Armory Expansion

[Enakai]

Hello! I've been trying to wrack my brain a bit about the current state of the armory and its contents. In my opinion, it isn't in a very "useful" spot right now. The tools inside are used for very niche, almost impossibly rare situations or they're just...not good. In my eyes, I see the armory as the final "trump" card of security. If you have a serious threat that ordinary equipment won't cut it for, you go into the armory. However, it feels incredibly bare bones at the moment. I've decided to post this thread after a little bit of discussion yesterday on discord with the hopes of promoting my opinion and suggestions I have, and also getting the wonderful opinions of all you lovely people!


Breaching Tool: 
As someone who regularly plays security, something I tend to commonly run into are Rogue AI's/silicons. This tends to occur in most of my rounds, with a lot of situations becoming increasingly difficult to deal with and respond to due to the AI/silicon ability to bolt an airlock down and keep it permanently bolted if they're robust/experienced enough. I would like to suggest that some form of shotgun breaching ammo be added to the Ammo-tech vendor. This ammo type would be effective at "shredding" the bolts on a door, allowing it to either be crowbarred open or potentially even destroying the door completely. This would both give the shotguns in the armory some much needed usage, as well as give security the ability to confidently fight back against rogue tincans.

Pulse Rifle: 
This one may seem a little bit...strong. And I can completely understand why, but I would still like to suggest it. Currently, the lawgiver that the HoS possesses has a "pulse" function (which I absolutely adore and advocate for more widespread usage of amongst HoS players). This function allows for the effective disarming and disabling of an opponent with a dangerous, lethal weapon. It's a form of knockback that causes them to fly back several tiles and drop their weapon. I think that having a lower capacity "rifle" variant (for the sake of a good looking sprite) added as a form of countermeasure against nuclear operatives would give security that extra edge against them. To prevent usage with the barrier, perhaps it could be made two-handed? 

This is all I could really come up with for now. I'm sure I'll have a few more suggestions down the line. Please, please participate in the discussion if you agree/disagree or even provide your own suggestions! Thanks for taking the time to read.

[Drago156]

I can't say I have troubles with silicons the same way you do, but I definitely can get behind the breaching rounds for the shotgun, however I think they might be better used for the 40m grenade launcher, which sees very little use simply because pod seekers suck and smokes don't really help, whereas the shotgun is useful with rubber slugs, 12 gauge flares, or even the one buckshot you can hack out of the armory ammotech.

The pulse rifle I think could definitely be added, but with maybe like a one or two shot magazine (if it auto-recharges) or like 3-4 shots with no auto-recharging cell, because as a very common user of the pulse mode, I have to say it is pretty powerful for the lawgiver and can entirely fuck up a nukie team on its own.

I think I wouldn't mind having maybe like an extra hackable option to the armory ammotech that would dispense AP ammo for the detective's revolver, being a slight buff for the detective as well as giving them that extra kick they may need against armored targets. On top of this maybe putting some sort of "volatile" flamer mixtures in the anti-biological crate filled with dangerous fire chems like Phlog, CLF3, and other things instead of it just being the same as what you can order from QM.

I might come back with more ideas later after I think on this some more, but i definitely like this thread and agree that the armory isn't all that too exciting currently.

[polivilas]

Regarding silicons - did you know you can bash down doors? They have around, I think, 1600 health? If you get the entire sec force bashing doors down it will take very little time and silicons have absolutely 0 counter.
Secondly, as a non-HoS, I think armory is plenty strong already - EOD suit is ridiculously powerful in right scenarios, and coupled with 4 insta-gib rounds (podseekers) it provides plenty of punch.

[Trustworthy]

Regarding silicons - did you know you can bash down doors? They have around, I think, 1600 health? If you get the entire sec force bashing doors down it will take very little time and silicons have absolutely 0 counter.
Secondly, as a non-HoS, I think armory is plenty strong already - EOD suit is ridiculously powerful in right scenarios, and coupled with 4 insta-gib rounds (podseekers) it provides plenty of punch.

Personally,  I think breaching rounds for the shotgun would be a good idea. Have there be a timer where you shred the individual bolts, making it unboltable unless repaired using, I don't know metal rods on the airlock when the maintenance panel is open. Sometimes you don't want to bash a door down, venting all the air inside. As for the EOD, yes, it is very good.  But there's only the one set, and security is meant to work as a team. Finally, as with breaching rounds,  sometimes the situation calls for something a bit less overkill, also known as having a body left over. I play tg as well as goon, so I may be a bit biased, due to how good their armory is, but I honestly think that our current armory just isn't good enough for most threats, considering its HoS only.

