Making Viro a little more fun.

[SomanB]

 

So, I've been playing virology for a few days, and while I find trying to get the perfect "good" virus to be amazing fun, I've discovered a problem.

 

That problem is radium. Random (and not so random) viral outbreaks are the time for a viro to shine and be a hero, but anymore it's devolved into whoever can break into/ask the chemist for a bottle of radium and some tox purging chems. Sure, it's great for the min/maxxing metaplayers, but it really sucks for a viro who's trying to cure a plague the right way. By the time you're halfway done getting the virus isolated, you see on the radio "cure in medbay lobby, get a shot of blood from X".

 

So, here's my suggestion to fix this issue, and make viro a little more of a star for their events. Step one, crank the "cure" chance from radium WAY down. It should be a last resort desperation play, not the go-to first line fix.

 

Step two, add a single chem reagent dispenser in viro, like the current virus food dispenser. Have it dispense what we use today as radium. Give it a new name. We have antibody stimulation drugs today (IVIG and interferon being pretty close in definition), so it'd make sense that in the future, there'd be something more effective. Give it a SMALL amount of what I'll call "antibody stimulator", in order to encourage fixing plagues the right way, over just injecting it in a sick person straight.

 

 

Coding difficulty: easy to moderate. I'm not a coder myself, but it looks like the vast majority of this would just be some copypasta, a new dispenser in viro, and some tweaked values on radium.

 

Scope: while pretty widespread overall towards metagamers, it's actually pretty limited. Restricts effective viral curing to CMO/viros, and offers some new avenues for antags to play with. Makes viro important during an outbreak, rather than the monkey murder room it is now.

 

Balance: Again, it buffs Viro to a good place during outbreak events, and nerfs metagamers who'll end a plague before CentCom even sends the announcement. Overall net gain.

 

 

As always, I welcome any critiques, complaints, or compliments on the idea. Thanks for reading!

 

[Kevak]

I like it. Radium makes no darned sense from a medical standpoint and it makes no darned sense for any random person with radium and a antitox kit to be able to cure a virus.

[Lars]

I play Viro when I want a more crabby role. I completely despise having to walk out and chase the chemists to get one dang beaker of radium. Like, they will even powergame thru all the complex recipes and fill the fridge, but not even prepare a radium beaker for Virology.

[pinatacolada]

Add a full beaker of radium to virology at round start, or make virologists spawn with it. Virology always takes way too long to cure things, that's why the rest of medbay takes it upon themselves to cure it.

[SomanB]

 

Add a full beaker of radium to virology at round start, or make virologists spawn with it. Virology always takes way too long to cure things, that's why the rest of medbay takes it upon themselves to cure it.

 

 

If viro is taking time to cure things, it's up to the rest of medbay to keep the infected patients alive while the viro works. They shouldn't be herping up a meta cure based on an iffy game mechanic.

 

Imagine, for a moment, this hypothetical. Because of a game mechanic, you can totally eliminate the need for an entire job, aside from some small side-work noone cares about. Engineers taking too long to start engine, just wire your APC to a lightbulb and get free power. Medbay not instantly there to cure you, just eat a donk pocket and drink some liquor, the combo automatically cures you.

 

 

People would be rightly pissed. That's the state viro is in right now. I get the level five viral outbreak alert, I don't even leave my lab, because I know someone is just going to radium cure it. I faff around, murdering monkeys while trying to build myself a positive viral.

 

[FoS]

 

I don't play virology. I cant really speak about how good/bad/whatever it is but this little bit in particular stuck out.

 

I get the level five viral outbreak alert, I don't even leave my lab, because I know someone is just going to radium cure it. I faff around, murdering monkeys while trying to build myself a positive viral.

 

This is probably the reason why some people just go straight to radium. Because in most instances the virologist is absolutely never around or even willing to do anything about an outbreak when it does happen. People are conditioned to react this way based on past experiences. If you want to change that? Then you have to change too, otherwise you're just reinforcing that behavior.

 

Often when I've been the first infected person it isn't the virologist that is helping me. They're usually sitting at their work area doing whatever and the CMO or some poor doctor/nurse is the one dragging me into virology and treating it while they ignore everything except their current project. Kinda like geneticists and cloning.

