/tg/Station 13

Because some fucking retard "balanced" research I'm stuck figuring shit out again and had to dive through fucking code along with randomly tossing shit into the destroyer machine managed to come out stuck at these levels. So if anyone knows what items ups anything past what I'm stuck at please do post. Because the round generally ends before I can make any progress I'd figure to ask if anyone knows anything.

Stuck
Engineering 5
Plasma 5
Power Manip 5
Bio 5
Data 6

other than that here's I've written down
FRIENDLY ADVICE! IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T "FIX IT"
edit because of grammar errors
[spoiler][/spoiler]

A lot of things now require botany plants for some reason.

Yes, botany plants.

The RnD change is stupid and I very much dislike it.

To answer what you need for some of these, look at the Research and Development guide on the wiki.

Jesus fuck what? Does the retard that coded plants in even play this game? The only way to get data manip past level 6 is to convince the CE to give research his mag boots or hope for a Gravitational anomaly. I was okay with syringe guns not being round start for robotics and could even agree to make the BOH a higher level on the blue space scale but this is just bad.

srifenbyxp wrote:Jesus fuck what? Does the retard that coded plants in even play this game? The only way to get data manip past level 6 is to convince the CE to give research his mag boots or hope for a Gravitational anomaly. I was okay with syringe guns not being round start for robotics and could even agree to make the BOH a higher level on the blue space scale but this is just bad.

>Destroying a High-risk item
>Even being possible in R&D
Jesus I'll bwoink people for even hiding the boots but this really takes the cake.

Don't say that now, maybe I'll have to wait for the chef to bake a literal cake for weapons 6

R E V E R T
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WHAT

pooping out infinite guns and autocloners takes EFFORT now????????

I AM GOBSMACKED

Since when is having to work with two additional departments and hoping that you RNG the right item effort? That's just nonsense, why do I need a syringe with powers for engineering? Which power, can it be any? When you bring RNG into the mix and call it "effort" that's not balancing shit.

PKPenguin321 wrote:WHAT

pooping out infinite guns and autocloners takes EFFORT now????????

I AM GOBSMACKED

There's a such thing as a healthy balance between the syringe gun days and over the top nerfs like this, PK

I liked some of the changes, such as welder+flamethrower+plasma cutter allowing me to get Plasma 4 - and some other changes also feel neat - I don't much mind reliability being gone either, as it was too much of a guesswork on whether I have the parts for it or not.

That being said, I do lament some changes - I can no longer get super bins, pico manipulators and portable chem dospensers anywhere as quickly and easily as I usually would, pretty much delaying me on upgrading the ORM or becoming self-sufficient with circuit printing. Also, getting anywhere past 5 is pretty much impossible, as much as getting combat shotguns from cargo on a regular basis - people will just ignore you if it's not blob or whatever, where they want mass-produced R&D loot.

My major gripe about it is how dependent on botany RnD has become. A botanist by themselves can get mat6/plasma7/power7/bluespace6/bio6/combat6/electromag6/data6
The only thing they can't get higher than the actual fucking scientist himself is engineering which is reliant on genetics for some godawful reason. It was bad enough relying on miners who are mostly incompetent but now I can't even get them most of their toys when they actually do a good job. /rant

Even that much is assuming botany is competent enough to get all that. More often than not, they're busy staying confined in Botany, or mass-producing stuff to slip and teleport people.

Nanomanips are enough to get acid now wih a portable chem dispenser.

Link to PR for quick reference:
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/17576

So, technically, you could get some heads to hand in their special items (Boots for CE, Laser for HoS) and effectively GG traitors that have them as objectives? It's like throwing station plans into singulo containment roundstart as CE because "I WON'T NEED THEM AND WE WOULDN'T WANT SYNDICATE TO GET THEM WOULD WE ))))))))))))))". Besides, research is already dependent on miners, cargo and xenobio, and making them depend on RNG departments like genetics and botany seems like a way to make research items unobtainable during most rounds. I understand the "make research harder" sentiment, but unless you want to wait for anomalies you will pretty much never come close to maxing RnD, especially if your idea of balance is requiring items so snowflake that actual traitors get them as objectives.

