Toxins Troubles

[Trilbyspaceclone]

About The Pull Request

Hey its me, ya Catto back from hell to ruin everyhing! In this latest and greatest installment of "Trilby is baise against SI and only ever nerfs" we bring the greatest (magnitude) change to a toxins yet.

Toxins is being broken down into a set of mini games for the mini game of toxins, as well as having some QoL mapping done.
For reading and understanding each change has been detailed in a section as well as reasoning and thought processes of each change done.

Each mini game is isolated and do not impact one another.

Changes done to map

1. The toxins area has been made much more safe, as now it will be a clear tunnel that is always free from golem spawns and other deep tunnel monsters.
   1.1 This is qol, having a golem body block you or digging your own way to toxins is
2. Toxins area now has a crate of supplies such as target dummies, wood, steel ect for building or other projects.
   2.1 This is for a building mini game, please see "Building Mini Game" for more information.

Please read "Bomb Target mini game"

Bomb Target mini game (Important!!!)

Bomb Target mini game is the classic "We want a bomb level of 28!" This has fundamentally not changed, but its requirements have. See Inadept Example

1. Missed range has been drastically narrowed down.
   1.1 This was done to make the "Bomb Target mini game" a little bit harder.
2. Points rewarded for hitting target is now a maximum of 30k
   2.1 This was done so that it takes more either mini games to fully max out, or more time.
3. Every power level missed is now subtracting 2500 (2.5k) form maximum
   3.1 This was done so that you are less punished for slight misses, as the missed range has been narrowed down

Inadept Example:

Let's say we had a request of 6

| power  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | *6* | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
|--------+---+---+---+---+---+-----+---+---+---+----+----|
| missed | * | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |  0  | 1 | 2 | 3 |  4 |  * |

Every step of missed is -2500

Building Mini Game

1. SI labs have after gathering countless data of raw power of mixings need to see how it affects target rich environments, for science! What does this mean? Well: Toxins watcher now cares about the tiles around it and whats in them!
   1.1 This additional mini game rewards the set up of a bomb sight and encourages guild to join in on making little nuke towns
2. SI explosion watcher will now have a range of "value" it wants, you use the list to place around targets, structures and the like to match the in-between of what the watcher wants, to much or to little ruins the whole test making you gain additional no points.
   2.1 This is the mechanic of the mini game, it rewards players building smart and now spamming down highest point value objects.
3. When within (Not matching) the range of "value" you are rewarded 15k points.
   3.1 This is the reward. It is added onto your Research Point Total.
4. SI bulletin boards now have a index list of what gives how many points
   4.1 So you know what counts for building, and what each building is worth without spam shift clicking the watcher itself.

Bomb Power Mini Game

This is a pitty system that basically allows you to get points almost no matter what.

1. Any bomb power above 0 will net you a small 500 points.
   1.1 This is like old toxins and suggested so that you get some nice extra points for building mini game or even target mini game making both of them less harsh.
2. Bomb power above 1 will gain an additional 375 points per level (max caps are worth 2k)
   2.1 This allows someone if they wish to to spam out max caps to brute force the points, this takes a LOT of setup and is harsh. Again this is a pitty system so that way dud/missed mini games are less punished, not a fully viable way to do toxins affectively.
   2.2 Math is as follows: 500 + (375 x Bomb Power)

The yapping Section

Trilby you evil foe why do you do such horrors!!!!!!! Most unjust against your own kind!!!!!!!

Toxins by far is the most abused way to get rnd points and shadows everything else. This is *with* every other source actually having boosts to point generation, from making mechs to how much rnd points you get per plant. "Just lower toxins out giving" is *not* a fix, to it being just a quick 15-20 min spam of 12 bombs to gather every point you can get from the watcher.

Other sources of rnd points are ignored, rejected and neglected to the point of being shamed if you are to use them. RnD being basically done within an hour also makes more slower and mechanically depth sources of points borderline useless (Xenoarch for one, Mech building for two)

BUT RND DECON IS JUST A LIST!!! ITS A SOLVED GAME!

