Change Ninja Power Dynamics

[Doc]

As it stands right now, ninjas need to spend entire minutes recharging their suits after even moderate use, such as teleporting in and out of one or two places or using their tools to capture, perhaps one person, and secure them. Their stealth field drains power rather rapidly compared to their apparent intent of being a stealth antagonist, where they then need to disable it and go sit somewhere to recharge for quite a while after only cursory exploration or perhaps stealing an item if they have the required access.

I don't think this is personally conducive to their antaggery. This has been brought up in other suggestions, but the Ninja just isn't very stealthy given how supposedly stealth oriented they're supposed to be as an antagonist type. The on-going sounds of electrical sparking and power-eating is a tell-tale sign of where the ninja is, and originally, this was the intent- that's how security would catch them with their pants down, and if the ninja didn't do it, they were screwed power-wise. I don't think that's how it should really go, anymore. Ninjas should have more freedom to make use of the stealthy tools and not have to waste minutes making noise and pray that security, or any other passerby, doesn't catch on.

My suggestion is to differentiate APC charging and cable charging (power-cell/station-bound charging is so ineffective and rarely used I don't particularly think it's worth mentioning).

Charging via APC would become the "loud" option. It would produce a distinct and loud electrical noise, but would recharge the ninja's power cell very fast. This could be anywhere from instantaneously to a few seconds to around 10 seconds depending on how admins/coders/the playerbase feel about that balancing. It would also immediately provide the AI/station-bounds/consoles with a power-alarm notification for that APC when charging begins, something that already sort-of happens at the end of charging now, but would allow the station to see the issue as soon as it happens. Fast enough to respond to the issue, but with the ninja charging fast enough to get out of there.

Charging via cable would become the "stealth" option. It would not produce any sound, and would be undetectable as it is now, but recharge the ninja's power cell much slower than an APC. However, I still think this should be faster than it is even now, in order to facilitate the ninja not just sitting around and charging 90% of the time instead of contributing to the round. This still provides security with the opportunity to catch the ninja at an inopportune time, and interrupt the charging process, but not with the loud "come get me!" electrical sparks that it produces now.

This, in combination with Kaed's ninja suggestion, would greatly improve the Ninja's ability to contribute to the round in a meaningful way in my opinion.

I don't think this will terribly overpower the ninja, either. For one, security still has their instant-win gun, the Ion rifle, which will immediately take the ninja out of the round unless they have RNGesus on their side. If the ninja spaces that first, it's then lethals open-season on them, so, I think this will only really contribute to the ninja that is not the center of security's attention, and aid in them avoiding security's attention, as a stealth antag should do.