Armour Wars: Episode 3, Revenge of the Balance

[Davidchan]

Bottom post of the previous page:

See April Fools where stuns were removed as a joke and it made various roles and antags usless.

[Steelpoint]

I've got a PR up on this issue here: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/18099

[Davidchan]

Giving the HoS 70 melee resist with default equip.

U fukkin wot?

[Steelpoint]

60.

[Davidchan]

70* All sec jumpsuits have melee 10

[Steelpoint]

Except if you read what I wrote down you'll notice how I state how all vest items are ten melee defense down to compensate for the ten melee the jumpsuits provide.

[Wyzack]

inb4 you get banned by cheriden again

[Okand37]

Personally when it comes to armour, having not read any of this thread at all, I like to use a game like dark souls for a prime example of how armour should work.
Armour itself is barely going to save you, it might give you that extra leap of surviving one extra hit, but it isn't something you should rely on for protection and strength-just something to have as that little extra push in a fight.

[onleavedontatme]

Armour itself is barely going to save you, it might give you that extra leap of surviving one extra hit, but it isn't something you should rely on for protection and strength-just something to have as that little extra push in a fight.

That's pretty much the tl;dr of how I think armour should work yeah.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Armour itself is barely going to save you, it might give you that extra leap of surviving one extra hit, but it isn't something you should rely on for protection and strength-just something to have as that little extra push in a fight.

That's pretty much the tl;dr of how I think armour should work yeah.

If this is the case and you nerfbat armor, dont forget to remove all the slowdown.

Also bring back fastspeed so combat is back above "Who fires first, wins".

[TechnoAlchemist]

The slowdowns on all non-spaceworthy armor are already gone i'm fairly sure.

[onleavedontatme]

The slowdowns on all non-spaceworthy armor are already gone i'm fairly sure.

This is correct.

[lumipharon]

Personally when it comes to armour, having not read any of this thread at all, I like to use a game like dark souls for a prime example of how armour should work.
Armour itself is barely going to save you, it might give you that extra leap of surviving one extra hit, but it isn't something you should rely on for protection and strength-just something to have as that little extra push in a fight.

Which is fine, when your game is a first person shooter or dark souls or whatever, but ss13 is none of these things.
It's a laggy 2d, top down sprite based game with in reality, not a huge deal of skill involved (in combat).

SS13 combat is, at it's heart, clicking on the enemy's sprite until they fall over.

[Zilenan91]

Even Lifeweb which has much better combat than we do still uses the term, "clicking someone's sprite until it's sideways."

[Steelpoint]

The difference is that Dark Souls esque games are games with a massively high skill ceiling with many ways to either near instantly heal damage or mitigate damage by skill, armour, and dodging.

SS13 is none of those, combat is more about positioning and who has the stun gun, or about shooting/smashing wildly and hoping the game does not lag out. In Dark Souls your punished for being stupid and flaying about, in SS13 its the main method of combat to spam attack while trying to move about. Dark Souls is no where near SS13 combat wise, and I think its a very poor example.

Unless you reverted to the old old move speed of saniac then combat's all going to be about positioning and spam, and if you did revert to the old saniac speeds the combat would further devolve into a shit spam fest.

Hence why I believe Armour should offer good defense, because in these SS13 combat scenarios the combat will end usually in one of two ways, either one party is stunned or the other party is eventually worn down by attacks until they fall into crit. With security if their armour is better then at least it'll take much longer to wear them down by attrition.

[TheNightingale]

The way I see it, armour should provide a significant advantage against... well, everything. Two hits to crit with a revolver? Make it four with armour unless you use AP bullets (those should be a thing at some point). Maybe even six .357s to crit a bulletproof-wearing target (70% bullet resist).

If you don't have armour, you probably shouldn't be getting in firefights in the first place; and if you got surprise-attacked by someone, you're going to die regardless of whether you have armour or not.

[Steelpoint]

My original PR was closed but I've opened a new PR to at least buff the vest as Kor suggested.

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/18205

[Steelpoint]

The vest PR was recently merged.

That PR brings the standard vest, and the Warden's Uniform, up to a better defensive level. Mostly by buffing melee and bullet protection to 40 and 30 respectively.

Now I want to discuss what to do with the HoS's jacket, considering now his jacket's defense is identical to the standard vest/warden's jacket now.

