[PR] Contributor Rewards accessible to all

[George_Manning]

Perhaps it could be a -3 trait or even more? I think that would limit any advantage by forcing the player to take a ton of negative traits to access it

Alternatively, just axe it entirely? There's not many people with the contributor medal, and I think a better way could be found to appreciate what they do that's less ... jarring to what is apparently a not-insiginificant part of the playerbase and admin team.

[Solenoid]

I'll just throw in my own two cents

When it comes to the vibe of the server's mutantraces and stuff being disrupted, I think that's already sorta inevitable and creative players who want to do that have always been able to do it. When I was new, there was a player who was a trash can dwelling "goblin" with green skin they always got from genetics, we had the huge "mannequin" trend, we see players making characters with huge eyes, massive mouths, "dwarves", "androids/bioshells", cat people, dragons, etc. This was covered in the PR already, but I figured I'd add some additional examples from my personal experience.

At least for me, I've never really been interested in playing anything beyond the average human character, maybe using some hair magic to make an "elf" at most. I don't think that just having these options available would suddenly flood the station with  brightly colored characters, since you'd still need players who want to be those brightly colored characters. There are already characters on RP played by regulars that stand out in other ways which are, in my opinion, as disruptive for "cohesiveness" as people with RGB-colored skin would be.

However, I don't think that means that non-standard character designs should be banned or limited, I just think that the ship has sort of sailed if we want to adhere to the core mutantraces in the character creation menu as being options that fit the tone of the station, and that considering possibilities for how we could incorporate these new designs could lead to cool new player-led storytelling in-round.

Just my thoughts, maybe I'm entirely wrong. I would probably just want to see this PR testmerged so I can see what things other people come up with before making a call on whether or not I think it's the right choice. If it leads to vibe, visual cohesion, or other related problems, then I'd like to see them person before putting my weight behind or against the PR.

[Flaborized]

I do not particularly like letting all humans pick whatever colors they want. Color ranges are part of the visual identity of many species in the game and I think letting people (or roaches) have the full range diminishes this aesthetic quality a lot. Lizards can have technicolor skin because they're chameleon-like; if we added this more generally to generic people, we'd be somewhat taking away from this Cool Thing lizards have that makes them stand out as unique. 

The Boring Basic skin-tones also, for lack of better phrasing, make them look Human. Blue skin looks like an alien because humans don't have blue skin. Other mutantraces in the game unfortunately do not exist in real life so we can imagine them looking however we want without it being Weird, but I think there's still some value in having a cohesive look for them, at least on roundstart.

I don't really have an qualms with people using genetics or the tanning booth to achieve these looks since then they're uncommon, but if everyone could have them as a trait I think it'd worsen the look of the game. To be honest, I don't even *really* like it much on contributor, but it's difficult to take out something like that when we've given it out as a reward for doing something nice like contributing. It's not something I would have implemented myself, though; I'd rather people contribute solely because they want to contribute to the game and never for the Epic In-Game Reward.

This is a nitpick for a PR that I don't even really want added but the trait should ideally not be compatible with species that have no way to utilize it, cuz it wouldn't do anything for them.

[Kotlol]

I'd say leave it to genetics or custom ways to add the "weird skin tones" you want.

Make it a mechanic , not a feature.

You wanna have blue skin? Drink Mercury. Your skin will be blue, but you will also take toxin damage.
Want orange skin? Fake Tan Spray.
Want Green Skin? Eat brocoli extract or something.

Now it's a mechanic for customsation but also... pranking and antagonistic things.

Just like we have the "Barber" for some extreme hairstyles you cannot pick at the start of a round (like fire hair)
We should just have alternate skin tones be something you have to get in game via a methode or another, this way you can also give others skin color changes by having them consume or do something to get a skin tone that is uncommon.

And yes it will be cureable. Just like you need acetone to remove stickers.

