How do we make artifact bombs better?

[Flourish]

I think artifact bombs (the explodey kind in particular) are pretty unfun. I disabled the most devastating variant of them earlier today, because it sucks that rounds are cut short by them, but I was wondering if people had any ideas on how to make them more intentional and not just "whoops someone activated an artbomb and they didn't know how to or didn't have enough time to mass eject it, and now a large part of the station is gone". 

Some ideas that other admins brought up included:

• A station announcement when the devastating kind of artbombs are activated (this would be like how canbombs have a priming message)
  
• To make up for the removal of devastating artbombs, artbomb items (so you can pick them up and maybe put them in your backpack) that are weaker (think the old syndicate pipebombs, probably) that have a more intentional activating mechanism 
  
• Just remove them from the artifact pool
  

Please share your ideas and thoughts on how we can make artbombs better!

[aft2001]

Perhaps the bomb should be very clearly unstable but *not* be on a timer immediately upon activation, as though activating it simply arms it? Hitting it or something would then start the timer. But, I personally am not a fan of bombs so I'd be fine with them being removed. But, as a middle ground, I think this could work.

As an alternative/addition to the above suggestion, perhaps make them EXTREMELY finnicky? You need to get a very precise activation in order to arm them, and if you do too much (radiation, x-ray, brute, temperature, etc.), then it'll just break. Think an alien low-yield nuke or something. If you goof and break it, it blows up but more so on the scale of a welding fuel pipe bomb. If you manage to activate it, congratulations! You now have a small canbomb! Possibly additional requirements to actually triggering the bomb might be warranted but I'm not sure.

[KikiMofo]

Make them bigger

[aloe]

I gotta admit, I like the big artbombs existing. I would like to see them around so that traitors can use them on occasion, because fighting someone for control of a bulky object while you both have 30 seconds before you explode is honestly really fun. Still, to make them more noticeable/manageable I'd suggest:

1. Scale the range of the bomb activation noise with the range of the bomb. Sure, rookie scientists can't be trusted to use an ejector, but surely someone on station will know. If a bomb is going to explode half the station, make sure half the station hears it. This is sort of the same fix as the announcement thing, but I prefer the noise to a full announcement.
   
2. Also scale the detonation timer with the volume. Big bombs can be spaced more easily, as more people will have time to respond, and small bombs can still serve as cautionary tales to artifact technicians.
   
3. Finally, blacklist touch/borg touch as activation methods. People will often go around just tapping on artifacts even without understanding them (as evidenced by the massive damage a borger left in the halls can do), and having a bomb armed in the middle of the station because a random crewmember tapped on a statue isn't really fun for anyone. People who have a greater understanding of how arts activate and what they can do will still be able to activate them via other methods, but hopefully if they know how to activate them, they also know how to space them (or how to drag them to center station mass if they're a baddie, I guess).
   

[Frank_Stein]

I think Maybe an art bomb should require additional artifacts to activate it, for instance a battery one.

That way there's some assembly to it, making it more intentional and also giving a long term goal for traitor scientists

[GORE]

I gotta admit, I like the big artbombs existing. I would like to see them around so that traitors can use them on occasion, because fighting someone for control of a bulky object while you both have 30 seconds before you explode is honestly really fun. Still, to make them more noticeable/manageable I'd suggest:

1. Scale the range of the bomb activation noise with the range of the bomb. Sure, rookie scientists can't be trusted to use an ejector, but surely someone on station will know. If a bomb is going to explode half the station, make sure half the station hears it. This is sort of the same fix as the announcement thing, but I prefer the noise to a full announcement.
   
2. Also scale the detonation timer with the volume. Big bombs can be spaced more easily, as more people will have time to respond, and small bombs can still serve as cautionary tales to artifact technicians.
   
