Goonhub
04-29-2020, 05:17 AM
For a long time when cog1 was the only map and there was no map rotation, pathology was an old ruin that people could visit and gawk at. "what happened here?" people would often wonder, along with "I wonder if pathology is ever going to be reintroduced".
Enter Marq, headcoder and resident turbonerd. He recreated pathology from the ground up. In turbonerd fashion, he made it so incredibly complex it was inaccessible to the average gooner who likes to smack things with wrenches and screech at locked doors. There was heavy criticism at the time then too, people felt he made the system that made sense to him and only him. That and most importantly - it wasn't fun.
So all this effort was effectively for naught for a while as nobody was actually playing with it, aside from Noah Buttes (Camryn) and the odd chemnerd who felt like they reached their limit in chemistry. Which is a damn shame, because despite its faults, there was lots of work put into it.
Enter the patch forum. More work was put into it, creating more interest. Then comes the greytide of 2019, pumping in fresh blood into the community.
Present date. Forked coding allows for some unforeseen changes and now we have some players going into pathology, making super viruses, "oops it got out" or "see! pathology is unbalanced, now you see, now you seeee", whichever flavor it chosen, it's still inflicted on the station, much to the chagrin of crew.
So. What can be done? I'd support zjdtmkhzt's additions, that'd be a start. Here's a few pointers:
1. The complete removal of Airborne transmission. You see, this was also raised back when pathology was first introduced. "How does airborne diseases actually transmit" was raised and I distinctly remember the answer "I dunno, code is a mess". This is not good. There's literally no control over a virus once it is airborne. It just exists in the ether and indiscriminately kills everything. If removed, it could then be reintroduced as a detectable gas.
2. Tactile transmission. Someone with a disease and they sneeze? You get an obvious message that you have been hit by a glob of snot. Waterborne transmission, meaning you can spike people or create floods with the virus and people walk through it. Basically physical and obvious methods of transmission, the opposite to airborne.
3. zjdtmkhzt's point regarding suppression. Suppressive medicine should not cure the disease but mitigate its symptoms. In that light More Suppressive medicine. Less to do with eating chemicals, but some suppressive medicine could simply be present in types of food, i.e cholesterol could be suppressive.
4. Finally, this is a long term goal, but make pathology more fun and accessible, but you gotta tackle to above first. This is an issue, if pathology actually isn't fun, then people aren't going to bother with cures. The greatest weapon pathologist has is apathy. Create virus. Unleash on crew. "Hey i can make a cure". "Nah, lets just call the shuttle". I see it all the time.
Enter Marq, headcoder and resident turbonerd. He recreated pathology from the ground up. In turbonerd fashion, he made it so incredibly complex it was inaccessible to the average gooner who likes to smack things with wrenches and screech at locked doors. There was heavy criticism at the time then too, people felt he made the system that made sense to him and only him. That and most importantly - it wasn't fun.
So all this effort was effectively for naught for a while as nobody was actually playing with it, aside from Noah Buttes (Camryn) and the odd chemnerd who felt like they reached their limit in chemistry. Which is a damn shame, because despite its faults, there was lots of work put into it.
Enter the patch forum. More work was put into it, creating more interest. Then comes the greytide of 2019, pumping in fresh blood into the community.
Present date. Forked coding allows for some unforeseen changes and now we have some players going into pathology, making super viruses, "oops it got out" or "see! pathology is unbalanced, now you see, now you seeee", whichever flavor it chosen, it's still inflicted on the station, much to the chagrin of crew.
So. What can be done? I'd support zjdtmkhzt's additions, that'd be a start. Here's a few pointers:
1. The complete removal of Airborne transmission. You see, this was also raised back when pathology was first introduced. "How does airborne diseases actually transmit" was raised and I distinctly remember the answer "I dunno, code is a mess". This is not good. There's literally no control over a virus once it is airborne. It just exists in the ether and indiscriminately kills everything. If removed, it could then be reintroduced as a detectable gas.
2. Tactile transmission. Someone with a disease and they sneeze? You get an obvious message that you have been hit by a glob of snot. Waterborne transmission, meaning you can spike people or create floods with the virus and people walk through it. Basically physical and obvious methods of transmission, the opposite to airborne.
3. zjdtmkhzt's point regarding suppression. Suppressive medicine should not cure the disease but mitigate its symptoms. In that light More Suppressive medicine. Less to do with eating chemicals, but some suppressive medicine could simply be present in types of food, i.e cholesterol could be suppressive.
4. Finally, this is a long term goal, but make pathology more fun and accessible, but you gotta tackle to above first. This is an issue, if pathology actually isn't fun, then people aren't going to bother with cures. The greatest weapon pathologist has is apathy. Create virus. Unleash on crew. "Hey i can make a cure". "Nah, lets just call the shuttle". I see it all the time.