We need to talk about the invisible deathtrap that is CO2 canisters

[2Green]

I am tired of this goddamn bullshit happening again and again. A guy drags a CO2 canister into a room, opens it, and leaves. Anyone who enters the room and stays there for even 10 seconds falls permanently unconscious and begins to suffocate to death. Anyone who tries to help the guy on the floor without realizing what's happening also falls unconscious and dies. There is absolutely no warning that it is about to happen. No gasping, no "O2" symbol in the top right, you just suddenly drop to the floor and never wake up. The only way to evade it is to be paranoid and walk around the station with your internals on all the time, no matter where you are.

To be clear, I am not complaining that you suffocate to death in an atmosphere that is 90% CO2. That just makes sense. What I am complaining about is that you have no warning whatsoever until you fall unconscious, at which point you are already dead unless a savvy crewmember with internals on knows what's going on and comes to your rescue. Please at least give us an 'O2' symbol so we know to put on our internals?

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[UrsulaMejor]

The warning is that your spaceperson starts to cough a bunch before they fall unconscious.

[Technature]

I feel this should be under the Ideas section, but eh?

[ProfessorHugedix]

I could be wrong but isn't this how CO2 affects people in reality? You don't really realise anything is wrong until you've already passed out, and then you stay passed out due to the density of the gas keeping it closer to the floor.

[aft2001]

"deathtrap" describes SS13 in general.

Welcome to the station.

That and you cough a bunch before collapsing, as well as there being only a handful of CO2 canisters on the station, so this isn't a massive issue.

[Mouse]

I could be wrong but isn't this how CO2 affects people in reality? You don't really realise anything is wrong until you've already passed out, and then you stay passed out due to the density of the gas keeping it closer to the floor.

My understanding is that CO2 is one of the only asphyxiating gases that's actually noticeable, since CO2 is what triggers the suffocation response.

For what it's worth, last time I saw CO2 used no one coughed before passing out, so it's possible that's bugged.

[Studenterhue]

Mouse is fairly spot on. Unlike other asphyxiating gases, the body has a couple of mechanisms to deal with increased CO2 and decreased O2 levels (e.g. increased breathing rate, changing bicarbonate levels in kidenys), and there's a that you're suffering from CO2 poisoning. So there is some real-life basis for being able to recognize you're breathing in too much CO2, though I'd rather shy away from realism arguments for a game where you can eat beans to fly in space with farts and restart your heart with a stun gun. 

Don't really like the "SS13 is a deathtrap, live with it" argument. There's lots of ways to die on SS13, but there's lots of ways to live too. A changeling can neurosting you before slurping up your DNA, but there's a 20-sec window for you to scream for help or administer some anti-neurosting meds (or just set DNR like a candy-ass). A traitor can slice you with a c-saber, but you can run away, slip, or shoot them before they can act, among many other combat tactics. A few things aren't so avoidable or counterable, but they're the ones players complain about for that very reason. I know some of the admins don't like instant deathtraps either. MBC once said something like "newbie traps are terrible and are only funny the first time around" and revised a line on the Chaplain page that encouraged players to fart on the bible, after some admins repeatedly expressed misgivings about it (including Flaborized, I think).

With that out of the way, I'd like to add that the few times I suffocated in CO2, I did see an low-O2 indicator, though only quite a while after coughing. Based on the public release, I'm guessing that the code that rolls a chance to do the cough emote isn't actually executing and that the code for breathing in excess CO2 isn't setting the breathing var to 0, which would trigger the losebreath counter and thus low-O2 indicator. Maybe it's different in the current version though.

[CaptainBravo]

So there is some real-life basis for being able to recognize you're breathing in too much CO2, though I'd rather shy away from realism arguments for a game where you can eat beans to fly in space with farts and restart your heart with a stun gun.

i don't feel this specific thing in the game (that is dumb and unfun for anyone who suffers it) should be defended by an argument of keeping more realism out of the game when other things that weren't hampering peoples' experiences (and some that were) were made somewhat more realistic.

i hate CO2 leaks now, and i hated them when i used to play a lot more often. what irks me about watching people defend CO2 existing in its current form is that to my knowledge it hasn't changed in a long while, whereas several other related aspects of the game have. it's more of a pain in the ass to find a large O2 tank to fill up from, and O2 tanks themselves got hit in some odd way a long while ago (though i don't recall exactly how) because someone felt that everyone having internals on all round long in a pressurized space station killed the magic a bit.

i don't disagree with the reasons for those things happening, but they all happened when the game existed at basically half speed and i could actually spot a potential initial victim on the ground and turn myself around while i waited for the tick to happen. and i had my tank on if i felt i couldn't. and the pressure was set to 1000, and it was always pure oxygen, and there were likely no holes anywhere on board, and if there were they were patched by someone taking advantage of the tickrate to plug them before the halls lost oxygen, and people got cold much more slowly near holes as it was and could sometimes safely just skirt by one without internals at all, so even if my tank wasn't full i had what i needed, and i had one map to memorize spawns for large gas tanks to fill up etc. etc. etc. many advantages over modern spacemen.

