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+--- Thread: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) (/showthread.php?tid=24789)
How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Drunkangel - 12-23-2025
I'm going to start off by saying I have a personal hatred for torpedoes and I feel like they encourage people to act in ways that are non-conductive to fun and interactive rounds. I'm trying to write this from a productive view to encourage a healthier use of torpedoes, but imagine I'm writing this with a doctor still treating my broken bones from a recent torpedo.
How do the torpedoes work?
On underwater map you spend 10,000 credits, you aim it at the station at any distance, you hit it a few times and walk away. A large chunk of the station suddenly is removed, people nearby to the explosion may die. People have to repair that part of the station or suffer a massive hole being in it. It's TTV scale damage without ever having to get close.
What happens next?
For every round I have seen somebody follow up a torpedo with a impending attack on the crew members who are curiously looking at the stations newest crater. Or using it as a distraction or as a exclamation mark of blowing up medbay after being told their ugly disease is chronic. I feel like I have two or three rounds where a antagonist gracefully escalates from one torpedo, to twelve torpedoes. If we're lucky with a syndicate announcement 38 minutes before hand. Damaging the station massively with leaving proactive crew and security the two options of
A: Think of the most amusing taunts they can over radio
B: Wander around in a slow submarine pod in the vague direction the latest torpedo came from and hope your lucky enough to first find, then defeat a heavily armed traitor who likely spent all of their actual traitor currency on helpful tools to kill you right here and now.
The issues
They're cheap, they're easy to use, they're safe to use so you don't risk "wasting an antagonist round". They leave a massive search radius of possible locations and you can literally be on the other side of the map before security gets a chance to scan 1/4th of it. Grinding credits is comically easy and after seeing such a big new hole on the station that's explicitly Your Fault. It's only natural for a player to simply back off and slip Karl a clean 10k to do it again. Credit based syndicate gear also leads antagonists to grinding without escalating or interacting for long periods of time before suddenly and incredibly violently entering the situation (which is a slightly different but not unrelated discussion).
When I hear the station has bit hit by a torpedo, or that a antagonist has a torpedo, or hear the word torpedo I don't get excited or invested or interested even if I am security. I just think "Oh no. It's going to be a Torpedo Round now" and brace for the next torpedo and only breath a sigh of relief if they actually show up and probably blast me against the hull with a shotgun
I don't think they're very fun right now. I think they encourage players to interact with RP in a way that is counteractive to the over-all enjoyment of a round.
Possible solutions I've heard/thought of.
People were talking about how to make them work better in the discord, more expensive, limited range, less powerful, make them cost TC instead, be able to tie clowns to them. But I feel like the best solution is just a hard limit.
Only being able to buy one or two or three or even up to five means that you know at some point the explosions will stop (you can even count them!) and a syndicate agent will storm in trying to take your lunch money. Maybe they'll bring more bombs, that's fine, it'll be ones they have to carry in themselves.
I think sadly just making them more expensive just means people will grind longer before sending them (which is worse).
A TC cost will make them more unique, a traitor item only for water maps. It will also be a form of a limit and mean they have to sacrifice firepower in other ways.
We could also remove them... but I mean... that's just my opinion (I wouldn't miss them)
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Chasu - 12-23-2025
A couple of brainstormed ideas that may or may not work in combination with eachother:
1. Give torpedoes a chance to explode on the spot if triggered incorrectly
2. Make a traitor-only safe launch tool that costs TC (handheld trigger device OR handheld thingamajig that builds a torpedo launch station facing a specified direction)
3. Rework torpedo mechanics to determine the impact tile/area beforehand, have some kind of sound/sprite/effect at the target site pre-impact to allow for counterplay by the victims
3.1 underwater stations should have radars, shouldn't they? Make a station announcement when a torpedo is launched (maybe including a rough target area?)
4. Make them less accurate
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - daswasme - 12-23-2025
Okay so my two cents in this are:
Depending on how hard it would be to implement, some kind of impact announcement with the direction launched paired with an action bar launching action. Like 7-15 seconds, just a loose guess with like the action being around 5.
Some kind of risk reward with safe vs risky but faster launches. Both could carry risk of going off target or blowing up, just a higher chance of blowing up on the faster launch.
