Regarding the Clownderbuss Confusion: Working on a nerf, tested it with a crew and its pretty bad. I don't remember it being that strong, seems multiple shots make the problem worse.

Regarding the Shells, I noticed their loud and also noticed the shotgun pumping noise doesn't play for other characters. Will fix that.

The timer sound should be fairly short range, you will hear it near you but it should rapidly drop off, I can remove the ticking noise if you think its not useful in its current form.

I definitely think it does need some ticking, but the timer is very fast and it feels like it'd probably be impossible to actually get it out of the submarine before it explodes. The sound is probably fine as is, just loud when close to it. I don't recall off the top of my head whether or not it has a turn off button but if it doesn't then definitely needs more time on it (it takes around 10s now I think?). Although, if you really wanted it to explode fast then you'd use a detonator, happy vest, or some other contraption so I don't know if it's too much of a difference in comparison. The flavor is definitely there though. Bit of a rant and I'll probably come back later and edit, idk.

Ahh yes, getting out of the sub isn't something i considered, I usually blow up with it or drop it :P. I can add functionality that increases or decreases the timer if you feel that would work and gives more flexibility, before you trigger the countdown.

What do you feel the default should be? 60 seconds without pressing any buttons to change the count down? :)

It seems that the knife to make people undead doesn't quite work yet. They seem to get massive amounts of internal damage in the head and immediately die. Although, the new update did drop today and maybe the affliction changed to deal damage?

Thanks for reporting it, i suspect its the update that broke it, ill have a look and fix that up. :)

The one Clown Helmet says that it's an autoinjector and flashlight, but the autoinjector portion doesn't allow any syringes, only oxygen tanks (which seem to decrease the battery, while not using one doesn't?)

This should be fixed :)

Regarding the Auto-Injector helmet, I removed it to make the recipe cheaper. If you think it would be better to have a helmet with that functionality I can add a upgraded version that includes it.

Ironically I found the helmet to be better with flashlight + oxygen tank than the auto-injector + flashlight because people kept drowning in testing :P

not sure if it's a me thing but the honkmother's cultist mask isn't showing up in fabricators but every single other item added from the mod is, kind of a bummer considering it's the most interesting talent tree

since this is the balance thread, ill post all my thoughts, concerns, and ideas here

ITEMS
So far every item is fun as ♥♥♥♥ to use, especially on crewmates. However some items can have some wacky balancing when used in an actual campaign (note: i havent done a *full* campaign with this yet, only early ones)

B.A.T: I explained about this in the bugs thread, aka being able to stun outpost npcs with no downside (makes security guards free supplies!).
(Untested with recent updates if this has been changed, but i dont see it in the logs so i assume its still there)

Bowling Ball: Same reason as B.A.T

Honkmother Poster 1: There is no balancing issue here, I just want more posters.

Honkmother's Helmet: The stats are perfectly fine. The issue I have is now since it acts as a diving mask, putting the clown diving mask from the clown tree out of a job. This is further amplified with the helmet counting as clown gear and the naturally slow exp gain (you should have all the resources to craft the helmet by the time you unlock water comedian). It might be just better to put the helmet in place of the diving mask, you arent gonna use it as a cult or mime.

Honkmother's Body Armour: The issue i have with this is that it just seems like better armour, talent or no talent. Sure its only better by about 10% in each stat, but you also have that ONTOP of the occasional stun if you have the talent. It also doesnt help that the recipe is almost the same.


TALENTS
Obviously these are still being worked on to be perfected, and i cant imagine this is the easiest to do either. None of the less, most of them are pretty good.

Rip and Tear: In the current state of this talent, it doesnt fit clown at all (and it seems your aware of this as well). For it to say it focuses on melee damage is almost a lie (almost since vigor does buff melee damage). To stay in theme with its tree, lets say meth makes you recover from bleeding and blood loss faster (makes your blood faster in clotting :). And steroids could possibly make you flatout immune to stuns, or even making you still "alive" while in the DBNO (like implacable) state (this may be too powerful).

Truest Potential: I want to implode the endworm too but in all honestly no one would actually go and do this . Every other option is simply reliable with less chance of death. But I do want the Toy Hammer to have other uses. Instead of being a support tool (assistant already does that) lets make it a more reliable weapon. In its base state it would have a good ol .75% implosion (its still funny). However with meth, hitting someone would put the "Honkmother's Shackles" to slow enemies down. With steroids, you could put the "Honkmother's Grasp" to either weaken enemies attacks or make them take more damage from all sources (your choice).

