Genetics: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[Winklabom]

And today I got stabbed by one who thought I was a monster for borging someone instead of giving the corpse to them.

Dead body ain't got rights, and geneticists are terrible.

That's because being borged is a fate worse than death for most players.

Bitter borgs are dumb, and living people who get mega salty for me doing my job are incredibly bad.

Agreed, but you can't ignore the fact that borging is done on bad traitors/dumb shitters as a punishment.

That just sticks in people's minds and they just associate borging to punishment. I'm sure you'll find that you'll see much fewer people commiting suicide immediately after being cloned than being borged.

Please note that the recent addition of a forceborging device for traitor roboticist kind of reinforces that idea.

Now why is that? As a borg, you don't have a free will and have to obey whatever laws are uploaded. Granted, they can sometimes give you a free pass at horribly sabotaging the station or murdering some dudes BUT there are so many things you just cannot do as a borg.

The only time that you'll see people agree to being borged is when genetics has been blown to ashes.

[Paineframe]

Agreed, but you can't ignore the fact that borging is done on bad traitors/dumb shitters as a punishment.

That just sticks in people's minds and they just associate borging to punishment. I'm sure you'll find that you'll see much fewer people commiting suicide immediately after being cloned than being borged.

Borging traitors isn't done as a punishment, it's done as a tremendous act of kindness. People will usually refuse to clone a "known traitor", and even if they do get cloned, metagamey shitlords will openly beat them to death in broad daylight if their clone is seen walking the halls. Usually their corpse goes right into the reclaimer if it even makes it to the morgue; most people have minimal tolerance for cloning antags because they know the antag will go right back to murdering and destroying if they're revived. People will usually tolerate the traitors being borged, though, because it renders them harmless to the crew and therefore there's no justification for blocking it. Sure, it sucks for the traitor because they can't continue traitoring as a borg unless someone relaws the AI, but the alternative is just staying dead, because very few people will even try to clone an accused traitor even if the corpse is lucky enough to make it to Genetics somehow. It's metagamey as fuck and I don't like it, but that's player culture for you.

tldr: If somebody's being a bad traitor/dumb shitter, the usual punishment is having your corpse reclaimed or thrown out the nearest airlock. Being borged is an act of mercy, not a punishment - it's a compromise that allows you to be revived while forcibly keeping you out of trouble.

[Anticheese]

Agreed, but you can't ignore the fact that borging is done on bad traitors/dumb shitters as a punishment.

That just sticks in people's minds and they just associate borging to punishment. I'm sure you'll find that you'll see much fewer people commiting suicide immediately after being cloned than being borged.

tldr: If somebody's being a bad traitor/dumb shitter, the usual punishment is having your corpse reclaimed or thrown out the nearest airlock. Being borged is an act of mercy, not a punishment - it's a compromise that allows you to be revived while forcibly keeping you out of trouble.

Pretty much. Also, the roboticist traitor tool is an /incredibly/ noticeable thing with some massive downsides. Forced targets need to be taken in alive, and they also still have to obey the laws. Its a tool to be used when the AI is subverted to hell, and the traitor is ready to declare open war on the station, much like a c-saber or a shotgun. Weapons take people out of the game, and the borging station is cool because it shifts the usual dynamic of a dominant rampaging antagonist by letting the victims continue to participate in the game, and still giving survivors a chance to fight back because light borgs are fragile as hell.

Also, the roboticist has to do a lot of work to make modules that actually allow the robots to take humans in alive, and the stations themselves can be removed with a wrench.

Borging isn't a punishment. Its a wonderful opportunity, and I'm glad to see more being done with it.

[Ali0en]

Being a borg isn't all bad. I actually had a traitor round ruined by a Borg that was a captured vampire. Being a Borg is just very, very boring.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Preemptive disclaimer: This is another post in which I rant off the top of my head. As a result, the below content may or may not contain some holes in its logic.

I can frequently be seen playing as an AI and I'm typically glad to play as a cyborg, and this might be just my own personal and weird opinion, but one of the things that I appreciate about playing as a robot is actually the lack of freedom.

Sometimes, playing Space Station 13 is like playing Minecraft. You're given a wide open space to work with, you're given a multitude of tools to work with, you're given an environment filled with people with their own goals, and you're sort of told to just sort of go. There are some times where I legitimately have no idea what to do in some rounds, and playing as a robot alleviates that because your job revolves around the actions of others. Particularly as an AI; literally everything you do is defined by what the crew tells you to do. A similar dynamic exists in the security department: Their job is to react to the actions of others.

