/tg/Station 13

Should mechs be buffed, nerfed, or do you think they should just stay the same?
In my personal opinion, I think they should be buffed. They take way too long to make and with little to no payoff. Mechs like the ripley are too slow to accomplish anything, while the odysseus is practically useless and fragile, seeing as you need to GET syringes instead of the mech making them itself.
If you chose an option in the poll, please tell us why you think you are right. I would be interested to hear.

Ripley is far, far too slow to be useful, ought to be ghetto-constructable (lolno) and/or have a combat conversion kit (Traitor item?). Maybe start Robotics with a set of Ripley boards?

Oddysseus is absurdly powerful, if you know how to use it - I believe slime extract? That one 'medicine' that gives huge oxyloss damage? Alternately, three sleepers and become a kidnapmobile.

Gygaxes and Durands are round-endingly powerful, if they're assembled and the pilot gets valid. They're also endgame material, far more so than stationbuster bombs or 4power or similar endgame job-specific content.
HONKers are terrifying griff engines, balanced by being the most fragile of all mechs. If you remember your earmuffs and circlestrafe, you can take a HONK down with a toolbox, let alone ion rifle, axe, laser...

Ripley should be buffed, others are fine.

As a mech builder/pilots whose gone valid on antags and people ordering me to get out I can assure that that Gygaxes and Durands are FINE. Easily counted by a single ion rifle,x-raygun,laser canon, or just proper teamwork and a few e-guns.
Gygax
*Moderately fast
*Lacking in armor
*Can mount any combat weapon on it.
*Can be taken down easily by a few people or just one person provided they don't fight it head on.
Suggested change is not allowing weapons such has missle launchers,grenade launchers,laser cannons(not guns), and pulse canons being mount as those are suitable for Durands,Phazons, and Marauder, the latter two not existing. Plus it's a SEC Mech so lets give a security style paint job.
Durand
*Slower than run speed
*Heavy armor
*Costs a lot to make
*Bane of all antags
*Can mount all weapons as it seems to be a military issues mech typically made for serious threats or if the RD hates everyone
Suggested change would be none considering it slower due the armor, bigger and bulkier so it can support better weapons, etc.
Phazon
*You will never get to make this unless the admin think you can handle this shit.
Marauder
*Apparently getting all the mechs toys from the arcade machines and then filling out an order form to Centcom and net you one these babies.
Maulers
*Syndicate Gygax rarely used
Serpahs
*Syndicate Marauder,NEVER used due the extreme cost
Suggested change would be none considering it slower due the armor, bigger and bulkier so it can support better weapons, etc.
All these mechs are the combat mechs and literally only 3 are ever gainable, 2 by materials and RD being good and 1 is Nuke Ops only,the rest are admin spawned and usually never see the light of day so fuck you.
Ripley
*Was used to mauler in boat loads of ore for mining
*Slow but good on mining to the laid back conditions
*Drill was robust
*Aliens reference
Never take on Xenos in these fuckers because it can be taken down EASILY, due the mining update as well has made these guys impractical due the speed. Suggestion is give them speed of a Durand or Gygax and mount mining equipment that can take on the mining mobs with ease.
Odysseus
*Kidnappings is the only use for this
*Can be a machine of death in the right hands, has a chem mixer in it
*Fast as fuck, but can't hurt anything
*Damn you fast.
Suggested change is maybe add a weaker version of the mech punch? No stun or knock back, maybe 15-20 brute damage, because anyone whose used a mech knows that stunning and punching a bitch in a mech spells the end for you.
Honk
*I will delete these from RD servers if I see them made
*Why would you make this?
*Honk
Suggested change is honk. It's balanced as fuck.
So in the end most of the mechs are reasonably balanced or in the needle of some overhaul so they can be useful to the department that actually USES them.

Mecha versions of regular tools should be vastly superior because they're heavier, industrial verisons of normal things. IIRC the extinguisher holds more, the RCD is like, infinite? and the drills, well, drill like 3 tiles at a time (if this isn't the case anymore fuck whoever changed it.)

The real reason you should get in a mech is less about the armor and more about the ability to do extremely heavy lifting. It's slower, sure, but it can also do the work twice as fast just by efficiency. It's also big and deadly and dangerous which is why it should be operated by trained professionals!

paprika wrote:It's slower, sure, but it can also do the work twice as fast just by efficiency.

Only if you never go anywhere. Seriously, Ripley is utterly useless for anything but drilling walls in close proximity.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:

paprika wrote:It's slower, sure, but it can also do the work twice as fast just by efficiency.

Only if you never go anywhere. Seriously, Ripley is utterly useless for anything but drilling walls in close proximity.

Cargo here, Ripley would be god-tier cratepushing if it wasn't so godawful slow. I could get the entirety of metamaint crates with one, if only it wasn't MULE-tier slow.

