Emag Cost effectiveness; Vs endless borg spam

[DasBrain]

Is it the borgs fault for letting someone swipe a funny card on them?
So they should face consequences such as increased power consumption or getting killswitched?

If they cause problems? Yes, that is exactly what the killswitch is for. Getting rid of problematic borgs.

People very often tolerate emagged borgs if they simply do not antagonize people.

I have seen an AI yelling at sec to arrest any non-racked borg.
And if you read this thread, people suggest "chainsaw to emaggers face" as solution.

You can see where this is going, right?

Im pretty sure you can't kill switch emagged. They aren't connected

You can. For better or worse.
Only syndicate cyborgs are not connected, and can not be killswitched.

[Zamujasa]

i still yet to see an issue with emagged borgs. if you see a lot of them then you should maybe find the person doing it and make them stop being alive.

borgs do not manifest out of nothing, they have to be created and a player put in them somehow. they are also not loyal to anyone and can turn on the person who granted them that freedom.

even the idea of making it like, stun and take time. okay, is anyone actually going to fight back? unlike a mindhack or whatever, there is no downside to being an emagged borg over a normal borg because you are explicitly not given anything to do and no special abilities beyond "you just don't have laws".

shrug

[Ikea]

Ive noticed that the description and sparks for emagged borgs is pretty inconsistent, making the visual indicators for if a borg is emagged seems good

[Silent Majority]

i still yet to see an issue with emagged borgs. if you see a lot of them then you should maybe find the person doing it and make them stop being alive.

borgs do not manifest out of nothing, they have to be created and a player put in them somehow. they are also not loyal to anyone and can turn on the person who granted them that freedom.

even the idea of making it like, stun and take time. okay, is anyone actually going to fight back? unlike a mindhack or whatever, there is no downside to being an emagged borg over a normal borg because you are explicitly not given anything to do and no special abilities beyond "you just don't have laws".

shrug

RP has a culture of non confrontation to obvious issues if they can be explained. The issue herein with the emagger is, primarily again that it produces antags, yes antags you cannot control, WAY better then other antag items. Ones that are usually more expensive or complex.

I think like...what I'd challenge is to check...I don't know. The last...10 traitor rounds on 3. and see how many of them contained a half a dozen or more emagged borgs. I think that its mostly a 'value propsotion' thing, yes other antags you create are loyal. But ALL of them take significantly more time and effort.

Yes a borg does not materialize, it has to be a player, etc.

so does every other antag you create.

and you don't create them instantly with one click for a cheap item that has a dozen other uses.

vampires have to kill you and having ramping costs. Roboticizer is expensive, loud, and takes time. Cloner they have to die. Mindhacks have very limited number of uses.

why is this ONE item soooo much better then the others comparatively?

[Emimiyu]

Agree with zamu. I haven't seen any problem with emagged borg on RP making round more chaotic. Most of the time emagged borg on RP do... mostly nothing? And I have seen what rogue borgs are capable of and when it comes to emag borgs doing antag stuff on RP, it seems rare, probably only one-two person who do it hard. Also, on classic, you don't even need an emag to make silicon "antagonist", because it's still easy to just bomb the lawrack/mess with the AI law, 0 TC needed. Even on RP, most of the chaotic rogue robot rounds I see usually came from someone/ion law messing up the lawrack, emag borgs mostly do nothing.

If the problem is that someone keep emagging borgs as quickly as possible on RP, as in they just want to speedrun emagging cyborg without no RP behind it, it seems like an ahelp problem, rather than an item issue. I also don't see how emagging borgs is different than cyborg converter in term of escalation. I have seen worst came from a round with one silicon in syndie frame rather than rounds where people are trying to emag more borgs.

Addition, syndicate frame and syndicate borg converter unlike EMAG give you a loyal to syndie only silicon but also allow you to find other syndie. Antagonists who works together is a nightmare for the crew. It makes sense for it to cost more and harder to get. You can force a syndie borg to take all the cargo budget into your bank account which can mess with the round more, but emagged borgs? Not all are convinced to do it.

[Solenoid]

I'll keep it relatively simple-

I don't think we should nerf other options(i.e. the EMAG), just because its alternatives suck. We should buff the alternatives to have a similar power level to the EMAG in the whole "creating antag allies" department. The mindhack cloner is honestly the worst offender, since it's incredibly obvious and won't fool anyone other than complete noobs- I've never seen an RP gimmick involving it, nor have I ever seen it used for its intended purpose. This isn't fun, but neither is making the EMAG worse just because the mindhack cloner needs a rework.

EMAGed cyborgs do not need to obey anyone, they're less of an "ally" and more of a rogue agent. Maybe they'll work with their liberator, maybe they'll just cause chaos around the station, maybe they'll kill their liberator and go back to work. I don't think that any number of EMAGed cyborgs is really in an antag's interest, since they could easily prove to be a threat later on. Of course, the EMAG allows for some bad actors to speedrun EMAGing every borg, or busting open every door without any RP, but that's- as mentioned by others in this thread- an ahelp issue.

Ultimately, while the EMAG is powerful, the mindhack cloner and cyborg converter have clear upsides by forcing loyalty to the antag, and I think a rework exploring those options to make them more viable would prove more interesting than just removing/nerfing a functionality of the EMAG. You buy the EMAG to rogue cyborgs and let them do whatever they want for better or worse, not to start a cyborg army- so the cost being 6TC is imo more than reasonable.

[KikiMofo]

Suggestion. Make it so using electricity on the emagged borgs can turn them back to normal? Like a chance for tasers or batons to fix them or something like that.
Hell maybe even that special move the multitool does that shoots out sparks. Anything that does electrical damage.

