Tweak IPCs

[Lyndomen]

About the PR

mostly tweaking IPC functions, nerfs

Why / Balance

Radiation barely matters, wear your PPE if you want to not have to plasma bath yourself.

Cold damage in space is set to only start at 160 kelvin which is like, a good chunk of free time in space. Then it even ticks slowly. So IPCs can chill in space but not forever.

Power drain reduced because these other changes act as a tether

Movement speed health thresholds changed because the previous ones were dumb

IPCs now bleed oil. I wanted space lube but I'm too brave for direction. They only have 100u in their body, and can refill a quarter of it with an Oil Pack. They do not stop bleeding, and they do not regenerate oil. To compensate, bloodloss damage is super super low, and they bleed very very slowly. Its meant to be another tether.

Hopefully one day they can drink oil to replenish but wyci

Technical details

Yaml

Media

Requirements

• I have tested all added content and changes.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an ingame showcase.

Breaking changes

Changelog

🆑

• tweak: IPC batteries now last 15% longer
• remove: IPCs can no longer be emagged
• add: IPCs now start with a survival box full of healing items
• tweak: IPCs now take radiation and cold damage, with 50% resistance to both
• add: IPCs may be cleansed of radiation with Plasma Sheets
• add: IPCs now have a bloodstream of Oil. They do not regenerate oil, or stop bleeding without intervention. They will very very slowly tick Blunt damage when low on Oil.
• tweak: IPC bleeding may be stopped with a Plastic Sheet or welding
• add: IPCs may get back Oil by using an Oil Pack, printable at the medical techfab or exosuit fabricator roundstart, or purchasable by logistics
• add: Syndicate members may purchase a Silicon focused repair and recharge kit; the Omnipatch Kit

[github-actions]

RSI Diff Bot; head commit 6bf4607 merging into 0243654
This PR makes changes to 1 or more RSIs. Here is a summary of all changes:

Resources/Textures/_DV/Objects/Medical/Oilpack.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
icon			Added

Resources/Textures/_DV/Objects/Medical/Omnipatch.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
icon			Added

Edit: diff updated after 6bf4607

[Lyndomen]

open for opinions. a lot of this is adding the potential for damage but not like, making it a critical necessity to go to the robo bay

[Lyndomen]

Todo: put some oil packs up for purchase from logistics, and some robo patch kit stuff in the uplink catalog. Maybe OmniPaste or something that is omnizine but for IPC

[Lyndomen]

I don't understand the yaml fail but will try to sort it out when I wake up

[BellwetherLogic]

open for opinions. a lot of this is adding the potential for damage but not like, making it a critical necessity to go to the robo bay

Overall, I think this nerf goes too hard and is targeting the wrong things to begin with. I said a lot of this in the Discord thread but here I'll address each point specifically and then overall as a whole.

IPCs now loose slightly less energy per second

Bless, thank you for this, please keep it in, the early-round APC hunt is a nightmare on some stations.

IPCs will now take cold damage after extended periods in space

Dislike but I can live with it, the coat and winter boots look is less punk but EMMA will endure.

IPCs take radiation damage, may be cleansed of radiation with Plasma Sheets

This is brutal. First, it differentiates IPCs from cyborgs, who don't take rad damage, which feels weird. Secondly, needing plasma to heal rad damage means IPCs will never be healed of rad damage - getting plasma is borderline impossible unless you're affiliated with Epistemics, and then it immediately gets hoovered up into either the anomaly machine or lathe recipes. Thankfully, rad damage is pretty rare, but...

IPCs now have a bloodstream of Oil. They do not regenerate oil, or stop bleeding without intervention. They will very very slowly tick Blunt damage when low on Oil.

You might as well make us bleed space lube with all the instant slipping and falling we're going to do the moment we take damage. This also has the same problem as plasma, now attached to any significant damage: it'll be borderline impossible to get our hands on oil because if Chem is making oil, they're doing it to make meth and they're not giving any to you, and if Logistics isn't operating well (or if they just don't feel like it) they're not going to order you any either.

IPC bleeding may be stopped with a Plastic Sheet or welding

I don't in-principle have an issue with this as a fix for bleeding, but organics can stop bleeding with a relatively quick self-application of a 2x2 item vs this requiring a very long do-after OR a 4x4 item. Massive relative nerf.

IPCs may get back Oil by using an Oil Pack, printable at the medical techfab or exosuit fabricator roundstart, or purchasable by logistics

This ameliorates some of the issues with oil as a concept but not all of them, and frankly I don't expect either fab to be used to print these because both Medical and Robotics, in my experience, tend to ignore IPCs.

Syndicate members may purchase a Silicon focused repair and recharge kit; the Omnipatch Kit

Cool and good for Syndies, I guess?

Here is my overall take: These tweaks are largely centered around making it much, much harder for IPCs to heal. This has two major problems.

One: IPCs aren't actually that much more combat effective than everyone else. They're a little tankier and they don't take certain types of damage, but those aren't the damages that combat deals in 95% of cases and the ones that are being dealt in combat have a decent chance of doing 150% damage (heat). If Ion damage gets merged this will be even MORE brutal. IPCs are not the combat monsters they're made out to be - they go down very fast and don't have a crit state they can be pulled up out of. The one advantage they do have is the ability to heal with, well, whatever junk they can find lying around in maints, for the most part - and it takes forever. If an IPC gets into a fight with an organic, and they do roughly equal damage to one another, by the time the organic steps back, chugs some bic, and rushes back in (assuming they didn't preload chems, something IPCs can't even do!), the IPC will be about halfway through the first of their extremely long self-welding do-overs.

