Solving Ashwalkers: Make them unable to use computers

[Bombadil]

Let's see if those little shits will kill everyone when they can't call or send the shuttle to the station.

They have never encountered a computer before anyway how the fuck are they able to read and operate it?

[Reece]

>Kill everyone.

Jesus christ they're armed with spears and their fists, just shoot the fucking primitives and be done with it, this is literally Avatar without the Na'vi's plot shields.

[Bombadil]

When your swarmed by them its a lot harder to fight them. 4 v 1 when they are spearing you for 15 damage. Or just chucking them for straight 20 and chance at embed

[Reece]

Which is only an issue for miners, since the station proper has laser rifles, shotguns, strunprods, flamethrowers and all the shit science squirts out when the R&D department does science magic.

[Ezel]

Let's see if those little shits will kill everyone when they can't call or send the shuttle to the station.

They have never encountered a computer before anyway how the fuck are they able to read and operate it?

Make it 1% to trigger it when they hit it with spears

[Ezel]

Which is only an issue for miners, since the station proper has laser rifles, shotguns, strunprods, flamethrowers and all the shit science squirts out when the R&D department does science magic.

But when they get on they can get greytide supplies

Water soap bags stunprods tools

EDIT:AND how is rnd supposed to shit out magic when the miners are dead

[Reece]

Which is only an issue for miners, since the station proper has laser rifles, shotguns, strunprods, flamethrowers and all the shit science squirts out when the R&D department does science magic.

But when they get on they can get greytide supplies

Water soap bags stunprods tools

Which makes them as dangerous as any other assistant but with the added bonus of being free punching bags for literally anyone who feels like getting their valids on.

[Saegrimr]

>Kill miner
>Dress up like miner
>Wear miner ID
>Get on station and start murdering people because you looks just like every other ligger crewmember so nobody will question why you are around

All liggers valid 2016 when?

[Reece]

>Kill miner
>Dress up like miner
>Wear miner ID
>Get on station and start murdering people because you looks just like every other ligger crewmember so nobody will question why you are around

Which would still make them about as problematic as any asshole assistant or miner. I really don't see the issue, I've never once seen liggers actually do any real damage aboard the station, what I have seen is a ligger arrive, the AI screech 'ashwalker' and then watch the conga line of riot gear'd shotgun toting security and blade wielding assistants stream into the cargo area to hack apart the ashwalker like a pack of rapid dogs.

Are they really that much of a problem for that many people that you need to make them physically unable to get onto the station?

All liggers valid 2016 when?

Liggers aren't always valid?
Man I have been playing borgs completely wrong.

[Bombadil]

>Kill miner
>Dress up like miner
>Wear miner ID
>Get on station and start murdering people because you looks just like every other ligger crewmember so nobody will question why you are around

All liggers valid 2016 when?

Only way to know is to dissect them.

If they have lungs they aren't ashliggers. Better kill em all and dissect them to be safe

[Ezel]

>Kill miner
>Dress up like miner
>Wear miner ID
>Get on station and start murdering people because you looks just like every other ligger crewmember so nobody will question why you are around

All liggers valid 2016 when?

Every ligger should be equipped with a shock collar with their names on and job and security has a console to shock them this way you can identify your slave liggers

[Reece]

Ashliggers don't have lungs?

[Bombadil]

Ashliggers don't have lungs?

How do you think they survive on lavaland without oxygen?

[Reece]

Ashliggers don't have lungs?

How do you think they survive on lavaland without oxygen?

Well I assumed that there was just some coder voodoo that adds a 'doesn't need to breathe' tag to their specific species. I didn't think they just lacked lungs entirely.

[onleavedontatme]

Maybe ash lizard helmets should be NODROP so they cant disguise. They're usually free target practice in a straight fight.

NODROP helmets would ruin some of their gathering/crafting and feels hacky though.

Maybe kobolds was a good idea after all.

Anyway yeah the deep undercover lizards perfectly blending in and navigating the station is both unbalanced and out of character.

[Wyzack]

He is right, there is no reason they should be able to use a computer. Can all the people who are demanding the station kill them with all the guns that they will somehow be expected to have at all times please elaborate on how letting a ghost role free antag get on to the station to murderbone is a good thing in any sense?

[Bombadil]

It's like zombies at least zombies couldnt use the shuttle

[Screemonster]

Make 'em unable to read too.

[Bombadil]

just make Liggers retarded.

