Conversation
Flatpack Removal Design Doc Created
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One thing I will note that is currently, directional windows prevent anchoring on their own tile - but flatpacks are one of only two ways to circumvent this (the other being RCD building the window on top of a machine; which is also being removed). This can be really annoying for maps that make excessive use of directional windows. As a note this also applies to things which can reasonably exist "besides" a directional, such as atmospheric piping but fixing that behavior in general seems out of scope. Basically - This will make setting up SM really annoying because if you have to move the rad collectors for any reason you lose the ability to re-anchor them where they were. Another thing, though its a bit niche, is that when you purchase machines from cargo they come in as flatpacks that have no further resource cost; with a change like this such machine purchases should either be made cheaper to account for the added cost of materials, or the purchase should start coming with all necessary materials so that the relative cost of the machines is unchanged (would love it if it came as a cardboard box that has the board and mats?) In any case this will make purchasing 100+ tesla coils from cargo for giga tesla even more of a chore than it already is. But I don't know if that's relevant? These aren't criticisms, for the record - just notes. Things to consider and think about. Perhaps they are relevant perhaps not; I find it always helps to be aware of all consequences and implications, good or bad, of a change. A potentially "good" one would be being able to deconstruct machines that were previously impossible to deconstruct (or even re-flatpack); such as all of the PA engine related machinery. Being able to deconstruct excess coils or collectors back into their base components seems like a neat thing for engi to do for emergency mats. Or simply having these excess machines spawn in as a bundle of mats that engi can decide to use for other projects instead! |
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I do like the idea of having machine construction be reworked into a toolset use; as it means engis will be called to other departments for reasons other than an antag bombing. It gives engis an actual job to do. |
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Your good, the flatpack-window thing is something I generally don't think about. To confront them in order:
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I'll tackle this first by simply saying that at this point the Ripley is essentially unused except for one or two people who really enjoy stomping around due to the fact that the Ripley is not rewarding, is inconvenient to use, cannot have its camera properly rotated. This in of itself is an issue that needs to be tackled before the notion of lifter mechs being able to carry things (like machines) would be viable/fun. This also presents another issue that if you allow machines to be lifted at which point do you draw the line of what can/cannot be carried. (A debate for another day).
To also tackle this part I will give the example of the shuttle building bays on Eden, Roid & Bagel. Each one on these has flatpack thrusters, and gyroscope occasionally, these thrusters are there so that you can quickly build a shuttle if required OR more accurately repair the damages to Cargo/Salvage. Why are these pre-mapped flatpacks good? Because they remove some of the strain on an already strained department, IE: Science, who has to juggle a LOT of requests sometimes that even on Low Pop (On Cirno) they can be dealing with 5++ orders at once. What are the inherent issues with removing a flatpack machine?
What are the benefits of the flatpack machine?
It is not like the flatpack machine is free in of itself, it requires research (10,000 points), it requires the materials to build it, 5 steel, LV cables, manipulators, matter bins, glass (I think), wrench, screwdriver. None of this seems -that- bad but when you're struggling for one or the other. What, truthfully, would change with the removal of the flatpack machine? Probably nothing to be honest. You'll just a get a lot more of 'do it yourself because I can't be bothered'. What would change with the flatpack remaining? Nothing. You'll still have people asking for things to be flatpack and getting them flatpack because Science will, probably, have the resources. What you are proposing is simply a nothing burger that at the end of the day just irritates people who otherwise just want to get back to what they were doing. Until a proper rework of both Ripley & the building system is done then the Flatpack machine is an item to facilitate an ease on other systemic issues. TL:DR - The flatpack machine patches holes in the system that need to be fixed first. |
At no point should you be space jumping with the riply, the camera rotation would not change anything about it is used. Additionally if its a bug... we should fix the bug? Also you still have the use of borgs who have an increased pull speed.
You can already lift machines? Things being flatpacked all the time is why people don't know this.
I am unsure why this is an issue. There are a number of shuttle bays with pre-made thrusters already that have never caused an issue, and I have built shuttles on every single map, including dragging the shuttle parts from NW core to the abandoned shuttle in the NE on core. A shuttle isn't supposed to be something you just summon into existence with a snap of your fingers. Worst case you can deconstruct and reconstruct the machine frame
This is literally what the PR looks to do for the reasons it wants to do it. I am unsure why this is an issue.
I could say the exact same thing about the sandbox menu, and it goes against funky's design principals, I'm unsure why you think this holds water.
Every shift that science is struggling for materials they still build the flatpacker anyway and completely ignore the hyperlathes because of it's ease of use. The barrier is not considered a barrier, it is simply accepted as the cost of playing science. If we don't remove the flat packer I would rather us just add it in as a part of science's round start machines because its already treated as a roadblock before anyone builds machines. Also did you know that many new scientists don't know that you can literally build machine frames? Its never taught because everyone uses the flatpack. To get on a slight tangent, I still currently have full fledged engineers inform me that reinforced walls cannot be constructed/deconstructed. They don't know that the build menu exists, or how to hand-deconstruct things.
