to keep listing off.

Jump forwards to 2023, and the department has been ultra-streamlined unlike any other. It's the new norm for experienced FRs to keep sensors visible at all times, no matter where they are on the ship; shoving shit into medkits (recently nerfed!) and using a handheld duffel has reached the point where anyone can carry half the medical bay on them like they're gearing up as a CM squad medic, while also freeing up the back slot to strap the RIGs (there are now two of them) on straight from 00:00, every round straight. Medical has been absolutely festooned with new toys and ways to save people, but I think the impact all of this has on antagonists and their playability is generally overshadowed by security as the more obvious, active bogeyman against getting any gimmick off the ground.

I can't speak for how the player culture feels in 2023 as I haven't really touched the department since I felt it slipping away from the old, more relaxed vibe I used to enjoy. If medical players really are bitching at and shaming one another for not being glued to the sensors 24/7, then maybe the feature should finally just be cut entirely so nobody has to deal with that anymore. All I can say on top of that is that as someone who's played a shitload of security, I can count the number of times a medical player has found me on sensors on, like, one hand. The vast majority of the time if I get a paramedic on me, it's because they either knew something was up from unrelated context clues, or I specifically called for help with a location, or I tipped them off beforehand with a trip past medical's lobby or a PDA message or something.

A complete removal aside, @ImmortalRedshirt has some interesting suggestions. I'd keep the vitals sensors and remove location tracking, though.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

I'd say making it vitals only really doesn't solve much of the issues. It still weighs really heavy on nefarious deeds and makes finding the victim an exercise in frustration. Location only, on the other hand, makes it relatively straightforward to find someone bleeding out in a decent amount of time, and also doesn't alert the entirety of medical towards suspicious actions. People showing up as being in unexpected places is rarely commented on right now, much less followed up, especially on decent pop rounds, where you just sort of stop comprehending the data until someone calls for help and you can hyperfocus on where they're at. This is good. Catching someone in the act requires decent perception and a certain sense of where people should and shouldn't be, instead of just neuron activating when the green number stops being green. Plus, in regards to the antag's scrambling devices, it's much easier and potentially a bit more interesting to spoof someone's location than their health(one just keeps med unaware of what's happening to someone, the other leads med and possibly sec on a wild goose chase, engaging them in your plot.)

This last bit's a bit more of an in-universe reasoning and based off my own experience with telemetry, but it's usually much easier and cheaper to develop something that broadcasts a location and stick that in an ID card or something rather than incorporating a full suite of medical sensors into one's workwear.

Edited October 14, 2023 by ImmortalRedshirt
clarifications

[greenjoe]

There was a PR posted that limted higher sensor levels to raised alert level, as well as remove suit sensors from non-uniform clothing.

[Star Dust]

removing suit sensors makes absolute no sense lore wise, and it's a nerf literally not needed in any case. Please stop giving crutches to the antags that they don't need.

[MattAtlas]

I'm going to limit what I say on the argument to one, maybe two posts because I think the discourse around Medical is so toxic and demotivating that it makes me want to revert brainmed and bring the server back to the stone age because of the sheer level of regret I have over contributing anything to this set of players. The level of shit I've gotten over a simple change (that I genuinely believe in, mind) is absolutely mindboggling and frankly unthinkable - if it were a contributor on my end I'm pretty sure they'd have quit the community already. But let's get on with it.

5 hours ago, Ramke said:

I will be honest, I think the only thing the current set of nerfs that will go through will achieve is that the blame game over "why aren't you sitting in the box and watching sensors" will increase. Nobody who actively plays the game wants to do that.

This being used as an argument to keep sensors as they are is emblematic of the entire problem I have with medical as it is. It's a department where one mistake gets you crucified (before anyone says otherwise, this happened to me just a week ago and I had to delete a character over it, I adminhelped it and was told it was an IC issue - oh well!), where not having a window open on the right side of your monitor is seen as a bad thing because you need to be ready 24/7, where powergaming is the expectation rather than a rulebreak (how many people used the medkit exploit? that's right, most of them) and where toxicity is justified because otherwise the department would be nerfed. Oh, and it's also the only department where a nerf gets you accused of wanting to "humble" medical players or of "making spite PRs" or generally being clueless. Or, apparently as I'm seeing right now, the argument is so heated that it justifies calling one of my contributions "asinine and stupid".

