Changes to Grey Telepathy

[DevilDaBeast]

 

While I enjoy playing as a Grey, I find their telepathic ability to be quite lackluster, and even a nuisance to use, as it's difficult for people to see the message you sent, meaning people sometimes miss it entirely, only allows you to speak to one person, and it takes a long time to find the character you're trying to send a message in the Project Mind list. It's a very useless and aesthetic skill that attracted me into purchasing the race in the first place, but left me sorely disappointed. What I wish for is for Greys to have their own seperate telepathic ability, unique from the Genetics variance and undiscoverable by research, thus making Greys an actually worthwhile race.

 

My idea is to split the Grey's telepathy into three different verbs, each with varying function. All of them would only extend to people that are within the player's vision, essentially working like the Say verb, but also hearable by people with the deaf disability. The three abilities are as follows:

 

1. Project Mind Onto Room

Pretty standard. This will project a mental message onto all character's within the player's vision range, and cannot be heard by radios. Cyborgs and other robots can hear it due to possessing a brain, but the AI cannot. (I'm fairly certain the AI lacks any type of brain, organic or positronic. If I'm wrong, then it could hear the telepathic message if its core is within the Grey's vision range, but not if merely examining the Grey through cameras, nor whilst using a hologram.)

 

2. Project Mind

The standard verb that Greys currently possess. It would work almost the same, sending a message to a single character, with the exception that the list would only display characters within the player's vision range, thus making the list shorter and easier to scroll through, as well as preventing rounds being ruined by finding antagonists on the name list, or calling for help when paralyzed by an antag.

 

3. Project Mind to Greys

Works the same as number one, but instead only sends the message to other Greys. This would be sort of giving them a language, without ACTUALLY having a language, but giving a medium through which they can privately communicate.

 

This would ultimately make Greys more interesting, making them sort of a "secret, creepy" race, while still making telepathic communication easier, as well as providing a better advantage over what they currently have, thus balancing their weaknesses better. (Water KILLS THEM, for pete's sake. Of course they need a better advantage.)

 

I also propose a changing of color to the telepathic message text, as its current blue color is a pain in the ass to pick out of the chatlog for some people. Light green could be a potential color. Another person recommended changing it to purple, which I agree with wholeheartedly. It's just a very Grey-ish color. I'd also recommend a bumping up of the message text size so people can notice it easier.

 

Any comments on this? Criticisms are welcome.

 

[Fj45]

AIs do in fact have organic brains. Have a look at how you build em.

[DevilDaBeast]

Yep, that makes sense. So yeah, they could hear it if they were within range.

[Eldrin-Kanthos]

That means machine people would not hear.

[DevilDaBeast]

 

They would. The telepathy would work on the same wavelengths that positronic brain signals possess. Or something. fuk i dont gotta explain it dat's just how it works okay

EDIT: Wait, do Machine People have posibrains? Because on Bay, they're called IPCs and they do. Soooooo, confusing. Either way, let's just bloody say they can hear the telepathic messages, because really who cares?

 

[Eldrin-Kanthos]

I was just messing with you because you said AI might not be able to. No worries (also, machine people have posibrains).

[Qinetix]

This would be truly neat. This or give them Telekinesis considering how weak they are in combat (they can collapse from two hits with a large oxygen tank to the head).

[DevilDaBeast]

 

This would be truly neat. This or give them Telekinesis considering how weak they are in combat (they can collapse from two hits with a large oxygen tank to the head).

I never really considered fighting to be their strong point. That, and I don't think they take damage more than any other race. (Minus the Kidan.) I just saw them as having wimpy punches and not much else.

Telekinesis might be asking too much. I don't know how this server's version of Telekinesis works, if any differently at all, but it's pretty useless for combat from what I've seen on other servers. It would require yet another changing in order to be useable for combat, which I frankly see as too much work for a race that can already robust just fine as long as they have a weapon.

 

[Qinetix]

No.. they really suck in combat...

[DevilDaBeast]

 

No.. they really suck in combat...

Don't know what you mean. I've fought just fine before.

 

[Scrat]

The Greys are the only race I say is almost completely useless. Their weaknesses greatly outweigh their one power, which as of now is currently, as noted, difficult to use and difficult to see. I'd suggest either keeping the telepathy power as is and add Telekinesis, or adding those various types of telepathy as suggested in the original post. Either way, the telepathy text should indeed be made a more visible colour.

[Streaky Haddock]

 

I really like the telepathy ideas presented, but I do feel that Project Mind should still be able to reach everybody.

Giving them TK could be interesting, but I'd rather it be a variant that didn't have the blue halo.

 

[Qinetix]

Why not both?