Race special abilities

[tigercat2000]

 

I have a few things to suggest for slime people, but a generalized "Suggest things for any race" seems like a more useful thread.

 

So, Suggest any new abilities you think races should have.

 

Slime people -

Some kind of light-source built in, but only activated after using a power-cell on yourself.

Special ability to escape from handcuffs near-instantly --OR-- Ability to climb over tables (Small-size Mutation).

 

 

Grey's -

1. Make them able to understand common, But not be able to speak it.

Grey's have their mind direct contact, they shouldn't be able to speak regular common

 

1B. Make grey's have their own language, that can be translated by comms

This goes with the common suggestion, They should speak their own unique language. It would be translatable by the intercomms, Just incase they need to speak to the whole station.

 

2. For neatness's sake, I will put this here, But a number of people think they should have sulphuric acid for blood. I agree.

 

Edited March 1, 2014 by Guest

[Adrkiller59]

 

Special ability to escape from handcuffs near-instantly

 

When a security officer can't handcuff a criminal (usually because he forgot the handcuffs) what they usually do is beat the criminal to death "because it was a confimed syndicate and we are encouraged to kill the antags". What do you think they will do to slime people when they want to arrest them? Is that what you want for Squishy?

 

Something usefull for slime people would be a "remove all clothing" verb, so they can ventcrawl quickly.

 

[Fathuran]

 

Slime People, in my opinion, already have a metric ton of benefits with only one fair drawback. I do agree that they could get a remove all clothing verb like Adrkiller suggested, but I think this should have a small delay. For example, you perform the verb, and instead of instantly ungarbing, it selects all of your clothes and 'attempts to remove' them in the same manner if a character was trying to take off items from another.

 

In regards to a 'light source' I believe an inherently built flashlight would be better suited for the Machine People.

 

As for my own suggestions, in regards to Vox, I believe that a single nitrogen canister should be placed in the Medbay secondary storage. This way, at the CMO's behest, they can use that tank either to allow Vox crewmembers to top off their tanks, or even use it to dedicate a cryo-chamber for the Vox, or whatever other application. I only suggest putting the nitrogen tank in Medbay secondary storage because unless you're Science or an Engineer, it's tough to try and convince people to let you into Toxins storage or atmospherics when your tank starts getting low about 45 minutes into the round.

 

I do not suggest simply maxing out a Vox's tank (A vox's nitrogen starts out at a little less than half capacity, like most tanks) because I believe there is in fact a small dynamic and some good RP to trying to actually fill your tank. However, adding one extra option that is not 100% easily accessible, but is there without taking resources from another department can help Vox characters not get screwed over in medium to long duration rounds.

 

Greys and Kidan should be more susceptible to eye damage, in my opinion. Nothing huge, but their eyes take a bit more trauma to things that would normally hurt eyes, such as unprotected welding by about 20% maybe.

 

Unathi, based on their lore have very thick scales. Perhaps a slight bit of damage reduction, about 5-10%.

 

Allow a Grey to temporarily view beyond their physical line of sight. This can be mechanically be used in various ways. Perhaps a 5 second X-Ray vision, or the ability to click somewhere on the screen and your view teleports there until cancelled or you move.

 

[tigercat2000]

Huh. Never thought about a remove-clothing verb. That would actually be incredibly useful.

[tigercat2000]

Actually, as an afterthought relating to the flashlight thing, It would be kinda cool if slime-people got some kind of different abilities from special slime-extracts. Like, Absorbing a Gold extract would give you a flashlight, And absorbing a black extract would allow you to go between slime and slime-person at will... Hmm.

[Xilia]

 

Actually I play Grey often, that is a race that still needs something, in contrary with kidan pulse rifle block, diona super healing, lots of race that don't breath. Don't feel pain. Or can just claw. I suggest the Grey having actually sulp acid blood. they may be weak, but attacking them with a weapon without gloves will get your hands damaged or even chest if you have no clothes on. They can extract the blood with a syringe to fill cups for robocist or science use. Maybe even melt some traitor objects to remove evidence. Maybe temporary activated xray would be a good addon. Eyes should receive extra damage indeed.

 

The lizard folks need some love too, but I haven't played them enough.

 

[Svej]

 

Actually I play Grey often, that is a race that still needs something, in contrary with kidan pulse rifle block, diona super healing, lots of race that don't breath. Don't feel pain. Or can just claw. I suggest the Grey having actually sulp acid blood. they may be weak, but attacking them with a weapon without gloves will get your hands damaged or even chest if you have no clothes on. They can extract the blood with a syringe to fill cups for robocist or science use. Maybe even melt some traitor objects to remove evidence. Maybe temporary activated xray would be a good addon. Eyes should receive extra damage indeed.

 

The lizard folks need some love too, but I haven't played them enough.

 

The acid as blood is a great idea, they would be perfect scientists!

I totally support this idea.

 

[Fathuran]

 

I'm a fan of, when it comes to 'traits' of a species or anything, really, I enjoy really playing to the extremes of said subject when it comes to penalties and advantages. In most cases this leads to balance, other times it doesn't. However, that's why Greys are somewhat fun to discuss and we can actually do something interesting with them by taking things a step further. They have very clear cut aspects about them just based off the merit of their weak punches and their telepathy. They are cerebral, they have amazing mental aptitudes whilst their physical ones suffer, and we should play on that.