The only problem comes when you don't have any orders to follow, because then the entire purpose of a cyborg is wasted. I recall a particular round where a traitor was killing people and syndieborging them...but gave them absolutely no orders aside from a general "go do whatever". It was extremely disappointing and got him major flak from the people he had borged. Turning someone into a cyborg carries an underlying assumption that you have a job for them to do or that there is otherwise a purpose that they can serve. It's when the cyborg has no purpose that it becomes boring, pointless, and unfun.

Having a lack of free will does not always equate to not being entertaining, it's just a different mindset to be in. Cyborgs being bound by laws is not something that all players like, but some players appreciate the rails to drive along. Or maybe I'm the only weirdo who thinks that, I dunno. Hopefully it at least makes sense.

[TheOnlyRyan]

Just to keep everyone on track, this is a post about Genetics, not robotics and borging traitors.


ANYWAAAYY....

After another week of playing probably another 30 ish Genetics rounds I've come to a few more conclusions.

Getting Injectors isn't so horrible as I probably made it out to be, however It does require the AI or HOP to be very generous, allowing you to just rush scans and scan as many unknowns as possible to unlock the research ability.

I'd always accept the ability to get Injectors a little early on, if the choice ever came around.

On the other hand I've noticed something being a lot more painful, and aggrivating then Injector research time.

STABILITY....

Now I've played so much Genetics and learnt the quickest way to Injectors I've obviously noticed how horrible stability can be.

I've been unstable just from having Cryo and booster, just Cryo and Booster and my skin was falling off...

I don't even think Booster did anything to Cryo, but nevertheless my skin peeled off and I'd bleed out without constant medical attention.



I've been thinking while playing and waiting for Injectors to research, what am I asking for on this post?
What is the key goal I'm looking for, and honestly. I think I've found it.

Stability has prevented me from making any cool "classes" if you'd like, In genetics.

I wouldn't even be surprised if brown note + telepathy would push you over the stability thresh hold.


I was inactive for a while so I'm not sure what brought this stability on but I'm sure there must be another work around, which doesn't involve my skin falling out of my eyes.

[Roomba]

I honestly have -never- seen a geneticist that refused to clone people because they wanted to focus on research.

Just off the top of my head, playing as the AI in just a few rounds over the past couple of days, I've had to handle requests to bolt genetics shut for most of them, as well as a geneticist trying to toolbox the HOP for breaking in to clone a corpse because he refused to acknowledge its presence. I'd very much like to know who these paragons of virtue are, because I've never seen them.

And the reasons for bringing stability on have been already mentioned earlier in the thread. (Hint: people got tired of being killed by invisible TK hulks every round.) Genetics was ludicrously overpowered without the stability mechanic, and any workaround would just lead right back down that road. If the best defense is 'well I didn't see it so it can't have been that bad', there's a mountain of complaints regarding genetics right around that time, which probably isn't a coincidence.

[Spy_Guy]

I reduced injector cooldown times and cost in the hopes that it would facilitate creating spare injectors to sell to the crew or w/e. :downs:

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Yeah, I dunno what I was expecting either.

[FloozyBarge]

The main reason I see is that there's just nothing worth buying with credits every round. Not to mention instead of giving a player an injector for credits, you just assume delimb/butt/heart/brain a monkey and sell it for 25k to DOC. If people ask, I'll give em superpowers no problem, but actively selling them isn't something I can see myself doing when they can bust in and make their own injectors.





Make genetics computers require genetics access like the QM computer. Not the cloner obviously, but the DNA modifier.

[TheOnlyRyan]

Make genetics computers require genetics access like the QM computer. Not the cloner obviously, but the DNA modifier.

Constantly having people break in, or run in with a corpse then run over to your computer and start tampering with things...

NEVER AGAIN! <-- Also this will maybe make people more willing to sit in the machine themselves, as they can't have anything without your help.

Yeah, I dunno what I was expecting either.

No but in all seriousness credits are useless until they're not useless...

No one cares about having credits until they need credits....

No that's not right...

No one cares about credits.... That will do.
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If I had free range to change the map, what I'd like to do ( and I know people will call it stupid )

Is swap Genetics with Robotics.

Every Syndicate round you can be damned sure you'll get 1-2 RPG's followed by Bombs and angrily armed spacker men shoot at you.
It's far too easy to ruin Genetics if you have a JetPack, all you have to do is break 2 windows and bam, you've just sucked all breathable oxygen out of Genetics.

With Genetics where Robotics is now I'd have an open-able window to the main hallway, where bodies can be either thrown through or people can come to be scanned / traded with for powers yada yada yada.

Maybe even a floor scanner (like outside medbay) but for scanning genes, that sure would be funky.

Robotics that could even have It's own shuttle / pod area so when people arent interested in being borged, the rubat man can make pods, we all love PODS RIGHT? amirite.

Thinking out loud here.