[Takeguru]

Old unkillable-in-normal-combat levels, pls

I always liked HoS as a "final boss" for antags

[Armhulen]

Old unkillable-in-normal-combat levels, pls

I always liked HoS as a "final boss" for antags

I like the idea of him being the big bad boss who comes when all his goons have been defeated, yes please

[Malkevin]

HoS armor is probably the only time I've seen armor make a massive difference in stun-combat-13

Whats the armor value of bomb suits anyway?
I remember ages back I buffed the melee to something half decent to make them ghetto riot suits.


Also, there's two different knock down codes, disarm shoving and weapon hit knock downs.
Do either of these check for armor first?

I know that the energy armor value actually reduces the length of a stun from getting hit with a taser.
This might be the only significant difference between RNG armor and % reduction armor - because one time out of ten you'd get lucky and that taser stun only lasted 10 seconds instead of 20, one out of twenty you'd get really lucky and the stun would be blocked entirely - significantly different to the guaranteed two second reduction % reduction does if it was updated to do that instead.

[Steelpoint]

I won't be pushing any more armour changes, if anyone else wants to push the HoS armour buff's I proposed then please do.

I think having someone else propose the PR would get it off to a better start.

[ShadowDimentio]

Old unkillable-in-normal-combat levels, pls

I always liked HoS as a "final boss" for antags

I approve of this, however the HoS needs to only have one suit available with the ability to switch it over to different styles if you want. The HoS should be the robust protector of the station with a rock-hard stunbaton for all antags. His gear should reflect this.

[Reimoo]

This is probably a bad idea but what if armor gave a form of protection against stuns? Like a stun duration reduction or requiring multiple hits to stun?

You can give some antags the option to buy concealed armor to balance it out.

[Gun Hog]

This is probably a bad idea but what if armor gave a form of protection against stuns? Like a stun duration reduction or requiring multiple hits to stun?

You can give some antags the option to buy concealed armor to balance it out.

The "energy" armor rating reduces stuns from tasers and disablers. You could increase that.

[Incomptinence]

Basically no reason not to buff hos armour since CE players literally formed a 5 person communion in the darkest recesses of github to get their precious CE inbuilt jetpack back.

[Cheridan]

HoS can already be at unkillable status, assuming he has his pocket shield out and RNG favors you.

I tested a bit, and a stetchkin takes 4 shots to crit someone naked, and 5 shots to crit the HoS. Well, ok. That doesn't sound unreasonable at all, maybe even too weak.
When you add the shield, it can go up to insane levels. The most he soaked in my brief testing was FOURTEEN shots, which is a full magdump with a reload.

So yeah, it's easy to say "wow we need to buff armor" but you can't look at things in a vacuum. Healing viruses were fine and then people realized you could stack 3 separate viruses and an implanted legion heart and become invincible. You have to look at how items interact with each other.

[Incomptinence]

Stetchkin is probably one of the worst ranged options for antags that isn't a thrown object.

It's meant to be shit.

Edit2: wait found it again mid bullet 3 does 30 for 10mm

Tele riot shield does what 50% block chance. One never rely on RNG, two get stunned dropped it even more stun incentive, three we shouldn't balance around a poor little antag having bad luck, four by this logic ops and traitors who buy 100% energy blockers should be ashed in one shot by energy weapons if they ever drop it because HOO GEAR GIVES INFINITE PROTECTION. I usually see sec only running around with shields up all the time if they are expecting a large group antag attack so most of the time hos gets ambushed without his magic shield out and dies in the same time as an officer.

I would honestly remove the teleshield and stop pretending because the hos can carry it we should treat his armour like he always has it up. Like you get ambushed the first instinct isn't to gamble with a random ass shield you pull a bloody weapon.

[Zilenan91]

The stechkin still costs 9 TCs too so at that point why not just buy a revolver for double the damage and with the same ease of getting ammo

[ShadowDimentio]

I would honestly remove the teleshield and stop pretending because the hos can carry it we should treat his armour like he always has it up. Like you get ambushed the first instinct isn't to gamble with a random ass shield you pull a bloody weapon.

You use it when you know shit is going down and you're on the way there. If you run around with it always out you deserve to have it stolen, and if you never use it you're missing out.

[Incomptinence]

Yeah so having a tele shield is pointless, it may as well be a riot shield. You could carry both a normal riot shield and improve the armour but no teleshield lets them pull this nonsense of pretending the hos has innate 50% block built in.

[Steelpoint]

I wanted to buff the HoS's armour but its Kor that's against it.

If you can convince Kor that a buff is warrented then it should go through.

Right now the HoS has the same defense values as a standard Officer however.

Also anyone using the Tele Riot Shield as justification to not buff the HoS's armour is being disingenuous, having a riot shield out all day is inconvenient and most HoS's never have it out all the time, only using it when they know they're going into combat.

