Vgstation13: Mechs and power.

[Caboozles]

Mechs as they stand are super powerful machines of war. This is fine. They should be strong during the time in which they're used.
But too often they're just permanent suits of armor that scientists or whoever use to roam the halls. I think the core issue with mechs is that there's no problem whatsoever with this issue, and unless we start to enforce some stronger IC penalties for mechs, they're going to continue to be massively unfun boxes of deaths.

I'm proposing these issues to keep mechs as strong and dangerous, while giving possibly counterplay methods indirectly.
These numbers are tentative and just thrown off the top of my head to show the core idea rather than anything else. If I've made some gross misunderstanding of code please understand that I am a brainlet, but I do use mechs a lot and understand at least some of the issues with them.

General Mech Changes:
Clarke step energy drain to 1 from 2.
Odysseus step energy drain to 3 from 6.
Gygax step energy drain from 5 to 7
Durand step energy drain from (???) to 10
Phazon step energy drain from 3 to 10
Reduce the Mech Bay recharge rate by roughly half.
Split mech tracking beacons into a tracking beacon and a lockdown beacon. The lockdown beacon can be removed, the tracking cannot.
-Why?
Currently combat mechs aren't that expensive to operate energy-wise. The Phazon in particular is a problem because it's not only fast like a Gygax, but has twice the deflect chance and its own mobility suite. Plus, 4 slots. I've reduced the move cost for other mechs to help them with the changes later to general energy restoration, while increasing the cost for combat mechs across the board.
The tracking beacon change is to try and give both the crew and antags in control a way to find where a mech is to try and stop them from doing anything. Combined with energy costs and almost importantly the later drop in repair droid effectiveness, this should require people to actually leave their mechs to do something.

Weapon changes:
Immolator Energy from 30 to 100
Solaris Laser Cannon from 60 to 200 energy
Scattershot from 25 to 75 energy
-Why?
Currently what makes the mechs especially unfun for the crew is that there's no cost for firing. Mechs as they stand have no concern with weapons except for energy, but when the energy cell has 50,000, this means you reasonably can fire the immolator Nearly 1,700 times before it drains. The shotgun can be fired 2,000 times before it's drained. Even the solaris, with 60 burn can do over 800 shots. God forbid if there's a taser thrown in. I haven't touched things like the taser and the bolas because something that isn't murder should be encouraged.
The general goal here though is that heavy combat will dramatically deplete your cell, while functionally moving will still decrease your cell, but not nearly as bad as actually using it.
A small note here, but even firing nonstop it would take 250 shots to deplete the cell. I can't imagine you'll need 250 shots to kill whatever.

Module changes:
Hydraulic Clamp down from 20 to 10 energy drain
Scythe down from 15 to 10 energy drain
RED from 250 to 150 energy drain
Armor Booster from 50 to 100 energy drain
Projectile Booster from 50 to 100 energy drain
Tesla Energy Relay from 100 to 40 energy provided
Plasma Converter from 100 to 60 energy provided
Repair Droid from 100 to 200 energy drain
Repair Droid from 2 health to 1 health.
Switchtool from 50 to 25 energy drain
Tiler from 50 to 30 energy drain
-Why?
These changes are probably the most comprehensive. A lot of what was increased were modules commonly equipped onto mechs that see combat. This is again an attempt to directly hit combat mechs, while a lot of those reduced were mostly used by non-combat mechs. The goal is to keep non-combat mechs useful, while limiting those that see combat from being quite so active all the time. The biggest changes here involve the tesla energy relay and the repair droid, which were often coupled to provide an infinite energy, unkillable mech.

Gygax:
Deflect from 15 to 20

Durand:
Deflect from 20 to 25.

HONK:
Untouched because honk honk.

Phazon:
Damage absorption from 30 to 20.
Damage absorption list from 0.7 across the board to 0.75 across the board
Changes Phaze from a toggled ability to an active ability similar to Ethereal Jaunt. The Phazon will phaze from reality for 3 ticks during which it is impervious to damage. Has a cooldown of 30 seconds and requires 4000 energy to use.
Equipment slots from 4 to 3.
-Why?
The big reason I actively increased the armor for the durand and gygax is because even that small tweak is a pretty big increase in survivability for them. With the huge increase to cell costs, their roles as 'high impact weapons' are supposed to be accentuated. They'll be slightly more potent in combat at the expense of being more ephemeral, hopefully limiting their general usage and allowing antags or crew more counterplay when that cell eventually gets low or depletes.

