Traitor Telecrystal Rework\Buffs

[Pacra]

Drsingh, Haine, Hull, Marquesas, Wire, and I were in chat a few days ago and I brought up the increased difficulty of being a traitor due to combat changes/etc - a few of us agreed some changes and previous nerfs might have swung the pendulum into one direction a little too much, and TC reworking would be one way to include fun item combinations that weren't previously possible.

Here's a rundown of some brainstorming. Feel free to add anything as this isn't a complete or agreed-upon list, at all. Note that the most annoying of combinations, a cloak and a powerful melee weapon, are avoided here.

EDIT: Max TC increased to 12.

Code:

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.22 box 3
bowling kit 7 - (But include more balls.)
butcher knife 7
cargo transporter 4
chainsaw 7
chameleon bomb 2
chameleon projector 2
chemicompiler 5
chem grenade kit 2 (also sucks apparently? nubcake/etc, comment?)
cleaner grenades 3
cloaking device 6
clown car 5
derringer 2
detomatrix 1
dna scrambler 1
donk pockets 2
emag 6
emp grenades 1
fake moustache 1
floor closet 1
freedom imp 1
geological scanner 4
macrobomb 10
mailmain suit 1
microbomb 1
mindslave 3
mindslave plus 6
moonshine 2
moustache grenade 1
o.c. bible 1
poison bottle 1
power gloves 6
power sink 6
prototype cloaking device 3
radbow 4
Revolver Box 7
saber 7
safari kit 7
shotgun 8
signal jammer 3
sleepy pen 6
sonic grenades 1
stealth container 1
stimulants 4
strange seed 1
surplus 12 (18-24 tc worth of items)
syndicate analyzer 4
syndicate pipebomb 3
syndicate robot 3
syringe gun 4
tac grenades 2
target tracker 1
teleport gun 7
trash cart 4
trick cigarettes 2
trick revolver 1
voice changer 1
vuvuzela 3
wrestling belt 7
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Add your feedback with some reasoning on why, or additions to the list - all feedback will be considered.

[Erev]

Speaking of two cents... Surplus is listed at 12? Does that mean that telecrystal amount is increased as well? If so to what? And if it has doesn't that bring the cloaked/melee combo back?

[Grayshift]

Surplus crates costing twelve? Am I misreading something here?

Also, I think this is a good discussion. Which admin has the graphics depicting the frequency of traitor purchases, and the frequency of purchases divided by TC costs? Those were neat.

Some thoughts...
Donk Pockets are really, really good and too many chefs get the knife and ignore the donks. Should cost at least 2.
Emag should be higher. It's such a ridiculously versatile piece of equipment.
Cloak should be lower.
Tac grenades should be 1. Or maybe get a free box thrown in with every purchase because they're not a tool in and of themselves. They're like sprinkles.
Bowling kit, 5. Sometimes you need more balls. It's not like you can wear two bowling suits.
Syringe gun, 3 or even 2. I hear this item might be straight up broken at the moment, but even if it weren't it's not a convenient way to jack someone with chemicals. Just get an emag and pop a hypo, that way you can select your dosage and can't miss.
Shotguns are nasty. Seven or eight.
Teleport gun could be five. It only gets four shots before you need to recharge.
.22... not sure. Probably lower, because it's kind of a crappy weapon.
Mindslave Plus? What is this?
Macrobomb, I'd be happier if it ate all my TCs if the boom were bigger. 10 TCs, give it a full 11x11 TTV bomb yield.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Two points.

- Macrobomb is at 8 TC? I thought the macrobomb was just supposed to be a convenience so you didn't have to order and implant ten microbombs separately. Is the number of contained bombs altered to 8, or does it remain at 10?

- Lowering the cost of the Emag makes me uneasy. The thing can turn medbots into death machines, securitrons and firebots into rampant stun machines, and floorbots into station-gutters, it can lock the AI turrets to lethal forever, remove a cyborg's laws, and nigh-permanently force any airlock open/closed. I think it can stay at 5 TC, personally.

Mindslave Plus? What is this?

New item, 6 TC, available to everyone. Same as the normal mindslaver, but permanent.

[Pacra]

I'd like the TC cap to be 12 instead of 10.