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Stabillity I think is unbalanced as you can't be creative with the powers, you basically have to have 1 power (1 weak unboosted power at that) and are basically forced to be happy with it.

[Paineframe]

Stability is incredibly necessary to stop geneticists from just loading themselves up with every good power and ravaging the station as unstoppable mutant gods.

Personally, I think Genetics needs a nerf, not a buff. And no, I'm not just saying that to be a jerk. The fact of the matter is that Genetics has gotten a number of massive buffs in recent months, many of them apparently crafted with the hope that making things easier for geneticists would encourage them to cooperate with the rest of the station, but instead they've just led to geneticists being even more isolationist and overpowered than before, and were abused so badly that many of them had to be removed or given a balancing factor. It's clear that positive incentives aren't working - if we want Genetics to stop hogging all the powers for themselves, we need to make that play style harder, not easier.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Stability is incredibly necessary to stop geneticists from just loading themselves up with every good power and ravaging the station as unstoppable mutant gods.

Personally, I think Genetics needs a nerf, not a buff. And no, I'm not just saying that to be a jerk. The fact of the matter is that Genetics has gotten a number of massive buffs in recent months, many of them apparently crafted with the hope that making things easier for geneticists would encourage them to cooperate with the rest of the station, but instead they've just led to geneticists being even more isolationist and overpowered than before, and were abused so badly that many of them had to be removed or given a balancing factor. It's clear that positive incentives aren't working - if we want Genetics to stop hogging all the powers for themselves, we need to make that play style harder, not easier.

I don't think Genetics needs either.

On the one hand, a Genetics with easier-to-acquire superpowers results in the genetics team getting all of them and carving through the station like power-mad demigods. But on the other hand, a Genetics with harder-to-acquire superpowers also fosters a rather sour environment. Not only will less people be willing to play geneticist in the first place because of how much of a pain in the ass it is, but they will no doubt be much more overzealous and overprotective because of how increasingly fragile their work gets. Make their work harder to do, and they will become infinitely more pissed off if and when that work is ruined.

The whole problem with genetics not sharing superpowers is, if you ask me, intrinsic to the system itself. Geneticists, in their currently defined job, do not ever need to interact with any other people to do their job. And, in contrast to other jobs in which that might be the case, geneticists are borderline encouraged to not interact with any other people because they could be spending that time doing more research and unlocking more things, or someone might break in and murder the monkeys or bomb the place while they're out, or any other number of terrible and bad things. So geneticists stay in the genetics lab.

Somewhere, in some place in time and space, there exists a happy medium in which geneticists are willing to give the crew awesome superpowers with which to fight evil and stuff. But, after observing all of the changes that have been done to genetics over the past few months, I just don't think that's going to happen unless a complete overhaul of the system is introduced. What that overhaul is, I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea. But I thought I might as well get the idea out there.

[TheOnlyRyan]

I'd like to bring up a round that happened today, I joined a little late as a replacement Captain.

I was in the brig, and in comes a teleporting superhero named ... shadow... something Shadow...Run?.. ShadowGhost....

I don't know.. SHADOW SOMETHING, ok and basically I asked how she was doing all these magical things, and she told me about Professor X.

I went to Genetics, on the way encountering even more superheros.

When I reach there, there he is. Professor X, sat in a chair ... wheelchair.. whatever doing his thing.

He gave powers to maybe 5-10 people that round, all of which had their own custom ID with the power they had, named Mutants.

It was fantastic!

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It actually got a point where there were so many Mutants, they were teleporting in and out of the brig and It was quite entertaining trying to keep up.

Me and the HOS actually got Tranq guns lased with Mutadone and went on a hunt to stop these people breaking in.


THIS SHIT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF XMEN, 10/10


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Fact of the matter Is, the easier you make it for Geneticists to give powers away, the more chance they'll be likely to do It.

Right now, with research and stability, the more people coming into your work space the more frustrating it is to work.

#MakeGeneticsAHappyWorkEnviroment2038

[Roomba]

Fact of the matter is that it was already tried. It was the portagene, and that was before stability was introduced. That was a massive failure. With complaints about literally every step that presents even the slightest hurdle, I'm not sure what you'd actually be satisfied with save a button that makes everyone invisible psychic hulks at roundstart.

Also in my experience, there is generally a reason people break into genetics. (The giant mound of corpses outside the door that everyone is yelling at them to deal with and the geneticists are ignoring.)

[TheOnlyRyan]

I'm yet to see this magical mound of bodies everyone keeps complaining about.

I've seen lazy Geneticists but I've never seen a huge mound of bodies.

Most of the time if the Geneticist is lazy and not paying attention people usually just clone then themselves.

I think people actually prefer cloning bodies themselves, which is why I think the cloning and Genetics research areas should be separate.

(All part of Genetics) but separate.