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  1. Hello, I hope whenever you are reading this that your day has gone well. I plan on writing a long post, detaling my reasons, and as such I'll leave a TL;DR at the bottom for anyone that just wants the gist of it. With that out of the way, let's get into it. Disclaimer As the title says, I'm proposing what seems like an extreme buff to a race that already enjoys a plethora of immunity's to some of the game's most lethal hazards. IPC's do not need to breathe, and suffer no oxygen damage, thus making them immune to many dangerous gases like N20 and C02. IPC's suffer no toxin damage. IPC's are immune to all diseases. IPC's are immune to radiation. IPC's cannot be infected by White Terrors, or Facehuggers. IPC's are immune to pain. IPC's cannot suffer eye damage from welders, freeing up an eye or helmet slot. IPC's are extremely easy to repair and perform surgery on, needing only general tools that can be found all over the station, as opposed to the specialized tools and chemicals. IPC's can regain blood by chugging oil, bypassing the complexities of restoring blood in organics. IPC's cannot decay when being dead for long periods of time, and are just as easy to fix if the body was recovered in 5 minutes, or 40 minutes. Finally, IPC's can restore hunger from just about anywhere on the station from an APC, and do not have to find time to visit the kitchen like many other species. It probably sounds ungrateful or even greedy that on top of all of these amazing benefits, I would ask for another immunity on top of all of this, and a pretty big one at that. By now it should be no secret that I am extremely biased in favor of IPC's, doubly so if you recognized the name Torque. I wanted to lay out all of the benefits I enjoy every round as an IPC player, and make it clear that I do not take those benefits for granted. IPC's get to shrug off some of the most chaos inducing events on the station, like massive viral outbreaks or radiation storms. IPC's have the extreme conveniences of built in welding goggles, as well as never having to breathe, the later of which I've gotten so used to, that several times OOC I forgot that my organic friends need internals before going EVA and have almost gotten them killed in the process. Yet perhaps the greatest boon to IPC's is their extremely easy to fix nature, with the most extreme example I can think of is coming back to life after 40 minutes of being webbed up in a terror spider nest that eventually got cleared out. All of these benefits make IPC's extremely fun to play on a mechanical level, and these conveniences have genuinely made me shy away from choosing other races. I say all of this to be open about the fact that I am extremely IPC biased. I will try my best to be fair about the whole situation, but this is ultimately the perspective of someone who has played IPC for 350+ hours, and it would be arrogant and dishonest to say I'm being 100% objective in my arguments, though I will try my best. Let's get into it. Lore While I believe the arguments regarding the Lore are the least convincing on either side of the argument, I still think they are worth mentioning, just to be complete. I haven't quite seen an 'official' explanation as to why IPC's are vulnerable to space but Cyborgs, Maintenance Drones, and even pAI's are immune. I understand that the chassis part of IPC is made on the cheap, and readily replaceable, leading to the extreme ease at which they can be destroyed. Yet the even cheaper Maintenance Drones and pAI's are completely immune to the hazard of low pressure and temperatures of space, and it leads to IPC's being space vulnerable being very awkward and immersion breaking. I don't know a lot about real world conditions in space, but seeing as how Satellites can have extremely thin antennas that work just fine in space, it feels odd and unrealistic that a machine would be slowly destroyed by lack of pressure. Not that the real world should have any true impact on our game with koi that swim through space and mice that can speak every language in the universe. Now one could argue that considering the IPC's were originally designed to be what is essentially a slave race, with the disposable nature of a cyborg yet without laws restricting their creative thought, that the original creators designed them to be space vulnerable intentionally. Giving the IPC's a full strength Cyborg body would be too dangerous without laws, so they could have made a chassis that was intentionally easy to destroy, and one that could not escape into space to flee the subjugation. It would make sense to intentionally construct a chassis that cannot maintain itself in space to keep them in line. However, once the IPC's achieved freedom and independence, why would they keep this intentional defect in themselves? Why would they not build a more hazard proof chassis for themselves? And if we're talking IRC's in the 'modern day' when the game takes place, there would be no logical reason to keep the IRC's space vulnerable, as they are mechanically slaved to their masters. They would not need to be a fail-safe anymore, and lack of a space-proof IRC means you have a useless robot if you need anything done in EVA. Ultimately, I don't see a good 'In Lore' reason as to why IPC's start to 'die' in space. As far as IC interactions go, I either gloss over the fact completely like with SSD or Bugs happening, or chalk it up to 'the will of the space gods.' Neither is a very satisfying answer as to why IPC's need to have Hardsuits for space travel. However, as I said I believe this is the least compelling argument in favor of either side. As far as I am aware, the lore is written to compliment the mechanics and rules in game, as opposed to lore being written, and then game mechanics being adjusted to fit that lore. I also don't see what's stopping the lore from being changed to better