Genetics

[Leshana]

Okay! Its time to redo how Genetics is done!
Okay, how should we re-do it?

[Vorrarkul]

Well, my suggestion is counter to everything SS13 represents, but what if it was made more intuitive and less random?

[orbisa]

What should genetics do?
what should it give?
how hard should it be to get it?
how random should it be?

[Aces]

Anything that benefits the crew should still be random. I think it's pretty stupid for you to be able to just know how to do it at the beginning of every shift. That's not research. That's having a cheat sheet. If I could re-do RnD to be more actual research, I would.

Anything purely cosmetic should be solid and obvious, though. I want genetics to allow players to change taur bodies, skin color, hair color, eye color, and even species at will (excluding Vox, Diona, and IPC obviously). When demi ears become a genetic trait rather than a headgear accessory, this too should be part of that.

Telekinetics has got to go. It's bullshit.
X-ray vision has got to go. It's also bullshit.
Telepathy would be nice.
Changing what secondary languages you have would be nice.
Capturing certain creatures to make genetic hybrids with humans would also be very useful. Imagine capturing a xenomorph alive, scanning it, and then being able to tap into hivespeak or survive in space without EVA gear. Or, genetics stolen from Vox let you breathe pure nitrogen. These would have to be random however, and thus carry a risk of killing the subject from repeated radiation exposure until you find what you are looking for. This would also give Xenobiology more uses, as Xenobiology can produce simple_mob aliens.

[Vorrarkul]

Anything that benefits the crew should still be random. I think it's pretty stupid for you to be able to just know how to do it at the beginning of every shift. That's not research. That's having a cheat sheet. If I could re-do RnD to be more actual research, I would.

Anything purely cosmetic should be solid and obvious, though. I want genetics to allow players to change taur bodies, skin color, hair color, eye color, and even species at will (excluding Vox, Diona, and IPC obviously). When demi ears become a genetic trait rather than a headgear accessory, this too should be part of that.

Telekinetics has got to go. It's bullshit.
X-ray vision has got to go. It's also bullshit.
Telepathy would be nice.
Changing what secondary languages you have would be nice.
Capturing certain creatures to make genetic hybrids with humans would also be very useful. Imagine capturing a xenomorph alive, scanning it, and then being able to tap into hivespeak or survive in space without EVA gear. Or, genetics stolen from Vox let you breathe pure nitrogen. These would have to be random however, and thus carry a risk of killing the subject from repeated radiation exposure until you find what you are looking for. This would also give Xenobiology more uses, as Xenobiology can produce simple_mob aliens.

Maybe at round start, genetics is only good for cosmetic changes, and the other features must be unlocked by scanning an appropriate living mob. Scanning a tajaran would allow the geneticist to give people claws and night vision (I've heard they have night vision, is that an actual thing?), along with a lot of what else you propose. Maybe give them the ability to change crew into (some of) these alien mobs once scanned? I say some because I know how much access to xenomorph alteration has been an annoyance before.
Although speaking of which, if xeno DNA stuffs is implemented, I will probably make a request for Rylee to have some of that.

[Arbon]

For a complete overhaul to how genetics works, I still like the old ideas talked about that require the geneticist to scan in bits of DNA from other people and creatures to unlock everything. Rather than taking a single monkey and plinking away until things happen being essentially trapped in a corner gambling all shift, give some reason for them to ask people to step into the genetics lab for scanning and testing. What I saw bounced around before was designing a mini-game in which you have DNA sets and some number of slots to put them in, place the DNA in a certain order and it can produce a change when injected into people. You start out with none to work with, and each person who’s scan data you load in provides a number of random DNA sets. If there’s no one around you can just keep making monkeys to scan in, via cards you could copy over the data from everyone who came in for cloning, and it’s an excuse to ask assistants in to help.

Make some number of DNA sets with names attributed to them, and say one order changes people’s ear accessory to cat, another changes it to mouse ears, another makes wings appear. Research in this would be putting all the DNA sets you have in every possible order to see what the effect produced is. And to put limits on what you can make, limit the availability of the DNA sets you have to acquire.

Let’s say that everything needed for all of the different ear types and language types and cosmetic effects were all easily acquired by some combination of the sets you’d get off of ordinary crewmembers. So being able to change people’s appearance is simply a matter of getting a few people and marking down what all combinations do. Make sure the change is quick for a cosmetic effect and this probably won’t be too tedious.

For intermediate non-cosmetic effects, such as giving a human claws or sergal night-vision, for a handful of minor powers like a Vox’s leaping or temperature resistance, give each player scanned in some random chance to have a rare DNA set. So non-cosmetic changes can only be produced by putting one of these markedly special sets into the combination slot.

And for major powers, Telepathy, pressure resistance, hulk, temperature resistance, toxins immunity, ect. Make those ONLY show up when you scan a simple mob into the machines . Meaning there is a legitimate reason to want monsters for testing purposes.

^ May want to move genetics away from medical and fully into science if live mobs are required, or not if the corpse of something can still work.

