Instant Injectors (discussion)

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Instant injectors such as the CMOs Hypospray or the Hypopen are flawed in a way that offers little to no counterplay.

I want to note that this post was created after multiple discussions were already had. You can read about them Here and Here

To sum up:
Powerful reagents being injected instantly causes balance issues.

This is mainly an issue with the CMO using their Hypospray to valid hunt antags by sleeping them. This is an issue with Chloral Hydrate as a whole and there is a PR to nerf it, so I wont talk about it more.

The other issue is that there are other reagents that are just as powerful. Take Impendrezene as an example. It slows you down while dealing 2 poison per 0.5 units. Poison cannot be healed easily. Pax can also be injected, meaning you cannot defend yourself at all. If the CMO has some carp ready, they can also just inject you with Carpotoxin, dealing 4 poison per 0.5 units.
There are many more reagents I could list here, but I will stop.

Now, this wouldn’t be that big of an issue if there was some counterplay involved. But there is little you can do unless you have firearms, since melee is not an option. And just hiding till the CMO gives up is an awful way and not fun for anyone involved.

Nerfing every single reagent just because they are powerful when injected instantly is a bad way to go about it and will result in a situation where you keep nerfing and buffing reagents over and over again.

I suggest adding a small DoAfter to the hypospray and hypopen making them not work against people who are moving. Obviously, this should come with a small buff to the injection rate, 5u at a time is very slow; you may as well use a syringe in that case.

Counterpoint 1:

“The Hypospray is hard to hit!”
You can use the right click verb menu to “store” the person you are trying to inject, then when they are in range, click on the person in the right click verb menu.

Counterpoint 2:

“How will the CMO deal with unruly patients?”
Get security, this is a roleplay game. If there is no security, follow escalation rules and get them out that way.

Counterpoint 3:

“Admins can deal with valid hunters!”

Admins aren’t online all the time and reducing admin workload is important. I am also quoting SlamBamActionman here: “Using rules (or worse, player culture) to enforce game balance is terrible game design and ripe for abuse. It’s throwing up one’s hands as a game designer and saying “fuck it, admins will manually handle it”.”

Please keep any discussion civil.

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I honeslty think this is just more of an admin issue to get rid of valid hunters. The CMO shouldnt be hunting down antags, and shouldnt be using their hypospray as an offensive item unless its an emergency. Having the hypo spray work as it is, is an incredibly powerful tool to help the stations best doctor to do their job. Especially during heavy firefights with nukies. Both sides have hypo sprays they use to heal their team.

Besides, having the hypo spray as a potential tool for offense isnt a bad thing. It encourages people to prepare and think outside the box when it comes to dealing with certain situations.

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There are many scenarios in which it’s easy to say “admin issue”, but we have limited admin staff so in many cases it is just more appropriate to change the game mechanics to reduce admin workload.

Personally I’m not sure removing instant injections is a good idea. I’m erring on the side of other changes, such as making chloral hydrate act slower. We’ll see I guess.

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I suppose. I dont know what its like being an admin. But i think removing instant injects is a bad idea. I feel like as long as people properly report valid hunters, they will get banned and we will see less of them.

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Added space-station-14

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Counter-counter point. On low cases, of course, get security, but when things are tough, CMO/Medical should have the capability to defend themselves if security is overwhelmed/too far/too slow to come and assist, since most cases, the scenarios are pretty time sensitive. Essentially if this is removed, medical have no way to 2nd amendment themselves, cutting off significant roleplay and gameplay options, detrimental to the point of this discussion.

Counterpoint 1 Support:

Making the hypospray range for CMO’s hypospray range severely debuffed so it’s almost like the pill feeding range (you literally have to stand on top of the player)
PS: Gorlax hypospray: (not the Gorlax hypospray please, Nukie has been nerfed enough and becoming a vertical skill climb for newer players)

Counter-counterpoint 3:

I’m going to refer to server rules 2.11, 2.12, 2.13, 2,14, 2.15
That is

For a command member to do what you say they are doing, particularly CMO, these are the rules that are broken, and quite clearly, they’re incompetent to take on the role of a command, which is a hardline admin thing to handle and clearly role-ban them if this is a repeat offender issue. One thing that can be done to decrease this is to give rule clarification, or a command member specific rules that is shown on game start so people stop doing this and give a harsher punishment over this.

Proposed Solutions:

This means stimulant buffs and accesibily is needed. Meth, epi, and the rest of stimulant should have an effect that can reduce or mitigate or even slow down the effect of said chemicals.
Pax being mitigated by some drugs that causes aggression, for example. Hyperzine is a good candidate for the counter-play of pax.

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I agree with nerfing cmo’s hypo but the hypopen should remain the same as it is a contraband item (and a somewhat expensive one too) and all the chem strats for syndies are really rare even for syndie chemists.
I believe we should add in space law at using chemical weapons in general is illegal, that would force cmo players to stop abusing poison for validhunting.

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Controlled Substance, specifically toxins, are by default, Science only

Additionally, general admin concensus on CMO hypospray to valid hunt outside of medical is an offense, however using it within medical area is fair game. (Last time I played CMO and was AHelped by admin because of chloral hydrate play, it was fair game for me to use hypospray because of a repeat dissenter/convict causing havoc in medical)

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