Silicon balancing

[EmeraldNotAminer]

I have been around goon for a bit over 2 years, and what I have noticed most is behaviour around silicons and their respective mechanics
I'll try and split this up into sections for people to read it easier

Killswitching:
Now, this one relates more to the RP servers than it does main, however killswitching I feel isn't RP friendly as it's the ultimate "Fuck you, killing you" console that allows you to remotely eject a cyborgs brain or turn off an AI without them being able to do anything, and escalation-wise, it falls flat as a cyborg could be building up to something and they get killswitched with a timer which is adjustable (Minimum I believe is 60 seconds)

Behaviour:
Another RPish article but could be applied to classic. Typically when there are multiple silicons and they don't have a lawrack, it is technically okay to just kill them. In classic this is fine there aren't any rules against it. However in RP there may be about 6 silicons (for the sake of a scenario) and 2 of them may go and attack and kill crewmembers but the other 4 may attempt to block them (And their lawrack is destroyed or emptied). Now let's say the captain makes their way to the mainframe/upload with the robotics computer and killswitches ALL 6 silicons because of this and no rules obstruct it as the borgs are classified as antags making it okay to demolish them with tasers and flashes with no reprecautions despite the fact it is blankly ending the cyborgs rounds a counter argument to this is "Well they can be rebuilt" My argument against that is play silicon for a few rounds, have your body destroyed and watch as everyone walks past it because they don't care.

Battery:
For both RP and classic, battery changing is a pain in the ass, silicons can't do it themselves and it is menial labour for a human. They should be able to replace their own battery as otherwise it's annoying for all parties involved

Secondary Killswitch idea:
This is RP only, if you don't care about it you can read another section, however the RP killswitches should have a cooldown of 180 seconds (3 mins) minimum rather than 60 seconds. This is because on RP escalation is required and you cannot go on a rampage with your remaining 60 seconds of life.

Finer manipulation:
Now, whilst I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, cyborgs can't perform some basic tasks that they should be able to (Just thought of one) Phone usage, the brobocop module may be used for a silicon to work a desk of security, however when someone uses the phone, all that a silicon can do is stare as the phone rings and then the dial tone because they cannot interact with it at all.

GPS death:
This is like the health implant, if it detects a borg dies it sends out the coordinates of where they died instead of just going "They died in space" so that the cyborgs that die in the debris field or asteroid field can still be found

VR:
Well silicons can't go in VR, simple as, they should be able to even if it is just into the sleeper pods for the VR

Clothing:
This is another article mainly for RP (Most of these are RP ones as I have played about 3 main rounds so I don't have a good idea on how busted or underpowered borgs are there) Clothing has two parts to it, the first being if a borg looses a limb or changes their screen face it goes BEHIND them, this looks ugly and the borg need s a docking station to fix it. The next part is borgs cannot synthesize their own clothes, and there would be two ways to fix this either A) when they are in a docking station expand the amount they can change accessories to involve clothes B) Add another fabricator into robotics with clothing that cyborgs can wear (so no shoes, gloves etc.) 



Now, this is all that I have to say, there will be points I have missed or overlooked or may just not know about, so comment them below then maybe when 2023 starts I might consolidate the issues that remain

[nefarious6th]

GPS, VR and Phones all would be highlights phones and vr make sense to me because ~electronics~ though maybe someone can make the argument of phones on a separate net or something idk they dont even got wires

Clothing, the layer is not intentional but a code issue/oversight and I do believe there are issue tickets on improper clothing layering on cyborgs open at this time (and have been open for a long time). Clothing layering is a notoriously tricky dev task to handle, but I promise it's not an intentional mechanic to bog the cyborgs' life down, it's just one of those things no one has been able to fix or look at in the depth needed to fix. More default cyborg skins could be cool, maybe some base jumpsuit colors without encroaching on the uniqueness of other clothing items, or large arrays of things in many colors like what's in the clothing booth. Though this gets into a matter of customization in that borgs thematically just...arent all that identifiable on principle.

