[FIXED] Set genetic stability base back to 120 (or make it safe to have one power)

[TDHooligan]

It seems really counterintuitive that having just one unstabilized gene from the genebooth can immediately give you a life-threatening mutation.

So many of the passive mutations constantly check stability, so taking even one unstabilized rad resistance gene just puts you on a timer til you get a guaranteed lethal mutation.

Surely the purpose of genetic stability is to ensure people don't get geneboosted out of their brain? Why can you safely stack every stabilized mutation in the game, but can't have a single empowered ability?

It'd be really insightful to know why stability was set to 100 base in the first place.

[Zamujasa]

as far as i'm aware gene stability starts you at 100

degrades only happen if your stability is below 40

Code:

        if (owner.bioHolder && ishuman(owner))
            var/total_stability = owner.bioHolder.genetic_stability

            if (owner.reagents && owner.reagents.has_reagent("mutadone"))
                total_stability += 60

            if (total_stability <= 40 && probmult(5))
                owner.bioHolder.DegradeRandomEffect()

            if (total_stability <= 20 && probmult(5))
                owner.bioHolder.RandomEffect("either", 1)

actual powers have a misfire chance that is more or less "100 - stability"%



unstabilized plain ol rad resist should never decay if it is the only mutation.




that said i'm still not the biggest fan of most passives requiring empowered to actually be useful, especially since you can only ever have one modifier on a mutation, making most of the other ones worthless

[TDHooligan]

I thought that was the case when I got the gene. Seems it's not 100% what happens:

I did some code diving and it seems that there's a (100 - stability) chance to set a timer for your new gene to automatically fail, which is calculated *after* it's added.
code\modules\medical\genetics\bioHolder.dm:695

Perhaps this should be adjusted to match the normal thresholds, or removed entirely? With the existing gene powers automatically calling a chance to fail surely it's not necessary.

[Zamujasa]

there's a (100 - stability) chance to set a timer for your new gene to automatically fail, which is calculated *after* it's added

what the fuck

[ThatScarlett]

From my recent experience, 85 is where some of your genes start to get weird, like thermal resistance or stabilized anaerobic going away, sometimes gyrus suspension appearing out of nowhere.

95+ has been the safe stability to have, sometimes with 90 some weird stuff happened but not as common as 85.

You can get around 20 stability from non-bad genes and still get some bad genes if you really want to be loaded with good genes.

So generally you can get 1 or 2 -10 or -20 genes if you get the stability genes, or 4 -5 genes.

I don't hate the stability change to 100 because genetics can be overpowered and this balances more things

[Zamujasa]

i deleted that part of the code. you no longer roll a chance to have your mutation turn into shit and murder you upon getting it.

based on that bit of former code you had a 7.5% chance (or 15% for empowered) for it to just randomly decide to take a shit, worse if you have other mutations.


you still roll chances to have your mutations degrade below 40 stability.

---

just kidding it was changed again to have the old behavior except it rolls the chance before it decreases stability and gives you a 10 stability buffer.

[RelentlessGarbage]

I thought geneticists had tricks to give people more stability without them having to suffer from all the debilitating effects of most of the stability-increasing mutations. Have those tricks been patched out?

(I mean, if you're just grabbing a random gene from the gene booth without doing anything else, then you obviously can't benefit from said tricks. Whether or not having slightly below 100 stability should be so harshly penalized is something I have no strong feelings about, having always avoided the gene booth.)

[Zamujasa]

the only legitimate way to get more stability is by having shitty genes activated; as far as i'm aware there should not be any ways to artificially boost it other than the robust genetics trait

that said if you are getting genes then i would prioritize getting passives first and then powers, because only the passives have degrades. and maybe just stand next to genetics for another minute in case you get a shitty roll.

[Retrino]

i believe there is some sort of exploit to manually raise your stability, which they may be referring to? regardless its kind of a stupid expectation of a player to think they should have to purchase a clearly harmful gene just to get this one interesting power from the booth. the other day i got unstabilized smes, without a single other gene, and had it degrade in about a minute into some other shitty gene. its honestly really overtuned toward the general crew vs geneticists who are basically unaffected and continue to stack powers because they know how to work around it, making the booth pretty pointless unless your selling stabilized shit (which most people hardly go for considering stabilized passives can be replicated with the right clothing combination)

[RelentlessGarbage]

I pulled this up from the github page. Not sure if this is specifically what people have been referring to when speaking of getting "free stability," or if it was just a one-off bug, but I'd agree that having to rely on arcane features/bugs in order to "do genetics correctly" is silly and makes genetics worse overall:
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/issues/12812

This has turned up as a problem before, where it was apparently fixed:
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/issues/8297

[Mouse]

the only legitimate way to get more stability is by having shitty genes activated; as far as i'm aware there should not be any ways to artificially boost it other than the robust genetics trait

that said if you are getting genes then i would prioritize getting passives first and then powers, because only the passives have degrades. and maybe just stand next to genetics for another minute in case you get a shitty roll.

the physically fit gene slightly increase stability, after slightly decreasing it, after slightly increasing it, although i suppose someone could have changed it to slightly decreasing again since i last messed around with genetics