Dinarzad

Dis. It's a great way to volunteer to learn something, or practice a department you might not be super knowledgable about, but not take the same sort of responsibility. you play an Engineer, people expect you to know HOW to Engineer. You take an Engineering Intern or Apprentice or whatever, and people know that you may not know all the ins and outs, you're there to learn the ropes. You could in theory do the same thing withcustom jobs from the HoP, but that involves way more moving parts that really don't often happen. Lot's of servers use this 'intern' system of alt titles for assistant, and I think it's a pretty good one.

I'd PREFER it this way, but I can't help but feel there's gonna be a group of people that'll ruin it for everyone. But if the admin team is game to implement it and see how it goes, if it;s abused, then I wouldn't argue against it too hard, as someone that DOES have a Mute character.

This makes the most sense to me. I mean it's more logical to me a secondary language, but if balance is a concern, this is a good way to offset it. Having to sacrifice talking over a radio to be able to "Talk" in space or whatever.

Regen pls Did you know people can use words like "Fuck" without being furious? Because people that go "Holy fuck dude" when their friend does something cool in a game, actually AREN'T mad. It comes across as trying to dismiss arguments you don't like under the basis of assumed emotional state, Ex: "Well I don;t have to read/listen to anything they say because they're 'mad' so it;s clearly just raging gibberish with nothing behind it at all. It REALLY stifles conversation. So unless you can pinpoint the spot where I am 'Salty' aside my use of crude words...? As for the rest of the post, I literally just gone done explaining, it's not the difference between 95% dead and Dead A single EMP would be enough to JUST keep an IPC on the cusp of falling over in major crit, enough for 2 to kill but not enough for 1 to leave you "Immobile" by any stretch. And would include a hefty stun factor, so that EMPs caused by antags would give them plenty of time to do the rest of their work on the IPC, since buffing their survivability against antags is NOT the goal. Examples are versus antags because that's the train everyone and their mom is jumping on "But muh buffs". So that is why the exampels are showing it won't do diddly against antagonists out to kill an IPC target. Versus an environmentally caused EMP, or just against an IPC who wasn't the intended target but got caught through a wall, the odds are that another EMP will not occur before you can pick yourself up and crawl to get help. In addition it means the Ion rifle is no longer instantly lethal to IPCs, so it could FEASIBLY be used to take down an IPC crewman without the whole 'lol murder' aspect behind it. This is literally the opposite of balance. This is "Soft removal". It's also not even slightly a compromise. "EMPs now take are lethal in two applications instead of one, but provide a long stun on top of their damage, in exchange you can't self heal at all and even the lightest ding requires surgical intervention." Read that out loud to yourself. Imagine it;s a Vulpkanin or Unathi or some other race that is way more commonly seen, and then imagine how ludicrous that would be. This refers back to what I said the last time that idea was brought up, "Playability" cannot be ignored when it comes to "Balance". If you give IPCs in-built pulse rifles in their eyes, but in exchange gave them Diona speed and this "No healing" feature, you would see few if any IPCs, or how Kidan have a tremendous lack of player base due in no small part to the fact they can't wear anything on their eyes, drastically impeding almost every job on the station. Making something feel terrible to play, means nobody will play it. That has nothing to do with balance or buffs or nerfs, that's straight gameplay design