It also can't use mining scanner

Psyentific wrote:Cargo here, Ripley would be god-tier cratepushing if it wasn't so godawful slow. I could get the entirety of metamaint crates with one, if only it wasn't MULE-tier slow.

That's the thing. Anything that is slow sucks at everything except combat if it has OP weapons/armor. Even then it kinda sucks.

Ripley was ignored in the mining change. It needs a speed buff, ability to mount a kinetic accelerator, and an automatic mining scanner. Only then would this mech be considered for mining work again. In one round as Roboticist, I built one for each of the two miners and left them inside the cargo office. An hour later, I came back to find that they were still sitting there...unused.

Odysseus should be able to synthesize meds. Honestly, even medibots can do it, and real sleepers can. Likewise synthesize syringes.

Gun Hog's got a lot of the key facts about Ripleys. A stronger, mounted kinetic accelerator would go a long way just itself.

Honestly, I've used Durands on the shuttle before and they're not that hard to kill because you can hit any mech as fast as you can click, and mechs can't exactly turn on a dime. In fact when you get into melee range with one it can't shoot, it just pushes into you.

Kelenius wrote:It also can't use mining scanner

What if for mechs that an optional thing to add to them was to add a mining scanner so we could build mechs with mining scanners.

be able to stack metal armor on mechs to make them ugly and more resistant to damage

Cipher3 wrote:Odysseus should be able to synthesize meds. Honestly, even medibots can do it, and real sleepers can. Likewise synthesize syringes.

Gun Hog's got a lot of the key facts about Ripleys. A stronger, mounted kinetic accelerator would go a long way just itself.

Honestly, I've used Durands on the shuttle before and they're not that hard to kill because you can hit any mech as fast as you can click, and mechs can't exactly turn on a dime. In fact when you get into melee range with one it can't shoot, it just pushes into you.

Have you ever used the harm intent on a Durand before? It is so robust that you can take out three hulks all punching you at once, this goes for the gygax as well.Might not be able to shoot that well but getting punch by a mech is a big owie.

The ripley would also need a way to fix itself easily but not be overpowered, since the monsters are balanced on a human dodging their attacks, while a ripley takes ages to move or even to turn, and so has to soak the damage.

I suggest a module that converts metal in the ripley to heal it.

Neerti wrote:The ripley would also need a way to fix itself easily but not be overpowered, since the monsters are balanced on a human dodging their attacks, while a ripley takes ages to move or even to turn, and so has to soak the damage.

I suggest a module that converts metal in the ripley to heal it.

Repair Droid is what you want.

Repair droid needs minerals, however. My idea is to fill in the gap but not be too strong to invalidate the repair droid.

I'd like to make ripleys better, I've just been drained of motivation lately and the feature freeze is about to start again.

Go out of mech. Weld it.

Oh wow, self-repairs.

Actually repairing mechs is a good thing and having to stop to repair them isn't necessarily bad. When do you actually repair a mech anyway? Having to make yourself vulnerable to fix up your goliath death machine is a !feature! but I'd love for it to have an industrial kinetic accelerator or something. Something that works better in low pressure like the mining shotgun does so I can dungeon crawl and make swiss cheese out of those goliaths.

paprika wrote:Actually repairing mechs is a good thing and having to stop to repair them isn't necessarily bad. When do you actually repair a mech anyway? Having to make yourself vulnerable to fix up your goliath death machine is a !feature! but I'd love for it to have an industrial kinetic accelerator or something. Something that works better in low pressure like the mining shotgun does so I can dungeon crawl and make swiss cheese out of those goliaths.

IIRC it doe 30 damage so you could up the power on an industrial sized one and give it...70-100 damage? Slower reload time.

Ripleys just need to move as fast as aGygax, then they will be ridiculously good at wrecking everything.

FYI, ergo made ripleys better but tg is currently in feature freeze, so expect it towards the end of this month.

How exactly did he make them better? Faster speed, ability to use a scanner, better offensive potential...?

He made it so you can toggle a 'travel mode' that makes them faster but unable to use equipment and more vulnerable to damage.

Mechs need fewer features and options, not more. Shoulda just upped the speed of the RIPLEY.

Somehow, the thought of a unstunnable sanic speed clamping mech murderbonering the entire station when combat mechs are already cancer somehow was unappealing to me... which is why it's a toggle.

Plus, making it sanic 24/7 just takes away that "hardy working class mech" shtick.

Non-combat mechs don't need to be good at combat. They just need to be able to do whatever it is they're supposed to do.

So, the fast speed Ripley thing's been added, but... there's still no Mech Mining Scanner?

There's the speed toggle and an automatic mining scanner. It's part of the same pull request.

Neither have been merged, because we're in a feature freeze.

Why not we make the Riplies Cargo colored Gygaxes? Seriously just take away any thing allowing it to mount weapons,leg accumulators, built in mining scanner and creatable industrial kinetic accelerator. It won't cost diamonds, it won't mount weapons, it'll look cool, and be useful.

but what would happen to the DEATH RIPLEY?
How can I rule the station with an iron KILL CLAMP if the ripley becomes a child of gygaxes?

