Make emagging doors less despair inducing (rp chat locks in)

[Emrsnn]

What it says. My dear cohort, I have gathered you here today to repeat and expand upon the opinions we voiced in RP chat today, but on the forums, so that it will be seen by more people- especially our classic server brethren.

Itinerary for the meeting, based on talking points from discord:

• Breaking door too easy?
  
• Breaking door too fast?
  
• Too many door break at once?
  
• Fixing door too slow?
  
• Fixing door need too many items and people?
  

This is not a thread about emag as a whole item, or one related to the conversation about emagged borgs that happened in RP chat prior to us talking about doors. Friends, we are here to discuss the fact that many people think emagging breaks the doors in a way that is excessively hard to deal with, despite usually happening at a time when the several requisite people to solve the problem are all already busy with being csabered to death. Once again, this is to discuss if we think emags perma-breaking doors is excessive, as well as hear from classic if having a large number of emagged doors can rip the fun out of a round for them also. Chat, lock in please. Thank you for staying on topic here, I acknowledge this is very hard for us all but we will get through it together. 

TL;DR: Topic of thread is emagged door.  

[nova2053]

My main issue with emagged airlocks is the fact they outright can't be fixed, meaning if you want to restore them to their roundstart state as I feel the need to do, you need to:
Scan the airlock into the ruckenginur kit (Can be skipped if you have RCD custom, but only the CE has an RCD custom)
Copy the access requirements of the airlock using an access lite (Can also be skipped with RCD custom)
Completely disassemble the airlock (the most problematic step in this whole process, will elaborate on why shortly)
Print out the new airlock (this takes materials by the way) (RCD custom can skip this too, whodathunkit)
Build the new airlock in place of the old airlock
Load the access requirements of the old airlock onto the new airlock

This whole process takes an annoyingly long time, especially when you consider that emags have infinite uses and practically no cooldown.

Also, further elaborating on why disassembly of the old airlock is such an issue:
Access-locked airlocks (IE pretty much any airlock worth emagging) require you to have access to them to deconstruct them, UNLESS you're using an RCD, which only cyborgs and the Chief Engineer have by default.
If you don't have an RCD, you need to obtain access by either asking a head of staff for access or finding someone with the relevant access to lend you their ID for a minute. Both of these are time-consuming (problem because so many of the other steps are also time-consuming) and rely on another person being able and willing to help you (which they sometimes aren't).

I think emag airlock interactions could be improved upon by giving them similar effects to ion storms, opening the airlocks and then bolting/depowering them and removing AI control, which is a whole lot less of a burden for engineers to fix while still making sense thematically (ELECTROMAGNETIC card, ELECTROMAGNETIC storm, logically could both have similar effects on airlocks).

[Cheese]

It should be fast to break the door if you spent the TC to get the Iconic Item That Does That ™.
It also should be fast to repair standardized frontier equipment.

Having a large number of emagged doors is not fun because most of routine construction tasks are not fun, they are busywork. TG-likes sidestep this by giving every engineer an RCD. We can sidestep this by : 

• Just giving every engineer the damn RCD already 
  
• Giving the ability to scan doors into the ruck kit with their map-set access levels  
  
• Allowing disassembly when they are welded, regardless of access. 
  

It's already trivial to hack a door if you have the tools, I don't see why it should be less trivial to delete or construct a door if you have substantially more tools.
That, imo, would be sufficient in making this less of a pain.

[Emimiyu]

Imo, just like the other thread, I feel the issue is more on "Giving access to and building a new door sucks" than the emag.

Also, I mean, you can just cheaply hack doors. I feel emagging to just open door but no other bad thing following it feels like not worth the TC or make emag felt boring.

---

It's already trivial to hack a door if you have the tools, I don't see why it should be less trivial to delete or construct a door if you have substantially more tools.
That, imo, would be sufficient in making this less of a pain.

Recent change allows you to use deconstructor on emagged door without having to remove the access.

[Emrsnn]

I normally don't start seeing genuine "this actually is no longer fun" sentiment from the rest of the server until someone starts popping far more doors than the handfull required for accomplishing a single evil deed. Like someone breaking every airlock so their partner in crime doesn't also need an emag, versus breaking into the computer core only. That's the point where there's just never going to be enough engineers and command to deal with it, because emagging airlocks is so incredibly fast compared to the time required to fix them. Shortening that process by a single step would likely resolve it, like making airlocks which are specifically emagged deconstructable with the tools a regular engi has, or making them repairable in some sort of door-hacking-but-far-more-steps way.
The other route I see is making popping their airlocks one step longer. Like adding a progress bar or cooldown, or needing to choose a specific wire to use it on.

[JORJ949]

Other servers give emags 3 recharging charges that recharge over a period of time, meaning you have to carefully plan out what you want to emag instead of emagging everything in sight. I think this is a great balancing factor and makes you think before emagging something.

[Lord_earthfire]

Scan the airlock into the ruckenginur kit (Can be skipped if you have RCD custom, but only the CE has an RCD custom)
Copy the access requirements of the airlock using an access lite (Can also be skipped with RCD custom)
Completely disassemble the airlock (the most problematic step in this whole process, will elaborate on why shortly)
Print out the new airlock (this takes materials by the way) (RCD custom can skip this too, whodathunkit)
Build the new airlock in place of the old airlock
Load the access requirements of the old airlock onto the new airlock

That's an appropriate amount of work in my opinion. People forget it's still a damn high tc cost item. They could have gotten a csaber instead. I wouldn't mind seeing the emag receiving a charge bar.

And a tip for engis: have a random door scanned and teady to deploy. Noone cares if the security door looks like the maintenance one.

[Vulwin_Gilran]

I like the idea of an EMAG having a pool of charges which slowly regain overtime, im not good with balancing things so i couldnt say the exact number but it should be large enough that intermittent use wont drain it fully but going on a rapid spree will require a recharge.

potentially even having some kind of overheating (i dont know a better term for it) factor could be good, where it doesnt spend charges, but it gains "heat" per emag and if it builds up too much heat it will stop functioning for a time and need to cool down (with visual indicators + examine text).

And if it PHYSICALLY did overheat you could even try to add something like giving it coolants or such to let you do more with it, though im not sure if thats too complicated. like it comes with water in some compartment, but with the right access you could replace with something like cryostylane. could even have coolant deplete itself? I am just spitballing ideas i think could be interesting, not that i think they are desperately needed.

I usually also find if someone wants to just, open every airlock on station thats their use of their round, and usually get caught pretty quickly eventually because they become public enemy 1# because people like having doors that work.

[Lord_earthfire]

my only gripe with doors is that i kinda want it be uncapped for all the other wicked interactions, but want to nerf the door spam. Kinda makes me wish we split it off, like it is done in other servers.

[Kotlol]

I think splitting the emag into two items is probably for the best.

An emag can do SO much damage in the short amount of time and fixing it all costs a lot of time.

Every vending machine spits stuff, ever door wide open, every bot broken and having to be broken appart then rebuild... It's just... ANNOYING.

But if it was two tools... aka one to break open doors and the other to break devices. Suddenly I wouldn't mind it.
If someone wants to be able to break every door... they can do that. Atleast not every device in a 200 tile radius is also broken.
If someone wants to be able to break every device... they can still do that. Atleast now they can't break into every section of the map by slapping that emag.

The recharge abillity is also nice so you gotta be more strategic.
But I think splitting it into two seperate devices saves engineering and most of the crew way more hassle.
By simply making it a "Break all devices" spam button. It becomes annoying....
But splitting it into: Break all electronics vs Break all doors... then we can get some more fun.