Nipping this in the bud as this came up last time I even talked about touching toxins. This is about toxins, not the rnd list. You can with the "solved" list get a majorly of the rnd trees done of most required items. The major difference is that it gets *basics to advanced* gear within an hour not complete the whole tree. Yes its "Same problem" but different issue with how RnD works at a core level at this moment that we dont track *different* point sources

FOR WHY NOT ALSO NERF X OTHER ABUSEABLE RND TRICK!

Another retort that is used a lot, and to explain the reasoning: Not the goal of the pr.

[ApplePlastic]

Right, I've had time to test this PR within two rounds.

I genuinely feel like this takes far too much prep to be considered fun or profitable (much like Xenobio and Genetics). I spent a long time trying to figure out why the KES gave me no points despite having made X amount of suggested items to satisfy the number of target points needed to give research points.

I was here scratching my head like an ape trying to figure things out because the target point requirements were ridiculously high and could not possibly be made within the 'viewing range', and also repairing each and every broken tile that had deducted over half of my points after every failed test.

It's interesting in concept, but the way things work right now has wholly discouraged me from touching Toxins until some form of QOL has been established.

[Dimasw99]

Blowing up greyson office should yield lots of science and could be a good combo to work together with prospectors. Granted the current system makes that exceedingly hard if not impossible when you have both to deal with bomb size and score points.

To another point entierly, toxins was an issue but claiming that you could do everything in 15 minutes is a bit overblown. It was a solid 30 to 40 minute grind on speedrun levels and ignoring everything but does take a solid hour of grind on average. I wouldn't be suprised if ADMS is on the chopping block next. The main quastion of why toxins is so good is because everything else is actual shit. I can spend an hour doing genetics and only get 40k research points, similar to xenobotany. Robotics heavily relies on lonestar being around for the materials. The main issue I can get behind toxins is that it is a very solo job. You don't need anyone and you can get everything unlocked. How about a little mining interaction. Lonestar gets to scan for deep ores, SI blows up the spots tons of ores, tons of research, tons of enemies.

[1yakynm]

Being self-aware of people calling your shitty ideas unfun and tedious is one thing.

Lacking the understanding as to why and continuing to do the same shit over and over again is the other.

You are the sole reason so little people care about contributing or staying in the server. You keep making every single gameplay loop tedious, requiring hours of prep or seven different workarounds just to get the same results as before (see Health Scanner Obscuration).

I'm not even going to make any attempt at constructive criticism as it's already been said thousands upon thousands of times before.

Your goal is not to make a game more fun or engaging. It's to 'Nip in the bud' what you call 'Abuse', when in reality people will naturally flow to the path of least resistance / least tedium. There is a reason why everyone knows genetics, decon, or otherwise, but chooses to either do ADMS or Toxins (Chose, before you fucking came along). Because it did not require an hour-long process of doing the same shit on repeat. Toxins was easy and simple with a large risk factor being involved. ADMS was even more simple with some monocrumb of dopaminurgic satisfaction in form of killing simplemobs. It's plain to see why people would naturally prefer both of those things instead of a glorified fetch quest for different bugs for genetics, or items for the deconstructor. I regret taking so much as a fucking peek into this cesspit of a github log after i left. Nothing is changed and the server is steadily heading into decline. Thanks for maiming what's left of my favorite game, makes abandoning it that much easier.

[Trilbyspaceclone]

Your goal is not to make a game more fun or engaging. It's to 'Nip in the bud' what you call 'Abuse', when in reality people will

What the phrase "nip in the bud" was referring to was people going what about other solved rnd points
Abuse was referring to spam system where you send out the same bomb like 13ish times to get good luck and hit it with a solo mix of like dev 17 bombs. Or spamming out corn bombs to do affectively the same.