Re-balance genetics

[Arbon]

A discussion that keeps popping up, what is the legality of genetic powers from the genetics lab and to what degree should we see people using them? On one extreme we have everyone and the assistant’s grandmother fully upgraded with X-ray, TK gene, and Thermal resistance. Able to see through every wall and make objects float around or even open doors from the hidden safety of just behind an iron wall.

Able to spy from across the screen with no way to hide from it, and throw lockers and toolboxes and even swords to kill someone from a safe distance. And then on the other hand we have no one ever using genetics powers for any reason, and the moment someone does walk out with a glowing head or an eerie shimmer in their eyes both the individual and the geneticist are arrested for contraband.

Normally we aren’t anywhere near these two extremes of imbalance, either overwhelmingly powerful or completely useless, NORMALLY we don’t have a geneticist at all because there just isn’t a point to them, and no one has any genemodded powers in-game. Every now and then someone new will play geneticist, learn all of the different powers, and then hand them out either like candy to any squeak who asks, or to a handful of people they trust, or sometimes just outright soliciting powers to people who could benefit from them most.

Hulk to each of the heads, X-ray for security, thermals for anyone who does spacewalking like the minors. But then they get shouted at. Being helpful gets them in trouble (or being dangerous gets them in trouble as they take it too far) and then they stop playing geneticist, and then no one see’s any genemods for another month or so until some new person shows up wanting to see all the toys and be helpful. Just for this process to start all over again.

I’m aware from some admins that this is already on the agenda, notably Nightwing had a few ideas for how to go about changing things, but now its time for an actual discussion thread to get more ideas and more people talking in here. The problem is that we want genetics to be useful. We don’t want security, HoS, captain and HoP, or the general crew all being a dick to the geneticist player. We don’t want a CMO telling the geneticist to delete every bit of data they found and remove all their luck earned work, as I’ve seen happen before.

We don’t want security rushing in to tell a geneticist that they aren’t allowed to do their job, and should never mess with or hand out any of the toys that are expressly their entire purpose to the station. Yes there is also cloning, but the rest of the medical staff, including the therapist, should all know how to press the clone button and toss someone into a cryo tube without spilling blood across the floor. The geneticist should handle genetics, and if they aren’t allowed to do so they might as well be a nurse.

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But the counter-argument I keep seeing, thermals is EVA access, don’t go handing it to assistants … except its not. It should be, but it only really prevents burn damage, which means under normal conditions its only viable purpose is to prolong digestion. It might be usable in fighting fires, one would logically think, but we so rarely have genetic powers at all and so rarely get fires, that I’ve never seen this tested. I hope it works. It should work. It would be awesome for fire fighting.

TK meanwhile is a downright weapon, able to pick people off from a distance and steal over countertops, even kill people without leaving a trace of evidence.

X-ray is an invasion of privacy and would be far too effective in finding run-aways and stamping out crime, which is a legitimate concern.

And worse TK and X-ray together makes you an ultimate stealth assassin who can beat people to death from the other side of a wall, all without leaving any evidence and never revealing yourself.

Hulk speaks for itself, and other than the idea that you should blindly murder a hulked person even if they are calmly coming in to security or medbay asking to be unhulked, it is NOTHING BUT a weapon and should be treated as a deadly weapon, seeing as its such amazing protection with the stun immunity and it can break through just about any form of confinement. I personally want to test spider webs and gift-wrapping because I suspect a hulk can’t break out of those, but that would require a test subject. And spiders. Which we don’t normally have since Chang’s mysterious disappearance.

Thermal resistance is the only power that can’t be actively harmful, and even then I don’t think its intentional, if thermal resistance offered full EVA capabilities while naked and wearing a gas mask and air tank then it still might offer dangerous possibilities.

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From what I can see, all of the ways to abuse genetic powers are exactly the same ways you can abuse any other tool. Beyond hulk, you can use gloves to avoid fingerprints, you can put on a gas mask to not reveal yourself, you can beat people to death with a toolbox found at arrivals or inject them with sneakier things by just filling a cup with some hard liquor and force-feeding it to them. Something I’ve seen a botanist do, effortlessly down a security officer who wielded a butcher’s knife by just throwing cups at his apparently open mouth until he fell asleep. Its not like the capacity to be a dick will suddenly go away just because the extra powers from genetics aren’t available, or are too heavily restricted.

