Goonhub
04-29-2020, 12:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2020, 12:59 AM by zjdtmkhzt. Edited 3 times in total.)
The issue with current pathology is that a certain semi-intended method of acquiring symptoms has gotten seriously overbuffed, so people can just click the same button for 20 minutes and end up with 4 times as many bad symptoms as was originally intended. I have submitted a patch to remedy this yesterday.
Shameless plug: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/470
If you have a constructive opinion on this, please feel free to weigh in, github isn't that scary a place.
I believe this alone will suffice to make the current situation on the server a lot more palatable, because people will have to actually put effort into making a pathogen via the dna analyzer, and even then it will usually not be as bad as what you can make right now via spamming mutations.
Another issue is people not wanting to learn pathology in order to not have to die when a disease is around. I've seen this sentiment a lot, and it's kind of understandable. So I'll probably look into also making a patch to make pathogen curable via just the suppressant (which can be things like chems, but also things like being cold, sleeping or being exposed to radiation.) For people that do not want to do those things, the old cure system will also remain in place. This would also fix the issues with pathologist blowing up the pathology machines before releasing something bad (though I have only seen that very rarely).
Lastly, I'll probably look into limiting the number of symptoms and specifically spreading symptoms that go into a disease, so it will be easier to protect yourself if you take appropriate steps. (Because right now apart from a biosuit and internals you also need latex gloves and white shoes, which is just dumb.)
Anyway, the point of my post is, I don't think removing pathology right now would be a good idea. I think that the negative effect we have seen recently can be easily fixed with my first patch and the deeper, less pressing issues that people have with patho can hopefully be adressed via further patches over the next weeks. Removing it now would make it a lot harder to put it back in later and would also rob people that want to make patches to fix it of valuable feedback.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
EDIT: And of curse, in the long term hopefully more beneficial symptoms will be added, so pathology can aid the crew more as a nonantag, although there are already quite a few options right now, though most are just passive healing.
Shameless plug: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/470
If you have a constructive opinion on this, please feel free to weigh in, github isn't that scary a place.
I believe this alone will suffice to make the current situation on the server a lot more palatable, because people will have to actually put effort into making a pathogen via the dna analyzer, and even then it will usually not be as bad as what you can make right now via spamming mutations.
Another issue is people not wanting to learn pathology in order to not have to die when a disease is around. I've seen this sentiment a lot, and it's kind of understandable. So I'll probably look into also making a patch to make pathogen curable via just the suppressant (which can be things like chems, but also things like being cold, sleeping or being exposed to radiation.) For people that do not want to do those things, the old cure system will also remain in place. This would also fix the issues with pathologist blowing up the pathology machines before releasing something bad (though I have only seen that very rarely).
Lastly, I'll probably look into limiting the number of symptoms and specifically spreading symptoms that go into a disease, so it will be easier to protect yourself if you take appropriate steps. (Because right now apart from a biosuit and internals you also need latex gloves and white shoes, which is just dumb.)
Anyway, the point of my post is, I don't think removing pathology right now would be a good idea. I think that the negative effect we have seen recently can be easily fixed with my first patch and the deeper, less pressing issues that people have with patho can hopefully be adressed via further patches over the next weeks. Removing it now would make it a lot harder to put it back in later and would also rob people that want to make patches to fix it of valuable feedback.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
EDIT: And of curse, in the long term hopefully more beneficial symptoms will be added, so pathology can aid the crew more as a nonantag, although there are already quite a few options right now, though most are just passive healing.