OPTIONAL slime mechanics/alterations based off of biology

[Gibson1027]

 

Hey there, I have been on and off paradise station for a long time and have become incredibly fond of slime people and my slime characters playing various roles. With that said recent changes that I have come to notice make them almost unplayable, so with that said, I want to offer both pro and cons that would benefit and hinder slime people.

Now to understand what changes we need to make we need to be familiar with the biology of slime people and the core traits genetically they have. To quote the slime person wiki page:

 

"Slime people being a very peculiar species, have somewhat unique methods of simply living day by day.

To speak, the slime core within the person vibrates accordingly to generate the sound needed to communicate in the human language. Bubblish is spoken by a certain combination of popping noises, easily understood by other slimes. To touch and feel, a manipulation of cells is used in a similar the human hand is. To hear, slime people use a much similar function as when they speak; their cores pick up vibrations from spoken language and interpret them into words. Movement itself is accomplished through a kind of "hivemind" among all the cells in the Slime person. The limbs move individually, and are for the most part loosely directed by core vibrations, while moving on their own influence.

In regards to their physical makeup, Slime People are believed to have evolved from slimes that slowly started to settle in areas with higher levels of water (up from basically none), gradually building a tolerance to said substance over millions of years, at the cost of losing the chemical "Slimium" which made the slimes highly tolerant to physical abuse"

 

With this information in mind we can break down each aspect of the slime person into bits to understand what needs to be done.

First lets start with the core and the aspects of talking,movement, and simple function of limbs

 

According to biological factoring slimes do not have internal organs, or organ systems, but tiny collections of cells forming a large tissue that makes up the entire body. The only exception to this piece of information is the slime core. We are unsure of what kind of organic or inorganic properties it has barring the changing of slimes to a different color. If educated guessing comes into play, due to the fact the core vibrates, it would easily be guessed it is a quartz based compound (silicon dioxide SiO2) with a foreign element added into it to aid in the production of a small micro-ecosystem. What does this all have to do with changes? Well, it simply means that cores of slime people could be A. damaged, or B. Harvest-able If the core was destroyed/harvested this would instantly cause a mass failure of cellular equilibrium and kill the slime within a matter of minuets (think vox without nitrogen). Now in this case there are other (optional) characteristics that can be implemented. Because the slime is not a organism per say but a mass of cells working together it is a tissue. Simply thinking this organism walks and has strength to excerpt force it is a little stronger than skeletal muscular tissue. What is intriguing about this is that to quote the biology excerpt "The limbs move individually, and are for the most part loosely directed by core vibrations, while moving on their own influence." Because of this cells are able to have sentient properties and move using vibration. This means that if arms,legs,head is severed it could simply (over time) regrow. As long as there is a central chest left, there is a living mass of cells surrounding a altered quartz core. This hypothetically could mean that,within in a limited time, simply reattaching a severed limb and bandaging, soldering, or any other means of reattachment that limbs could grow back and function (think like ipc arms and legs).

 

Now translating this into mechanics is simple

A. Make it where slime people can NOT be cloned due to having no brain but a mass of sentient tissue and a inorganic core. Simply popping the top of a skull reveals nothing. Bone breaking is also not a thing. Nor is organ damage.

 

B. The core can be removed, damaged, and need to be repaired or else you die. (Simple surgery like fixing an internal organ could do this). This also means that piercing/sharp chest damage, like bullets, spears,knives etc are especially effective on slime people, yet damage from blunt objects do the same as other races.

 

C. Loosing limbs can be attached for a limited time (five minuets of injury or else you need a prosthetic)

 

This big con to all of this is the no cloning and core damage/removal. A good 3 sketchkin pistol shots to the chest should damage a full magazine to kill then add armor modifiers to determine what your damage is.

 

To the next topic of this is the way that bleeding and water works. In the current system it makes ZERO sense that we are able to slip on aqueous solution of any kind. Biologically you can think of a slime person is a cellular matrix set in an aqueous solution. The way that we maintain this barrier is cells gather to the edge of the slime person and protect it with the phospholipid bilayer of the cells exerting themselves to the edge. This allows mass groups of cells through vibration to move appendages around. With this said when we come into contact with things like water,blood, or any other aqueous substance that does not denature the cellular environment we should simply be able to use pressure and friction to push against it to maintain stabilization. Think of these outer layers as tiny little grippers able to hold up the skeletal muscle-esque cells and core. It would be incredibly hard to make us trip barring direct force throwing us off balance (like a push) or us being on some type of surface our cells are not able to really put pressure against to grip. (a banana peel, clown pda, or even soap). This does not apply to fine motor skills though. Through cellular sentience and gross motor skill movement we are able to grip things like the banana peel,pda , and soap and it not slip. The determining factor of this is weather or not the cells can appropriately respond to the stimulus within the confines of gravitational force. (Tl;dr We do not slip on things that are aqueous like blood and water but slip on things that involve movement (banana peel),or lipid based substances (soap, cleaning chemicals).