 

I actually had a round recently where I was infected. I came into medical and said as much, got scanned and they noted it was a virus. The virologist actively ran away from me (it was pretty hilarious actually). I had to chase them around to try and get them to actually help because the rest of the doctors scattered and left. Then the plasma began. It was odd.

 

[SomanB]

 

I don't play virology. I cant really speak about how good/bad/whatever it is but this little bit in particular stuck out.

 

This is probably the reason why some people just go straight to radium. Because in most instances the virologist is absolutely never around or even willing to do anything about an outbreak when it does happen. People are conditioned to react this way based on past experiences. If you want to change that? Then you have to change too, otherwise you're just reinforcing that behavior.

 

Often when I've been the first infected person it isn't the virologist that is helping me. They're usually sitting at their work area doing whatever and the CMO or some poor doctor/nurse is the one dragging me into virology and treating it while they ignore everything except their current project. Kinda like geneticists and cloning.

 

I actually had a round recently where I was infected. I came into medical and said as much, got scanned and they noted it was a virus. The virologist actively ran away from me (it was pretty hilarious actually). I had to chase them around to try and get them to actually help because the rest of the doctors scattered and left. Then the plasma began. It was odd.

 

 

Part of that is a good viro will be spending 99% of their time in their lab, running viral mutations, setting up monkey tests, all that jazz. That's the second big part of my job, building virals that make you ooze adrenaline, omni, glow in the dark, repair your brain damage...all the good stuff. It requires babysitting.

 

I try to keep some (creepy) banter on comms about how virals are my friends, how I found this AWESOME new symptom that makes people explode, just to remind folks I'm there and working.

 

Even with that, if I'm not right in the lobby the second someone coughs, a doctor radium cures, grabs some blood, and makes my job useless. Combined with that, people PANIC at the first symptom. It's a rare, rare rando virus that'll go from initial symptom to death faster than I can build an antibody. That only happens when you have three blank symptoms then something like gibbingtons or toxic sublim, and if you see that, you've got a tator viro.

 

[Dinarzad]

 

They're usually sitting at their work area doing whatever and the CMO or some poor doctor/nurse is the one dragging me into virology and treating it while they ignore everything except their current project. Kinda like geneticists and cloning.

 

To be fair, from someone who has done Genetics, you can't see into the cloning room worth a damn, especially if you're at the console closest to the door. You can only see the top-most part of the room through the airlock, but people usually drop off bodies by the machine itself, so unless someone says "Body here pls clone" you have no real way to know anyone is waiting for cloning.

If just one wall underneath said airlock was a window, it'd be no problems.

 

BACK TO TOPIC AT HAND THO.

 

I agree the radum to totally bypass Virology is kinda fucked up, and there's really no other job where that can happen QUITE as much as Viro. It's one of the few times you get to do some bone-fide medical work an some random botanist just runs in an force feeds everyone glowshrooms, wasn't that !!FUN!!.

 

It's like trying to spend time as a roboticist to build a fancy military mech for a xeno outbreak or something, just for cargo to end up ordering one and the xenos being murder-fucked before you can even half complete yours. ((Note, Cargo can't do that, but it's the same sorta 'Wind taken out of your sails, why the fuck do I bother with this again?' kind of feeling.))

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

Part of the reason that it's the way it is is because viruses are, by their nature, deadly and destructive 99% of the time. If the Virologist isn't around, then everyone is just going to plain die (if radium curing didn't exist). Another problem is, if the viro is truly rogue, there will be pretty much no way of stopping him--just make a super virus, C4 the controls, and GG no RE the entire crew.

 

I can understand the frustration, but I'm not sure if taking away radium curing, in its entirety, is the way to make virologist fun---it doesn't really make the job so much fun as in *critical*; if you don't have one around and there is a virus, then a lot of people are going to just wind up dead....and that's the difference between this and a job like, say, engineering--yes, if the engineers set up power, it's not a whole lot of fun for the crew, but it is something that other jobs can compensate for....anddd palyers can still interact and play the game--that's not he case with virology. If you have a virus, you're going to probably die.

