/tg/Station 13

I just got out of a round with a ling in a sec hardsuit on the escape shuttle, trying to murderbone about half a dozen people. It spent almost five minutes constantly fleshmending out of the lynching, and by the end of the round wasn't any closer to being dead. Is ling really even worth keeping if all people do with it is murderbone?

The things that were attacking this ling were oxygen tanks, a stunprod on harm, and a kitchen knife. Those aren't really supposed to be end all weapons.

Except for the part where there were several of us doing this at once. Any other antag would die in seconds to that sort of lynch mob.

It's almost like letting people have x4 the original base che regen speed could be broken.

Seriously, with the new ling buffs, you can just space walk forever butt naked by using fleshmend, while your chem amount never drops below 75.

Wait, 4x chemical regen? I thought engorged glands just gave you more capacity.

Ja the other bonuses stack with Engorged Chem Glads. I've spammed fleshmend while being shooped with lasers etc.

Oh boy, it's almost like changelings are super-hard to kill without the right kit, like they're meant to be, instead of being walking pinatas of valid-kills for anyone with an 8-brute weapon.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Oh boy, it's almost like changelings are super-hard to kill without the right kit, like they're meant to be, instead of being walking pinatas of valid-kills for anyone with an 8-brute weapon.

This is exactly the problem though. Lings used to be an interesting, paranoia inducing antag who could stealthily kill easily, but had to run from direct conflict. Now it's just traitor 2.0, bio edition.

Changelings should be highly lethal in 1v1 combat against even the Head of Security or the Captain, but should be shit at fighting even in 1 v 2 situations.

Thunder11 wrote:Wait, 4x chemical regen? I thought engorged glands just gave you more capacity.

it increases chem amount by 25 an doubles regen.

Remie gave this bonus to the base stats.

So old base was 50.
New base is 75 with double the regen.
Add on engorged and you got 100 chem and x4 regen.

You can literally just spam powers and give zero fucks.

The one time I've gotten dunked post buff is when I was standing in the middle of a plasma inferno. Not because the plasma fire killed me, I didn't even feel that. But because I was spamming emp nonstop trying to open a door, so then a guy was able to stun me and dump me down disposals into space (was in xenobio). Of course then I was just able to fleshmend and get back to station 2 minutes later and kill everyone with crushers.

Sounds like it has become a similar problem to good old cloakers where the traitor was just too hard to kill if they played smart so it was an incredible murderbone enabler.

I mean lings sucked but really we would prefer they be invincible when competent than have parasting back? Some of these choices just make no sense. The coders can't handle ling get rid of it.

Changelings are based off of The Thing, and that was impossible to kill with a flamethrower. Changelings shouldn't be easy to kill. Still, I agree that having a staple ability that you can spam is bad. A good nerf for this would be to deal damage and not heal if you spam it constantly.

Make fleshmend reduce your chemical regen by half for 20 seconds. So you can spam it, but only until your chems run out, at which point your chem regen will be pathetic until you wait the timer out

I like the new changeling power level. Has everyone forgotten all the whining about Changelings never doing anything interesting? I remember. I happen to like loud murderbone. No, I do not like to die, few people do, but without murderbone, truly interesting and devastating battles do not occur. I am not a fan of stealthy antags that kill only a few select people or take something, but have zero impact on anyone else. I want to laugh as a swarm of assistants plink away at my armor while I slaughter and toss them away like a cat with a bird. There are few other antagonists that offers this option. To go loud is to put your round on the line as the whole station turns on you. There should be a reward for that.

The Thing creatures did die to a flamethrower easily, it was just that if you were not through a part of it could attempt to escape.

It's less the murderbone and more the station and inhabitants are near totally irrelevant. You can have too much of a good thing.

