GENETICS

[TheOnlyRyan]

Guys, there's a thread for Cloning, and that's not this one.

[Frank_Stein]

I gotta love how this thread has 17 posts, discussing removing cloning. Something that causes 0 problems, maybe the only problem being not getting cloned in 1 second flat.

Yet no one contributes to the thread for improving the job. Fan-Fucking-TASTIC

[Anticheese]

I glanced at your threads, and they're just a bunch of vaguely connected paragraphs saying things shouldn't be this way, or that you don't want people to bash your threads, or that you're not sure where you're going with this, and so on. There's nothing of substance there, and there's nothing in this thread either other than a big plea for people to do "something" without offering anything substantial or at all concrete to the discussion.

Stop apologising over your half-baked vague nonsense and start contributing something useful rather than just demanding a coder walk in and sprinkle some magic fairy dust over it. You've said that this is a bit of an emotional issue after you having played the job for years, so channel that into some useful ideas.

E: Right while I was posting this, a prime example of what I was talking about was quoted.

As far as radical solutions go, I'm entirely onboard with removing genetics pending one hell of a rewrite. The number of times that a geneticist ever gives a power to a non-geneticist is close enough to zero, and I'd actually love to see some metrics on that if its at all possible. Adding injectors earlier on will only benefit geneticists who either play solo, or are so engrossed in what they're doing that they never cooperate with anyone else and might as well be playing a different game anyway. The port-a-gene was meant to try and help bring genetics fun to the rest of the station, but most of the time it just meant the geneticists would fuck off to the pathology ward so they could be even more isolated from the rest of the game.

Geneticists habitually demand a fuckload of money added to the already generous research budget which isn't consumed by any other job in the game, just so they can burn through to injectors and personal superpowers faster.

Adding a cost to the cloner, and making it more available to the rest of medbay were both steps in the right direction. Resurrection is a privilege and not a right, and adding a fee just codified the bit of robbery that every geneticist who ever bothered to touch the cloner did when they touched another persons ID. Anything that gives the roboticist more of an opportunity to do their job and bring people back to life is good too - about the only time I've ever seen geneticists get proactive about trying to clone someone is when someone shows an interest in making borgs.

Let's remove genetics from the game for the time being, and give control over the cloner to the roboticist. Let's make people more aware of the drop in maximum health after successive clonings, and let people purchase a higher grade of cloning from an ATM (renting NT server farm time or something), and set their preferred method of resurrection in their will/character options.

Let's try making genetics something that can be - that has to be - done in the field, taking samples and running tests on people, generating serums for unknown powers (or disabilities) that work on the specific source first before a generic injector can be synthesised.

Let's think of something better than the current system, because as it stands, fuck geneticists and their stupid isolationist corner office.

[Anticheese]

Basically roll the rest of the genetics office into the general medbay and give geneticists a portable lab satchel. Encourage them to go about the station, actually meet people, scan them to collect pieces of genome, and give genetic alterations to non-geneticists first. Plus if they're moving actively around the station, they'll be in a good place to pick up bodies for cloning.

I'll bet that if geneticists had to interact with people to get powers, and other people knew that they could get powers too, people would line up and actually give them money to participate in the bar or whatever. Plus, medbay has a supply of mutadone, so if someone is dissatisfied with a disability they can get that unfucked, or a traitor geneticist could take advantage of the moment of confusion to murder their patient. The idea works on so many levels.

[Anticheese]

Crossposting from some other dude's thread: remove the geneticists office and make it so they have to run practical experiments on people and give them powers or disabilities first before they can make universal injectors.

Fuck genetics being a weird department of people who stare at the screen and never hear anything. Make them get out into the world and do science, and give the crew something in return for them accumulating all kinds of powers.

[Silvercloud29]

How I feel about the remote idea of removing cloning.



Also, I have hated on genetics before for not doing their job, but they been taken a lot of hits for it. Massive nerfs and losing part of their jobs. Think it's about time to leave it alone for a bit.

(Although I do agree they did bring this upon themselves.)

[Frank_Stein]

Let's try making genetics something that can be - that has to be - done in the field, taking samples and running tests on people, generating serums for unknown powers (or disabilities) that work on the specific source first before a generic injector can be synthesised.

A new version of stable mutagen that uses blood from people with activated powers to create an injectable chem that gives you those powers in high enough dosages? I have wanted to see genetics be a more Bioshock type thing, with a dependency on drugs to maintain powers/stability.

[Anticheese]

That'll never be used. It requires cooperation with another department (chemistry or bar), and for the geneticist to actually give a fuck about unlocking a power and sharing it.

[Spy_Guy]

I reduced the cooldown and material costs for injectors a while back.
I guess that didn't do much.

I personally think instability is the best thing that happened to genetics. Means that the bad mutations serve a purpose. The numbers could be tweaked to enable someone to become superman for less bad mutations, though.

Also I think the cloner paywall should be optionally reinstated. All the proceeds go to the research budget. Prices are set by the geneticists.

[Frank_Stein]

That'll never be used. It requires cooperation with another department (chemistry or bar), and for the geneticist to actually give a fuck about unlocking a power and sharing it.