Aaaaat the same time you really don’t want to encourage people to be a dick by making it too easy, or making it the logical option. See Hulk again, no one needs 50 brute damage with an unarmed attack unless they are going on an away mission and want a diverse team of specialists. Its not like the people who don’t want genetic powers being easy to access are talking out of their ass, this is a valid point and relates to just how overpowered each of these four incredible super-powers are.

Those playing geneticist, do you really want to spend somewhere between 30 minutes to 6 hours pressing a button over and over again and hoping that the random number generator will be in your favor, only to achieve something that no one will ever use, no one will ever benefit from, and if you use it yourself or give it to your friends you can be arrested for contraband and then fired from your work? Standard bay had a solution to the problem of genetics being either too overpowered or not used at all. They just removed genetics. Entirely. Leaving an empty, destroyed room in it’s place as a message to the other jobs out there.

I really don’t want this to be the solution we go with, and seeing how many people have messing with genetics in their backstory removing it would be a major change to the entire lore. Make it harder to justify players who want to sign in as a different race, or a different sex. Would be a bit less diversity and imagination, even if just a tiny bit.

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Solutions:

Genetics needs to be USEFUL somehow, and preferably useful to every player or some other department. It needs to be codified and clear, we don’t want the CMO giving one set of orders and the RD giving another. And we don’t want every single option being a game ending super-power that can turn an assistant into a godlike assassin. Last of all, we want more diversity than just 4 things that help people and 15 things that involve being a dick to whoever you inject.

1: Remove genetics from medical entirely, put it in research instead.
Make genetics research a pure science station with it’s own surgery table and chemistry sets to apply medical treatment to any unmonkeys. Just enough to cure broken bones or genetic damage, no cryo tubes and no way to replace medical proper. Think of the equivalent of robotics having it’s own surgery table for the removal of brains and xenoarch having its own chemistry machine for gathering acid. Set genetic research under the sole direction of the research director and leave medical out of it entirely. Unlike other stations our medical have to be able to clone people at any time, as it’s the most common form of injury, and we have no reason to tell nurses and therapists that clones don’t exist. Remove ‘cloning patients’ from a genetisist’s job list, make their job only to gather the genetic powers for research and testing. Stop with the confusion of who has what control with split directions from CMO and RD. Potentially give CMO genetics access into science? Not sure. Just make sure medical also has the capability to repair genetic damage.

2: More diverse genetic powers:
Make more powers, and make the powers significantly weaker. Powers of convenience rather than powers of domination. Make hunger tick down at a slower rate, mild increases and decreases to temperature tolerance on par with what standard races come equipt with, that stacks with existing temperature tolerance. Not outright immune to temperature, but less vulnerable or more resistant. Better nightvision. Total nightvision. Claws, teeth, or fists on a species that does not normally have those, changing their unarmed damage type and changing their hand type, to get a human with claws who can’t wear gloves, or an tajaran with a shark jaw who chomps instead of slashes. Able to move at speeds as if they were wearing shoes, despite being barefoot. Skin pouches, so they can still have pockets to put things in even when naked, count as if wearing clothing despite having nothing in the clothing or jacket slot. Telescopic vision, able to see across the map a few extra tiles as if wielding a sniper rifle. Small things, interesting things, stuff that makes your life easier but doesn’t give you complete and total domination in some area of expertise with no real counter. Come up with some on your own please, this thread is the perfect place for it.

3: Remove the Random Number Generator element.
No matter what is done to balance the genetic powers and the station hierarchy, that won’t change the fact genetics is downright punishing to play, and for no good reason. It’s an excursive in frustration specifically designed to go against roleplay, preventing you from meeting people unless you have some outside reason to call them into your office, and preventing you from chatting with them because you’d have to take your hands off the console to talk. These are not good features for a roleplay server. Even two geneticists working together are just silently going about the motions as each one cuts the workload of the other in half. Theoretically. The RNG is designed to screw with people who think they found the right block, as there are several layers of random numbers in play here. So! Instead of forcing the geneticist to sit quietly and press a button over and over, take advantage of the fact this station’s lore involves a diverse and unusual cast of crewmembers in which even those seemingly human have unusual capabilities and mixed DNA.