[Enakai]

Regarding silicons - did you know you can bash down doors? They have around, I think, 1600 health? If you get the entire sec force bashing doors down it will take very little time and silicons have absolutely 0 counter.
Secondly, as a non-HoS, I think armory is plenty strong already - EOD suit is ridiculously powerful in right scenarios, and coupled with 4 insta-gib rounds (podseekers) it provides plenty of punch.

I'm well aware that doors can be bashed down. However, 1600 health is a lot to get through and the "entire" security force isn't always going to be in the one spot and capable of working together. You're not really factoring in the hundreds of different situations that can occur. One person bashing through a door with, say, a baton, can take definitely upwards of two minutes, usually even longer.

The 40mm Podseekers aren't always an "insta-gib". Regarding the usage of them for breaching purposes, they're a band-aid fix because they don't always work. They're attracted to the nearest pod if there are any in the area, so the situations for them to be used are very niche. Once fired, they'll magnetize to the closest pod, so the area has to be podless for them to work. There's also the issue of them causing severe damage to the station. They blow open walls and floors alike, depressurizing the area, which is far too dangerous for security to do unless it's absolutely necessary.

[OMJ]

I agree with this because I don’t think the armory is all that strong currently. Shotgun bullets that mimic bigshot lawgiver bullets would be cool- same with battering rams.
I definitely think lasers should be added to all armories- not just for sec use, also for incentivizing players to bust into the armory

[KikiMofo]

Podseekers only gib now if they are already in crit and you point blank them. Believe me I know, I love to use podseekers during Assday as HoS on people.

[Leeanei]

I'm not sure I agree with adding lethal weaponry to the armory just because on a round without a HoS, the armory is already a liability to security, not an aid. Plus, sec with lethals would just make the day of nuke ops even worse and push security to just get killing in rev/gang rounds.

As for a breaching tool? Yes. I thought it'd be neat if something like that existed.

[Frank_Stein]

I think maybe take a page from the Nuke changes and make more class kit type stuff in the armory. Just give it an NT flavored twist towards non-lethality and crisis response

Gear that, while useful in it's own right, works better when synergized with another player using different gear. 

For instance, a back mounted riot hose that can be used to both put out fires but also act as an area of denial weapon and push and knock back people trying to advance. 

Or a submachine gun type weapon that rapidly fires rubber pellets that don't do much in the way of damage but severely slow a target down, letting another officer get in close to stun and arrest

[Podrick Equus]

Emergency Response Suit
- A red and blue colored space suit and helmet. Fashioned similar to the NTSO suit
- No movement slow, slightly less armor than a bulletproof vest
- One to three depending upon size of map (One on Atlas, Three on Cogmap 2, Two on every other map perhaps)
- Provides status updates to the wearer about their health (example --- ALERT: Toxic materials detected in bloodstream)
- Contains Injector Belt functionality, could potentially start with 10u of Epinephrine that is injected when the user drops below 0% HP

[Dickles]

I think the main problem with adding stuff to the armory is that anything you put into it is going to be used by badguys more than sec. If something really juicy is added to it it's going to make raiding it all the more tempting.

[Enakai]

I think the main problem with adding stuff to the armory is that anything you put into it is going to be used by badguys more than sec. If something really juicy is added to it it's going to make raiding it all the more tempting.

Which I don't believe is necessarily a "bad" thing. It'll allow for security rounds to become that much more interesting and security will ACTUALLY have to keep an eye on the armory, because most rounds it is left untouched/unchecked unless the HoS that may or may not be on is actively spending the time to check on it. Giving more motivation for general armory use by all would promote healthier combat situations to the security versus syndicate dynamic.

[cyberTripping]

I feel like frank is onto something with trying to parallel class crates, in a sense. It would promote sec working together AND also make it harder for lone ne'erdowells to steal shit from the armory and instantly have all the busted gear in the world.

[Gannets]

I'm looking in to some of these ideas

[OMJ]

Podseekers only gib now if they are already in crit and you point blank them. Believe me I know, I love to use podseekers during Assday as HoS on people.

Point blank podseekers gibbed me on green

I think the main problem with adding stuff to the armory is that anything you put into it is going to be used by badguys more than sec. If something really juicy is added to it it's going to make raiding it all the more tempting.

This isn’t a bad thing