Goonhub
02-12-2023, 08:49 AM
After some discussion on the forums, I’ve come to conclusion that synthorgans could use a bit of a once-over. While I love that botany can make organs, and think it’s neat that they can hypothetically make ultra-tough superorgans with very high HP by juicing up plant endurance…let’s be honest, synthorgan transplants basically never happen. With the immediate availability and immediate benefits of cyberorgans, if anyone gets an organ transplant, they’ll be doing it with cyberorgans – even with the risk of failure from EMPs, cyberorgans are apparently strong enough to justify breaking into Medbay to try and do self-surgery to install them yourself.
I’d like to propose that Blooming Synthorgans have special effects distinct from either regular organs or cyberorgans that scale with potency.
For reference, Synthorgan plants can either produce non-blooming or blooming variants of synthorgans, and from my experience healthier plants will produce more blooming organs. With my proposed changes, synthorgans would only bloom once their parent plant has over 50 Potency, whereupon their special powers can first appear. Non-blooming cyberorgans would be identical in function to regular organs and would be what Kudzupeople spawn with.
Each of the blooming organs botany could grow would have effects that would get stronger with potency, with all effects maxing out when the plant hits 550 potency. Additionally, the health of synthorgans would be capped at 500 HP (obtained from having 400 endurance, where 1 endurance = 1 additional HP), which I feel is a reasonable limit – very robust, nigh unkillable in normal gameplay, but not invincible. It'd also give a sizeable amount of effective health to your organs even when playing with the Frail Constitution trait.
Why is this needed? Although synthorgans are useful in theory, they are rarely grown because, aside from use in certain cooking recipes, they are largely superseded by the cyberorgans that Robotics and Medbay can produce in-house. This is made no better by surgery currently being a complex and cumbersome task, and because patients with organ failure are more likely to be cloned than to undergo successful emergency surgery. Giving these organs special effects may encourage botanists to try making them and give another interesting option for players to gain powers besides genetics and the existing cyberorgans. The high potency required for a maximum-strength synthorgan also gives more experienced botanists a goal for the shift, similar to making good potato batteries or complicated splices. It also allows these organ powers to be quite strong while remaining reasonably balanced, as unlike cyberorgans (which are available at round start), there would be a significant time and resource investment needed to produce the most powerful synthorgans.
Before I list my ideas for these effects per-organ, I’d like to gauge interest in this idea. No use in posting a mammoth wall of text if nobody thinks it should happen. Also, chip in your own ideas if you have any!
I’d like to propose that Blooming Synthorgans have special effects distinct from either regular organs or cyberorgans that scale with potency.
For reference, Synthorgan plants can either produce non-blooming or blooming variants of synthorgans, and from my experience healthier plants will produce more blooming organs. With my proposed changes, synthorgans would only bloom once their parent plant has over 50 Potency, whereupon their special powers can first appear. Non-blooming cyberorgans would be identical in function to regular organs and would be what Kudzupeople spawn with.
Each of the blooming organs botany could grow would have effects that would get stronger with potency, with all effects maxing out when the plant hits 550 potency. Additionally, the health of synthorgans would be capped at 500 HP (obtained from having 400 endurance, where 1 endurance = 1 additional HP), which I feel is a reasonable limit – very robust, nigh unkillable in normal gameplay, but not invincible. It'd also give a sizeable amount of effective health to your organs even when playing with the Frail Constitution trait.
Why is this needed? Although synthorgans are useful in theory, they are rarely grown because, aside from use in certain cooking recipes, they are largely superseded by the cyberorgans that Robotics and Medbay can produce in-house. This is made no better by surgery currently being a complex and cumbersome task, and because patients with organ failure are more likely to be cloned than to undergo successful emergency surgery. Giving these organs special effects may encourage botanists to try making them and give another interesting option for players to gain powers besides genetics and the existing cyberorgans. The high potency required for a maximum-strength synthorgan also gives more experienced botanists a goal for the shift, similar to making good potato batteries or complicated splices. It also allows these organ powers to be quite strong while remaining reasonably balanced, as unlike cyberorgans (which are available at round start), there would be a significant time and resource investment needed to produce the most powerful synthorgans.
Before I list my ideas for these effects per-organ, I’d like to gauge interest in this idea. No use in posting a mammoth wall of text if nobody thinks it should happen. Also, chip in your own ideas if you have any!