Make artbombs scarier

[Glamurio]

Yeah I don't think we need more ways to "accidentally" kill half the station.

The radius or intensity of the artifacts can easily be tweaked, but I do think that destruction is an important aspect for the gameplay cycle. On Classic this is less relevant because destruction is inevitable, but particularly on RP wide-scale destruction is an exceedingly rare event (and most often alongside admin interaction).

Engineering often doesn't get to do their job, simply because safe for the occasional meteor storm there's hardly any breaches to fix. Which is a shame, because it's fun to build up a department again after it got destroyed, and at most you lose 10-20 minutes in a shift.

An argument for the transportation of the artifact to a random department is also that it might end up in departments that don't often see much action on specific maps.

[Violetsaber]

I also think that artbombs are a bit of a nothing burger thing atm because as others have stated, it either immediately gets ejected or so few people are on shift to even miss the science department being nuked. The only time i remember an art bomb detonating on station was during an admin induced nukie round on RP, and only because a scientist send it towards the nuke plant site.

I think any of the listed tweaks can work, but alternatively i'd make it harder to immediately get rid of the artbomb, but make it take longer to explode. Like this it might even be a lucrative goal for an antagonist to prevent the removal and give time to react to it, or at the very least make it slightly more involving than yeeting it off the station.

Randomly being blown to shreds out of nowhere isn't fun, but every now and then having major crisis with a big ass alert having a REAL chance to blow you up is funny. It's still ss13, not space station where everything always goes right

[MrLilRobot]

I'm really not sure about this idea with the listed example especially bc how new players to sci may be put off playing it bc if an event like an artbomb teleporting and destroying a section of the station and not being able to do anything about it. Artlab can already be unforgiving to new players and this could really put them off trying it in the future imo.

I also feel it could open up opportunities for self-antagging and these taking away from antags in a round. I think it was mentioned but it can also open up to rounds being ruined not just for departments but for antags if they are unlucky enough.

I do like the idea of artifacts like bombs being more deadly but maybe in other ways like them seeping radiation like the nuclear engine, making the person's vision deteriorate, maybe corroding the floor as you drag it idk, emitting a wave that launches you back or break windows/lights like the vamp ability.

[Chasu]

I'm really not sure about this idea with the listed example especially bc how new players to sci may be put off playing it bc if an event like an artbomb teleporting and destroying a section of the station and not being able to do anything about it. Artlab can already be unforgiving to new players and this could really put them off trying it in the future imo.

I also feel it could open up opportunities for self-antagging and these taking away from antags in a round. I think it was mentioned but it can also open up to rounds being ruined not just for departments but for antags if they are unlucky enough.

I do like the idea of artifacts like bombs being more deadly but maybe in other ways like them seeping radiation like the nuclear engine, making the person's vision deteriorate, maybe corroding the floor as you drag it idk, emitting a wave that launches you back or break windows/lights like the vamp ability.

I do agree with your first point about communicating the defusal methods to players. Chat messages can be missed quite easily, so maybe there should be multiple every few seconds? The silicons could have "A panel on the artifact bursts open, revealing wires underneath" as a first message and something along the lines of of "The Artifact's wires buzz and spark" every few seconds. This would communicate the need for wire cutting/pulsing even to players who missed the first message. I'm sure we can implement a similar approach for the others.

Secondly, self-antagging can be done with pretty much anything AND is for the admins to handle, so the simple possibility for it to happen shouldn't determine whether this gets added or not. As for the round/department destroying, I do agree that especially on lowpop, where there might not be someone with access to a given area. Perhaps there could be a whitelist of safe/public areas such as the gym or cafeteria.

Regarding the round-ruining potential, I think it's a risk worth taking. Super-powerful ones are rare anyway, and artbonbs in general are already balanced. If a change like this were to be PR'd, i'd be for a long testmerge period to see how those spawn odds might need tweaking.

[Emimiyu]

If this idea got through. We might want to focus more on making artifact identification easier. Sure you can just not touch any artifact with markings, but I think the xray scan for artifact is underused and can feel a bit high ceiling.

I know you can xray artifact to check if it is a bomb, but it still feel vague which one is which. Might want to have some QoL changes to artifact scanning.