Breaking Crates Open

[RSOD]

"what do you mean!! you can already break crates open you doofus!!!"
right now, the only ways to break crates open is with a shuttle, explosions or breaching charges(?), which makes cardlocked crates unopenable without access unless you have a space suit and are willing to push the crate over to the mining shuttle, be extremely loud or break into the armory

WHAT AM I SUGGESTING?
when on harm intent, make hitting crates similiar to hitting a locker. slightly damages it, and prolonged damage breaks the lid off, making it uncloseable and throwing out a bunch of sparks in the process.
normal cardlocked crates have about 200 hp, armory cardlocked crates would have 1.5x - 2x that
WHY?
cargo's already a nightmare to keep under covers, since every order is sent out and logged if you're a sleeper / traitor out of TC trying to get weapons, at least let us break crates open with a bit of hard work.

[Lefinch]

Completely separate to the idea, I do need to point out a cargo teleporter lets you drop a crate at the mining outpost on most maps, and it's a lot quieter to do a shuttle walnut crack there 99% of the time. This is important knowledge I impart to my fellow walnut enjoyers.

Okay back to the idea: It seems like noise wise that's noisier less than stealthy, and honestly in terms of cargo orders the big tell is if an AI is paying attention to your orders and wonders why the QM is ordering spicy crates, but as a basic idea I don't have an immediate issue with letting people bash open cardlocked crates. Might be something horrible i'm missing that'd let you do though. I just also don't think it's too tricky getting into them now, so it's more of a "yeah sure why not" thing.

[RSOD]

Okay back to the idea: It seems like noise wise that's noisier less than stealthy, and honestly in terms of cargo orders the big tell is if an AI is paying attention to your orders and wonders why the QM is ordering spicy crates, but as a basic idea I don't have an immediate issue with letting people bash open cardlocked crates. Might be something horrible i'm missing that'd let you do though. I just also don't think it's too tricky getting into them now, so it's more of a "yeah sure why not" thing.

the main idea is letting people break crates akin to how you'd bash lockers open: noisy and fairly long to do. if you manage to get away with making some fairly obvious noise and not get caught, i suppose you'd deserve whatever is in the crate. i don't think it's THAT impactful a change since you'll still have a lot of evidence that "someone bought the VERY DANGEROUS crate that HAS DANGEROUS STUFF!!" but at least you don't have to steal IDs to open them if you're not willing to use the shuttles

[jan.antilles]

Gonna be honest, it doesn't make sense to me that ramming a shuttle into a crate just opens it and doesn't smash the contents also, seeing as it turns people into goo.

(edit to add: technically this happens because it's funny that people can hide in refrigerators to survive explosions just like in Indiana Jones. Not kidding about that)

[JORJ949]

Gonna be honest, it doesn't make sense to me that ramming a shuttle into a crate just opens it and doesn't smash the contents also, seeing as it turns people into goo.

(edit to add: technically this happens because it's funny that people can hide in refrigerators to survive explosions just like in Indiana Jones. Not kidding about that)

I agree to be honest, shuttle-cracking feels kinda cheesy and I think having to make explosives/packethack/emag it open is way more interesting and makes more sense.

[ju45he]

1. Space suits are easy to find.
2. Space suits aren't even needed to take a few crates a few tiles out from the station.
3. There is almost always a pod you can use a pod to take crates to the space diner's mining shuttle which is docked with the space diner so you can take almost no damage at all.

I don't see why you'd ever WANT to break open a crate with a weapon when shuttle cracking is almost always the best option.

[Lefinch]

I think that's the point developing here. At least so far, the idea itself seems pretty acceptable (though of course others might post later and disagree!) but there's a debate about the sensibility of shuttle cracking. (and while it's not detailed, you could well make an arguement for practicalities too, as a shuttle is PROBABLY quicker? Hard to gauge a system that doesn't exist yet)

Honestly, if you wanted to get rid of cracking and make it more in line with lockers, it wouldn't kill me. Still, I kind of -like- how stupid the shuttles are. This comes entirely from personal miner bias of playing chicken with them in an industrial suit not an objectively neutral view. It is incidentally hilarious that I didn't make the awful nuclear bunker indiana jones joke link till now, but this also helps me feel like I actually just enjoy it because it's a silly fart spaceman physics thing.

