Snowdragon01 wrote:
I heard it was because of balance reasons but could that be explained more? I don't see how it could ruin anyone's round.
Plasteel synthesizers, on extended, are useful and nonthreatening on an engineering borg.
If all engineering borgs had plasteel synthesizers on secret?
Terrifyingly broken.
The average time to decon a wall is ~6 seconds. The average time to decon a REINFORCED (plasteel) wall is over a minute. Now, if engineering borgs can upgrade walls to plasteel walls at will, this makes explosions significantly less threatening and damaging, and makes wall-based B&E much more difficult for any of our traitor friends.
Plus, plasteel is a component in mechs. Because of this, there is only a limited supply on the station. If engineering borgs had an infinite, restockable supply of plasteel at their disposal? Cue one ferrying from robotics to its charger and back, churning out infinite mechs.
What would be more balanced (and just better) is if borgs were given a tool similar to baycode's magnetic gripper, that could pick up material sheets of any kind to use (plasteel, diamond, uranium, etc.) It's not the engiborg's ability to use plasteel that makes it broken. It's the infinite rechargability of what is a valued and rarer metal.