If they cant be bothered to build it then that's a problem with a player simply not enjoying the job they signed up for. There are about 6 scientists per shift. 1-2 artifact slots, 1-2 anomaly slots, and then room for one person to handle the front. If the 6th scientist, RD, and the roboticist just really cannot be bothered with building machines, then they were already expecting to gamble on the chance they get to do nothing in round and just get to have access to science tech.
This is in no way an argument that is relevant to the discussion. Saying what is currently happening will continue to happen if nothing happens just makes your position look longer.
To reiterate: The Ripley is already in use in rounds as a cargo-box carrier, its just that there is almost no reason to use it when your just moving a single box, or a bag of flatpacks. The building system has next to nothing to do with this PR. The machine frame can be favorited so you basically don't have to interact with the building menu, and then its already less steps than seems reasonable for the construction of our machines. |
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A thought on this concept I think altering it so flatpacks are more costly than regular machine making, and have a couple extra steps to unpacking a flatpack (still quicker than regularly making the machine) I think could be interesting, since it makes a more reasonable system of cost vs haste. If the station needs a lot of things flatpacked, they can use the machine, but it comes at the downside of draining resources heavily. Removing a QoL feature (easy machine construction & placement) feels like a jump to not consider why the machine is there, how it is effective, and qualities of it that are unfavorable with the rest of the game's system, instead of taking a potential incremental step of seeing how a costly flat packer could affect the interactions of players in the round. (It would need to be in some way known to general players about this change as so people aren't just using a flatpack without realizing). There's also two ways to make flatpacks costly, heightened resource cost (explained by the machine sloppily compacting a machine into a box) or having to use more costly resources like gold, silver, uranium, instead of it only being for certain machines (explained by the fact a compacted machine likely needs higher rated parts to be compactable) I do also agree that removing some of the flatpacks that exist round-start is good, and makes sense, I just think trying to completely, or mostly remove the flatpack system, without first rebalancing it, is not considering potential reasonable applications of it and the potential affect it can have on the game by having it be a machine that completely consumes resources. Likely out of scope but the introduction of advanced parts would be interesting, like a plasma filter or radiated radiator (for machines like the advanced anomaly container, oubliette, etc) that would need to be made in a prolathe would make the process of creating machine more, logical, instead of shoving plasma into a machine frame. |
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Addition to what I said, you could also implement it where a flatpacker takes in machine parts to make the flatpacks, so that a flatpack is more complicated than insert board and print, and requires actually going to required lathes to get the parts for the machine. This could have the additional benefit of having new players unfamiliar with building and who get access to a flatpacker being able to see what parts certain machine require. Being the flatpacker is a problem of being too easy to use, instead of removing it, changing the steps to use it to be more interactive, and conscious of what you're making would be interesting. Maybe even have the flatpacker naturally cost materials, or, has to be inserted with tools that can break, and in so, make certain flatpacks now functionable. Ex. To make a solar panel flatpack, you'll need tools capable of screwing, wrenching, cutting, and pulling (forgot what crowbar's ability is called). I really think the flatpacker is not inherently bad, and needs to die, it needs to get fleshed out more as a device that's meant to be ADVANCED, not simple. |
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As previously stated, the cost increase alone wont do much as its already more expensive than using a hyperlathe. Adding additional steps to the flatpack process might be an interesting route to follow, but it also comes down with the issue that basic construction does not actually take that many steps. As such you would not actually be saving that much time building the machine as apposed to flatpacking (Currently only 3 steps, applying metal, wrenching, and screwdriving takes actual time in machine construction). You could change this by frontloading all the time costs on the time the flatpacker takes, but that just means you would be staring at the machine for the effective time that it takes to build/print machine parts. This would just be incredibly un-interactive to everyone involved. Additionally at a certain point if you have to apply so many nerfs that it is not recognizable as what it used to be before people don't priorities it every time, then there is something innately wrong with it in the first place. Like Yuumi from League of Legends. (crowbar pries btw) Also advanced parts do exist, and have existed for some time. They are however disabled/removed on the majority of servers. During the conversations around removing the flatpack, there was even a decent amount of approval for adding higher tier parts back with the flatpack's removal. If you want to see higher tier parts in action I recommend looking into Frontier |
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Any functional Science Department uses HyperLathes. It doesn't take a genuis to figure out Science's biggest limiter is Mats, and HyperLathes are huge in preserving Mats. I really don't know what shifts you are talking about, where flatpacking somehow dominates the front desk, since in my experience, the majority of people are there to use their Lathes. Removing Flatpacking has very little benefit with a lot of downsides. Scientists are not going to leave their department to make a DAW or reagent grinder, which means that the person is just gonna get a handful of computer parts and a board. I don't see any roleplay benefit to that. I just have not bore witness to any shifts that are using flatpackers more than HyperLathes. And even if they were, Machine building is almost as repeative as flatpacking, there's not a bunch of hidden interections that people are missing out on by using a flatpacker for most machines. |
5 participants
Overview
This proposal recommends flatpack (machine/research) removal, and reducing flatpack use in pre-mapped flatpacks.