The reason the melee weapons and cloak are still so high is to preclude the donut1/2 style terrorizing of the station with an esword/cloak combination - if that would still exist.

macrobombs at 8 still would have bomb # at 10.

We can keep emag at 5, understanding it's the most versatile piece of equipment possible for a traitor.

I can see the shotgun needing to be higher.

[Pacra]

Speaking of two cents... Surplus is listed at 12? Does that mean that telecrystal amount is increased as well? If so to what? And if it has doesn't that bring the cloaked/melee combo back?

Sorry, yes - to 12. No, it doesn't, as any melee+cloak combo worth mentioning would still be 13 here.

[69andahalf]

Lynch me all you want but I really think the sleepy pen should be made to cost something like 5 or 6 telecrystals. If you can get access to a chemical dispenser it's incredibly easy to kill people without raising any suspicion or them being able to survive, even if you have 0 chem knowledge.

Mining charge hacker should either be dropped a lot in price, or the mining charges buffed so they actually do something aside from break windows. It has been awhile since I actually used it but the charges didn't really impress me for how much it costs.

Trick cigarettes could possibly do with a price increase to two telecrystals per pack, or made so they can still blow off limbs but not breach the station and keep them at one per pack.

I don't know about lowering the cost of the emag for the amount of stuff it does. It basically allows you get to get anywhere, make rogue cyborgs and send the shuttle almost instantly.

Syndicate pipe bombs should be lowered to 3 or 4 due to how useless people see them, or keep it at 5 and make the explosion more powerful.

Tactical Grenades should definitely be raised in cost, just for the sheer amount you get and the power that the incendiary grenade packs.

Shotgun should definitely stay at costing 8 telecrystals, it can do some serious damage and used in combination with the syndicate device analyzer could make a real deadly combination at 6 telecrystals.

Macrobomb should still cost 10, it causes a huge explosion and can gib people right around the person. It's not something you'd buy if you weren't planning on using any other syndicate items.

I'm not familiar at all with the chemicompiler, but dropping it so much seems like trouble.

[Nubcake]

Freedom Implant (agreed)
Syndicate Donk Pockets (agreed)
Voice Changer (agreed)
Butcher's Knife (agreed)
Wrestling belt (agreed)
Revolver Box (keep same)
Stealth Container (keep same)
Agent Card (keep same)
Radbow (keep same)
Signal Jammer (keep same)
Cargo transporter (keep same)
Syringe gun keep same
Electromagnetic Card i'd say keep this at 5, it has so very many uses that 4 crystals undervalues it
Super mindslave 6 > 5 tc
Syndicate pipebomb 5 > 4 tc
Chameleon Projector 3 > 2
Stimulants 4 > 3 tc
Prototype Cloaking Device 3 > 2 tc maybe, not sure
Sleepy Pen 4 > 3 tc
Power Sink 4 > 3 tc
Amp Vuvuzela 3 > 4, tc I think it's underpriced at present
Signal Jammer (same)
RedChainsaw 7 > 6 tc
Bowling ball 6 > 5 tc (now they don't knock people out instantly anymore)
TrashCart 5 > 4 tc, considering you never see it
GeologicalScanner 9 > 7, tc (charges are very weak now)
Shotgun 8 >7 tc, (6 seems a bit cheap)
Power Gloves 7 > 6 (you need a decent helburn to use these to their full potential
.22 box 4 >3 tc, (the bullets are piddling weak and you can't currently make .22 bullets, when you can make them again put to 4 again i think)
Safari Kit 7 > 5 tc, if it spawns with a rifle then back to 7

thats all i got for now

[Grayshift]

If the TC cap is raised to 12, the biggest issue I see is mindslave implants. Four minions and a master would be pretty unstoppable. I think most of the other costs would be alright at 12.

As for the micro/macrobombs... I don't know. The original plan was for macrobombs to just be a shortcut.

[Roomba]

.22 should be cheaper I think, maybe 3 tcs. It's outclassed both stealth and damage-wise by the cheaper radbow, and by the fact you can't manufacture more ammo for it.