Pain really does not cause a whole lot of stuff. Not really a buff that matters, but a very very small one, granted. Cloning. Just dump them in a machine and it does the work for you. Feed them a pill and they get up. Put a defib unit on their chest then toss them in cryo. Not a buff, a side-grade. Everyone needs to eat except Diona. IPCs eat at an APC, humans eat at a vending machine/Kitchen. A single IPC can knock an APC down to 50% capacity pretty easily too. This is not a buff, a side-grade. Can lose their head and not die from it. And be blind and much worse until a head is replaced, and it and other limbs also pops off like a Rock'em-Sock;Em Robot's. I'd rather have my head harder to detatch then die in 3 hits to the chest. Bleeding comes up so infrequently on paradise, I sometimes wonder if it really wouldn't just be better to ditch it altogether. But regardless, they're NOT immune to "Organ" problems as they HAVE organ equivalents in their chassis. Microbattery = Heart, etc. The only time bleeding ever comes up is Vampires or Internal bleeding, and vamps have bigger problems and internal bleeding is by far one of the rarest cases to come into medical bay. Immune to Toxin and Oxygen damage. You mean the things I mentioned in the very post you're quoting me where I said those WERE part of their upsides? Cloning damage has maybe three sources in the entire game, and it literally is fixed by putting someone in cryo, which ALSO fixes every other thing wrong with them, except bones. Having a Language is *NOT* a buff, and if we're going to try and make fucking Trinary out to be this huge advantage, I'm going to openly mock people who try it, because the IPC OP Salt meta will be complete at that point. Every single race has a language, save for Plasmamen, even humans. That no one else can understand So please just don't even. Welding immunity was also listed. A bunch of upsides that have to be balanced somehow. By EMP Vulnerability and taking fuck tons of extra damage. Again, you;re spinning things to make it sound like I and others are trying to Get EMP vulnerability removed entirely, so that you can people on your side, and in so doing misrepresent the facts and mislead people, and frankly this is an old schtick from a lot of people and it's getting real old. The salt mine needs to fucking stop so we can at least have a fuckin discussion about it, without people instinctively going bucking up or dishing out ultimatums.

Because the intent isn't to nerf Antagonist EMPs, but Envrionmental EMPs, things like the engine or more incidental sources like the Experimentor. Something that won;t 1 shot kill someone, but put them on their ass for a bit before they get up. To an Antag, they may as well be dead, they're harmless and helpless. To someone just doing work and having one go off nearby, you have enough HP to survive one. I've given up on trying to get EMPs themselves adjusted because Paradise has had a hate-boner for silicons for ages an that's a lost cause I'm not even going to try out. But enough to survive a single EMP (With stun time) wouldn't exactly kill any balance and be a nice QoL change.

I understand the point of view you're coming from and there's merits to it, but it's being taken WAY too far. I would be open to making it easier to get the "Internal damage" point on an IPC, but not "That is the only way to heal." Because bear in mind they take FAR more damage every other species on the station. Imagine if as a human you had no chems to heal with, and every single time you got punched by the clown had to go to surgery. You;d pretty quickly stop playing that race altogether. Similar happens with Diona. Diona are incredibly strong, but they're so slow in movement, they see barely any play. It doesn't matter how strong it is, if it's UNENJOYABLE to play, nobody will deal with it, even if it's strong. Only a few people can really tolerate just how slow those guys move. EMP DOES need a nerf, but not a BIG one. Simply as stated, go from "Click dead" to "Click, Crit. Click, Dead." The antag impact is minimal, even if you use uronuranium to make an EMP the IPC is still 95% dead, stunned and helpless. Hit him twice and his down for the count. This is not the moon being asked for here, or a colossal shift of gameplay no matter how many times people try to spin it that way.