What people fundamentally miss is that you don't get out of this situation where not powergaming gets you abused by just ignoring it and keeping it as is. Sensors being nerfed is part of the work needed to do that. But other than that, I think they're unnecessarily limiting for antagonists and I've always held the idea that they run completely counter to the base of SS13, which is an action horror game - where's the horror part of it if you know where everyone is? Sure, everyone talks about "you need to be prepared" or "just make a radio jammer" but I'd like any of you to tell me out of the blue how to make one. That's pretty niche knowledge that 99% of the server simply doesn't have memorized. It feels like a gigantic noob trab - why should someone have to throw away their first round just to then know how to make something that counters sensors? I don't agree with that line of thought. Maybe other people do, but for a long time we've done nothing but ignore the problem of antags having zero space to operate in.

[geeves]

personally i dont rly care about antags, i just think being forced to stare at numbers is pretty sucky. remove the sensor program and you remove the need to be glued to it. feel free to ping or DM me on discord to discuss my PR

[WickedCybs]

I would have probably opposed a removal on the station map due to the sheer scale at play there, but the Horizon is so tiny I think we could get away with testing what it might be like to not have them available. Far more effective to me at least has always been getting some FR's following sec during a hectic situation, wellness checks, actively calling out locations over the radio. I think it's worth a try to see what happens.

Like the idea of tying it to alert more though. 

[Fluffy]

I think a test is permissible, but having people die around the ship for the reason of "well you didn't told Medbay where you were" and being on the floor unconscious and bleeding out for that sole reason doesn't strike me as something that generates anything but frustration, and robs Medbay of many of the most interesting cases: The ones where the person is on the brink of death

If the issue is antagonists not getting jammers, perhaps we can just spawn them in with a jammer by default? Then they just have to configure it if they want to stealth murder someone, without the need to go out of their way to build one, or maybe give them the ability to buy a fake announcement/event like the ion storm, that distrupts comms and suit sensors for a period of time, that they can trigger with bluecrystals like the fake radiation storm?

For the forcing to stare at numbers, we can maybe make it an alert so that if someone flatlines (aka it's actively dying), something rings or it sends a message in the medical radio channel like a death implant? That would also be good because, if you're not looking for people being hurt before approaching the brink of death, you get notified when you have the more interesting (and challenging to cure) patients, so maybe it is a two birds with one stone type of deal (?)

Just throwing some ideas out there

[GeneralCamo]

5 hours ago, Star Dust said:

removing suit sensors makes absolute no sense lore wise

Arguably, considering security -does- use them to find people, it's a privacy violation that the Horizon has taken too far.

 

I fully agree with nerfing them somehow. Encouraging people to stare at them at all times, hounding people to turn them on, and having a watchful eye everywhere is bad for us. We need to relax the department a bit honestly, and understand that -doctors are players and have RP too-. This is something that gets lost in the mechanically-heavy department that is Medical.

[NG+7 Gael]

Personally, I think removing sensors entirely would serve best for improving gameplay all around. IMO some non-exhaustive benefits are as follows:

1. It helps to make the general medical player experience better. I've not played a ton of medical myself, admittedly, but I have before- and I know what sitting there staring at sensors is like. It's not fun, and I believe that as long as sensors are in the game, medical players will not only be expected to have sensors visible on their screens at all times in some form or another, but will also be actively disparaged for not. This is, as some people have mentioned, an issue that extends beyond just suit sensors, but it's good to start somewhere.

2. It gives antags far more leeway with how they choose to approach certain situations. I've seen a number of people talk about how removing suit sensors will lead to people laying on the floor bleeding out for X minutes without being able to be found, but- alternatively- I think the removal of suit sensors could potentially serve to encourage antags to not kill people, as it suddenly becomes far less necessary to do so with the removal of sensors. This does, of course, depend on the antag player, but it's objectively true that sensors encourage antags to quickly kill people and get out, so it's not unreasonable to say that removing them could allow antags more freedom to not kill people, or at least not immediately.

3. People dying is fine. I think the expectation that you won't die is, in my opinion, something that shouldn't be encouraged. I do think there's a bit of a balance to be struck, as dying too often or too early into a round can certainly be frustrating for some people, especially as rounds last two hours, however on the other hand medical is already so incredibly strong that it's almost trivial to bring people back from basically death's door. Being able to actively track everyone's medical status and location on top of that makes it absurdly difficult to die without antags outright murdering you on the spot. It's already hard enough to die, and I really don't think more people dying is a bad thing, both from an IC perspective and an OOC perspective. IC, death obviously lead to far more consequences than injury, and can shift the flow of a round depending on who died and everything surrounding the death. It also doesn't necessitate more grief RP, for those who are disinclined towards that. OOCly, it encourages people to be more careful with their characters and not charge into danger (which yes, they typically shouldn't be doing anyways, but people do and will continue to do so. This doesn't solve that issue whatsoever, but it does discourage it in more situations).

[N8-Toe]

If I could like MattAtlas's post twice I would. I think they very clearly hit the nail on the head on alot of issues. I used to main medical, I still dabble in it now and even CMO.

