PDTL Buff By Carlarctg Pull Request 1757 Cmss13devscmss13 GitHub

About The Pull Request
Added vendable spare batteries for the locator tube in its vendors, alongside one spare in every PDT/L kit.

PDT/L kits now fold into cardboard.

Added many spare PDT/L kits and batteries to req. (Marines dropped them off at req once they realized they were shitty milsurp knockoffs)

Made minibatteries tiny.

Added boldwarning span macro.

Improved locator tube sprites: Now has a pop-out battery slot at the top that shows up if emptied. The main green stripe is now a battery indicator with appropiately-faded-out yellow warning and blinking red danger sprites. The small notch at the bottom is now a bracelet indicator that turns off without a battery and blinks red if the bracelet was somehow destroyed.

The locator tube and PDT bracelet now share a serial number, easily viewed via examination. This lets you see which PDT/L kits are paired.

Added a ton of sounds to interactions with the PDT/L kit. Beeps on scanning, buzzes on errors, clicks on handling.

Fixed a bug in which a string referenced a null var.

Why It’s Good For The Game
When I saw the PDT/L kit, I was very interested. It seemed like a great way to encourage teamwork and buddying up with some fun lore flavor on the side. However, trying it out, it really feels bare-bones. I get it’s supposed to be ‘crappy’ because Boots magazine subscriber items suck and so do the lives of every private on the corps, but the way that’s implemented really ruins the extremely cool concept that is being able to locate your fellow buddies across the battlefield, so you don’t need to continually say HEY WHERE ARE YOU over comms in the many times you’ll get split up.

Thus I’ve heavily buffed them around the board, which you may think is going way too far, and to an extent, you’re right. It’s intentional. This is a really cool item that actively encourages teamwork and that’s why I would rather swing the buff hammer too hard than give it a paltry buff and some qol that ultimately nobody cares about. It’s the same as the spotter kit. It’s nuts, but needs teamwork to actually be useful. And this should be encouraged.

If it is still deemed too strong, there are things we can do to laterally nerf it without closing the PR outright. Making the tube not work if the bracelet holder’s dead, having it needs comms to work come to mind, but there are surely others.

> Added vendable spare batteries for the locator tube in its vendors, alongside one spare in every PDT/L kit.

The intention here is to let marines actually resupply their kits once they run dry, and if they’re proactive, maybe grab some and bring them to FOB with them. Despite the description, the cells cannot easily be recharged as power cell chargers are different from rechargers, they are effectively Bay12 legacy that is VERY hard to come across.

‘What if someone carries like 5 of them in their bag? That’d completely nullify the power drain part.’

The stinger here is ‘in the bag’. There are not enough reasons to carry bags and satchels in this game right now as the sheer amount of storage for goods marines have make them a one-man-army with two primaries. If a marine forgoes a shotgun that might save them from a 1-pounce capping runner for 5 spare LT batteries, a default medkit, and two flare boxes, they are well within their rights to do so.

> Added many spare PDT/L kits and batteries to req. (Marines dropped them off at req once they realized they were shitty milsurp knockoffs)

This lets req drop them off at FOB if they eventually figure out they can drop unvended surplus there. If this somehow happens, marines who never even glanced at the kit in loadout or prep will notice it exists and maybe, just maybe, use them!

> Made minibatteries tiny.

You may think this contradicts my earlier point about sacrificing storage value, but actually think about it. All webbing types, armor slots, pouches, belts, even the helmet, all share the common attribute of not caring about item size. If it’s small or medum it still takes 1 out of the 3 slots in medium armor. Any storage item that isn’t a satchel, effectively. Every spare battery taken directly in the average marine’s inventory is one slot less for 5 shotgun shells, one magazine, one unga juice flask, binoculars. What this means in the end is simply that marines may carry one to two spare batteries in their helmet (I think) at the cost of Drip which few marines will trade for, and satchel marines don’t have to sacrifice a lot of space for the spare battery. Plus, it makes sense, why wouldn’t a small AA rechargeable battery be tiny.

> Improved locator tube sprites: Now has a pop-out battery slot at the top that shows up if emptied. The main green stripe is now a battery indicator with appropiately-faded-out yellow warning and blinking red danger sprites. The small notch at the bottom is now a bracelet indicator that turns off without a battery and blinks red if the bracelet was somehow destroyed.

This looks so sick!

> Added a ton of sounds to interactions with the PDT/L kit. Beeps on scanning, buzzes on errors, clicks on handling.

Adding sounds to items should be standarized, I think. There are so many cool sounds in the sound/machines folder that go unused. Personally i felt like these small stupid sounds added a LOT to the atmosphere of this tiny locator tube and bracelet. Alien Isolation is known for its sounds, we should strive to emulate that.

Changelog
🆑
add: Added new Added vendable spare batteries for the locator tube in its vendors, alongside one spare in every PDT/L kit.
qol: PDT/L kits now fold into cardboard.
qol: Added many spare PDT/L kits and batteries to req. (Marines dropped them off at req once they realized they were shitty milsurp knockoffs)
add: Made minibatteries tiny.
refactor: Added boldwarning span macro.
imageadd: Improved locator tube sprites: Now has a pop-out battery slot at the top that shows up if emptied. The main green stripe is now a battery indicator with appropiately-faded-out yellow warning and blinking red danger sprites. The small notch at the bottom is now a bracelet indicator that turns off without a battery and blinks red if the bracelet was somehow destroyed.
qol: The locator tube and PDT bracelet now share a serial number, easily viewed via examination. This lets you see which PDT/L kits are paired.
soundadd: Added a ton of sounds to interactions with the PDT/L kit. Beeps on scanning, buzzes on errors, clicks on handling.
fix: Fixed a bug in which a string referenced a null var.
/🆑