 

Usually there's overlap between jobs, to a degree---ie: it's not just the chef that can produce food (bartender, botany, chemistry, and vending machines), not just engineering who can produce power, and not just genetics who can cure DNA mutations.

 

Please note, I DO agree that VIrology isn't very fun to play right now, isn't generally useful, and your job can be easily completely outclassed by other departments (science+chem), but I'm not so sure making it so that everyone will literally die if there's not a non-traitor Virologist is the good way to go about making the job "fun".

 

[Keroman]

 

Just a note:

So, here's my suggestion to fix this issue, and make viro a little more of a star for their events. Step one, crank the "cure" chance from radium WAY down. It should be a last resort desperation play, not the go-to first line fix.

 

 

SomanB isn't saying she's for removing radium as a cure, just making it more difficult to use as a cure, and with strings attached for the person who undergoes the radium treatment.

 

[SomanB]

 

Part of the reason that it's the way it is is because viruses are, by their nature, deadly and destructive 99% of the time. If the Virologist isn't around, then everyone is just going to plain die (if radium curing didn't exist). Another problem is, if the viro is truly rogue, there will be pretty much no way of stopping him--just make a super virus, C4 the controls, and GG no RE the entire crew.

 

I can understand the frustration, but I'm not sure if taking away radium curing, in its entirety, is the way to make virologist fun---it doesn't really make the job so much fun as in *critical*; if you don't have one around and there is a virus, then a lot of people are going to just wind up dead....and that's the difference between this and a job like, say, engineering--yes, if the engineers set up power, it's not a whole lot of fun for the crew, but it is something that other jobs can compensate for....anddd palyers can still interact and play the game--that's not he case with virology. If you have a virus, you're going to probably die.

 

Usually there's overlap between jobs, to a degree---ie: it's not just the chef that can produce food (bartender, botany, chemistry, and vending machines), not just engineering who can produce power, and not just genetics who can cure DNA mutations.

 

Please note, I DO agree that VIrology isn't very fun to play right now, isn't generally useful, and your job can be easily completely outclassed by other departments (science+chem), but I'm not so sure making it so that everyone will literally die if there's not a non-traitor Virologist is the good way to go about making the job "fun".

 

 

I'm going to take you apart a little bit here, Fox. It's not intended as insult.

 

Against a random event, you have plenty of time for an active viro/CMO to build a proper cure. Isolate pathogen, inject a monkey, radium the monkey, get the antibody, dilute and administer. People freak out at stage one, when there are no stage ones that will straight kill. Going into stage two, we have basic tox, brute, and burn for killers. All managed by a doc in bio gear (they have them too), standing by with the right drugs. Stage three, you're looking at chucking someone in cryo to keep them alive. Stage four, yeah, you're likely going to die soon. Stage four is, yes, the end.

 

Against a tator viro, as I've learned, there are severe server rule limits on unleashing a superplague. You're restricted to "be the only one alive on the shuttle" to even have a chance at getting a superplague allowed, and even then, it's a helluva job ban risk doing so. Not only that, it's super inefficient. Take the perfect plague, three silent symptoms, then toxic sublim. The second the first guy starts oozing plasma, everyone is going to go internals and look straight at the viro. Same with gibbingtons, or any of the other superdeath level fours. Easier to emag the shuttle at the last moment, and less risk of job bans.

 

I never said "make it so only the viro can cure plagues and everyone is fucked if there isn't one". I said "put the instant supercure behind the viro's door, and take it away from everyone who can knock down a window to chem". If the station is in such bad shape that there's no Viro, CMO, HoP (who can add access to viro to someone who knows how to do it) Cap (ditto), AI, or willing assistant finally allowed to hack a door legally, then the plague is one of the lowest issues facing the station at that point.

 

To put it a different way, it's like having a "stock medicine fridge" button sitting next to chem, just in case there's no chemist on-hand to make meds. Why bother investing the time to learn the system, figure out the drugs, and make things if the next doc rolling up goes "Taking too long to make mannitol, this guy might die, pushing butan."