all of those advantages eroded over time and after starting to play again i can say that, comparatively, finding internals that would last me half of a round feels like a big time wasting chore to avoid something that rarely happens but pretty much ends my playtime in rounds when it does. CO2 is like the final atmospheric boogieman from a time when not having internals on all the time was considered stupid or lazy. other gasses might not have changed much either but they aren't as low visibility and high consequence as CO2.

in conclusion: this is a dumb, low effort, moderate-to-high reward mechanic that sucks fun out of the game. just bring it in line with the rest of the game already

[UrsulaMejor]

1) Increase the coughing rate so that it's hard not to notice.

2) Give coughing a cute little "squish" animation on the sprite so that there's a visual indicator that you're coughing as well as in the chat.

3) Make the coughing start sometime in between "heightened CO2 levels" and "deadly CO2 levels" so you have time to turn around.

[mbc]

related point, since coughs will be involved here, i think sound effects for coughing would be nice in general. style it after gasps - there are two different levels of gasp (one for healthy, one for crit)
could have a 'ahem' cough for healthy, and a 'HACKK' cough for when you're gonna die or can't breathe?
would also need some different 'voices' for gender and affect

[Studenterhue]

i don't feel this specific thing in the game (that is dumb and unfun for anyone who suffers it) should be defended by an argument of keeping more realism out of the game when other things that weren't hampering peoples' experiences (and some that were) were made somewhat more realistic.

Trust me, I'm not defending it, and my misgivings about realism arguments were directed towards arguments to not to change it. It's my fault if that's not more clear, sorry. 

Like OP, I would at least like the low-O2 indicator to come earlier (hence, the part where I look through the code to find why it's not showing up and why the gasping isn't occuring). Though I'm fairly certain the depressurization and freezing you mentioned were optimized to reduce lag rather sped up for realism (if they're what you're referring to by "things...made somewhat more realistic"), I agree, or at least can't dispute, your other points, especially how dangerous CO2 levels are so deadly for something currently so hard to detect.

Going back to the general discussion, I think all of Urs's ideas are good, especially 1. I don't think there's really any harm in making the warning signs appear more often, even for people who already know about them and don't think CO2 suffocation isn't an issue, and I think it fits right in with what 2Green and CaptainBravo are wanting. It'd would be really simple to implement too. According to the release, it's just a 20% to *cough at heightened CO2 levels, so they'd just have to bump it up. 40% maybe? 50%?

[Tewf]

If it gets changed at all, I personally would prefer it to be more random then a clear as day "Hey there is co2 here!!!" warning, for something that has so little use outside of suffocating people, hindering that silent invisible killer aspect would probably see to it that co2 cans sit there unused for anything. Maybe a random message from a pool of 10 different message could appear when you are in a co2 filled area but nothing too specific. These messages could also be shared with other non-oxygen gasses when they are inhaled, preventing a person from seeing one message and instantly knowing whats going on.

" The air feels sparse here"
" You feel suddenly light headed"
" Breathing is becoming difficult"
" Your lungs are straining for oxygen"

A few of these types of messages plus a 20% chance to cough should be more then enough to warn anyone paying attention, and ideally the messages would occur early enough you can still get internals on or leave the area before passing out, but not early enough to fully negate any use of co2.

Also, why don't we just include co2 detectors in main areas that could be emagged or hacked to disable/mess with them allowing free co2 use. Obviously during normal operation they would have near instant detection of high co2 levels, just a high pitched beep to warn anyone in breathing range.

[Zafhset]

I don't think there is a need to change the way CO2 works at all.

CO2 cans fills the niche gap of a non-loud and silent way to sabotage the station via atmospherics - it is the closest you can get to poisoning the air without raising alarm bells the second a person sees something or experiences symptoms. if you make it anymore obvious people would just opt to release plasma and set the station on fire instead.

There are only about 4 cans of this thing on station in relatively secure locations, and even then if you use it to fill a room or hallway too large it won't work due to how little CO2 there is in a single can. In the times I've used CO2 it works about 50% of the time, it is hilariously easy how it gets foiled by any broken window/missing floor tile, or even by a door leading to a large hallway being bolted open.

[Flourish]

I just experienced CO2 poisoning last night, and it was very quick and didn't have any indications at all! I didn't cough, and the O2 marker didn't show up until I was knocked out dying. Similar to hyperglycemic shock, it's pretty unfun, especially since once you're down, you're usually down for good. I think the suggestions people have about making the signs clearer is good. I get not wanting to make things super duper obvious, but I definitely do think that the current effects should be improved.