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No @trust for knockout juice
Who doesn't love a good powernap?

Changes to knockout juice have promoted alternative usage for this stuff.

It'd be pretty ace if it could be used 'offensively' on someone who's restrained, handcuffed, strapped down, grappled, knocked out, etc.

This is currently possible as a somewhat niche case for people who have the needed @trust, but I think it'd be neat to be able to powernap people who have otherwise already been detained using other forms of skill checks.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating this be doable without other forms of skill checks. No sticking someone in a bar or something and them just collapsing. And I'm not sure that it'd see wide usage even given a change, given the restrictions present on getting the item as-is.

Thoughts?

I think this is almost a necessity for top-side kidnapping. Being able to quickly restrain someone and then knock them out dramatically shortens the window that they are able to report their location and call for help, giving the criminal a fighting chance outside of having a particular super-rare item.

+1

I do think knock-out related drugs should be able to be used offensively with specific skills. Both topside and downside it would be beneficial to have an option of knockout that is expensive, but non-violent. Maybe armor would inhibit it and maybe it can break like other weapons can in game.

+1

I do not know if this is a good idea. Even if you're restrained, there are things you can do. If you're asleep, those options... in fact... zero options are available to you. You're just at the mercy of whoever has you.
+1

It can use the exact checks as grapple (possibly medical?), if you fail you waste all the goods and have to do stuff the old fashioned way.

Maybe a way to make sure it doesn't get overused/become too powerful, have a nano or existing piece of chrome help combat it. Allowing for fake knockouts and other RP around it, without it being a fully successful No RP grab.
Well, there's the toxic binder nano. That could be a counter.
This isn't especially different than other, popular items that do similar things in-game.

For those that don't know, knockout juice is pretty short in duration. Not quite as short as other things that knock people out, but it would also take skill checks that other knockout items -don't- require at all.

Let there be a counter to it. Let's give toxin binders a reason for existing, and dramatically slow down the onset of sleepy juice.

How would this be different the current instant-knockout-with-chrome-counter item?
I was thinking about this the other day and I agree that knocking people out like this would be great for multiple reasons:

- Medics get a new way to be evil in conflicts.

- Medics could always use more RP opportunities.

- Kidnapping is far preferable for RP than just sewering someone.

- With 1 person as the grappler and 1 person as the injector, you'd need to team up to do a swift and quiet knockout.

I see no downsides to this. 👍

@0x1mm

Knockout countering chrome is a binary blocker for that scenario.

I'm proposing that toxin binders maybe let you retain consciousness for 5-10 more seconds after getting injected, but you'd still be taking a nap, regardless. Enough of a boost to make it a good, useful nano, but not simply binary-block it from working entirely.

@YNK

Totally agree on kidnapping RP. Right now the easiest way to do it is to just kill someone, drag their cooling body to wherever it is you want them, then zap them back to life and proceed with your RP.

Any interruptions or delays to that happening results in the victim just getting vatted out, which kind of defeats the entire point of kidnapping in the first place.

I've been part of kidnapping/hostage RP quite a bit, both giving and receiving, and it's a logistical nightmare right now to try and execute. And often people will just no-sell the RP, which is sad considering what a total pain in the ass it is to kidnap living people in SD. I'd really like more kidnapping/interrogation RP to take place as opposed to the vat nap and vague alias comming you when you wake up, which seems to be the standard go-to for most things, because, simply put, it's the most practical solution.

This is just a random @idea to further that concept, without it needing much in the way of a technical lift on staff's side (or at least, I assume this to be the case.)

What's stopping this from being an uncounterable necksnap? I don't foresee this being used for RP so much as an easy kill where a well-timed grapple is a death sentence. That seems a little bit overpowered, IMO.

I do agree it'd be useful for kidnapping, but always look for the cheese.

The issue I see is not with kidnapping, which I see as basically pointless since the number of players that enjoy it is basically a rounding error and most of the time it will be 'fuck you, kill me'.

The issue I can see is that getting a successful grapple off for a round is possible against a target you would have otherwise no possible way of defeating in combat.

Right now this isn't a big deal because they can instantly break out and choking them out is therefore impossible, but if a short grapple was all that was needed to knock someone out, then wouldn't this just allow someone to completely bypass combat against end game geared and stated players, with no counter-play?

@Kiwi: One person can already grapple and kill someone uncounterably in ~3 minutes. My suggestion is to make it so if you have a team of two, you can do it quieter.
(Thus enabling true Kidnapping RP.)
@0x1mm: I can't go into any level of detail here, but there's a significant amount of misunderstanding about how grapple code works.

Suffice to say, that grappling endgame characters isn't a simple task, and you're not going to simply one-up an appropriately statted character and profit bigtime by sticking them with knockout juice.

Regarding people not wanting to RP kidnapping- I see that more of a mutable cultural thing in SD. Right now the expectation for most combat-related RP is that one person lives and one person vats, outside well-established gang RP. Just as gangs changed from mass-murder killfarming simulators to more RP and nuanced engagements, so too can other violence-adjacent RP.

@Kiwi: I don't have the answer for that, other than to say that if you're able to knockout or restrain someone currently, then the chances of that player being able to necksnap you are also extremely high. We have to account for the lowest common denominator here, but exploiting/abusing things is going to happen irrespective of that. Which is why we have awesome active moderation! :)

Kidnapping RP has shown time and time again to not really be a thing. There are countless posts about players trying to do it and it their targets not going along with them. Players that want to engage with it are probably just going to go along with their kidnapper anyway.

What this will be used for is bypassing combat and instant-killing targets.

Someone can absolutely get a single round of grappling off against a much more capable character. It's completely wrong that if someone can grapple another character at all then they can easily grapple them to death. I've seen the difference in this many, many times.

