Remove Flahers and Riot Launchers

[Huff H Law]

The riot launcher bug was fixed, it doesn't show you an overlay anymore so it doesn't lag you. It's also pretty fun to shoot people with it if you have no other lethal weapons available.

[Cogwerks]

Crash bugs: bad
Smokes being obnoxious as all hell: intended

[Sex_Robot]

I think the thing with the smoke launcher is.. well lets compare it to a gun and for the sake of argument lets call the gun a "bullet launcher"

The bullet launcher is there to give you a ranged attack that hits someone more than 1 square away from you/launch it with enough velocity to damage the fuck out of whoever it hits.

The smoke launcher is designed to launch smoke canisters further than can be thrown with being thrown by hand.

The top down view of SS13 means that anywhere you can see to launch, you can probably throw it that far as well...

[KikiMofo]

To be honest I'm one of the shit heads who love to steal the riot launchers from sec and shoot them all over the place at random people. So I want it to stay. It's really fun AND annoying.

[Walrus]

Keep riot launchers, people not using them correctly is not a good reason to remove them. If assistants are grabbing them you've already failed as an officer, use some of the useful gear like the portable flashers to prevent getting overrun by a single greyshirt.

Also, we should be able to remove a single smoke grenade from the ammo box and use it like a flashbang. There's plenty of times where it would be useful to break up a huge fight or whatever, it's just not worth lodging a 40mm shell in someone's chest by accident when you fire it into the crowd.

[Dr_Bee]

Keep riot launchers, people not using them correctly is not a good reason to remove them. If assistants are grabbing them you've already failed as an officer, use some of the useful gear like the portable flashers to prevent getting overrun by a single greyshirt.

Also, we should be able to remove a single smoke grenade from the ammo box and use it like a flashbang. There's plenty of times where it would be useful to break up a huge fight or whatever, it's just not worth lodging a 40mm shell in someone's chest by accident when you fire it into the crowd.

being able to actually use handheld grenades with the grenade launcher would be nice. I know real life grenade launchers dont work that way but hey, this is space, with space technology and space grenades. also being able to load jumpsuits into it and fire them like a t-shirt cannon would be fun.

[Frank_Stein]

I rarely see flashers stolen and placed in halls outside of traitor rounds. Mostly I see them used defensively, and they work wonders as a seawall against the grey tide. Sec is easy enough to get into as is by following someone in. Removing the most useful tool to prevent piggybacking would just make it worse.

I and a few others suggested it before but nothing came of it, but we should have a larger variety of actually useful 40mm ammo. I think the default smoke shells be replaced with pepper with smoke shells being available elsewhere. Another thing to make them more useful is utility shells including firefighting, metal foam, flashbang, cleaner, etc so that it has some major utility beyond crowd control. It could give sec a major tool to function as first responders to a variety of situations and also give them an extremely powerful nonlethal weapon in the form of a flashbang launcher to combat extremely robust antagonists. I also think that if it gets these upgrades it should be moved into the armory along with the ammo, but not in an armory locker, just on a table like the traq rifle and crowd dispersal grenades.

Also THC shells with a comical green cloud of smoke from hacked manufacturers to hotbox the shuttle with.

This is what I would like to see the most. A variety of different ammo types that makes the launcher a great assist item. Right now, I don't really see the value in taking the launcher and ammo when I can just carry a taser and baton, with maybe a flashbang for when things get hairy. The launcher should be a piece of equipment that both compliments and is unique from the default sec gear, so that someone could be confident trading the taser/baton for the the launcher and a box or two of ammo for it.

As for flashers, I think they are fine as is.

[Paineframe]

The only time I've ever used the riot launcher was when I was seriously outnumbered amd outgunned and needed some cover to make a break for it. Problem is, that hardly ever happens, and even if it does, making an escape doesn't really solve anything. Besides, sec's inventory is too full already for it to be worth the increasingly limited space. A sec officer SPAWNS with an already-full backpack nowadays.

[Sex_Robot]

I personally have never used a riot launcher ever so I can't really comment on them, as for mounted flashers they are super useful for setting up "checkpoints" for lack of a better term, admittedly this checkpoint is usually in the sec entrance to stop people darting in when the doors are open, but I've seen them dragged out before and bolted into the main call before to catch someone who was sprinting up and down the station with a csabre. They're like stinger traps for speeding vehicles in that way.

[Frank_Stein]

I personally have never used a riot launcher ever so I can't really comment on them, as for mounted flashers they are super useful for setting up "checkpoints" for lack of a better term, admittedly this checkpoint is usually in the sec entrance to stop people darting in when the doors are open, but I've seen them dragged out before and bolted into the main call before to catch someone who was sprinting up and down the station with a csabre. They're like stinger traps for speeding vehicles in that way.

One idea I had before about floor flashers was they should be made more intelligent, with facial recognition and an ID scanner. You could set them up to flash Non-sec and head badges, or switch them over to only use the security records and flash people set to arrest.

[BaneOfGiygas]

I'm fine with the smoke grenades from riot launchers being annoying as hell, that's fine. But when the thing has just about no other purpose beyond devastatingly niche and/or situational uses, I really wonder why it needs to be there and why it's presented as a tool available to security when about 80% of the people using it aren't security. It's less a thing security is able to use and more a thing that security has to make sure people don't misuse, and that strikes me as shoddy design.

As a result of this, I fully support the idea of alternate ammo types, as this gives security reason to use them during their normal security-ing.