[Zamujasa]

i would like to see this become more accessible, not less, because there are a handful of funny/nice characters that come out of it

roughly 70-90% of a human's sprite is covered up by clothing; the only parts that aren't are the face, arms, and legs, and you can replace your arms via traits already

i personally don't think the 'visual distinction' matters that much. all of the mutant races have tails, different head shapes, sometimes different speech sounds



e: i also do not like the above idea for a host of reasons, but one of them is that oops you're turning a quiet brain poison into a dye bomb. there is no reason to make all of those collectively worse when (for example) you can whack yourself with a paint can instead

[KikiMofo]

I do like the idea of having the weird skin colors a genetics thing

[Glamurio]

I do not particularly like letting all humans pick whatever colors they want. Color ranges are part of the visual identity of many species in the game and I think letting people (or roaches) have the full range diminishes this aesthetic quality a lot. Lizards can have technicolor skin because they're chameleon-like; if we added this more generally to generic people, we'd be somewhat taking away from this Cool Thing lizards have that makes them stand out as unique. 

The Boring Basic skin-tones also, for lack of better phrasing, make them look Human. Blue skin looks like an alien because humans don't have blue skin. Other mutantraces in the game unfortunately do not exist in real life so we can imagine them looking however we want without it being Weird, but I think there's still some value in having a cohesive look for them, at least on roundstart.

I don't really have an qualms with people using genetics or the tanning booth to achieve these looks since then they're uncommon, but if everyone could have them as a trait I think it'd worsen the look of the game. To be honest, I don't even *really* like it much on contributor, but it's difficult to take out something like that when we've given it out as a reward for doing something nice like contributing. It's not something I would have implemented myself, though; I'd rather people contribute solely because they want to contribute to the game and never for the Epic In-Game Reward.

This is a nitpick for a PR that I don't even really want added but the trait should ideally not be compatible with species that have no way to utilize it, cuz it wouldn't do anything for them.

After rethinking on this subject, I actually end up agreeing a lot with Flaborized. Visual identity is a lot of what makes mutant races unique, and this includes a limitation on skin palettes. While right now it seems like a fairly easy way to increase variety and customization, I actually believe that in the long run this would shoot us in the foot. In all likelihood, at some point we're going to be adding more mutantraces again (once the rework is done), and then we'll be bummed out to know that a lot of cool visual identities for interesting mutant race designs to make them look more "alien" are basically going to look and feel flat because we already had so much freedom when it comes to designing already. I'm reminded of a comment on why roaches weren't allowed more customized colors; because if roaches can be any color they want, it'll feel less special to be a different insect race that specifically could have more colors later.

[JOELED]

I took a bit to think about this before I commented.  I'm still in the boat of believing skintone customization should be available for everyone (with the hex limits to prevent high saturation like seen in the post body), but I feel more strongly that it would be better avaliable for either everyone or no one.  If the problems that having it available for your average player are non-negotiable, then the door should be shut for contributors to cause them, too.  I have seen contributors use the feature to make monsters and hide in maint to scare/confuse new players.  I have seen contributors use it to make characters who are uncomfortably bright or dark.  I have seen contributors play characters who start the round with green skin, and mistakenly believed that they were gamma ray'd.  From my perspective as a player, I've never found any of these problems to be something that would outweigh the benefit of having more options for fun characters -- the middle problem will become impossible with locking colours within a range, and the other two either are a player problem (people who want to play monsters/mess with players will continue to do so whether or not they can use funny skintones) or are already available (lizards can already be green, and genetics can make you green without gamma ray). All of this is stuff that's already been covered in the thread though.

