Resleeving mechanics

[arokha]

I want to code mechanics that let you build and swap into custom-made organic or synthetic bodies. We've sort of got the synthetic part, though it requires a few messy/not-well-coded steps, and isn't complete in the sense that you can't move into a posibrain or circuit brain, nor put any synthetic brain (even an MMI) into an organic body. It'd also be nice to swap organic bodies without brain surgery.

And I'd sort of like the resleeving mechanics to allow you to use a console that has an interface at least somewhat similar to character creation, so you can print custom bodies, then put people in 'em. Like if someone wants to be a taur, since we don't have genetics, you can just use this.

It has some interesting implications in cloning, since it's obviously somewhat related ("putting minds in new bodies"), though I'm not 100% sure how it would tie in. For example, Baystation has 'neural lace' that has to be removed from bodies and put into mindless clones of the person to restore them. You can just put the neural lace into another body and they end up in that one, instead, so that's about halfway there (no designer bodies). We wouldn't go that far, considering most deaths are from glorping, and you wouldn't be able to get that item back.

Basically what I wanna do is make cloning more interesting and easier for people with prosthetics and make sense while not offending anyone and also not make it any harder and also add new features like basically being cloned into new custom bodies but also when you're not even dead. *ramble*

Some ideas:

• Mind backup implant that keeps mental backups on the station, so you don't need to recover an item from a body like on Bay. This could basically replace scanning, so medical could do this at the front desk with an implanter rather than walking all the way back to give scans over and over.
• Something for robotics that's like a 'scan' for synths, where they connect their existing computerbrain to the station's network for backups, so they can be restored.
• Using the 'custom body printer' console you can load templates of crew members, then tweak one or two things, so if someone wants "their current body but as a drider" then you can do that easily. Also allows body double shenanigans, and who doesn't like those.
• Robotics and medical should both be involved in their respective sides of things, synthetic and organic.
• Maybe when you begin printing a body, if it's organic with some prosthetics, the console sends work requests to robotics for the prosthetic parts for you.

[Scree]

some thoughts:

There should be some barrier to medical just printing off a copy of someone else's character and running around as them. Technically it's already bannable to impersonate another player without their explicit permission, but it's best not to give people the chance. Maybe have roundstart scans of bodies "locked" so only that mental imprint can drive them? Obviously custom bodies could be created unlocked.

It might be best it NO_SCAN species need some extra work to be done to print their bodies. NO_SCAN is supposed to be a thing that balances these races and usually they have their own thing (like splitting into nymphs or whatever) and it'd kinda interfere with the "these things are rare in-setting" lore if people can just print off copies of them willynilly. There's usually an IC reason why cloning wouldn't work too.

If someone's got an active backup and someone tries to resleeve them, at the very least their current body should ICly alert them to the attempt if they decline. Not just an OOC textbox, an IC message telling them that an attempt has been made.

[Scree]

There was a big ol' discussion in the discord about that first one. Mostly 'cause we want to avoid potential pyxaron scenarios, or people just pulling some endo-only guy's very personal character out of the records, printing them, then walking up to the most hardcore violent brutaldigestion character they can find and being all "eat me pls"

There were some "what who cares if someone impersonates you" and making comparisons to changelings (lolwut) but Yosh and I ended up coming to the idea that the most graceful solution would be to make it like so:

[2:56 PM] Vorrarkul: @Yoshi ♡ Could you repeat your solution? I missed it in all the hullabaloo.
[2:56 PM] Mazaki: Vorrarkull.
[2:56 PM] Mazaki: His idea is to lock-unlock the sleeve.
[2:56 PM] Mazaki: So if you want people to impersonate you, you unlock it somehow, like through a blood sample.
[2:56 PM] Mazaki: But if it's locked, nobody can use your body.
[2:56 PM] Yoshi ♡: In addition, you'd also have a preference in Char Setup.
[2:56 PM] Yoshi ♡: That determines whether or not it's locked.
[2:56 PM] Scree: tl;dr - a body scan can be created as "locked" to a particular mind, with a pref in character setup.
[2:57 PM] Yoshi ♡: Myabe not a blood sample, but someway to also unlock it IC.
[2:57 PM] Scree: If that pref is enabled, people other than you can't be resleeved into that body.
[2:57 PM] Scree: Even if unlocking is you stepping into the body scanner and getting them to overwrite the scan with an unlocked one.


Basically impersonation is a hot-button thing 'cause.. basically... imagine this.

Endo McGentleprey is on the station, minding their own business.
Doctor McKinkerson prints off a copy of Endo McGentleprey's body, inhabits it, and then goes to the bar as them. Walks up to Brutus Digestsalot and offers themselves as a meal.
One very brutal and gorey and acidic scene later, Doctor McKinkerson gets put back into their own body.
Half an hour later, Endo McGentleprey returns from messing around in the circuits lab and goes to the bar. Brutus Digestsalot is there, with no idea that they're not the same person playing them the first time. Puts an arm around them like "Oh, you're back?"
Endo McGentleprey has no OOC idea what the fuck is going on and now everyone's talking about how they were horribly digestmurdered by Brutus and gets thoroughly squicked out.