Steelpoint wrote:Changelings should be highly lethal in 1v1 combat against even the Head of Security or the Captain, but should be shit at fighting even in 1 v 2 situations.

this doesn't mean anything
how good you are in either situation varies heavily on player skill regardless of if you're a changeling or not
before changeling buffs i once took down two changelings with a stunprod and one pair of cablecuffs as an assistant, and took down all of sec + all of science as a changeling

Security hardsuit is armored.

I rest my case.

Steelpoint wrote:Changelings should be highly lethal in 1v1 combat against even the Head of Security or the Captain, but should be shit at fighting even in 1 v 2 situations.

That really depends on the skill of the player.

It's fine. Lings have no ranged abilities and no stuns, their SOLE prowess is in their survivability. They even have far fewer numbers than traitors, so they NEED to have that survivability.

Deal with them like you'd deal with any changeling. Beat it to death with your trusty baton, it just gives them time to call for backup from other lings, which is perfectly OK, honestly.

Thunder11 wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Oh boy, it's almost like changelings are super-hard to kill without the right kit, like they're meant to be, instead of being walking pinatas of valid-kills for anyone with an 8-brute weapon.

This is exactly the problem though. Lings used to be an interesting, paranoia inducing antag who could stealthily kill easily, but had to run from direct conflict. Now it's just traitor 2.0, bio edition.

> Lings used to be an interesting, paranoia inducing antag.

Are you high? Lings were widely known as shitty rounds for taking 3 hours to complete and always resulting in all the lings getting stomped in the first 20 minutes of the round, or the lings took over but didn't have the combat capability to do anything viable with it. Chems recharged so slowly, you HAD to take engorged to be even remotely viable. Only now do you have enough chems to do more than go the generic lingbuild.

Xhuis wrote:Changelings are based off of The Thing, and that was impossible to kill with a flamethrower. Changelings shouldn't be easy to kill. Still, I agree that having a staple ability that you can spam is bad. A good nerf for this would be to deal damage and not heal if you spam it constantly.

It does deal damage if you spam it constantly in the form of toxic damage.

Thunder11 wrote:I just got out of a round with a ling in a sec hardsuit on the escape shuttle, trying to murderbone about half a dozen people. It spent almost five minutes constantly fleshmending out of the lynching, and by the end of the round wasn't any closer to being dead. Is ling really even worth keeping if all people do with it is murderbone?

wait, are you complaining about murderboning as ling when you literally just got done telling us you were murderboning?

on topic though, i think fleshmend is fine, though i do think lings should be more optimized for stealth; maybe make the regen for their points or whatever go slower, i dunno. i agree with others in that i'd rather have more of a "the thing" ling than one that can go around murderboning.

Has anyone actually used the ling chitin armor? It's incredible. Seriously. Buy that shit. It's riot armor with no slowdown, 70 total laser protection, and all the other protection numbers are 40+ iirc. Also it has 50 energy protection so taser stuns get halved by it.

I said this would happen when the ling changes were first PR'd

I noted this happening ever since they were merged

It is PRIME retardation, 4x rate with fleshmend existing not on a cooldown is hilariously dumb

Zilenan91 wrote:Has anyone actually used the ling chitin armor? It's incredible. Seriously. Buy that shit. It's riot armor with no slowdown, 70 total laser protection, and all the other protection numbers are 40+ iirc. Also it has 50 energy protection so taser stuns get halved by it.

Yeah, I recently buffed it a bunch due to complaints of it being fucking worthless. How does it play?

iamgoofball wrote:

Zilenan91 wrote:Has anyone actually used the ling chitin armor? It's incredible. Seriously. Buy that shit. It's riot armor with no slowdown, 70 total laser protection, and all the other protection numbers are 40+ iirc. Also it has 50 energy protection so taser stuns get halved by it.

Yeah, I recently buffed it a bunch due to complaints of it being fucking worthless. How does it play?

Invincible murderboner machine who is immune to stun outheals all damage dealt to it while armblading people to death.

