Leaderboard

This is a topic that I've been known to go on about for longer than I should, given how strongly that I feel about it. As such I will legitimately try to keep what I've got to say brief as to avoid a giant wall of text the last time I went on about this sort of thing. Being a long time player of both IPCs and more recently humans, there are very drastic difference between the two (as there should be). Though I've found that in that time, I actually prefer to play my human more than my IPC, despite the vast amounts of immunity and quality of life that IPCs tend to have. The first reason for this being that I found out that the strengths that IPCs have in comparison to other races is not as special as they're made out to really be. A lot of things that organics have to worry about I've found can be avoided - or in the least - alleviated with proper planning or attention. The second reason was because I didn't die instantly to an EMP when they happened, though I'm not going to really talk much on EMPs here at all. And the third reason, while less important to this discussion but equally as influential to me, was the ability to roll for more antags than what my IPC could (yea I like to be the bad guy a lot, sue me). Also some reason about "cyka blyat". EMPs, as awful as they can be sometimes, do make sense as a weakness, and shouldn't be removed any time soon. EMPs could certainly use a tweak, though until we can find a clean way to do that, are fine as they are for the time being (as much as they make me a grumpy man). IPCs severe weakness to brute and burn, however, is something that doesn't quite make much sense to me, and seems like the easiest issue to fix with IPCs. Now, a weakness to burn damage (the high temperature type, not freezing, though I think both still apply as it is currently), does make sense to me on an IPC, as computer bits don't do well with super high temperatures (it's why most computers come equipped with fans); but a high brute weakness (in the way that it is implemented at the moment) makes little sense to me, especially given the fact that a porous-boned space bird is more resilient than a man made of literal metal, yaya. If IPCs had a higher resistance to brute, but a stronger weakness to burn, I feel like that'd be a better version of their current damage modifiers. To touch on what Streaky mentioned in the beginning of his first post, and what others have also said... • [Immunity to Viruses]: Bad viruses that actually cause any sort of actual issue and aren't just cured away with one of the known wonder cures are few and far between. • [Immunity to Toxins]: A nice quality of life, though not something you'll get unless you get into a fight with a spider, someone is actively trying to poison you, or you drink something dumb. • [Immunity to Bleeding]: Actually really nice ever since the blood refactor. Though most stuff that causes bleeding just outright murks you because of your high brute weakness as an IPC. • [Immunity to Clone Damage]: IPCs can't get cloned (or prescanned for that matter), and the only enemies I know of that can inflict this are slimes and abductors with their gun. • [Immunity to Skeletal Damage]: I suppose this means "you don't have bones", though what do broken bones really do, anyway? They make you drop things in the case of your hands and arms, move slower if in the legs, and cause organ damage in the head and chest. IPCs escape the head and chest bits cos they have no bones to shift around there, but their legs and arms still operate in the same way as organics, though it only needs to be high brute/burn damage to cause the slowness or dropping of things. • [Immunity to Radiation]: Not a common thing that you encounter, though I've heard some people mentioning that IPCs should be susceptible to it, which I could agree with if they traded out rad immunity for being space proof (though we know that'll never happen given how space immunity is a huge balance issue all its own). The last things I'll say that bother me with IPCs is how easy their brains are to pop out by antags, that their brains come out with their speaker defaulted to off, and that every other race can recover from body destruction whether with prescanning or insertion into a surrogate body with the brain. That last one you can technically get around with some janky cheese mechanics, though I don't really count that, as I know it's hardly intended in the code. All in all, IPCs could use a balance adjustment of some kind.