I'm mostly commenting now because I disagree with the idea that more skintone options would ruin mutrace uniqueness or viability.  While there are definitely instances of people who want to make a character and choose a lizard for it specifically because having colourful scales is necessary for the look they're going for, from my experience the majority of people who play lizards play lizard because they want to play a lizard.  Goonstations mutraces very intentionally are not just recolours of humans or of each other, they all look and play completely distinct from each other and none rely on one specific feature to make them notably Not Human.  A blue lizard and a blue human don't look anything alike, as there are other elements of custom spritework that give lizards a distinctive silhouette even without getting into the audio design and text effects.  While there are some few people who likely would stop playing a lizard if they could play a human with a colourful skintone due to the drawbacks of playing a mutantrace (hair), especially in the first couple weeks after it got added and it would be New and Exciting, I doubt it would spell ruin for either the identity of lizards as a mutantrace or for any hypothetical future mutantraces added.  I understand where the idea comes from, but my own personal opinion is that if another bug race gets added then its identity should and likely will be more visually and conceptually distinct than "a bug, but with more customization than our current bugs."  As a roach main, I'm excited about the concept of more bug options  --  but dev work on this game is volunteer work, and with no public knowledge beyond "someone was working on it at some point" that could be a thing tomorrow or it could be a thing five years from now.  It'd be nice to have more options in there here and now, with Minty here willing to code them in with the tools that already exist.

My idealized implementation of it as a trait would be specific in saying that it's a Genetics Thing and you're like that Because Genetics Can Do That, coz many players both new and old don't know that genetics even can change your skintone and it'd be neat if it was more common knowledge.  I like it when people learn stuff. 

TLDR:  I dunno, I think it'd be neat.  And if it's too potentially evil to be neat then I think no one should have it or people are just gonna keep fighting over it.  And if I'M tired of people fighting over it then I can't imagine devs feel great either.

[mintyphresh]

From my perspective a major point of friction in this conversation is on the concept of a trait-- does a mutrace trait simply give mechanical effects, or is there a racial identity attached to each mutrace?

Goon's lore is not a rule; you don't have to have your cow character be "Mukau Bullhorn" from the cow dimension, or your lizard be "verbs-the-noun" that's just a 4th-gen gene-modded human from sleeper-ship colonization efforts. However, players still sometimes follow these cultural trends-- you'll find plenty of characters named "Seeks-The-Path" and "Mavis Moovenheimer" as part of the crew. Whether consciously or not, players find value in conforming their character to whatever mutracial identity they perceive as existing. I believe that, like Retrino, other players will (in the long run) continue to play characters that feel human visually and behaviorally.

And, as Solenoid already nailed in their post, Goon's lore also doesn't prevent you from playing your character as something outside of their assigned mutrace. Is that a wig, or real hair, or a pair of wings, or maybe just seaweed dangling from that crewmember's scalp? Is that a normal roach, or a moth, or a big ant (like the ones from A Bug's Life)? People will play freaks if they want to, not having blue skin isn't stopping them. Diagetically, it doesn't really make sense for this not to be available to crewmates roundstart, either; getting your skin color changed via genetics is probably pretty accessible, especially compared to the robot/plant arms you'd get from robotics/botany.

As you can probably tell by the fact that I wrote this PR, I'm certainly of the persuasion that the mutrace traits are just what they say on the box-- a set of gameplay differences you can install on your character. Although most players choose to fall into a fairly standard definition of humanity, possession of the human mutrace does not a human make.

Joel is right about us needing to level the playing field on this. So long as the criteria to get skin color freedom are qualitative, the distinction between haves and have-nots will never feel fair. If that means removing Contributor's benefits entirely, well, I'd be pretty sad, because I like my weirdos, but it'd be better than what we have right now.

[Zamujasa]

i agree with the above two posts, though in the case of potentially limiting it to a medal reward (especially given that we have better medal caching now) i think tying it to taking a bath in colorful reagent would be a good compromise

[Flaborized]

roughly 70-90% of a human's sprite is covered up by clothing; the only parts that aren't are the face, arms, and legs, and you can replace your arms via traits already

i personally don't think the 'visual distinction' matters that much. all of the mutant races have tails, different head shapes, sometimes different speech sounds

I mean, if it wasn't important or visible people surely wouldn't want it, right? Like, we're talking about the *face* here, that's potentially the most important part of the design of a living humanoid creature, even if it's only like 30% of the sprite typically. I don't think that it not being always visible means necessarily it's not important! I think color choice does matter and is a significant part of the aesthetics of current species you can play as.

