[CLOSED PR] Sets cloning with records to FALSE

[github_bot]

PULL REQUEST DETAILS





About the PR
This pr is a step sister pr to #17235, this sets the global/cloning_with_records established in #9626 to FALSE . This means that you cannot scan someone to have a cloning record in the computer, you can still clone directly from disks.


Why's this needed?
#17235 had a lot of feedback about how that change would be nice with prescanning but not on its own. The intent of this pr is primarily to be testmerged at the devs expression that way they can easily test out this change for up to several days in a row with/without the linked pr, and observe if what is deserved is wanted, merged.


Changelog

Code:

changelog
(u)Ikea and Luxizzle
(*)Scanning people to get clone records has been disabled. You can still clone directly from security disks with cloning records on them.

PULL REQUEST DETAILS

[pali6]

It's 3 AM but here's my quarter-baked counter-proposal:

Make cloning from prescans / disks take way way longer than normal cloning. Give the clone implant some visible / audible / textual / whatever indication that it is there on the death of the implanted person.

This way an antag killing a person knows that the person has been prescanned and there is some time to sabotage the cloning even if someone hit the Clone button immediately. In theory it could even be an interesting dynamic, hard to say if it'd do anything in practice. But it'd give antags a decent chance to prevent their victim from being cloned.

At the same time this lets people that got prescanned for azone purposes or other such stuff come back. They would spend some time as a ghost due to the longer cloning time of prescans so there would be some more weight to the death but it wouldn't remove them from the round permanently.

[Zamujasa]

on its face this has many negative repercussions:

* pre-scanning for risky adventures or known high-value targets is now impossible; people won't be as willing to go on azone trips if the many ways you can get cheaply killed now mean you're gone forever
* the only roles that get disks are security. this could lead to people picking security solely for the disks on classic
* gibbing is effectively made a trivial way to perma-remove someone as there is no body to clone

some random thoughts:
* this goes for the other pr, but after having some time to think about it, i do not like the other proposed change to the cloner
* mostly i think that it is okay where it is. when i observe and track it i typically see 0~6 clones and they're often not all unique people. on rp people die a lot less, but on classic it's pretty balanced for where it is.

* i think that some changes to the death alert could be nice. make the implant audibly beep on death the same way that microbombs click, as an audible signal that the person has a cloner record.
* one comedy option: give clones 2~4m mute status so they can't talk. keeps them from immediately ratting out how they died.
* i would like to see more subtle ways of fucking with genetics. make it so that the dna / mind fields are editable and you can swap appearances and minds in the scan. overwrite everyone's scan with yours. bonus: some way get it stuck outputing one body appearance. maybe you just need med/sci level to do that instead of deleting. i mean, it is science


* some other suggestions that came up involved making scans only saved on disks, which would end up seen as a nerf for borgs/ai (no longer able to clone without help, whereas now they can at least aid in scanning the living)
* or doing this, but adding a separate "filing cabinet" type thing to hold cloner disks, which just kind of turns something into pointless busywork (instead of pushing a button, you have to push a different button that lets you get the thing you need to push another button)

shrub

the longer cloner time could work, say it's because it's faster to copy from tissue than a record in lore or whatever.

[Dhaidburt]

It's 3 AM but here's my quarter-baked counter-proposal:

Make cloning from prescans / disks take way way longer than normal cloning. Give the clone implant some visible / audible / textual / whatever indication that it is there on the death of the implanted person.

This way an antag killing a person knows that the person has been prescanned and there is some time to sabotage the cloning even if someone hit the Clone button immediately. In theory it could even be an interesting dynamic, hard to say if it'd do anything in practice. But it'd give antags a decent chance to prevent their victim from being cloned.

At the same time this lets people that got prescanned for azone purposes or other such stuff come back. They would spend some time as a ghost due to the longer cloning time of prescans so there would be some more weight to the death but it wouldn't remove them from the round permanently.

