Singularity and Tesla now require generator access to activate #32684
Conversation
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Something something "all intern roles must have same access as regular departament roles". 😆 |
I respectfully disagree. Intern roles shouldn't be treated as inferiors mechanically, even more so when it's something that locks them out of actually learning a critical system to their job. Even if it's supposed to require a double check from a proper engineer, this'll likely result in some people shunting them away because they can't help with the majority of the work. |
Ok, CE and atmos only/j
I understand that, although most interns don't have the ability to single handedly end the round for the entire station. With this in place, they can still learn the system, as the engineer teaching them can still talk them through what to do, and they can still see UIs, just not unlock/toggle them. The vast majority of the setup can still be done by a TA, like they can still put everything in place. Its literally just turning on the generator and PA that they cant do currently |
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Other admins may have a different experience, but from mine since TA was locked behind a timer almost all raiders aren't playing it, but rather playing other roles and breaking into engineering. With that being the case all locking it for TAs will do is stop legitimate players from accessing it. |
Thats fair, I could see an argument for it being standard engi access, although i still feel that as is it is too easy for one person to loose |
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One of the points in the design document for these types of generators was making it so when particles were firing at a generator, the generator would call out that it was being activated and where it was, along with taking longer to activate. This way engineering could have a chance to interrupt someone activating the generator without permission. This change is good. If it requires a compromise I think having engineering access in general to do this is fine, it stops the 50% of raiders that break into engineering to put the generator in front of the PA. This also makes singuloose and tesloose nukie strategies balanced. Now nukies actually have to kill an engineer at least, before they unleash something the crew just cannot realistically contend against. |
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something something... change the name of the access so it does not sound like you need it to start normal generators... something something... is this going to affect much for a raider to just kill an engi and use their id... Changing the access on stuff just does not seem like its going to stop raiders, maybe if there were 2 consoles on both sides of the pa that both need to be hit by 2 different people? Idk, I'm not an admin but it seems kinda silly to stop a person from accessing something who is killing people by letting them access it by killing someone. It also kinda works logic wise, at least 2 people checking the containment setup would reduce the number of unexperienced engi from setting it up incorrect.
Its already like this, is it not? |
Currently if the pa has been turned on by engi, all you need to do is move the generator in front of the active pa to loose and destroy the station.
Generator was the best I could come up with, Engine would just be too close to engineering, singularity excludes tesla and vice versa
Imo its better to have something than nothing, since we can't exactly get an are you a raider pop up when you try to make a singulo. Ultimatly a sufficiently determined raider will loose no matter what, but we can put methods in place to try and dissuade it, and make it more effort on their part/more likely to be noticed beforehand. In this case, theyd need to kill another engi first, which already puts them on securities raider as well as potentially admin (since TAs cant be antags and have no legit reason to do this), as opposed to now where they can just do it |
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Having a two person confirmation is an entirely different bag of worms and there are too many caveats to make it viable. I don't think the PA has an access component as of right now, I believe anyone can operate it. Even then, it would just have an access wire. People could just snip it. I think someone should kill someone to get access to kill other people... take armory access for example. If it's really a problem we could have the generator have an EMAG component so it can be cracked by nukies with one ounce of foresight. But the whole message on activation thing should be implemented to help curb the issue a little bit. I think giving the crew a chance and extra safeguard to prevent someone from just dragging the generator in front of the PA is better than having no chance. These engines end the round. |
PA does have an access component already for engineering
One of my ideas for future PRs is a way for antags to get around this, I just didn't want to put it here to avoid a massive delay due to touching antag stuff lmao. I did explicitly want to avoid emag affecting this bcs it does too much already, you'll see i turn off the lock being breakable via emag |
#30394, they don't have an access wire nor emag interaction iirc
Explain? what kind of caveats?
That attacking captain, hos, or warden with a toolbox compared to an engineer with a slowdown from their hardsuit. That's not including going into the armory and not getting caught by all of security. I've seen it happen before through a raider getting cap id when power went out and security instantly killed them when they got into the armory. it also takes more skill to cause issues with guns over the pa. |
Presume a two-person authentication (2PA) was required to activate the PA, with the following requirements:
You could run into certain situations like:
These are just very specific examples and I'm sure half of the time a 2PA would be fine. But this presents a lot of problems for regular engineers that need control over the PA quickly. |
Sure, but how often is there a single engi in the entire department? That seems like a fair price to pay for having someone double check the setup used. I've met many an engi who set the singulo wrong and loose early in the shift.