Eh, if you give the geneticists a limited supply of it in the beginning, they can whip up a batch of power juice. Then they use the extra they have to barter with chemistry/bar for more supplies for making more power juice. The problem of isolationist behavior is alleviated.

[Silvercloud29]

Genetics changes that make sense.

You guys talk about wanting geneticists giving out super powers right? How are they going to do that suck in the back corner on the side of medical? Out of touch? I say FUCK THAT, Switch genetics with robotics. Give them a fucking walk in sliding booth someone can talk to genetics with a credits transfer machine. Maybe have a vendor machine that genetics can stock with needles THEY set the prices on for super powers. Just walk by, swipe your card, pay for a injection needle and bam! Genetics modification READY TO GO!

Did someone die! Instead of CLOSING THE MORGUE OFF... Put up a GLASS WALL instead, Add a morgue chute right there in front of new genetics. Let robotics and genetics SEE the dead people. Maybe them easier access to get to. Better alert systems.

Cloning is a problem!?
We talked about this another thread. Give NEGATIVE GENETIC EFFECTS to people that get cloned. Each time they are cloned they STACK UP! But! You can order a fresh copy of your gene template FROM NT that's stored in a GENE BANK for a good amount of Creds (Lets say 3k for a genetics template) So you can be recloned in top PRISTINE condition!

GENETICS CHANGES EVERYONE!

[Silvercloud29]

More GENETICS IDEAS!

Remerge the cloner back into genetics and GIVE THEM A REASON TO CLONE PEOPLE. Idea is that after every 2 - 4 people cloned, a bit of goo comes out of the cloner that's PURE GENETIC MATERIAL. You can put this shit into your little superpower unlocking machines and it gives the terminal a random boon. Like EXTRA RESEARCH CREDITS. Or Auto completing something you are researching or unlocking a random mutation on your current subject automatically. Ready to use in one go!

[TheOnlyRyan]

Cheese I have been vague, because I've learnt that when I post ideas they normally get shot down, the more vague I am the more open to interpretation it is. Trying to lessen the shit I guess. I'll try to be more clear without starting a flame war.

I'll dedicate this post to what I hate and like about Genetics how it stands now.

I hate stability, I think while it serves a purpose, that purpose is redundant. Spy says it's so there's a use for negative abilities. I say there was already a "use" for those abilities. With how old Genetics used to be. You would have to make genes clean, radiating people caused these bad side effects to show up.

It was the Geneticists job to choose the right amount of radiation to clean the damaged gene without disrupting the block he had been trying to alter. I find the old Genetics (You probably know the real name for it) to be far more challenging and interesting than this one.

I say remove stability completely and at the same time rewrite the whole of Genetics, to satisfy the Geneticists and the crew. At the moment the Genetics itself just feels like a bad idea with hundreds of nerfs buffs removals and added features not intended by the original maker which I think was Keelin.

The idea of the job Genetics is meant to be somewhat challenging. Putting A's with T's until the activate gene buttons shows up, making yourself blind so you don't turn into a meat cube is absolutely awful in my opinion.

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As for everyone else talking about moving the cloning pod back into Genetics, I totally agree with having the morgue chute pump straight into Genetics, with a big fat siren noise and flashing lights so that the terrible Geneticists do their job.

Honestly, if a Security officer does a terrible job of arresting and dealing with a man in custody he gets yelled at. Same should be for Geneticists who sit at a computer like a zombie while bodies pile up. Like I see time and time again said in the IRC, you're meant to fulfill the job role.

[TheOnlyRyan]

Something I just thought of which might be worth ranting about.

People say Geneticists shouldn't have effective super powers, hulk for instance is now pretty god damn awful. A power that dates right back to the first Genetics code on any station. A power that "in real life" (The movies and comic books) You can kick butt in.

If someone makes themselves hulk to then go traitor hunt that should be considered powergamey and stupid and possibly against the rules. Depending on how you look at it.

But stopping people who happen to be traitors from giving themselves fun, interesting and powerful powers?
No that's stupid, Genetics is all about experimenting and seeing what works with what.

If your worried about Chemists making stuff to mess with your round, you blow up chemistry.
If your worried about Security being effective and messing with your round, you blow up Security.
If your worried about QM bringing in crates and crates full of weaponry, you blow up QM.

If your worried about Geneticists walking around minding their own business as (an effective - Old style) Hulk who is also impervious to heat. YOU BLOW UP GENETICS!
You don't nerf the living poop out of a jobs fun and content until there's no possible way for that job to be a threat ever again.

[Silvercloud29]

As for everyone else talking about moving the cloning pod back into Genetics, I totally agree with having the morgue chute pump straight into Genetics

I never said pump the bodies right into genetics. It would NOT be fair to robotics if genetics got all the bodies first, and made the morgue COMPLETELY useless.

A better idea be make the bodies in the Morgue more noticeable by adding in window walls so you can SEE in from genetics and robotics. Maybe add more than just a PDA alert. A little siren and a vid screen that flashes a BIG ! in the middle of it when a body comes in.