The azone thing is a fantastic point, especially if you're going somewhere nobody else would want to go.

..though I just hope that the increased cloning time doesn't stack horribly with advanced genetic analysis, otherwise we'll have to beg engineering for multiple cloning pods every round..

[Ikea]

Ill share my more specific thoughts on cloning later on but first two things I'd like to put out there. I'd like to point out for all of this, there's no guarantee Ill code any of this, so if anything in this thread in general sticks out to you, the reader, feel free to pr it.

1. Normally I find it more useful to focus balance proposals on classic, as classic tends to push mechanics more compared to roleplay, thus exacerbating a mechanics shortcomings. For prescan changes in specific, I think its more useful to focus on roleplay instead. On classic, it's a minority of people who get prescanned, a seventh at most (for a round of a bit under 50 people I witnessed as writing this, only 5 were scanned by the end of the round), on roleplay its closer to half (in general of course).

Additionally, Id argue that prescanning has in some ways more detrimental effects on roleplay then it does on classic, with cloning being much more reliable (both less sabotage, less busy cloner, and more competent doctors), and also the nature of roleplay doubles it's removal of oomph from a characters death. I'd like to point here one issue roleplay doesnt tend to have is the insta ratting, but thats largely just players culturally adapting to the downsides of prescanning on their own which isn't really a good thing. It's important to note while I used to play a lot of roleplay, that was a year ago and I do so much more infrequently now, this means that those who play roleplay's feedback here would be very appreciated.

2. I think proposals around increasing the sabotage you can do for cloning don't really work because they run into two different problems for both servers. For classic, it's just generally not worth it from a time perspective. Prescanning is just unusual on classic so chances are the person you killed isnt prescanned, and even if they were its more time effective to just kill more people. For roleplay its just kind of a dick move, the rounds are longer and people really value their characters. It just feels dickish to do, I don't know if other people dont do it for this reason (again rp people comment!!), but that's why I wouldn't/didn't do it.

I think the death alert sound is a good idea even if I think it isn't sufficient, if someone wants to find a good sound for it, ping me in imsanic with it and Ill get a pr up for it in a few days. I also think its fair that if we commit to making prescanning harder, we should probably also make gibbing harder (minimum explosion strength to gib), and make it easier to find bodies in space (Maybe some pod component for it and buffing the commsmaster thing?). I think the longer cloning idea isn't one Id object too but I dont think it'd help too much. For classic, chances are it isnt worth spending time to sabotage cloning even then for most people. For roleplay, time doesnt cost much nor does cloning tend to be super busy so I dont think itd have much of an impact.

I'm also very wary of disk proposals, on classic prescanning doesnt have too much impact so I dont think itd change much, but on roleplay I can easily see it backfire by making records a lot more secure (harder and slower to get rid of, also makes silicons largely unable to get rid of them which tends to be the main method of sabotage), and with doctors being permanently bored on roleplay they have time to prepare to get enough disks for everyone to be scanned anyways.

I think what my slightly harder change to implement ideal prescan change would be would limit the amount of prescans you can do. Limit the amount you can have scanned to like 7 people, that way you aren't motivated to scan as many people as possible. This also makes being prescanned more selective which can open its way to conflict, this may lead to toxicity but I think in general itll be the good kind of conflict, where antags delete records so there's room for them to be scanned. You can have a system where you can go over the limit but those records will decay, but eh it wont change much on classic and roleplay docs will generally be able to just heal defects anyways so it wont change much there with that.

[Lord_earthfire]

Personally, i think prescanning is the interesting part about cloning. You got discs you can manipulate, copy or handle and records that can be wiped if an antag gets access to a command ID.

With scanning if dead people, nothing of these do apply. You shove a person in, click scan and cloning.

Admittably, this is the behaviour most often applied, though, esoecially on classic. So it makes sense to tailor cloning in this direction and test it out.