3. Finally, blacklist touch/borg touch as activation methods. People will often go around just tapping on artifacts even without understanding them (as evidenced by the massive damage a borger left in the halls can do), and having a bomb armed in the middle of the station because a random crewmember tapped on a statue isn't really fun for anyone. People who have a greater understanding of how arts activate and what they can do will still be able to activate them via other methods, but hopefully if they know how to activate them, they also know how to space them (or how to drag them to center station mass if they're a baddie, I guess).
   

1. and 2. 100% agree on my part.

- - -

3. hard no!
Look - use a monkey on it first; that is the way of science. Be cautious. Do not touch everything by hand.

There is examination text for borgers...and after having played enough it is quite unlikely you'll get yourself borged by accident.

Also is half the fun of being an artifact science traitor to put those touch artifacts with negative aspects to good use.
But non-traitor scientists still have the fun time to figure out how to not kill themselves by accident through an injector artifact.

[zjdtmkhzt]

3. hard no!
Look - use a monkey on it first; that is the way of science. Be cautious. Do not touch everything by hand.

There is examination text for borgers...and after having played enough it is quite unlikely you'll get yourself borged by accident.

Also is half the fun of being an artifact science traitor to put those touch artifacts with negative aspects to good use.
But non-traitor scientists still have the fun time to figure out how to not kill themselves by accident through an injector artifact.

I think they clearly just meant removing the touch triggers for bomb artifacts.

I think removing touch triggers devastating bomb artifacts, giving them a station wide scary sound, and making it so that you can tell them apart from regular bomb artifacts would be good!
That would mean less accidental activations, and if you still had one, the entire station would know, because of the global distinctive noise.
It would also mean that a traitor could know if a thing would just blow up a small area or if it would be a big threat, so they could plan around it before activating it.

Also, devastating bombs already have a longer timer than regular ones, I believe. Maybe they could have an even longer one?
We have an old comment on that part that states that the timer was so long, noone would be aware it was a bomb anymore. Maybe we could give bombs that are currently ticking down some kind of animation exclusive to them, like shaking or something!

Actually, the issue with a global noise is that people would still not know where the bomb is, so they'd have no way to find it if it were hidden, really. So going with an announcement with the general location sounds better?
Then people could go there similar to the nuke gamemode, identify which artifact is the bomb via its unique animation and then try to dispose of/disarm it.

[zjdtmkhzt]

EDIT: Actually, it seems like explosive artbombs already can't have carbon or silicon touch as a trigger.

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

Perhaps artbombs could be a little more than regular explosions? None of these suggestions have to do more than harm anyone caught in the radius and introduce some unique disaster hazards for the crew to survive and clean up. Here's what I thought of:



Radioactive Spores
* The objects anchor themselves randomly in a large area around it.
* Capable of spreading slowly growing fungus that is radioactive when touched or stood next to.
* Can destroy by smashing with any objects, but the leftovers must be handled and removed with care.

Ice Age
* Coats all floor tiles in a sheet of ice.
* Freezes doors shut.
* Cold enough to cause burn if dressed lightly, but not very quickly.

Electrical Shockwave
* Overloads and destroys APCs.
* Breaks vending machines.
* Turns off SMES units.
* Shorts cyber organs.
* Shocks people caught in range.

Sound Wave
* Shakes the station.
* Removes tiles. 
* Tips vending machines. 
* Knocks people over.
* Shatters windows.
* Deafens.

[zjdtmkhzt]

I made a PR that should hopefully address these issues: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/3361

Also, I love your ideas, Kamikaze, I might implement this in a future PR.
Especially the ice one. Maybe it could freeze people very close by into statues, cool the air a lot, ice everywhere, sounds pretty neat!

[Katzen]

I'd like to see a (non moving) blackhole come out of one. It wouldn't be more destructive than some of the old bombs, not sure about the new ones.

[zjdtmkhzt]

I'd like to see a (non moving) blackhole come out of one. It wouldn't be more destructive than some of the old bombs, not sure about the new ones.

Blackhole bomb artifacts already exist?