For Whom the Blood Flows: I like what it does and it perfectly makes sense. However I dont think we need another tree that can do melee well. After all, you are a cult leader if your going this route. So why cant I convince my crewmates to do my bidding? Say the cultist has an aura to increase the bleeding damage of allies (not base damage, I worry that might be too powerful). Under the effect of Psychosis, the cultist would "enlighten" allies possibly helping skill gain or upping skills outright so they're ready for their "promotion".

also make cultist mask craftable please, i know its unfinished but it would still be nice to play around with its powers in campaign without cheats thanks

@Luna Terribly sorry about that! I have fixed that and published it, let me know if there's anything else :)

@Dizzery Thank you for that incredible feedback, I really appreciate the time you took to not only think about all that but type it up :)

I'm really glad you find the items fun to use, that has been the main concern is "How do we make this not only fun, but funny and hilarious as well?". The balancing is certainly an issue that's a work in progress and any feedback, good or bad, is desired. The B.A.T is certainly an issue I'm in the middle of addressing, with the recent changes to modding I can finally implement it as it was meant to be, a home run bat like from smash bros.

I am curious if you can expand on the Bowling Ball? Is there some way it lets you steal from NPCs? I know it knocks them down but that shouldn't allow you to rob them blind.

Regarding the posters, I am looking to commission a person of the "fine" arts to make me some more :P

Regarding the Clown Helmet, you will find a lot of items are an upgrade somewhat over their more vanilla counterparts, the reason I don't fully replace them is so that vanilla content is left alone, it also means if someone else modifies said vanilla items I don't have to worry about compatibility patches and such. I agree it is perhaps overshadowing the vanilla items a bit much, but that was created back when water prankster gave pressure immunity, so i'll revisit it as you suggested and give it some love. I will admit I was rather lazy and switch it from having an auto-injector to having an oxygen tank and didn't really consider how it played with the vanilla clown gear. :)

Regarding the Clown Body armor, yea it gives a bit too much I agree, it was originally equal to vanilla I thought so maybe the recent patch played a part in that, I think having something made from bike horns should probs be a little less protective overall, I'll fix that up :)

Talent Stuff

Rip and Tear: You are absolutely correct, it is a talent that I have re-written 4 times to try and fit it in, frankly its driven me almost to the point of a psycho clown. I'll adopt your suggestion on the steroids and meth doing separate things, I think that defs fits better for what I was attempting to do :)

Truest Potential: Like with rip and tear I feel the current implementation is more a placeholder until something better comes along, you are absolutely correct that no sane person would attempt to boop the endworm with it but I have yet to think of anything better. I think the idea of different drugs having different effects, I'll implement that for next patch :)

For Whom the Blood Flows: I completely agree with you and love the idea, I'll see if I can't do something interesting like for each un-dead minion you have you gain an additional 10% experience and share this with nearby allies, thoughts? :)

Regarding the cultist mask, that was a screw up on my end, when you live in the dev tools for so long you forget what you have and haven't tested, apologies!

Again thank you for the feedback and wonderful ideas, they are both always welcome :)

@Dizzery I just realised by diving mask you meant the one in water comedian, I was thinking of the vanilla one sorry, I agree it's functionally useless then. :)

Thanks for the response! I have a clip on how the bowling ball is able to steal from NPCs.
https://medal.tv/games/barotrauma/clips/U3FRC7zu5QRz9/d1337iG5gaKn?invite=cr-MSxOcHEsMTk2NDA4NjIs
I do believe its with something being knocked down, they're unable to see as well. Like i said its the same situation as the B.A.T.

And for Whom the Blood Flows, what could count as "un-dead"? If its from the talent Post-Mortem Promotion then it might be best to swap the 2 places around so your not getting a non-functional talent when you first unlock it.

@Dizzery hmm that is odd, I'll have to get creative on how to fix that because just doing a karma change means people can't really use it anymore without space herpies. Thanks for doing a video for it :)

I think I'll re-work the talent to do increased bleed damage and exp gain as you suggested, im going to experiment with some ideas and see what comes of it. I have a few ideas to tie it in to the minion stuff a bit more along with some more knifes that do specific stuff. :)