Diona plant-b-gone buff when in that case? Or Kidan and bug spray? Because so far all the races with "Hard counters" take two shots. One puts you into a REAL fucked up state, and the other is typically a death knell. IPCs are not to pariy with those other races, and if you are going to sit there and tell me IPCs are more powerful then Diona, I am very sorry Fox, but that would be a MAJOR stretch of logic. Diona have strong melee attacks, they regenerate constantly in Light, are immune to space, don't breathe are effectively immune to radiation. They in exchange are slow as sin and are vulnerable to weed-killer. Kidan have clawed attacks, in-built body armor, glow in the dark (When naked at least.) and their downsides are no glasses, and bug spray is painful (Last I knew at least.) IPCs do not breath and are immune to radiation, can have body parts easily replaced and do not need welders. These are their objective upsides. Everything else is a double-edged sword or a nerf. a Side-grade (As intended) Chem immunity, means immunity to a lot of meme chem deaths, sure. And also means they have NO form of rapid healing, they cannot be SR'd or Cryox'd or use meth for speed bosts or what have you. They have easier access to "Bandages" with welders and cables but those are slow healing, have to be manually applied to every single body part and in large enough numbers CAN'T heal them, requiring "Surgery" to repair the internal damage. They are immune to Virus's which also means they can't make use of healing viruses that are made all the time, no brain damage immunity, no constant regeneration with Toxic comp and toxin healing. They ALSO take hugely increased damage. This "IPC OP" meme is getting old and stale that salty people use because they can't be bothered to change their "Sick powergamer strats" because it IS an IPC they have to gank instead of a human. If 1 extra click from an antag is 'Make or break' for balance we have bigger issues we need to solve, because this is a stupid argument. From an antagonist perspective 1 EMP still puts the IPC into a helpless state. If you can't kill a helpless/stunned, near dead IPC, you don;t need to play antag. From the IPC's perspective 2-shot EMPs, mean you have a ghost of a chance to survive incidental EMPs from not antagonist sources, like the engine or other environmental causes. On top of all that, nobody has said to LOSE the EMP Vulnerability. Just to make it match up with every other racial weakness right now, a 2 shot mechanic. Killing IPCs is NOT hard if you at all think about it, and it's not really any different then killing an organic, aside the lack of chems. If you leave their brain/body around they tend to get cloned, Defibbed or SR'd. Antags should learn to do Disposal.

Even better/worse. So the non-asshole guide would be, beat the shit out of the positbrain/flurosulpheric acid the brain.

Guide to Murder, because it's hard guis. Step 1: Apply brute force to IPC Step 2: damage modifer means the IPC is rapidly going to crumple over dead. Step 3: Do victory jig. Step 4: Put IPC on table. Step 5: Use a basic fucking tool kit found absolutely everywhere to pop their chest open and take out their posibrain. Step 6: Turn the posibrain's speaker off. Step 7: You just permanently fucking killed the IPC unless they somehow get his posibrain from your bag into his body. Step 8: Victory Jig for honor and glory. Step 9: Realize that if you can't do the above with a 2-shot mechanic instead of a 1 shot mechanic, maybe the problem isn't IPCs.

I guess if you don't count or ignore all the ways people have suggested how to avoid/reduce the death alarm aspect Then yes that's exactly what is being suggested.

I'm not discussing nerfs I am discussing an OVERHAUL. A remake, or re-imagining or whatever it wants to be called. Not buffs, not nerfs, but both to change what a pAI is to be fun for the pAI and actually something you might want for more then the ability to scream as a crewman. And you're right, if you agree the pets dragging thing is fucked up, then we absolutely agree on that point. I have personally not seen bans doled out over it, but I've just come back from several months of giving SS13 a break so maybe that's been cracked down on in my absence. It isn't Death Alarm+ though, it is -objectively- not death alarm+ if you're talking about the idea and not current pAI action. It is no harder to spot then a pAI slotted into someone's PDA or in a pocket (those both being purely invisible from an outside standpoint.) then it is to see an implant in their head (Again, purely invisible.) That's 1 to 1. Additionally it is EASIER to remove the pAI from play not harder, again, objectively. Nothing stuns instantly the game you say, so you STILL have to wait for the person to be stunned before you can remove the pAI to wipe/destroy the card. In THIS Scenario though, as soon as the person is out, so is the pAI. No more screaming, it can't even SEE anymore. It can't say where you are dragging the corpse to, or where it's master's body is. All this happens JUST by disabling the implanted individual. Compare that to stunning someone and waiting for said stun. The pAI begins screaming. The person is zonked out, and NOW you can start to search them for the pAI or drag the body or start the murder-gasm, whatever it is the antag wants/needs to do. The entire time this little shit is screaming bloody murder who you are, what you;re doing where you all are, whatever. This objectively adds additional steps for the antagonist to shut it up, I cannot possibly fathom where you are saying this is a BUFF to the Death Alarm aspect if this is indeed what you mean. I'm proposing it as an implant because it's the only feasible way I could see linking the state of one mob to another codewise, in the same sense as a Cortical Borer or a Holoparasite. If you can think of a similar way to achieve such a thing without it having to be implanted into someone, I'm honestly more then happy to consider and debate the pros and cons between the systems. I'm not married t othe notion of an implant, I'd prefer something wearable, but I'm not savvy enough on the code-side of things to say if that's even possible let alone the sheer difficulty.

