Psyentific

Why do you hate !!FUN!!?

no What part of do you not understand?

The Cigar is just a cigar, I swear. Hey there, I'm Psyentific. I play Janet Williams, often in Cargo, but increasingly in R&D and Telescience. Janet's a raging bitch, and she hates this station (and you) so god damn much. Don't have any other characters (yet), aside from a few throwaways I use for ERT names. I'd consider myself to be very robust, and it's entirely possible that I'm one of the most robust people here, especially when I'm running Cargo. My current SS13 aspiration is to roll Traitor with "Die a glorious death", and complete that objective with two singularities, two plasma fires, and one nuclear initiation timed to co-incide with emergency shuttle arrival. In terms of playstyle, I'm a powergamer who enjoys roleplaying. I think the toolbelt is the single most robust item in SS13, and I'm seldom found without one. Some of the most fun moments I've had in SS13 recently were sitting down with some old friends and catching up, telling war stories, and bullshitting. I've been playing SS13 since Summer 2013, and almost all of that time was spent on /tg/station. I fondly remember back when /tg/ was similar to Paradise, with a good mix of powergame and RP. In terms of friends, I play regularly with Dawgas, FriikkiM and Kamikaze14 - we skypecall all day every day it's great. If I had to say one notable thing that I've accomplished, it'd be that I'm the reason /tg/code has gun-proof crates. Have a Wizard Alien riding a Janikart.

Traitor Clowns and Mimes should always have a bonus objective - Antagonize the other as much as possible.

Trivially easy, like every steal/kill objective. It's not that it's hard to get a spacesuit, rather, that they always have it. Breaking a window and taking a spacewalk is always an option, and that you can pair it up with something that isn't a hardsuit. Ablative and Riot shield, anyone? Again, you can't effectively sentence a Diona to permabrig or the labor camp, because they can just break a window and walk away.

That's niche enough to be irrelevant for purposes of balance. Most Chemist and CMOs don't know how to make Plant-B-Gone, most botanists don't carry it around on the off-chance they have to deal with a Diona. Then why few people use the diona,if it's so overpowered? There's a lot of overpowered shit that nobody uses, and, for the most part, those who do use them keep their secrets. It's not that powerful things shouldn't exist, rather, that high-powered things shouldn't be available out the gate. No one ever use his fists against someone else when he can use a toolbox,a crowbar,a wielder,a stunbaton,a tazer or a laser gun,so they're not so strong. Combine it with their slowness and you'll kill a diona without problems of any kind. If my fists deal ten brute damage per hit, that's on-par with a toolbox, fire extinguisher, or harm baton. 13 brute per hit is on par with a hatchet, and 15/hit is Circular Saw, thrown floortile, and thrown glass shard. I don't have hard numbers on Diona punching, but if it's ten or more it's a viable melee weapon that cannot be disarmed; I no longer need to carry a follow-up to pair with a stunprod or baton throw, and I'm still an effective combatant if you disarm me. That's nice to know, but I still feel that doesn't balance out Spaceproof, No breathing, and extra melee damage. 'incredibly powerful' absolutely balances out with 'incredibly slow', but i agree that you should get rid of 'no breathing' at least Not necessarily. If I was a Dionae, my principle murder tactic would be E-bowing from space, and doing the same to anyone who comes after me. I'm sure you've seen your fair share of space-based murderbones, same as that but without "Get stripped, you die" The thing is, Space-immunity gives you such an incredible amount of strategic mobility - on par with the level of survivability that Kidan natural armor shrugging off heavy pulse rifles gives you. With space-immunity and a complete disregard for the crew (i.e. antag), depressurizing the entire station is now directly to your benefit and cannot possibly backfire as anything other than air-rushes. Furthermore, anywhere that touches space is somewhere you can now go (Or at least enter) with complete imperviousness. Armory, engine room, atmos, toxins off the top of my head. Space is no longer a very deadly environmental hazard, rather, it is now your best friend. Hardsuit movement speed is a small price to pay for that, and I know many engineers, atmo techs, and chief engineers who wear their hardsuit at all times because it grants them exactly that, except they're limited by internals and don't heal as long as they can get a flashlight. Currently, Permabrig and Labor camp sentences cannot be enforced on Diona, because they'll just break a window and walk off - This eliminates the biggest barrier to the "Fuckit, murderbone" thought process; 'What happens when I get caught'

That's nice to know, but I still feel that doesn't balance out Spaceproof, No breathing, and extra melee damage. You can't look at this and tell me this is a picture of something balanced unless that is your sole and primary advantage. It should be associated with powerful, non-niche disadvantages that hinder you very often. In a game where space is near-instantly lethal to everyone who isn't in a spacesuit, the ability to comfortably and indefinitely stand in space with no equipment is absurdly powerful.

"As for making people care about the blob: What if heads of staff had the authority to order people to grab a welder and fight the blob or face death penalty?" They actually do, UC. A perusal of spacelaw indicates "Failure to follow orders" and "Failure to Execute an Order with Serious Consequences" as minor and medium crimes, respectively. If I was the Captain or Head of Security, I would do summary executions on-the-spot for "negligence resulting in manslaughter" and "failure to execute an order with serious consequences" compounded by "Dire emergency" What we need is more competent captains and faster emergency response times all around. I've seen Command recall the shuttle during a nuke ops round, after I sent out a priority announcement indicating this.

