GENETICS

[Sundance]

Good god isn't this a big hefty pile of built up emotion. Large and bold text galore. I know how you feel, but the coders are under no obligation to pay attention. If you haven't noticed, the ideas forum is where grandiose ideas go to die, or where people tear each other to bits over the new hot topic.

But your kinda right. I don't even play genetics but it could do with a buff, but a smart one, rather than giving them new genetic powers, although they are welcome.

First off as someone who doesn't even play genetics: Make genetic injectors available wayyyy earlier in research. There's very little point hiding them behind the research wall, as geneticists don't really use them to grief like they did in the old days due to them being labelled as they are produced. Making them available earlier would mean that geneticists may even be able to share their powers, perhaps give powers to someone with a considerable bank check.

Secondly, make tie in the money scanner in genetics to the research funds. This way, combined with the above idea, would mean people could pay for genetic powers and the money would mean the genetics can research into more powers. This type of synergy is near non-existent and needs to exist so very badly.

But the superfart, fuck the superfart. I'm being totally serious, something that you can use to stun everyone in a room WHILE your stunned and blasts people back makes me hate mutants and geneticists for that reason alone. Infact if you nerf the superfart and buff every other aspect of genetics i'd be very groovy with that.

[Dauntasa]

remove instability

the entire concept of it should be gone. I don't care how hard you have to nerf every superpower in order to balance this but instability needs to go.

[atomic1fire]

I kinda think Injectors should be availible at the start of the round.

Geneticists could find one good or fun gene, make a few copies and sell it via market or whatever. If someone wants to stability OD on hulk, fire proof, and tk that's their fault.

Also it could give medbay some extra feel good actions. Like inoculate a doctor with rad proof so they can go deal with a guy leaking radiation without personal harm.

[Zafhset]

After complaining since forever that the geneticists weren't cloning often enough, you folks want it removed less than a week after it was made more public?

In a game where dying and killing is as easy as a few clicks away, removing one of the ways of bringing people back into the game to make any job more/less important is not the way to go.

[Paineframe]

Sounds pretty cool, actually. Robotics definitely needs to be more radical, and I'm fine with cloning being removed, although now that the cloner is public it's a better sabotage target. The fact of the matter is that there is no downside or risk to being cloned, since having your genes scrambled is no biggie and not many people seem to know that the cloning pod can be loaded with nasty chems.

[Paineframe]

Geneticists can already put genes on other people without injectors. They just can't put genes on themselves.

[Dabir]

No.


Honestly, I think this whole thing with cloning and the genetics nerf has been a huge overreaction.

Seriously, why the fuck do you people want to remove the only RELIABLE way to bring someone back as a human being?


Sure, there's strange reagent, but who the fuck bothers to make and/or buy that?

Why should there be a reliable way to bring someone back as a human?

[Dabir]

I'm firmly in the "remove the cloner"camp, but something occursd to me: you'd no longer have a way to humanize the ai. if anything would sway my opinion, it's the idea that I think we'd need some kind of replacement for the cloner in this respect.

You'd still have strange reagent, and the frankenstein table if that got implemented. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure humanising the AI is firmly in the camp of Mad Science.

[BaneOfGiygas]

One of my friends suggested this in a Skype chat: Unless it got changed, you can already kinda sorta revive someone as a human by transplanting the brain to a monkey and then cloning the monkey, or something. Haven't personally done it, myself. Why not expand on that a bit and make it into the primary method of reviving someone as a human? Get the corpse, get a monkey or other genetic baseline, work some sort of mad science magic (possibly involving a minigame of some sort), and boom! You've got a clone.

It could even pave the way for other shenanigans if you put something besides a monkey in the "genetic base" field. Using space bee DNA would make the person hop out of the cloner as a sentient bee instead of an actual person, and other such nonsense. Cloning requiring biomass, as I mentioned before, seems to be an absolute non-issue due to how much of it is around the station. This would help balance cloning vs. borging, because the likelihood of coming out as a normal human depends on the competence and/or whimsy of the person manning the console, as well as the availability of creatures to use as a genetic base.

It's just an idea I'm throwing at the wall and hoping it sticks.

[Mofleaker]

I do like the idea of cloning become more hands-on rather than just a waiting game.

[Heiraphont]

(possibly involving a minigame of some sort)

I'm picturing a version of Donkey Kong where you play a digital monkey who must climb up to a genetic strand at the top of a tower while a clown throws bad DNA at you.

[Frank_Stein]

I do like the idea of cloning become more hands-on rather than just a waiting game.

Hrm. Like if there was a puzzle mini game. Finish it to finish the clone, but mistakes in the puzzle come out as genetic errors.

[Mageziya]

If we're going to talk about removing cloning, we sorta need to look at the broad perspective of things, mainly because there's a few contradicting ideologies being thrown about with SS13 design.

The biggest counterpoint I've seen to having cloning removed is the recent push by some admins for longer rounds. While I personally disagree with longer rounds, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Removing cloning is directly against this ideology of longer rounds, because the main disdain for longer rounds comes from people who are dead during them. The thing is that changes are actually being put in place towards these longer rounds, most notably with redesigning the way antags function. Removing cloning would basically require a re-balancing of the entire game.

Ideally, a dead person should just hop onto another server if they die and can't get revived, but that doesn't happen. Nothing will make people play on the other servers, other than a unending, PSA-every-round, push that the admins that would just end in another wave of backlash by players.

If we're going to decided the fate of cloning, and generally being revived, we need to ask what we want in the long run. If we want short rounds, make revival extremely difficult. If we want long rounds, make revival extremely easy. This would also feedback into how antags are balanced. If revival is easy, then make antags extremely powerful. If it's difficult, then make antags more evenly powered with the average joe.

[Nubcake]

Removing cloning seems a bit too extreme, hec only a short while ago people were complaining about the geneticists ignoring their bodies!

My own suggestion would be that whether you get cloned or borged depends on how much damage you took before you died, too much burn/brute and you can only be borged or somethin.

[vampirate]

People will probably hate this idea, but to me the idea of a clone is the dna only, not the memories up to a certain point... say the start of the round. Also the clone isn't the same person so...

When you get cloned, the cloner prints you out your new assistant ID, and invalidates your old ID. If the HoP or Captain want to repromote you, great. If not, your incentive to not die is to not end up a staff assistant. It should be a strict rule that your clone doesn't remember how the old you died, and perhaps occasionally have it give messages like "your clone is having trouble remembering how to use these items" the first few times you use a more technical item. Just little hiccups and inconveniences. Kind of like how a rogue-lite might let your family member continue with all your history but the character itself is fresh.