Not wanting them buffed is not a militant stance. Proclaiming "I'd sooner see then removed from the entire game for no one to enjoy ever than to be given anything" IS very much a militant stance, because you're shutting down any and all discussion before it even happens and refuse to even countenance the idea or keep an open mind, and that benefits no one on this server. And you're willfully ignoring the part where people don't WANT them to be Death alarm+'s and are open to removing that aspect. And so what if they drag people away is that any different then what a ghost controlling Ian of all things can do? Why is it okay for THAT Ghost role (LITERALLY a pet.) to do it, but THIS role over here can't do it ever no matter what, even though they no longer shackle themselves to a master but to a lawset, and lose all their old perks for the sake of having a physical body worth having. (Securi-bots having been removed that now leaves you with MULES or Medibots in practice.) and I'd also be okay with MULES not being slottable or if slotted in, the mule being unable to murder stuff. Hell it's even EASIER for Ian or E-N to drag people, that's literally "Join an start doing things." a pAI has to find someone willing to take them, convince that person to build a robot body or get Robotics to build one, and then slot them into it. It's a feature I have seen used all of maybe 5 times in the past 5 months, ever since the intial craze over the new feature died down. You're right. Being an invisible alarm in someone's pocket that you have no way to know exists until it starts screaming your name and location and what you just did, is absolutely better then an implant in someone's head that can't scream or see you if the host they are implanted in is unconscious or stunned which takes the antag no extra effort thereby removing or vastly limiting the "Death alarm" aspect. And if he DOES know you have a pAI can EMP that circuit in your brain to cause some issues. How could I expect this to be at all better for the antagonist.

Militant stances on issues solves nothing and only serves to detract from further discussion as a whole, benefiting no parties. But, I digress pAI at present are one of the shittier ways a ghost can come back into the round. Drones can do an build stuff. Positronic brains let you come back as a full-fledged cyborg, and while expensive to print, Robotics STARTS with one. Even spawning as an animal. The amount of times I have seen Ian drag a corpse into medical is sort of ridiculous. That goes beyond mentioning all the plethora of mid-round antag spawns, mostly because those are RNG related rather then reliable, but more often then not you tend to get at least Swarmers or Cortical Borers. pAI get to talk over general comms only, and supply HUDs they can relay information from to their master, which is useful. The Host Bioscan is nice, other the nthe fact even an un-upgraded medical scanner gives you more information about what's happening. Records are usually useless to every single crew aside the Detective where you can be a mobile forensic's computer. Universal Translator is hardly a game changer, but a fun and still useful module. That's about it. Them being a "Death Alarm" is... Technically a feature I guess, though more of a byproduct of how pAI are implemented rather then a set in stone intended thing. And yet it's only pAI that get this "No major round impact!" stipulation. That's frankly asinine, either set a standard or don't, one will do just well, two is excessive. Secondly, I don't think many people are married to the idea that pAI SHOULD be the ultimate sentient death alarms. I know I personally couldn't give much of a fuck if that was taken out to off-set other ACTUALLY FUN features implemented. When I play a pAI I imagine something like an infomorph (Eclipse Phase, look it up it's baller.) or a Secretarial/Administrative Cortana. Something that actually provides information or can take the boring jobs off their master's hands. A Captain who has put out an order, and a pAI who can then manage logistics over their comms from there while the Captain is having a meeting with the HoS about a prisoner. A paperwork printer to save time for those beurecratic HoPs that actually use forms. A "LED-light" feature that lets them output light, weaker then a regular flashlight, but a touch more then a PDA light (Hell even smartphones have those.) Record access might ACTUALLY be very useful if it was more then "Look, don't touch." especially for an overworked Warden, having their pAI attend to THAT side of things. All of those things are shit that actually lets them INTERACT with their master to be USEFUL in some tangible fashion, without being some ultimate game-changer on their own. You wanna up their protolathe cost so they can't be mass-produced? Fine by me. I'd RATHER pAI were much more advanced equipment that not everyone does or SHOULD have, something a bit more cutting-edge. You wanna make them not a death alarm? I'm down with it. I'd almost PREFER if they were in the form of some kind of head/brain implant, and when their host goes down, they are rendered mute and blind as well, because they're implanted in the host's brain and seeing through their eyes. Wanna do both of those? Sure thing, m8. Is any/all of these easy to code? Fuck nah, this would necessitate a complete and total overhaul most likely. Are any coders actually keen to take that mantle? Fuck if I know, I ain't in their heads. Is it a damn sight better then the current notion of pAI? It is in my opinion. If I have to sacrifice the "Death alarm" aspect in exchange for getting access to my master's radio channels or records access to help manage things, or any of the module ideas I pitched out above, then I'll be the first to show up with the ritual dagger for the sacrifice. Long post is long.

