[POLL] Syndiborg Pinpointers

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:32 am #62600

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/7109

There was some disagreement over this so I figured I'd put it to a poll. There's some discussion in the PR to get you guys started.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:36 am #62601

Let's buff syndieborgs even more guys fuck teamwork

Tsaricide · Post by **Tsaricide** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:38 am #62602

Borgs should have to rely on the operatives to find the disk and shouldn't just run away and lone wolf it with his own pinpointer.

Post by **Vekter** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:43 am #62605

I second Tsar's post. I feel that giving the ALREADY super-strong borg an undroppable pinpointer is a bit much.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:45 am #62606

Yeah except

"Borg, go kill the AI"

"Okay, complete. Where are the rest of you now?"
"Guys?"
"Okay i'll check the bridge."
"Hello?"
"I'll check armory then."
"Does anyone know where the fucking disk is holy shit."

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:50 am #62608

I do agree that syndiborgs are too powerful right now, but I don't think that hamstringing them in navigation and usability is a proper way to balance them out.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:51 am #62609

I agree with not buffing syndie borg, but what Saegrimr said happens A LOT. It's really fucking frustrating to be a syndie borg, follow your orders and do a good job, then your shitty team mates wordlessly do their shit, and either get the disk or die without saying anything. Then you literally have no choice but to 'lone wolf' while trying to find your people. More then once I've had ops activate the nuke, without once saying anything to me as a borg the entire time.

That's more of a player issue though. Borgs with pinpointers would be mechanically pretty fucking strong.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 11:38 am #62642

The borgs are too OP to be able to go after the disk by themselves, imo. I guess a pinpointer to the nearest op would be good, though.

leibniz · Post by **leibniz** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 12:27 pm #62652

I dont think the borgs are powerful anymore with the ebow and laser removed, so the pinpointer wouldnt really hurt.
I still see teams go "let's get as many borgs as we can" and then they get fucked.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 12:29 pm #62656

Yeah, the LMG/Nade launcher really did nerf Snydi Borgs severely in terms of stopping power.

Hence why I support a form of Syndiborg Pinpointers.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:14 pm #62688

Jesus I didn't even know syndiborks got needed. If they don't have ebows anymore then I'd be alright with the pinpointer

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:23 pm #62690

The LMG is a lower damaging weapon (20 to 30) that has limited ammo. It works akin to the Captain's Laser but from my experience you burn through ammo fast and it tends to run out a the worst time.

So yes, Syndi borgs were severaly nerfed and are now a true support role rather than a assault platform.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:26 pm #62693

How about this:

Syndiborgs have an operative pinpointer. It points to the nearest nuke op and gives their name. If there are no active operatives, it points to the disk so they can at least win a minor victory.

Edit: I have had a PR for this for a while and I just now updated it to have op pinpointers that point to the nearest Syndicate.

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 8:48 pm #62753

Its not an issue of borgs running off alone and more that they kinda end up as a fifth wheel without their own pinpointer. I mean really, we don't limit ops teams to a pinpointer for every other op on the team so they have to work together. Excluding borgs after already nerfing their weaponry is pretty awful.

Perakp · Post by **Perakp** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:14 pm #62760

It makes sense that they would have a pinpointer. They are a custom built syndicate cyborg after all.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:18 pm #62761

No reason for them not to have one. Hand it to them.

mikecari · Post by **mikecari** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:30 pm #62762

DemonFiren wrote:No reason for them not to have one.

Except for balance issues of course, Ops are already incredibly reliant on syndiborgs as it is. I almost always see the old triple borg strategy nowadays. With pinpointers on borgs the ops will literally have NO reason to choose the other items over the syndiborg and stealth ops will be even less common than they already are.

I just wanna see more Nuke Ops try the Solid Snake method rather than just buy 3 borgs and gg no re.

Post by **Fatal** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:00 pm #62775

Yeah syndieborgs are already powerful enough, let's not turn nuke ops into syndie borg attack 101

They already have enough gear to aid the operatives, if the operatives die or don't take pinpointers, that is their own fault

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:15 pm #62782

Not having pinpointers meant they couldnt act as a lone wolf and had to stick together with the other ops.

As someone who gets syndie borg all the time, pls no

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:46 pm #62796

Ikarrus wrote:Not having pinpointers meant they couldnt act as a lone wolf and had to stick together with the other ops.

As someone who gets syndie borg all the time, pls no

This would be relevent if the borgs didn't already run off alone. Except they do it now to pointlessly murderbone crew instead of move toward the disk. Since the ops are all moving to the disk following their pointers and the borg does not, it has nothing to orient itself towards the target so it just wanders around killing randoms and being useless until it bumps into another op on accident or gets flashed.

Lumbermancer · Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:47 pm

Make pinpointer point at nearest op.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:49 pm #62798

I'd strongly prefer it if it was used to direct the borg to the nearest op instead of the disk.

