12-04-2015, 05:33 AM
The semi-new pathology computer is great, but pathology remains woefully underused for nefarious (and legitimate, for that matter) purposes. Here's a few suggestions to make the life of a (traitor) pathologist easier.
[*] Add an optional pathology module for health scanners. Currently there's just one for reagents, which means there's not a lot of point to the separation other than a bit of hassle. The pathology module would give you more detailed information about diseases, e.g. what stage it is at (out of how many), the name of the strain, etc.
[*] Allow Medical Doctor traitors to order Totally Unsafe pathology samples that always includes at least one high tier symptom (4 or 5). Basically the pathology equivalent of poison bottles. This not only speeds things up but also makes pathology traitoring much more reliable, as currently you're at the mercy of round start RNG with samples and symptom codes.
[*] Restrict pathology access to Medical Doctors and higher only. That means no Geneticists or Roboticists. Currently Geneticists and Roboticists pretty much have all access Medical Doctors have non-traitor wise, making Med Docs effectively the Staff Assistants of Medbay. Pathology (and possibly surgery too) should be barred to non-Med Docs for differentiation and a bit more privacy for would-be traitors.
[*] Splicing should be infallible if you do it properly. I'm fine with samples mutating after a splice but they should never be lost if done properly, you already lose it if you fuck up; you shouldn't lose it if you don't. It's not like manipulation where it's impossible to fuck up so a random chance to fail is a reasonable risk. Nothing's more annoying that splicing your magnum opus that one final time just to have it go poof for no reason.
[*] Not really a QOL change but more beneficial symptoms! As it is there's like two symptoms that are undeniably beneficial (with a few neutral and potentially beneficial ones), which gives non-traitors almost no reason at all to do pathology apart from experimenting in preparation for future traitor rounds.
[*] Wearing what's in the biohazard closets should actually protect you from infection. As far as I can tell you not only need a full biosuit but also internals with a gas mask, and the closets lack gas masks (normal internal masks don't seem to work). In fact I'm not even sure if there's a way to guarantee protection against infection (since I usually test things by infecting myself: you don't really get a lot of information by simply infecting monkeys).
[*] Again not a QOL change but a bug fix. There's currently zero reason to grow pathogens in petri dishes because you can simply put a vial of 0.1 units of pathogen in the manipulator and eject it to magically turn it into 2 units. Actually I rather like this because pathology is already rather slow, being able to skip pathogen growing speeds things up considerably; but it's obviously not intended.
[*] Add an optional pathology module for health scanners. Currently there's just one for reagents, which means there's not a lot of point to the separation other than a bit of hassle. The pathology module would give you more detailed information about diseases, e.g. what stage it is at (out of how many), the name of the strain, etc.
[*] Allow Medical Doctor traitors to order Totally Unsafe pathology samples that always includes at least one high tier symptom (4 or 5). Basically the pathology equivalent of poison bottles. This not only speeds things up but also makes pathology traitoring much more reliable, as currently you're at the mercy of round start RNG with samples and symptom codes.
[*] Restrict pathology access to Medical Doctors and higher only. That means no Geneticists or Roboticists. Currently Geneticists and Roboticists pretty much have all access Medical Doctors have non-traitor wise, making Med Docs effectively the Staff Assistants of Medbay. Pathology (and possibly surgery too) should be barred to non-Med Docs for differentiation and a bit more privacy for would-be traitors.
[*] Splicing should be infallible if you do it properly. I'm fine with samples mutating after a splice but they should never be lost if done properly, you already lose it if you fuck up; you shouldn't lose it if you don't. It's not like manipulation where it's impossible to fuck up so a random chance to fail is a reasonable risk. Nothing's more annoying that splicing your magnum opus that one final time just to have it go poof for no reason.
[*] Not really a QOL change but more beneficial symptoms! As it is there's like two symptoms that are undeniably beneficial (with a few neutral and potentially beneficial ones), which gives non-traitors almost no reason at all to do pathology apart from experimenting in preparation for future traitor rounds.
[*] Wearing what's in the biohazard closets should actually protect you from infection. As far as I can tell you not only need a full biosuit but also internals with a gas mask, and the closets lack gas masks (normal internal masks don't seem to work). In fact I'm not even sure if there's a way to guarantee protection against infection (since I usually test things by infecting myself: you don't really get a lot of information by simply infecting monkeys).
[*] Again not a QOL change but a bug fix. There's currently zero reason to grow pathogens in petri dishes because you can simply put a vial of 0.1 units of pathogen in the manipulator and eject it to magically turn it into 2 units. Actually I rather like this because pathology is already rather slow, being able to skip pathogen growing speeds things up considerably; but it's obviously not intended.