The change to the Russian Station should be reverted

[sartorius]

The Russian station is a great place to mix chems, grow plants, and chill out. For some reason, a recent undocumented change has spitefully put multiple drones around the area and placed a big hole in it while leaving the Strelka intact. Taking away the relatively calmest spot in the debris field does nothing to change how much the Strelka annoys everyone with its overpowered lasers and robustness. Please don't take away one of the most useful spots in the debris field because of spite.

Changes:
-Area now surrounded with drones - the wall-busting kind.
-The south section that lead to the the Strelka is walled off, but there is a hole that can be moved through to get to it. This doesn't address the Strelka being overpowered at all when anyone with a modicum of skill can just juke inside it.
-Only a chem dispenser is present in the chemistry section. This limits the ability to create secret chems in what was once a relatively low-traffic area.
-There is no botanical section, just a few strange seeds on a table. The ability to grow your own crops in an off-station place for fun and profit is gone.

[Ines]

The Russian station is a great place to mix chems, grow plants, and chill out. For some reason, a recent undocumented change has spitefully put multiple drones around the area and placed a big hole in it while leaving the Strelka intact. Taking away the relatively calmest spot in the debris field does nothing to change how much the Strelka annoys everyone with its overpowered lasers and robustness. Please don't take away one of the most useful spots in the debris field because of spite.

He's right. Remove the strelka too.

[mbc]

i did not make this change, but I can still defend it :

basically any job with access to a pod bay can become a chemist AND a botanist. there's pretty much 0 risk involved if you know where the ship exists in the debris field. this is great for traitors, for example, because it removes all the risk of other players spotting you doing Bad Things or having any chance of stopping your potential death-chemical production

to be clear on my stance, I think important job-specific equipment like chemistry, bomb making, medbay, and mechanics should mostly exist as a function of the station. being on the station is a 'risk' that leads you to interact with other players (even if it's just hiding your evil machinations from them, or having to break into an area you don't have access to). the debris field on the other hand I feel is extremely low risk.

[Readster]

I too think the best way to play this game is to sit in a dark room by myself all round

[sartorius]

What if you want to isolate yourself from other players so that you can strategize in a relatively safe place or do a harmless gimmick on your own?
What if you're doing something that involves secrets that you don't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to witness?
By removing this area, you're preventing the element of surprise that occurs from the isolated but never untouched area and not dealing with the awfulness that is directly proprtional to the Strelka, locked crates, and artifacts, the three most overpowered things in there!

---

I too think the best way to play this game is to sit in a dark room by myself all round

You sit in a dark room for 15 minutes growing really dank weed, then you sell it and buy everyone fun hats while botany does its job and actually makes food for the chef.
Or botany grows weed and you go back and forth building tripods and large bulbs, making it an excessively bright room for plants.
OR you use the chem dispenser and make your secret nerd chem or just make really robust plants, then have a wizard come and fireball you.
OR you are too busy thinking of what to grow and a vampire drains all your blood.
OR you use that owlbomb on the valuechimp to make yourself a full set of butt clothes.

It's a really fun area, and it certainly isn't that isolated. Many people will pop in to grab things or traitor, or just to get high. Changing it into a generic deathtrap like the rest of the debris field is uninteresting, lazy, and dare I say it a passive-aggressive "stop having fun in ways we don't want you to way" that doesn't deal with the fact that many overpowered items spawn there, and the removal of the items mentioned above; namely the Strelka, the artifacts, the valu-chimp, the crates, and the spacesuit (which is hardly necessary now that you can fartpack into space) would make it a more balanced area without having to fill it with stupid numbers of drones and removing an extremely enjoyable area from the game.

Furthermore, I don't buy the "interaction with other players" angle at all. There is a staggering amount of apathy displayed by members of the crew to cries for help, people lying dead next to the cloner, the gasps and screams of people dying next to them, ignoring repeated warnings regarding a rogue ai or a psychopathic killer, and generally not even stopping to say hi because of the fear they'll get jumped by a more robust player. It's either apathy or singleminded obliviousness. Who wants to interact with these sorts of people for extended periods?

[Rocket]

"stop having fun in ways we don't want you to" is a good way to sum it up

[warcrimes]

Single spaceman exploring and discovering rich and deep features in relative peace once in a while ruins local 30-player deathmatch. The proposed fix might shock you!

[Readster]

Wow everybody in this thread is being so obstinate. The shuttle was far too powerful for what it was. How quickly this change was picked up on (and subsequently criticized) says a lot about how much people were relying on something that was only ever supposed to be a cool thing for people to explore and loot, not a hub for people to spend a round in.

And I'm saying this as somebody that used to go to this place on my traitor rounds to mix up black powder but I still think this is a good change.

Hell I'm even going to say it. This shuttle is the dark souls genetics of Botany and Chemistry.