Also the radbow itself could stand to be raised to 4 tcs. It's probably one of the best value for money weapons, and this keeps it consistent at three radbows being the max a regular traitor can obtain (which is a fairly hefty supply of radbows on its own)

Tac grenades should be raised to 2, yeah. Incendiary grenades can tear a fairly decent hole in the station now and you get 2 per box.

The bowling kit should be a little cheaper I think, maybe 5 tcs.

Emags and shotguns should definitely keep their current tc cost, they're both super powerful for what they do.

The safari kit could stand to be 7 I think, the boomerang alone is a rampage weapon on par with a c-saber, and a 6 tc cost allows you to get two of them.

EMP grenades could be cheaper I think, 2 tcs is a little high for using them as a general utility thing and you generally only see them used to send the buddies and bots mad.

Chemicompiler's kind of an odd duck, only a few people really know how to use it to its full effectiveness and can create station-wrecking reactions with just one. Those dudes have probably overhyped it a bit, but to everyone else it's next to useless. I dunno how lowering the point cost would help with that.

Mining charge hacker definitely ought to be cheaper, the mining charges are pretty crappy. Admittedly it probably needs a boost more in function than value.

Power sink could be raised in cost I think, maybe to 5 or even 6. Depending on the round, it's very easy to shut down the entire station for something you only have to set up once.

Don't have any particular thoughts about the rest yet, maybe more later.

(Oh, boosting the cost of the explosive shotgun rounds might be a good idea. So many people are doing the 'cheese x-drone/buy fifty boxes/annihilate the station' routine and it's practically uncounterable.)

[DyssalC]

So the big thing is that there used to be the big ticket items that essentially were your whole build.
Now you can get 2 big ticket items. This is a bit of an issue because you've also severely reduced the cost of some very good support items.

Now, you've counter-acted this by making the biggest problem combos inaccesible with 7 TC for the cloaker and 6TC for all the super offensive items like the Butcher's Knife, the Chainsaw, the Spacker, the C-saber, and the Belt.

However that's slightly reverse of how I feel it should be. With a lot of support items seeing a 33% or 50% price reduction, that's god damn nuts to make the super offensive items the CHEAPER items in the Cloaker+X (X=one of those things I listed a second ago) combo.

However you seem to have neglected the fact that this allows for X+X combos. C-saber and belt, belt and spacker, of course with the exceptions of the job specific chainsaw and butcher's knife.

Also, vuvuzelas. Now, I haven't used the amped vuvuzela in a while, but was it nerfed? Was it nerfed to the point that a 2TC cost is reasonable now?

The .22 is already 4, and I'm fine with it being 4 if the max was increased to 12. HOWEVER, the .22 is a reasonably powerful ranged weapon. It's not god-like insta-crit damage but you don't want to find yourself on the business end of one without armor. However, now you can take a .22 and a super powerful weapon into combat and still have 2 TC leftover for some very useful support equipment, or you can take a super powerful weapon AND a revolver with 1TC to spare.

I really think the cloak should be 6 and the Spacker/Belt/Saber/Chainsaw/Butcher's Knife should be 7TC.

That being said, I'm having a hard time finding anything else to disagree with.

[BaneOfGiygas]

If the Chemicompiler's cost is going to be lowered due to the small number of people who can get it to work properly, I think that the Power Gloves should get their cost reduced by the same logic. Not many people know how to set up the hellburn necessary for effective use of the things, and the high cost seems like even more of a turn-off.

[Dabir]

I'd be fine with macrobombs at any price, as long as you remember to adjust their power to match.

[Dauntasa]

Unless someone unnerfed it and it isn't utterly worthless anymore I don't see why the cloak is 7 crystals when in terms of effectiveness it is now basically a novelty paperweight and when, for powerful melee weapons, the only thing an esword(the thing people aren't supposed to have with a cloak) has over a stunbaton(the thing that anyone can get with about 2-3 minutes of effort whether they're a traitor or not) is that it's faster. If you successfully bean someone with a baton they are absolutely just as dead as if you'd sworded them, you just have to take 30 seconds to steal all their shit and space them.

[Pacra]

Let's talk for a moment about the cloak - how is it these days, is it truly as effective as a paperweight? What would happen if melee+cloak combos became a thing again?