Nullification Genes are not compatible with one another

[mralexs]

How about disabling resistances if you go into crit. Not removing just disabling, your body is working on trying to keep you alive instead of maintaining your immunity

That would nullify the one drawback of SMES human as defibs no longer work on you with it on ya.

[TDHooligan]

only one of the groups resisted by genelab are the ones that get you killed through conventional means, as there isn't toolbox-proofing. Fire/cold/oxy/rad are rare and only SMES has real combat effects, which is removing the effects of stun batons.

[Ikea]

only one of the groups resisted by genelab are the ones that get you killed through conventional means, as there isn't toolbox-proofing. Fire/cold/oxy/rad are rare and only SMES has real combat effects, which is removing the effects of stun batons.

Oxy damage is great to be able to be ignored during combat, as Oxy damage is the damage you take from being in crit. Anearobic feels like having ling passives. Also disagree about fire/laser damage being rare.

[TDHooligan]

Oxy damage is great to be able to be ignored during combat, as Oxy damage is the damage you take from being in crit.

being in crit still stuns you and *generally* means you have already lost, oxy res keeps you from getting worse but won't help if whoever's beating on your head with an extinguisher. having oxy res and scraping a win despite being in shallow crit is pretty much as little of a step-up as you can get compared to something like adrenaline rush.

Also disagree about fire/laser damage being rare.

fire damage isn't rare in general, but it is rarely involved in scenarios that you surviving it will matter. BURN weapons are niche and not much better than BRUTE equivalents. you aren't gonna be mad that one of the six dudes you bombed had fire res as you were probably clear of it when it happened anyway.

as for laser, there are only two laser weapons on most stations at round start. one is the captain's and the other is the HoS, which usually is swapped for Lawbringer, whose lethal is kinetic.

[Lady Birb]

as for laser, there are only two laser weapons on most stations at round start. one is the captain's and the other is the HoS, which usually is swapped for Lawbringer, whose lethal is kinetic.

AI turret lethals and armory phasers.

[Technature]

Idk i dont think going fuck you antags your cool toys are now invalid because one guy spent 30 minutes at a computer is good design

I don't think giving most of the station the middle finger in re-balancing is good design either.

Chemical Grenade Starter Kit, Sleepy Pen, Tactical Grenades (and only two out of seven of those are affected), Jug of Moonshine, Radbow, Syndicate Sauce, Syringe Gun (potentially), Power Gloves (partially), Poison Bottle (Bundle) (potentially), Safari Kit (Darts only), and the flare gun are potentially gimped by genetics.  This isn't even 10% of what you have available, and you said yourself that it takes about half an hour.  Traitors not playing the late game likely don't need to worry about most of this.

[Ikea]

I mean antags job is to antagonize the station?? Thats what they do, they fuck up the station. Antags already have a lot they need to worry about per shift, worrying if someone is doing there job or not, kinda sucks man. It sucks when the shit youve been building up for over the whole shift is just invalidated in an instant with ease. Like, while traitors are a big part of the antag pie here, any antag can disarm a sec offs baton but oh wait they have smes so now you just got a worse fire extingusher against them. Or steal caps egun and when you confront sec with it oh whelp actually it now does zero damage lol. Like, ive had several times where genetics has fucked over my plans and not once did it feel like “ah actually the issue here was due to my own lack of skill” it just felt like being fucked over by rng outside of my control. Again having a geneticist go into the ai chamber and fix laws without taking any damage just feels bad.

[Technature]

Is the captains E gun not doing damage because they're immune to fire?

Switch to Taser mode and BEAT THE MOTHER FUCKER!!! There's plenty of solutions, and this is just the most straightforward one that requires no foresight whatsoever.

Things that are available to whatever you're targeting are available to you.  Use it yourself!

Have more than one solution!  It's not anyone else's problem if you trip over the first hurdle and decide you don't want to run the rest of the relay anymore.

[Ikea]

A taser doesnt do much when youre going against 3 sec offs who each have a taser, even if you stun all 3 of em, theyll get up eventually and youre out of charge. I dont get why genetics is a counter to laser weaponry, like, does laser weaponry even need a hard counter???

[Technature]

oh funny that you leave out the part about there being three other security officers who happen to be there at the same time in an attempt to make it look like i don't know what i'm talking about ha ha that's a really funy

Then don't use lasers.

Get a gun. There's no such thing as a hard counter against a pistol.

You're just sitting here, with I presume the same plan being beaten over and over again (give me the full information this time if you're gonna correct me, too), and instead of thinking of a different plan or strategy you go "No...it's the other players that are wrong.". As a traitor you have a wide variety of tools to help you. You are unpredictable. Act like it.

