Synthlimbs explode way too easily, should prob tone it down

[Guest]

Also titled "please sort of buff IPCs to not be useless when their limbs are targeted."

Okay, small problem. It seems with two laser beams to any body part, head, arm, leg, foot, hand, whatever. It blows the hell off. It's not hard to get 2 lasers off considering the nature of how quickly you can fire two lasers at someone's synthetic leg.

This is... not really fun. At all.

So, I propose the following. Rather than making limbs blow off from 2 laser shots for some reason, I think it would be preferable if all synthlimbs were coded to "break" not unlike regular limbs. However, this is more akin to genedamage in which you cannot use that limb whatsoever, and that particular limb is crippled. Same with the head for IPCs, except that instead of 'YOU FEEL SOMETHING MOVE AROUND IN YOUR HEAD', randomized movement would be better.

Past a reasonable threshold, it blows off.

Thoughts?

[CakeIsOssim]

I don't mind the vulnerability to energy weapons. A focused laser will burn through metal, and everything underneath it. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense, though, is how a single .357 round can take off an entire right leg from an IPC. A single round. That happened to me, just today. Is this because of the lack of brute modifier? Because, if so, it really needs to come back.

Anyway, I don't see any difference between blowing off a limb, and making it completely useless, other than the fact it doesn't have to be replaced when you're getting repaired. What would be neat, though, is limbs of differing thickness taking more or less damage by lasers/bullets. Two to disable the hands/feet, three or four for the legs/arms, six or seven to the unarmored chest/head, and just add one or two shots to completely blow off the limbs listed (even though I'm pretty sure this is already a thing, just broken by the lack of brute modifier). I mean, it's a robot. Made of metal. Is it not meant to be hardy in some sort of way?

Edit: I didn't realize this was also about robotic limbs on non-IPCs. A robotic limb should also be more hardy, and be able to take more of a beating. They should be vulnerable to lasers, and less vulnerable to brute damage. A buff to both would just... kind of make them OP.

[Frances]

I don't mind the vulnerability to energy weapons. A focused laser will burn through metal, and everything underneath it. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense, though, is how a single .357 round can take off an entire right leg from an IPC. A single round. That happened to me, just today. Is this because of the lack of brute modifier? Because, if so, it really needs to come back.

Well, revolvers are really strong and can two-shot you (it's a gun, though, what do you expect?)

As for the brute reduction, I'd personally prefer to not see it come back because it created some really nasty interactions in hand-to-hand combat (you just couldn't outrobust IPCs and it was cheap). if IPCs are really getting blown up by random things then the way their limb health works should be reworked, but a limb being blown off by what I believe is one of the game's strongest weapons doesn't seem too extraordinary for SS13 balance.

Edit: What's the difference between a limb being blown off and made unusable? Is it realism?

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Okay, so the brute modifier was removed for balance. Which makes game-mechanics sense, I get that. But it also creates these absurd situations where we have metal limbs behaving like they were meat limbs. Beating on a metal limb (whether an IPC or a prosthetic) should be a lot harder. Bullets should be less effective. For it to be otherwise makes no IC sense.

I would love to see other ways to take down IPCs added, perhaps some kind of ghetto EMP or the likes, but making them more human like isn't the answer.

[Frances]

Well, the problem is that if you make them hard to take down, but with specific counters, you're likely to fall into one of two situations:

-Everyone begins abusing counters to take down IPCs, to avoid the frustration of having to fight them

Or

-Counters are too inconvenient or difficult to use and IPCs remain OP

I'd argue that SS13 isn't a game where counterplay is very present in combat. Sure, if you're dealing with a sole antagonist (i.e. wizard) you might have a chance to study their strengths and weaknesses, but otherwise most of the combat follows the formula of "you bring your gear, your opponent brings their gear, and the best prepared wins". Sadly, an EMP isn't something you can improvise mid-fight if you don't already have one, and if you give an anti-IPC countermeasure that's easily accessible at all times you can be sure people will simply rely on it to make IPCs useless.

If you see any solutions to this problem that would allow IPCs to retain their "robot" identity without being frustrating to fight, though, you're welcome to suggest them.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

I get where you're coming from... and from a balance perspective you're right, it makes total sense. From an actual RP perspective, though it's so gratingly wrong. Making non-humans as human as possible to make balance easy and obvious has that effect, but it also robs them of their unique nature and creates situations that make very little sense.

Furthermore, I don't think unprepared personal combat with improvised weapons is the crux around which we should be focusing balancing. Let the robots have their advantages and disadvantages. They should be harder to take down when you're unprepared, particularly since they're already weak against opponents who are prepared for them.

[Frances]

Making non-humans as human as possible to make balance easy and obvious has that effect, but it also robs them of their unique nature and creates situations that make very little sense.

Well, like what? If you've ever worked with electronics, you'd see that most robots that aren't six-axis industrial arms are relatively fragile. Assuming IPCs aren't combat chassis, there'd be a lot of electronics, sensors, cables, plastic parts and fragile joints to break with carefully aimed grabs and punches. You don't break an IPC's underlying structure, just as much as the point of hand-to-hand human combat isn't to break a person's bones (although, well, SS13 does have bone-shattering punches lmao).

 

Furthermore, I don't think unprepared personal combat with improvised weapons is the crux around which we should be focusing balancing.

It is, though. CQC is what everyone relies on the moment Plan A fails, or when there is no plan at all. I've seen a lot of nasty situations. Security IPCs used to be walking tanks during regular rounds, and I've seen IPCs screw over both nuke ops and ERT squads with the brute resist. And is there any fun in this? Is there any fun in being caught in situations where you can either one-shot IPCs, or are completely powerless against them?

So the question I'm proposing we ask is: what fun could this system of strengths and weaknesses bring for players?

[Conservatron]

with proper tweaking you can have joints break without blowing them off

restore physical resistance, give a laser vulnerability (obviously heat will fry circuits)

increase the destruction threshold so there is a bigger span of things not working but not removed

[Guest]

So apparently in some absolute level of stupidity, losing synthetic limbs takes out a large portion of your total health. thanks, code.

[Frances]

Oh, yeah, for the record I'm totally for making synth limbs harder to break, or not explode, as long as the brute reduction isn't readded.

I didn't say the opposite, but things might not have been fully clear.

[Carver]

So apparently in some absolute level of stupidity, losing synthetic limbs takes out a large portion of your total health. thanks, code.

It's actually far more lethal now to have a robotic arm taken off than to have an organic arm torn off.

[Killerhurtz]

I tested this today.

It's because when your arm gets torn off, it also does a lot of (repairable) damage to the parent limb. Lost a hand? Half your arm is broken. So on.

So really, it's not that bad. I mean - I just killed 12 alien demons with my bare hands with an IPC. People DIED to these things. So it's not that bad.