 

Allow their bones to break more easily, their eyes to take more damage and their other organs more susceptible to trauma. While conversely, perhaps give them the aforementioned temporary X-Ray, maybe a Once-A-Round "Mind Meld" that gives them a psychic link with a single character, which can lead to benefits and/or penalties for both the Grey and the affected character. Allow them to slowly recover brain damage naturally, and alkysine is more effective. Oh, just for kicks considering those big ol' eyes, give em better dark vision or a power to remove darkness for a limited about of time. I'm even down for allowing a Grey to have a cooldown based telekinesis, as in, they can toss an object once every ten seconds or so. Just like with the X-Ray vision, just give them a couple watered down powers and slap a cooldown on there, so it doesn't completely negate a geneticist's efforts.

 

When it comes to the acid blood, that's an interesting thought. However based on how it seems to be with blood (Slimes apparently bleed water, however when scanned they have 0% blood) this would mean that Greys would have the 0% Blood effect as well, as they don't have 'blood' in human terms, and would just be filled with a lot of sulfuric acid at round start. Now, it's up to you really if you like that or not, as 'blood' is measured in human blood. You can't really bleed out, even if you do presumably drain yourself of the 500 or so units of Sulfuric acid within you, as it doesn't track the acid as blood, it tracks actual blood, and since you - as far as the game is concerned - don't have any just like Machine People, Vox, and Slime People, you suffer no 'low blood' penalties for being drained of your acidic juices for making circuits. So while it's a cool mechanic, the only problem is, unless the powers that be code blood tracking for your acid juice, then power players would just treat Greys as big beakers since they technically wouldn't suffer from blood loss.

 

Now, I don't care either way. As a Vox player, I also have 0% blood, it's just how the game will most likely translate that mechanic, and if you like that or not. This also comes from someone who's ignorant of coding, so I might be wrong completely. It's just based off of what I've witnessed in play.

 

However, this idea brings up something else, which probably is a more daunting suggestion all in itself that is probably a bit much for the devs to do, but it would change the face of medical in my opinion.

 

Species blood types.

 

As it stands, blood is blood. An unathi's AB+ blood is the same as a human's AB+ blood and they both can take a skrell donor's O- that they probably got from a Tajaran at some point. To me, this is very strange. I truly think that blood should be further divided into species types in addition to their blood types to give a better dynamic for both medical purposes and well, blood mechanics in the first place! Want that Grey acidic blood? Yeah! Give Grey blood acidic properties. Sure, they might not be able to press circuits with it since it's not EXACTLY acid, but it still has such qualities that you don't want people walking on your puddles barefoot. Slime People are mostly water, they 'bleed' water as far as people are concerned, but is it really? As slime people are slime and don't really have cardiovascular systems (Or any systems really), their 'blood' is simply the same molecular structure that composes the rest of them, and when hooked up to an IV, the fluid in the bag is really just slime stuff that binds with their being to contribute to their structure. This way, Slime People have a blood level and their blood still has slippery qualities while being able to be explained. And you just go down the list. The rest of the species' blood most likely wouldn't have any special qualities to them other than DON'T MIX THEM WITH OTHER SPECIES, but hey, that's half the fun. This way, the only species that can truly get away with not having a "Blood Level" would be the Machine People (Unless someone can explain to me why the hell Vox have no blood level.)

 

[Earthdivine]

 

For everything Vox related, remember that they are, by all Designs, meant to be Vox Raiders. And ONLY Vox raiders. As thus, they weren't as properly coded as much as the other races due to the fact they weren't supposed to help the crew, or get extensive medical attention.

 

I don't follow Bay or /TG/ much though, so i don't know if they have allowed them outside the mode yet.

 

[Fathuran]

 

For everything Vox related, remember that they are, by all Designs, meant to be Vox Raiders. And ONLY Vox raiders. As thus, they weren't as properly coded as much as the other races due to the fact they weren't supposed to help the crew, or get extensive medical attention.

 

I don't follow Bay or /TG/ much though, so i don't know if they have allowed them outside the mode yet.

 

That's understandable. In my opinion, Vox are perfectly fine for the most part as they stand as a race. My only issue is that hopefully we Vox players are given the ability to at least choose our own name instead of being forced with a random conglomerate of syllables. I'm not expecting this to happen soon, as I know you guys are working on the crashes as your priority, but it's a benefit that I think some non-Vox players don't understand how great it would be. Being forced into a random name every round really dampens consistent character development and just having a character in general.

 

[Hairy Ban Jhankri]

Can slime people have the choice of color?

[Fathuran]

 

Can slime people have the choice of color?

 

I don't play slime people, but to my understanding they technically have that choice, however they have to acquire slime cores to change their color to whatever is desired. Not perfect, especially if you don't like the default light blue, but it works.

 

[Hairy Ban Jhankri]

Yeah, the blue color is an eyesore, and it takes 5ever to get the desired black color as somebody not skilled in xenobiology, especially with obnoxious "coworkers" who aren't the sharpest tools in the shed in terms of social skills.

[Hairy Ban Jhankri]

Actually, perhaps another way to look at it, the blue type may be the more bubbly "squish!" types, black or a more dull color could be more of a "meh . . .squish . . ." type.