Traitor item cost/balance chat

[Cogwerks]

Keep suggestions for new gear to the other traitor gear chat.

Here's some tracking stuff that Wire set up recently. I'm not sure of how wide the recording time is for this graph, probably about a month?
Whatever the timespan was, here's how the purchases for traitor gear looked.

Large image, open in a new tab:
http://i.imgur.com/9J2uxPd.png

Some surprises: hardly anyone ever uses sonic grenades, chameleon suits get used way more than I expected, and derringers are bought more often than revolver kits.

[Wire]

The graph represents all traitor item purchases from October 30th, 4:33pm to December 4th, 4:31pm. Which is 7613 total purchases.

Also yes the cost is hard to see it's just an extra thing I threw in as a rough idea of prices relative to each other shhh.

[Captain_Bravo]

I've never actually bought the Sonic Grenades before, but do the earplugs that come with it deafen you like earmuffs do?

[DrivetimeMozol]

Why would anyone buy the Red Chainsaw? It's a c-saber that you can't conceal, but it butchers bodies. Imo the saber is just a much better choice. The chainsaw's body disposing bonus is not worth 7 telecrystals when you can get something much safer and more useful. If you're a botanist, you are already pretty isolated and have plenty of places to hide a body. If you intend on rampaging outside of botany with the saw, you already don't care about stealth. If you just want to gib every body you see, then you're p lame.

I think the cost should either be lowered to 5-6 crystals, or it should be removed and botanists should get another new, unique, fun item. A straight up melee weapon just doesn't fit a botanist for me.

[Shoddy]

the earplugs do deafen you.

the sonic grenades are actually one of my favorite and best items, great for crowd control like storming security, the EMP grenades are good too, they are super useful for taking out the AI's turrets if you can't be bothered to order a laser gun or get one from the HoS/captain.

The surpressed .22 is a really cool and effective item, i was able to shoot the captain to death in public and get away with it.

the rad bow is still super obvious, it might be cool if it were just visually changed, like dull the bright neon green colors of the in hand sprite

the artistic toolbox is unfun for pretty much everyone involved in the round, any other traitor will be screwed over by the artboxer and the artboxer himself will be screwed over, there isn't even a die a glorious death to go with this item, ALL the objectives either require you to escape alive or just be alive somewhere, i would suggest replacement.

the mailman suit is kind of useless since you can't climb through the pipes that you want, and it's pretty obvious.

pretty much all items in the traitor spawn lists are for killing people.

The cloaker... i'd be for making it invulnerable to thermals but giving it like a 30 second charge which automatically recharges it's PUs in like 35 seconds (reduce to 3 or 2 TC), a short time complete undetectable period would make it super great for breaking into the bridge when the captain carelessly leaves the door open because no one is there.

making the cloaker more of a tool than a rampage weapon would be sweet.

Also can real .38 rounds be added to the hacked GM or perhaps the scrap merchant could sell his homemade scrap bullets?

I think the problem is less item balance and more "shit i don't have anything to do other than murder people!" new objectives are needed imo.

[Sundance]

There's something to note: The cheaper the items, the more likely it is to be bought with leftover telecrystals. Just because it is bought often, doesn't necessarily make it a wonderful traitor item. The exception to this is the trick cig's and syndicate card (recently the ability to choose color is a great buff), which at 1 telecrystals is almost essential. At 1 telecrystal a microbomb is a cheap fuck you and satisfying to boot.

Sonic grenades are moot because most of the time people know how to make sonic powder, which can be put in grenade kits, which when mixed right can not only deafen someone but probably melt their face too. Same with fake cleaner grenades, if you know your shit you could easily make a beaker assembly and do the same thing. Now even more likely now that the bar has a chem dispenser.

The advanced lasergun is rather underwhelming. I'm not sure if this is true, but does it not pierce armor? If so I would suggest that it should. Otherwise, could probably be brought down a price to 4

Donk pockets and moonshine, thing is, although they heal you, the thing about ss13 is that it's the stun that kills you. Could probably use more beneficial effects. Perhaps moonshine stops a person from talking altogether like that chem I forget the name of?

I can see the syringe gun getting used more now that chem's secrets are out. Same with syndicate sauce now that there's more reason to eat.

Artistic toolbox isn't used because most peeps are tired of rampaging because it's either boring or they get their asses handed to them and wasted a round

Also I agree with p. much shoddy says.

[icarus]

the mailman suit is kind of useless since you can't climb through the pipes that you want, and it's pretty obvious.

pretty much all items in the traitor spawn lists are for killing people.