Now in fairness, R&D was piss easy. You could nearly max it out without ever leaving science in under ten minutes. You only needed combats and some diamond.

smittn wrote: A botanist by themselves can get mat6/plasma7/power7/bluespace6/bio6/combat6/electromag6/data6
The only thing they can't get higher than the actual fucking scientist himself is engineering which is reliant on genetics for some godawful reason.

So by fixing R&D the update just made it broken, if Im understanding this correctly fuck due process; just get botany to make a shit ton of plants for you and max it out.

As for materials thats implying that miners are competent and security wants to open the combat shotguns for you which unless there's a blob they most likely wont. That and I find that cargo will ignore requests for shotguns half the time whilst you complain about miners not getting you materials while their corpse if getting butt fugd by a xenos.

High-risk items shouldn't have origin tech, there's a reason it's a bannable offence to destroy them as a non-antag.

Ya know, i could get behind the RnD shake up if the new tech levels were relevant to their origin. Genetics for engineering? I'm sorry what fucking part of randomly bombarding monkeys with radiation makes it possible for me to make a welding mask or generator? Botany being the only viable option is also asinine.

Cooperation should run both ways, and as it stands Engineering has no reason to give Research anything except in the rare case they want their autism fort boards for spying on the crew. Medical and Virology being able to chip in would be fine, since Sleeper upgrades can be a god send (so would cryotubes if the damn things worked.) Security is usually skeptical at the thought of more guns on the station and there isn't a regular HoS player who would give up his speshul lazor even if it meant getting an AEG or Xray.

If you're this gun hoe on removing RnD just delete the machines and turn it into a break room or something.

Aside from bluespace tomatoes for bluespace tech this is unfathomably retarded. I never really bothered to learn rnd but there has to be a better way to balance it than by adding seemingly unrelated and arbitrary plant and genetics requirements.

There's a proper feedback thread here also: https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6618

I like how the biggest complainers are complaining that R&D is now hard because their 5 years old guides don't work anymore, honk. It's faster than before to get everything to 5.
There has been a list of high level items on wiki before the remake even got merged. I'll still be adding and changing some of the levels after seeing how much people are actually getting those high levels. So far I've seen helpful people getting high levels much easier than before. They're leaving R&D and go and upgrade different parts of the station and those places help R&D in return. Old rude scientists just sit in R&D and whine because they're stuck after getting everything up to 5. So everything is working well right now.

About some of those weird high levels: I agree that some of them are really weird (like the magboots) and those are the ones I'll most likely be changing after I get something better in there. But I think there are no items (at least important ones) that require those levels at the moment so it's not anything gamebreaking that you can't get those levels. Those really high levels are supposed to be something you get once in a while, not something you get every round after sitting 10 minutes in R&D room. And the reason I wanted to spread out all the levels up to 6-7 was to spread out the items more. You used to be able to unlock everything if you just got diamonds since basically all items were available once you had materials 7. Now they're more spread out and need other levels high.

It's also funny how Geist, one of the rudest R&D players and with the "I'll always do it alone" mindset, is complaining about a change that requires helping others, honk

Helping others isn't an issue, it's fixing everything by adding unnecessary steps, assumingly doubling the "effort" by adding RNG and adding items that makes no sense to the governing tech tree that's the problem. So a competent botanist can basically nearly max research in the same amount of time science could before the fix from what smittn wrote with the blessings of RNJesus. There was no problem to be fix so science is now at the hands of genetics and botany along with miners; I left my feedback in the topic provided and the update is plain terrible because I can wager Science will be setting up their own botany lab in R&D.

Also this topic was originally for help on what items bumps past the levels I was stuck at, it just evolved into a feedback topic from the input of other people along the way from the sheer force of this slow train wreck that is a fix.

Having people make new guides to get the levels up is a good thing, no problems in that. I'll be updating wiki as I'm making changes. I agree that botany has a bit too many items at the moment and I will try to spread them out even more. Ideally there would be several ways of getting the high levels which is why I'm soon trying to add other items to engineering tech so that it doesn't depend completely on genetics doing or not doing their job. I know it's not perfect yet and I'm not going to leave it as it is now but so far it's showing some of the good sides I was hoping it to. Science is again helping the station and actually having an incentive to do so, botany got some things that it can try and get to help others more and overall R&D is now a lot less sitting alone in R&D and getting every possible item in game.

as long as I don't have to rely on science it's fine I guess

Luke Cox wrote:

PKPenguin321 wrote:WHAT

pooping out infinite guns and autocloners takes EFFORT now????????

