Encyclopedia Robustica: Damage values and why they matter...

[Val]

On another note, I noticed that rods seem to do a lot of damage...sometimes. A borg was able to sap my health pretty fast with one, but they weren't really that efficient when I tried them out as a borg. They also seem to have no chance of causing any effect (knockdown, etc.).

My main question is: does Hulk actually add any brute damage to your attacks? Empowered wizards are supposed to be pretty nasty if hiding in a wall with thermals, but I've used Empower and I didn't notice a significant increase in my ability to kill people with my bare hands. Naturally, TK works better with a bludgeoning weapon (though how I'm able to telekinetically hit you with an extinguisher that never leaves my hands is beyond me.)

Rods are fairly robust and much more so than most items on the station that you can usually get your hands on. I think knockdown and knockout chance is about equal for most items, with their chance of doing this also being about the same.

As for the Hulk power granting more damage, I think it may only apply to physical attacks like punching and not to melee or ranged attacks, but I've never properly tested it out. It would be silly if a hulk could punch through walls but only do normal damage to someone with their attacks.

what stuns a borg? I think a stun baton is always reliable but I can never tell if a flash works or not on them. I assume a taser doesn't do much?

oh and related to hulk, someone mentioned in chat once that concussive gauntlets give around 25% extra punching power, I think. a little meager for something meant to destroy solid rock but I'll take what I can get.

AFAIK, both a stun baton and a flash can totally stun a borg for roughly half the time that it stuns a human. Mining tools are surprisingly not very robust themselves for whatever reason. The Mining pick, laser drill, conc gloves, and plasma cutters don't deal any more damage than whatever you can usually find, despite their inherently powerful nature as a tool. I personally think they deserve a damage buff against mobs.

I would have thought toolboxes, and by proxy, briefcases, do more damage.
especially for how popular they are as a robusting item.

Toolboxes were nerfed on goonstation a long time ago. Before then, they were super robust, doing about as much damage as the fire extinguisher, I believe. Of course, they also nerfed p. acid and a few other things over time, but the toolbox simply isn't fearsome on Goonstation as it is on other builds of the game.

knockout times are pretty damn long

They also seem to be a bit inconsistent, and that's not to say that knockout times do not stack with one another since you can repeatedly knock someone unconscious while they're knocked out. I'm not sure what it all attributes to, but hitting someone with something heavy will likely result in someone being out of commission for a lot longer than merely punching them down if your results are conclusive.

As far as I know, slipping on Space Lube does 5 damage, not 60. Are you thinking about Syndicate Cleaning Grenades?

No, I'm pretty sure slipping on space lube does a ton of damage from the last time I experimented with it as a chemistry scientist. I made a lube-smoke bomb (on myself, like a fool) to cover a small area (the arrivals hallway) with space lube. I wasn't a traitor, but most of the other station was much more trafficked and I needed a quiet spot to experiment, as research had been caught in a plasma fire.

I was at full health when I did this and as soon as I took a step, I slipped across the floor and the health indicator went down to red-orange (severe injuries). The odd thing about space lube is that once you take the initial damage, you stop taking anymore from it. You could slip four times on the same space lube and you'd still only bear the damage you initially took.

Unless they changed it recently, space lube hurts a lot to slip on. I don't know if it can be attributed to anything specific, but I know that all of my experiences with the space lube you can make in chem have resulted in taking about as much damage as a laser shot when you slip on it.