Nerf the ever-loving crap out of EMP

[Guest]

Oh god it's one of those controversial suggestions. Aurora will never be the same after this thread is said and done.

EMP grenades and ion bolts are far too lethal in their current state versus anything that ends with "anical" and only some of the things that start with "mech".

Carbon mobs with robotic limbs are chief among these concerns. The moment an EMP is deployed into play, they all die instantaneously given that electromagnetic pulses are applied to every limb and organ with any mechanically-assisted involvement.

This was not initially considered by the original developers who created electromagnetic pulses as a sure-fire method in dealing with rogue cyborgs and the AI itself. They could not have foreseen full-on augmented characters or synthetic(-influenced) races.

It is my proposal that EMP maintain some of its current lethal value versus cyborgs in that they are effective in actively frying them inside and out with additional consequences and effects, in addition to stripping the full lethality from those with prosthetics, and instead redistributing the power over to it being disruptive, without dealing damage to total mob health and merely to the limb itself as a separately tracked damage variant. Oh, and make handheld medical scanners unable to make comprehensive readouts of robotic limb damage. Advanced scanner or cyborg scanner, that's it.

Though, to mechanical hearts or pacemakers. The moment those take damage, the heart doesn't stop instantly. Those with the mechanical hearts installed have a precious minute before their pacemaker overclocks their heart rate to something absurd, before finally inducing a total heart collapse. Again, keeping with the disruptive factor in mind. Instant unavoidable and uncounterable death is not fun for anyone.

Mechanical eyes should induce errors with retinal imaging. You'd hallucinate and see things that aren't there. Your viewport would switch cardinal directions repeatedly to simulate disorientation. Though, not chemically induced, so you won't hear whispering or suffer from the same effects that you'd receive from a cancerous changeling sting.

EMP damage suffered to the limbs should never dole out direct damage to a character's total health. It makes absolutely no sense how a person with only mechanical prosthetics can immediately drop dead and die instantly from limited exposure to an electromagnetic pulse. That needs to simply go.

Instead, add disruptive elements of consequence. This can be like rendering the limb totally inoperable, taking from genetic damage disabling organic limbs if it passes a certain threshold, for instance, for the sake of arms. Thankfully, this is "easier" to repair in comparison to healing genetic damage, in that they need only visit a roboticist.

Likewise in the same boat, walking can prove difficult due to joint-leg mechanical servos constantly locking up and failing to interface with the cerebral interface it's attached to.

IPCs will suffer most or all of these issues upon meeting an ion bolt with their face or robot arse. With IPCs, though, they can suffer a bootleg version of brain damage, receive a randomized ion law and all of their vocabulator speech can be garbled and riddled with static. Roboticist would have to do surgical things on IPCs for that in order to repair their processor damage. Everything else can be repaired the same way.

This suggestion will go hand-in-hand with another I have planned out for posting. It's probably going to be the largest ever posted on the forum.

Edited October 5, 2016 by Guest

[canon35]

This actually sounds pretty good to me. No more Ion bolt meming, some more stuff for roboticists to do.

[Guest Complete Garbage]

I can totally get behind this. In addition to Taryk once again being able to throw EMP grenades around without hardcritting nearby CMOs, we'll have some cool new shit that's more fun and less stupidly overpowered. I've been pretty upset with the state of EMPs for a long while, and I hope to see at least some of these changes take effect soon. All I ask is that the EMP changes apply to the Wizard's spell and the Cult rune as well as the grenades and ION bolts.

[Absynth]

Vaurca are actually the most vulnerable to EMPs and ions, they are guaranteed to die from one hit and they cannot be healed or cloned from it. Once your breathing apparatus OR your filtration bit is EMPd (and it has like 5 hp so it will explode first), it's ghost time. Laaaaaaaaame.

Also: why on gods green earth does the wizard's EMP spell hit the wizard?

[Guest Complete Garbage]

Vaurca are actually the most vulnerable to EMPs and ions, they are guaranteed to die from one hit and they cannot be healed or cloned from it. Once your breathing apparatus OR your filtration bit is EMPd (and it has like 5 hp so it will explode first), it's ghost time. Laaaaaaaaame.

Also: why on gods green earth does the wizard's EMP spell hit the wizard?

IPCs and Vaurca are in the same boat on that one. IPCs also cannot be cloned(or similar), and insta-die from EMPs.

[The Stryker]

1138, you're a hero.

IPCs should also get some kind of stun upon ions and EMPs and light damage, either way, it's better than instant death.

[coolbc2000]

Don't know a a thing about DM, but this seems like a bitch to code in, might need a team of two to do all that.

[LordFowl]

If only we had a team of people... who could do code stuff, like coders. We could call them Developers and give them a fancy colour...

Oh well.

[coolbc2000]

Hey fam, just sayin it's hard work

[Guest Complete Garbage]

Hey fam, just sayin it's hard work

EMPs do to borgs exactly what's being suggested here, iirc(stun and minor/moderate damage to parts). It may be a tad more complex that just copy/pasting the code, but it shouldn't be any kind of federal issue.

[Catnip]

I love everything about this suggestion, definately in favour of it. But I've got a question regarding mechanical hearts. You talked about a precious minute before the pacemaker overclocks, if you don't mind could you elaborate a little on that? Would there be anything you can do to avoid this if you're quick enough to treat it in this minute, or is it just a countdown before ded kind of thing?

[Guest]

Dexalin plus to stabilize when they start suffocating to counteract the strain in breathing in addition to applying nanopaste to the heart in the middle of surgery. Basically, you could easily feel the chirping and twisting in your upper chest and that'd be a quick indication. Could also add a flavor text to give people fair warning ahead of time.

They don't die instantly, per se, but they will immediately suffer a heart attack and go unconscious the moment the pacemaker overloads.

[Conservatron]

I think a year ago I suggested a sort of capacitor shielding for prosthetics to be able to 'absorb' one emp shot before needing to be recharged (kind of like a prosthetic lightning rod) but I was told that having prosthetics is a choice and if i dont want my arm blown off from an emp to not have a prosthetic arm.

now, the server was different then than it is now, and I'd like to rehash my capacitor idea. It'd let emp/ ion be the kill-all it should be, but also lets players protect themselves and think rationally so its not just OHKO.

edit - capacitor is just a 'working' term for an aspect of a prosthetic which would syphon the effects of an emp and protect the delicate electronics

[The Stryker]

EMPs should do enough damage to IPCs to make it bad enough to eat one, but not enough to sideline you for a decent chunk of the round.

Also nerf the range of EMPs, and maybe the AOE on Ions.