Da Dman234
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Posts posted by Da Dman234
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Right, so this is the near finished product. Still very willing to take suggestions.
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Allllright, here we go boys. There are two points of discussion I want to raise here considering this new system is implemented.
With Map Changes Coming, Will SciChem Be Moved To The Front and Given a Desk?
HEY GUYS MEDCHEMIST HERE, WHY THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE AT THIS WEIRD DESK THING ASKING FOR CHEMS IM OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO GIVE THEM?!
Science Chemistry makes more sense to be the universal "Chem Hander Outer" for a bunch of reasons, including:
-They're more than often going to be available.
-They're more likely to have a full chem dispenser.
-MedChemists job description is to make medicine and is under no obligation to hand out meds, and the desk was there in the first place cause there used to be only one source of dispensers
-Come oN PLS YOU WONT EVEN GIVE US SHUTTERS, GET THAT FUCKING CLOWN AWAY FROM ME.
Aaaaand that's my point of view; and the point of view for most MedChem players. Right, now for a more serious question.
How Will The Role of RD Play Out?
I see this role being played in two very polarizing ways. One is really good news, one is really bad.
Firstly, the RD can hereby be more interactive with scientists and their experiments, and also be the link between all three departments by being the one transferring materials. Tech needs Sulf Acid from Tox/Chem? RD's got yo back. Want a Temp Gun for your slimes over in XenoBiology? RD can grab it and deliver it for ya. Unstable Mutagen for XenoBotany? Ayy, RD, my MAN, thanks for getting that for me. Hell, even if you want to do a special project, the RD can help you get the machines together. The Research Director can "Direct". I would personally love seeing that, and it's the type of role that I enjoy playing when I go CMO. Ze director of a good staff.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, everyone that wants to do ANY major project or just feel like power gaming/being a dick will roll RD, because RD has all access to science. They can sort of just get everything he needs from each department, ignore requests, and fuck off into space or something.
So yeah, how would you see the RD role panning out in an update like this? Regardless, we'll probably need ta update SoP.
Right, I'm real hesitant to put SciChem out in front for one real reason. How often they blow themselves up.
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And to the people panicking over access, I thought we were looking at a map change, not a change in access
The idea is that after the map change science would be changed into three different jobs. One for each sub-department
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It seems... disjointed.
I get the idea you are mixing the two into one, but there should still be clearly be two sections to that room, I feel.
Cue bad paint image of my concept:
The dashy lines in between the two could be (plasma)glass, just to kind of give a distinct separation between the two.
Having two desks seemed redundant to me, the only reason I did so is because one faces the lobby and the other science. I actually did try to divide up the room originally, but the plasma glass was annoying, looked ugly splitting it, and just got in the way. I used floor coloring to try and give the room a more divided feel, guess it didn't work. I'll try and work some of what you said in.
Right, so this is a pretty barebones rundown of what I want to do to the front of Science. This would be the Technology Sub-department.Criticisms and opinions are welcomed, as I said this is hardly a finished product.
Also ignore those machines in the hallway, they're a product of my laziness
Here's my modifications to that, which I did in Photoshop, so ignore any stray/missing pipes and weird floor coloration.
That plasma you put up on the north side of the room may face some opposition. I don't really care either way.
I actually like a lot of these changes, thanks for the input. Also, the plasma is only a single piece. I'm not so worried about all the items right now, but I figure since this is a research station for researching plasma, it makes sense that research has a piece.
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Right, so this is a pretty barebones rundown of what I want to do to the front of Science. This would be the Technology Sub-department.
Criticisms and opinions are welcomed, as I said this is hardly a finished product.
Also ignore those machines in the hallway, they're a product of my laziness
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Right, so I guess I should start off by saying I'm an avid science player for those who don't know. In an attempt to tone down science's power a bit I've been heavily reconsidering remapping science (In a major fashion) and dividing it up into multiple jobs (Three to be exact). To make this perfectly clear, I'm no coder, I'll most certainly need the changes to the jobs done by someone who is one, but I'm very willing to go through the tediousness of mapping, should this gain support. I will most likely update this quite frequently with screenshots of progress and take criticisms and comments should most of you think this is a good idea. I'll probably start work on it tomorrow should this thread indicate I should go ahead and do so.
