Teleman needs a thirty second delay

[Agent reburG]

I wouldn't mind, if security could get access to portable Tele-Jammers like you see em in the debris field. 

But the prompted nerf is ludicrous, most likely, these nerds would just get a second or third tele then. 
Consider this, what ever you throw at someone that knows what they are doing, they will find a workaround.
But, you also throw it at 50 people just wanting to use said thing, which then stop bothering with it and give up. 
So Tele-Sci would be the only one really suffering from it. 

Without offense, Security just might have to use something besides their batons for once.

Requiring more power? 
Get a Portable Generator.

There, everyone already familiar with Tele-Sci and wanting to Abuse it, just worked around this nerf with +1 Minute of preparation. 
And the only one now struggling is now the Newbee trying to figure the teleporter and keeps running out of power (Especially on maps on Oshan or other alternative engines that don't immediately produce Max SMES output). 

Nerfing doesn't stop nerds, it just makes them more eager for workarounds. 

Give Sec some new toys, or a damn manual with the magic three words to stop this.
But a nerf alone will only take its toll on people working with it, especially those wanting to try it for the first time.

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

The only times when the power goes out is when someone uses the portal mode too much or the engine is not set up.

yeah and implementing the bandaid fix of "make it cost more power" is gonna negatively impact telesci on lowpop. sci doesn't get engineering access, it just becomes another case of "get the spare ID as soon as possible" or join as a job you don't want to

man I wish this game wasn't built upon the shittily made tower of having to rely on inter-department cooperation when there's absolutely no guarantee you'll have that many people online for that to work even remotely

[Lord_earthfire]

Nerfing doesn't stop nerds, it just makes them more eager for workarounds. 

More work arounds are more points of failure. That's the point. More points they can be stopped by others or where they can fuckup.

If the execution is flawless, then i say they earned it. We just talk about how much work and how late in the round we want to have it.

[aft2001]

...honestly, there isn't a ton of difference between telesci-nerding and command tele-nerding. Both can be hidden off-station, let you get away in most situations if you have like 10 seconds to duck away somewhere, are hard to counter, and have an RNG based backfire (offsets changing and portal splinching, both of which could range from mostly-harmless to very fatal). Of the differences, telesci: Takes longer to set up, is slower to immediately deploy, doesn't allow people to follow you, has more points of failure, can be used to go ANYWHERE (that isn't teleblocked), can't be used to teleport onto someone with a tracking implant, doesn't rely on a somewhat-rare item, requires you to hold completely still when using, and can't be mitigated by getting rid of tracking beacons. Telesci is definitely stronger, but hand teles working in less than a second makes them genuinely very strong as well.

Honestly if teleman was reworked to not work on telepads operating outside the station Z, that'd be a... okay enough fix. But also, the hand tele would still function just fine, so again, give Security some tool to block teleporting - or at least make teleports riskier/slower.

[Lord_earthfire]

Honestly if teleman was reworked to not work on telepads operating outside the station Z, that'd be a... okay enough fix. But also, the hand tele would still function just fine, so again, give Security some tool to block teleporting - or at least make teleports riskier/slower.

Why not just make them show up on pod scanners? They have a massive range and this would enable anyone to find them with a good enough precision. Or heck, make telesci teleporter be pingable via packets. Or make them show up on GPS.

Let have the nerd their crime base off-station. Just don't make it non-detectable. They are very rarely used anyway.

[aft2001]

I like that! Actually though, you know what?

Let any telepad see and teleport to any other telepad. They should be pinned at the top of the console in the tab with all the azone locations. As a bonus, this means you can set up telepads in other locations and teleport to them from telesci, which I'm sure will have its uses. Also show their locations on GPSes, so even if an off-station nerd takes apart the console/station mainframe, you can still track their pad down.

[Lord_earthfire]

I mean, that would be a bit much, wouldn't it? I would like it to be detectable, not security able to teleport right into your crime den even before you did any crime with it.

[Kotlol]

I like when it's complicated, since that takes a lot of prep. And prep of 20+ mins for criming deserves pay off.

[Silent Majority]

So wait... this is telesci abuse? Okay I see a lot of ways of dealing with it then just jammers.
If it was an OFF SITE telesci then yea... that needs nerfing, but this is INSIDE the station.