People were calling it garbage without realizing the cooldown had already been removed. 70 laser/damage resist is deathsquad level.

Kor wrote:

iamgoofball wrote:

Zilenan91 wrote:Has anyone actually used the ling chitin armor? It's incredible. Seriously. Buy that shit. It's riot armor with no slowdown, 70 total laser protection, and all the other protection numbers are 40+ iirc. Also it has 50 energy protection so taser stuns get halved by it.

Yeah, I recently buffed it a bunch due to complaints of it being fucking worthless. How does it play?

Invincible murderboner machine who is immune to stun outheals all damage dealt to it while armblading people to death.

People were calling it garbage without realizing the cooldown had already been removed. 70 laser/damage resist is deathsquad level.

I'll run some polling then.

I was under the impression that changeling has been pretty much universally reviled for years.

A few changes made it a bit less agonisingly shitty, but it still needs lots of work.

Pretty sure ezy full heals nonstop is the real issue not the armour.

something else i would like to point out
the issue cited in the OP has people with air tanks and a single kitchen knife hitting a guy in fully body sec armor
that kind of damage is so negligible that he would only have to fleshmend once every five minutes or something, this could have happened before ling buff

PKPenguin321 wrote:something else i would like to point out
the issue cited in the OP has people with air tanks and a single kitchen knife hitting a guy in fully body sec armor
that kind of damage is so negligible that he would only have to fleshmend once every five minutes or something, this could have happened before ling buff

Sec armor is made of tissue paper now, 3 air tanks and a knife does more dps than a laser rifle, can KO, causes bleed, and never runs out of ammo.

About any weapon is amazing applied 4-5 times more than solo. Rare occasion captain orders on the spot executions without lethal weapons issued marvel at the circle of harm batons where it is done properly.

Incomptinence wrote:Pretty sure ezy full heals nonstop is the real issue not the armour.

Even if the heals didn't exist, taking 6 damage per laser hit is bad when the ling is more or less stun immune while still perfectly capable of "killing" you in one hit with a baton or taser.

No amount of armour short of total immunity compares to the core flesh mend issue. People may spit out the after armour damage numbers as an excuse to fuck all armour forever but at least they are still getting hurt. Yeah that armour might be too strong no we probably don't need all armour to be shit.

Both are an issue

But remember, antagonists are supposed to win any and every confrontation with the crew regardless of the situation - This is a new player friendly codebase! The armory should be made of glass you know, it's too unfair!

You people asked for more lethality and justice for antags.

I'm in the processing of nerfing this - repeated uses will make the ability be half as effective. For example: by default, it heals 10 brute, 10 burn, and 10 oxy per second. If you use it again within 3 seconds, it heals 5 brute, 5 burn, and 5 oxy. This will stack, so if you use it a ton very quickly you'll have to wait quite a while before it's at full effectiveness. It will also display a message to nearby people.

Xhuis wrote:I'm in the processing of nerfing this - repeated uses will make the ability be half as effective. For example: by default, it heals 10 brute, 10 burn, and 10 oxy per second. If you use it again within 3 seconds, it heals 5 brute, 5 burn, and 5 oxy. This will stack, so if you use it a ton very quickly you'll have to wait quite a while before it's at full effectiveness. It will also display a message to nearby people.

This is actually a really good way to go about fixing it

Can it just be an italicized red message that says like "Lingman Facestealer's wounds quickly fade away!"

Scones wrote:

Xhuis wrote:I'm in the processing of nerfing this - repeated uses will make the ability be half as effective. For example: by default, it heals 10 brute, 10 burn, and 10 oxy per second. If you use it again within 3 seconds, it heals 5 brute, 5 burn, and 5 oxy. This will stack, so if you use it a ton very quickly you'll have to wait quite a while before it's at full effectiveness. It will also display a message to nearby people.

This is actually a really good way to go about fixing it

Can it just be an italicized red message that says like "Lingman Facestealer's wounds quickly fade away!"