Aaaaand then I start pulling my hair out and have to explain to some dipshit why it's bad to use game mechanics to do things that are contrary to someone's preferences.

That latter part is my biggest concern as an admin. And new people to the resleeving lab, the first thing they're gonna wanna do is print themselves a body and put a mind in it, just to play around. And all the bodies on the list will be other people's characters. I don't think the first thing people see in the lab, the most intuitive, obvious thing, should be the option to most likely prefbreak someone :p

[arokha]

If someone's got an active backup and someone tries to resleeve them, at the very least their current body should ICly alert them to the attempt if they decline. Not just an OOC textbox, an IC message telling them that an attempt has been made.

The textbox is intended to be IC, that's why the OOC message at the end is in parenthesis.

You could do this same thing for the years we had Genetics, why wasn't it removed at that point?

[Wickedtemp]

You could argue that since the initial scan did not belong to the doctor, that he is effectively stealing an individual's identity. It isn't their body to inhabit, the scan belongs to somebody else. This could be treated and handled as a breach of privacy since you'd likely learn quite a few things about someone if you were put into their physical body. Lot's of private, personal things. Not to mention literal identity theft, which would already be a crime in the first place... I'm fairly sure that someone who's done this would find themselves being given a warning, or potentially even a temporary Medical ban for that character.

My single concern over this, however, is the fact that resleeving doesn't require anybody to die. Which means the whole argument behind why you can't just default to cloning patients every time no longer holds up. You couldn't rely entirely on cloning because it required that you purposefully neglect a patient and allow them to die in order to go through with cloning. This is obviously concerning behavior for characters who are meant to be doctors. However, with resleeving, death is removed from the equation. It's just a quick "We put your mind into a new, uninjured body, because why the hell should I bother with fixing multiple fractures and internal bleeding and pulling out shrapnel when I can just do this instead?"

And ICly, there's... no reason not to. The patient doesn't die, and it's probably faster -and less painful for the patient- to resleeve instead, as well as being less risky. ICly, there's no reason to not do this every single time a patient comes in with more than mild injuries. Biomass doesn't even matter, not when it can be mass produced as easily as it can be, and even bodies were changed to cost more, it wouldn't change this. Putting in mechanical 'safeguards' to prevent this could potentially end up shafting regular 'resleeving' patients who just ended up digested.

I personally think that putting a note in either Medical's SOP or the Wiki would be the best option -they're going to need a pretty much mandatory update when this is added in anyways, it replaces the most frequently used equipment in Medbay, so just add the note in when that's done. "Resleeving is to be utilized only when no other option exists, such as death, or if the patient is injured in such a way it cannot be fixed by any other means, including medicinal chemicals and surgery. Immediately resorting to resleeving when the patient can be healed with standard medical care is bad practice.", or something along those lines.

I like how this provides Medical with ways to fix patients who had their skin color turned to neon pink and ended up with a taur body they didn't have previously, as a result of DNA-changing artifacts. I also like how this reduces the amount of running back and forth between the lobby and the scanner, which is inconveniently placed at the other end of the department. I like how this can provide a means of obtaining organ donors, should the need ever arise, and I like how this allows bodies to be printed that could be utilized for surgical practice. The above issue is pretty much my sole concern over this, and I believe it'd be a quick and easy fix.

Edit: Just for clarification... The reason why I see this as such a huge issue is because it has the potential to negate the job of Medical entirely. All Chemistry would have to do is make Cryox, Clonex and Ryetalyn. All doctors would have to do is resleeve and keep the pods full of biomass. The only reason I even play SS13 is because I enjoy the Medical system. I only play Medical, for every server I've ever played, with the exception of CM, where I decided to main Military Police for a while, to help cut down on the shitty MP's who used to storm Medbay when I was working in Medical and stun patients for the lulz. And after that, I went back to Medical... It's really the only job I have fun with, and I probably wouldn't bother playing on a server where it's worthless and unused with the exception of cloning and identical mechanics. So... yeah, it's one of those things where it wouldn't be important for other players, but it is for me, because this is the only part of the game I enjoy.

[arokha]

I think I addressed most of the concerns here and in the #development chat that you and others brought up. Just leaving this message so it doesn't look like you were ignored or anything.

For making resleeving more a last resort thing, it does involve memory loss now so there's not really a 'perfect' out. It's basically the same as cloning. Also fixed issues people had about people impersonating them by adding character setup choices to allow you to OOCly lock your body scans so only your mind can be put in them (ingame it's a 'mind compatiblity index' on the body scans).

Also added character setup option to just start with no body scan, for those that are DNC.

[Wickedtemp]

Wew. Guess we'll see how if there's any issues once this has been added in. That was really my only concern, and I honestly really like the concept in general and what it adds.

Also actually using all three cryo cells is a plus.