Disruptors are detrimental to Security; Return of the .45 Pistol

[VeteranGary]

I have been around since before disruptors were even a thing, and went through their introduction and various reworks over the years. And to this day they are not what was promised nor fully developed into something interesting and practical. Even a proposed rework of them has recently stagnated and probably won't see implementation for some time. I'll list some of my issues with the current state of the disruptor pistol.

Blaster-category of energy weapon, which effectively trades the entire advantage of most energy weapons for ballistic-like performance. I believe this was done to make it similar to the .45 it replaced. It used to have the ability to shoot through glass on lethal mode, but this was removed as it made it better than the .45.

Wireless-control pins, probably the strangest thing we got out of the introduction of these things. It was never fully realized into what was promised, instead we are stuck with what feels like a half-completed system. It does not really do what it should; prevent the gun being used by an unauthorized user. After the gun is swiped by an ID, anyone can use it until it is manually locked at specific terminals. But the disruptor was never really worth stealing anyway, so this maybe gets used once in a blue moon.

And the worst side effect of these pins, restricting lethal mode to Code Yellow/Red, or manual authorization. This prevents anyone bothering to resort to the disruptor as a viable lethal sidearm because it doesn't function on code blue without someone unlocking it. And typically in these situations that require lethal force, the armory is open and the disruptor is replaced with something else. It is not even particularly useful for greimorians because the xenoblaster exists, and has the ability to shoot through glass; the best advantage of an energy weapon.

I really believe that security should return to the days of their .45 pistol, with two .45 rubber magazines. Yes, I do agree that this will make security significantly stronger off the cuff, but that's the point. In my experience, giving security a bad sidearm encourages them to lean on going to the armory sooner, and I don't think that is necessarily a good thing. I'd much prefer security officers feeling much more confident and capable of handling some more riskier scenarios by having a better offensive tool at the get go. Currently we have the gameplay loop of security being slightly outgunned and immediately all retreating to the armory. No-one wants to stay on scene with nothing but a disruptor. 
 

[UltraNumeron]

Yeah as is security tends to go from 0 to 100 on the armory really quickly.

[greenjoe]

A return to having the .45 pistol and the taser gun would be interesting to see.

[MattAtlas]

16 hours ago, VeteranGary said:

Yes, I do agree that this will make security significantly stronger off the cuff, but that's the point. In my experience, giving security a bad sidearm encourages them to lean on going to the armory sooner, and I don't think that is necessarily a good thing. I'd much prefer security officers feeling much more confident and capable of handling some more riskier scenarios by having a better offensive tool at the get go. Currently we have the gameplay loop of security being slightly outgunned and immediately all retreating to the armory. No-one wants to stay on scene with nothing but a disruptor. 

In general I agree with trialing this suggestion out and I agree with most of the points you make, but I wouldn't draw the connection to this leading to the armoury being used less. More than likely it'll be used just the same. Even if you have a .45 with rubbers, there's really nothing you can do with it against an antagonist with a revolver or a lethal tool in general - any time there's going to be escalation, security will reach for the armoury because otherwise you're sandbagging.

The solution to that would be in my opinion probably splitting the armoury into a non-lethal/LTL/limited lethals armoury and an emergency armoury with the truly big guns. That way they'll still open the armoury, but they won't have immediate access to the antag killinator 9000.

[greenjoe]

I recall the armory on the Aurora was split in two? I think it was LTL and lethal?

[OffRoad99]

What happened to the disruptor-lite PR proposal? Wouldn't that a little bit of extra cool firepower AND utility when compared with the current disruptor? 

[VeteranGary]

1 hour ago, MattAtlas said:

In general I agree with trialing this suggestion out and I agree with most of the points you make, but I wouldn't draw the connection to this leading to the armoury being used less. More than likely it'll be used just the same. Even if you have a .45 with rubbers, there's really nothing you can do with it against an antagonist with a revolver or a lethal tool in general - any time there's going to be escalation, security will reach for the armoury because otherwise you're sandbagging.

The solution to that would be in my opinion probably splitting the armoury into a non-lethal/LTL/limited lethals armoury and an emergency armoury with the truly big guns. That way they'll still open the armoury, but they won't have immediate access to the antag killinator 9000.

With how non-lethals function in general, a .45 with rubbers is perfectly serviceable even against some armored targets. And typically security has the numbers advantage, aside from merc/mixed round types. However, if an antag prepares properly it can be countered easily with combat stims. Synaptazine and painkillers pretty much renders LTLs useless.

I could be wrong about the armory being used less, but I still believe the current sidearm is a contributing factor. There are more reasons that security leans heavily on the armory than this alone. It's a one and done weapon, once it's out you have to find a charger. Instead of having one extra reload to stay in a fight little bit longer.

Edited 21 hours ago by VeteranGary

[Arbiter_Ambrose]

8 hours ago, greenjoe said:

I recall the armory on the Aurora was split in two? I think it was LTL and lethal?

Correct from what I can see from archival work.