suit new mechanics or what have you. I could be wrong, I've only scratched the surface of the lore anyhow. So let's get into the real meat and bones of the argument. Mechanics and Balance Finding a place to start here is quite difficult, as there's a lot of mechanics, and a lot of roles for a player to take. So many in fact that I cannot speak to experience with a large amount of them despite the 350+ hours I have invested into IPC. Since there's so many factor's I'll start where I see myself using theoretical IPC space immunity, and trying my best to justify that. Most of that 350 hours has been spent in the engineering department, a department with no trouble accessing EVA gear. I believe my playstyle would stand the most to benefit from this buff. For both IC reasons and mechanical reasons, I like to not where a hardsuit, and instead opt for a hazard vest when there's no current EVA activity needed to be done. IC this is for the 'engineer look' of the hazard vest, and mechanically it is for the speed. The hardsuit cuts into your movement speed by a lot, making it something I don't wear when I can afford not to, for IC and OOC reasons. Yet I find most engineers opt to grab a hardsuit at round start, and never take it off for the entire round. This is mostly due to nature of engineering, as breaches can happen at a moments notice, and always being ready to quickly enter depressurizing areas is a huge benefit to have, and worth the speed penalty to many people. So the obvious question is why should IPC's get both the speed from a lack of a hardsuit, AND the space immunity of a hardsuit? I believe it comes down to why someone would pick a human or another organic race over IPC. IPC's along with, I believe, Diona's and Slime People, are the races that do not experience New Crit. Now I'm no expert on New Crit, but my understand of it is that races with New Crit do not immediately lose consciousness upon reach 0 HP, and through a series of Dice Rolls, progress through stages of Shock and Cardiac Arrest. They may slip in and out of consciousness based on the roll of the dice, but can be conscious up until around a total of -200 HP is reached. I could be very wrong about the specifics here, as I said I'm no expert, but I believe I have the gist of the idea down. Now IPC's, Diona's, and Slime People all lose consciousness when they reach 0 hp, and must be helped by a second party to survive going into critical condition. Since I don't know New Crit well enough to gauge on average how long people can stay conscious, let's just assume our theoretical human loses consciousness at -100 HP, and our real IPC loses consciousness at 0HP. On top of that, our IPC takes 1.5x the damage from Brute and Burn damage sources, arguably the most common two types of damage in the game. This put the 'effective health' or the amount of damage you need to do to incapacitate a IPC at 66.7 damage, comparing that to the effective health of human, nearing around 200 HP on what I believe is a conservative estimate, there's an extreme imbalance in durability. However, I actually believe this is extremely appropriate, and even good to keep moving forward. IPC's by their design mechanically, are not meant to be fighters at all. I don't agree with desires to have their durability buffed. IPC's are meant to have the durability of a wet cornflake. They can be punched to death, and it has happened to me and this complete lack of durability is part of the IPC's identity mechanically. IPC's make for nice and easy antagonist targets too, due to the easy access many antagonists have to EMP. An inconspicuous flashlight that's only 2 TC for traitors. An AoE Shriek for changlings that leaves no chance of escape. Cultists that can present a slip of paper that instantly kills the IPCs. Let's not even mention Revenants. Even barring EMPs, the before mentioned 66.7 effective health means that even without an EMP it's gonna be a really easy kill. I sincerely believe this is a core part of the IPC identity. They are NOT fighters. In exchange for the extreme ease of being robusted, IPC's are given that myriad of benefits I mentioned at the start of this essay. They are the single most convenient race to play. IPC's don't need to worry about welding goggles. IPC's don't need to worry about diseases. IPC's can 'eat' from almost anywhere on station. Etc. So why on top these should Space Immunity be added? It would be extremely mechanically fitting to the specialization of the IPC, which is their high amounts of utility. IPC's are made to shine for the duties of the crew. Considering IPCs can avoid so many of the problems that organic crew members get afflicted with, they end up being much more efficient at getting tasks done. Stopping and eating takes almost no time for an IPC where as organics have to make a whole trip to the kitchen. Disease outbreak? Organic crew members should get to medbay when they can, IPC's carry on. Etc. I believe adding space immunity on top of this would extremely fitting to the IPC's 'hyper convenience' toolset. Space proof IPC's would be a huge boon of convenience for themselves but also for other crew members. An IPC engineer means one less highly valuable hardsuit is taken from the limited supply, and a faster response time to fixing breaches. An IPC paramedic can immediately respond to a spaced body without having to report back to their office to put on a hardsuit. A bored IPC civillian can just space themselves and go on an adventure. This is of course for the average IPC, what about Security or Antagonist IPCs? To be perfectly honest I do not know how this would effect security IPCs. I have never played one, mostly due to the fact they are not meant for direct combat, which security would see a lot of. I think maybe space-immunity would make Security IPC slightly less of a meme, and offer a bit more of a specialization for security teams. I don't think it would be