Like the actual retarded status. They don't know how airlocks operate so tehy slam their heads into em and shit I think at max retardation you cant even use machines

[Reece]

He is right, there is no reason they should be able to use a computer. Can all the people who are demanding the station kill them with all the guns that they will somehow be expected to have at all times

Or spears, or knives, or axes, or just bits of glass, or even a dammed crowbar, the station has literally an order of magnitude more people on it, it's own security force with access to lethal weaponry and an omniscient invisible eye that can lock every door down and make them kill you by touching. How are four assholes with spears an issue? I'm genuinely not getting how this is somehow a problem; they are armed with a piece of glass on a stick, outnumbered 10-1 and don't even have the AI protection that traitors, nuke ops and wizards get, the AI can have it's borg roll in and beat them to death without even bothering to alert the crew if it feels like, and god help the ashwalkers if the AI does alert the crew because holy shit it's a moshpit down at the mining dock.

Yes if the Lizards manage to get onto mining undetected, kill a miner without him calling for help, sneak onto the station without being spotted then they can then commence with the murderbone...with all the tools available to the average assistant, as a species that can be killed by anyone without consequence. Well right up until the guy they try and kill calls for help and the AI takes a look, or security takes a look, or a bored assistant takes a look, or the AI looks at mining, notices the broken windows and blood trail leading out into the waste. Oh and that as well, to make more ashwalkers they have to drag a dead person through mining, generally past the main hallway, the cargo workers and the QM; people aren't stupid, they're going to make the connection. Especially if all the miners were human to start with.

please elaborate on how letting a ghost role free antag get on to the station to murderbone is a good thing in any sense?

It's a terrible idea to have them be free antags regardless of getting onto the station or not, them killing miners will essentially kill off R&D, some of the more advanced chem recipes and if they didn't ration it then most of the cool stuff for xenobio. But out on the mine they can pose a real tangible threat to miners because generally miners roam around alone, where four assholes with spears can gang attack him to death in the dark.

I think ashwalkers should be unable to use lavaland loot if we're trying for balance, ghosts can scout out ahead what they want and where they want to go before cracking their egg.

[Ezel]

It's like zombies at least zombies couldnt use the shuttle

Remembers me when the zombie ash liggers were forcing the normal ash liggers to send the shuttle

[Ezel]

Altough ash liggers isnt the problem its completly balanced

Its the playerbase that needs a nerf

[Reece]

Did zombies get removed? They were annoying on the lavaland.

[onleavedontatme]

Did zombies get removed? They were annoying on the lavaland.

Yes.

[Incomptinence]

Ash walkers are fine honestly the people having problems with them sound almost crazy.

Replace mining console with button so it stops breaking immershuns, basically all it is in function anyway. Add button construction as it is about time.

[Bombadil]

Ash walkers are fine honestly the people having problems with them sound almost crazy.

Replace mining console with button so it stops breaking immershuns, basically all it is in function anyway. Add button construction as it is about time.

If they were buttons you wouldnt be able to choose where to go.

[Incomptinence]

What choice? The mining shuttle moves between two spots.

[Bombadil]

What if in the future there were decisions made that would allow you to land the shuttle in different spots if emagged or something like that?

[Ryahask]

I really don't see why this is necessary. The one semi-justifiable excuse is immersion, but I really just don't think it's a large enough break there to change anything. That said, if immersion is truly the focus, just turn it into a button. Otherwise in terms of balance even a single Miner would be capable of dealing with multiple Ash Walkers. I think this thread may have been prompted by a round I played earlier with 3 other Ash Walkers where we invaded the station (Only got to Cargo) and killed a few folks before Nar'Sie got summoned. You suggest that it was an easily accomplished, but it took quite awhile. It's not as easy as deciding to simply attack the station.

First, you need to find the mining station - this is actually quite luck oriented and time consuming. There are plenty of rounds where Ash Walkers never find the mining station.

Then you need to kill a Miner with access - without them calling for help.

You still can't leave yet however, as you need to return to the nest and make sure there are enough eggs because Ash Walkers die so quickly. (Due to lack of quality gear)

Finally you can enter the station, and if you're lucky you can catch a few unassuming crew members - but you're still using Spears. So, if we assume that 5 Ash Walkers show up with Spears and there are 5 players in Cargo on their arrival - many of those 5 will escape. At which point they will bring Security and every bored Assistant on the station wielding fire extinguishers. This simply doesn't seem like a significant problem - especially given that in a number of rounds where I've played as and seen Ash Walkers they play passively towards station crew.