I AM GOBSMACKED

There's a such thing as a healthy balance between the syringe gun days and over the top nerfs like this, PK

honestly i don't think it's that crazy
science has easily been the most powerful thing on the station for years
you can't honestly say it didn't have something like this coming

why the fuck is it extra-departmental cooperation? why not intra-departmental? make the other labs that scientists actually have access to play a role in r&d instead of a bunch of stoners who may or may not even have signed up at all

Ricotez wrote:why the fuck is it extra-departmental cooperation? why not intra-departmental? make the other labs that scientists actually have access to play a role in r&d instead of a bunch of stoners who may or may not even have signed up at all

Sweet lord couldn't had been said any better than this, XenoBio should be contributed to Bio and depending on the type of slime can act as a wildcard to other governing tech. Granted it contradicts my "RNG = bullshit effort" it makes better sense than plants.

Xenobio gives bio 6 and 7 with potions, so that's already in. Engineering is what i'm having issues with since to get NV Huds i need a full set of genetic powers.

I refuse to turn in minerals until like the 25 minute mark because it takes so long to get the ORM upgraded now

Scientists bitch about it, sure, but I refuse to waste my time on half the reward I would have normally had by that point

Takeguru wrote:I refuse to turn in minerals until like the 25 minute mark because it takes so long to get the ORM upgraded now

Scientists bitch about it, sure, but I refuse to waste my time on half the reward I would have normally had by that point

Doesn't that just end up with the other miners turning in stuff and the nerds just ignoring you?

Yeah, but when the ORM is finally upgraded I can basically buy out the vendor

Don't need much more than that, Hyper KA and night vision mesons are just icing

Takeguru wrote:Yeah, but when the ORM is finally upgraded I can basically buy out the vendor

Don't need much more than that, Hyper KA and night vision mesons are just icing

Fair enough.

We should go back to the times before the ORM could even be upgraded :^)

Bring back old crusher.

The refinery is still there in the outpost, still works even

I'd go back to it if I didn't have to haul a locker full of resources across the station to be stolen en route

Takeguru wrote:I refuse to turn in minerals until like the 25 minute mark because it takes so long to get the ORM upgraded now

Scientists bitch about it, sure, but I refuse to waste my time on half the reward I would have normally had by that point

How about you gather a few bits of every material and then return asap (~before minute 15)? That's the way I used to mine, ORM upgrade status be damned since you won't get a lot out of it either way with such small amounts of minerals. But the scientists surely will kiss your feet for bringing them everything they need for max upgrades that early into the round... which, in turn, will help you when you bring home the motherload a little later.

Pretty much what action said. If you get me like 1 uranium and 2-4 diamonds as RnD I will fucking love you and you'll have femto upgrades in the ORM for the rest of the round. I literally don't really care about anything else just GET THOSE FUKKEN DIAMONDS

Yeah, but returning to the station is such a hassle

I need to like, ride the shuttle twice and buckle in, only to go back and do it again

I want the refinery to be used again.

I figure the best way to solve this whole mess is to give the E.X.P.E.R.I-MENTOR an actual purpose, work coder magic on the thing to make it have a decent chance of upgrading a item's orgin up.

Fuck the plants and genetics power nonsense, this way science gets a reasonable retarded nerf which forces a RNG "effort" and shit can start making sense again.

For instance, upgrade a nanomanip and there's a chance one of the tech origin might increase so you can get a tasty picomanip and so on. The concept of building off of an item basically.

srifenbyxp wrote:I figure the best way to solve this whole mess is to give the E.X.P.E.R.I-MENTOR an actual purpose, work coder magic on the thing to make it have a decent chance of upgrading a item's orgin up.

FULL CIRCLE

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srifenbyxp wrote:I figure the best way to solve this whole mess is to give the E.X.P.E.R.I-MENTOR an actual purpose, work coder magic on the thing to make it have a decent chance of upgrading a item's orgin up.

