ttv damage/quantity adjustments

[Rhydic]

TTVs are horribly underused now. the only time i have seen them used in 3-4 months of actual playing over the last year is when i used them myself or when i was murdered while 90% of the way through making them and someone happened to take one or two and use them.

i think the three issues with TTVs are primarily the following:

1. the damage level of them is capped too low. i have made bombs off and on since 2011 and TTVs are capped at just about their weakest long-term maxcap. back when explosions were square 11x11 and even 13x13 bombs were possible, but now they are limited to 9x9. considering my cumulative experience with trying different mixtures, it is disappointing that a mixture that was previously mediocre is just as effective as a gasmix that requires 5 times the amount of effort. effort and experience are useless with making these now, as even with cancerously bad combustion/bomb mixes you can easily still produce a 9x9 bomb.

2. the number of realistically possible TTVs is 7. there is no way to cross this boundary short of lengthy space exploration. even with 7 bombs strategically placed at chokepoints between departments and detonated simultaneously, it is extremely difficult to disable most of the station just due to the sheer size relative to the bombs' power. donut 2 was a much, much smaller station than cogmap 1/2 and as such anything short of a canister bomb is not going to cause significant casualties.

3. TTVs generally must be placed one by one and concealed before being detonated simultaneously. you cannot realistically detonate them one by one because research will immediately be swarmed after the first detonation. TTVs, even without attachments, cannot be concealed in a container and must be carried to the planting location and concealed without any detection. being detected at any point during this process or having a bomb discovered will ruin the setup. detection is not even difficult, as all it takes is someone examining you to spoil the entire arrangement.

i realize that MANY A YEAR AGO (ie donut 2/mushroom) TTV spam was a running gag and backpacks full of 13x13 bombs were the meta for any traitor who wanted to destroy the station. unfortunately it seems that the nerfs have crippled them to the point where they are generally not worth the 40 minute setup time required to produce all the bombs and individually plant them. people underestimate just how badly bored assistants have a desire to open every locker and eject every disposal chute in sight. i think adjusting any one of these observations would be beneficial to TTVs' usability as an actual weapon instead of a sub-par historical relic

on a related note: you can't even knock people out and plant a bomb in their backpack while they're unconscious anymore. i miss things like that

[Tarmunora]

on a related note: you can't even knock people out and plant a bomb in their backpack while they're unconscious anymore. i miss things like that

I mean, you can stick a mousetrap pipebomb in there.

Personally, I'd like to see TTVs to be more accessible rather than more destructive. As it is, in my experience, 90% of the time when a traitor uses toxins, they just go for canbombing the station into non-existence as opposed to more 'careful' TTV detonations. I'd rather have many little holes in the station than many little chunks of surviving station.

[Rhydic]

on a related note: you can't even knock people out and plant a bomb in their backpack while they're unconscious anymore. i miss things like that

I mean, you can stick a mousetrap pipebomb in there.

Personally, I'd like to see TTVs to be more accessible rather than more destructive. As it is, in my experience, 90% of the time when a traitor uses toxins, they just go for canbombing the station into non-existence as opposed to more 'careful' TTV detonations. I'd rather have many little holes in the station than many little chunks of surviving station.

yeah, that's more or less what i'm saying. people only ever use canbombs now instead of TTVs because the risk/reward is skewed pretty heavily towards them. i like the precision strike strategy, but the issue is that TTVs have not scaled with the progressively larger station designs

[lambskin]

A nice batch of ttvs can be made in 15 min or less, so idk where you're getting that from. Otherwise I agree, ttvs should be allowed in backpacks again. I can fit much larger explosions in my pocket with chemistry.

There doesn't seem to be many reasons to use toxins if you aren't making canbombs unfortunately.

[Superlagg]

What about those single tank bombs? Are they even remotely worth using? Would these be a good idea to fill the gap left by the too-bulky TTVs? Cus I'm not the biggest fan of having a TTV fit in a backpack, but I am alright with single tank bombs being upgraded pipebombs, TTVs being bigger strategic bombs (than they are now), and canbombs being the game-ending supernukes.

Maybe focusing purely on the killing effectiveness isn't the right approach. Maybe have TTVs require being bolted to the floor and a lengthy timer/detonation process, immovable and needing disarming like the nuke, but also make them more powerful in return. Something to fill a terrorism niche between cans and tanks.

