Musings on the State of Salvagers and Possible Suggestions

[Skotcher]

While I do agree with some points I also think there is some skill issue happening.

You can gain enough points to essentially buy yourself a whole kit from a single haul if you know where to look and you are given a large amount of tools to escape if needed.

The stun meta beeing bad is true but thats an inherrent flaw of Goonstation combat and the need to be stealthy is true aswell, but thats just how salvagers work early game.

I agree that you can get a decent haul in a single run. The crux of the issue, to me, is a tendency of total avoidance of the crew. For example, one of the best setups you can do is head to the mining outpost & tech outpost, strip all the machinery, setup a powersink where all the SMES units are (or better yet, deconstruct them and just move the power to a safe spot), and then have several Salvagers grab some pod mining tools and go mine for a bit. You could realistically get several thousand points for each salvager within about 30 minutes taking this route. 

The problem to me is that I feel like the intended path of conflict for Salvagers is this: The station has valuable items that the Salvagers want for a big paycheck, and the thing stopping Salvagers from their big payday is the crew. I don't feel like current play reflects that.

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I'd like to preface that I really love salvagers, from both sides, and I really like how salvagers currently hold a nice point in the lineup of being an antag that offers a decision between being sneaky and stealing things from the station, or being a bit more forward and obvious. While I enjoy all types of antag, I don't enjoy having to lay low as all of them, and the gradual escalation of a salvager round done well from unknown to nuisance to full-on threat has made for some of my favourite moments as a whole. Both as sec and as antag, I yearn every now and again for a bit of a squad-v-squad shootout, and salvagers is lovely for that while still offering other options.

When it comes to the points thing, I think there's a big hole in the salvager lineup to really drive it home - it is incredibly difficult and arduous for salvagers to actually start taking the station apart. Walls, flooring, doors - that sort of thing - take a looong action bar from a hand cranked device to get some measely scrap out. Easily the most valuable thing on any station is tech storage, followed often by a few bridge destinations or starting to take apart various devices. Having an upgrade that allows you to start taking proper chunks of the hull out in return for an actually worthwhile profit - would go a long way.
The other side of the coin of course being that a powersink just makes it super easy to get loads of point - which I think honestly, would be counterbalanced by making it less subtle? Make using a power sink start shorting out the main power grid - maybe it messes with connected devices, or they randomly get deprived of power intermittently; if it's obvious to the station someone's stealing the power, it's a lot harder to plant one down on the solars, sit for ten minutes, and then go buy all of your valuable, end-game salvager loot.

I think the most important thing when it comes to the power/punishing feeling you mentioned is simply the same thing a lot of the antags have - your own life is super precious. You're in there for one round, and unless someone's managed to steal a whole cloner setup, you get caught with any serious measure of having attacked the station, your round's done there. I feel this, more than anything necessarily regarding gear, is the biggest thing that drives salvagers to laying low until they're fully kitted out with blingy stuff. As it stands, even without security opening the armoury, if you don't have a bunch of the big salvie things, you have to be pretty robust to take on a medium-to-large sized security team, which many players simply aren't. And I don't think you should have to be max-robust to get to have most of the fun in an antag.

So my thought is - what if we added a salvage point reward that, either through detecting crit or an emote like syndie implants, allowed for an emergency extraction back to the Magpie? I feel like this would make it feel much safer for salvagers to interact and get a bit rowdy without feeling like they have to gear up to the max to stand a chance against a well-prepared security team.

I do like the idea of an implant or something that can send you back to the magpie if in crit. Would mean that you could play a bit more aggressively and folks could be aggressive back without the fear of having a round ended right there. Having a more reliable escape option is something I would like to see. The teleporter is nice, but its current usage does feel like it relies on players not knowing you're about to use it, or allowing you to use it.