Incomptinence · Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:20 am

Finding the operatives is more important than the disk itself for a syndiborg. Since you can't arm nuclear arms without arms.

Might actually be more of a buff but I support it on the basis of being more interesting than another pinpointer.

Not that a pinpointer is a huge buff anyway, babies.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:23 am #62937

Don't we still have that radar nanomachine that doohl coded?

Can't we have that detect nuke ops and give them to nuke ops + syndie borgs?

It'd help keep all of them together and we wouldn't need to give borgs pinpointers.

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:40 am #62942

No, I think that got removed along with all the other badass nanomachine tech.

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 2:08 pm #63033

PR has been changed to give syndiborgs special pinpointers that point towards the nearest operative. Poll has been reset.

Deantwo · Post by **Deantwo** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 2:14 pm #63035

Would make subverting a syndiborgs a very powerful tool. Just saying.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 2:18 pm #63038

If the crew are in a position to subvert a Syndiborg then someone has gone horribly wrong and the Ops have most likely lost.

mikecari · Post by **mikecari** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:25 pm #63478

Steelpoint wrote:If the crew are in a position to subvert a Syndiborg then someone has gone horribly wrong and the Ops have most likely lost.

This, either that or the syndieborg is a lone wolf piece of shit.

Phalanx300 · Post by **Phalanx300** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:40 pm #63479

Cheridan wrote:PR has been changed to give syndiborgs special pinpointers that point towards the nearest operative. Poll has been reset.

Kindoff unrelated but does this mean we could have traitor pinpointers which point towards your target?

Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:39 pm

Deantwo wrote:Would make subverting a syndiborgs a very powerful tool. Just saying.

It shouldn't be possible to even do that, honestly.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:46 pm #63556

MisterPerson wrote:It shouldn't be possible to even do that, honestly.

I mean you could probably steal an emag from a dead one, but I haven't actually checked if syndieborgs start as technically emagged to make sure they can't get emagged again.

Like someone else said, if you have the luxury of looting a dead nuke op for his emag and flashing their borg, they're already losing.

Gun Hog · Post by **Gun Hog** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:49 pm #63558

Saegrimr wrote:
MisterPerson wrote:It shouldn't be possible to even do that, honestly.
I mean you could probably steal an emag from a dead one, but I haven't actually checked if syndieborgs start as technically emagged to make sure they can't get emagged again.

Like someone else said, if you have the luxury of looting a dead nuke op for his emag and flashing their borg, they're already losing.

You need the emag to open the Borg's cover (or one of the Ops' ID cards). You can then purge its laws with a purge board, then give it new laws so it will turn on the remaining Nuke Ops.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:40 pm #63571

I had no idea you could use law boards directly onto borgs.

soulgamer · Post by **soulgamer** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 12:07 am #63580

Oh look no one will ever bother with trying innovative syndie shit. Now they can just spawn syndiborgs to do EVERYTHING for them.

Deantwo · Post by **Deantwo** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 12:09 am #63581

soulgamer wrote:Oh look no one will ever bother with trying innovative syndie shit. Now they can just spawn syndiborgs to do EVERYTHING for them.

Did you even read any of the thread?

peoplearestrange · Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:23 am

I have to say its not all that obvious that the sydi-borgs pinpointer points towards ops. It looks exactly like the regular pinpointer and iirc they aren't even renamed. A sprite re-skin might help or at least some more info.

Confused the hell out of me last night at any rate.

Xhuis · Post by **Xhuis** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 3:12 am #64023

peoplearestrange wrote:I have to say its not all that obvious that the sydi-borgs pinpointer points towards ops. It looks exactly like the regular pinpointer and iirc they aren't even renamed. A sprite re-skin might help or at least some more info.

Confused the hell out of me last night at any rate.

They are renamed. A sprite change isn't really warranted, though, because the average nuke op player is observant enough to note "huh, this has a different name and description, so it must have a different purpose as well." I might make a pull request in a little while to improve it - I've already had a few ideas, like a pop-up list of ops to track.

Incomptinence · Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:40 am

Recolour it. Good enough for lazy jrpgs good enough for us.

Cheridan · Post by **Cheridan** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 8:02 am #64072

Phalanx300 wrote:
Cheridan wrote:PR has been changed to give syndiborgs special pinpointers that point towards the nearest operative. Poll has been reset.
Kindoff unrelated but does this mean we could have traitor pinpointers which point towards your target?

There was a PR for this, but it had a big issue. Namely, the way you picked items for a Steal objective was simply selecting from a drop-down list. It was messy, metaish, and could lead to situations where the HoS lifts one off a traitor and gets to hunt down every objective on the station.

If someone changed the selection method (reading the objective datum would be the best, probably) then yeah it would be a good addition.

Should Syndiborgs have SPECIAL pinpointers that point towards nearest operative?