Goonhub
05-16-2024, 01:07 PM
As someone who always rolls puritan, and would continue to do so even if puritan was made -2 instead of +2 and made you ineligible for midroll spawns or autoDNRed you, I'm a bit biased to weigh in. However, I agree with a lot of what spoodle said. Clones and biomatter are cheap, and if enough people are dying that you've got a backlog of people to clone and you're going to have to sit and wait for a new clone anyways then 1. you should have enough biomatter to go around and 2. that waiting period is a perfect time to medtrak for records and see if you've got any puritans in the mix. As a janitor, sometimes puritan explosions are the only actual mess that I get to clean up all round. I understand it can be inconvenient for doctors to have blood and gibs in medbay, but it's hardly the only source of either of those -- It's the place for bleeding and damaged folks to all congregate and get blood everywhere haha.
There are two things I do have opinions about in regards to puritans though that I'd like to bring up given that this is the Puritan Gripes Thread:
1. Mindhack cloners being able to bypass the puritan trait when cloning.
There is a PR open with this concept that has had mixed feedback: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/18861
I'm of the opinion that while it is a longstanding gameplay mechanic that puritans Exist and Will Blow Up, the mindhack cloning module is generally considered to be one of the hardest to actually get going with effectively. That makes sense because of the strength it has, being infinite permanent mindhacks, and perhaps I just don't have a very good grasp on the existing balance but every mindhack cloner attempt I've seen except one has ended up falling apart anyways and every person I've asked has said that it's just not worth the risk/reward in its current state. Which, yea, a lot of traitor stuff is like that and that's not inherently a bad thing, but I just genuinely don't think it would be a big deal to throw them a bone with this in the same vein that you can't just DNR to get out of becoming a vamp thrall. Maybe it'd get used more by spiefs or surplus tots, I dunno. It'd be neat.
2. Doing a successful puritan clone is pretty dang easy. This is more of an RP thing than a classic thing, but there have been a few big long discussions about it in different channels in the discord where I've seen different devs weighing in on it so while I'm sure there's more important conversations about it happening between devs I really agree with the idea that puritan cloning is too easy now. Or, like, doctors have gotten too good at it like was suggested last time I saw it discussed. It used to be something that was really hard and rare, but the past year or so when I played on RP I was just like always getting puritan cloned. It didn't feel special or impressive anymore, it was just expected. I don't really play much on RP anymore so I'm not sure if the most recent change to address it (the addition of more cloning defects for puritans) has had much of an effect, I'm mostly bringing it up here to see if anyone else HAS been on RP and can say whether or not it's been noticeably harder/rarer since then.
There are two things I do have opinions about in regards to puritans though that I'd like to bring up given that this is the Puritan Gripes Thread:
1. Mindhack cloners being able to bypass the puritan trait when cloning.
There is a PR open with this concept that has had mixed feedback: https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/18861
I'm of the opinion that while it is a longstanding gameplay mechanic that puritans Exist and Will Blow Up, the mindhack cloning module is generally considered to be one of the hardest to actually get going with effectively. That makes sense because of the strength it has, being infinite permanent mindhacks, and perhaps I just don't have a very good grasp on the existing balance but every mindhack cloner attempt I've seen except one has ended up falling apart anyways and every person I've asked has said that it's just not worth the risk/reward in its current state. Which, yea, a lot of traitor stuff is like that and that's not inherently a bad thing, but I just genuinely don't think it would be a big deal to throw them a bone with this in the same vein that you can't just DNR to get out of becoming a vamp thrall. Maybe it'd get used more by spiefs or surplus tots, I dunno. It'd be neat.
2. Doing a successful puritan clone is pretty dang easy. This is more of an RP thing than a classic thing, but there have been a few big long discussions about it in different channels in the discord where I've seen different devs weighing in on it so while I'm sure there's more important conversations about it happening between devs I really agree with the idea that puritan cloning is too easy now. Or, like, doctors have gotten too good at it like was suggested last time I saw it discussed. It used to be something that was really hard and rare, but the past year or so when I played on RP I was just like always getting puritan cloned. It didn't feel special or impressive anymore, it was just expected. I don't really play much on RP anymore so I'm not sure if the most recent change to address it (the addition of more cloning defects for puritans) has had much of an effect, I'm mostly bringing it up here to see if anyone else HAS been on RP and can say whether or not it's been noticeably harder/rarer since then.