 

On sensors if we're going to keep them. what ive seen on other servers is the sprite for the sensor console will flash red or otherwise indicate someone is in critical condition. that way you dont need to actually be at the console, just look in its vague direction once in awhile.

 

Also if we must keep them, I think they should be abstracted. Telling you "Deck three starboard" at most.

 

but I also see the benefit to their removal. To echo NG Dying is fine. You consent to your character possibly dying when you ready up to the round. To address the concern of bleeding out with no one knowing your in trouble, My advice would be to leverage your teamwork. Your an engineer going into maint to fix a sudden alarm? tell the other engineers so they know where you are if you stop replying, perhaps take a buddy with you to protect you from the rouge main drone hordes. Antags desperately need breathing room on Aurora, and I think this would be a step in that direction ,

[Noble Row]

Whatever happens just remember that suit sensors have been a part of this game for over a decade if not longer. They're a tool that has been used to great effect and every medical player is familiar with them. Nerfing or removing them is going to be a HUGE change, and if you are going to touch the suit sensor program, some of the other facets of medbay that have already been nerfed should get another look over if not reverted. 

 

Either way, no matter what action is taken, you are modifying a department that people care about a lot. Just be careful. You're playing with the morale of players who have put a significant amount of time in to learning a daunting system. If medbay was easier like it was a long time ago, I'd be more supportive of this cause. However, Medbay is a difficult department, and your actions as a competent member of the department have a massive swing on everyone's enjoyability of the game. 

 

I'm also concerned about the side effects of this decision. From what I am anticipating is more people being upset in general. People rely on Medbay to keep everyone in the round. Crew and antags alike. And people already get mad at new Surgeons, and now patients are going to come in even more critical condition (if not worse). Antags also have plenty of tools on hand to cause a lot of damage, and while it is nice for the antags to let them keep more people from stopping them, you have to remember the antags control the story of the round for a population that far surpasses their own numbers. Killing people off and keeping them from the round is what this server has agreed upon is "bad taste" as evidenced by the multitude of rules we have regarding killing.

 

Furthermore, I can already forsee the amount of ahelps and upset players from both the crew and antags alike when they die. People are going to ahelp antags for improper escalation even more now. There's going to be accidental deaths due to just stupid game mechanics. People are going to accidentally kill off antags. All of which is going to lead to more ahelps, more staff action, and less encouragement for people to play antag. People already don't play antag because they don't want to get bwoinked and people ahelp when they're upset, and antags, as antagonists, make people upset as their job. Atleast with medical working at full capacity, with its sensor suite and other gizmos, you can ensure to the best of your ability that players can continue to play and roleplay and look for second chances, escape attempts, and things that keep them in the round.

 

We play on a server that is advertised as Heavy Roleplay, and it's hard to roleplay from deadchat.

[Dreamix]

I very much agree with other posters, Omi and Matt, so I will try not to repeat their points. Medical is the only department where players are proud of exploiting bugs, and will downvote and shit on developers or maintainers who try to fix these bugs and oversights (medkit abuse, multisurgery, etc), or really for doing anything balance-wise to medical other than adding new and more shiny toys to heal people (and advancing the power/feature creep).

 

I think removing (or at least, nerfing) sensors would be a net positive. It would be good for antags, make their life a bit easier, and I don't think it would result in more ahelps about dying. Now antags could afford to simply just injure their target and not kill them, cause they don't have to fear the FR sprinting to their victim's location.

I also hate to see the "just use jammers bro", cause the barrier of entry to antagging is already sky-high. You need to think and remember about a million little things, otherwise you may be fucked, or someone may be upset. People will say it is a "skill issue", but at the same time will criticize the antag's every step, won't even give them a chance and assume they're just an antagmain greytider.

 

I would like to see the expectation that the FR will always come to save you, gone. Same with the expectation that medical is supposed to save anyone, as long as they have a pulse, even with 2BA and 1% blood. Death should be a possibility, a thing that just happens sometimes. If you want to avoid death, it should take some conscious effort to prepare for it, beyond just turning up sensors to tracking.

You can even see people say that, without sensors, medbay would have to actually... coordinate on radio, as if that is a bad thing, instead of FRs just running to where the sensors lead them, and back to medbay with a patient pumped full of chems. It is bizarre to me. Medbay is the only department where forcing more coordination is seen as annoying and unwanted.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Dreamix

[wowzewow]

Medical discourse is inherently baked in the same toxic rhetoric, and everytime there's a nerf, I've seen it used over and over.

"Nerfing medical means people die. Dead people won't have fun. Why are you against fun?"

"Why are you making things unnecessarily obtuse?"