overpowered, its just too easy to kill an IPC to have them following you into space being a huge deal, I imagine. Again however, I have no experience here. Antaging however I do have some experience with, and I must say, it would make an IPC antag a bit more of a threat, considering they would be able to move around at full speed on station and immediately bail out like a Vox if they needed. Though an Ion rifle shot ends an IPC antag so I sincerely don't think it would be a problem. If someone does think it would be overpowered by any means, please feel free to say why. I don't believe it would be at all, and I'd say at worst we could give the feature a test run and if it's too overpowered, then adjustments can be made. Ultimately, I believe space-proof IPCs would be an extremely appropriate buff to the toasters. As far as I'm aware, when the New Crit feature was introduced, IPCs, Dionas, and Slime People received no changes while the other races received, 2 to 3 times the effective health of the Old Crit races. I have not played either Diona or Slime People, and I cannot speak for what changes might work for those races, and I wished to keep this purposed change as 1 dimensional as possible. I personally believe it would be most fitting to buff IPCs at what they are already good at, as opposed to trying to figure out an entirely new system that somehow keeps them on par with New Crit races. A buff to the utility of a race meant for high amounts of utility. TL;DR I believe IPC's should not be vulnerable to space. Not only does it not make any sense in the lore, it would make for an effective and appropriate buff to IPCs. The races that operate under New Crit have 2 to 3 times the effective health of an IPC. Rather than try to fix the lack of durability that is iconic to IPCs I purpose that IPCs should instead be buffed to become space-proof. I believe this would not effect the overall balance of combat and antagonists, but rather serve as another utility for IPCs, a utility that fits well with the overall high amount of conveniences IPC already trades for the ease at which they die. Code Due to my extreme bias I mentioned before, I would like this feature so much that I went in and coded it myself and made a Pull Request even. Here it is. https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/11672 Thank you so much for taking the time to read all the way through if you did, I spent the whole day trying to get my thoughts into words and communicating them properly. I hope I did a good enough job. You all have a fantastic day.
    2 points
  2. Hello Im J.O.E Hello everyone, after long time (Well if you dont count rough start) i finally decided to say hello to everyone i have meet on the server, and which are probably sitting on this forum for a long time. I also want to thank you people, for giving me a ton of reason for laughs and smiles, durning my time playing on the server, and i just hope that you had some good time interacting with my character as well. I hope that i successfully integrated myself with the rest of the crew. See you around on station ^^
    2 points
  3. I make art. Captain tried to have me arrested for it. Engineering tried to cover it up. But I make art.
    2 points
  4. This is the adventure of Bloom, the terrarium diona. The terrarium was busy as a beehive, partly because of all the bees. While the other sisters worked on making nymphs, spreading glowshrooms and making tesliumatos, Bloom set out to grow and science the heck of some gnarly vines. After creating some acceptable seeds, she set out to spread life a safe distance from the terrarium. Miners and lizards came and went, the bodies of many rescued to be ascended to vegetablehood. Vines quickly expanded south, so Bloom set up some sandstone constructions to prevent them from interfering with the diona works. The sister that worked on the tesliumatos and tesliunettles joined Bloom to explore the extent of the vines. They had hardened on the north, and they forced them to take a detour. On the West a mining outpost was found, along with screams of spiders and gamma squads and whatnot. That sounded just a tad too unappealing so they headed East, to find some gnarly ruins just a short distance away. The terrarium's goal of spreading life was completed, but the island in the lava lake was still untouched. They looked around for a ledge they could jump to. Bloom asked the sister to be thrown over the scorching fumes towards the ledge. As impossible as it seemed, if anyone was to succeed it had to be a diona. In a mere fraction of a second, Bloom withered and shriveled into a clump of charred weeds. She had made it tho... but alas, to what fate! A turret was still active in the middle of the rubble, pinning her down within an instant of her body regenerating enough to stand. With no means to fight back, it should have been the end. Except... A space vines major victory! The turrets were soon obscured and crunched by flowering vines! Bloom started to make her way through the derelict outpost, using the tesliunettles to remove the dangerous venus flowers. To great disappontment, power was long gone in the bar, now a eerie mix of plasma, burnt tiles, lava glow and looming vines. Meanwhile, the main station had started the self destruction sequence due to rampant spiders. But not even a nuclear detonation was going to stop Bloom now. Some sort of "death squid" was now dispatched to finish the last survivors. Rummaging through the rubble, Bloom found a funny headset and proceeded to inform the squids that they had no power there. The squids attempted to enter lavaland, but were immediately deterred by the expanding vines. So was the terrarium's goal finally secured. As for Bloom, she spent the rest of her time talking to the extremely disturbed nymphs that awoke inside her, in the middle of a hellscape.
    1 point
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