 

Thing is, I've seen waaay more rounds where a chemist either doesn't show up, or doesn't work on drugs, than I have plague rounds where a viro is utterly needed. Nobody working on drugs will halt medbay if anything more than the occasional accident happens, yet it doesn't justify taking away the chemist's primary job. If there's no chemist, medbay improvises. If there's no viro....who cares, just give anyone showing symptoms radium, charcoal, and pat them on the ass on the way out the door.

 

It really hit me how useless the viro was in a viral outbreak a day or so ago. Rando plague, of course radium cure happened as I was just finishing getting the virus isolated from the blood. I powered on, out of a sense of duty. Built the antibody, brought it out, had the chemist package it up in nice pills and stock it in the fridge, told medbay radio where the correct cure was.....then watched three other cases get dragged in, radium and charcoal shoved down their throat, then tossed out the door.

 

Right about then, is when my viro time went from "watch for plagues, be on the ball, don't goof off" to "kill monkeys with amusing virals, craft killplagues I'll never use, give myself viral superpowers, and never open my lab door".

 

[Plotron]

 

To put it a different way, it's like having a "stock medicine fridge" button sitting next to chem, just in case there's no chemist on-hand to make meds. Why bother investing the time to learn the system, figure out the drugs, and make things if the next doc rolling up goes "Taking too long to make mannitol, this guy might die, pushing butan."

 

Thing is, I've seen waaay more rounds where a chemist either doesn't show up, or doesn't work on drugs, than I have plague rounds where a viro is utterly needed. Nobody working on drugs will halt medbay if anything more than the occasional accident happens, yet it doesn't justify taking away the chemist's primary job. If there's no chemist, medbay improvises. If there's no viro....who cares, just give anyone showing symptoms radium, charcoal, and pat them on the ass on the way out the door.

 

It really hit me how useless the viro was in a viral outbreak a day or so ago. Rando plague, of course radium cure happened as I was just finishing getting the virus isolated from the blood. I powered on, out of a sense of duty. Built the antibody, brought it out, had the chemist package it up in nice pills and stock it in the fridge, told medbay radio where the correct cure was.....then watched three other cases get dragged in, radium and charcoal shoved down their throat, then tossed out the door.

 

This is a nice rebuttal indeed. I find your arguments convincing.

While reading this discussion I recalled my adventures with spaceacilin - spaceacilin used as a chronic medication in case there's no real cure available. You either keep taking spaceacilin or suffer the symptoms. We've switched to Goonchem and the chemical recipe is rather troublesome now considering that spaceacilin gets metabolized quickly.

Granted, in case of a massive viral outbreak spaceacilin is not enough. But this is when you cram your ass into Virology and start working on the cure.

 

Doctors are supposed to keep patients alive for as long as possible, until the cure is available.

 

What if we... nerfed radium (it's a permanent solution that is very easy to make) and put spaceacilin (modified or alternatively code a stronger anti-viral chem) in its place as a temporary solution?

I'm just brainstorming at this point since you guys need some help.

 

[SomanB]

 

This is a nice rebuttal indeed. I find your arguments convincing.

While reading this discussion I recalled my adventures with spaceacilin - spaceacilin used as a chronic medication in case there's no real cure available. You either keep taking spaceacilin or suffer the symptoms. We've switched to Goonchem and the chemical recipe is rather troublesome now considering that spaceacilin gets metabolized quickly.

Granted, in case of a massive viral outbreak spaceacilin is not enough. But this is when you cram your ass into Virology and start working on the cure.

 

Doctors are supposed to keep patients alive for as long as possible, until the cure is available.

 

What if we... nerfed radium (it's a permanent solution that is very easy to make) and put spaceacilin (modified or alternatively code a stronger anti-viral chem) in its place as a temporary solution?

I'm just brainstorming at this point since you guys need some help.

 

It's getting outside my "simple fix", but I really like that idea. Make one chem, maybe a step more difficult to make than cryox, that works basically as a "delay" for virals. Halts the symptoms, stop the spread, but leaves the patient with whatever symptoms they've already gotten. Stopgap until viro/CMO/(insert here) manages to get the actual legit cure made.

 

Makes Viro a valued part of the team, but not such a totally critical part that the round is over if noone takes the job.

