Remove ether

[Arkhip0v]

Ether is, generally speaking, useless and superfluous. It's a nice flavour in some aspects but most of it's uses are negative and come with a janky feel to them. My main grievance is primarily relating to it's delay before actually knocking you out.

 

We can consider it's uses here:

1. A substitute for anaesthetic.

Solutions: people can go to sleep, or hydrocodone if made. Ether is impracticable due to it's delay and the fact you can't simply shake someone to wake them up once they've got it in them till it's out. If you're a surgeon, you'll have to inject someone with ether, wait for it to put them to sleep, do the surgery, then do dialysis, then wake them up. Just seems awkward and irritating, which is why I've only seen it been used once for surgery (myself on my first doctor round when I had no clue what I was doing).

2. A use for psychiatric roleplay.

Psychiatrists get little love mostly due to the way the community plays; but I don't really think that psychiatrists would be rendered useless or have their flavour removed by the removal of ether. There are rarely violent patients, particularly considering everyone generally roleplays someone that is at least mostly sane. I've done this with random crew members before as a psychiatrist traitor when I didn't bother to do my objectives and basically kidnapped people that were insane and did weird shit with them.

3. A counter, or use, for antagonists.

I don't honestly see how this is very useful considering the toxins and sedatives that Syndicate agents gain access to are far more useful (ketamine etc) and faster acting.

The use it has to counter antagonists is little, but it isn't entirely ignorable: if you give someone enough Ether, they'll fall asleep somewhere they aren't expecting. However, I, and I think many people, would consider this pretty scummy and out of the realm of fair play when it comes to antags. It also only has a limited application when it comes to many game modes.

4. Chemical implants

Chemical implants are so ever rarely used due to the little likelihood inmates (1) escape from the permabrig and (2) are not gunned down within 10 minutes because they still have their tracker in. All in all the impact of ether's removal would be negligible on this aspect: other chemicals can be used if a warden still wants to utilise a chemical implant.

 

Let me know what you think

[MattTheFicus]

1. It’s non-addictive unlike morphine. While this is a small thing it is thematically nice in my opinion. You also want to avoid using morphine so that Chem can use it to make the Hydrocodone.

2. This is an immensely minimal bit in my opinion and not that big a thing for Ether.

3. It’s main use in my opinion is sedating obnoxious tiders via Syringe Gun. It’s not used too often but it’s absolutely a use that ether fits niche-wise. On top of that, it’s a component in some other incapacitating chemicals which antagonists can use.

4. There’s way better chems to use for this to be honest.

All in all I don’t see a reason to remove it. It’s got it’s uses and has its niche.

[Arkhip0v]

I understand this reasoning, though it feels like it doesn't really have much utility still and is more just a "fuck you" to a tider when they could just get arrested

[Sonador]

Just now, Arkhip0v said:

I understand this reasoning, though it feels like it doesn't really have much utility still and is more just a "fuck you" to a tider when they could just get arrested

I spent my entire last round getting fucked with by tiders/cargo with a voodoo doll to the degree I got beat to near crit with a welder, and security was equal parts too bald and too getting run over by antags to do anything about it, so by all means, every non-lethal mitigating tool at my disposal I am *very* fond of.