This may be controversial because IPCS are immune to toxins, viruses, bleed, clone and skeletal damage. However, IPCs as they are are tragically fragile for reasons that made sense when they were first introduce, but are no longer apply. For instance, IPCs used to be very easy to repair. They only required a welding tool and cable coil/nanopaste, had no internal organs besides their brain, so all you had to do was put them on a table, endure the failure chance and reassemble them on the spot. However, now, you are required to open up the affected IPC's chest and repair their internal organs. With the additional risk that comes with ghetto surgery of the attack proc'ing instead, or of regular surgery slippage, this makes IPC revival actually very hard. IPCs not having to fear from genetics, viruses and toxins is not quite as one-sided as it seems. Legitimately dangerous and disruptive viruses are few and far between, and often very quickly dealt with by medbay (most nasty viruses requiring gold, salt, or mannitol) to cure. In addition, IPCs can't benefit from healing viruses which are actually very effective and provide a tangible difference to one's survivability. In addition, IPCs can't benefit from any kind of genetic powers. The downsides there are obvious, in addition to ruling them out of the geneticist job without using a sentient test subject. IPCs not suffering from tox damage is quite a powerful aid, I grant you. However, toxins damage isn't that common. Toxins Damage is inflicted via green spiders, radiation, drinking something dumb or someone aggressively trying to poison you. However, anybody with access to efficient and effective poisons likely also has access to resources to produce EMPs. EMPS = Are area of effect and travel through walls. The majority of the time, unless you're at the very edges of the radius, it will scorch every single internal and external organ in the IPC's body, killing them instantly. Of the eight game-mode antagonists on our server, five of them have access to cheap and efficient EMPs. Traitors have EMP flashlights and EMP implants (the latter of which can be activated while stunned and cuffed), Changelings have the EMP screeh (which can be activated while stunned and cuffed), Cultists have the EMP talisman, Wizards... well, wizards are powerful against everything but it sucks to be EMP'd through a wall when you weren't even aware the Wizard was there, and Nuclear Operatives have access to traitor stuff and more. This brings me back to the misconception that IPCs are "easy to fix." All other races can be pushed into a fully upgraded sleeper and every inch of them healed within moments. IPCs have to manually repair every inch of their body. When insta-killed with an EMP, the IPC needs the following repaired: Both Hands, Both Arms, IPC charging implant, Head, Eyes, Upper Chest, Microbattery, Brain, lower both, both legs, both feet. Many Roboticists don't know how to repair IPCs, many don't realise the brain is in the head. Many don't know how IPC surgery works. Many forget to fix or replace your power charging implant that goes in your right arm. Given how commonplace EMPs are (it's easy to be killed by an EMP when you aren't even INVOLVED in the antag's business) and given how horrendously IPCs and EMPs are coded (as i've been told many times by the coding team) the terrible EMP weakness can't be modified or really removed. So why not remove the brute/burn weakness? I don't believe it makes sense anymore, given IPCs limbs propensity to pop off, and given how awkard they can be to repair. Yes, IPCs can repair themselves so long as they've got a functional arm AND hand, but that still uses up a healthy amount of welding fuel and if they DO lose a limb, they can't re-attach it themselves. It also makes them horrendously vulnerable to things like space and frost oil. Frost Oil and Syndi-Bee Toxin will keep an IPC down for the rest of the round, as nobody knows what the hell degreaser is or thinks to use it when an IPC is poisoned. Hell, the idea of IPCs beingpoisoned is so foreign to many people (IPCs included) that often they persistent dying upon revival is met with confusion and despair. Not to mention, removing their damage weaknesses should be easy enough, since these things are coded far more simply. All it would involve is deleting some numbers and then their brute and burn resistance would be the same as most other races. Other alternatives, that I can think of, are more complicated: A) Making IPC surgery easy as hell. Make roller beds and tables count as 100% success chance, make their surgeries quicker, etc. So they really can be reassembled in the field instead of laboured over by a labcoat that would much rather be dealing with a mech or cyborg. B) Making Nanopaste heal every single part of an IPC's body, in and out. The exact number it heals I'm not too fussy about, so long as it's not necessary to agonisingly heal every single organ after the inevitable EMP. C) Overhauling IPCs or EMPs or both completely. This is not a realistic option I know, but... eugh. Edit: Also this is very stream of consciousness, but IPCs get fucked p hard in Blob/Nuke Ops rounds. It's not uncommon to get one's arms shot off in one hit by Nuke Ops, and one shove from a blob will... also make your limbs pop off.

Oh hell, I forgot all about that round! I never used a teleporter before, and I think you told someone to "go" over comms, but I misunderstood and jumped in, ending up somewhere. I was confused and my last words were "Captain, why?"

I'd also like to throw in here... Chemistry. Access to stims, healing over time, etcetera. These are more or less completely denied to IPCs. While degreaser exists, IPCs can't make use of any of the incredibly useful traitor stimulants. Lack of access to meaningful chemical reagents and a proper balance to this is honestly a big deal, and is the primary reason why I personally stopped playing IPC almost altogether. I wouldn't mind seeing EMP's become less of a fuck you to IPC's in terms of repairing them after the fact. As it stands, you'll have an easier, faster (and probably more successful) time SR'ing and fixing someone who came out of an emagged recycler.