A proposed change to how Cloning and health implants work.

[Kateaclysm]

So. health and cloning implants. Gotta love em. If you're not aware, Health Implants alert medical PDAs when you're in critical condition, or if you've died after a short delay. This is a pretty great compromise. The roughly 30-60 second delay allows Syndicate Mann to get away from the scene before medical hears that John Staffie is dead after they saw the two waltz off into maintenance together. But I think we could go further with this. What if health implants were also the way for the cloning computer to keep track of your vitals? Currently, the cloning implant covers your vitals AND alerts the console if you've died, but health implants are what gives everyone your exact vital readings if you enter crit or die, so why don't we tie this to the cloning console information readout instead? If you decide not to take a health implant, the cloning computer won't be able to keep track of your exact vitals and will just be a binary "alive / dead". I often see most people completely ignore the health implant since it's optional to most jobs, but if this implant allowed for more direct vital monitoring from medical, I could see more people opting to get one.


And now we're onto cloning implants. Unlike the health implant, they immediately light up the cloner the moment someone drops. Isn't this a little strange? Why does the health implant take time to report, but the cloning implant doesn't, if they're the same kind of technology? I'm sure anyone who's been an antagonist or who has worked security or medical can remember at least one point where an antagonist has been executed in security and cloned instantly because it's so trivial for just about anyone to push every button on the console as soon as there's a red light. I figured if the cloning implant had a similar delay to the health implant, it would at least give everyone a chance to think about what they're doing before they hit the button, or give security a chance to explain who they just had a nasty fight with before someone just slaps the console. 

Right now, this is just idle musings, but I was discussing it in the discord, and I feel like these two changes together could make operating the cloning computer just slightly more engaging than it is at present. Let me know what you all think.

[Emrsnn]

My thoughts as a guy who doesnt play medical is that I was already under the impression that the cloning implant and health implant were functionally identical, with the only difference being that one reads out to the cloner and the other reads out to PDAs-- so it does strike me as weird that a perticularly dedicated medical trainee could loom around the cloning console and find out people have died before the actual death alert goes out. If one of them were to alert faster, I'd expect it to be the implant that sec and command have by default-- not the one that everyone else gets. That being said, sometimes the health implant still feels a little too fast. I feel kinda bad for new antags when they're still in the "oh shit, was that the captain??" stage of the murder when two secoffs, three doctors and a chaplain run up on them.

[mona]

1. this is how they used to work https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4633
2. im gonna be real, i cloned back pistol man the round before you wrote this entirely knowing he was pistol man, but also nobody in sec bothered to say jack shit in the time it took to clone dan, you, and asena (and for me to remove my pistol bullet!) so . i stopped, i thought, i cloned; it was definitely not an accident. i wasn't playing as a character that was medically ROBUST or gave a shit about the going-ons of the station, i was there to make money

a. medical should be more responsible about who they let in as deep as cloning
b. PDA someone in medical (the director for example) that you intend to kill someone and that you want their record deleted Before You Go Through With the Execution or Immediately After

[Kotlol]

1. this is how they used to work https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4633
2. im gonna be real, i cloned back pistol man the round before you wrote this entirely knowing he was pistol man, but also nobody in sec bothered to say jack shit in the time it took to clone dan, you, and asena (and for me to remove my pistol bullet!) so . i stopped, i thought, i cloned; it was definitely not an accident. i wasn't playing as a character that was medically ROBUST or gave a shit about the going-ons of the station, i was there to make money

a. medical should be more responsible about who they let in as deep as cloning
b. PDA someone in medical (the director for example) that you intend to kill someone and that you want their record deleted Before You Go Through With the Execution or Immediately After

Sounds like also a useful trait to go with is security setting a "Do not clone" alarm on an antagonist that is set to arrest until futher notice.

As an aggresive antag I been cloned on accident several times. Wich means I had to run.. avoid security in the buff and... yea... probably get killed again.

[Emrsnn]

 setting a "Do not clone" alarm on an antagonist that is set to arrest until futher notice.

As good of an idea as this is (and it is a good one), it's only going to be useful as long as someone's actually finding time to use it. Even if arrest status is the only part of sec records we actually use, it still gets forgotten about as often as we forget to say "don't clone John Killedaman" to the MD. I fear it would just be another thing people stumble upon during a slow round and think "this is good. Why aren't we using this??", much like entering what crimes people have done into secmate or taking dead people off payroll.

We also already have the option to add cloning notes, which any tom, dick, or harry can walk up to and read. Adding "ask sec first" or "this one blows up" to cloning notes is one of my "this is good. Why aren't we using this?"-es

[Kateaclysm]

1. this is how they used to work https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/4633
2. im gonna be real, i cloned back pistol man the round before you wrote this entirely knowing he was pistol man, but also nobody in sec bothered to say jack shit in the time it took to clone dan, you, and asena (and for me to remove my pistol bullet!) so . i stopped, i thought, i cloned; it was definitely not an accident. i wasn't playing as a character that was medically ROBUST or gave a shit about the going-ons of the station, i was there to make money

a. medical should be more responsible about who they let in as deep as cloning
b. PDA someone in medical (the director for example) that you intend to kill someone and that you want their record deleted Before You Go Through With the Execution or Immediately After

I will assure you this had nothing to do with any round in general, i've just had it happen a bunch and figured it'd be a nice change. The problem lies in the fact that - for example - the gunman would be killing a bunch of people in security or otherwise make it impossible for us to communicate about cloning them, and when they inevitably DO die in the chaotic gunfight, cloning lights up immediately. I'd like a bit of a grace period, honestly.