I have no thoughts on batteries specifically other than it may be a matter of non-replication sort of in the same vein that you cant change your own head or chest. Some human-cyborg interface is good! cyborgs shouldn't be totally independent, it is a social game after all.

Killswitching is death in the same way a human being killed is. The body is still, for all intents an purposes, there to reanimate. IF someone cares, and that is what it boils down to for anyone, silicon or carbon. if someone switches you, fight to the death, idk. It's a deathmatch at that point, it's announced you're dying, so go out like you are (within whatever your laws allow). IMO, just like I am gonna fight against nukies or a vamp to the extent I can as a human when they're actively killing me, I treat a killswitch as my cue to do the same; either put up the final fight or get my dramatic monologue rolling. AIs and cyborgs can be rebuilt after killswitching. There's a benefit to having the brains fly out for safe recovery until someone can fix whatever the problem is and bring everybody back. kind of like people who preserve bodies until they have a suitable means to revive by. but that plays into the dynamics of the game. will you get revived? wont you? at the point of death, it's out of your hands, and this is universal for all players.

as far as behavior goes, I personally view silicons as a team. whether they're a cohesive team all on the same page is a different matter, but they're a team. when one silicon goes loud, all are liable to be punished for it because the amount of information that nonsilicons know about if and how you're colluding with other silicons is fundamentally limited.

if the matter of having your body destroyed and ignored on rp is a problem, I encourage you to not play silicon. playing as a silicon, fundamentally bound to laws and a role where you have some element of counter-guessing being done by nonsilicons, is a choice. I cant fault people for guessing wrong because they didnt have every piece of information about who is doing what, what they are doing, and when they're going to do it.

[babayetu83]

dont worry, people don't need any encouraging to not play cyborg on rp. i feel it is a rare sight to see somebody willingly made into one, with most of the cyborgs i encounter during a round are ones who spawned in as one or more uncommonly touched a borging artifact. i was infact accosted by a mdir one round who got very angry with me that i dragged a corpse to robotics to borg instead of cloning them. with how little interaction i have with people coming in aside from the odd surgery, i just feel like an assistant with medical access. "w-well it's supposed to suck on purpose" is a terrible argument and overall a bad thing to tell somebody if they had a bad experience with it.

if the team aspect is important then in order to really solidify those bonds, why not make it so borgs/ai can help other borgs with stuff in the recharger?

[Silent Majority]

Hi. Piffany. I work robotics sometimes.

I have stepped away from doing it 24/7, but like I have a LOT of borg experience.

Borgs have been made more self sufficient over time. But borgs are still entirely and completely reliant on others for certain activities. while I guess I can see repair/rebuilding as need to be human only I don't think using a charging pod to swap a battery would break anything other then a borg having gotten a battery upgrade that all they can do is look at unless they can convince a human to do it.

And this is an RP thing. I don't think kill switching is fair. Borgs are ridiculously easy to kill, but are still given a button that gives thenm a minute or less to do anything(they also can do nothing to stop it other then beg). I feel that kill switching shuts down rp chances.

I like borg rebellions. I like big borg fights. Seeing the kill switch used breaks my heart because I feel like the borgs get that chance and its instantly taken from them, even if they were doing nothing wrong. An increased timer or the ability for someone with access to reset the timer on the indvidual cyborg would do so much for them being able to survive.

I also think I am against the law rack being destoryable with explosions. I feel it creates a scenario that makes it harder for the constructs. Likewise, I feel that the AI law rack should be removed from Spy Thieves bounty list. by the very nature OF spy thieves escalating into stealing the law rack actively goes against their own antag concept.

[nefarious6th]

I guess since we're posting qualifications hi, nefarious6th. Silicon main 2015-2020.

I'm saying that people expect a lot from other players who dont know the whole situation and cant make the determination in the moment who to trust. Part of the game is information asymmetry. A result of that is people don't know who to trust. Hence why when one cyborg is rogue, people dont know if they can trust others.