If they wanted to disable the pa they could just deconstruct one part, if they wanted to disable the pa this is not going to change much. Maybe even make it less likely for people to destroy a pice completely.
That's the point yes
Edge cases are always like that, I mean the issue that brought it up is people destroying the entire station using it. I think having engi work as a team more often and force people who try to learn it themself without asking to at least have a check from someone in the department. |
Seen it happen quite a bit in lower population servers. |
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Truthfully I am concerned with how much power this gives to command. CE's can already be obnoxious about power (Their job I suppose) but mechanically locking it all out just makes it a hassle and really the easiest fix to this kind of problem is just making the time requirement for engineering higher - it honestly already should be higher. Engineering currently already has a massive glaring issue and that it's speedrun simulator, this can add an extra layer of headache to it, especially if you get short staffing. I've see engineering multiple times have only TA's or only 1 or 2 people in it - low population hours exist, this will cause problems with the current engineering setup. Shit I've even seen situations where there's no command a very little engi staff - what do you do then? Somebody also mentioned it before, but this also completely alienates TA's. Even less reason for engineering to interact with a TA now that the TA can't even actually set it up in any capacity, they gotta watch and that's it. No hands-on experience for them. The whole appeal to engineering is power, not fixing hull breaches. Like I'd take a much more slow and easily to handle singulo that we can reasonable fight vs total mechanical lockup in hopes to beat the raider. I know at least on some ss13 servers, a singuloose is not really at all a threat, it's usually some silly fuckup. E.G I watched a guy try to set up singulo, in the middle of it he accidentally turned on one of the shields, it stuns him and pushed him into the singulo and it loosed. Engineering took a stroll to cargo, bought the decelerator, got rid of the singulo and proceeded to fix the damage and then repower the station. And evac was recalled after. It would be nice to have a balance like that vs total destruction before your power source suddenly loosed to some nonsense. Possibly have the power sources only reach maximum threat level when it's at the 30 minute mark - meaning all looses before that really aren't round ending? I'm really not convinced this stops raiders, more than it gives far more control to CE, cap and HOP(?) and less control to engineers. CE's will definitely abuse this. This level of mechanical lockup is why I avoided other servers. |
CE should be partially annoying about power. They have the final say in all things about their department. I do agree that the two-person authentication system shouldn't really be implemented; there should just be more safeguards and simple steps in turning on an engine, so people have more of a chance to stop it. This is part of the design doc for engineering.
Personally I think the problem is that engineering has very bland resources for introducing people into the department and teaching them. I am fixing this in #32622.
I agree on all of these points.
Engineering needs to have a destructive Engine to have a consequence for failing. Singulooses are already a round-ending thing, even if it wanders off into space often times the crew are adamant in going home, even though the danger is over. Although, maybe the singularity buster rocket launcher would be interesting to see as an alternative to the particle decelerators.
I agree. There should be more systems to prevent some tomfoolery happening as outlined in the design doc.
I think this extreme amount of mechanical enforcement makes the game a bit weird, maybe even unfun; why would a singularity all of a sudden get 10 times as bigger at the 30 minute mark? In the future Traitor Reputation will alleviate mass sabotage at the 30 minute mark. Obviously that's a bit in the future so maybe someone can think of a better solution now.