 

[Bijata]

 

Hi there

I'm new to the server (and the game) so I don't yet understand the mechanics behind viruses but if I understand this thread correctly, radium basically cures viruses? I assume this will then add toxin damage which is cured by charcoal respectively.

How difficult would it be to code something which permantly alters the character in a negative way and thus giving an incentive to do it right?

The penalty shouldn't be game breaking, make it more annoying than dangerous. Let people randomly puke or put their metabolism in overdrive requiring people to eat and drink twice as much or weaken their balance senses resulting in slips from time to time. (The last one will teach everyone a lesson in patience the next time it happens).

 

With such a system in place you could still beat the round even if the virologist is a traitor or not present at all.

The janitor probably won't be amused by half the station puking everywhere though.

 

[Crazylemon]

Thing is, radium isn't what's normally used to cure the infection, it's the blood. Once the cure is generated by the person injected by radium, doctors take a sample of their blood and distribute it to others. Radium DOES have a 50% chance per virus cured to deal 100 toxins damage, which requires immediate treatment in cryo or other intense care, lest the patient die, and some treatment later for their damaged liver, but from there you can take a sample of that person's blood to cure the others, which only does mild toxin damage when injected into others if the bloodtypes don't match.

[Kyet]

 

This happens because:

 

• Much of the time, there is no viro at all, and the CMO being present, awake, active, and able to handle viruses is not in any way guaranteed. Thus, the crew absolutely must have a not-too-tedious way to deal with a deadly virus by themselves. Otherwise, many viruses would become round-ending events.

• However, the fact that such a method exists means there is no incentive to wait for a virologist. Actually, crew are trained not to, by the combination of the fact that the above method exists, there's no guarantee there is a viro present/awake/working/willing to handle a virus outbreak, and the fact the radium method is generally far faster to boot. Also, while only the viros/CMOs have access to virology, chemists and most of science have access to a chem dispenser and syringes. Speed is important, too. Unlike, say, the spider event, a virus is not only potentially deadly, but self-spreading at a decently fast rate, invisible, sometimes has the ability to make people unclonable, and every second you wait means they get a firmer grip on the station. Realistically, if people won't wait for sec to handle spiders for them, what are the chances they will trust a virus to the virologist, when the virus is FAR MORE of a problem?

Finally, it must be said: when there is a truly dangerous virus, the odds are fairly substantial that it WAS the virologist who created it. Thus, over time, in dealing with dangerous viruses, the virologist isn't always trusted to deal with it even if they are clearly present, awake, active and working on something.

 

 

If you want to change this:

 

• Reduce the frequency/severity of virus events when there is no active virologist. Otherwise, you're just training people to always use the radium method.

• Make the virologist able to cure existing viruses faster than the radium method does. Otherwise there is no point asking the viro to cure anything.

In the announcements for virus outbreaks, make it very clear that the virus was spawned from an event (ie: came from off-station, meaning the virologist is not to blame). This will increase trust in virologists and make it more likely they're given a chance to do their job.

 

 

[Kevak]

Could also just change the Chem from Radium to something a lot harder to make.

[Plotron]

 

This happens because:

 

• Finally, it must be said: when there is a truly dangerous virus, the odds are fairly substantial that it WAS the virologist who created it. Thus, over time, in dealing with dangerous viruses, the virologist isn't always trusted to deal with it even if they are clearly present, awake, active and working on something.

 

 

If you want to change this:

 

• In the announcements for virus outbreaks, make it very clear that the virus was spawned from an event (ie: came from off-station, meaning the virologist is not to blame). This will increase trust in virologists and make it more likely they're given a chance to do their job.

 

That's a real problem, it would seem.

I like our current announcements, we do not want more metagaming problems. It may enhance trust in virologists, yes, but it also works the opposite for traitor virologists or accidental/beneficial releases. It's much more exciting when you don't know the source of the virus - it should be security/command's job to figure it out.

 

I like your proposed change that we could make radium a much slower method.

 

[Maxismasterson]

 

I do feel radium is a bit of a cheap way of just insta curing viruses. I feel it should be way more dangerous to use radium over producing a legitimate cure.

With radium being the man form of cure to a virus it takes away half of virologies job.