Robotics: Organ Analysis and Augmentations

[Caio029]

This is just an idea I got and won't let go, and I've been thinking of actually starting it's development once I finish a few things on-hand. I'm making this post to actually grasp what are the boundaries of what I should be doing and general feedback from the forums community.
Roboticicst is, for the most part, a weird role. It's always been about doing surgeries on humans and sometimes building cyborgs, and that's it. There aren't many human upgrades, besides the default cyberorgans, and people tried to fix that in the past! One time or another, you surely have seen someone talk about making or even developing augmentations for Robotics, like implants, but to be completely honest, it has always been lacking room to actually put it in. So this is my idea on how augmentations could be implemented in-game, and I will need some feedback on what are the boundaries so I can balance things between "nerfed beyond usefulness" and "OP to the point staffies flock at Robotics".

The Idea

I've been tap-dancing around the actual idea for quite a while, from a GeneTek-like system to what seems to please most people: Robotics will have two modified versions of the objects usually present in an Operating Room: a special operating table and a special surgery computer. The surgery computer is where most of the magic happens, and the special operating table simply extracts the organs. The roboticist does their proceedings like normal, and when an organ finally comes out, the operating table will automatically put the organ inside the special surgery computer under some restrictions: the patient has to be alive, the patient has to be a player and the player cannot have removed that before in any body in any time in the round. I've thought of theses restrictions to avoid the player from grabbing monkeys/clones and farming organs with those bodies. Not only would that be exploiting this feature, but it could potentially start a decline in Robotics that would turn the roboticist role into a geneticist but with machinery, which is the complete opposite of what I'm trying to do. Once that organ is inside the surgery computer, the roboticist could either reclaim that organ for points or permanently eject it for whatever reason. Those organs, after being reclaimed, will sit in the machine for 2-5 minutes having it's tissue analyzed, and once finished, you'd get points that you could exchange for special augmentations in the market. I've been thinking of how this market could go, and I got a fun idea: it'd be like Cargo, the market would refresh after some time, and new organs would appear and some old organs would disappear, and all the prices would update accordingly. Think of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, but slower. When exchanged, the roboticist would get a special manudrive linked to the computer, that would update with all the augmentations they have bought.

My worries

My main worries are two things: making it unbalanced and turning roboticist into a geneticist. My main goal with this idea is to add a way for augmentations to fit, while making roboticist a more engaging role, without making it centered around a single surgery computer. In fact, I had to tone down the idea a lot to not make the computer engaging, but the idea of getting those sweet augmentations engaging. Such is this that I had to add a long cooldown for organs and many restrictions, to show that the computer isn't the main part of Robotics. But I still need a few ideas, to get how far I could go with the proejct, so here's a few questions if you have read so far: (if so, thank you)

• Would it be reasonable for surgeries to be automatic or semi-automatic? If so, give me an idea of how it could be done.
  
• Do you think this idea would still make roboticists spend the entire round staring at a computer screen? If so, please give me some ideas on how this problem could be mitigated.
  
• Do you think this idea could be used at all if only a few patients came to Robotics?
  

Last Remarks

I'm still working on how this idea could be developed, but as far as I keep that outline I presented, I think it has a good chance of going well. Of course, I still need to figure out a few things, like getting damaged by having too many augmentations or how to make the roboticist special when doing/using augmentations, but I will surely find that out after thinking about it for some more. Like I said at the start of the post, I made this post to get a general idea of what everyone thinks, and to get some fair answers on theses questions.

[Kotlol]

This is just an idea I got and won't let go, and I've been thinking of actually starting it's development once I finish a few things on-hand. I'm making this post to actually grasp what are the boundaries of what I should be doing and general feedback from the forums community.
Roboticicst is, for the most part, a weird role. It's always been about doing surgeries on humans and sometimes building cyborgs, and that's it. There aren't many human upgrades, besides the default cyberorgans, and people tried to fix that in the past! One time or another, you surely have seen someone talk about making or even developing augmentations for Robotics, like implants, but to be completely honest, it has always been lacking room to actually put it in. So this is my idea on how augmentations could be implemented in-game, and I will need some feedback on what are the boundaries so I can balance things between "nerfed beyond usefulness" and "OP to the point staffies flock at Robotics".

The Idea

I've been tap-dancing around the actual idea for quite a while, from a GeneTek-like system to what seems to please most people: Robotics will have two modified versions of the objects usually present in an Operating Room: a special operating table and a special surgery computer. The surgery computer is where most of the magic happens, and the special operating table simply extracts the organs. The roboticist does their proceedings like normal, and when an organ finally comes out, the operating table will automatically put the organ inside the special surgery computer under some restrictions: the patient has to be alive, the patient has to be a player and the player cannot have removed that before in any body in any time in the round. I've thought of theses restrictions to avoid the player from grabbing monkeys/clones and farming organs with those bodies. Not only would that be exploiting this feature, but it could potentially start a decline in Robotics that would turn the roboticist role into a geneticist but with machinery, which is the complete opposite of what I'm trying to do. Once that organ is inside the surgery computer, the roboticist could either reclaim that organ for points or permanently eject it for whatever reason. Those organs, after being reclaimed, will sit in the machine for 2-5 minutes having it's tissue analyzed, and once finished, you'd get points that you could exchange for special augmentations in the market. I've been thinking of how this market could go, and I got a fun idea: it'd be like Cargo, the market would refresh after some time, and new organs would appear and some old organs would disappear, and all the prices would update accordingly. Think of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, but slower. When exchanged, the roboticist would get a special manudrive linked to the computer, that would update with all the augmentations they have bought.

