Goonhub
12-23-2025, 10:31 AM
I'm going to start off by saying I have a personal hatred for torpedoes and I feel like they encourage people to act in ways that are non-conductive to fun and interactive rounds. I'm trying to write this from a productive view to encourage a healthier use of torpedoes, but imagine I'm writing this with a doctor still treating my broken bones from a recent torpedo.
How do the torpedoes work?
On underwater map you spend 10,000 credits, you aim it at the station at any distance, you hit it a few times and walk away. A large chunk of the station suddenly is removed, people nearby to the explosion may die. People have to repair that part of the station or suffer a massive hole being in it. It's TTV scale damage without ever having to get close.
What happens next?
For every round I have seen somebody follow up a torpedo with a impending attack on the crew members who are curiously looking at the stations newest crater. Or using it as a distraction or as a exclamation mark of blowing up medbay after being told their ugly disease is chronic. I feel like I have two or three rounds where a antagonist gracefully escalates from one torpedo, to twelve torpedoes. If we're lucky with a syndicate announcement 38 minutes before hand. Damaging the station massively with leaving proactive crew and security the two options of
A: Think of the most amusing taunts they can over radio
B: Wander around in a slow submarine pod in the vague direction the latest torpedo came from and hope your lucky enough to first find, then defeat a heavily armed traitor who likely spent all of their actual traitor currency on helpful tools to kill you right here and now.
The issues
They're cheap, they're easy to use, they're safe to use so you don't risk "wasting an antagonist round". They leave a massive search radius of possible locations and you can literally be on the other side of the map before security gets a chance to scan 1/4th of it. Grinding credits is comically easy and after seeing such a big new hole on the station that's explicitly Your Fault. It's only natural for a player to simply back off and slip Karl a clean 10k to do it again. Credit based syndicate gear also leads antagonists to grinding without escalating or interacting for long periods of time before suddenly and incredibly violently entering the situation (which is a slightly different but not unrelated discussion).
When I hear the station has bit hit by a torpedo, or that a antagonist has a torpedo, or hear the word torpedo I don't get excited or invested or interested even if I am security. I just think "Oh no. It's going to be a Torpedo Round now" and brace for the next torpedo and only breath a sigh of relief if they actually show up and probably blast me against the hull with a shotgun
I don't think they're very fun right now. I think they encourage players to interact with RP in a way that is counteractive to the over-all enjoyment of a round.
Possible solutions I've heard/thought of.
People were talking about how to make them work better in the discord, more expensive, limited range, less powerful, make them cost TC instead, be able to tie clowns to them. But I feel like the best solution is just a hard limit.
Only being able to buy one or two or three or even up to five means that you know at some point the explosions will stop (you can even count them!) and a syndicate agent will storm in trying to take your lunch money. Maybe they'll bring more bombs, that's fine, it'll be ones they have to carry in themselves.
I think sadly just making them more expensive just means people will grind longer before sending them (which is worse).
A TC cost will make them more unique, a traitor item only for water maps. It will also be a form of a limit and mean they have to sacrifice firepower in other ways.
We could also remove them... but I mean... that's just my opinion (I wouldn't miss them)
How do the torpedoes work?
On underwater map you spend 10,000 credits, you aim it at the station at any distance, you hit it a few times and walk away. A large chunk of the station suddenly is removed, people nearby to the explosion may die. People have to repair that part of the station or suffer a massive hole being in it. It's TTV scale damage without ever having to get close.
What happens next?
For every round I have seen somebody follow up a torpedo with a impending attack on the crew members who are curiously looking at the stations newest crater. Or using it as a distraction or as a exclamation mark of blowing up medbay after being told their ugly disease is chronic. I feel like I have two or three rounds where a antagonist gracefully escalates from one torpedo, to twelve torpedoes. If we're lucky with a syndicate announcement 38 minutes before hand. Damaging the station massively with leaving proactive crew and security the two options of
A: Think of the most amusing taunts they can over radio
B: Wander around in a slow submarine pod in the vague direction the latest torpedo came from and hope your lucky enough to first find, then defeat a heavily armed traitor who likely spent all of their actual traitor currency on helpful tools to kill you right here and now.
The issues
They're cheap, they're easy to use, they're safe to use so you don't risk "wasting an antagonist round". They leave a massive search radius of possible locations and you can literally be on the other side of the map before security gets a chance to scan 1/4th of it. Grinding credits is comically easy and after seeing such a big new hole on the station that's explicitly Your Fault. It's only natural for a player to simply back off and slip Karl a clean 10k to do it again. Credit based syndicate gear also leads antagonists to grinding without escalating or interacting for long periods of time before suddenly and incredibly violently entering the situation (which is a slightly different but not unrelated discussion).
When I hear the station has bit hit by a torpedo, or that a antagonist has a torpedo, or hear the word torpedo I don't get excited or invested or interested even if I am security. I just think "Oh no. It's going to be a Torpedo Round now" and brace for the next torpedo and only breath a sigh of relief if they actually show up and probably blast me against the hull with a shotgun
I don't think they're very fun right now. I think they encourage players to interact with RP in a way that is counteractive to the over-all enjoyment of a round.
Possible solutions I've heard/thought of.
People were talking about how to make them work better in the discord, more expensive, limited range, less powerful, make them cost TC instead, be able to tie clowns to them. But I feel like the best solution is just a hard limit.
Only being able to buy one or two or three or even up to five means that you know at some point the explosions will stop (you can even count them!) and a syndicate agent will storm in trying to take your lunch money. Maybe they'll bring more bombs, that's fine, it'll be ones they have to carry in themselves.
I think sadly just making them more expensive just means people will grind longer before sending them (which is worse).
A TC cost will make them more unique, a traitor item only for water maps. It will also be a form of a limit and mean they have to sacrifice firepower in other ways.
We could also remove them... but I mean... that's just my opinion (I wouldn't miss them)