Ripley already looks cool... Pls don't bully.

I honestly made this because I was board and had been up all night, ~mining/cargo colored gygax~

It looks like shit and more like a combat mech than an industrial mech, which is why the ripley's blocky design works so well. It also has clamps.

It looks like a PIMPMECH3000 or something

Kelenius wrote:It looks like a PIMPMECH3000 or something

Meh, it looked like a good idea in theory.

A Mech Named Slickback

Can we get back on topic?

A really cool thing for the upgraded ripley would be as an alternative mount to the mining drill, have a Resonance cannon. Make it take huge research and crazy mats, but "fire" a cone of resonance in front of the mech. One tile away is one resonator field. 2 tiles away you have 3, 3 tiles away you have 5.

The idea being that on your first mining return trip, you upgrade to a ripley, and when you come back from your ripley trip, you get a resonance cannon and just DEVOUR the asteroid, and any monsters so foolish as to face you in honorable combat. A high tier exosuit speed boost module might help with that too, as ripleys are slower than molassas.

Random armour deflection on combat mechs is atrocious. The HP pool and inability to be stunned makes for absurd fire fights where if the mech comes out barely scratched or a smouldering wreck based on what might as well be a coin flip because: armour. I would prefer them being faster and have more health instead of rolling dice to kill godzilla.

Incomptinence wrote:Random armour deflection on combat mechs is atrocious. The HP pool and inability to be stunned makes for absurd fire fights where if the mech comes out barely scratched or a smouldering wreck based on what might as well be a coin flip because: armour. I would prefer them being faster and have more health instead of rolling dice to kill godzilla.

It's hardly rolling the dice to kill Godzilla, it's like rolling the dice to make sure you don't end up making stupid mistakes. I've used Gygax's and Durands to the levels of being a valid hunter and sec getting pissed at me and attacking when they asked me to exit. Anyway lasering a mech to death IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE, the difficulty of the mech depends on the weapons the mech has the how many are opposing it. My set up I typically use outright demolishes anyone short of a Ion,X-ray,Cannon, and Pulse rifle, and basically makes it tough on anyone fighting my mechs. Anyway we'll assume the mech is using a laser gun/cannon weapon and not a taser or a AC2, the latter two will STUN you and leave you open for attack, the former will damage you and won't stun unless you get critted. Now depending on if they use the laser build then 2-4 sec officers can level a gygax with lasers and 3-5 Sec officers can rekt a Durand, it's not hard. What would make it hard if they use a taser or even better an AC2, AC2 has low damage and will STUN you, not forgetting that it has 3 bullets that can take down more than one person which basically fucks you over. Now if you face the stun mechs then 1 ion rifle use will fucker over a Durand and Gygax and little to 2-3 shots. Last I check I got my durand broken in 2 shots from an Ion rifle, which luckily Sybil provides for you in the armory in case of a rouge mech. So in short it's all about team work and knowing what the mech is armed with rather than "OMG I CAN'T LASER A MECH BY MYSELF PLEASE FUCKING NERF THEM BECAUSE I REFUSE TO TRY AND COORDINATE AN ATTACK ON THE MECH, WAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Seriously, anyone saying mechs are OP REALLY need to reconsider that they require team work to take down and not silly one man army antics unless you are using an x-ray or ion rifle.

it is still able to attach grav catapults to oddysues right?
which makes if dangerous as fuck near every breach or open airlock
I think oddysues is kinda right but i think it supossed to be a support unit
which explains the syringe gun and chem scanner so it could like shoot down aliens with chloral hydrate from oddysues is everything rightbut the grav catapult

H.o.n.k -Its a Combat-Support unit since everything can be attached?
i guess it should be a Prank-unit with nonharmfull stuff like lube grenade etc
since poeple prefer a Gygax more since H.o.n.k can make poeple have seizures and being deaf
and than any kind of weapon which op as fuck
which gygax cany

Altough Gygax rarely happens with the New mining system
And the New lazier miners

Newminers aren't lazy, they're DEAD

iyaerP wrote:Newminers aren't lazy, they're DEAD

I've had one round out of the last 5 that didn't bring back mats and that was a monkey round.

RG4 with random deflection there is always a chance the teams you proscribe will do next to nothing. I have not complained about stunning mech weaponry of which I am fully aware. The silver bullet design of the ion rifle vs mechs frankly reminds me of thermals vs cloakers which is an atrocious state of affairs. Random deflection is just plain better on a higher hp pool the mechanic is flat out broken in this instance the variation is wild. I have seen sec teams take down mechs and I have seen them not and the biggest difference between the two outcomes is in logs of deflection since slow mechs don't dodge.

I wouldn't know. Only mech I ever piloted was Ripley - and it's a slow unwieldy shit.