Breaching slugs vs Mechs Tweak

[Isaacnml]

About The Pull Request

Since #13654 being closed, there's still a visible gap in the ways to deal with a mech, the second best option i found apart from touching ion guns was to tweak how breaching slugs affect mechs
they're slugs designed to destroy machinery, doors, windows, makes sense they can pack a punch into a mech's armor

Why It's Good For The Game

More ways for antags and security to deal with mechs

Antags can print it via any hacked lathe and security has their own lathe.
All damage values are W.I.P and not the final values

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots&Videos

Breaching Slugs

Durand received 7 shots, deflecting two of them totalling a damage of 217, being left with 183/400
Ripley received 7 shots deflecting two of them, totalling a damage of 160, being left with 40/200
Oddyseus received 7 shots, deflecting two of them, totalling a damage of 90, being left with 30/120

Laser Weaponry

Durand being left 275/400 integrity by 14 laser shots, deflecting three of them
Ripley being left 68/200 integrity by 14 laser shots, deflecting three of them
Oddyseus being left 0/120 integrity by 14 laser shots, deflecting two of them and being destroyed

Changelog

🆑 Isaac, pixelpoepleman
tweak: Mechs receive more damage by breaching slugs
/:cl:

[FedorPavluk]

I love this idea, but nukie mechs will be deleted in seconds now.
Also currently autolathes dont print breaching slugs if i read code correctly

[PowerfulBacon]

Way too much damage and it's silly that it's based on subtype rather than armour as to how much damage it does.

I also don't really see a huge need for this, how difficult is it to break a mech with buckshot?

[PowerfulBacon]

Also going to apply a key to this for the same reason as the last PR. Security doesn't typically struggle that much against mechs, the mech issue is that they are unstoppable against most non human and non geared treats. Rather than make them trivial to destroy, make them fairer to be against or change their weaponry.

If you want to make it so that bullets can deal with mechs, give armour penetration the chance to penetrate the armour and injure the pilot for reduced damage so that the solution is more generic to all weapons and not an instant loss against it

[Isaacnml]

Also going to apply a key to this for the same reason as the last PR. Security doesn't typically struggle that much against mechs, the mech issue is that they are unstoppable against most non human and non geared treats. Rather than make them trivial to destroy, make them fairer to be against or change their weaponry.

As a security main, yes they do

Last round i played, we had a Durand, they freely broke into brig with a plasma cutter
2 Full Ion gun magazine shots, almost no damage done
while they annihilated 2 security officers, the captain and the detective, the only reason we ended up killing it after dying two times each is SM blew up, taking out gravity, mechs dont perform as good without gravity.

And buckshot doesn't deal that much damage considering how close you need to be, specially if it's a durand.
This is a secondary option to just having the ion gun be the main counter.

[PowerfulBacon]

I do not like the way of thinking that there must be a counter, there should be effective weapons (and I do think the ion gun should be more effective, perhaps stunning it like other EMPing weapons) but I do not think there should be a weapon that makes mechs weak against it. A mech and an ion gun should be equally matched in a fight, and the preference should be towards the mech if it is armed.

[Isaacnml]

I do not like the way of thinking that there must be a counter, there should be effective weapons (and I do think the ion gun should be more effective, perhaps stunning it like other EMPing weapons) but I do not think there should be a weapon that makes mechs weak against it. A mech and an ion gun should be equally matched in a fight, and the preference should be towards the mech if it is armed.

From what i saw, ion guns are already being worked on against mechs, but there should be aditional ways to damage a mech without ions being the only real way, this is one that makes senses and can be balanced around.

[Rukofamicom]

Also going to apply a key to this for the same reason as the last PR. Security doesn't typically struggle that much against mechs, the mech issue is that they are unstoppable against most non human and non geared treats.

A key is not the end of a PR, two maints disagree with this sentiment so there is probably going to be a discussion about it where we hash things out. It might be as simple as fixing bugs with power to restore mech balance tho, but I don't think that's all that should happen.

Mech have been extraordinarily unfun to face for ages now, with their primary weakness not even making a dent in them. I tried facing one as a wizard and made no progress because the mech would simply be fully repaired between fights. I've not ever seen mech lose outside of two circumstances: it's a nukie facing fully armed crew, or the mech was poorly constructed.

[Isaacnml]

Testing evidence uploaded, i can test buckshot if needed.

[FedorPavluk]

At the moment its purely security buff and doesnt solve issue of fighting mechs as antag

[Isaacnml]

At the moment its purely security buff and doesnt solve issue of fighting mechs as antag

Just waiting on the veredict, dont want to spend extra time balancing or changing things if It wont get merged

[githubuser4141]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaching_round
https://americancop.com/ballistic-breaching-with-a-shotgun/

It doesn't seem to make sense, because irl a breaching slug is designed to break into a fine dust after it hits a lock or a hinge on a unprotected door, so it doesn't bounch off and hit the shooter, or hit anyone inside. It's a safety device, it's not designed to smash through armor. I'm not an expert just reading the text but that's what it says. If doors had armor covering the hinges or locks or wherever I think these slugs would become much less effective. If anything it seems like breaching slugs would do drastically LESS damage on a armored mech.

The reason it does 10 damage is simply because the coders thought it'd be funny to do so, and the reason it has no AP is because it doesn't have much AP in real life either. If you say "In SS13, most doors are armored, so it works differently" then okay... if it pierces a mech's armor just fine, then that means it's good at going through hard composite armor and should be given some AP against body armor, too. And then it could get some extra damage because like, even if it's overpenetrating a human it's a .50 inch slug, it should do more than 10 damage.

So in that sense it wouldn't work on a mech, either, in fact it'd probably better against a less-armored mech than a armored mech, because it's literally designed to not penetrate even a sheet metal door, but going against something like a Odysseus it'd probably be decently effective on considering it's just plastic and thin glass.

Also, why not make it be based on the mech's actual armor? A Gygax has less armor than a Ripley, and a Ripley uparmored with goliath sheets has more armor than a Durand.

And why not just fix the EMP effect on mechs? I'm pretty sure it's under-damaging them by a good amount.

[PowerfulBacon]

Just make it so that all ballistics can penetrate and hit the pilot.

[githubuser4141]

Just make it so that all ballistics can penetrate and hit the pilot.

All ballistics? Not even accounting for armor? It doesn't make any IC sense why NT would design something that's supposed to be a combat vehicle when it can't even protect the pilot from handgun or shotgun ammo

Just change this to be a bigger number lol