make stun baton flip around when youre on harm intent

[Adhara In Space]

if you have baton
and you switch to harm intent
it flips around in your hand so you are holding the shock part
and it says a message in chat like "you grab the head of the baton!"
if it is on and you hit someone when its like this, baton stun


just visual feedback for the existing feature

[UrsulaMejor]

Last time we had a discussion on this mechanic (harmbaton self stuns), we tried to break down what exactly people liked and disliked about it.

Personally, I like it because the melee weapons that are the most fun to play with right now (the baton, the katana, and the kendo sword) all have various mechanics that make you have to be mindful of what intent or aiming space you're set to at the moment, and "comboing" different features using the intent/aim/use hotkeys intrigues me.

Some of the major reasons I remember people disliking harmbaton self-stun is that it's very punishing, not well conveyed until it's already happened to you, and even then the only indication that you've done something wrong is a mysterious message about how you "held it wrong".


I think that the mechanic is salvageable, and that both people who like it and dislike it can reach a compromise somewhere along the lines of "let's make this mechanic better conveyed to the player; that way it feels less like a random mishap and more like a mistake in play".

Along those lines, flipping the baton sprite was suggested because it clearly represents a change in state for the baton. Overall though, flipping the sprite would be a bit weird when combo'd with the "throw sparks" special ability you could use while in that state. Maybe it could have a different special attack altogether when in that state?

Kendo swords have a framework for detecting intent changes and changing behavior based on intent, including examples of sprite changes and special attack changes. A lot of that would be reusable here.

[zjdtmkhzt]

Personally, I would like to just have the feature removed altogether.
I feel like it really has no reason to exist, for the katana it makes sense to target different limbs that you want to cut off, but that is a much more niche item.
The baton is an item that lots of new players will use as sec officers, and I find being stunned for being on harm intent while beating someone really unintuitive.
You will pretty much always want to be on harm intent while beating someone with a weapon, because, well, you're fighting them. Changing the baton to not harm on harm intent would only make sense if the intents actually mattered more for other items, like not beating people as a default action on help intent.

In addition, most of the actions that you can do with an item depending on intent all have their place. There is a reason to hit someone with a gun on help intent if you want less lethal, there is a reason you would want to hold someone hostage on grab, and there is a reason to shoot someone point-blank with harm.
But why would you ever want to stun yourself with a baton? It just feels like a weird 'feature' that is solely there as a gotcha for new players and people that don't use stun batons very often.
This is also why I think that making them flip around visually while on harm intent would make little sense, why would a security officer flip their baton around when having harmful thoughts? And a new player will certainly not notice a small thing like the baton flipping around before stunning themselves, probably repeatedly, being confused, and then needing to send a mentorhelp where we will explain to them that it's a weird old feature that we leave in for reasons we can't quite explain.

Also, I feel it reeks very strongly of the sort of 'making fun of people' attitude that we used to have much more in the old goonstation, with things like 'haha, you grabbed a light grenade, what a noob'. I am glad we have been distancing ourselves from stuff like that and I feel like removing harmbaton stuns would be a good step with continuing in that direction.

[DJ-Fireball_did_this]

Well after 2 years nothing good has come from this.

[Frank_Stein]

I don't think this is as punishing as it used to be, since it takes more than one hits to knock someone out with a baton.
If you do stun yourself, your sprite goes wonky and it's easy to correct if you catch it.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the feature was axed. I would love to see more intent based moves with the baton. I think you could do some kind of limb lock moves with grab to do faster pins

[Studenterhue]

I think sprite change would be a good compromise for those who want to keep stun baton's self-stun on harm and those who want to remove it. Helps make it less of a trap for those feeling like it's not conveyed well, and it's still around for those who  find it funny, feel it's a good lesson about intents mattering, and other reasons.

---

Personally, I wouldn't mind it being removed either, purely on the consistency basis. Harm intent is basically the "extra murdery" option, even if it's somewhat underdeveloped. In addition the gun mechanics zjdtmkhzt described, Harm unarmed makes you do a punch or kick rather than a shove, grab, or nudge, Harm for flockdrones butchers drones and takes flockstuff apart, and surgery on the head on Harm makes you remove the whole head than just the brain. You don't like, smack yourself in face or actually stab yourself with the surgery tools or otherwise hurt yourself.

And you know, there times when you might want to break from this convention of harm being extra murdery rather than harmful to you. But stun baton, I don't quite a see a reason for it to. It's not like some alien weapon where intents are like reversed. And you know, I don't quite buy the "holding it at the electric end and smacking them with the handle" story. Why not hold it at like the middle then? And wouldn't having electrically insulative gloves stop the self-stun? If it's to punish bad Sec harmbatoning, then like Frank said, it's kinda not all that punishing nowadays. I disagree with the whole lesson about intents thing too, and it goes back to the consistency angle; to me, if I was a newbie and self-stunned attempting to harmbaton, I think I'd be more likely to think "stay away from Harm intent, it screws you over" or "why does this item's Harm intent function hurt me but not other items'" than "be careful with Harm". And that's a kinda a bad lesson because Harm on other items is usually not self-detrimental.

[Carbadox]

to echo what Kyle said on a PR that wanted self-harm-battoning to be removed, currently the actual punishment for it is dismissable, a couple seconds of the "electrified" status or whatever, especially compared to how before, you'd just stun yourself for 30 seconds straight.

I think the mechanic is fine. It reminds Sec Offices to be concious of what they're doing, even more so during combat. And you could even make a case that "lore wise", self-harm-batonning happens if you're inexpirenced with using a baton.

However, I do think that whats currently going on should be explained better to the player, as currently its very much confusing for anyone that hasnt had it explained to them.

[Wisecrack34]

I think the flipped baton sprite offers a good middle ground where you get a decent warning that you're not holding it right

[Chayot]

Sounds fine, as Ursula pointed out, the "Throw sparks" ability would need to take a hike to another INTENT.
Maybe 4 can then provide a "SWING" Ability. That'd be awfully useful for fighting the Golden Horde as SEC often does!

The harmbaton screw-ups themselves are fun. They're not too well explained, OK. Yet they are fun.
It also adds skill to the weapon, I enjoy the challenge of swapping around in the middle of combat.

And It's a great learning punishment for new SEC.
New SEC may end up killing crew *on accident* if it's removed.
As of now, it's a good lethal option for experienced SEC to choose as an effective last result.

[DJ-Fireball_did_this]

I feel like the problem there is the secoffs, not their batons.

[Frank_Stein]

If flipping the baton when your intent is on harm is how we handle this, what if simply trying to hold it while it's on set to harm is what triggers the shock?

So, if you want to go to harm you have to flick it off first, or else it shocks you.
If you try to pick it on while it's on and you have yourself set to harm, it shocks you.
If you try to put it back on your belt or bag and it's on, it shocks you.

Really hammer home that when you turn on that shock, you're holding something dangerous that needs to be handled carefully.
If there's one skill we should teach Sec players, it's remaining calm under pressure and precise actions.


Also, this means you can twirl your baton by rapidly switching intents and I like that.

[TheMaskedMan2]

To be honest i'd rather just make it so if you harm-baton it's just less effective and slows you down a bit instead of basically hitting yourself with it.

Just a simple in-between that isn't literally knocking yourself out for 30 seconds because of a single misclick.

[Adhara In Space]

wokring on a pr for this rn

[Adhara In Space]

https://streamable.com/d9i3gl

[Frank_Stein]

https://streamable.com/d9i3gl

Spin the in hand tooooooo