INVULNERABLE to EMP? Hells no and I say this as someone who plays an IPC a lot. Resistant enough to not be 1-shot but critically wounded? That I'd but open to discuss. Everything else though, I don;t think they need, they're not cyborgs. They can get implants like every other crew

Rollerbeds. Act like a lunatic, get treated like a lunatic, strap 'em down.

I prefer to think of it that Changelings are simply that much better then technological machines when it comes to DNA harvesting. They, as a species have adapted to this as a lifestyle and perfected it. Same way way some animals can end up doing things modern science still can't figure out how the fuck they do those things. This is an incredibly advanced biologically based alien species. They probably know a thing or two more then humans about cloning and DNA or Genetic manipulation, just like how the Vox (Vox Auralis specifically) are basically demi-gods of Bluespace fuckery, when NT only knows a little about the extent of what Bluespess can do. But that's just me, iunno, seems fine to me.

As far as I know pAI radios are literally just in-built Station Bounced Radios. They can even turn on a microphone like SBR's to broadcast everything around them. so I imagine they DO work like that. Given they are SBR's though, they only have the common channel, so... not much to listen in on however.

That's one mindset, but the alternative mindset is that, a Cyborg gives up their free will, they are totally subservient to the AI and in some cases the Crew, and also give up all their flexibility and use of hands. They have the tools they have and that is it. In exchange for giving up your free will and flexibility you become a specialized machine that excels in it's chosen field. A human/crew is flexible, can do all the things, even as a specific job, if you have to, you can always go do what needs doing yourself (Where sensible, of course.) A Cyborg is inflexible. If it is not in their modules they can't perform that function. They can't elect to ignore their boss or exist as an individual if the AI says jump you don't get to ask it "Why" you get to fucking jump. So the response is why should someone who sacrifices all their free will, choice and flexibility to be a specialized machine in a specific field NOT dominate the aspects of those jobs? (My own opinion is I have no opinion, simply trying to clarify and articulate the opposing viewpoint so a more cohesive and holistic discussion/debate can be had)

Absolutely this. Most the time I see karma given or get karma for myself, it isn't roleplay that did it, it was because someone did something meme-y or mechanically impressive (Soloing Nuke Ops, etc.) In my case, it's usually for making surgery quick an painless. Not because I put effort into posts or tried to interact.

What about the notion of a "Sleeper Agent"? Like a very low-tier syndicate antagonist who has some really low-grade objective that won't stir up a lot of stuff on their own, stealing a stamp or something (Syndicate has to keep that omni stamp up to date after all.) or get spawn with some syndicate documents they have to escape with. After all, you haven't been 'activated' yet, you're still awaiting orders and making sure your own existence is not discovered yet. Something that basically can exist freely with almost every single antag type to dick with the meta a bit, but isn't a big enough threat or impactful enough to be throwing grease onto a kitchen fire in the case of cultists or lings or blobs.

