Reduce Vision Range When Wearing Gas Masks

On most other servers gas masks require internals hooked up to them to filter gasses. On Aurora, gas masks completely filter gasses. They grant immunity to harmful gas, act as a mask for internals, and can protect the face in some circumstances. The only current downside to gas masks is that they don't protect against flashes.

However, security officers get hudglasses, so when wearing both they automatically get immunity against gas, flashes, and some acid attacks.

In the spirit of fairness there should be a drawback to wearing them to act as a soft discouragement of wearing them in every circumstance, and to encourage (but not force) more tactical thinking.

Reducing the vision range by 1 would be suitable. That allows gas masks to continue being extremely versatile and useful in close quarters (as intended) but allow long-range, more mobile fights to cause their wearer to be at a disadvantage. Kiting gas mask wearing tactical sec officers at long range is now tactically sound, meaning the wearer will remove their gas mask to fight at long range if they want to be effective - at the cost of possibly becoming vulnerable to gas attacks. Those decisions already open more tactical decision-making when you're in fights.

Affecting the vision with blurriness or the like is too much because the reduction in vision is already drawback enough. The blurred vision comes from eye protection that either gives welding immunity for the eyes or is the breacher suit helmet.

Non-security gas-mask wearers would be affected the same way but I can't imagine engineers being at a severe disadvantage from this change, as they don't tend to do long-range work regardless.

EDIT:

The post calling me out for 'claiming the credit' of this suggestion with a screencap of me saying so (it was a joke) was actually deleted, so I'll make it clear here that this isn't my totally original suggestion, it was a closed PR that I thought should be implemented

Hm, I am not exactly sure about it.

On one hand side I like that idea.

But then I think that could be policed icly very easily.

I feel that reducing the vision would both open more tactics and not need IC policing - it's a cost/benefit decision when going into encounters that should hopefully have gas masks be used more naturally. The reduced vision isn't TERRIBLE or a major inhibition but it's JUST enough that people will probably take off gas masks when they want to see more clearly - which is exactly the desired affect of gas masks, since they are uncomfortable and a little cumbersome.

I think the nudge of the limited vision is better than a smack from policing IC'ly.

I completely agree with this. Gas masks are too versatile currently.

Yes please. Although I think 1 is maybe too little. Shouldn't be like the welding protection, but maybe more than 1?

Is the vision limitation from a realistic perspective or from a gameplay perspective?

Yes please. Although I think 1 is maybe too little. Shouldn't be like the welding protection, but maybe more than 1?

Nonononono.

Boooooooooooo.

I'm not a fan of how big the vision limiter in the welder stuff as is, and tbf, it wouldn't restrict vision that much.

Is the vision limitation from a realistic perspective or from a gameplay perspective?

Both?

The gas masks we have look a bit cumbersome and have two eyeholes instead of a giant flat visor.

Yes please. Although I think 1 is maybe too little. Shouldn't be like the welding protection, but maybe more than 1?

I think that is too much. The restrictions on vision are for incredibly thick welding material or a bootleg power armor helmet. Reducing vision by 1 is a soft discouragement - I think it's an appropriate level of deficiency for the bonuses the gas mask gives. Giving it blurry or hazy vision, or reducing the vision further, would make them a bit too annoying to use. You would be surprised the differences that 1 tile of vision can make in an encounter. People with foresight would take off their gas masks to see better in a mobile fight - which is exactly the sort of 'realism' (realism) and 'tactical choice' (gameplay) I think we benefit from.

To be clear I said "Shouldn't be like the welding protection". And the gas mask looks a bit like WW1 gas masks, picture from the rather realistic WW1 shooter Verdun https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/21/217677/2688275-verdun_septemberupdate_ingame_7.png.

If people who know what they're talking about (i.e. you guys above) say that -1 is sufficient, then you're probably right.

I'd like to bump this for consideration. easy to implement.

It would be

a) more realistic due to the mask design itself and

b) a bit of a balance for having the gas mask on unnecessarily.

Sure. Only problem is that this may end up phasing out gas masks from viability if people just choose to enter voidsuits or hardsuits instead which only need the helmet to have a closed-loop personal atmosphere, so effectively people would gravitate to start wearing alternatives if the gas masks get nerfed due to how power creep works. Why wear a gas mask when you could just wear a voidsuit helmet and turn on internals?

I highly doubt this nerf would be as crippling as you suggest. People still wear the breacher suit despite the hit to vision. Besides, voidsuits require hooked up internals to filter you from gasses, and there are a limited number. Unless you order more from cargo. But that is still cost/benefit, and we have IC Command and OOC staff to deal with powergamers.

Sure. Only problem is that this may end up phasing out gas masks from viability if people just choose to enter voidsuits or hardsuits instead which only need the helmet to have a closed-loop personal atmosphere, so effectively people would gravitate to start wearing alternatives if the gas masks get nerfed due to how power creep works. Why wear a gas mask when you could just wear a voidsuit helmet and turn on internals?

spess suit sets are hard to obtain unless you have clearance from heads or whatnot. And even then, walking around with a suit helmet 4noraisin without the rest of the suit would be ICLY strange, OOCLY powergaming. Unless it's an emergency

tying into this suggestion, I would argue for the suit helmet to NOT work as internals without a suit on at the same time. I never understood how it worked as internals if it isnt airtight anyways. but I should submit this as a new suggestion.

The emergency softsuit helmets work similarly without the need for a breath mask. They're fairly easy to acquire.

Softsuit helmets do not filter gasses unless you have activated internals. Wearing an entire softsuit slows you down. Wearing an internals helmet with internals on also makes you unable to wear a security helmet helmet, and thus you have no protection against damage to your head. The mindset of benefit/drawback choices is still holding true.

Implemented by; https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/4234