[Wire]

Single spaceman exploring and discovering rich and deep features in relative peace once in a while ruins local 30-player deathmatch. The proposed fix might shock you!

could you please make arguments in a polite and adult manner, without being a giant dick. thanks.

edit: this goes for everyone

[Dions]

I think this is a little bit overblown, the russian shuttle has kind of been a haven for antisocial people to power themselves up so they can roll the station without ever having to deal with another person. It's pretty unfair to just assume we're trying to corral you into "proper" gameplay by making changes we think will enhance the game. I for one think its more fun when this multiplayer game is multiplayer. If you want to do chemistry there are a couple jobs you can pick to do them, and you can order botany trays from cargo. or you can just steal them from botany because door hacking is trivial.

When we add new items, nobody complains about us trying to push a specific style of play, but when something is taken away it is the only argument that sounds logical when really youre just annoyed you need to change your strategy.


Edit: Also mechanics start with insulated gloves and gear for creating your very own russian shuttle anywhere you want! All we ask is you work for stuff every now and then; imagine for a second what the game would be like if everyone had all access and you might understand where were coming from.

P.P.S.: I mean the shuttle is still there just requires more effort than "get in pod, warp to diner, go down, go right"

[warcrimes]

Single spaceman exploring and discovering rich and deep features in relative peace once in a while ruins local 30-player deathmatch. The proposed fix might shock you!

could you please make arguments in a polite and adult manner, without being a giant dick. thanks.

edit: this goes for everyone

yeah sorry

[sartorius]

Wow everybody in this thread is being so obstinate. The shuttle was far too powerful for what it was. How quickly this change was picked up on (and subsequently criticized) says a lot about how much people were relying on something that was only ever supposed to be a cool thing for people to explore and loot, not a hub for people to spend a round in.

And I'm saying this as somebody that used to go to this place on my traitor rounds to mix up black powder but I still think this is a good change.

Hell I'm even going to say it. This shuttle is the dark souls genetics of Botany and Chemistry.

There are plenty of other places dedicated to looting cool stuff in the debris field, and the mechanics outpost also is a place people will "spend rounds in" making super duper inescapable deathtraps. There's also a functional kitchen in bar in the form of the Space Bar. If this is about redundancy, then the debris field would need a massive overhaul. If this is about overpowered items, then there are simple steps to be taken by removing the overpowered items while still having these areas in their form as "backup departments" if someone's job gets bombed or they want to try something as a different civillian job or even multitask.'

I would appreciate it if others in the thread would not be rude to the administrators and coders. There's no need for that, you can convey why you disagree without putting people down. You should know better.

It has also occured to me that the massive influx of drones in the area make it trivial for anyone with a passing knowledge of telescience to depopulate the station by beaming a few of them around.

[Wraithcraft]

Wow everybody in this thread is being so obstinate. The shuttle was far too powerful for what it was. How quickly this change was picked up on (and subsequently criticized) says a lot about how much people were relying on something that was only ever supposed to be a cool thing for people to explore and loot, not a hub for people to spend a round in.

And I'm saying this as somebody that used to go to this place on my traitor rounds to mix up black powder but I still think this is a good change.

Hell I'm even going to say it. This shuttle is the dark souls genetics of Botany and Chemistry.

There are plenty of other places dedicated to looting cool stuff in the debris field, and the mechanics outpost also is a place people will "spend rounds in" making super duper inescapable deathtraps. There's also a functional kitchen in bar in the form of the Space Bar. If this is about redundancy, then the debris field would need a massive overhaul. If this is about overpowered items, then there are simple steps to be taken by removing the overpowered items while still having these areas in their form as "backup departments" if someone's job gets bombed or they want to try something as a different civillian job or even multitask.'

I would appreciate it if others in the thread would not be rude to the administrators and coders. There's no need for that, you can convey why you disagree without putting people down.

i think this change was a step in the right direction. its making you really have to want to be in the russian shuttle to get in there. thats really all there is too it, in all honesty. if you want to get in to nerd out a bunch of death chems, you just have to spend five minutes clearing out a few mindless drones.

[Flourish]

My opinion is that we should just move the Strelka somewhere else. And remove a few drones that are too close to the mining outpost. Growing plants at the soviet shuttle is pretty fun and I don't think it should be dangerous to try and do that.

I'm not sure how I feel about the chem dispenser - on one hand it's pretty useful for botany, but on the other I've seen wizards and traitors just use it as a very low risk opportunity to make death chems.

edit: Oh I didn't read the thread too carefully and apparently the plant trays were removed? I think we should bring them back. They're generally harmless.

[MrMagolor]

Maybe removing the Gardengear, or restricting them to botany-level access, would be wise, as free saltpeter = BP pipebomb nerds.

I know artbeakers already hold loads of saltpeter, but they're much more RNG-based.