Goonhub
01-31-2023, 12:34 PM
Hey all. I'm here to (attempt) to start a serious discussion on Urine as a mechanic in SS13.
As I understand it, once upon a time it was not difficult to amass a lot of urine - simply drinking and using the *pee emote could produce a reasonable amount. However, this opened the floodgates to the "piss cube" gimmick, a phenomena that disgusted many and, apparently, lagged servers pretty badly due to the liquid simulation that had to happen, hence the current nerfs to urine production from crewmembers. Urine as a concept is arguably hold-over from the earliest days of SS13, back when there was still poo in the game, an era where all parts of the game were cruder and less refined.
Since I play Botanist almost exclusively, the thought of being able to make larger quantities of urine often crosses my mind, and that's for one reason; saltpetre production. Saltpetre is a fantastically useful nutrient, and by combining 1 part Urine with 1 part compost and 1 part potash (the latter two ingredients being trivial to get/make in Hydroponics), you can get it. Unfortunately, it's also used to make gunpowder, which is like 25% of the reason why people come to botany with requests. (50% of all requests are people asking for chainsaws, and 25% are asking for things we can actually grow.) I've tried making saltpetre via the urine route before, and while possible, it's also a tremendous pain in the ass, given how little urine spacepeople produce.
Here's the thing; while I personally would not mind having some sort of crop that could produce Urine in a limited fashion, others in the community have taken a pretty hardline "no" stance on the idea, with concerns for pee flooding being a prime concern. To me, flooding the station is quite the antag-y thing to do, regardless of what liquid it is, so the thought of doing it hasn't really crossed my mind, but it seems like piss-flood-PTSD has strongly affected many a spaceperson on these forums. Also, floods of urine don't actually do much when compared to floods of other far nastier chems that botany can already mass-produce, such as Capcacin, Cryostylane, Glowing slurry, Radium, Cyanide, and more. And aside from the occasional "lean wave," botany flooding the station is rather uncommon in my experience.
So! I'd like to ask what the community's opinion on Urine as a mechanic/chem is. Should it be removed? Reworked? Kept only in the most inoffensive way possible?
I do intend this to be a real discussion, I'm not trying to troll here - I think this is a feature that could be expanded upon or entirely removed without causing serious problems to greater game balance (besides changing a few chem recipes, like Triple Triple), so I'd like to discuss it.
My take is that, given that vomit is in the game, and you are far more likely to see massive yellow puddles of diluted vomit mixed with water or blood rather than a puddle of urine these days, I'm not really bothered at all. SS13 is a game about a horrible, crusty space station, which will invariably end up caked in gore and covered in death (unless you're on RP, and that's not guaranteed either). People are screaming as they burn to death, organs are flying everywhere, delimbed people are shambling to medbay bleeding from every pore...it's a veritable hellscape. In comparison to that, pee is, like, pretty meh to me. Gross, yes, but not nearly as gross as blood personally. In terms of botany, so long as urine production remained limited to one crop and urine couldn't be spliced into other plants, I'd be fine with having an alternative method for it to be made. And if pee as a feature goes away, I can freakin' buy saltpetre from cargo or ask the bartender for access to the chem dispenser - fighting to implement a crop that produces urine is not a hill I care to die on. I just think having a somewhat involved way for botany to amass more of the most quickly depleted chem in their GardenGear vendors would be nice.
As I understand it, once upon a time it was not difficult to amass a lot of urine - simply drinking and using the *pee emote could produce a reasonable amount. However, this opened the floodgates to the "piss cube" gimmick, a phenomena that disgusted many and, apparently, lagged servers pretty badly due to the liquid simulation that had to happen, hence the current nerfs to urine production from crewmembers. Urine as a concept is arguably hold-over from the earliest days of SS13, back when there was still poo in the game, an era where all parts of the game were cruder and less refined.
Since I play Botanist almost exclusively, the thought of being able to make larger quantities of urine often crosses my mind, and that's for one reason; saltpetre production. Saltpetre is a fantastically useful nutrient, and by combining 1 part Urine with 1 part compost and 1 part potash (the latter two ingredients being trivial to get/make in Hydroponics), you can get it. Unfortunately, it's also used to make gunpowder, which is like 25% of the reason why people come to botany with requests. (50% of all requests are people asking for chainsaws, and 25% are asking for things we can actually grow.) I've tried making saltpetre via the urine route before, and while possible, it's also a tremendous pain in the ass, given how little urine spacepeople produce.
Here's the thing; while I personally would not mind having some sort of crop that could produce Urine in a limited fashion, others in the community have taken a pretty hardline "no" stance on the idea, with concerns for pee flooding being a prime concern. To me, flooding the station is quite the antag-y thing to do, regardless of what liquid it is, so the thought of doing it hasn't really crossed my mind, but it seems like piss-flood-PTSD has strongly affected many a spaceperson on these forums. Also, floods of urine don't actually do much when compared to floods of other far nastier chems that botany can already mass-produce, such as Capcacin, Cryostylane, Glowing slurry, Radium, Cyanide, and more. And aside from the occasional "lean wave," botany flooding the station is rather uncommon in my experience.
So! I'd like to ask what the community's opinion on Urine as a mechanic/chem is. Should it be removed? Reworked? Kept only in the most inoffensive way possible?
I do intend this to be a real discussion, I'm not trying to troll here - I think this is a feature that could be expanded upon or entirely removed without causing serious problems to greater game balance (besides changing a few chem recipes, like Triple Triple), so I'd like to discuss it.
My take is that, given that vomit is in the game, and you are far more likely to see massive yellow puddles of diluted vomit mixed with water or blood rather than a puddle of urine these days, I'm not really bothered at all. SS13 is a game about a horrible, crusty space station, which will invariably end up caked in gore and covered in death (unless you're on RP, and that's not guaranteed either). People are screaming as they burn to death, organs are flying everywhere, delimbed people are shambling to medbay bleeding from every pore...it's a veritable hellscape. In comparison to that, pee is, like, pretty meh to me. Gross, yes, but not nearly as gross as blood personally. In terms of botany, so long as urine production remained limited to one crop and urine couldn't be spliced into other plants, I'd be fine with having an alternative method for it to be made. And if pee as a feature goes away, I can freakin' buy saltpetre from cargo or ask the bartender for access to the chem dispenser - fighting to implement a crop that produces urine is not a hill I care to die on. I just think having a somewhat involved way for botany to amass more of the most quickly depleted chem in their GardenGear vendors would be nice.