Alright, how's this? There's a three second or whatever warmup to injections. If you have the capability to break the grapple, then that's it, you've got your counter that will get you out of it. My concern is mostly what 0x pointed out as well- under the right circumstances, a grapple can take place for the necessary round it would take for a well-timed syringe and there'd be nothing you can do about it. It would make for an easy, unavoidable kill under those circumstances regardless of the target's strength. A momentary pause that will allow a strong enough character to get their resist roll off would balance that. I'm still not totally wild about the potential here leading to a neck snap- I think the game's currently designed with making that relatively difficult by intention and there's a reason that's not quick and easy. But I think it's workable.
Suffice to say, that grappling endgame characters isn't a simple task, and you're not going to simply one-up an appropriately statted character and profit bigtime by sticking them with knockout juice.

I was about to disagree regarding endgame non-combat corporate characters, but I can totally see how kidnapping & ransoming is far more preferable to the kidnapper's survival than straight up murder.

I could see a cultural shift happen there, too.

1. Mixer kidnaps corpie.

2. Kidnapper contacts corporate offices with ransom.

3. Corp does a cost-benefit analysis and chooses whether the corpie is worth saving.

How mortifying would it be to get word from corporate offices that you're expendable and then let you get murdered? 🤣

I honestly already through this sort of thing was around in the game.

If it's not, I maybe clothing/armor coverage could play a role in things? If your neck or arm or whatever is covered, you simply can't be stuck by a needle full of happy juice?

I think that you can or should be able to this already if you are in a two team person, one grapples and the other injects. The same way frisking works, and if it doesn't then I support that it should be this way.

On the other hand, I don't want or like the idea of people being able to do this by themselves. OP AF and low RP.

The duration of the juice, as far as I know has to do with some checks.

Alternatively you could just KO the person by fighting and then juice them.

Kidnapping shouldn't be instant and quiet, specially Topside. There needs to be some RP, some struggle and a chance for the victim to fight back, even its just by reacting on SIC or screaming.

Can I just say.

The power play here is to partner with a character of the type who already has access to "the knockout juice" and pay them well to suborn your victim's trust.

Ask me how I know.

To put it frankly, there's a staggering amount of RP fallout from kidnapping a corpie and/or releasing them afterwards and not simply doing see corpie -> necksnap corpie.

I'd see more 'nuanced' methods of kidnapping really being used to target topsiders more than anything. Getting access to them is often difficult at the best of times, and moreso with recent corporate transportation changes in the game.

Some day down the road I think it'd be amazing to be able to do corporate espionage the likes of which we see in film and literature. You kidnap a corporate, pull their chip, download their keys, reinstall their chip and ransom them to cover your tracks, having taken a contract from rival corporations in the first place for the intel. Or using a kidnapping plot to ferry sensitive data or smuggle items out of a corporation. Things like this can involve many, many players beyond hiring that -one- solo who doesn't give a shit anymore and will just necksnap people anyplace in the dome, you know?

Murder is probably the most trite and least interesting option for driving RP, but since there's a significant amount of challenges for doing otherwise, it's what people spring for. And I think the biggest challenges are those of purely logistical issues. Seeing people narrating themselves getting beaten, killed or kidnapped on pubsic topside, while entertaining, isn't overall super great for gameplay, I'd argue. Let the hall and corpsec piece together the case and draw a narrative out of what happened after the fact, since people are prone to error and ambiguity often results in even more (often hilarious in it's own right) fallout.

@Ghost: I feel you'd have just barely enough time to alert with a Grapple+Inject method. Possibly even enough time to give your location, too.

@Beandip: Social engineering will always be the best method to ruin anyone.

@Talon: It would make me so happy to actually be kidnapped and have a significant plot revolve around that, instead of just getting a grapple+necksnap.

Kidnapped for days and put through hell? Sign me up.

Necksnaps are dumb.

Kidnapping already happens.

Abductions already happen.

The reason no one bothers to RP these situations is not because the mechanics are lacking, but because it's a giant waste of time for everyone involved nine times out of ten. Necksnapping someone might be boring, but it's a hell of lot more interesting than being forced to roleplay the same trite torture/threats/imprisonment that results every single time. Players who are into gettting captured and tortured are given every tool to enable it.

If people think you should be able to stealth kill someone instantly with no counterplay or detection options, then fine, but let's drop the pretense that there's this universe of great RP out there that this would enable.

It would be mostly used to kill strong characters by bypassing combat, full stop.

Then let's change that.
There's always '@trust X to grapple'. If someone is really into roleplaying the victim end of one of these scenarios, there's nothing that says they have to fight back, or scream their location and attacker on SIC, or any of the other counter-plays this mechanic would bypass.

For everyone else, it usually ends up being a very time consuming way of dying that leaves everyone on both sides with a bad taste in their mouth. There are tons of posts on the forum showing how toxic these scenarios can become and bleed out OOC.

Bluh fine. I'd personally love it, but I guess I'm letting my own desires sneak into the health of the game, so I'll drop this.
A way to balance out combat-avoidance would be to allow an already unconscious character to be rendered more completely unconscious for a long period instead of just ten seconds. Ten minutes say.

Combat balancing already assumes an unconscious character is effectively a dead character, so that would allow someone to do things other than just killing their target, but not put their target at any more disadvantage than they were already at -- their gear and body was already notionally forfeit anyway if they blacked out.

There was a weapon removed for being too OP for exactly this.

I don't see it being re-implemented under another name.

What's wrong with "RP fallout" or more negative consequences for kidnapping someone over just killing them? Isn't that... A good thing?
I wasn't trying to imply that RP fallout was a bad thing. Quite the opposite, I think kidnapping RP generates far more RP than vatting does.

I was more trying to put a name to the wake of RP that happens after big life-altering events go down for characters.