TTV's (and other explosives) during gang rounds

[GORE]

- Never insta-gib a whole team for destroying too many tiles. One of them could have done all of it; then you just fucked over a group of players for one rascal.

- There are times where it is necessary to destroy walls. Oh someone build a wall in a hallway? I am a ganger. Better not destroy it then? What?

- Destroying singular walls to vent the whole station is perhaps worse than bombing one key area completely. All ideas would currently ignore this?

- I like the points aft2001 makes. Cleanlinless of a room, powered, already damaged - stuff like that. Nice. Good idea.

- Using acid to destroy walls to kill the AI should not be punished.

- If I am a gang leader and one of me mates destroys a whole lot of space costing us points and he won't stop - you better allow me to finish him off OR kick people out of the gang. Why is that not a thing? I mean the leader cannot decide after someone has joined to remove them...kinda...mh - but yeah - I would hate to get fucked over by one of my gang-mates and then have to watch him continue with no way to make him stop. This is a problem that needs to be adressed when deciding on implementing any change to the current system in regards to station destruction.

- Not at all times is removing a wall equal to destroying something. What about room expansions? I feel like it is pretty hard to find a system that would work greatly here. Why not instead of punishing the whole team - the person comitting such crimes would experience some sort of de-buff OR - be locked out of purchasing higher-tier stuff from the gang lockers? I do not know. Spit-balling here. Offering the crazed thoughts and concerns that haunt me.

- Difficult topic. See the problem. Split on solutions. Let's discuss this further. <3

[Mouse]

- Never insta-gib a whole team for destroying too many tiles. One of them could have done all of it; then you just fucked over a group of players for one rascal.

If you are unwilling to take responsibility for the actions of your gang you shouldn't be joining or running a gang in the first place.

[GORE]

Oh - yeah sure...because why?
Even when one tries to coordinate a team some people just like to do their solo-thing and treat a gang like a solo-antag role.

Oh. They ask - can I be in the gang and then you never hear from them again. What then?

If you want to get me insta-gibbed for them blowing up the station; then there either needs to be the option to kick misbehaving gang members or it should be alright to execute them in such instances. Cut loose a bad apple.

Why should someone otherwise put trust in players they never heard about?
To get fucked over for not knowing how they usually play?
Nah~

See flaws in this possible turn of events and I do not think they have been adressed completely yet.

[Frank_Stein]

I don't think there should be any hard ban. There are times when an explosion is both appropriate and adds to the rounds dynamic tension.

Ask yourself this. Do we have the same problem with bomb making in other game modes? If not, than what is it about gang that makes it different?

[Roomba]

The thing that makes gang specifically different is that as long as any one of the toxins metagang can get into a gang they can go 'okay, you guys get the TTVs rolling, which is a perfectly legal non-antag thing to do as long as you promise to use them for "experimental" purposes, and once you're done with that come join my gang and we'll light this sucker up'. No other mode allows for that same kind of self-antagging (except Rev, and I would also be happy with a toxins shutdown during Rev because there's no call for it in that mode either).

[GORE]

To be honest; sec could just empty out the TTV materials in a gang round and lock them up.

Also - bombing sec as revs still makes sense.

[Arlian]

I dislike the idea of bombs being banned / disabled for gang rounds. There are some good legitimate uses that I've seen during gang rounds, such as a rough gang war being ended by a particulary nasty TTV planted covertly at the enemy gangs locker which killed most of the enemy gang. That sort of drama is what makes gang rounds great in my opinion.

I think the best solution lies with disincentivizing the use of bombs to begin with. For example, perhaps the production and deployment of bombs could alert other gangs over the gang radio? Maybe security could get a tip off from a mysterious informant. Not sure how easy that would be to implement considering all the different bombs you can make, but I'd support any solution that disincentivizes rather than bans outright.

[Roomba]

Again, here's the current situation that prompted this thread:

There is a group of people who care nothing about accomplishing the actual goals of Gang, only how quickly and efficiently they can bomb the station. The second one of them ends up as a gang leader, all of them rush toxins and begin TTV mass production, then just before deployment, sign up as gang members so that they're all antags and thus are entirely in the clear to deploy as many TTVs as they want.

Proposed solutions that have already proven by history to be ineffectual:

1 - "add extra objectives to gang that makes doing them more interesting than bombing": Won't work. These people don't care for anything related to gang except 'this is a mode that lets us all sign up as antags, so we are free to bomb the station".

2 - "have sec shut down toxins in advance": Admins have already shut this down as 'metagaming', and insist strongly that regardless of whatever suspicions you have of the people in there, taking any sort of action at all to shut them down is not kosher up until the exact second you see them deploying their bombs on the station.

