Ideas of questionable quality

[Frank_Stein]

This is a general  thread dedicated to ideas that you think might be interesting, but would probably be unpopular or would mess with established mechanics.

Occasionally, I wonder what it would be like if the general radio channel wasn't there. Headsets would only work for talking to people in your department, with the exception of Heads of Staff who would have to serve as coordinators over radio chat. Otherwise, all your interdepartmental communication would have to be done in person, or by PDA messaging. I think it would lead to more camaraderie within departments while making chat easier to pay attention to since a lot of the bullshit would be cut out of it.  PDA's would become more important for their department messaging abilities and crisis alerts, and people would probably walk around and use the intercoms more. Traitors would probably have an easier time going unnoticed, which could be a plus or minus depending on how you see it.

I couldn't see this being well received though due to it making the game more frustrating and a lot quieter for most players

[babayetu83]

i think the game would be more amusing if you couldn't see your health. you'd go by how injured you are/how pale you are and your health could only be ascertained by prodocs/health analyzers

[Cirrial]

That could be a pretty neat trait, thinking about it. Something like Analgesia from Caves of Qud, except replacing vague descriptions with absolutely no helpful information.

[medsal15]

I want the paint dispenser to start fixed. With the normal paints you can buy from QM for sale, and free refills. Hack it to choose the color yourself!

[Cirrial]

It should be possible to repair the bee egg generators on the space hive, with a whole bunch of effort and a similar likelihood of fucking up forever like with the paint dispenser.

It then needs to be fed biomass, bee fuzz, honey and eggs to accurately synthesise bee eggs, a process that takes 30 minutes real-time. Washing machines, eat your heart out.

[Cirrial]

Creating a questionable ideas dumping ground thread was a poor decision with a madman like me around!

Here's another, which is admittedly not my idea but I forgot whose it was: Backpacks on martians are worn over the eyes, causing eye blurriness. Satchels are fine.

Additionally, they can spawn with some sort of tentacle coverings for protection in the cold. Humans trying to wear this martian sweater end up wearing a bunch of fabric around their knees, increasing their misstep chance and adding a chance to trip over.

EDIT: oh god I thought double posts merged together I'm so sorry

[The Grim Sleeper]

if the general radio channel wasn't there.

I frequently feel overwhelmed by public chat, so I actually like this.

if you couldn't see your health.

That could be a pretty neat trait,

I like the idea of this as a trait, but would you get points for it? You can overcome the handicap by carrying a health analyser, which are quite easy to find.

I want the paint dispenser to start fixed. With the normal paints you can buy from QM for sale, and free refills. Hack it to choose the color yourself!

I do like to paint my gear in fancy colors. Why was the dispenser disabled originally?


Now for my own terrible idea: Nerf ALL explosions.

• It is too easy (as in at all possible) make an explosive that reaches the explosion size limit, which makes the more powerful things like canister bombs redundant.
  
• It is far too easy to make a bomb that can devastate a section of the ship when it punches a hole that is hard to fix. (like under a machine or a girder)
  
• There are few explosives weak enough to harm, without also wrecking the room they are in. (Well detomax, but that too is debatable) This makes makes bombs impossible to use with any kind of subtlety. (eg. you can't wreck the cloner without also spacing the room)
  
• The size of explosions directly correlates to the amount of Lag they cause when set off.
  

All these issues can be reduced by reducing the blast power of explosions.

[Mageziya]

A time-stop mechanic that, well, "stops time" within a localized radius for everything but one person would be fucking fascinating to work with in terms of gameplay. Ideally, players would be unable to move, pick-up items, or use items, with the time-stopper player being exempt from this. Damage would also be frozen while this occurs, with it able to be accumulated, but unable to have any effects progress. (Example: Hit someone with a c-saber until they have 300 brute. With time frozen, they'd just have 300 brute, and have the wounds needed for blood loss. When time resumes, they suddenly encounter the effects of 300+ brute (OXY damage, effects like heart problems) and start bleeding out.) In addition to all this madness, any projectiles (Bullets shot, item's thrown), would be frozen midair, then resume their trajectories when time resumes. Timers also can't count down, and explosions cannot occur until time resumes.

While this would be extremely fun to play with, I don't think I need to explain why this would make most coders reach for a gun.

also, uh, anime makes this a bit of a problem.

[Cirrial]

^ *scream

Idea: give a health analyser to a bee. You've enlisted them as a medibee/nurse bee. They will bumble after the sick and wounded and administer medicinal honey (which would be honey and any medicinal chemicals they've consumed, so grow those herbs, botany!).
Medicinal honey is not a very good substitute for saline-glucose and spaceacillin, but it'll soothe scrapes and burns a bit, and probably stop blood oozing out so fast. It won't do shit for oxygen deprivation or poisoning, though.

In the event of a mortally wounded patient, a medibee/nurse bee would probably give the patient a reassuring hug as it provides care that is now purely palliative. They're bees, not miracle workers.

[Sundance]

Rework QM to be completely trader based.
There's more to this idea, but I'll leave as it stands.

[Vitatroll]

Clown Cannon: Fires pies for various effects. Effects would be in the same vein as:
- Banana cream pie: Creamscreens and slips the target, and randomly disperses 5 banana peels in a 3x3 area. Or just does the + shape.
- Asspie: Hits target in face with butt which both farts on them and doses them with a good bit of jenkem.
- Strawberry pie: Forces the target into a full clownsuit.
- Clothing pie: Let's say you make a hat pie - firing that pie at a person would remove/destroy whatever hat that person had on, and would dress them in the new clothing. Maybe even force them to wear it for a time? Force the HoS to wear clownshoes!

Okay the idea is somewhat populist, but I'll never make it otherwise.

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I'm actually with medsal Grim on nerfing explosions. Honestly I like explosions, but I can make around 7 omega canbombs in 30 or so minutes. Spend your down time building a delivery system and you get (practically) full station erasure in under 40 and nobody is going to stop you. I think the main problem I have with it is the cold and the lag. If it just killed/gibbed people it'd be a-ok.

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Give all departments their own budget and shipping area. Give all departments some kind of export. Give all departments their own (unless it's console is hacked) import list. Remove QM completely.

[Superlagg]

Armor that works against lasers. Maybe even reflects them, like a shirt made out of a disco ball.

[Cirrial]

Give all departments their own budget and shipping area. Give all departments some kind of export. Give all departments their own (unless it's console is hacked) import list. Remove QM completely.

No, go one step further. Have QM exist purely as a madcap routing system to mediate between departments. Forget the cargo router in belt hell, make QM the router.

[New525]

If it just killed/gibbed people it'd be a-ok.

A neutron bomb.

[medsal15]

I'm actually with medsal on nerfing explosions. Honestly I like explosions, but I can make around 7 omega canbombs in 30 or so minutes. Spend your down time building a delivery system and you get (practically) full station erasure in under 40 and nobody is going to stop you. I think the main problem I have with it is the cold and the lag. If it just killed/gibbed people it'd be a-ok.

I never said a thing about bombs.