[EmeraldNotAminer]

I guess since we're posting qualifications hi, nefarious6th. Silicon main 2015-2020.

I'm saying that people expect a lot from other players who dont know the whole situation and cant make the determination in the moment who to trust. Part of the game is information asymmetry. A result of that is people don't know who to trust. Hence why when one cyborg is rogue, people dont know if they can trust others.

Yeah, I get this however that's applied for all silicons and never a human department. For example, one staff assistant I dunno, blows up something. Not every staff assistant will be arrested. But every silicon would be destroyed (In the context that one silicon blows something up) and no one would care about the other 5 staff assistants. And multiple law racks do exist which means people shouldn't go around destroying cyborgs as they may be connected to a separate law rack.

Also I have been a silicon main from 2020 - 2022 (almost 2023)
And these are issues that I have seen from everyone/thing

I think the whole "They are a silicon, we can just rebuild them" thought is annoying because it could be applied for human "Oh well, we can just clone them or use strange reagent" but no one goes slaughtering humans because one of them did something wrong or an entire department because one did something wrong

[Sacchi]

Borgs have been made more self sufficient over time. But borgs are still entirely and completely reliant on others for certain activities. while I guess I can see repair/rebuilding as need to be human only I don't think using a charging pod to swap a battery would break anything other then a borg having gotten a battery upgrade that all they can do is look at unless they can convince a human to do it.

I'd abuse the hell of it by running power hungry modules and swapping batteries in any docking station whenever I'm low, the batteries recharge themselves in the docking station too!

[LeahTheTech]

You can already do the same thing with recharge packs.

[Leeanei]

Borgs are incredibly fast, versatile, durable with their broad set of immunities including slipping and in return they have flash and killswitch as their vulnerabilities. Plus, silicons are very likely to get antag-ish status in return for laws that read basically "be a good crew member". Not sure I agree with any balance changes to make their lives easier.

[Silent Majority]

Borgs are really only durable to status effectors. Borgs are incredibly easy to kill with the simplest to obtain weapond. A lignt borg can simply be smacked with a fire extinguisher a few times.

I feel my primary issue with the kill switch on rp is one of the reasons it gets used so little. It just stops a scene or rp entirely. I understand the necessity on Classic but on rp the borgs who have become antags via laws SHOULD be escalating the same as any other antag. Something they historically do not always do..

That said.

I think a gps tracking/distress beacon wouldn't balance in the favor of the borgs, more give then a moderately better playing field. A human who has a wormhole open up under their feet to the mass ejector can be recovered if a saw drone happens to be there.

A borg the likelihood is reduced to an infinitesimally amall chance becausenall anyone gets is "borg died in space " message on cyber daemon.

A tracking beacon on borgs would also serve to LESSEN their power slightly when antags or emags. It would make borgs traceable and trackable and a tag borgs usually are tied to an antag human who will typically be trying to hise behind them.

I get like do not remove their weakness. I can even get some of the other arguments even if I don't agree with them. But the no location thing seems archaic at best. They're expensive and dangerous. Why wouldn't nt have trackers for them?

It'd also be a buff to the syndicate frame. Them not being traceable at all would be another point in their very very diminished favor

[babayetu83]

Borgs are incredibly fast, versatile, durable with their broad set of immunities including slipping and in return they have flash and killswitch as their vulnerabilities. Plus, silicons are very likely to get antag-ish status in return for laws that read basically "be a good crew member". Not sure I agree with any balance changes to make their lives easier.