[Saegrimr]

Spears are one of the most robust weapons, the fuck is with this "They're only using spears" bullshit.

[Incomptinence]

They can't use ranged weapons or turn hulk the meaning is more they top out at spears.

Assistant would spear officer, get taser, proceed as tider.

[Ryahask]

Spears are one of the most robust weapons, the fuck is with this "They're only using spears" bullshit.

Yeah, spears do a ton of damage, but in actual SS13 combat they're worthless against players. Ranged is king, the melee combat is difficult due to speed at which characters move. A Miner with a Proto-Kinetic Accelerator can easily beat a handful of Ash Walkers wielding spears. Spears are great as assassination tools or as your damage follow-up from a stun, but alone they're not nearly that good.

[Zilenan91]

Aside from the disguising thing which I don't know how that would be solved, people just need to git gud.

[InsaneHyena]

We're talking about a gang of liggers armed with spears, right? Not some kind of team of heavily armed nuke ops? Git gud.

Maybe kobolds was a good idea after all.

Yes, Kor, it was. Make it so, pls.

[Saegrimr]

Spears are one of the most robust weapons, the fuck is with this "They're only using spears" bullshit.

Yeah, spears do a ton of damage, but in actual SS13 combat they're worthless against players. Ranged is king, the melee combat is difficult due to speed at which characters move. A Miner with a Proto-Kinetic Accelerator can easily beat a handful of Ash Walkers wielding spears. Spears are great as assassination tools or as your damage follow-up from a stun, but alone they're not nearly that good.

Yeah and it takes one toss to do a ton of damage and embed. Now you're slowed, bleeding, and fucked.

It's never a 1v1 situation with ashwalkers. I lost the fight but got a couple good hits on you? Time to respawn and run right back before you can fix your shit. Miner ded? His body sure as fuck isn't going back to the station, its going right to the tendril and now you got a buddy probably wanting to get his valids on too since you already ended his mining run.

"HELP DYING"
Literally nobody cares about that on the radio when its miners, other miners will look for you. Cargo techs are braindead tards, maybe the QM might care. Sec is too busy dealing with the rest of the station to care about a miner who probably died to a goliath yet again, not camp cargo with a firing team just in case it was ashwalkers. Even if they screamed "HELP DYING ASH LIGGER", sec is STILL going to be way too busy dealing with traitors, tiders, cultists, fuck knows what else.

You said it yourself, "spears are great as assassination tools". You're not gonna reflexively run or start shooting at another "miner" heading back, now he's started caving your skull in, oh shit it was a ligger oh shit too late. Oh good, miners are back with more minerals! Oh shit he's stabbing me, oh shit it was a fucking ligger again too late.

Yeah sure most of this could be solved by miners not scattering to the four winds and exterminating everything not in a suit without even a word spoken, but the disguising part is really what breaks things like "free antag lel". Not much different from going up to your assassination target and asking them a question, waiting a few seconds and then bashing their shit while they're typing. The first hit it everything.

[Zilenan91]

The disguising sounds like the real problem with them.

[Ryahask]

Spears are one of the most robust weapons, the fuck is with this "They're only using spears" bullshit.

Yeah, spears do a ton of damage, but in actual SS13 combat they're worthless against players. Ranged is king, the melee combat is difficult due to speed at which characters move. A Miner with a Proto-Kinetic Accelerator can easily beat a handful of Ash Walkers wielding spears. Spears are great as assassination tools or as your damage follow-up from a stun, but alone they're not nearly that good.

Yeah and it takes one toss to do a ton of damage and embed. Now you're slowed, bleeding, and fucked.

It's never a 1v1 situation with ashwalkers. I lost the fight but got a couple good hits on you? Time to respawn and run right back before you can fix your shit. Miner ded? His body sure as fuck isn't going back to the station, its going right to the tendril and now you got a buddy probably wanting to get his valids on too since you already ended his mining run.

"HELP DYING"
Literally nobody cares about that on the radio when its miners, other miners will look for you. Cargo techs are braindead tards, maybe the QM might care. Sec is too busy dealing with the rest of the station to care about a miner who probably died to a goliath yet again, not camp cargo with a firing team just in case it was ashwalkers. Even if they screamed "HELP DYING ASH LIGGER", sec is STILL going to be way too busy dealing with traitors, tiders, cultists, fuck knows what else.

