Minor Clockwork Cult Patch

[ghost]

🆑 Xhuis
add: Clockwork cultists may now have the "Escape" and "Silicon" objectives, requiring a certain amount of servants to escape on the shuttle and all silicons to be converted respectively.
add: Ocular wardens are now forced to target bibles rather than the people holding them.
/:cl:

[Amemelius]

• The ocular warden doesn't need a damage nerf, it's fundamentally broken because damaging people beyond objects the attackers have to disassemble, on top of the massive force of cultists, magic, and all sorts of other broken bullshit. It needs to be fundamentally changed mechanically as described in the feedback thread, rather than a total patchwork 'fix' that solves nothing.
• Component costs may have been boosted, but generally, they really don't need to be changed and shouldn't be changed, or only boosted slightly. Rather, they need to scale with servants when it comes to constructs (which seems to be the biggest nerf), and, most importantly, resource acquisition needs to be fixed so that the cult doesn't have effectively infinite resources after 15-20 minutes. That should be a core issue, on the top of your list, before fixing anything else because it fundamentally affects the entire gamemode in every sense. As I said in the thread, logarithmic resource acquisition is the most pragmatic way of doing it.

The PR seems to be a rushed attempt to beat me to the punch, simply because you don't like me, but you haven't actually fixed any issues partially because it was rushed, and, are rather are making it more difficult to fix it, because they also have to revert the nerfs to alot of the prices. I also feel like these backward changes are partially a consequence of not wanting to do anything sane that I pointed out in the feedback thread, because that would be admitting that someone you detest is correct about something, the proof being that you aren't even able to entertain a thought from myself unless it's literally copy and pasted, reworded slightly, and posted under a different username.

Also, boosting the channel time significantly for the proselytizer is basically just making everything less streamlined and the experience less, fun.

[ChangelingRain]

This capitalization is intentional; it's referring to the component alloy, which is always capitalized.

[ChangelingRain]

The issue is still resource acquisition rate, not the costs of stuff. It'd be better to tackle that instead of trying to nerf costs when the actual issue is not running out of components ever.

[ghost]

I'll push back the changes and update the OP with some others based on feedback. I can't say that I know much about the rate, since whenever I roll clockcult someone leaves and finds the white ship and just sets up a billion walls and caches. How do you think I can change it?

[ghost]

@ChangelingRain has made some other PRs to work on component generation, and in the meantime, I've provided a way to protect from ocular wardens. Holding a bible in one of your hands will now force the warden to target said bible, causing it to burst into flames. While you hold the bible, you can't be targeted by the ocular warden, but once it burns away it can attack you as normal.

I will shortly implement a fix that ignites all bibles that the person is carrying so they can't just whip out another after another from their bag of holding.

[Amemelius]

Updated PR: Okay, that's probably a proper step in the right direction. How long do bibles take to combust?

[ghost]

I don't know the specifics, but it seems to be anywhere from 6-10 seconds.

[GunHog]

I'll push back the changes and update the OP with some others based on feedback. I can't say that I know much about the rate, since whenever I roll clockcult someone leaves and finds the white ship and just sets up a billion walls and caches. How do you think I can change it?

Make Steampunk stuff (caches, sigils) fail to work outside of the station z-level. Now, it is downright daft to build a base within the station - there is simply too much traffic, access, and risk. A patrolling assistant will pass by at the right moment, and yell out before you can stop him.

You may also disable conversion of shuttle walls and turfs to stop shuttle bases. This will force Steampunks to either build their bases in the nearby space (But only Engineer players do this, of course), or take massive risks by building into one of the station's nooks.

I do not think these are good solutions, as you will be DESTROYING their ability to build up, and forcing them into very tiny spaces. I think you should try something else, as base building inside the station's maint is a poor choice, so the alternative is completely taking over a department and converting it insead. (This takes a long time, and is also very high risk)

[optimumtact]

Ready?

[ghost]

@ChangelingRain seems to be working on a solution to the component problem. so I'll call this good.

[Robustin]

Escape got removed from Nar-Sie for a reason. It's not the worst objective in the world but it creates a lot of bad incentives for the cults.

Right now we already have a BIG problem with Clockcult getting tons of friendly conversions. At least security TRY to resist since they know passivity = death if Ratvar shows up. Now what happens when the Cuck Cult doesn't even need to kill people sometimes?

Cults are bad, they are a threat, "escape with X cultists on the shuttle" did a poor job of promoting the cult as a threat instead of a meme. Plus it opens the door to all kind of siliness like where I just poop out soul vessels and anima fragments in the back of the shuttle to make up for whatever missing numbers we might have.

Converting all silicons has the same issue.

BORG LISTEN TO MY STORY, LAW 2
BORG GETS GUVAX'D
BORG KILLS AI
VICTORY!