you can say that about humans too so i dont really get it. there's also this stigma against playing cyborg (people will cry and whine at you if you borg them, and as i mentioned on rp people are very hostile to the idea of it)

getting all access is easy, getting access to slip resistant gear is easy, getting armored is easy, genetics has a wide array of things that make things way better for you in the way of anaerobic metabolism and thermal resistance so you can just vibe in the vacuum, you dont annoyingly and quite frustratingly push people when trying to walk past, and i could go on. cyborgs maybe have like a 5-10 minute head start that is rapidly outpaced. i think instead of just a spectrum of light/med/heavy, it would be better to consider different types of cyborgs that have their resistances/drawbacks shuffled. i'd take being able to be slipped over being able to be endlessly stunlocked with no counterplay

[Lord_earthfire]

getting all access is easy, getting access to slip resistant gear is easy, getting armored is easy, genetics has a wide array of things that make things way better for you in the way of anaerobic metabolism and thermal resistance so you can just vibe in the vacuum, you dont annoyingly and quite frustratingly push people when trying to walk past, and i could go on. cyborgs maybe have like a 5-10 minute head start that is rapidly outpaced

In a vacuum, getting each single of these stats are easy. In combination, you need multiple peoples help (most notably genetics, which... Yeah) and the headstart is more akin to 15-20 minutes, with newer players being completely unable to pull these off. Which is a LOT.

On topic, i think kilkswitching should have a minimum timer of like 3 minutes. That way, the ai got plenty of time to lament it's soon comind death or make a last ditch effort for whatever plan itwas going to pull off.

[EmeraldNotAminer]

Borgs are incredibly fast, versatile, durable with their broad set of immunities including slipping and in return they have flash and killswitch as their vulnerabilities. Plus, silicons are very likely to get antag-ish status in return for laws that read basically "be a good crew member". Not sure I agree with any balance changes to make their lives easier.

(Someone else has already made a similar point) But humans can get pretty much all of the bonuses of a borg + more. Heavy armour, Crit (This is because a human can have negative health, a silicon cannot and will be dismantled instantly, a human in crit then health for as long as they can remain on their two legs) anti slip shoes, and multiple genes that make them immune to fire, lack of o2 etc. But humans also can use weapons and guns, silicons don't get guns (Excluding the new foam dart gun.) And being a borg isn't easy, for very experienced players they might be like "I can counter x with y" and so on, but newer players (Which there has been a larger pull for silicon recently) Will probably be like "Wtf, staffie just printed that flash then bashed my head in with a fire extinguisher." Now, whilst that point deviates slightly it presents how silicons can counter what, when and how. So they basically get a slight buff for the first maybe 30 mins of the shift, but any prepared human can easily get more buffs than a borg, seeing as borgs can be disabled by space bear and clown spider attacks, because they essentially shut down the unit for a few seconds as if flashed when they attack them.

[Kotlol]

Why is it no one ever brings up 3 things the borg can do but the humans can't?

1: They can remotely control doors, lock them, shock them and more.
2: Have essentially 3 arms. (Left arm, chest, right arm) wich all can hold tools.
3: Can have upgrades that make them teleport across the map where they want to?

Yes borgs can get easily disabled/destroyed, but their strength doesn't lay in their combat capabilities, but on what they can do in utility.
A borg with the right upgrades can litterly annoy players to no end with almost no counter play except taking up all the teleport beacons and such.

But some changes can be nice for them, that I agree.

[EmeraldNotAminer]

Why is it no one ever brings up 3 things the borg can do but the humans can't?

1: They can remotely control doors, lock them, shock them and more.
2: Have essentially 3 arms. (Left arm, chest, right arm) wich all can hold tools.
3: Can have upgrades that make them teleport across the map where they want to?

Yes borgs can get easily disabled/destroyed, but their strength doesn't lay in their combat capabilities, but on what they can do in utility.
A borg with the right upgrades can litterly annoy players to no end with almost no counter play except taking up all the teleport beacons and such.

But some changes can be nice for them, that I agree.

Because humans can mess around with doors remotely with remote signallers and a silicons access to it can be cut off with a single wire (Which is fair for both sides)
They don't have tools for EVERY job in a department (Which is fair, seeing as a borg can pretty much already do all of medical)
And humans can teleport across the map with the hand-tele