The cloaker... i'd be for making it invulnerable to thermals but giving it like a 30 second charge which automatically recharges it's PUs in like 35 seconds (reduce to 3 or 2 TC), a short time complete undetectable period would make it super great for breaking into the bridge when the captain carelessly leaves the door open because no one is there.

making the cloaker more of a tool than a rampage weapon would be sweet.

my suggestion for the cloaker was to remove your ability to attack people (and if you really want to step it up make it so they can't use computers, medkits, anything) then we could reduce the cloaker's price a little and not make it the most universally hated traitor item

maneater seeds would get a bit more use if the maneaters couldn't be killed in just one welding tool swipe, bumping the price up to 2 or 3 crystals would make this balanced (unless it's already like that)

would the cargo transporter get used more if the cost went up by a crystal or two, and in return, it could summon crates? i'd make it so either the crates need to be on one of the cargo pads to come or that it has less charges

[Captain_Bravo]

Can we change the way the earplugs work, then? As it stands, the only thing a box of sonic grenades gets you is items subpar to what you can make yourself, and an item which is literally exactly the same as the three or four earmuffs sitting around the station. If the earplugs allowed you to hear talking, albeit really tiny because it's muffled, it would be a lot better. You still wouldn't be able to use a radio, keeping the main drawback of relying on sonic-based weaponry. But they would be a definite improvement over the item which is already available on the station.

I mean, there's nothing I can really think of to balance or change the grenades. They are what they are, and if you have the time you can easily make better things in chemistry, but if you beefed up the other thing which comes in the box, it might see a bit more use.

[Captain_Bravo]

Almost forgot. Again, I don't know how the work now, but if you're wearing earplugs can someone see them when they examine you? Because if so, they really shouldn't.

[Shoddy]

people can see your earplugs i mean gosh it's not that hard to look at someone and see "oh X has sunglasses and some earplugs/headset on" in real life is it?

to Icarus, not allowing attacking would be weird, I think just making it an automatic recharge + lasting for a short time while also giving it an invisibility buff for super sneaky ghost murders or stealing or infiltrating.

I'd like to reiterate, the problem is boring objectives not traitor item costs, it's all pretty well balanced as is.

[Captain_Bravo]

The whole point of earplugs is that they go in your ears, though. Like, inside them. Sure, the cheap-ass $1.99 foam ones you get at Wal-Mart will stick out like a sore thumb, but any decent pair of earplugs are pretty damn hard to notice in someone's ears. Think back to the last time you saw a band perform live. Do you remember seeing earplugs? Because they were almost certainly wearing them. Check it out.

Plus, again, that would differentiate between the earplugs and earmuffs, and give the former more of a reason to be a thing.

[Klayboxx]

Why would anyone buy the Red Chainsaw? It's a c-saber that you can't conceal, but it butchers bodies. Imo the saber is just a much better choice. The chainsaw's body disposing bonus is not worth 7 telecrystals when you can get something much safer and more useful. If you're a botanist, you are already pretty isolated and have plenty of places to hide a body. If you intend on rampaging outside of botany with the saw, you already don't care about stealth. If you just want to gib every body you see, then you're p lame.

I think the cost should either be lowered to 5-6 crystals, or it should be removed and botanists should get another new, unique, fun item. A straight up melee weapon just doesn't fit a botanist for me.

Actually the red chainsaw is super good other than not being able to conceal it. It's a guaranteed one hit KO, where the saber isn't unless you use the hilt. Actually ok yeah the chainsaw could use some buffing but I still really like it as a style item

[DrivetimeMozol]

Actually the red chainsaw is super good other than not being able to conceal it. It's a guaranteed one hit KO, where the saber isn't unless you use the hilt. Actually ok yeah the chainsaw could use some buffing but I still really like it as a style item

I agree, it's got style. But people are hesitant to use it because it's risky and loud. I think if it was dropped down to 6 it would be used a lot more and still be balanced.

[Captain_Bravo]

Didn't the red chainsaw used to come with a special backpack that it could fit in? Or did I imagine that in a fever-dream?

[Chike101]

The surpressed .22 is a really cool and effective item, i was able to shoot the captain to death in public and get away with it.

What is this thing, I'm seeing it mentioned a lot but I've never seen or heard of it ingame, is it new?

Anyways, the least bought things are the things that instantly out you as a traitor, and/or the most useless. You can come up with a convincing story where you 'find' some traitor items like revolvers or sabers, but the Advanced Laser and Trash Cart are instantly recognized as "This dude specifically is a traitor, he and his job have been properly identified, and he's about to start shit, so let's kill him." It's also because the Laser and Cart aren't good enough on their own.

Then there are Donk Pockets and Syndicate Cargo Transporters, I've never seen someone specifically order them because their use is contextual. Transporter is only if you can stuff someone in a crate, and the Donk's for being in proximity of a microwave/getting shit done within 7 minutes of microwaving. Maybe the Donk's could be, like, pre-heated in a foil lined box, so they stay warm? And the Transporter, I don't know, have it teleport in a 'Syndicate Crate', black with a red stripe (so it isn't stealthy and can't be abused for more crates) and, when used on the Syndicrate, would do the normal thing?