Anyways, my reasoning for the divisions of sub-departments in this manner is located in this thread.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7432&start=10
Sub-Department #1 - Technology Division
Essentially, I'd just combine robotics and RnD and stick it up near the front, as well as granting whatever role is chosen to fill this workstation access to the EXPERIMENTOR. The idea behind this is that the two parts of science that need resources are now centralized (No more resource fights, yay!), as well as the fact that both RnD and Robotics feed into each other quite a bit. The combinations of the two jobs would provide a fairly decent workload as well, but would still allow time for the distribution of upgrades and such.
The idea behind putting them right in the front of science into the prying view of the public is to attempt to curve their power, as this will most likely be the most powerful sub-department.
Sub-Department #2 - Explosives Research Division
Simplest one, put Chemical Research and Toxins together (In two seperate rooms, but still near each other). I don't feel a need to comment on this one, you all know what happens here. They'd be close together to minimalize damage to the science wing as a whole. I might just expand them out to space as there's plenty of room until you hit the maint winding around science.
Sub-Department #3 - Biology
This would stay in the same place. I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do the make this into its' own job again. I had the suggestion of adding Xenobotany as a branch off of it, but a very valid point was made that then regular ol botany would most likely be abandoned. I can't really code anything, so someone would have to do this other than me, but could maybe a point system be added like in mining? You get X points for sending X food to the chef? I'm unsure, and would like love some input on this subject and suggested changes.
The Outpost isn't something I'm planning on touching unless you all really want me to, as of now it'd be something left as is.
Discuss, criticize, comment.
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That's extremely complicated, especially as there are no implants that require an external power source. I'd have no framework for that.
Logically, as it's an implant, it should be lost when a Drask is cloned, and require re-implanting. However, I'm worried we'll run into concerns of "too snowflakey" with that.
You could always make them unclonable (Defibs stronk), like quite a few of the other species we have. Or you could also make it a build-able implant via science and or leave a box of spares in medbay storage.
Also, the organ damage seems like a cool idea if you keep it at a low tick rate.
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I think it makes a lot of sense for them to live sub-surface. Perhaps their planet is a big rocky iceball, and the surface has a very thin atmosphere but subsurface ice cavities are full of more substantial gas. Perhaps a chemotrophic food chain that turns volcanic output into oxygen
One thing the Drask remind me of are of recorded lifeforms in the Marianas Trench - a deep-sea formation where visible sunlight is almost null, and temperatures average around 1 to 4 degrees celsius.
In regards to their abilities, I suppose would make sense that they'd have darksight due to eyes adapted for life beneath the surface. One idea to balance this would be to give it a rational extreme: As a result of having more sensitive photoreceptors, blinding effects such as flashes and flashbangs could take much longer to wear off, or perhaps inflict stamina damage which would eventually stun them with repeated blinding.
As for how they'd adapt to life in a lukewarm, surface-level environment, my (very superficial) understanding of deep-sea life is that their bodily chemical functions would accelerate dramatically, leaving them drained and exhausted.
This is, pretty much, an idea ripped from the Resistance games, but if we're trying to avoid another Vox or Plasmamen approach of needing specialized internals, the Drask could be given some sort of regulator unit - like a pacemaker or a DBS system to regulate their bodily functions for the station's environment.
I absolutely LOVE this idea. Maybe instead of being so weak to burn you could make said device EMPable for some serious downsides.
This makes an already unique race even more so, and moves away from the idea of species that require internals to function (which I think we already have enough of).
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If you have a problem with lube in spray-bottles, you're going to have to directly nerf lube instead of the spray-bottle.
I can tell you as soon as you nerf the spray bottle people are going to begin placing lube in regular bottles, and then just splashing them on the floor for the same effect.
normal bottle does not have 200 units in it
Take two beakers, set transfer to 5 units, transfer 5 units to second beaker, repeat.
If you have a large beaker that's full, that's still 20 tiles covered in a short amount of time.
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If you have a problem with lube in spray-bottles, you're going to have to directly nerf lube instead of the spray-bottle.
I can tell you as soon as you nerf the spray bottle people are going to begin placing lube in regular bottles, and then just splashing them on the floor for the same effect.
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I feel the need to add/correct a bit of information here though. First that spray-bottles only hold 250 units, they also already have a few "blacklisted" chems (mainly acids).
I'm feeling the need to correct your addition/correction. They do NOT have blacklisted chems. They did at one point, and then it was reverted a bit afterwords. All chems can be placed into the crappy little plastic bottles, which frankly makes about as much sense as the mime singing opera in the AI core (ie: none) when you consider CLF3 is practically just liquid fire.