A reminder that every hard changeling tell is a guaranteed validkill if a cyborg sees it, because everyone on station will know you're valid in seconds, you're liable to be stuncuffed and welded into a locker/incinerated, doors will close and bolt and electrify around you, firelocks slam shut, and all the air vanishes in less than a minute while you wade through the jet turbine vacuum that is a scrubber set to 3x3 syphon.

Scott wrote:You people asked for more lethality and justice for antags.

"YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED BUT THEY SCREWED IT UP YOU GOTTA KEEP LIKING IT!"

Great wisdom.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

Scones wrote:

Xhuis wrote:I'm in the processing of nerfing this - repeated uses will make the ability be half as effective. For example: by default, it heals 10 brute, 10 burn, and 10 oxy per second. If you use it again within 3 seconds, it heals 5 brute, 5 burn, and 5 oxy. This will stack, so if you use it a ton very quickly you'll have to wait quite a while before it's at full effectiveness. It will also display a message to nearby people.

This is actually a really good way to go about fixing it

Can it just be an italicized red message that says like "Lingman Facestealer's wounds quickly fade away!"

A reminder that every hard changeling tell is a guaranteed validkill if a cyborg sees it, because everyone on station will know you're valid in seconds, you're liable to be stuncuffed and welded into a locker/incinerated, doors will close and bolt and electrify around you, firelocks slam shut, and all the air vanishes in less than a minute while you wade through the jet turbine vacuum that is a scrubber set to 3x3 syphon.

HOW HORRIBLE!!!!!

Having tried out the new ling armour, on top of the new chem amount/recharge changes, I can safely say lingading is pretty OP at just round start murderboning.

I attacked the brig and only ended up dying because I fleshmended like 20 times in space while throwing out all the guns/trying to protect a dead ling's body from borgs, then finally got stuck in space wind and taser + baton spammed by 3 people.
Even after they caught me, they couldn't actually kill me because the armour is so fucking strong, + fleshmend spam and res shriek spam so they couldn't even drag me to the incinerator without flailing around like retards for 15 minutes.

Question, is it even fucking possible to remove Chitin armor? The other day in robotics we had a ling brought to us (cuffed) and where attempting to remove the brain because fuck infinite healing PoS. But after trying every surgery and all the tools on the ling, nothing would work to cut away the chitin and start a debraining.

You used to be able to acid the helmet off (which led to hilarious bugs as you'd never be able to remove the suit as the ling), dunno if that still works though.

Well if it doesn't I once got adminhelped by admins asking if I ordered the AI to seal lings in single space tile rooms enclosed totally by walls. I hadn't but maybe the time has come.

hacked crushers will destroy their armour - I think the AIcan disable the safety if it can see it, not 100% sure.
Other then the incinerator, you can upgrade the gibber to be able to gib people fully clothed also.

Failing that, dump them in a room full of N2O till the end of time.

Edit: I just realised the most hilarious way of keeping a ling down.
after it's died, pump it full of enough blackpowder at heat to gib it.
Chems don't process while dead, but if the ling tries to revive itself, it gibs.

Does the armour protect their arms and legs from surgery? If not you should be able to cripple them by doing incomplete limb augmentation to remove the extremities. Yeah enjoy reviving forever with no arms or legs bozo. At least I hope it works like that.

Well, incomplete aug surgery DOES leave a ton of permenant brute damage. I'll need to test if it's capable of keeping a ling down forever, though.

Well, I was trying head surgery, but I couldn't get it to work and we just sawed the damn thing to death as it kept shrieking at us to deafen us. Really really really hate surgery drapes now because my partner had them in the inventory and had to flail for 5-10 minutes trying to get her to drop the damn things.

Still wondering how ling shrieks bypassing earmuffs was labelled not a bug.

*Ling makes sound to disorientate you, earmuffs block sounds*

*get deafened and disorientated anyway*