Rarer Highcaps

[Nox38]

About the PR

Seclites now start with medium-capacity cells, meaning you must unlock and build high-capacity cells rather than just getting them free from sec. Seclite power drain has been reduced so that they still last just as long.

Why / Balance

Highcaps are tech-locked, it doesn't make sense for security to get a free supply of them at roundstart. This will nerf cyborgs a bit by removing their free highcap battery, but it isn't hard to change their power drain if this becomes a issue.

Technical details

Changed starting battery of seclite, and its power draw (wattage) in Resources/Prototypes/Entities/Objects/Tools/flashlight.yml

Requirements

• I have read and am following the Pull Request and Changelog Guidelines.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an ingame showcase.

Changelog
🆑

• tweak: Seclites now start with a medium-capacity power cell.
• tweak: Seclite power draw (wattage) has been reduced to 0.53.

[slarticodefast]

I don't think they should start with a high cap cell. It kinda makes the research redundant.

[Nox38]

@slarticodefast Do you think it would be better to reduce cyborg power drain a bit to offset this or just remove the highcap? With the rule for most maps being that cyborg chargers can only be located at the washroom and sci, medcap batteries can be really hard to work with.

[slarticodefast]

Well, medium capacity power cells are still kinda the dafault and players getting a high cap from sec is more of an exception (or is every single borg powergaming that?). You could do some testing to see how long the borg's batter holds with a medium or high cap with and without activated flashlight at different rates.

[Nox38]

(or is every single borg powergaming that?).

In my experience, pretty much always, unless they are on a station with a ton of chargers like Cog. As for the drain, I tested it to determine the correct wattage to make the seclite duration unchanged with the new cell.
Cyborg base draw is 0.6, with their flashlight adding an additional 0.2.

[Nox38]

eh thats probably outside the scope of this PR anyway

[slarticodefast]

Ok, let's do the math.
battery charge:
high cap: 1080J
medium cap: 720J

Seclite power draw:
old: 0.8W
new: 0.53W

Time:
old: 1080J/0.8W=1350s
new: 720J/0.53W=1358.5s

I would suggest slightly rounding the wattage down to 0.5W, which gives us 720J/0.5W=1440 seconds. A minor buff, but we have a nicer number.

[ArtisticRoomba]

Borgs used to powergame hicaps a lot but I've been seeing a downtrend recently on it, not happening as often anymore.

I personally don't mind pushing hicaps behind science, however the long standing systemic problem of science being the ones that distribute the unlocked technology and not the crew should probably be looked at later so that there's a greater incentive for departments to interact with each other, among other things. Right now science can hog all of tech which is suboptimal. (See space-wizards/docs/pull/336)

[deltanedas]

this is good, borgs shouldnt be balanced around having to tax sec every round

[kosticia]

Finally someone did it