Some kind of traitor credit buy item that mitigates those issues.
A buy limit or shop cooldown like maybe 1-3 then you have to wait to buy more. You could still do a torpedo hell launch, would just be at the end of round.
Custom payloads, you got those just add water creature capsules, load them in and smash a few bulkheads then dump them out into the station.
And so on.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Lord_earthfire - 12-23-2025
To be honest, they are more work than TTV's.
But once you achieve enough money, they are too easily spamable.
I personally would say give them a buy limit of ~3. That should deal with the worst use case.
(12-23-2025, 10:31 AM)Drunkangel Wrote: Credit based syndicate gear also leads antagonists to grinding without escalating or interacting for long periods of time before suddenly and incredibly violently entering the situation (which is a slightly different but not unrelated discussion).
That's a good thing. Gear you work for pushes the destruction later into the round (so you can use the time to escalate, duh). Later in the round personell is also more prepared to deal with antags (sec and crew having access to better gear, station being stocked with materials).
Also, most importantly, it does not lock all the fun toys behind traitors so other antags (in this case spiefs, once the outpost is unlocked) can switch around their rounds.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG - 12-23-2025
I liked the time back when I was a super noob to this game where some guy tricked me into pressing a mechcomp button that sent like an infinite amount of torpedoes to the station. If you give torpedoes a limit, please make sure to keep that limit to RP only. I don't see a whole lot of torpedo spam happening on classic and I like bombs a lot so there's no need on that server.
(12-23-2025, 10:45 AM)Chasu Wrote: A couple of brainstormed ideas that may or may not work in combination with eachother:
1. Give torpedoes a chance to explode on the spot if triggered incorrectly
2. Make a traitor-only safe launch tool that costs TC (handheld trigger device OR handheld thingamajig that builds a torpedo launch station facing a specified direction)
3. Rework torpedo mechanics to determine the impact tile/area beforehand, have some kind of sound/sprite/effect at the target site pre-impact to allow for counterplay by the victims
3.1 underwater stations should have radars, shouldn't they? Make a station announcement when a torpedo is launched (maybe including a rough target area?)
4. Make them less accurate
1 and 4 just makes it a horrible pain to do anything with torpedos and I don't think the solution to an un-fun mechanic is to make it less fun for both parties.
with 3, I'm surprised torpedoes don't already spawn a target like some azone missile-type-objects do? They should probably add that so you know when a huge explosion is going your way, it'd be funnier.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Roman - 12-24-2025
I think there's been some good discussion here so far!
I too have fallen victim to just chillin doing what im doing, then 45 mins into the round with no warning hearing a couple of station-rocking booms approaching before suddenly my corpse is pasted on the wall and my gibs float down into the trench. It doesnt feel good lmao
Having said that, I think that more often than not it isn't a problem specific to torpedoes rather it's that there was 0 escalation and noone saw it coming. Massive waves of 10+ are a different issue, I agree and I'll talk more on that. Theoretically though, the exact same situation could happen via someone dragging a crate full of TTV's into space and straight-up yeeting them at the station (similarly, random minute-80 no-warning TTVs are an issue but not for this thread lol). If there was adequate escalation by Agent Bombs McGee who'd started with smoke beakers and worked their way up, cackling on the radio and making ominous announcements all the way I would actually be fine with that.
The difference though is that if you had enough money you can buy infinite(?) torpedoes whereas TTVs you are limited by the number of valves you can get your grubby traitor mitts on. Another difference is that for TTVs you actually have to spend time in toxins where someone can walk in and catch you while making them where torpedoes you can leave the station at minute 1, grow money trees (another issue I have that's not specifically for this thread :P) for half an hour in a trench derelict and never see another spacer before deleting half the station.
As such, I completely agree that limiting the number of torpedoes is a good step to bring them in line with TTV-level threats. I'd suggest making it the same amount as there are normally transfer valves (like 4-6?) Removing them outright I dont think it the answer, especially on Nadir (and to an extent, Neon, but its so small that TTVs are proportionally more devastating) as there's no toxins lab for an alternative. I'm not sold on making them TC only as that'd mean they're accessible from minute 1 and would mean being able to walk in to medbay, pull out your PDA and spawn multiple TTV-level bombs (in the most egregious case).