[lambskin]

I wouldn't disagree with buffing single tank bombs. As they are currently they are almost useless compared to either ttvs or pipe bombs.

[Ed Venture]

From what people have told me in deadchat recently is that they have been nerfed to oblivion and once something is nerfed to oblivion there is no longer any real reason to use an item/weapon anymore. These type of nerfs just make me question why they just don't remove them.

Makes no difference to me really I never used the things anyways as I rather set the station on fire. Cause fire is fucking awesome.

[Mordent]

For what it's worth, spending 40 minutes to make these on #2 is 40 minutes of boredom for everyone else. I wouldn't even care if you got a big "everyone is dead, you win" banner after that, I still wouldn't do it.

Folks who spend most of their round in toxins are up there with geneticists in terms of the most boring antags possible.

"But wait, there are probably other antags to contend with!" I hear you cry. So what? It's 40 minutes of relatively boring stuff followed by "welp, guess the station's wrecked, call the shuttle".

Conversely, making it quicker than that would just make them even worse (e.g. 20 minutes into the round the station is blown up instead of 40 minutes).

I really wouldn't care in the slightest if toxins was removed entirely. 99% of rounds would be the same, with the occasional equivalent of end of round fireworks having to be done with something else instead.

[lambskin]

For me personally on #1 ttvs are just a means to an end. I mostly used them on low pop rounds (15 and under) when the shuttle arrived. Mainly when I don't feel like doing a gimmick while still respecting low population.

When I have used them on high population rounds it's mostly to do something different than the usual black powder bombs.

[NateTheSquid]

Not long ago someone used a crate full of TTV's on the escape shuttle as extremely robust pipebombs. they would set a timer to like 2 seconds and throw it at the back end of the shuttle. was good

[Frank_Stein]

It's a shame people don't seem to ever use the proximity sensor as the trigger. I don't​ mess with TTV bombs but years ago when I wanted to learn about them I had made several of those and would drop them around maintenance hallways when I knew people were searching for me

[Rhydic]

here is a nice graphical representation of the extent of damage possible with 5 square explosions on donut 2 vs 7 round explosions on cogmap 2:





SUPER RELEVANT IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!! NOTE: walls now impact explosions. in reality, the explosions depicted on cogmap 2 will be much smaller, but i am being generous and also lazy

i chose the locations for the bomb placements based on previous experience with the most damaging and easy to conceal locations for bomb placement. i'm sure this can be improved, but this is personal preference. it's pretty obvious from these maps that TTVs are not remotely near the damaging ability they previously held, and now have the added caveat of being far more difficult to transport and conceal

TTVs were not even nerfed when donut 2 was around. their power was considered tolerable relative to the map. it was only after you could make 10!!!!! on mushroom and almost completely obliterate the entire station that they were dropkicked into oblivion

canbombs obviously make up for the large, sprawling departments now. TTVs seem to be stuck in the mushroom era and are incapable of doing serious damage deeper than a few tiles from a hallway.

here is my reference for the bombs from the donut 2 era: https://youtu.be/uG_kaw1JtUE?t=860

as an aside: have single tank bombs ever been usable? they are so spectacularly pathetic and difficult to acquire relative to weldingfuel pipebombs that it is pointless to even try. i doubt most people even know they can be made

[Berrik]

It's a shame people don't seem to ever use the proximity sensor as the trigger. I don't​ mess with TTV bombs but years ago when I wanted to learn about them I had made several of those and would drop them around maintenance hallways when I knew people were searching for me

This is because if you arn't careful, it's very easy to blow yourself up with proximity detonators.

[Rhydic]

if memory serves from back when i did that on mushroom, you have to stand still, activate the sensor, and throw it several tiles away. can you even throw bombs that far anymore? even regardless of that, if you do it with anyone around to see you throw it you're still going to get lynched in about 5 minutes

[Musketman12]

if memory serves from back when i did that on mushroom, you have to stand still, activate the sensor, and throw it several tiles away. can you even throw bombs that far anymore? even regardless of that, if you do it with anyone around to see you throw it you're still going to get lynched in about 5 minutes

TTV's can only be thrown 1 tile