by Nanaki » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:31 pm
My current thoughts is that exploration is in a much better position now than it was a few months ago, getting its own voidsuits really helped reduce the checklist of 'required items' for expeditions to Virgo 2, and the addition of Pathfinder added a clearer chain of command. However, there are still lingering issues and problems, and a lot of disagreement over what can be done to fix those issues and problems, as well as disagreement over if they are problems at all.
Here are the list of short term, "easy" fix issues.
- Exploration is way too dependent on outside departments for certain equipment. I would say clotting medications are mandatory for Virgo four, and shelter capsules are mandatory for Virgo two. The former because of the huge amount of internal damage you will take from deathclaw swarms, and the latter because the Shuttle is not an effective shelter on Virgo two thanks to airlock and distance, as you have to go through the aerostat to an depressurized mini-shuttle that finally takes you to the surface. Even if you face no injuries, the slowdown penalties from going hungry (and you will go hungry on an expedition) are extreme. Synths also add weight to the shelter capsule requirement, since they run low on energy and there is no other way to get backup batteries or a recharger other than capsules.
- Expedition prep is tied too heavily to medical prep as well. It is very common for chemists to take two hours or even longer to make basic first aid chems, assuming anyone is working chemistry at all. Chemists who work as fast as Mlempest are rare.
- The above two factors are usually the biggest things that contribute to expedition prep time (Mining really likes to take their time gathering resources I noticed). The third largest factor used to be the requirement for a pilot to go anywhere, but that was recently resolved when Pathfinders were allowed to fly the shuttle.
- Exploration loot is too weapons-focused. Weapons are the worst loot for explorers, due to a combination of how powerful expedition phasers are making any found weapons completely obsolete, and there is absolutely no use for weapons back at the station, where they either get played with on the science firing range, confiscated by security, or rots in the expedition weapon locker for the rest of the round. In my honest opinion, weapons are shitter bait and nothing more.
- On the other side of the token, there is hardly any non-weapons loot. I would love lore, survival equipment, medical supplies, or stuff that exploration can bring back for other departments on the station. Aliens actually fit the bill for this quite well, with void cells, alien armor, alien tools, and alien objects for R&D to dismantle (nobody even cares about alien pistols), but aliens only show up in abductions, and an extremely rare POI on Virgo four. Most expeditions will never run into that.
- Expedition Phasers are way too powerful for what they are, 10 full power laser shots gives it identical stats to a laser rifle in Security's Red Armory, but unlike Laser rifles, they can fit anywhere pistols can, and have the self-recharging crank which is far superior to relying on power cells (unless you get lucky and find a void cell)
- However, expedition phasers are overpowered because explorers have to go up against large numbers of mobs with very high stats, such as Deathclaws, Giant Snakes, and Corrupt Hounds. This also puts a lot of pressure on SARs, because you will get injured, you will get injured badly, and often. Broken bones and internal bleeding is too common on Virgo four expeditions. A good SAR is too often the difference between an expedition wiping, and going home with no deaths.
- There is not really enough non-combat challenges for expeditions. Some encounters/POIs should be solved in ways other than shooting it to death.
- Ions are way too prolific, making being a synth very hazardous.
Now, these are the short term problems, the only suggestions and comments I have are:
- Give exploration some way to get shelter capsules other than begging mining for them. My personal suggestion is to scatter a few around the aerostat.
- Medical prep is unfortunately an unsolvable problem, since SS12 design dictates that medical requires a lot of prep, and SARs are cought up in that. If there was a way to have SARs more... ready... for expeditions that would be accepted by admins, I would be happy to hear it.
- Furnish up POIs with more lore bits, as well as fun, non-weapons stuff to find. Virgo two especially needs this kind of attention. The only thing that has stopped me is that I have no idea what would be acceptable rewards for the admins/developers here. Since anything I can add is either something created/used by other departments, is adminbus/antag only, or probably should be written by the lore masters (in terms of lore bits like documents).
- Replace Ion hivebots on Virgo four with Ion spiders, which, I feel, would be a bit more thematically fitting than random hivebots, and reduce spawns so that synths are a bit more viable.
- Reduce Deathclaw spawns enormously. Deathclaws should be a rare, terrifying experience, but their frequency makes them more of a very tough irritant.
- More neutral/weaker mobs on Virgo 4's cave system.
- Reduce giant snake spawns on Virgo 4's beach.
- Nerf expedition phasers from 10 shot capacity to 5 shot, which puts them in line with other pistols.
- Maybe add an 'Expedition rifle' producible in R&D, for trips to Virgo two, that would retain the crank and 10-shot capability of the current phasers. I can maybe kitbash something up similar to what I did for holdout phasers.
- Custom species traits are a huge, huge balancing factor. Whenever someone thinks expeditions are easy, one of the first things I notice is that many of those have powergamed their custom traits hard for expeditions.