But I also don't see it as a hill to die on too, and also don't see the two as mutually exclusive. So I loop back to "yeah sure, why not?" Put it in, put it in and get rid of walnut cracking. Some magic third option, it's all good.

[Frank_Stein]

Oughta have more crate types and different shipping costs associated with them for QM. Less secure but cheaper cardboard or wood boxes compared to locked crates for more security

[Solenoid]

I don't enjoy the cheesiness of shuttle cracking since there's so many easy shuttle spots where you'll just never be caught with your crate, but I don't mind it staying in either. I agree that we should let people break open crates with more traditional means though, it's both logical and expands the options for antagonists. You're not always going to have an emag or access to explosives when you want to open a crate, and allowing players to bypass that for a cost(time and conspicuousness) seems completely fair.

[TDHooligan]

it'd be better to discuss what the barrier of entry to any breaking of the crates *should be*.

if the barrier should be 'bashing it' then shuttling is hardly an issue, and this change is good. ironically enough, lockers are bashable, and they're the ones with a whole packet minigame to crack open.

if the barrier should be higher, why is shuttling not acceptable? once shuttling is gone people will just move to potwater, or bath bombs. should bath bombs work? are we expecting it to be hidden behind 'enough secrecy that people dont do it often'? because in that case we'll just end up removing features that catch on, one at a time.

Gonna be honest, it doesn't make sense to me that ramming a shuttle into a crate just opens it and doesn't smash the contents also, seeing as it turns people into goo.

i dont think it breaks suspension of disbelief at all, and think the existing behaviour is pretty silly in a goonstation manner. doing things for realism is smelly and removes amusing features for nobody's benefit. 
unless there's some fun-inducing upside i'm not seeing from making it break everything i think it should stay unchanged.

[Nerkson]

Something not mentioned here is that I've been told Saw Drones can crack open crates with no harm to the content inside.

[cheekybrdy]

I think its a good idea, but maybe a alarm system when its like a 10th of the way left on the cargo and sec PDAs. There's already PDA messages that go to engineering when its ordered so if CE comms to HoS or Cap early enough there's already counterplay in this regard, just adds another layer which isn't codependent with the additional vulnerability.

[Solenoid]

I think its a good idea, but maybe a alarm system when its like a 10th of the way left on the cargo and sec PDAs. There's already PDA messages that go to engineering when its ordered so if CE comms to HoS or Cap early enough there's already counterplay in this regard, just adds another layer which isn't codependent with the additional vulnerability.

I like the idea of an alarm system, but imo it'd make more sense if this was a delayed sort of thing. In the same way as health implants. Like, there's already a pretty obvious alert to everyone in Cargo + the CE to the point where I don't think sec needs to be directly alerted through their own PDAs + Cargo again. It'd be fine to be like "ALERT: Sensor ping failed to [X] crate, last known location: [Y]" a minute or two after the crate breaks so sec can go gather evidence, scan for fingerprints, etc., but if you have it happen before the crate breaks, I think it'll just invite sec swarms to stop John McAntag from getting his hands on (mostly)mediocre sec gear. This is especially true if you decide to break into a crate relatively early when sec has literally nothing better to do than mob you.
I think sometimes a vulnerability is fine, and if a command member fails to report suspicious employee behavior to sec, then the consequences of that should be able to precipitate without a safety net for command's incompetence, but I do like the idea that sec could learn about a broken-into crate in general through some means.

[Emimiyu]

Imo, sec shouldn't be alerted for every crate that has lock behind it. Would be stupid if, idk, sec got alerted cause some guy want to crack open restricted medicine crate or chemistry supply crate. Maybe only for some crates tied to sec, armory, and a bit reach, command.