Teleman needs a thirty second delay

[Chasu]

Firstly, telesci is the only thing that needs the mainframe.

Most scientists in artlab barely use the machines and instead get the handheld alternatives (cryostylane for cold, radium for radiation, multitool for electric, welder for heat etc.). Chemistry or toxins don't use it at all.

And hey, if you really get the artlab down, maybe you got a few angry scientists who can help you get the telesci-user. I think noone of them would complain about the opportunity to blow someone up or splash a beaker of saxitoxin onto someone.

Secondly, if people need to fix the wires, they need to reconnect their PC and, more importantly, they need to get to the wires first. You can ambush them. Cutting the mainframe is ample of opportunity to get the person who cut it. If you can't catch them while fixing the wire, it's neither a mechanic nor a player issue: It's a skill issue.

You can also just deconstruct the telepad. that works as well.

I agree for the most part, the exception being that art scientists barely use the machines, but even if their work is disrupted, what is so wrong with that?

Having even more people motivated go after the antag is a good thing. This is exactly the kind of station-wide consequence a fight with an antag should have.

A cut mainframe wire is, exactly as Earthfire said, a great ambush opportunity.

There are so many ways to fight this with the current means we have ingame.
Afraid to lose track of them? Get the implant gun and a tracker.
Want to slow them down? Open the armory and get a stasis rifle.

A 30-second delay is absolutely ridiculous and would blatantly punish all telescience players for wanting to do their job, as well as discourage interaction and experimentation with telescience in general.


Now, I won't deny that such encounters are difficult to counter, so if we really wanted to change something, what could one do to make them happen less?
Simple, make telepads use up telecrystals for teleportation. This would up the requirements for fully self-constructed telepads some more (on top of the material costs telepads already have).
"But this makes even legitimate telescience reliant on mining"
Give science a starting reservoir of, say, 15 telecrystals.