Loyalty Implant Nerf (add a cast time)

[SlothJustice]

A strong 27/30 of my last 30 rev rounds over the past year ended in head victory after the head revs completely lost steam following all their revs being implanted. There was no epic struggle, no fight, just robust head players sprinting past revs mass-implanting them before they can react. I feel the relative strength of loyalty implants compared to rev tools obstructs what the revs game mode is meant to be.

Why Loyalty Implants are too strong: 

Instant cast

At least 4 in every sectech and loyalty kit, as well as a box of 6 that spawn on cogmap 2 and oshan and 3 boxes on cogmap 1, the most played map. 

1000 credits each (6000 per box of 6) from Cargo

Can only be broken via rev flash one at a time and with a long delay or by rev flashbang.

Can be, and often are, mass implanted in all crewmembers at the first sign of revs, slowing down later rev conversion speed.

Why the counters to Loyalty Implants are not strong enough:

1. It's simply never gonna happen outside of RP that a revhead individually scalpels all his revs to save them from being de-revved in a timely fashion without being intercepted by a hostile crewmember.

2. The loyalty implant damage ticks too fast for most revs without medbay access to make it to a surgery table, gain access, move to table, and scalpel themselves in time.

3. The 12 telecrystals afforded to rev heads can only afford 3 rev flashbangs after buying a rev flash, whereas loyalty implants are so cheap as to be virtually infinite.

4. The scenario where a revhead will encounter a rev he knows has been implanted, have time to stop and de-implant them, and de-implant them before they're de-revved, is very rare.

Proposed change: 
Add a 1 second cast timer to loyalty implants, to offer unarmed revs a chance at counterplay against being de-revved. This would still catch players with slow reaction times, or necessitate the heads detainment of the revs first before de-revving, via stuns, grabs and pins etc. 

I think this change achieves the purpose of rebalancing revs while also affecting the least other game modes like a change to self-surgery might, since loyalty implants are mostly used for revs.

Please let me know if I missed anything and feel free to give feedback

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

What if you could convert Loyalty Implants into Disloyalty Implants? The implant threat would only be as strong as your response to it then, but I have no idea how it would work.

[kyle2143]

Perhaps if just revheads could easily burn out a loyalty implant that is in a Revolutionary, but still takes the current time to burn out a loyalty implant of a Crewmember?

[Drewmajor11]

Most of the time what I see happen is loyalty implants being mismanaged, QM running out of money and loyalties no longer being used. It just turns into people beating each other up until they are no longer a rev or are dead.

[Mouse]

I feel like loyalty implants with a cast time got tried out before and resulted in the heads never winning but I could be thinking of some other change to revs.  It's undergone a lot of changes.

[SlothJustice]

I think another solution that keeps loyalties the same as they currently are would be allowing Revheads to see who has a loyalty implant, like sechuds do, and like Mongoose suggested, having some kind of counter-implant or simply removing the cast-time of de-loyalty-ing someone. 

I know Revs has had a lot of revisions over the years, and it used to be balanced a lot more in favor of revs, but I can't help but feel that Security actively hunting down every crewmember, stunning them in the hallways, forcibly implanting them (and if they're revs) beating them to death to make sure it takes doesn't reflect the intended play. 

It mostly results in demoralised former revs just AFKing or going back to their duties, not really participating in the round, since their likelihood of being de-loyalled by a revhead is so slim.

[getbrecked]

What about preventing or delaying loyalty implants (or just implants in general) if the victim is wearing a helmet? It would give revs another task to complete (find engineering or sec helmets) but still allow security a chance to deconvert a rev by stunning them and removing their helmet.

[Drago156]

I have a 2 word solution to implants: rev flashbangs

For real these things are incredibly good and very cheap. 1 TC per and they rev through flash protection as well as shattering and maybe even revving through implants, on top of stun effects like a normal flashbang. They are also very concealable and fit in any container.

As for implanting... It should be the counter to revs, because it's hell if you don't get implants at all. If sec runs through their implant supply in the first five minutes and can't order more that's usually 7/10 times a rev win. Might I also remind that rev flashing is an instant to non-revs without implants. This used to be a charge up but it was ultimately removed because it made playing as a rev head very difficult, and I kind of see this in the same vein, just opposite side of the coin.