Fuck the plants and genetics power nonsense, this way science gets a reasonable retarded nerf which forces a RNG "effort" and shit can start making sense again.

For instance, upgrade a nanomanip and there's a chance one of the tech origin might increase so you can get a tasty picomanip and so on. The concept of building off of an item basically.

You keep spouting this RNG meme. Where is the RNG in this?
Also the experimentor is unironically the worst thing that ever happened to R&D, and is the perfect example of why old R&D was a steaming pile of shit. All you do is hide in your lab and come out 15 minutes later with 50 bohs, adrenals, guns etc etc. Such fun, such balance :^)

RNG meme with the E.X.P.E.R.I-MENTOR is only conforming towards the Genetics/Botany wonky shit towards research if it's actually going to be put into practice, if genetics and botany doesn't play RNG game with mutations then maybe im pants on head retarded.

If I had it my way I say revert and leave it as such, as long as miners give science materials there's always going to be a way to max research under 15 minutes.

*edit besides that bit this thread had completely derailed from it's original purpose.

Botany and genetics RNG is nothing like the experimentor. Experimentor lets you up the origin of any item in the game. Botany and genetics lets you work towards a fixed and clear target.

The whole point of the change was to make R&D less mindlessly easy to do in 10 minutes, and more dependent on other human beans. From all the complaining, that goal has been achieved. All that needs fixing is specific items and tech levels.

I both like and dislike the new update. I am relatively new to begin with, and could never find an up-to-date guide for RnD anyway before the update, so it would roughly take me half an hour anyways. After the update I find it takes me a little bit longer, but not that longer. The again, I am still relatively new to science, and just recently learned about Mecha Syringe guns, and how OP they were.

I do think that RnD seems too dependent on Botany, and maybe some things should be changed around to make them less of an important factor. Also the genetics is the only thing I have a question about. Does it require ANY superpower, or does it have to be a specific one? I don't believe that genetics (a medbay-science part of the game) should give anything towards engineering, but considering how useless Engineering is for late game, and special items are very few for them, something else should replace it, or engineering should get a buff, and get something from engineering to take over the Engi research.

But what do I know? I've only been on the server for about three months now?
Also first post on the forums!

I'm mostly looking at the feedback thread for the actual feedback and writing my comments there but since a new player commented here I might as well answer. I appreciate comments from new players since one of the objectives for me was to make getting the early levels easier. Though if you compare doing the old R&D with a guide and new without a guide the new one is slower but now it should be much easier to get the levels high without looking at guides or knowing some secret items you have to decon to get past some levels.

Things like changing specific items later is an easy thing to do once the system is working properly. I'll be doing small changes to make the early levels even smoother and also change the high level items to fit there better, also adding new items there.

The genetics syringe explanation has been a bit vague so I'll add some more about it on the wiki but it basically is 1 level for 1 power. There are 6 powers so it goes from 1 to 6. Each disability in the syringe will also lower the level by 1 so pure power syringes work the best. Soonish there will be another way of getting engineering tech added so it's not only those lazy geneticists. Later hopefully even more ways if we can add some item to engineering, which would make sense, honk.
I'm also updating the wikipage so it should help with the high levels always.

Lati wrote:I'm mostly looking at the feedback thread for the actual feedback and writing my comments there but since a new player commented here I might as well answer. I appreciate comments from new players since one of the objectives for me was to make getting the early levels easier. Though if you compare doing the old R&D with a guide and new without a guide the new one is slower but now it should be much easier to get the levels high without looking at guides or knowing some secret items you have to decon to get past some levels.

Things like changing specific items later is an easy thing to do once the system is working properly. I'll be doing small changes to make the early levels even smoother and also change the high level items to fit there better, also adding new items there.

The genetics syringe explanation has been a bit vague so I'll add some more about it on the wiki but it basically is 1 level for 1 power. There are 6 powers so it goes from 1 to 6. Each disability in the syringe will also lower the level by 1 so pure power syringes work the best. Soonish there will be another way of getting engineering tech added so it's not only those lazy geneticists. Later hopefully even more ways if we can add some item to engineering, which would make sense, honk.
I'm also updating the wikipage so it should help with the high levels always.

Maybe make it so disabilities give some but powers give more?