 

Mechanics based changes:

A. We no longer slip on water,blood, any wet substance

B. We slip on soaps,peels, or any other tripping based system

 

The final things I wanted to discuss is the fact that slimes are ,as I said, a cellular matrix in an aqueous environment surrounding a quartz based core. With that said ingestion of any type of liquid or chemical composition that can denature the environment is extremely detrimental to cellular habitation. Things like alcohol,injected toxic chemicals, or any other bad substance has double the effect in either intensity or length. Simple things like food, water,tea have their normal benefits due to the need for energy consumption of cells, but anything that destroys cells or has a negative effect on cellular equilibrium is REALLY REALLY BAD. Also along with this is the downside of heat,cold, and pressure. Cells require constant equilibrium to function correctly. When anything from ph ,to temp, to pressure is upset this can cause cells to start denaturing proteins, and cells to either become hyper or hypo tonic, or even burst. I would suggest heat,cold, and preassure are all detriments to slimes just like heat to tajarans is. It would give a balancing feature in favor of antagonists and game modes.

 

Mechanics based changes

A. all negative body altering chemicals have longer, or double effects (maybe even beneficial?)

B. Pressure, temperature, and altering chemicals destroy slimes.

 

 

Now as a final bit I wanted to go over a full listing of mechanic based keeps and changes that slimes would have in an ideal race

PROS

Slimes have a secondary language bubblish

Do not require oxygen

Do not slip on blood,water, or other aqueous based items that have no slippery lipid based content

attachable limbs (before a certain timer)

No internal organs, other than core,

no bone breaking

 

CONS

CAN NOT BE CLONED

removable,destroy able core

Slip on materials that are slippery or cause floor friction

Adverse effects to chemicals

Take access damage from chemicals, temp, and pressure changes

 

Thank you all for those who have read this and taken time to consider what I have put in. I really do love slime people and I want to see all races have a interesting core mechanic with pros and cons behind them. With that said I would love to hear what you have to say about all of this and any comments, concerns, and even additions or subtractions to this! -gibson1027 (echo)

 

Edited December 22, 2014 by Guest

[Arthur_Dayne]

Quite well written and carefully planned, +1

[Scrat]

I dont really like this. Slimes used to have noslip but it has been since removed. Besides that, this would just further nerf slime people due to adverse effects from certain chemicals and make them especially more vulnerable. Basically that would just make them more fragile people who dont need to breathe.

[tigercat2000]

I have always thought of their core as their heart, brain, and mouth...

[Fj45]

Gameplay and balance trump fluff, don't use lore as a base for suggestions.

[Kluys]

As stated manyvtimes before, making a player character that has unbreakable/no bones makes them overpowered and nearly unkillable due too the current combat system

[Gibson1027]

I said these items as suggestions. They are listed as optional items in categories of things that can change slime mechanics based on BIOLOGY and personal pick and choose systems.. As of the moment the race is broken in any situation damage is involved. The leaking and slip mechanic breaks the race. I also understand for 45 karma it is an rp race but if the core of the race offers no rp value based off of what is written for rp then what is its worth other than to donate to change your color? I also see the point on bone breaking but there could be some room for improvement on the way slime organ mechanics work.

Edited December 22, 2014 by Guest

[Gibson1027]

 

Gameplay and balance trump fluff, don't use lore as a base for suggestions.

 

This is quite silly is it not? Considering the server is based off of "action and rp" shouldn't there be things based on the lore and their sayings?

 

for reference http://goo.gl/fNSlQn

 

[Fj45]

See, we get that good mix by balancing things and making them fun by well, making them balanced and fun. We don't add stuff just because "the lore said so!" If you want that, go to bay or any of the other HRP servers.

[fludd12]

Personally, if we're going by lore at all, I feel like resurrecting a slime should be possible by extracting it's core (the slime coring machine in Xenobio, perhaps?) and pouring a large beaker's worth of water on it.

[Rumiluntti]

 

Slimes have fuckall for lore.

It's easy to justify anything.

 

[belarion]

Slime people have as much lore as any other race, just nobody has written them a history. Greys have their hive fleet, tarajan have their slavemasters, even kidan have their empire. All slime people have is that they're primitive aliens that NT picked up.

[TheDemonic]

 

Personally, if we're going by lore at all, I feel like resurrecting a slime should be possible by extracting it's core (the slime coring machine in Xenobio, perhaps?) and pouring a large beaker's worth of water on it.

 

Personally I think it would be better if you could take out the core and put it into a normal slime (after you remove its core) maybe a little like those little tree things that I can't remember the name of, but instead of becoming one when they die they have to be placed into one and have to remain that way until they get enough electric charge to grow back to normal. so same mechanics different skin.

 

[Gibson1027]

 

Personally, if we're going by lore at all, I feel like resurrecting a slime should be possible by extracting it's core (the slime coring machine in Xenobio, perhaps?) and pouring a large beaker's worth of water on it.

