Nerf or remove Booster Enzyme

[Lady Birb]

Tarm made meth purge mannitol and synaptizine earlier today, so say goodbye to that combination at least.

[AlyasGrey]

Change looks good, kills a few birds with one stone.

[MomoBerry]

While I'm of the mindset of things like this being up to administrator discretion for abuse, I agree that I would prefer the people get warned over repetitive, unfun behaviour over deleting a bunch of content. I don't really use booster, I don't ever feel the need to cover every single option and contingency because it feels like I'm min-maxing and no longer enjoying the spirit of a game based around RP and in the moment interactions, but everybody has their own ways to play the game they enjoy, and nobody has the objective truth of what's the ideal/proper style to play.

Personally, I think increasing the clarity of when somebody has booster enzyme in them is a good way to go, as its a recurring theme above that people "don't know" until it's already too late. I feel like booster enzyme is a strong enough chem to warrant a special vfx/sfx to it, to act as a visual or audio queue that the person is on hyper chems. I like the change of meth purging brain fixing chems, as it makes sense. I'm not a fan of putting even more power into haloperidol as it's currently one of the strongest chems; it does so many different things as it is, on top of random sleep and KO, that adding even more things to it just seems like it's bloating the chem, and I'd rather just see it reworked to deplete all chems or something at that point.

I also liked the idea of removing the overdose cap that booster has, and just making it ramp up all chems in the players reagent container.

[Crystalwarrior]

I hate the idea of warning/banning people for just using game mechanics that were put into the game by design. The way it's abused right now is a consequence of how the mechanic was thought out (intentional or not).

I am also against removing the enzyme or nerfing it with no alternative. What exactly is so overpowered, and what is the dominant strategy? How can its viability be reduced while pushing the enzyme to be more useful for strategies that are more fun?

Powergaming is a symptom IMO and admins should only get involved if it gets beyond just engaging with a game mechanic, such as cross-round grudges, self-antagging, etc.

Meth change is a great example of how I'd rather things be changed around - purging brain fixing chems is an interesting solution, it changes strategy while also allowing for player expression to come up with new strats that may potentially be much more interesting.

@MomoBerry increasing clarity is a great idea because you can get visual feedback who's jacked up on the miracle drug, plus it makes the drug users a bigger target. Meth already does this with intense twitching afaik and just being aware that your target's doing some chemistry insanity is half the battle won more often than not.

[Lady Birb]

One idea I had to stop people from stacking twelve different chems to become an invincible supernerd is to give certain healing/drug chems shared overdose thresholds; so even if you don't cross the individual overdose threshold for one of them, if your combined total goes above a certain amount it causes the overdose effect for all of them.

[DioChasek]

A shared od pool would then make said Chems weapons to be used on the crew. Because what’s worse than overdosing on a chem? Overdosing on a chem mix in in a sleepy pen with multiple overdose effects hitting you at once.

[Lady Birb]

A shared od pool would then make said Chems weapons to be used on the crew. Because what’s worse than overdosing on a chem? Overdosing on a chem mix in in a sleepy pen with multiple overdose effects hitting you at once.

traitors can already do far worse than that just by stacking multiple poisons in you.

[DioChasek]

And then add to it that anyone trying to treat said chem cocktail will make it worse with additional overdoses basically cascading off one another.

[Yellow]

Powergaming doesnt exist on main, powergaming implies that the majority of people are holding themselves back, not using the dominant strategies for one to many reasons (such as Roleplaying).

On main, I always took it as "if its in the game ((and not an explot)), youre free to use it". I couldn't see it any other way, with the freedom that main provides, why would you stop someone from doing something thats clearly in the game. In main, you can play to the max of your potential, and while it sucks, this means abusing oversights for a massive advantage until they are patched is just what will happen.

[DioChasek]

Another solution if booster is turning into a problem is have sec have a booster enzyme injector kit with a few choice Chems in their requisition token options.

[Cal]

Another solution if booster is turning into a problem is have sec have a booster enzyme injector kit with a few choice Chems in their requisition token options.

oh god no

[DioChasek]

If everyone turns into nigh unkillable chem heads then at least it’s a fair fight. The more terrifying option is make it an orderable chem from the qm.

[Mouse]

Powergaming doesnt exist on main, powergaming implies that the majority of people are holding themselves back, not using the dominant strategies for one to many reasons (such as Roleplaying).

On main, I always took it as "if its in the game ((and not an explot)), youre free to use it". I couldn't see it any other way, with the freedom that main provides, why would you stop someone from doing something thats clearly in the game. In main, you can play to the max of your potential, and while it sucks, this means abusing oversights for a massive advantage until they are patched is just what will happen.

I can pretty safely say that a sizeable percentage of long-time players on main do, in fact, hold themselves back.

[Leeanei]

Warning people for using tools on Classic feels weird to me. It's acknowledging that there is a problem but we won't do anything about it the fundamental cause. Mechanics have a tendency to get used as designed, even on RP. It is better to change code than to constantly swat players over doing something that isn't specifically against the rules. It is an unpleasant conversation to have, trust me.

[unfunnyperson]

Could just make booster enzyme go past 20 u. Deal with all the overdoes somehow.