My worries

My main worries are two things: making it unbalanced and turning roboticist into a geneticist. My main goal with this idea is to add a way for augmentations to fit, while making roboticist a more engaging role, without making it centered around a single surgery computer. In fact, I had to tone down the idea a lot to not make the computer engaging, but the idea of getting those sweet augmentations engaging. Such is this that I had to add a long cooldown for organs and many restrictions, to show that the computer isn't the main part of Robotics. But I still need a few ideas, to get how far I could go with the proejct, so here's a few questions if you have read so far: (if so, thank you)

• Would it be reasonable for surgeries to be automatic or semi-automatic? If so, give me an idea of how it could be done.
  
• Do you think this idea would still make roboticists spend the entire round staring at a computer screen? If so, please give me some ideas on how this problem could be mitigated.
  
• Do you think this idea could be used at all if only a few patients came to Robotics?
  

Last Remarks

I'm still working on how this idea could be developed, but as far as I keep that outline I presented, I think it has a good chance of going well. Of course, I still need to figure out a few things, like getting damaged by having too many augmentations or how to make the roboticist special when doing/using augmentations, but I will surely find that out after thinking about it for some more. Like I said at the start of the post, I made this post to get a general idea of what everyone thinks, and to get some fair answers on theses questions.

I can safely say this idea of a surgery machine and ways to make robotcists more engaging like genecists has been proposed before by me and several others.

By hand surgery is indeed much slower and clunkier with failure rates around. So having a surgery machine in robotics onlyy is a great start buuuttttt.....
The problem is it will make medbay want a surgery machine to hasten up surgery. After all medbay also replaces organs if damaged and such.
Hand surgery can still be done but it will be only used for BRAIN SURGERY.. wich yea.. let's face it.. is your only restriction.

What we came up with the "Surgery Machine" is the fact you can research specifc upgrades for augments and make it a mini game.
It doesn't replace surgery all together... if you wanna remove organs and put in cyber organs, you gotta do it by hand.
But augments would be more a system of chips and parts that do not fully replace organs but enhances them, allowing the same effect as cyber organs without emp draw backs or such.
But now you get "Augment stress levels" as a way to make sure you don't make a beast of it.. and also.. "REJECTIONS" As in if the augment was made wrong with the nervous system, the body will reject it and cause damage. It was a mini game sort like Genecist's DNA code and Genetic Stability but with roboticists.

Cyber organs would NOT put stress levels but cannot be augmented.. where as nano-augmentation would put on stress and rejections and such.
This is what I believe the "Surgery" machine should do.
Call it the "Nano Surgery Device" wich is ment to be used on ALIVE paitents, to put in nano augments and who knows where it goes.

Anyhow... the problem ain't the fact Robotcists are hard to balance.. the problem is with this device is ..it makes hand surgery obselete.. wich is a very integral part of medbay play.
It's already bad enough most of medbay only learns: "Charcoal, Menders and Omnizine" and then: "Surgery? Well I will try but I can clone em right away anyway." and doing the "Puritan check"

So while the surgery machine would make surgery more streamlined.. it makes doctoring less fun and everyone hassle the robotcist for surgery.
What I think you should do is find a way to give people more REASONS to go to robotics for stuff. Rather then giving Robotcists more reasons to bother players.

Wich is why my suggestion was like genetics but.. we don't want robotcists to be "Genetics but robot"
It still needs an unique feature...
While the idea of cyborging with mutations sound like a fun way of both departments working together to create THE ULTIMATE STAFFY OF DOOM! Where mutations and cybernetics combined in perfect tendem gives something hilarious...

The concept of robotics right now is "fine" but in my book? Have robotics be able to develop augments, rather then "The place doctors only go to get arms and legs, since they can do cyber organs themselves."

[Caio029]

I can safely say this idea of a surgery machine and ways to make robotcists more engaging like genecists has been proposed before by me and several others.

This is different, because I'm inclined to not giving any kind of automation to surgeries. Althought I would if I knew how far I could go into it.

What we came up with the "Surgery Machine" is the fact you can research specifc upgrades for augments and make it a mini game.

No. I've considered making surgery/researching a mini-game, but that sounds terrible when I'm trying to deviate from Genetics, because of the aforementioned issues. One of the things that I'm trying to do is to add this idea but not make roboticists do the same work as geneticists. I'm still considering whether roboticists should have a system like in the game I mentioned in the original post.

But augments would be more a system of chips and parts that do not fully replace organs but enhances them, (...)

Correct! My ideas for augmentations are not only enhanced cyber-organs, but also implant-like things that doesn't fit any organ in-game.

But now you get "Augment stress levels" as a way to make sure you don't make a beast of it.. and also.. "REJECTIONS" As in if the augment was made wrong with the nervous system, the body will reject it and cause damage. It was a mini game sort like Genecist's DNA code and Genetic Stability but with roboticists.

I've also been thinking about that, and it could add onto the idea of the system of exchanging points in a market with various variables in each of the organs.

So while the surgery machine would make surgery more streamlined.. it makes doctoring less fun and everyone hassle the robotcist for surgery.
What I think you should do is find a way to give people more REASONS to go to robotics for stuff. Rather then giving Robotcists more reasons to bother players.

Good point! But honestly, in that sense, roboticists aren't much different than geneticists. Both aren't really needed to keep the station running if they are only performing their essential roles.


About the whole automatic surgery thing, I've thought of two paths: either I remove the need for roboticists to operate on the patient with their hands and allow them to perform the surgery straight from the surgery computer, with the proper scapel, saw and other surgery tools or I don't do that at all. There's no other alternative where it would make sense. So I'm just sticking to the idea of automatic organ extraction and researching those for points, to exchange for augmentations which could be special brain implants or enhanced organs.