True enough, my meaning was that Acids placed in chem bottles and sprayed do not actually behave as acids (They do absolutely nothing). I heard that this is because of the new system as to how regents are applied now though, you're one of our coders so I'm willing to bet you're a lot more knowledgeable about this than me, but I know for a fact acids sprayed from a bottle don't work (Unless this was a very recent change).
Also, I completely agree with you as for the CLF3. Fire mixes in bottles should really not be a thing
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That.. doesn't seem right at all. What the heck.
Maybe it's supposed to be 15u (5u per space) and it was just never fixed?
As far as I know that's what was intended for it. It's just that fire-mixes react with the O2 in the air, and lube is just, well... strong.
I doubt it was meant to be used as a weapon in the first place though.
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Wait, so the three-tile spray mode is only consuming 5u TOTAL while the one-tile spray consumes 10u?
Indeed
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I'm going to avoid putting my two cents in as I pretty much exclusively play science.
I feel the need to add/correct a bit of information here though. First that spray-bottles only hold 250 units, they also already have a few "blacklisted" chems (mainly acids).
Spray-bottles have two toggle-able modes, the first being sprays of 5 units (The one that covers 3 tiles, which amounts to around 1.5 regents per tile) and the other being 10 units covering one tile. In general you'll only see people using the 5 units spray, for as far as I know there is no benefit to using the 10 unit setting.
... You're also completely right about them invalidating flamethrowers
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To be honest, I think whether or not they get NV should be determined on exactly how weak they are to burn damage, as that is a pretty significant nerf.
I"m also going to add that being able to see people in the dark without them seeing you is a HUGE advantage.
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Pls no more races.
We have enough.
Yeah and many of them are human reskins with one or two stats changed.
If we have too many races, I think this should replace Skrell. All they have is a language, the ability to breath underwater (perfect for fighting off aquatic foes IN SPACE), and the inability to wear some headgear.
... BLASPHEMY.
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The limit on their regeneration is they have to be able to breathe, and it only increments with every breath (about every 2-3 seconds). Also, at the moment, they can't regenerate toxin or clone damage (I didn't add anything special to regen oxy damage, since that regens if you can breathe anyway). Organ damage and broken bones still require surgery.
I'll look into coding the touch chems thing, but first I want to playtest them as they are to see how they balance.
For some reason I thought they were boneless... My mistake. I still have concerns about the regen, but you bring up a very valid point in that they need to breath. In an earlier comment you stated they can regen 3 brute/burn every breath, does that mean both 3 brute and burn, or just 3 total split between the two? If it's the former I'm somewhat uncomfortable with anything being able to regen 120 damage in around a minute.
Another question I have is how they deal with infections from untreated wounds. Do they wounds close themselves up to the point where you don't see them when examining, or does it just eliminate the damage done and leave them, requiring you to go to medbay? Admittedly I'm unsure as to how the infection system works as a whole, but this is something I'm curious about as well.
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My only concern here, balance-wise, is with their regeneration ability. What's to stop them from going atmos tech every round, and then becoming an unstoppable, crazed, killing machine wielding a fire axe that never needs to go to medbay? Maybe only allowing it to heal a certain % of your current damage would be a good fix? I'm unsure honestly. Other than that though I really like this idea. It seems you put a lot of work into this and it looks to be an pretty unique race, which I think is something we really need.
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PAI controlled bots are also unable to be EMPd, which makes no sense IMO.
I was EMP'd once while in a securitron which ejected me and disabled communications for two minutes
My character has robotic limbs, and was being dragged by an ED unit. Another scientist set off an EMP that destroyed my arms, but didn't effect the ED unit in any way. It was just last round this happened as well
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PAI controlled bots are also unable to be EMPd, which makes no sense IMO.
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A lot of traitor-based rounds end pretty quietly, because they'll just simply complete their objectives and then go into hiding until the crew shift or whatever else happens.
But what if 'Die a glorious death' and 'Escape the station' were nixed altogether, and instead, whenever all objectives are fulfilled, they get new ones. They've already won at this point, but they could now WIN EVEN HARDER.
I think it would make rounds much more interesting.
You can already do this by emagging a fax machine and contacting the syndicate. A simple solution to this would be to add a fax machine to the library. Maybe make it a "disconnected" one that doesn't connect to CC or the heads offices, but can serve as a secret link to the syndicate? I dunno, either way there is already a way to get more objectives though.
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If the scientist doing research is going to be unable to access the Chemical lab, there should be a Sulphuric Acid dispenser somewhere accessible by the researchers, at least on the lowpop rounds where there are no sci-chemists or med-chemists.