"People will die because of your decision. Why are you punishing people?"

 

This happened when cloning was removed.

This happened when cryogenics was nerfed.

This happened when brainmed got added.

 

People died, and medical powergamers cried bloody murder.

People will HAVE TO DIE. That is a GOOD thing.

Without it, there are no stakes.

It's why we have canonical deaths.

It's why we have self-preservation rules.

 

I find it maddening how it's so hard for some people to reconcile the fact.

Imagine if a cave geist was about to maul someone to death because they decided to explore on their own,

and then medical just pulled them out under its feet and healed them to full.

Now imagine this with some players exploring maintenance and running into the entire group of antags.

Suddenly, it is acceptable for them to escape with their lives.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

2 hours ago, Noble Row said:

Furthermore, I can already forsee the amount of ahelps and upset players from both the crew and antags alike when they die. People are going to ahelp antags for improper escalation even more now. There's going to be accidental deaths due to just stupid game mechanics. People are going to accidentally kill off antags. All of which is going to lead to more ahelps, more staff action, and less encouragement for people to play antag. People already don't play antag because they don't want to get bwoinked and people ahelp when they're upset, and antags, as antagonists, make people upset as their job. Atleast with medical working at full capacity, with its sensor suite and other gizmos, you can ensure to the best of your ability that players can continue to play and roleplay and look for second chances, escape attempts, and things that keep them in the round.

And there's the kicker. As it is right now, the damage systems is skewed heavily towards the most bullshit deaths imaginable. You can shrug off headshots like it's no big deal because antags get nerfed into the ground every time security mindlessly unga rushes them, but drop into crit the moment you get a papercut. This heavily detracts from the game, as you're actively punished for doing the smallest things.

Medical and sensors need an improvement, but making it more frustrating for all parties without adding any interesting dynamics isn't it. Aurora isn't a "I FUCKING LOVE PEOPLE DYING" server, and that's ok. It's ok that our bodycount is lower than your typical LRP fragfest or shitty Russian secret club.

[CampinKiller]

I have seen a lot of talk about how people will be mad at medical or mad at new medical players, etc, but if that happens those people should be ahelped to be dealt with. It is not acceptable to snipe at people because their character dies, or they are newer and didn’t know obscure medical fact #758.

Additionally, as wezzy said, these arguments have come out anytime a nerf happens to medical. Nobody likes dying, but just because this is an HRP server doesn’t mean there should be a lack of potential consequences or danger. Everyone likes to talk a lot about how dangerous the setting is, but it sure doesn’t feel that way when people can get shot 30 times and still survive because an FR on sensors was there in .2 seconds. All this does is make communication more important, as it should be! Command or security or whoever is going into a dangerous situation should be telling medical and telling people so they can send an FR to follow or at least prepare. This game is about interaction, and you get more interaction out of discussing that you’ll need medical to stage than just staring at numbers

Edited October 15, 2023 by CampinKiller

[Roostercat]

Personally I was against the removal as I'm part of the crowd that thinks more station death isn't really a good thing (similar to what ImmortalRedshirt said) but at the same time I cannot really contest the fact that the sensors pretty often fuck over antags the absolute moment they try something. It's just a solid fact.

 

For that reason, I think whatever is brought up should at LEAST get a testmerge, as we really don't know how this is going to affect the game since we've not had to deal with it yet, so we may as well give it a try to see if its good for the game or not.

 

I also very much dislike the talk about medical as a whole being toxic, as simply put the truth is that its a select few people that are the issue and SHOULD BE AHELPED if they are talking shit to new players or in general, as it is clearly casting a bad view on the entire department. I still think it is unfair to say the entirety of medical's playerbase is toxic just for voicing opinions on PRs they do not enjoy (though the people throwing out insults are very much toxic and need to be talked to). 

 

It is fine to have the opinion that less death is preferable. That is why it is an OPINION. People are not toxic just for thinking otherwise. (Though this only applies to the people who actually do it civilly and not the bad actors who decide to start hurling insults).

[GeneralCamo]

38 minutes ago, CampinKiller said:

I have seen a lot of talk about how people will be mad at medical or mad at new medical players, etc, but if that happens those people should be ahelped to be dealt with. It is not acceptable to snipe at people because their character dies, or they are newer and didn’t know obscure medical fact #758.

Matt has stated he -did- ahelp regarding such an incident, and was "told it was an IC issue":

18 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

It's a department where one mistake gets you crucified (before anyone says otherwise, this happened to me just a week ago and I had to delete a character over it, I adminhelped it and was told it was an IC issue - oh well!)

 

This doesn't inspire much confidence in myself personally.

Edited October 15, 2023 by GeneralCamo