Have the way you gather genetic powers involve gathering other players and scanning in their genetic data, then pressing a button to process that data and get either powers or disabilities out of it. Either automatically if you want to be nice, or part of some mini-game if you want to be cruel. The more options the better. Make unique unmonkeys a viable source for genetic information, make each person’s scan data work only once, and encourage testing on assistants and others while making it a thing that only takes a few minutes of someone’s time. If you have a small crew you get less work done and the work is a bit harder making the unmonkeys. If you have a large crew then the more people donating their data the better the research goes along. Maybe coordinate with medical to allow scan data from their scanners to count toward the DNA genetics has access to if they link the servers, and vice-versa with genetic’s scan data acting as a backup in case medbay scan data is compromised. Get people talking to each other, get the geneticist to be someone who scours the halls asking for subjects to scan in. Make it something engaging to play, as opposed to sitting quietly and waiting for the job to be over.

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If anyone has any counter-point or their own ideas, even better if anyone has something for a minor super-power or a power that’s worth adding to the eventual list, please speak up now.

[Aces]

Keeping in mind that Baystation's new code probably changes genetics...

Firstly, Security has no right to be telling you that you can't distribute Genetic powers. However security does have the right to incriminate you if those powers get abused. Hulk being the obvious exception. Anyone in security trying to arrest geneticists who haven't done anything wrong and haven't helped someone commit a crime, those officers should be chucked out an airlock with the same officers who get pissed off any time our goo girl roboticist makes 30 mechs and packs them into departures.

Now that being said I'd like to look into adding changes to your taur body to genetics. Certain alterations should change your taur form.

But honestly, genetics is, and should remain, a random numbers game. It forces you to actually study every shift what blocks do what. Otherwise you learn the pattern once and never have to do science again. Research and Development is so boring because of that.

Furthermore, no, I'm not removing genetics from medbay. If you get messed up and mutated by radiation sickness, you want a geneticist to fix you. If the geneticist isn't a doctor, then they aren't obligated to help you.

[Arbon]

From what I've seen and keep hearing, the modern baystation code removes genetics entirely, leaving an empty room in it's place.

Hmm, randomization to keep genetics from being like most other jobs, an effort in rote memorization and then following the steps, is a decent idea. The issue with its current implementation is that it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to the entire shift and not even find one power, all of which requires you sitting there pressing the same button over and over again. And it isn't even like trying to gamble on a slot machine because you don't have much of a pay-off. People actually do research and development, even if that shouldn't count too much seeing as some can finish up science in the first 10 minutes and then have time to scene or play. But there aren't many people who do genetics at all. Pressing a single button, over and over, hoping, praying, that THIS TIME pressing that button will get the number you want, isn't a very engaging way to keep research from being boring.

In regards to security, geneticists handing out powers on a whim used to be a serious problem at some point in the past, so there is a note in the office stating that genetic powers are contraband and you will be arrested if seen with any of them outside of medical. The large argument last night came up over seeing a geneticist do genetics work and end up with several people having TK or X-ray or thermals (apparently only allowed to pick two, can't have three) and then some security officers going on a spree demanding to know where the powers came from, who handed it out, and that people have them removed at once.

During the argument, that paper in genetics informally listing all powers as being considered contraband is a strong bit of evidence indicating they are correct.

[Kayleen]

The genetics room was physically removed. The code's still there, and it was actually a fairly simple matter for me to rebuild the room.

... Just realized though, the access is likely broken.

[Arbon]

Hmmm, and there might have been changes to what it is and how it works in updates that Virgo was never part of, before it had been removed. Pleased to hear that re-adding is simple at least.

[Aces]

In regards to security, geneticists handing out powers on a whim used to be a serious problem at some point in the past, so there is a note in the office stating that genetic powers are contraband and you will be arrested if seen with any of them outside of medical. The large argument last night came up over seeing a geneticist do genetics work and end up with several people having TK or X-ray or thermals (apparently only allowed to pick two, can't have three) and then some security officers going on a spree demanding to know where the powers came from, who handed it out, and that people have them removed at once.

During the argument, that paper in genetics informally listing all powers as being considered contraband is a strong bit of evidence indicating they are correct.

I thought the paper said that they can be considered contraband if abused in the same way a Multitool can be abused.

Well if new bay removes genetics I just won't add it back in unless we find other uses for it such as changing taur bodies.