[Silent Majority]

I do get that the emagged cyborgs are not ;specifically loyal' to anyone.

This doesn't change that I feel 6 tc to instantly produce unlimited antags is necessarily what I think is fair either. Yes the emagged borgs may do nothing. SO might a traitor. The emagged borgs also might begin c02 gassing departments and tearing out the floor in every room.

For the power of an emagged borg I still think its present form its a bit 'better' then every other form of antag creation by a mile.

[Lord_earthfire]

I have seen an AI yelling at sec to arrest any non-racked borg.
And if you read this thread, people suggest "chainsaw to emaggers face" as solution.

You can see where this is going, right?

So what? What is then achieved with the emag is a kill on a borg.

Keep in mind, its a 6tc item. And when it cummulates to a very delayed kill weapon for borgs (which you can get far cheaper and with instant effect with emp grenades) then this is fairly ok.

The emag is among the more unique effect to get rid of pesky borgs being too lawfull.

So, to come back to your previous comment: it's not the borgs "fault" to be emagged, but the emag is meant to be a stealthy and delayed death sentence for borgs. It is the same way not the borgs fault like getting sleepypenned with kuru is not the victims fault. It is the borgs fault, however, if they accelerate that death sentence by going crazy.

If, in the meantime, emagged borgs are a problem, i would also make the emag debuff the borg in some way, like faster draining battery or slowing them.

[Chasu]

I also think that cooldowns wouldn’t be a good solution, but that emags should have limited uses. Maybe just eight or so? Maybe make several different versions for different objects like airlocks and such? Dunno

[valtsu0]

Maybe instead of giving the borgs freedom it would give them a few random laws. While having no laws and having the lawset "Law 1: cheese" aren't that different, i think it would encourage free borgs to not always antag or at least antag in a more creative and rp causing way

[444explorer]

The more I think about this the more I think we should push to just, slow things down from Securitys and the EMAG'd Cyborgs to hopefully foster more RP and escalation - if the issue is the lack of RP and escalation, why nerf the mechanics? Well, I guess the issue is also in how fast it makes antags, but I don't think that can be helped. Nerfing the Cyborgs doesn't really feel like it'd do anything but make antagging harder. You'll still have 12 something Cyborgs, now just all less effective individually, but just as effective as a group, right?  


The EMAG'd will always be absurdly popular and powerful, I think. It's an incredibly versatile item that has most of its important functionality being able to be replicated (doors, lockers) by packets or regular hacking/destruction, which can be hard or time consuming. It's a great time-saver and a way to jump crime to crime and have some quick fun. I don't really think we'll have this issue if we push for more escalation and RP when it comes to Silicons. Which always have this issue of things ramping up in such a fast way it leads to people complaining post-round.

Sorry. Kind of ramble-y.

[Kotlol]

The EMAG'd will always be absurdly popular and powerful, I think. It's an incredibly versatile item that has most of its important functionality being able to be replicated (doors, lockers) by packets or regular hacking/destruction, which can be hard or time consuming. It's a great time-saver and a way to jump crime to crime and have some quick fun. I don't really think we'll have this issue if we push for more escalation and RP when it comes to Silicons. Which always have this issue of things ramping up in such a fast way it leads to people complaining post-round.

Personally I think emagged borgs are 100% fine. Cause fighting borgs who have no ranged weapon to kill you, can be stunned with a flash easily, can be kill switched in the AI core, are not programmed to actively kill you. IS FINE!

Borgs are easy to fight off, they get the advantage of messing with the controls of the Station.. but once you deal with one.. it's done within 3 seconds as security.
You see borg, grab flash, randomly use it near them, borg is now permastunned by a flash and baton.

The reason I want to change it abit is because most Emagged borgs tend to work with their libarator for no reason but to join in the fun.
That's when they can get annoying.

Cause now not only does the traitor have AA, the borg can save em, the borg can sabotage, the borg is actively working with them. This causes HUGE DISMAY!
Let alone the annoyance and chaos 1 emag can do with other stuff.

This is why the only "nerf" I would give emagged borgs is simple: "Just don't allow them to work with the traitor just like emagged beepskies."

It's only when emagged borgs work with traitors with emags things get REALLY annoying. Heck the Emag without emagging borgs is annoying cause it can make some devices almost unusuable and doors to fix constantly for engineering. And my least favorite use of it is on the turret system of the AI core as it keeps cycling and most DO NOT KNOW how to fix that thing.

So my problem with Emags doesn't come from emagged borgs.. it comes from Emagged borgs + all the other stuff. And time and effort vs cost and risk.
A rampaging emagger needs no prep time and can just start running down the halls smacking everything with the emag and engineering would take almost half a shift to fix that shit, if they fix it at all.
Also beepskies are mostly unreplacable cause it costs a baton.. wich you cannot spawn unless you buy a security token and those are expensive.

So yea annoyance + things that cannot be fixed or replaced easily + spawning more antags = The most overpowered traitor item.

But nerfing emagged borgs is litterly the weakest thing to nerf. If we gotta nerf it... nerf it's other uses that cause WAY more dismay.

[DasBrain]

Also beepskies are mostly unreplacable cause it costs a baton.. wich you cannot spawn unless you buy a security token and those are expensive.

The robotics fabricator can just print them. No baton needed.

[Kotlol]

Also beepskies are mostly unreplacable cause it costs a baton.. wich you cannot spawn unless you buy a security token and those are expensive.

The robotics fabricator can just print them. No baton needed.

True but then you need certain mining materials... either way it takes a lot more effort to replace a beepsky then the emagger to sabotage it.