Then we keep two. I propose: +Photosynthetic metabolism; Light-based health regeneration. As long as you are in a lit area with oxygen, you will slowly regenerate health. Without both, you will slowly lose health. +Pressure immunity; You can spacewalk with internals. =Treespeak; Dionae language, cannot be spoken, understood, or learned by non-dionae. =Plant affinity; You can instantly tell the condition and attributes of any plant at a glance. Shift-clicking a plant, diona, or hydroponics tray will act as if you had used a Plant or Medical analyzer on it, in addition to fluff text in the case of Hydroponics plants. ex. "My name's Danny!" "I'm hungry..." "Ooo! What's that?" -Charcoal: Fire doesn't kill you, nor does it brutally murder you. Fire brutally murderkills you. -Haste Makes Waste: Slower than a human, full speed is equivalent to no-shoes human. What this gives you is two moderately-powerful benefits for two moderate drawbacks, plus flavor.

Is that a bug with Dionae in particular? Because I haven't encountered it as Human at all. Well that's good for you that you're sticking to a character, but you're approaching a code problem like it's a player problem. From a purely powergaming standpoint, I have no reason not to be Diona, because Glorious Plantgod Ubermenschen. Dionae are directly ported from Baycode - Nice fluff, but game balance is completely ignored. What are the drawbacks? You light on fire? That's not nearly numerous or severe enough to counter the multiple powerful benefits you get for taking Diona, each of which, taken individually are on-par with Genetics or Virology superpowers. I am ignoring fluff for purposes of game balance. So should you. My sources and secondhand-info may be wrong, then. This will need further testing on my end.

You can't seriously be trying to make the case that this is balanced. I can take one look at this and say, with complete confidence, that it is not. Double burn damage from all sources and a high chance (4x damage recieved) to be lit on fire by any burn damage. OR Triple burn damage from all sources. You are a plant. You are made of wood. Plants burn. I'm completely ignorant as to the Dionae's lore, but I feel that lore-accuracy should be completely secondary to game balance. If Dionae photosynthesize in a traditional manner, they will require ambient oxygen, not internals, because O2 is absorbed through the skin-analogue. If Dionae absorb oxygen in a humanlike manner, that is, through lung-analogues and transport it with a blood-analogue, they will require internals. Dionae are plants. Saying they don't need Oxygen makes absolutely no scientific sense within the confines of currently-understood biology. Earthlike photosynthesis requires O2 and produces CO2. Remove their non-breathing entirely. Pressure immunity, eh, no. Nerf hard. That allows a diona to spacewalk with internals. That's on par with Cold Resistance in Genetics as a superpower, and should not be available out the gate. Bonus melee damage, remove entirely. That's the Tajaran's schtick, quit stealing it. Alien races, especially out-the-gate alien races, should have ~2 benefits of low to moderate power, balanced by ~2 drawbacks of low to moderate power. The Tajarans have bonus unarmed damage because of claws, however they cannot wear gloves. This is good and balanced, and is the standard alien races should be held to - Minor mechanical benefits for minor mechanical drawbacks, and an expectation to incorporate it into RP. There should be nothing that is objectively better, and right now Dionae are exactly that and are freely available. Pick two Good things and two Bad things. You can into space with internals and heal slowly in light, BUT you burn, oh by all the multitudinous Gods of the polyverse do you burn.

Because what the fuck is this. Mining comfortably without a hardsuit. Who thought this was a good idea?! >Immune to pressure damage >Don't need to breathe >Thus, spaceproof >Fireproof >Heal while in light >Extra melee damage >Own language In a large fire that's insanely hot, they'll actually heal faster than the fire can kill them. They don't entirely outheal the toxin damage from the plasma, so they pass out, but they still live. It's like N20 to them, except N20 doesn't affect them. As a Diona, you can cut yourself all you want and you'll pretty much never die unless you start bleeding internally. You can chop your own foot off and be fine. All this, available from first-login. Give me exactly one reason to continue being Glorious Human Master Race - One reason to not get my powergame on and start being an always-healing space-immune non-flammable non-breathing Plant God. And no, Glorious Human Master Race doesn't count as a reason. What, exactly, is the Dionae's weakness? What multiple, glaring, crippling flaws am I gaining in exchange for all this glorious overpoweredness? I slowly lose health in dark places? PDA flashlight. Hard hat. Fire helmet. Flashlight in pocket. In SS13, you will never be in the dark unless you want to be in the dark. E: Bash your own head in with a pickaxe, three times. 45 brute damage to the head. One Hundred Percent Healthy Dionae are unkillable plantgods, please fix this.

Nuke Timers, man. If browbeating you with fission bombs doesn't work, you're too stupid to live anyway.

Fuck off, back in my day Test and Goons were best spacebros for life. Back in my day we were Goon's deadbeat roommate.

I would say then, that give the AI an additonal law once Code Gamma is reached and modify the initial Quarantine law to expressly forbid drastic actions such as plasma floods, explosives, or nuclear initiations. The additional Gamma law would, of course, enable those.

Fun fact - You can smell corpses in space, through gas mask internals and an airless environment.

Fund it

The blob is far, far too strong in melee. I'm not sure if it's the Overmind clickspamming with "Expand Blob" or being enveloped by the blob (=> 5 tile adjacency) that does it, but whatever takes me from zero to dead in 0.6 seconds is very very bad. To go alongside "Less nodes, more cores", I'd say either decrease the amount of resources required for a new core (Down to 80?), and/or make Resource blobs increase the maximum resource pool along with the regeneration rate.

THE GOVERNMENT COMMITS NO CRIMES, CITIZEN.

C'mon, we're trying to have a serious discussion here. Trying.

So again, we're back to "Why aren't blob rounds fun"?

Hooves? Are you some kind of dirty sub-human? Then change it, don't remove it. Find out why it's not fun, and make it fun again.

That's the same as removing it, because every time, without fail, the crew will vote to skip.

Number 2 is definitely necessary - As it stands, trying to combat the blob alone is an exercise in futility, especially while click-spamming as the overmind can down someone before they can react. That last point actually looks like a very good idea.