Pls no. some of the karma pricing on the species are already pretty obscene as it is (Lookin' at you plasmaguys/gals) At that point, honestly it would be better to do it via a whitelist, because at least then it's ACTUALLY 'throttled' with more direct control and feasibly anyone can do it, inside of a year and a half. As it is, the prices are steep on several races, especially if that's what you WANT to play as. There is nothing I, as a player, can do to achieve that goal faster. I am at the mercy of other players and what they deem to be "Good Roleplay" or whatever criteria they have for giving karma out, so that I can unlock the fancy paintjob I want for my assistant. For someone that just wants to play something that looks cool or different then a bog-standard human, that's... that's pretty demoralizing. Especially when your main goal is mostly for a cosmetic then a "This race has free spess travel" mindset. If it is primarily rarity/frequency of alien races that staff are worried about, then I HONESTLY do believe a whitelist achieves that goal better and puts more onus of achieving the thing a player wants in their own hands, since they are responsible for their own whitelist application and their own effort. They are NOT responsible for other people forgetting or not wanting to give out karma. Because every player is different both in what makes them give it out in the first place, and how often, some dole it out like candy, some hold onto it like Ebenezer Scrooge holds onto a gold coin at Christmas time, they give it out only for miraculous events or feats. Because with karma as it is, you are effectively "Competing" with almost 100 other players in a round, to try and get the thing you want. And that's kinda meh.

I mean... this really kind of sums up my entire thoughts about it more or less. I'd honestly be more in favor of axing the ability to have emagged maintenance drones at all, with E-mags just powering down/destroying a drone for traitors who want to silently dispatch the little helper bots that might be foiling his plans by doing repairs or unsabotaging the power grid.

I agree they should be nerfed or limited in some fashion, but I don't think it's all that fair to punish another player for being emagged. Drones are respawnable, sure, but you have to have been a ghost for 10 minutes first.

I don't believe that's correct, seeing as even meals cooked by the chef don't provide THAT much nutrition and why the chef is even needed in the first place. Okay, hold up. You can't chide me for using 'hyperbole' and 'vague statements' like "Well how much is tremendous and how much is a metric ton more?" and then go on yourself to use phrases like 'Takes something like' or 'probably more' If you want to push this into the realm of pure mathematics and statistics, that's absolutely fine, but then we have to go the distance, not this double-standard of "You can't use hyperbole but I can use maybes and probablies and lots" Either we're straight up statistician here or we are not, and I honestly don't care which mode we're going, but we need to pick a mode an stick with it if this debate is gonna be worth anything. As for an 'Extreme edge case' Unless Slimes have some sort of hidden stat I didn't know about to not make them antagonist targets, that's not extreme at all. A dead slime leaves no blood, no evidence. Nobody can be suspicious about a bloody chapel or blood steps in maintenance if there's no blood to begin with. That assumes you survive long enough to GET the mannitol. Enough brain damage can and will kill you, for most people that threat is negligable but slimes take so much more brain damage it is -entirely- in the realm of possibility for them to die of slime core damage before even getting to medical. Slimes take literally three times as much cold based damage, compared to Vox who are immune to it since that's required to go space walking without a suit. That's a LITTLE more then 5%, but I DO stand corrected in that I was wrong as searching through the code it seems to be a 20% modifer not 5%. As for the comment on Greys it absolutely has bearing on this discussion because it is a point of comparison. Greys have the sole ability to use telepathy and their downside is a larger brute penalty, compared to vox who ignore atmos, ignore space and have talons and yet have a LESSER brute penalty, and before that brute penalty was added had -NO- penalty save for their masks and the inability to be cloned. Dead is dead an that's that. You don't "Suffer more" from being dead an gone. You cannot brain transplant vox/slimes into human bodies anymore, so the state of decay is a non-issue since both of them need to be defibrilated or SR'd to be revived and SR doesn;t care if organs are a pile of goopy mush, it cares about the overall damage to a body exceeding a threshold. I don't entirely understand the point of this debate however, if you're of the mind Vox and Slimes are close together in terms of balance and don't think either needs to be cloneable. I legitimately don't know what you're arguing in favor -of-.