Fair, I just provided examples on why this would have been a bit of a bad idea. And CE's being despots is more of an IC problem than anything. You're supposed to listen to your team leader. I do agree that CE's shouldn't just have the entire keys to the house and lock everything behind their explicit permission. Back to talking about the actual PR: I think that Engineering access for generators is fine, rather than having it be an explicit Generator access. Good for TAs that want to learn and the edge cases that surround them. It's better than no system in place to stop someone dragging a engine in front of a PA. |
Maybe, it'd be more like a power curve if anything, though there's just not an easy answer to it. Problem with looses, 9 out of 10 times they are round ending, and they can happen consecutively and that's when the complaining starts. They want to find a way to mechanically enforce it to not loose before 30 minutes, and maybe the answer really is just...making engineering not a speedrun? Having some sort of power source that lasts that long and allowing engineers to just put up power at their own pace is a better direction and would make looses feel later? |
I don't think that engineering isn't that crazy of a speedrun to get everything up and running. Competent engineers and a good CE get power up well before the station browns out, although I do agree that a disjointed team can easily lead to brownouts. There is a general goal with SMES mapping: engineering should have 10 minutes to get a power source up and running with AME assistance. |
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As CE main i can say that speedrunning power does not require special advanced engineering skills, also regarding long lasting power source at round start: JUST SET UP AME AND CONNECT PACMAN GENERATORS TO THE GRID PLEASE (Pacman gens easily fill needed power loads gap when it all work with AME) |
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Bad for training and REALLY bad for lowpop, overall I feel like this is a wrongheaded approach to any problem |
I mean. This doesnt give command much more power, considering all engineers can unlock the generators except TAs, which is a large part of why I didn't just set it to CE access (Although Imo CE should really be overseeing engine setup usually anyways but yk). HoP has access partly to mirror it having all non-command access and also as an additional failsafe in a low/no engi environment (on lowpop rounds I've seen command often sets up power when theres no engis) |
problem is new players. You don't always get competent engineers - a solo engineer who knows what they are doing can run engi, but multiple confused engis cause a blackout. It's just unforgiving really. |
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I agree that the goal of roundstart power with zero brownouts has little room for incompetence. Because of the depth and the amount of interconnected systems engineering has, it's difficult to grasp for new players. Sometimes being thrown into the frying pan is a good way to learn, although this can simply be frustrating for people. On the topic of the PR, I think having it just be engineering access is perfectly fine. Maintainers might want to have it be EMAGable. We'll have to see. |
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you read my mind, interns shouldn't have access to this |
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| return; | ||
| if (_lock.IsLocked(uid)) | ||
| { | ||
| _popup.PopupEntity(Loc.GetString("singularity-generator-component-locked"), uid); | ||
| SetPower(uid, 0, comp); | ||
| return; | ||
| } | ||
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I mean the main idea is to try to lower the amount of both raider loosing by adding more friction to the process, and also engi loosing roundstart by trying to get someone vaguely experienced to okay a generator setup, since immediate evacs due to looses just aren't particularly fun and are for all intents and purposes unrecoverable, which can lead to feelsbads for a lot of people (e.g. nukies loosing their roll, or honestly any actual antag)
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closing this as #33358 was merged, which is a better implementation of the same concept |
About the PR
Singularity and tesla generators + associated equipment with access readers now require the new generator access level. This level is given roundstart to Cap, HoP, CE, Atmos Techs and Station Engineers. Singulo + Tesla generators now spawn in locked by default, and must be unlocked before they can create their entity. There is a popup when they reach the power threshold but are locked.
Why / Balance
This is mostly designed to prevent TA raiders from being able to loose the moment the round starts, as no role that requires bare minimum playtime should really have an end the round button the way TAs do. This means well meaning TAs must get a full engi to come and check their work when trying to setup a generator (as they can still move all the parts into place), which also facilitates learning as well as preventing raiding.
This also limits mass station destruction for antags, as they are required to gain generator access somehow to loose via this method, since EMAGs do not break the lock on generators. I would consider adding an uplink item like an access card with just generator access available after 30 mins, but didnt want to put it in this PR. Relates to #20064 by limiting mass sabotage, especially if an uplink item is added for this.
Reason for new access level is there is no access TAs dont have but regular engies do; using CE or Atmos is theoretically possible but would likely make the roundstart yelling at engi bcs theres no power worse if regular engies can't get things going themselves
Overall will hopefully reduce admin workload a bit
Technical details
Add lock component and access reader to singulo and tesla generator prototypes, added if to
SingularityGeneratorSystemto check if its locked, added access level to id card console. Rest is YAMLMedia
2024-10-07.15-30-22.mp4
2024-10-07.15-40-16.mp4
2024-10-07.15-33-52.mp4
Requirements
Breaking changes
N/A I hope
Changelog
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-tweak: Singularity and Tesla generators, and associated items, now require Generator access to unlock and use, available to all of engineering except assistants. Generators must be unlocked to create the Singularity or Tesla