While i think this is an intersting proposal, the more i think about it, the more i think we should maybe consider removing deadscanning instead of prescan.

If prescanning is the only option, it is directly a distinct different niche than borging or SR. Also, it could be an incentive for people on classic to get prescanned. And this would make SR usefull again.

[DasBrain]

This nerfs the Mindhack cloning module.
It is already hard to have your hidden cloning lab - which was kind of mitigated by the ability to use data disks to transfer the scans from the main cloner to your mindhack cloning lab.

Removing Pre-Scans makes that impossible.

[Lord_earthfire]

This nerfs the Mindhack cloning module.
It is already hard to have your hidden cloning lab - which was kind of mitigated by the ability to use data disks to transfer the scans from the main cloner to your mindhack cloning lab.

Removing Pre-Scans makes that impossible.

The TC cost on that item could be reduced when this gets merged. I always found its cost being too high anyway.

[DasBrain]

This nerfs the Mindhack cloning module.
It is already hard to have your hidden cloning lab - which was kind of mitigated by the ability to use data disks to transfer the scans from the main cloner to your mindhack cloning lab.

Removing Pre-Scans makes that impossible.

The TC cost on that item could be reduced when this gets merged. I always found its cost being too high anyway.

To be honest, it is one of the strongest syndicate gear out there.
And always will be - because it allows you to create an unlimited amount of permanently mindhacked people.

The problem with it is to get it going. Data Disks were kind of mandatory for that.
Not to mention that this specific item is very underused.

[unfunnyperson]

massive fan of this, cloning is too strong

[Ikea]

While i think this is an intersting proposal, the more i think about it, the more i think we should maybe consider removing deadscanning instead of prescan.

If prescanning is the only option, it is directly a distinct different niche than borging or SR. Also, it could be an incentive for people on classic to get prescanned. And this would make SR usefull again.

Please no, this means that the incentive to get prescanned is far far stronger so far more people will be prescanned. This means that when you kill someone they are far more likely to come back which severely nerfs antags actions, also this means that new players who don't know that youre supposed to be prescanned dont get brought back. Not to mention this removes most purpose from retrieving bodies which isnt great.

[Silent Majority]

This feels very targeted and punishing. Many people on rp roleplay cloning amnesia. Popping someone out with a mute trait could be fine.


This change would also make recovering your appearance from stablemutagen impossible.

Not a fan

[Kotlol]

I would like to point out, pre-scans are needed for Azones and events that go into a deadly area.

But as I said.. if you truely want to "punish" prescans.
Do what I suggested.
"Data degradation unless you store it on a disk that can be stolen."

Aka you gotta rescan everytime. Now remove the necro scan for increased RAM storage.

[Ikea]

This feeld vsry targeted and punishing. Many prople on rp roleplay cloning amesis. Popping someone out with a mufe trsit could be fine.

This change would aldo make recovering your appearance from stablemutagen impossible.

Not a fan

I think cloning amnesia is a symptom of the commonality of prescans removing a lot of drama of death, I think with the removal of prescans, there could be more meaningful drama with someone's body being found at the last minute and accusations floating up. That being said, the sm recovery point is fair, it's outside of the scope of this pr but the idea of a blood bank with everyone's blood in it has been floated a bunch and that would be good, or maybe something like using mutagen with your own blood reverting you to your original appearance?

[Kotlol]

I got a few features to nerf "removing the body" from the equasition for the pre-scan nerf.

1: Throwing someone or a body into trash to have it crushed, will now result into jamming the crusher and do a lot of brute damage to the body.

2: Tossing a body out of the airlock will trigger a "MAN OVERBOARD" alarm and in wich direction it was going.
The only way to avoid this is by using a pod with the body loaded in or ejecting with a coffin or in a labeled crate to be sold off.
Or you know.. have the chef get rid of the body in ediables for you.

If we are going to nerf/remove/change prescans... we need to make sure removing the body becomes HARDER.