[coolvape]

i think thermal resist stopping damage from lasers is probably the most broken of these
maybe if lasers did burn damage that somehow penetrated the resist granted by mutations it'd be better(maybe with reduced damage)? i think stopping other sources of burn like fires, heat, and welders is perfectly reasonable(welders being some of the strongest easily-obtainable melee weapons), and offers a lot of utility in firefighting and engine situations.

smes is strong but it's also strong for antags so it kind of washes out(plus it's very clearly visible on sprites). it also doesn't work against the various stun guns, which seems like a silly handwave since it stops apc jolts and such, but it's still really useful with a clearly defined counter(other sorts of damage).

anaerobic is obv strong but since it doesn't block stuns it is functionally just an increase in health re: crit.

toxic resistance is strong but doesn't prevent non tox damage side effects, and the strongest part of most poison chems is the stuns, not the damage. natural anti-toxins also makes bloodstream healchems less effective. so while you'd have to dose your poisons higher to compensate for it, it's not really that significant.

rad resistance is alright, i guess if you flooded the station with rad particles or bought a radbow(do people even use radbows), you'd be screwed but it's pretty much harmless.
alcohol resistance only matters in a tiny handful of cases(moonshine and otherwise forcing people to drink massive amts of booze), and certain jobs start with it, so it's no big deal imo.

[Ikea]

I mean I did say confront sec, not confront a sec off, this isnt me like, plotting against you, this is just not me communicating greatly. Like I guess sure I could use a gun, but like, is that good design? The majority of ranged weapons can be situationally hard countered by something thats just dependent heavily on 2 people. Like, if we're designing it to where, oh actually energy weapons can just randomly be useless lol, I dont think thats good design. Like, hard counters can work, see sunglasses and flashes, but like those are consistent, you can reasonably know who has them and plan flash usage accordingly. If someone has thermal resistance or not mostly just relies on if someone is doing something. idk if like, lasers need to have this downside of, actually rng says fuck you theyre now useless in this scenario, why?? Like, idk should we just replace the laser rifle that predator gets (which keep in mind is the primary weapon of that antag) just because we want to design this game around things suddenly becoming useless. Like, that doesnt sit right with me.

To me if lasers needed a hard counter, why not make laser damage tied to the stat of fire resistance, that way people can reliably get fire resistance, and its something that you actively consider when using fire weaponry. Thermal resistance is rarely in play in a round, so you cant really account for it, but if its tied for fire resistance, you can always expect that there'd be some people trying to counterplay you. (Note I dont think tying it to fire resistance would really be good, it doesnt seem like itd add anything to the game.)

[TDHooligan]

i dunno, you're arguing "the genetics spent 30 minutes to be immune to these one or two things i solely built into over a round" but it's 30 minutes into the round - you've had plenty of time to prepare something other than fire bombs, lasers and spacings. especially if your M.O is 'kill genetics'

if they play solely selfishly, genetic abominations will, at most, be three people over a round. if not, you're likely just as able to get their mutations from the gene booth.

I could use a gun, but like, is that good design?

yes. you could also use literally any other weapon, ranged or not. like riot shotguns, tasers, stun grenades... the good design is that there is a diverse set of challenges for you to overcome, if you're dead set on killing geneticists for some reason, come prepared for it. this way you don't just grab a laser gun and spray down everyone unimpeded by all but sec.

The majority of ranged weapons can be situationally hard countered...

the majority of ranged weapons are kinetic/stun weapons, which are not countered by any of these.

...just randomly be...

i think it needs to be stressed that this is not *randomly*, somebody specifically worked towards it. if half the station have it, they didnt 'randomly' get it, there was a deliberate effort from said genetics to give it to many people, and their efforts need payoff just like yours do.

sunglasses and flashes... you can reasonably know who has them

in this hypothetical scenario where you *only* have access to a pretty niche part of the ranged arsenal, you can see clearly that fire immune folks glow red. and are generally geneticists. you do not need to attack them immediately once you see them, you could bugger off and steal a taser, or flashbang, not many geneticists in sunglasses you see. they're all watching their PC.

why not make laser damage tied to the stat of fire resistance

because almost every piece of equipment has some level of fire resistance which would be hard to reasonably tell who would be immune. could you tell me what the thermal resistance of the clown's outfit is off the top of your head? how about the HoS wearing his cape? maybe the guy in a fireman's hat and a space suit? so on so forth.

but the guy who glows red? he's immune. you know that already. and the guy next to him who isn't glowing? he's not immune, might be wearing a bit of armor but that's just an extra shot.

AI turret lethals and armory phasers.

aye good point. i thought the phasers were removed but might not be. still, very uncommon stuff. traitors are still human after all

[Ikea]

While technically thermal resistance being there isnt rng, theres various factors that go into it, all of these factors are unreasonable for a person to account for (should we expect antags to check manifest for who is geneticist that round every time if they plan on using a weapon?) Like, idk I guess you could just bomb genetics every round but eh? That doesnt seem good either.

[Technature]

Hard counter the hard counter to the lasers.
Kill genetics.

Just check if there even are genetics. Unlike most departments, a staffed genetics department will almost always have someone sitting at the computer. Genetics can be easily seen in plain view on most maps.