The Phazon change in general is supposed to keep Phazon as an interesting and wacky mech with very specific uses rather than just the strongest and best mech.
The deflect rate being drastically reduced, combined with lower armor should hopefully mean that when the Phazon does show up, it'll be used more as an indirect strike mech rather than something that goes in and out of walls to murder people with no recourse. The huge cost of the phaze now means that not only will time limit its usage, but also the massive energy cost. This should hopefully mean it'll be used strategically or as a last ditch escape rather than something that's permanently kept on. It'll also mean that if you can catch it after a phaze you can kill it much more easily than prior.

In general, this may seem like a fuckton of changes, but the core idea is to make mechs more fun for both antags and the crew, depending on who has them. Antags stand a better chance to jump the pilots if they're not able to be used 24/7. Crew stand to survive more if the mech isn't operational 24/7 and roaming the halls looking for the next body to turn horizontal. This doesn't change their general combat effectiveness though, and so anyone with the jump should still be able to enter a room and clean house with their weaponry, but the limitations provided should hopefully mean that there's more counterplay available.

[boy2mantwicethefam]

tl;dr

[GraniteSidewalk]

skim over it you readlet
basically nerf everything about mechs, I disagree since we ought to just hold them to higher RP standards

[boy2mantwicethefam]

You know, I think it's funny how just because Security don't get to touch mechs they have to be nerfed.
I'm jesting. Power is not looked at to the point it costs more energy to baton someone than to fire a laser cannon if what you say (60 power cost for laser cannon) is true. Blame Bay and almost a decade of oversight.
RP standards will never work, it's just going to be an arbitrary "bwoink what are you doing with mech outside on green alert?" and that will already lead to more standards than command, something the server is just not ready for.

[Caboozles]

It actually buffs the Gygax and Durand in combat. It only is a nerf to the Phazon directly. Everything else is a limit on mech activity. Mechs can effectively go active until shot to death with no recourse from anyone. Especially crew without guns.

[boy2mantwicethefam]

And?

[GraniteSidewalk]

I mean more like "what the fuck are you doing with a walking death machine on code green, you're scaring everyone, get out before we ion rifle you and throw you in perma"

[Caboozles]

Mechs have next to no counterplay for anyone except for Security, and even security can and does get absolutely dunked by mechs on the regular. Ioning a mech is all well and good except when they can turn around and kill you before you can effectively destroy it. Even then, if they have any guns you've only destroyed the outer shell. Providing a strong limit on mech activity allows for both antags and security to eventually have an opening to respond to.

And for full disclosure, I play roboticist to make mechs in a large number of rounds.

[boy2mantwicethefam]

With the implication roboticist isn't an absolute meme job because it's a scientist with less access
Your fabricator exists to be taken to R&D and only it to be upgraded with bluespace matter bins while the one that remained in robotics is left to gather dust
People wanted mech counterplay, nothing passed, so now we're here. If people call the EMP rune pulsing three times mech counterplay I will shoot myself right here

[AutismSpider]

@boy2mantwicethefam EMPs do very little to combat mech cus the armor can block/lower the emp damage/Deflect it power drain is a joke too.

[DrSnips]

With how the clown roid is no longer quick source of phazon I think the nerf to it should be toned down a bit namely the cooldown to maybe 10 seconds since it's key feature is to phaze-on stuff.
The armor modules consuming energy at all is retarded and imo they shouldn't consume energy at all since you're sacrificing your already super limited slots. Also a raw plate of metal using energy is dumb.
The charging stations should be left alone because they were painful to use in the past due to how slow they worked. Also they aren't contributing to any issues currently so why touch it?

[Allspice]

Reduce the Mech Bay recharge rate by roughly half.

How long does it take to full-charge a hyper cell mech before and after the change

[Kurfursten]

Cell charger is already faster afaik so I foresee much more cell hotswapping

Cell swaps pretty much defeat this whole concept

[utilitas-]

How 'bout no.
All you have to do is nerf the Phazon. It should be a glass cannon vulnerable to EMPs or something else, but otherwise just as fast and nimble as before. It's nice to drive around like a pussy wagon, sippin' gin and juice with your plasteel on your mind and your mind on your plasteel. Nothing else needs changing, the Phazon simply needs a big, glaring weakness.
If anything, we need some complicated way to increase mech module counts on mechs, notably the CLARKE. Carrying extra modules by hand and hotswapping them when you need them is dumb. There should be some upgrade accessible from vox traders/spessmart/vaults/wherever non-researcharble that increases the slot count by two for civilian mechs, and maaaaybe by one for military mechs.

And the mech recharge bay rate should be at least doubled. It is completely useless as it is right now, and I always opt for an energy relay instead.