 

Personally I think it would be better if you could take out the core and put it into a normal slime (after you remove its core) maybe a little like those little tree things that I can't remember the name of, but instead of becoming one when they die they have to be placed into one and have to remain that way until they get enough electric charge to grow back to normal. so same mechanics different skin.

 

 

I really like this! quite honestly I would love to see the revival mechanic based on this. It would give xenobio more fun with slimes and make their job a bit more interesting than just evolving slimes. +1 from me for this

 

[Gibson1027]

 

Slime people have as much lore as any other race, just nobody has written them a history. Greys have their hive fleet, tarajan have their slavemasters, even kidan have their empire. All slime people have is that they're primitive aliens that NT picked up.

 

 

 

Well do you feel it would be beneficial for their species if more was written? The writing of fluff is not a hard thing and can be easily changed based on what wiki developer regens wants. With that said I am sure some of the people who are slime devoted people would be willing to write some stuff out and change it along the lines of what players, and admins wanted.

 

I simply based my posting off of biological mechanics but I am sure if an approved biology based lore was created more concise mechanics could be formed to make the species actually be able to compete with humans.

 

[Gibson1027]

 

See, we get that good mix by balancing things and making them fun by well, making them balanced and fun. We don't add stuff just because "the lore said so!" If you want that, go to bay or any of the other HRP servers.

 

I have two images and one quote of what I would like to retort with

 

http://puu.sh/dEAf0/06cac75a4b.png emphasis on the rp.

 

secondly http://goo.gl/gnolQI (taken from kidan mechanics page) Balancing factors are not really a thing here. Simply having I can be taken down with flashes and pepper spray is not really an option when the person is wielding a long range weapon or gun.

 

To quote rule 3.

Choose the role based on what you want to spend the round doing, not in order to obtain access and equipment or to impress people with a prestigious title. If you take a role, other players will be expecting - and may rely on you to do it.

Playing as a head role has extra responsibility. If you are a head, it is assumed NT has assessed and approved your character. Higher standards of RP and game knowledge are expected. Logging out as a head without informing admin will result in a jobban - if you suddenly had to go due to external reasons, a quick appeal to explain is fine.This does not apply for assistants, clowns and mimes, of course. If you're playing a crucial role, notify the admins via adminhelp and your co-workers via radio if you need to log off for an extended period. Not following this may result in a job ban. or any other person in charge because these are all things that are advertised

 

From this you can assume that rp is expected of roles. Why not as racial features and race choice? Races, jobs, and players are the core mechanics of this game and without them what do we have? An empty map with items and npcs, and that is about it. Also I would like to agree with you, balancing is a VERY important thing here. I'm not really asking for a lot. I am simply asking for admins,coders, or private interests , to take a look and see what they can do to put the races that are non humans as a competitive choice against the control group. At the current standard the only downsides of human are that they require oxygen, take normal damage from: Heat,cold,pressure, and viruses. This is very good as this allows them to play versatile roles.

 

Now, things like greys, who have just now got a recent telepathy boost. Are supposedly able to drink acid like water (which doesn't work), are weak, and die to water(a common substance found in the world). Now the only buffs here are you are different colored than human and have telepathy. Now do you honestly feel that the good outweigh the bad here and it is a balanced choice for rp or gameplay even?

 

What I am looking for is a compromise. Even if it not based on any suggestions of mine, but a amalgamation of thoughts, mechanics, and ideas to improve races as a whole. So before you make anymore comments that offer no thinktank value and simply tell people to leave your server because you are not fond of something: please think about what you would like to say, articulate a primary statement, and put something you feel is correlated to the topic and post. I'm not asking for mit level thought process but simple, thinktank-esque ideas that work on improving racial mechanics as a whole.

 

With that said! I want to address the retraction of the bones idea. As much as I dislike the idea of having internal organs barring a core, I see no mechanic system around that.. A good thing that was brought up was the regeneration of a slime based on diona mechanics. Simple remove core, stick in a slime, and let it evolve and remove the slimium. That definitely gets a +1 from me.

 

[belarion]

 

Well do you feel it would be beneficial for their species if more was written? The writing of fluff is not a hard thing and can be easily changed based on what wiki developer regens wants. With that said I am sure some of the people who are slime devoted people would be willing to write some stuff out and change it along the lines of what players, and admins wanted.

 

I simply based my posting off of biological mechanics but I am sure if an approved biology based lore was created more concise mechanics could be formed to make the species actually be able to compete with humans.

Yeah, very much so.

At the moment there's no "way" that slime people are supposed to behave, so naturally they just slip into generic/griefy roles.

I'm not one to bother much for RP, but Kidans buzzing and tarajan being asshole catmen really help make rounds sometimes.

It'd be great if slime people could have something similar that defines them, culturally or whatever, just to make them more than OP translucent baldies.