I also really like @Chasu's point 3.1 of a radar-warning-esque announcement à la salvager/nukie drop pods. I am of the opinion that announcements are always good for the story of the round as it keeps even the most solitary screen-glued geneticist more informed and involved. I've no perspective on how difficult it would be to code an impact zone but that would be nice too!
As for there being a near-zero chance of getting caught while buying them and setting up, I've been thinking and all I can suggest is moving where they're bought on-station. Maybe Geoff Honkington moonlights as an arms dealer for those with the right codeword, or there's a new shady owl with a fedora (iykyk) hanging out in the owlery/aviary that only speaks to agents.
TLDR: IMO make torpedoes in line with TTVs by limiting them to the same amount as there are transfer valves and bring the source of them on station so theres some chance of getting caught
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG - 12-24-2025
(12-24-2025, 01:39 AM)Roman Wrote: TLDR: IMO make torpedoes in line with TTVs by limiting them to the same amount as there are transfer valves and bring the source of them on station so theres some chance of getting caught
TTVs can be scanned and mass produced for dirt cheap, virtually infinitely, though.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Roman - 12-24-2025
(12-24-2025, 01:48 AM)GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG Wrote:(12-24-2025, 01:39 AM)Roman Wrote: TLDR: IMO make torpedoes in line with TTVs by limiting them to the same amount as there are transfer valves and bring the source of them on station so theres some chance of getting caught
TTVs can be scanned and mass produced for dirt cheap, virtually infinitely, though.
WELP so you can. Learn something new every day eh! Even if we then brought it in line with the availability of plasma tanks, including all the subs, toxins' and engineering's that would be like 30(?) on oshan so wouldnt solve the problem. Alas! I stand by my point though that bringing it in line with the number of valves available at roundstart would help.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Taylorstar - 12-24-2025
I love torpedoes and hope they don't get too heavily nerfed or made so undesirable or unrewarding to use that they become a dead and abandoned mechanic. I would really love it if torpedoes getting fired would not only trigger an announcement but came with GPS.
This way if someone has a stock pile of say 20 the moment you fire one a beacon has been lit people know where they are being fired from and how many more are in play if they pick up a GPS tracker, this helps at least remove some of that 0 warning / 0 escalation that even I have fallen foul of doing and more than that it causes who ever is planning on firing them to plan and expect a counter attack in addition to a way of been tracked for any amount of torpedoes they have.
I don't believe a cap on the amount of torpedoes would be a good or effective solution to any problem with torpedoes because instead of torpedoes people would switch to 40mm grenades which can be just as devastating, easier to hide and FAR more mobile and arguably better economically in some cases and is available on all maps all of the time as oppose to only water maps.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Lord_earthfire - 12-24-2025
(12-24-2025, 07:15 AM)Taylorstar Wrote: I don't believe a cap on the amount of torpedoes would be a good or effective solution to any problem with torpedoes because instead of torpedoes people would switch to 40mm grenades which can be just as devastating, easier to hide and FAR more mobile and arguably better economically in some cases and is available on all maps all of the time as oppose to only water maps.
with grenades, there is at least a pod you can scan for. (other pods can track personell and pods in a rather large area). This is keeping it in check.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - Drunkangel - 12-24-2025
A loud announcement and visual warning to where it's hitting does sound exciting, even just getting a GPS coordinate of the launch would give a much warmer trail for people to follow and give activate things for people on the station to do. Launching multiple from one place becomes more dangerous and by trying to find the launch location in a pod you can get a feeling of "chasing them off" to some extent. Or the syndicate agent can use the now hot location for a ambush.
I feel like comparing the torpedoes to pod grenades is a little bit oranges to apples even if they are both credits based items that blow things up. In fair part because torpedoes are only on water maps with submarines not pods. And the existence of one doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change torpedoes for the better if we can figure out a solid way to do so.
RE: How to make torpedoes more fun? (Probably a limited number) - GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG - 12-24-2025
Being able to just track where the torpedoes are sent from is a way better solution than adding a limit. I'm fine with this proposed change because it'd make it more interesting and not ruin the fun for the people sending the bombs.