I think Lord_earthfire has the best approach here.
Increase power drain.. something like: A cooldown period that increases the drain more...
OR.... increase chances of weird stuff happening.
Like if you keep spamming port-a-sci, you sometimes get send to the slime dimension, set on fire, lose an organ and such.

Simply put. A cooldown period to keep it safe is fine, but spamming it would increase risks of going wrong.

I have not.once in 2 months seen it be anything but off site telescim often in the listening post

[Ikea]

...honestly, there isn't a ton of difference between telesci-nerding and command tele-nerding. 

More points of failure is negligible when how to counter it is obscure and more importantly not being able to be followed after is a very large advantage. Hand teles are honestly fine as you can actively chase after them or at the very least see that they teleported away. I agree that 30 seconds is way too harsh but if this does need a nerf I dislike nerfing command teleporters here (and also a dedicated item just feels too niche)

[Lord_earthfire]

More points of failure is negligible when how to counter it is obscure.

I mean, "using lethals" is not obscure. That's how you deal with most slippery antags, e.g. ones that can easily flee from being stunned/cuffed.

Splashing skinpen poisons also isn't obscure. Or talking to people and get crewmembers involved.



I feel the whole "issue" here is blown way out of proportion because people cannot fight it with tasers and batons and feel good about it. The last part is a good thing. And from personal experience, telesci use for criming happens so rarely that i have not witnessed a single round in the last year. Telescience is nerfed to a point is almost never used... and people still complain.

Speaking of counters, i got one here for off-station telepads: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/25719

And i personally strongly advocate here to not give any counters directly to security. They have enough toys and other departments need to be more involved when it comes to stopping crime.

[Ikea]

More points of failure is negligible when how to counter it is obscure.

I mean, "using lethals" is not obscure. That's how you deal with most slippery antags, e.g. ones that can easily flee from being stunned/cuffed.

Splashing skinpen poisons also isn't obscure. Or talking to people and get crewmembers involved.

Effective lethals that actually do something meaningful in a few seconds or knowing how to make skinpen mixes are also pretty obscure. It's also hard to attrition something that can get away to anywhere. I haven't played enough with it in a round to say if it needs a nerf or even how, but if I were to suggest something, maybe have using teleportation leave a remnant portal for a few seconds that can be entered to go where the teleporter went to/recieved from (albeit with an increassed risk of something going wrong). Allows you to directly follow them but with increased risks

[Lord_earthfire]

Effective lethals that actually do something meaningful in a few seconds or knowing how to make skinpen mixes are also pretty obscure. It's also hard to attrition something that can get away to anywhere.

If that is "obscure", then that is a problem. That would mean that the game became streamlined to a point we need to really clobber it back in shape.

And of course it's hard, but i wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

[Ikea]

Effective lethals that actually do something meaningful in a few seconds or knowing how to make skinpen mixes are also pretty obscure. It's also hard to attrition something that can get away to anywhere.

If that is "obscure", then that is a problem. That would mean that the game became streamlined to a point we need to really clobber it back in shape.

And of course it's hard, but i wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

Effective lethals are by game design typically gated to antags and this is a good thing and so is chemistry being a really deep system with a lot of stuff to it. It being not commonly used in such a way is fine

[Silent Majority]

If the worry is crew and security having too many toys that infinite instant spammable teleportation is used and security needs to make instant death skinpen chems i feel we've rather entered an argument where we're playing atomic bomb tennis.

I believe the primary issue isnt that security needs a counter, its that every other form of instant transmpprt has a few seconds or a trace.

"Security cant taze or baton" feels like a diminishing argument that doesn't add to the discussion rather dismisses rhe concern

Why doesn't mass manipulation have instant cool down? Wizard teleport? Why donarcf9ends need ansecond to use the wire? Why do salvagers teleporter take a few secondd? Why do vampires peave a ghost trail? Why cant wraiths spam in and out of being corporeal tonhave infinite points?

Other systems of similar power have delays. I don't see why this one specifically doesn't because if you spend the time to figure itnout once you can donit forever infiniteely.

When people figured out hpw to speed run azones to get lethals it got changed.

Changing unintended mechanics is normal. Its game balance.