Having a roughly 50% block against projectiles is not all that great, especially when some guns and weapons just need one bullet/tase to go through to effectively end the HoS's round.

[Cheridan]

50% to block against projectiles is INSANE, BECAUSE of the fact that stuns are 1-hit ggs. Everyone else gets 0% chance to Not Die. Riot shield gives you +50% chance to Not Die with every single hit against you.

There's nothing inconvenient about riot shields, what exactly are you using that other hand for? All you need two hands for is twohanded items like chainsaws.

[oranges]

...having a riot shield out all day is inconvenient

...we shouldn't balance around a poor little antag having bad luck

...effectively end the HoS's round.

[Steelpoint]

oranges you'll have to elaborate on what you're trying to imply.

Cheridan. By that logic why should Nuke Ops have superior armour and equipment when their own shields have a 100% block rate to all energy weapons, and the eswords have a 75% block rate to melee attacks?

Also if we did adopt my original proposed armour changes to the HoS then against the big boys the HoS would only need one, maybe two, extra bullets to crit. Even with my armour values a single heavy bullet is going to be enough to induce massive slow down of the HoS, and with stun weapons its still a one shot stun if you get by the shield.

[ShadowDimentio]

If you run around with it always out you deserve to have it stolen, and if you never use it you're missing out.

[Cheridan]

Cheridan. By that logic why should Nuke Ops have superior armour and equipment when their own shields have a 100% block rate to all energy weapons, and the eswords have a 75% block rate to melee attacks?

holy shit why are people bringing up nuke ops in regards to HoS balance

Nuke Ops get 100% block shields and superior equipment because they have to slaughter their way through upwards of 70 people with very limited non-rechargeable ammo, inventory management issues, and very limited, if any, healing. If the HoS' job was to murder everyone he came across then he would get the equipment to do so, but it's not!!

WTF WHY DO WIZARDS GET TO INSTAGIB PEOPLE, HOW IS HOS SUPPOSED TO FITE AGAINST THAT, PLZ ADD INSTAGIB MODE TO TASERS

[PKPenguin321]

Cheridan. By that logic why should Nuke Ops have superior armour and equipment when their own shields have a 100% block rate to all energy weapons, and the eswords have a 75% block rate to melee attacks?

holy shit why are people bringing up nuke ops in regards to HoS balance

Nuke Ops get 100% block shields and superior equipment because they have to slaughter their way through upwards of 70 people with very limited non-rechargeable ammo, inventory management issues, and very limited, if any, healing. If the HoS' job was to murder everyone he came across then he would get the equipment to do so, but it's not!!

WTF WHY DO WIZARDS GET TO INSTAGIB PEOPLE, HOW IS HOS SUPPOSED TO FITE AGAINST THAT, PLZ ADD INSTAGIB MODE TO TASERS

this post has very good points and strong arguments and therefore will be ignored by the opposition.

[Steelpoint]

You'll be surprised how having one free hand can be useful in combat for inventory management, such as stunning and cuffing or using off-tools like Flashbangs or ID cards, but I digress.

The Telescopic Riot Shield is indeed a strong tool, but I believe it is not relevant to my armour buff discussion.

Why? The Riot Shield is a preventive tool where your gambling it'll block a attack at a 50% rate (Don't some weapons just bypass Riot Shields either way?) whereas armour does not prevent you from taking damage or being hit but it instead serves to mitigate incoming damage.

That is the core of the boon of having stronger armour, it will do almost nothing in stun based combat or against antagonists with very powerful weapons like the Revolver or C20r, but it will do a lot in helping contend with people with lower tier melee weapons and short bursts of damage against enemies with a lack of ranged stun weapons.

Having stronger armour as the HoS as I proposed can make the difference between being able to outrun a mob of revs chucking spears versus slowing down and dying a horid death, or it can make the difference in how long you can operate in the field before having to retreat due to the damage you've sustained. Armour has always been more about mitigating melee damage and a bit more of everything else, so antagonists with powerful ranged weapons will generally do well irrespective (bulletproof armour not with standing).

High tier antags like Ops and Wizards are not heavily hindered by someone with a Riot Shield since their attacks are very powerful and/or just outright bypass the Riot Shield, but the armour Sec is wearing can help Sec survive a few shots that do go through and get away to regroup or keep fighting.

--

Armour for Officers is fine as is, its just the HoS that I think needs to be buffed.