[Arbon]

That is a very strange argument. If genetics can’t be science only and removed from medical because we need a geneticist to cure genetic damage (we don’t, all we really /need/ them for is cure anyone that got turned into a monkey, which doesn’t happen without genetics doing it anyway) then removing it completely, or just not adding it back in, has the same problem. Genetics doesn’t have to cure genetic damage if there is no geneticist job title anymore.

If you can do medical and cure genetic damage without expressly asking the geneticist to do it, which you can by just using chemistry, the same place a geneticist goes to cure the damage they cause through radiation, then medical is perfectly fine operating on its own with genetics being delegated entirely into the research sector.

If genetics is never added back in, then is a very disappointing loss, even if it is the original Baystation’s solution to the arguments and problems presented above.

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In regards to the letter:

To whom it may concern,

Due to repeated abuses of genetic powers, anyone beside the geneticist caught with genetic powers without the CMO's or RD's consent will be considered in possession of contraband and be arrested by security. If your powers (such as telekinetics) interfere with making an arrest, Security might utilize lethal force, because TK is arguably a deadly weapon that threatens their officers. Reminder that Security already has a KILL ON SIGHT policy for any individuals possessing the Hulk gene outside of Medbay as well. Don't come crying to me if you get robusted because you decided to be a dumbass with superpowers.

I'm not bailing you idiots out anymore. The Head of Security has had enough of this.

Sincerely,
The Chief Medical Officer

It specifies “Without RD or CMO’s consent” because they are the ones who have dual control over genetic powers, which only runs into problems when the RD says yes but the CMO says no, and neither are talking with each other. And it specifically points out “IF your powers interfere with making an arrest” meaning its only contraband if you use it as such, same as any tool-box if you abuse having it then we are going to take it away. The way its written its only supposed to apply to people being dumb with powers, not for just having powers outside medbay.

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For genetics having a use, the more suggestions the better, swapping gender/color/body-type ect and using it to correct physical appearance would be a nice cosmetic one.

[Scree]

The way it's done now ICly shouldn't be taken as an argument for why it should be done that way in future purely on the basis that that's the way it works at present. Especially when discussing changes.

Assigning taurbodies/colours to a DNA-block along with skintone, haircolour, and so forth would be great, AND AS AN ADDED BONUS if I read things correctly, that'll fix the taur-cloning issue too since (unless I'm mistaken) the cloning pod spawns a new mob with your name and DNA. (hence why things like flavortext don't get restored, it ONLY saves those variables)

The big problem with genetics has always been things like a few shitters ruining it for everyone else, usually by throwing people's drinks around the bar with TK 'cause BOY HOWDY I DUNNO WHAT IT IS THAT GIVES PEOPLE THE URGE WHEN THEY FIRST GET TK TO TRY IT OUT BY THROWING SHIT AROUND IN THE MOST POPULATED PART OF THE STATION.

[warbrand2]

could put a block on super powers or give the server a modified list of them so it would be less grief inducing and could also have IC rules stating genetics must inform the captain and medical crew (if not captain security) of what supper powers have been researched on the station.


Though really think the station should have a custom power list instead of the standard bay ones... would give a more varried game though the standard ones should stay for admin use only or the most part (minor ones should stay)

I haven't read up on genetics in ss13 so I am talking out my ass here but think the powers for v.o.r.e should be things like this.

MINOR

Heat resistant: heat based damage halved?
acid resistant: (halves damage from digestion... if possible)
scales (lizard and nagas have): reduced blunt damage
fur: cold resistance (some creatures have... if used on human turns skin color into hair color)


moderate
C02/o2 lungs: no longer breath as longs convert air internally (idea based on a scp thing)
compact stomach: makes it so no one can tell you have prey or see their movements
breast enhancement: gives the big breasts info from breast vore
endo stomach: if set stomach to digest will not actually harm prey, though they will get messages from pain it will heal at same rate.


ADVANCED

hungry: hunger is unending but do not have ill effects (Allways in the red for hunger but do not have slow down or other negatives... mostly for keegan)
.... yeah no clue for these.

[Vorrarkul]

To explain how our digestion works: it gives you a bit of burn and brute damage every tick. So anything that reduces those will hamper digestion too. I believe that the power Warmth already removes all temperature stuff, and therefore slows digestion by getting rid of half the damage. But don't quote me on that, I haven't tried it.