3 - "Let's punish the bombers with ironic punishments for bombing the station": funny, but you know as well as I do there's no way it's going to be implemented, and all it does is lead people down dumb tangents about why these specific countermeasures wouldn't work.

4 - "This sounds like a problem with these specific people, why not just have admins crack down on them": The admin response will be 'cracking down on these people won't fix the actual issue, we need a systemic solution to this problem'. So far, the only systemic response that has worked on actually curtailing this problem has been 'entirely disable toxins on gang until gang is reworked'.

5 - "Okay, let's rework gang so it dissuades bombers": I haven't seen any proposals that avoid the problem of point #1.

[rando212]

Hm this seems like a difficult problem one thing i have noticed is that in the end that these people are just being dickheads. Maybe add in a rule that gangs aren't allowed to destroy large parts of the station but make it like the non antag bombing antags where its meant to be a last resort thing where you can use bombs if necessary but otherwise it is not allowed. This is just a quick idea i had after looking though the thread. And also add a way for a gang leader to kick members kinda surprised this wasn't already added.

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Hm this seems like a difficult problem one thing i have noticed is that in the end that these people are just being dickheads. Maybe add in a rule that gangs aren't allowed to destroy large parts of the station but make it like the non antag bombing antags where its meant to be a last resort thing where you can use bombs if necessary but otherwise it is not allowed. This is just a quick idea i had after looking though the thread. And also add a way for a gang leader to kick members kinda surprised this wasn't already added.

[Froggit_Dogget]

I do not think toxins should be disabled during gang rounds. It takes experienced Toxins Nerds to make them fast, and even then they still take over 10 minutes to make. Chembombs, while a bit smaller, would still be a thing, and those can easily be mass produced in under 5. Either way if you disabled toxins you would still have the same problems.

[mralexs]

I do not think toxins should be disabled during gang rounds. It takes experienced Toxins Nerds to make them fast, and even then they still take over 10 minutes to make. Chembombs, while a bit smaller, would still be a thing, and those can easily be mass produced in under 5. Either way if you disabled toxins you would still have the same problems.

Well you wouldn't have to disable toxins. There was a bit of code last year the specifically prevented gangs from building TTV's that was up for 3 days before being removed.

[Frank_Stein]

Again, here's the current situation that prompted this thread:

There is a group of people who care nothing about accomplishing the actual goals of Gang, only how quickly and efficiently they can bomb the station. The second one of them ends up as a gang leader, all of them rush toxins and begin TTV mass production, then just before deployment, sign up as gang members so that they're all antags and thus are entirely in the clear to deploy as many TTVs as they want.

Proposed solutions that have already proven by history to be ineffectual:

1 - "add extra objectives to gang that makes doing them more interesting than bombing": Won't work. These people don't care for anything related to gang except 'this is a mode that lets us all sign up as antags, so we are free to bomb the station".

2 - "have sec shut down toxins in advance": Admins have already shut this down as 'metagaming', and insist strongly that regardless of whatever suspicions you have of the people in there, taking any sort of action at all to shut them down is not kosher up until the exact second you see them deploying their bombs on the station.

3 - "Let's punish the bombers with ironic punishments for bombing the station": funny, but you know as well as I do there's no way it's going to be implemented, and all it does is lead people down dumb tangents about why these specific countermeasures wouldn't work.

4 - "This sounds like a problem with these specific people, why not just have admins crack down on them": The admin response will be 'cracking down on these people won't fix the actual issue, we need a systemic solution to this problem'. So far, the only systemic response that has worked on actually curtailing this problem has been 'entirely disable toxins on gang until gang is reworked'.

5 - "Okay, let's rework gang so it dissuades bombers": I haven't seen any proposals that avoid the problem of point #1.

Honestly I think the problem is preparing for your antag status as a non-antag by building the weapons and explosives you plan to use is pretty metagaming behavior.

[mralexs]

Again, here's the current situation that prompted this thread:

There is a group of people who care nothing about accomplishing the actual goals of Gang, only how quickly and efficiently they can bomb the station. The second one of them ends up as a gang leader, all of them rush toxins and begin TTV mass production, then just before deployment, sign up as gang members so that they're all antags and thus are entirely in the clear to deploy as many TTVs as they want.

Proposed solutions that have already proven by history to be ineffectual:

1 - "add extra objectives to gang that makes doing them more interesting than bombing": Won't work. These people don't care for anything related to gang except 'this is a mode that lets us all sign up as antags, so we are free to bomb the station".