Way back when, when there wasn't a chem section to science and Paradise had many less players RnD operated without easy access to Sulf Acid more than fine. Not to mention now with double the chem machines it'd be much easier to get some. If there isn't an RD with access or Chemists willing to take requests just ask the AI to open up. It's a fairly minor problem IMO, sort of a two steps forward one back sort of deal.
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I think breaking scientist back up into multiple jobs would severely restrict and nerf the power of any individual scientist without nerfing the department as a whole.
This, this so much.
Right, out of all I've heard from everyone in and out of this thread this seems to be the consensus as to what the best option is. My idea for this is to break science up into 3 different sub-departments that are each manned by two (insert new job title here) "scientists".
Sub-Department #1 - Biology
Basically the new Xenobiologists. Since Xenobio is usually only manned by one person doing work and isn't that robust an option for antags I'm thinking maybe Xenobotany makes a comeback for this role, since that provides additional things to work on and isn't terribly strong itself. A locker with a few bottles of Plasma and Radium would be provided. They would only have access to these two stations, and possibly the outpost for which to test slime core grenades. (More on outpost changes further down) You could also quite honestly change this back into a single role, as it was before, but I'm not quite sure what the reasoning was for removing the job in the first place, or if has been rectified.
Sub-Department #2 - Explosives Research
Simplest one to explain. They test bombs. Give them Toxins and Chem Lab access, as well as outpost access. Possibly make the area more secure/easily lockdown-able by the AI and such, or move the lab itself into plain view.
Sub-Department #3 - Technology
Now, this is probably the most interesting change I have in mind. The idea is to merge robotics and the current RnD lab, to form a large center where most research can be conducted. This will probably end up the most powerful department, but that is offset by the fact that it's near the front and easily under the most scrutiny from the prying eyes of the public. It allows for whoever is working RnD to have something to do after research/upgrades are complete, stops fights over resources, and centralizes arguably the strongest parts of science all in the front near the hallway. Members of this role would have access to Robotics, RnD, and the Experimentor. An alternative to this is the merge RnD with a role I've heard mentioned a few times, which is one dedicated to augmentations, and leave Robotics as a standalone.
Research Station Changes
Redo it. The entire point of it was for Xenoarc and it's completely unneeded in its' current form. Either remove it or convert it into a place to test bombs under certain pressures or atmosphere. An actual testing range with atmosphere and test subjects (where you're not in danger of damaging the main station) is a much needed addition to chemical research. If antag use isn't an intended function of the station then remove both the dorms and maint/electrical portions. Make it a barebones station for exclusively testing.
Feel free to critique/change anything you take issue with, this is just a rough idea on my part.
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Chem Synthesizer
An item that spawns either a small handheld or portable dispenser that is able to mix and dispense pills in a limited fashion (Think the bar on chem dispensers, only it doesn't regenerate). The idea is that this should be a cheap alternative to people who don't have access to chem machines and want to make their own chems.
Right, so the main point of this item is to help take away some of the power of the science department without directly nerfing it. Admittedly this is a pretty minor fix for the much needed nerfing that science needs,(and more is certainly needed), but hear me out. I'd much rather things like this come about or be removed than science become based on a boring RNG machine that has potential to maim and disable you if you press the wrong button at its' worst, and at its' best requires you to mindlessly press a button repeatedly.
To make this perfectly clear, I am by no means defending the power of science in its' current state. Simply asking you hear out/help brainstorm new ideas for balancing that don't involve the Experimentor
Feel free to discuss other Science related suggestions below
Science
in Public Archives
Posted
Don't worry, there was a table of useless crap, but since you pointed out it's hard to see I went ahead and changed that area around a small bit.
http://prntscr.com/av5xic
Also, my plans now are to move the Server Room opposite to the PDA messaging console room, Bump up the Experimentor, Remodel the RD's office, and then push together Chem mixing, Toxins, and Toxins Storage. I'm still unsure what to do with Xenobio.
As of right now I'm only doing mapping changes, as I said someone else will have to code whatever else in. Right now my plan is to give SciChem and window in the main science hallway, away from public access. Also, you're idea of limiting TTVs intrigues me, I"m thinking of reducing the number to around 3 or 4, would that do? As it stands I'd like for SciChem and Toxins to be combined into one science job.
Also, regarding the RD, he's going to retain access to everything. This would put him at the strength of a regular scientist now a days should these changes go through, although that's another discussion for another day.