You said it yourself, "spears are great as assassination tools". You're not gonna reflexively run or start shooting at another "miner" heading back, now he's started caving your skull in, oh shit it was a ligger oh shit too late. Oh good, miners are back with more minerals! Oh shit he's stabbing me, oh shit it was a fucking ligger again too late.


Yeah sure most of this could be solved by miners not scattering to the four winds and exterminating everything not in a suit without even a word spoken, but the disguising part is really what breaks things like "free antag lel". Not much different from going up to your assassination target and asking them a question, waiting a few seconds and then bashing their shit while they're typing. The first hit it everything.

I'm always too nervous to toss my spear as if the player happens to grab it I can be severely fucked, but yeah - it's strong if it lands. It's incredibly risky however, given the ability for a good response by an opponent expecting it.

That said, I can appreciate the angle that Ash Walker's disguise ability is too powerful. I've never really tried it, so I haven't seen the effects first hand, but it's easy enough to imagine. That said, I don't think preventing their ability to invade the station is the right solution. Ideally Ash Walkers would simply get a model distinction that makes it easy to tell them apart from normal crew, but failing that simply prevent them from wearing all normal gear. Expand the crafting slightly so a few more options exist to compensate, but prevent use of normal gear.

I would say the re-spawn ability is largely fine, it is absolute crap when near their base though. Makes actually taking them out nearly impossible. A timer on individual byond key use would be ideal, but I don't know if the ability exists to do that.

My biggest balance issue with Ash Walkers is that due to respawning they can power-game out the ass as a ghost. The amount of times, in a limited span, that I've had a new player spawn and immediately lead us all to something amazing is absurd. I have no idea how this can be fixed beyond individual punishment, but that aspect of power gaming seems to be the most significant problem in my mind. If Ash Walkers actually had 0 information about their surroundings at the start of the match I think they would tend to be far less impactful on the average round.

EDIT: Came up with a general idea for addressing their respawn issues. Ash Walkers could start out as hatchlings and require time to mature, during which they cannot wield anything too heavy - basically any weapon. So they can organize the base, follow along and help drag bodies, but they're ultimately defenseless. Spawning doesn't feed directly into combat 5 seconds later. Not sure what kind of time frame would be reasonable, a minute or two maybe?

[Incomptinence]

Disguising is nothing new and honestly I applaud anyone bothering with it.

They are pretty bad at it actually with tails or any of the tools antags have for stealing identity, mute guy in miner gear holding a spear? You should be suspicious.

Compared to say group antags that send your coworker right back at you except evil it's a tiny problem for the paranoid to make into a mountain.

[Zilenan91]

Most people don't think to kill miners with tails considering station lizards can have the same striped look ashwalkers do.
It's still probably wise to give stripe-tailed miners a wide berth.

[Armhulen]

DID SOMEONE SAY KOBOLD??
please add kobolds in one form or another

[Wyzack]

I mean if no one will sprite/implement kobolds we could give ash walkers the manlet gene

[Bombadil]

So would Kobolds be less murdery than Ashliggers?

[onleavedontatme]

No, they'd just be funnier.

[DemonFiren]

Only if they get a 1% chance of spawning as Dragonwrought.

[InsaneHyena]

Just do it. Ashwalkers are already basically kobols - primitive, live in caves, can only hope to overwhelm people with sheer numbers and/or crafty tactics. Just make them manlets to complete it.

[Zilenan91]

Manlets use really bad resizing and make sprites look like shit though

[onleavedontatme]

Maybe I should just remove the most contentious part of lavaland.

[ShadowDimentio]

>People get dunked by the ungas when mining
>They have a gun that can literally three shot them
>"OMGG THER TOO GOOD REMOBE PLS"

G E T
O
O
D

[Zilenan91]

Yeah they really do just need to get good. Ashwalkers can't even use guns, the crew have EVERYTHING going for them in regards to dealing with ashwalkers. If people can't handle them despite everything then they need to get good.

Like this one time I was playing QM on Meta. I hear miners talking about ashwalkers so I print a welder and weld the doors to the mining shuttle and after unwelding it once to let a miner in like 50 ashwalkers show up in the pod and are completely unable to get through the doors so I'm sitting there laughing at them and call sec so they can shoot fish in a barrel.

[Hibbles]

The secret solution here is that there isn't actually a problem.