Goon's lore is not a rule; you don't have to have your cow character be "Mukau Bullhorn" from the cow dimension, or your lizard be "verbs-the-noun" that's just a 4th-gen gene-modded human from sleeper-ship colonization efforts. However, players still sometimes follow these cultural trends-- you'll find plenty of characters named "Seeks-The-Path" and "Mavis Moovenheimer" as part of the crew. Whether consciously or not, players find value in conforming their character to whatever mutracial identity they perceive as existing. I believe that, like Retrino, other players will (in the long run) continue to play characters that feel human visually and behaviorally.

And, as Solenoid already nailed in their post, Goon's lore also doesn't prevent you from playing your character as something outside of their assigned mutrace. Is that a wig, or real hair, or a pair of wings, or maybe just seaweed dangling from that crewmember's scalp? Is that a normal roach, or a moth, or a big ant (like the ones from A Bug's Life)? People will play freaks if they want to, not having blue skin isn't stopping them. Diagetically, it doesn't really make sense for this not to be available to crewmates roundstart, either; getting your skin color changed via genetics is probably pretty accessible, especially compared to the robot/plant arms you'd get from robotics/botany.

I think it's fine and cool that people can invent little headcanons for themselves or interpret mechanics in unique ways, but I don't think the fact that people will push customization options to their limits means we have no reason not to expand the limits; especially in a way that just takes a Cool Unique Thing lizards have and plops them down onto humans.

i agree with the above two posts, though in the case of potentially limiting it to a medal reward (especially given that we have better medal caching now) i think tying it to taking a bath in colorful reagent would be a good compromise

I don't think this meaningfully compromises much, the objection is to having humans being able to pick whatever color they want at roundstart, this medal would be trivially easy to get and practically everyone would have it (I think you could even force this medal on someone cuz you can toss people in baths? insert compressed flushed emoji here) I'm okay with it being a *sometimes* kind of thing, but this is effectively the same as just giving it to everyone for free.


I agree with the posts saying that it's not ideal to tie this to contributor as it is now. I said this in my last post but I wouldn't have added it in *general*, since I think you can already pull off some funny one-off gimmicks using genetics or tanning beds + light tubes if you're desperate, and I don't like making it a Regular Ol' Option for reasons I've written up here and in the last post.

[Zamujasa]

there are people who have played this game for years who didn't know you could push P to pick up an object, it feels like almost every human character doesn't really change the skin color sliders, and in general i really doubt that most people of this game would make their humans funny colors if it was hidden behind a button and a "trivial" medal

people have long been able to make incredibly ridiculous / technicolor / awful hair patterns and yet we do not really see many of those because most people tend to play things they think look reasonable and nice.

[Solenoid]

Sorry for adding to the discussion again, but I feel like a lot of this discourse has made me a bit concerned for the future of the PR and I want to try to provide some counterpoints. Also, I may use strongly worded arguments throughout the post, but it's never intended to be mean, sorry if it ever comes across that way and I hope it doesn't.

TL;DR, I think we should just have the option be available at roundstart if the genetics method is being endorsed, it has no real difference in terms of gameplay and just adds to the chance that an awkward character moment happens where someone doesn't look as intended. If players can start with robotic limbs, I don't see why they couldn't also start with RGB-colored skin with a trait point cost, it's as much a part of a character's identity as a missing arm is and implies departmental interaction pre-round that is persistent across those rounds in the same way.

Firstly, on giving other mutantraces the ability to get colorful skin, I don't see the problem personally on taking the "unique" thing of lizards and giving it to others. Wigs are pretty much identical to this, the "unique" thing of humans(hair) was given to other mutantraces at roundstart via a trait. I don't think we've ever seen any human players complain about this though, because it's clearly just a way to increase customization and personalization that would otherwise require an awkward IC exchange. Realistically, we could've had wigs be a "go talk to a human and convince them to lop off their hair at roundstart" thing, but it was recognized that this felt bad and required a lot of convincing and in-round time to make work. I think this equally exists in going to genetics and trying to convince them at roundstart to stop scanning the genes of some random monkey and finishing roundstart research and instead set your character's skin to a specific set of RGB codes.