…

The problems I can already see is how difficult that might be to code, requiring a completely separate interface than what’s currently available and more than small tweaks to the existing code that handles genetics. At current the system is each person is randomly assigned a code for their DNA with each number in each block being bellow a certain amount, radiation can randomly change any of these blocks, and if any of the blocks are moved over a certain value there is a random chance that the one power assigned to said block at the start of the shift develops. Most of these blocks have a disability in it, 4 of the blocks have a power in it, and the last block in the sequence always controls whether someone is a monkey or not. Changing that one turns a monkey into a human, or a human into a monkey.

Largely incompatible system ideas sadly. Likewise what I just proposed above would require us to find an effect for every possible combination, with as few “nothing happens” results as possible, and make sure we have enough room for every cosmetic change we want available.

…

Something easier to work with for cosmetic changes would be to assign one DNA block for each part of the body, One controls the eyes, another the ears, another the feet, one controls the species, ect. Each has a random value, let’s say bellow 800 or whatever, using ordinary human stats as the default so anything changed is either above or below this benchmark. At the start of the shift each type of cosmetic option available is assigned a random number, and each non-cosmetic option is assigned a random number, with all other numbers being a default that does nothing or returns you to the standard norm.

At the start menu if someone selects size, an ear style, and a taur body, then the DNA block for Taur, Ear, and Size would all align with what their random number was. For this shift “lion taur” among the DNA options are assigned at number 843, and so all lion taurs coming in have 843 in the taur block, and so taking anyone and putting the number in that block to 843 will turn them into a taur. You can figure this out sequentially by just going through all possible numbers one at a time to eventually finish and get full control, or boost your research by asking for a taur to step into the genetics lab for you.

Non-cosmetic changes should work the same way. Let’s say you wanted to give someone a Leaping ability. You could go to the feet block (or leg block I suppose) and check through each number sequentially to see if a power shows up, each number you try dosing up the test subject with more radiation and toxin damage that you have to constantly manage. Or you could find someone who has the Leaping power (say a vox, or a xenomorph) get them in the scanner, check what number is in their leg block for non-cosmetic abilities, and then putting anyone’s DNA from the leg block to that number will result in the ability to leap. Research can still happen with no one around, but gets a massive boost if you hand them certain case studies to learn from.

I much prefer if there’s some way we could lock major powers out of genetics until they have a subject to test from, minor powers showing up fairly readily but the larger things necessitating someone find a wild mob and bring the body to medbay. Not sure how to accomplish this on that second proposal here.

…

On other servers there’s also this aspect in which the person being experimented on gets a secret message that hints or outright states what the power is, even if it’s not an obvious one, meaning its faster to experiment on an actual player who can tell you how they feel after each radiation burst than it is to experiment on a monkey whom you need to pull out and physically look over to see if there are any changes. Which sort of leads me to …

Take away injectors. Or rather scratch that, take away all but clean SE injectors. Allow the machine to produce something that can remove genetic abilities but otherwise require the geneticist to change or enhance people from the machine itself, not just do the work and then carry a backpack full of needles. An upgrade from science that allows for the standard hand-carried injectors might be nice, but the ability to discover hulk, make an injector, and then carry it around quietly waiting until a fight breaks out before you can inject yourself can be rather powerful.

I’m not sure why Telekinetics of X-ray have to go, its only when combined that they become ridiculously overpowered. But if there’s no way to block that combination then I can see the intent.

Telepathy for mind-to-mind communication would be awesome, just copy over the xenomorph’s ability to do this.

Mind reading, something I’ve seen on another server where if you have it active, a HuD shows up over everyone you see that announces their intent. Green, blue, yellow, and red so you can tell if someone is walking around on grab intent the whole time without having to bump into them first.


Note: The complaints about all of the randomness isn’t about having to research all the effects and mark down what the results were, it’s the inaccuracy of the equipment. You want to check what each block does when above a certain number, but you can’t test each of the blocks accurately you just have to button mash until the random numbers hopefully end up on something you want. And even then only have a chance of showing a result so you have to keep button mashing until it drops, then mash some more buttons until it gets back up above that number. That isn’t research it’s just playing a casino and hoping you win.

Keep the randomness for what block has what effect at which number, but don’t let the player’s actions be entirely random. Encourage methodical research.

[orbisa]

We could also use what we already have, like, you know, Xenoflora and Virology.

You have a human with certain genes, heck, it might have a tail, some special ears, and a taur body. Then you get the vox, and it has two new genes... leap and breathing nitrogen (or maybe they are the same gene, since leaping it's crazy as fuck) and then you can apply that gene to the human, or, you could use the human genes to remove the vox's oxigen poison. With the same genes, you could, after guessing wich gene is what, applying the taur body of the human to the vox.

Finally, we would need a way to randomize mutations, wich I guess this is where unstable mutagen comes in. Or you could use the machines.

[Aces]

Unstable mutagen used on humans should cause a large variety of unpredictable (and mostly bad) effects. Like Virology, it could become a game of picking out the effects that don't suck.