2 - "have sec shut down toxins in advance": Admins have already shut this down as 'metagaming', and insist strongly that regardless of whatever suspicions you have of the people in there, taking any sort of action at all to shut them down is not kosher up until the exact second you see them deploying their bombs on the station.

3 - "Let's punish the bombers with ironic punishments for bombing the station": funny, but you know as well as I do there's no way it's going to be implemented, and all it does is lead people down dumb tangents about why these specific countermeasures wouldn't work.

4 - "This sounds like a problem with these specific people, why not just have admins crack down on them": The admin response will be 'cracking down on these people won't fix the actual issue, we need a systemic solution to this problem'. So far, the only systemic response that has worked on actually curtailing this problem has been 'entirely disable toxins on gang until gang is reworked'.

5 - "Okay, let's rework gang so it dissuades bombers": I haven't seen any proposals that avoid the problem of point #1.

Honestly I think the problem is preparing for your antag status as a non-antag by building the weapons and explosives you plan to use is pretty metagaming behavior.

Honestly thats a good point, especially when they tend to group up with the same people

[Boxta]

Again, here's the current situation that prompted this thread:

There is a group of people who care nothing about accomplishing the actual goals of Gang, only how quickly and efficiently they can bomb the station. The second one of them ends up as a gang leader, all of them rush toxins and begin TTV mass production, then just before deployment, sign up as gang members so that they're all antags and thus are entirely in the clear to deploy as many TTVs as they want.

Proposed solutions that have already proven by history to be ineffectual:

1 - "add extra objectives to gang that makes doing them more interesting than bombing": Won't work. These people don't care for anything related to gang except 'this is a mode that lets us all sign up as antags, so we are free to bomb the station".

2 - "have sec shut down toxins in advance": Admins have already shut this down as 'metagaming', and insist strongly that regardless of whatever suspicions you have of the people in there, taking any sort of action at all to shut them down is not kosher up until the exact second you see them deploying their bombs on the station.

3 - "Let's punish the bombers with ironic punishments for bombing the station": funny, but you know as well as I do there's no way it's going to be implemented, and all it does is lead people down dumb tangents about why these specific countermeasures wouldn't work.

4 - "This sounds like a problem with these specific people, why not just have admins crack down on them": The admin response will be 'cracking down on these people won't fix the actual issue, we need a systemic solution to this problem'. So far, the only systemic response that has worked on actually curtailing this problem has been 'entirely disable toxins on gang until gang is reworked'.

5 - "Okay, let's rework gang so it dissuades bombers": I haven't seen any proposals that avoid the problem of point #1.

Honestly I think the problem is preparing for your antag status as a non-antag by building the weapons and explosives you plan to use is pretty metagaming behavior.

I want to point a thing out here. Froggits, and Walks "metagang", always join the gang at it being placed or when they get a flyer. This opens them up to murder and and basically anything you can do to antags as a nonantag.

[Drago156]

So I make it a very clear point when I played HoS that ANY sort of explosives or mass destruction from a gang on any side would lead to me giving authorization to security to eliminate ALL gang members. I also make it very clear when I'm a gang member and especially leader that when someone starts fucking up or going against the gang's best interest in a way that is harmful I will kill them myself, to make sure they stay in line.

As a person who has also been playing since gang got reworked and enabled again, the problem isn't per say just in TTVs, but they are the easiest and most common way to mass bomb the station. It also doesn't help that once you have your gas mixes all you have to do is have the parts and you're good to go, and that you can get more of the valves themselves. TTVs are very easily made, even just for an 11x11 which is plenty enough destructive force, and they can be produced in well under 10 minutes if you go straight at it and know what you're doing. I know because my personal best for getting 5 TTVs outta toxins is something like 8 and a half minutes, and that was with 9x9s before the cap got moved up.

Banning people is only a bandaid solution because it doesn't stop the next group of people from doing the exact same thing. Really gang should have a hard ban on ALL explosives larger than a pipebomb IMO, because they should be working with lowscale gear and makeshift stuff, at least in my eyes.

I also think the entire self-antag thing is just absolutely the WORST part of gang, because it allows players to choose to be an antag and be able to do whatever the hell they want. It's practically hard mode traitor but you get extra goodies.

Finally I agree with the idea to allow gang leaders to kick out members, maybe disallowing that member from joining any gang, also like Aft's idea but I thinl the cleanliness could be chalked out, because if there are proper turf wars, no one's gonna bother with cleaning blood when they're busy beating each other's heads in. I also had an idea to suggest but it seemed to slip my mind, I'll prolly post in here again if I remember what it was.