[ShadowDimentio]

Old unkillable-in-normal-combat levels, pls

I always liked HoS as a "final boss" for antags

I approve of this, however the HoS needs to only have one suit available with the ability to switch it over to different styles if you want. The HoS should be the robust protector of the station with a rock-hard stunbaton for all antags. His gear should reflect this.

[Incomptinence]

It's not the hos' goal to kill the entire crew but it is sometimes the entire crew's goal to kill the hos.

Honestly do away with teleshield if you can't stop pretending easily carried gear is equivalent to always having it active in your hands. That's like saying the telebaton gives you old hulk punches it's baloney.

Like cheritider was so hyperbolic about it I basically had to go check hell hadn't frozen over and the hos was being shielded right from his pockets somehow.

In fact if we are going to pretend that all hos have it out 24/7 like some sort of armour anglerfish how about we make cheri's vision a reality! INTERNAL SHIELDING! THE SHIELD AND HOS ARMOUR MERGE AS ONE!

[Steelpoint]

I want it on record that these numbers are what I was/am proposing to change to.

Current Value: melee = 30, bullet = 30, laser = 30
New Value: melee = 60, bullet = 50, laser = 50 (50 melee for jacket)

[Davidchan]

If you run around with it always out you deserve to have it stolen, and if you never use it you're missing out.

Gee its almost like the highest job in security is supposed to be robust and know when to use their gear and how, not just float by because their gear is superior to what their enemies can get.

[Malkevin]

Dont forget shields have been nerfed pretty significantly over the years.
They used to give a pretty decent 80% block rate, then 70%, then 60... then the 50 it is now.

Sacrificing a hand and becoming complacent on an, ineffective, crutch which is now just flipping a coin now make them worthless.
I'd rather grab akimbo lasers and mash the swap hands key for a high rate, high volume of fire and rely on juking to get me through the battle.


At the very least I'd like to see shields have separate block chances against melee and projectiles, and whack the riot shield's melee block chance up to where it used to be, so hordes of fucking assistants don't just disarm spam me three times and steal the shield - last time I just the shield a fucking clown just ran up and disarmed me once, which not only knocked the shield out of my hand but shoved me on the floor too. Fucking useless.

[DemonFiren]

At least one thing shields should get is a chance to counter disarms.
So if you disarm someone with a shield and roll low you end up on the floor instead.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

At least one thing shields should get is a chance to counter disarms.
So if you disarm someone with a shield and roll low you end up on the floor instead.

This should be a thing in general. Failed disarms should have a 50% chance to get hit by whatever you were disarming instead.

[onleavedontatme]

The only time riot shields ever had anywhere near an 80% block chance was when they got added and Uhangi put the formula backwards, resulting in a bonus block chance the stronger the attack was.

>trying to bypass a mobs click delay by switching hands

???

[Malkevin]

I was wrong, it was 90 minus force of weapon
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/ ... em.dm#L382

Bullet_act had its own check however, which was 50% minus the force of the projectile divided by three.

[onleavedontatme]

God that code is bad.

I'd forgotten it had it's own check vs melee, but I would still opt for a modern riot shield given the choice (stun weapons bypassed old shields, they do not anymore)

[Screemonster]

I mentioned this in another thread on this topic but the whole thing about it being useless against the thing it's supposed to be good at (mobs with low damage weapons like fire extinguishers) is down to it being a percentage.

10% resist is a whopping 1 point of damage saved per hit against a fire extinguisher, whoop de fuckin doo.

Meanwhile, augs give a flat reduction of the damage taken.

Giving someone a 5-point damage reduction per hit would let them tank twice as many hits from a force 10 weapon (other armor notwithstanding), while a force 30 weapon would still do 25 (which would be a 4-hit-crit either way) - it would be proportionally a huge buff against jackass mcassistant, while the practical benefit of the reduction against high-damage weapons would be far more limited.

Giving a couple of points of DR each on pieces of hardened gear like helmets, vests, the HoS jacket (hell, I'd put a couple on hardsuits in general) with a corresponding reduction in the percentage armor values would keep the balance against things like op weapons.
It might end up being a bit of a nerf to buckshot against armoured targets, but that would just make other shells have more situational usefulness.

[TheNightingale]

Snip.

^Do this.

1 DR for minor armour (hardsuits, etc), 5 DR for Security/black-and-red, 7 for the Captain/HoS/Ops, 10 for riot/bulletproof/ablative/ERT, 15 for deathsquad. Badabing badaboom, dedicated melee weapons are still powerful, and armour actually protects against stuff.
Buckshot is for unarmoured targets anyway; using it on an Officer will still hurt, but less.