Tame the Emag, Buff the Agent Card

[Erev]

There was a price bump for the emag some time ago but I've been starting to think that it's feeling a bit too powerful again. I gave it some thought and think that I might have come up with an answer and that is to split some of the Emag's duties with the Agent Card.

The Agent Card, in addition to its current uses, would now be the tool to open doors and maybe commit fraudulent acts with computers. It would get a small TC increase (maybe from 1 to 3 or something) as befits its new uses.

The Emag would retain all other uses such as shorting out bots and the safety controls on things like patches, hypos, and shockpads.

I feel that this would rein in the Emag and make it less of a 'almost must buy' and more of a 'I've got ideas for this' item and I also feel that it would make the Agent Card much more appealing. The line when considering if it should be an Emag vs an Agent Card ability is if it is supposed to spoof something (like access) or short circuit something (like safeties).

[misto]

can the agent card be renamed after you set the name first? i havent toyed with them much. it would be a pretty good buff to them, even if you had to set the renaming mechanism on some kind of cooldown timer. it would still be dependent on a mask, voice changer and clothes switching/a chameleon suit to make truly convincing identity changes so the dna scrambler will also retain good functionality because theres nothing more convincing than changing your real face and name

as for the emag, there are tons of ways you can switch that sucker up to weaken it a little or put a twist on it. you could demand that the emag needs to be recharged, either via time or by power sources. you could re-use the ai's door hacking timer functionality for it breaking into high-security zones. you could have a small risk of it making the airlock open but bloodthirsty and ready to clamp down on you, or the next person who passes thru it, thus giving the new airlock-crushing stuff a little more play

[Noah Buttes]

I never buy emags because I find that almost anything you can do with an emag can be done for free in another way.

The only real exceptions that come to mind are the shuttle console, the AI turret console, the QM computer, defibrillators, hyposprays, and patches. Hypoaprays are debatable too since you could just use a sleepy pen.

[Ed Venture]

I don't think I can get behind nerfing the emag. How about adding new things to the agent card instead of giving it hand-me-downs from the emag?

I'm down for adding new things and not removing cool old things even if this nerf is about splitting the abilities between the two.

[Nnystyxx]

I don't like making things LESS useful
Just make the agent card more actually viable, adjust costs if you have to, make it do things an emag can't and then the sacrifice is implicit rather than explicit

[UrsulaMejor]

I'm down with splitting the emag up a bit. It's got WAY too many uses for a single item when compared with items of equal cost

[Frank_Stein]

Rather than taking some emag things and adding them to the agent card, how about some entirely new items that break up the abilities?

Some kind of hacking made easy laptop/PDA cart breaking into areas?

Electrical disruption charges that you slap onto things like stickers that break stuff and make them go haywire?

[babayetu83]

the emag is fine

you can already mug the captain/hop and use their id on the agent card for all access, what more could you want

[Erev]

I disagree that the emag is fine. I find that it has too many uses and only ever seems to gain more. Having the agent card focus more on access and the emag on shorting electronics makes sense to me at least. But whatever I suppose.

[atomic1fire]

If anything could happen to emag, I think it would be kind of fun if there was a stronker version of it that let you annoy the station watchdogs style. Maybe a traitor PDA that replaces it entirely with some cool tricks.

Trigger APC lightning bolts with a cool down. Maybe even "tell" the lightning bolts where to strike, for maximum carnage.

Shut unsafe doors on people

Temporarily disable line of sight cameras

Scramble nearby radios.

Of course that's probably way too OP for a traitor to have unless it's some kind of rampage item. Especially one that lets you play a double role as traitor and AI. (although PAI as a traitor item could be dope)

Agent ID is already useful if you can steal someone's captain ID and discreately give yourself all access.

That said I feel like if Emag did get an update, it would probably be replaced with something that only increases fun and not decreases fun.

[poland spring]

I love to watch dongs


Let's have a watchdongs PDA cart

[Sundance]

The syndicate ID is useful in that it also makes you untrackable by the ai, they have to manually track you.
Its also a budget item, one of the few cheap syndicate items and it serves its purpose well on that front.
That said SOME of the uses for emag needs to be looked at.
1. The permanent hacking of doors. Lockers are fine, but doors really compromise security. Someone could literally run into security and emag all the doors and they have effectively ruined secs round with 0 effort. A fix for this would be either make the doors return to normal state after some time or make them fixable.
2. The emagged defib. Its not abused so much thank god, but I feel like what was meant to be an assassination tool is instead an outright rampage item. Its not balanced to have an instant kill item that's also disguised. A fix for this would be for this to inflict a ton of o2 damage.

[NateTheSquid]

1. The permanent hacking of doors. Lockers are fine, but doors really compromise security. Someone could literally run into security and emag all the doors and they have effectively ruined secs round with 0 effort. A fix for this would be either make the doors return to normal state after some time or make them fixable.

As far as I know, the AI can do it's hacking magic on emagged doors. No one ever asks though...

[Nnystyxx]

I like the door-goofiness, but being broken forever all round is admittedly pretty fucking doofy. Also, emagged defibs are A LIVING NIGHTMARE HOLY SHIT

I've gotten a good zap of those once in the ol Traitor Tango (running around trying not to get hit in a public place) in Medbay, one zap and I was basically instantly fucked. They are absolutely rampage items and actually pretty counter to how a traitor MD would usually work within their department (subterfuge and sabotage).

[Grek]

As far as I know, the AI can do it's hacking magic on emagged doors. No one ever asks though...

If it can, I don't know how.