[Loorey]

I generally think the idea of giving security officers fourt-fives on roundstart isn't a bad one, and might also tune down armory usage just a little bit. Though in that case, a lot of armory usage is usually pushed by command ordering security to arm up whenever something is iffy, but that's a command player issue in that case if the escalation is too drastic.

One thing you ought to keep in mind is the antagonist response you'll get from this; when getting shot at / in combat, a lot of antagonists do not look in the chat anymore and I cannot blame them. They won't see the difference between you using normal versus rubber rounds if they are not explicitly paying attention, and in retaliation theyll probably swiss you with their lethals. Of course here, at least from what I would see playing antag myself, a fourty-five is much less of a threat than a laser or burst rifle is and the response in gunfire would probably be minimal.

You still have to keep in mind that you are shooting real bullets at someone with a way bigger gun than you. It's less than lethal not non-lethal and the response you get from an antagonist might not make you happy.

[Carver]

My only thoughts are that whatever Sec gets as their default sidearm should be vulnerable to EMP/Ions, and that if I'm being shot with ballistics as an antag then I'm going to assume lethal intent from the Officer (given that even rubbers can break bones and force me to need surgery).

I would much rather see the disruptors made into more viable sidearms before we consider returning to ballistics.

[kermit]

disruptors being dentrimental to security is kind of the entire point; they were nerfed to make room for low intensity/low gear/roleplay-focused antags (which i like doing now and then). they can do shenanigans, get into an escalatory stand-off with disruptor-using officers, and usually get away from that first fight before having to lock-in with uplink gear/expect to be detained post-armoury activation.

.45 rubbers at the start makes zero difference when it comes to any antags who bought even a mid-range uplink weapon bc that will still trigger an armoury activation, and all of the difference for low intensity antags (bleeds that leave trails; brute that slow-releases pain ontop of initial pain; bonebreaks that do eeeven more pain and can do organ damage that do yet more pain, potentially lasting the rest of the round if you dont find 5 mins to use sana)

and as a security player too, the use of force escalation up to using rubber rounds is significantly higher than using a taser-esque disruptor. where my characters ditched the disruptor because its plain dog shit, my characters probably will ditch the .45 too bc if an antag is armed/armoured the armoury is probably going to be opened

Edited 1 hour ago by kermit

[VeteranGary]

3 hours ago, Loorey said:

I generally think the idea of giving security officers fourt-fives on roundstart isn't a bad one, and might also tune down armory usage just a little bit. Though in that case, a lot of armory usage is usually pushed by command ordering security to arm up whenever something is iffy, but that's a command player issue in that case if the escalation is too drastic.

One thing you ought to keep in mind is the antagonist response you'll get from this; when getting shot at / in combat, a lot of antagonists do not look in the chat anymore and I cannot blame them. They won't see the difference between you using normal versus rubber rounds if they are not explicitly paying attention, and in retaliation theyll probably swiss you with their lethals. Of course here, at least from what I would see playing antag myself, a fourty-five is much less of a threat than a laser or burst rifle is and the response in gunfire would probably be minimal.

You still have to keep in mind that you are shooting real bullets at someone with a way bigger gun than you. It's less than lethal not non-lethal and the response you get from an antagonist might not make you happy.

One of the points I like, making security drawing their weapon much more impactful or cause for consideration. You're shooting someone with a gun, so maybe try other options first. Right now most people just go straight for the disruptor, because why not. It's effectively a ranged stunbaton. 
 

2 hours ago, Carver said:

My only thoughts are that whatever Sec gets as their default sidearm should be vulnerable to EMP/Ions, and that if I'm being shot with ballistics as an antag then I'm going to assume lethal intent from the Officer (given that even rubbers can break bones and force me to need surgery).

I would much rather see the disruptors made into more viable sidearms before we consider returning to ballistics.

I would agree with this if EMPs weren't nerfed to oblivion to make IPCs not awful to play. The EMP grenades had their AOE drastically reduced. It doesn't even drain battery capacity of energy weapons, it legit just locks them from shooting for 10-20 seconds. Ion Rifle is annoying to carry around especially for the use of disabling disruptors, has only 4 shots, and has the same issue with EMPs in general. Antagonists are much more better off using a variety of other tactics to counter security's sidearm. If you pull it off, security is going to head to the armory to pick up a beanbag shotgun, .45 rubber, or sabre rubber to appropriately reply. And this line of thinking is already well accepted in the security/antag gameplay loop, usually if security is shooting at someone with anything there is a general understanding that we have reached the midpoint of escalation and retaliation is allowed/expected. I don't think a blaster or LTL ballistic here makes much of a difference, you can fight or just flee if it was either/or. If you get shot enough to break bones, you likely already have entered paincrit anyway. 

We could still fit the disruptor in some way, it can easily replace the taser that used to be part of security's old loadout. A taser and the .45 with rubber rounds. But obviously this will cause a number of issues such as people just using it to dual-wield which is incredibly OP at the moment. Two projectiles at the same time and practically negligible amount of inaccuracy penalty.