Roundstart Hardsuits

[VeteranGary]

Hardsuits have become this weird tier of equipment that is not particularly overpowered yet also tedious to acquire consistently. Currently as it stands its easier to get a barebones mech than most unmoduled hardsuits. I have a few ideas to propose to fix this without damaging the round-based gameplay loop.

Industrial/EVA RIGs should just be available to miners right off the bat as an option. Without modules it kind of sucks, aside from slightly better protection and the ability to splint broken bones instantly. Still sacrifices the backpack slot. It makes no sense for miners to have to either wait for a machinist to make them one, or buy one from the vendor on their return trip when they may have already brought back enough resources for the round.

Perhaps the same with the CE or EVA rigs for engineers, but I find this hard to justify.

Same case with the RD's AMI suit, which probably is the one collecting the most dust. I believe this would be infinitely more useful for the actual scientists like xenobio or xenoarch?

Also the Hazard RIG. Horrifying to suggest powercreep but maybe security should get one. It has been nerfed to oblivion and is worse than both the security voidsuit and basic platecarriers anyway. Why not. 

Alternatively I have two other options instead of just giving several departments hardsuits outright. Move the 3 random hardsuit rigs from the vault to the machinist lab, maybe implement the RNG damage feature that some hardsuits in the warehouse can spawn with requiring hacking to fix them. Or give them three random circuitboards and unrestrict the hardsuit frames from research levels. Maybe give them an assortment of modules to start with so they can have people bring their suits to them to be upgraded. Frequently with research being unstaffed, they can barely make anything worth someone going out of their way to get low-tier modules. I think this option is reasonable, as perhaps hardsuits and their modules require a bunch of upkeep for safety reasons and find themselves frequently in the repair shop for pre-EVA inspections/maintenance.

[Carver]

Outside of first responders (I think this is why no one ever really asks for medical exosuits anymore), I think it's a little more thematic that hardsuits are restricted to departmental heads or have to be earned. It gives them a notable presence, similar to exosuits which generally tend to be less flexible. I do like the idea of the warehouse having random pre-damaged low-tier hardsuits if they're not especially easy to repair (as in, fixed in just a few minutes by a non-antag without much resource investment), as it that might offer a nice little goal for enterprising and handy antagonists to steal whilst giving machinists something to do if they feel like it.