Kaed Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 (edited) There was a time when soap was a tile-click item that would remove blood, dirt, vomit, and other stains from the floor. It was useful, if a bit slower than using space cleaner in a spray bottle. It seems at some point, a decision was made that this mechanic was too overpoweringly clean by Bay, and they implemented a clumsy wetness attribute to all bars of soap. For those unfamiliar with this, let me explain how it works. A bar of soap can clean while it is wet for a certain number of tiles, before it becomes 'too dry to clean with' and you need to walk over to a sink and spend 5 seconds re-wetting it. I do not have access to the code, but from my research on it, it seems to work ~10 times for a fresh unused bar of soap, then once dried out, 3-6 times before drying out again. The number of times you wash the soap is irrelevant - either only the first wash counts, or it resets the wetness factor to another value somewhere around 3-6 uses. This is, as you might guess, a rather obnoxious mechanic, as you spend more time running to the sink to re-wet the soap than actually cleaning the floor. Furthermore, since maintenance drones and janitor borgs are now equipped with bars of soap rather than space cleaner, this means your advanced, automated cleaning machines are having to roll, scurry, or float back to the nearest sink every 10 seconds to re-wet their soap in a sink. Yes, I am aware janiborgs auto-clean floors by rolling over them, and that soap cleans cult runes. One is beside the point, and the other is a bug that is known to the admins and in the process of being fixed. Ideally, I'd like to propose removing the wetness thing entirely from soap, and just making it click-use infinitely like the good old days, but given this servers penchant for finding the strangest things important to balance and not make 'overpowered', I've prepared several alternatives. -Extend the number of uses you get out of a washed soap, to somewhere closer to the range of 10-15 -Remove the wetness thing, but make soap take a while to use, since you have to scrub the floor with it, similar to a mop. -Change how just synthetic equipped soap works in one of the above ways or another I haven't mentioned (presumably something that doesn't require the synthetic to run to a SINK to recharge their soap), and leave human soap as perpetually dry and shitty. Is is also worth noting that to my knowledge, the only soap that even still exists on the map is one in the captain's toilet, and one in the brig bathroom. The janitor does not even get soap. It is, almost exclusively, a tool that synthetics are saddled with. Edited June 29, 2016 by Guest
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 This change would drastically change the balance of power on the station and allow janitors to powergame. Filth is incredibly important to the station as it increases the chances of viruses spawning. Letting us clean floors willy nilly with magic soap would cripple virology. And it's not realistic. You can't clean things with a dry bar of soap, you just can't.
Carver Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 You can't clean things with a dry bar of soap, you just can't. You also can't melt mangled human bits, blood, and so on out of existence with just ammonia and water. But the game has it so.
Guest Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 Supporting this. Also, strangely, the presence of soap has been incredibly limited, I believe only one bar exists now and it's in the communal brig bathroom. I'm unsure if the captain's restroom has one now.
Kaed Posted June 29, 2016 Author Posted June 29, 2016 This change would drastically change the balance of power on the station and allow janitors to powergame. Filth is incredibly important to the station as it increases the chances of viruses spawning. Letting us clean floors willy nilly with magic soap would cripple virology. And it's not realistic. You can't clean things with a dry bar of soap, you just can't. I swear to god jackboot Anyway, I'm glad to see a general incline towards support of Making Soap Great Again. Edit: Fuck it, I'm changing the title of this thread now.
Cronac Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 I agree that soap should be better- trying to clean areas that you can't walk over as a janiborg is incredibly time consuming with the frequent sink trips. I'd also like to piggyback onto this and say the mop that the janiborg has is also nearly useless unless they're dragging a bucket with them. Perhaps having some kind of internal water or cleaner storage would fix this.
Mofo1995 Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 This change would drastically change the balance of power on the station and allow janitors to powergame. Filth is incredibly important to the station as it increases the chances of viruses spawning. Letting us clean floors willy nilly with magic soap would cripple virology. And it's not realistic. You can't clean things with a dry bar of soap, you just can't. Probably the best post I've ever seen on the forums. I'm going to cherish it always. Also an accurate presentation of our community's discussion on many suggestions. I agree with the suggestion, make soap great again.
Raineko Posted July 7, 2016 Posted July 7, 2016 I agree, the monotony of constantly wetting the soap in order to clean is mind numbing to say the least. Make soap great again.
Nanako Posted July 9, 2016 Posted July 9, 2016 I think we agree that soap has some problems mechanicslly. But i think it's also worth noting that from an IC perspective, soap on a robot is really dumb. Why would a maintenance drone carry a bar of soap around, how could it even carry it? I'm thinking maybe drones would be better with some sort of mini scrubbing arm. And janiborgs? Why do they need it at all, is there anything their built in "clean by driving over stuff" can't handle?
SierraKomodo Posted July 9, 2016 Posted July 9, 2016 I'm thinking maybe drones would be better with some sort of mini scrubbing arm. As long as we have /something/ that can be used to clean up messes without having to find a water source every 4 tiles, I don't care what you call it And janiborgs? Why do they need it at all, is there anything their built in "clean by driving over stuff" can't handle? Walls. Clothing. People. Tables. Anything you can't walk over.
Carver Posted July 9, 2016 Posted July 9, 2016 And janiborgs? Why do they need it at all, is there anything their built in "clean by driving over stuff" can't handle? Things they can't walk over. You /can/ walk over clothes, though, iirc.
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