This thread is intended to kickstart discussion on the Powered Hardsuits design document. You can find this document here:
I was reminded of this when I was, yet again, reminded of current hardsuit balance. You can see the discussion that sparked my interest in getting this reviewed here.
Overall my thoughts of the idea are in support. I’ve stated some of them below. Note that this is my argument on how it would help, not the author’s argument in the design document.
Current Hardsuit Balance
For those that don’t know, we generally discourage people from staying inside hardsuits all shift, as it invalidates many mechanical threats that are supposed to be of danger to the player (spacing, barotrauma, or otherwise).
Currently, we mechanically discourage people from staying in hardsuits via slowdown. That’s about it. A slow hardsuit makes it not attractive to wear unless there is a dire need for its usage.
This commonly results in a noobtrap where players “don’t get it” and wear the suit all shift, and then complain that their work is slow and sluggish, and don’t find enjoyment in the gameplay loop.
Proposal
In general, the proposed changes aim to make hardsuits have a consumable resource in the form of a battery. This battery would power the hardsuit and enable any special intrinsic abilities that are a part of it. These suits would only be able to be recharged at a suit storage unit, encouraging putting them away when they are not needed.
I think this would make for more interesting gameplay and make hardsuits an even more important resource. It would also make balancing discussions around them easier as right now our options are balancing resistances, speed, pressure/fire protection, etc.
Technical Feasibility
This seems really easy to implement. Most stuff like magboots, speedboots, batteries, etc. are all componentized and some might only require minimal atomization. Any components we develop can also probably be easily slapped on something else with a battery component or otherwise.