Secondly, of course limits must always be in place when it comes to characters. We can't have people play anything and everything just because they know their way around the character editor, but I would say that the options granted by making humans various RGB-colors are relatively limited and already possible via genetics. I don't understand why the color options available at genetics couldn't be made a roundstart option if people are going to just go to genetics every shift and get the same thing done. It feels functionally identical and moreso like the option is being locked behind a timegate and the presence of a geneticist or MD with proper knowledge than anything else. This is the same thing every monkey player does on the RP servers, and it can lead to awkward moments of seeing characters in a form they're not intended to be in. Though the monkey mutantrace is banned from roundstart for a few obvious reasons- I don't think that having RGB-skin would have the same balance concerns and wouldn't pose a problem at roundstart.

Lastly, I don't enjoy the idea of reagent interactions causing changes in a character's skin color. It feels awkwardly meta to start bathing in some random chemical to become red, and now you need to hope even more players are willing to play along just to get your character looking as intended if you don't have roundstart access to those chemicals. If they're offered alongside the trait/genetics, then that's fine. But I'd prefer if they weren't the only option.

I really think this PR, as a trait, makes perfect sense. We have something similar in the limb picker during character creation, which prevents the awkward shuffle of characters with recurring robotic limbs to robotics every shift, since it's something unchanging about their character and relatively inconsequential(though, the more powerful limbs come at a cost). I personally don't see a difference between the two, since the gameplay impact is minimal, they both reduce roundstart tedium for the player, and come with a meta cost of trait points which impact you in other ways. 
 
Honestly, I'd really love a testmerge of this PR, as mentioned in my last post. We don't know how the trait will impact crew culture and the sorts of characters people make until it's actually in action and everyone has access to it. I'm still not sure whether or not I'd want it long-term, but I think that a lot of the reasons proposed against it, and its alternatives(just go to genetics), aren't things I agree with personally.

Just my opinion, I'm down to hear more from others. 

[Glamurio]

TL;DR, I think we should just have the option be available at roundstart if the genetics method is being endorsed, it has no real difference in terms of gameplay and just adds to the chance that an awkward character moment happens where someone doesn't look as intended. If players can start with robotic limbs, I don't see why they couldn't also start with RGB-colored skin with a trait point cost, it's as much a part of a character's identity as a missing arm is and implies departmental interaction pre-round that is persistent across those rounds in the same way.

Hey, I don't disagree with this, characters with a specific identity which falls apart unless they have certain traits should just be able to start with it. But I'm just letting you know that if my monkey OC has to awkwardly shuffle to genetics for his genes because we're not getting a monkey trait, I want the same punishment be applied to rainbow people.

[cyberTripping]

Throwing my 2 cents in since I will presumably play this game again when opendream is a thing:


I generally agree with flaborized when it comes to visual cohesion, and think it would be a poor fit for a roundstart thing. For that reason, I also disagree with it being added in general, and if its such an issue, I'd feel like its best just to remove it entirely. I have the reward and never once used it or cared to use it.

Adding it as a mid-round mechanical feature simply won't work. People will just rush it every single round, and then because of the inconvenience they've brought on themselves, demand it be roundstart. Mutantraces used to be an in-round thing, besides diplomats. Wigs used to be a round thing. Monkeys are a round thing, and we still occasionally get people asking to be able to start as a monkey because they're a "monkey main". Any customization you let a player do, someone will get attached to a character that uses that customization, and we'll keep coming back here arguing about it until eventually enough people say "sure why not", and if that happens even once, there's no reverting it. Because of that inevitability, I wouldn't be able to support it as a feature.