Two: These tweaks remove a lot of what is unique about IPC play. Partially, it's the relative ease of self-healing, as noted above, but it's also things like making IPCs bleed, take damage from radiation, etc. If you push IPCs back towards the mean play experience, it's going to make them less interesting and attractive as an option, not because they're less good but because they play functionally the same way everyone else does, just with different (and harder to get) magic healing juice.

If I had to pick one of these to lose first, it'd be the oil bleeding. I get that bleeding oil is thematic for a robot and all, but in a gameplay sense it's just blood that doesn't come back on its own, and the fixes for it are far more labor-intensive than other species have to deal with.

This is especially problematic, I should add, when IPCs have a number of glaring weaknesses already, like the aforementioned massive vulnerability to heat and inability to feel rooms warming up (I have lost fights to hyperlathes), or EMPs functionally being an instant-kill (or, at the very least, a lengthy stun if you happen to be lucky enough to have a microreactor), and the fact that an instant, undefendable, unrepairable EMAG interaction can functionally end your round without round removing you because even without malice every time someone tries to hug you, they're going to rip your power cell out.

I don't think IPCs need nerfs, and they certainly don't need nerfs that go this hard. They play differently, not better, than other species, and players are starting to integrate the knowledge of how to absolutely ruin an IPCs day very quickly.

[Lyndomen]

You might as well make us bleed space lube with all the instant slipping and falling we're going to do the moment we take damage.

oil doesnt slip IPCs

I don't in-principle have an issue with this as a fix for bleeding, but organics can stop bleeding with a relatively quick self-application of a 2x2 item vs this requiring a very long do-after OR a 4x4 item. Massive relative nerf.

plastic is a 2x2, and with a short doafter. or use a welder

This ameliorates some of the issues with oil as a concept but not all of them, and frankly I don't expect either fab to be used to print these because both Medical and Robotics, in my experience, tend to ignore IPCs.

thats why im adding logi able to purchase them as well, and we're debating making them available in the autolathe

it's also things like making IPCs bleed,

have you tested how the bleed feels? I think its really nifty tbh, and way different from organics

aforementioned massive vulnerability to heat

I dont personally like this massive vulnerability, and tweaked the values to make them dissipate heat faster in atmos

the fact that an instant, undefendable, unrepairable EMAG interaction

i also hate this, it isnt fun gaming, and thats next on my list

[Lyndomen]

i will say i am also concerned that this is going too far on a nerf, but really what I am trying to do is make them less independent from the station. I want them to be reliant on the infrastructure, people, and materials of the station, and not be able to fuck off into space with no protection and a microreactor

[BellwetherLogic]

oil doesnt slip IPCs

Did not know that, that's nice.

plastic is a 2x2, and with a short doafter. or use a welder

🤦🏽‍♀️ I meant 1x2, for gauze. I shouldn't post before I have tea.

thats why im adding logi able to purchase them as well, and we're debating making them available in the autolathe

I would heavily suggest autolathe availability if you're sticking to the bleed.

have you tested how the bleed feels? I think its really nifty tbh, and way different from organics

I have not, admittedly; I just don't think it's necessary, regardless of how it feels.

aforementioned massive vulnerability to heat

I dont personally like this massive vulnerability, and tweaked the values to make them dissipate heat faster in atmos

I'm glad to hear this, and if this nerf goes through I hope that ion damage doesn't get merged (or, if that does get merged, some or all of these nerfs get rolled back; either way)

the fact that an instant, undefendable, unrepairable EMAG interaction

i also hate this, it isnt fun gaming, and thats next on my list

🙏🏽

Basically I just really love the way IPCs play and I fear change will detract from it. I'll pull and run the PR in a bit and run around to test the bleed out, but just the concept of it has me very hesitant. (tbh, I hadn't really been thinking of IPCs as the kind of machines that have a circulatory system, so it feels pretty weird on a narrative as well as ludic level to me)

[Lyndomen]

(tbh, I hadn't really been thinking of IPCs as the kind of machines that have a circulatory system, so it feels pretty weird on a narrative as well as ludic level to me)

fwiw they have a heart that part of its description says that it circulates stuff around, so i figured it isnt too weird.

the way i have bleeding set up is that it is a super minor amount of damage. It takes about three minutes to die with zero oil, and the damage caused by that is blunt, so you can just repair it with a welder until you get properly patched up. It is a lubricant, and without it your parts start to seize up.

[BellwetherLogic]

the way i have bleeding set up is that it is a super minor amount of damage. It takes about three minutes to die with zero oil, and the damage caused by that is blunt, so you can just repair it with a welder until you get properly patched up. It is a lubricant, and without it your parts start to seize up.

If that's the case, we do have space lube in the game already. Will that work for IPCs as well?

[BlitzTheSquishy]

Hopefully one day they can drink oil to replenish but wyci

Could steal code from saline, to replenish "blood" with raw oil

[Lyndomen]

saline

requires a metabolism :(

[BlitzTheSquishy]

saline

requires a metabolism :(

could add one (and then make it not metabolize anything (this is too much work))

[Lyndomen]

could add one (and then make it not metabolize anything (this is too much work))

i started this then i had to figure out how to make them drink, then i had to figure out how to let them vomit up drinks that arent oil, then i had to do metabolizer things and i gave up and said that can be done later

[Lyndomen]

direction approved btw real