Cataclysm-dda: The (uninterruptable) time investment for the use of control laptop is AFTER the take over attempt

[ZenZen2]

Expected behavior

1. Activating the control laptop will waste time (ingame time is around 1min) AFTER that you should see if the attempt for the takeover was successful or not.
2. If a monster shows up or i get damaged or a monster comes close, the game asks if i want to stop using the control laptop.

Actual behavior

You get the successful or not message befor you start working on it.
You will work on it with no way to stop it.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Use debug to spawn a turret infront of you and the right equipment to hack it and a watch to see the ingame time, set computer skill to 10. Now see how you hack it successful without it able to shot at you.
Or do the same with a very low computer skill. See how you get shot a whole minute befor you gain control.

[Zireael07]

It should be moved to long action then?

[ZenZen2]

And the takeover attempt should be after the work on it.
One minute ingame doesnt sound much, but its a long time if you are in a bad position.

[smolbird]

Fixing this would risk making the control laptop far less useful though, given 90% of situations where it's even worth using are situations where the laptop's target is a threat.

[ZenZen2]

How can it be less usefull, you dont need visual with the turret to hack it. And hacking provides free ammunition.

[ZenZen2]

With the actual gamemechanic you will need power armour to survive the 1min lockdown if you fail at hacking a milspec turret that can see you and no other targets.

[smolbird]

My main thought was with robots that can move. Turret usage probably won't be affected much by this either way, aside from making it only sane to use behind cover.

[dommon]

And why would that be expected behaviour? Its accessing intended login protocol and 'hacking' the password (by whatever way), it would be reasonable to assume that the robot suspends hostilities until that procedure either authenticates legit user or fails, no? Tho it should be interruptable if something else attacks the pc, id agree with that.

[ZenZen2]

I think first you have to successfully login into the turret befor it suspends hostilities and then it waits for a new command. Finding out the password for the login requires time.
Anyway its just a question how you imagine it.

Problem is if you make the 1min lockdown interruptable (which is realy needed in my opinion) how do you explain the successful check befor the time investment? A player would be happy if something interrupt the work because the work has been done before it started.

[kevingranade]

Making it a long action and leaving the robot hostile until it's done is exactly what needs to happen here.
Having the target become passive during the hack attempt is not intended, it's an accidental side effect.

[thethunderhawk]

^its a lot more exciting that way anyway. It ought to be an interruptible action though.