Toroic

Welcome to the station! The main resource is the wiki, and I'd probably tackle one game system at a time, until you understand the basics of combat, construction, medicine, hacking. Things like chemistry and science jobs are great, but also tend to be more complicated. For me, botany was a great job where I could contribute both as a newbie, and as I started to understand more complicated mechanics.

What is the current armor value now? They take 80% normal brute damage.

Too much filler; there's no real dinner. I second this. I think Diona, IPC, Vox, Plasmamen, Slimes are in a good place. Skrell are herbivore humans who need fitted hardsuits, nothing unique. Unathi have claws, are carnivorous, and have one square better darksight (weak to cold, resist heat), gloves/boots Taj have 7 square darksight, claws, fur, have glove/boot things going on Grey have 5 square darksight, take 25% more brute damage, weak punches, and have telepathy. Kidan take 20% less damage, can't wear glasses, and eat diona nymphs (questionable utility, especially since a player diona nymph doesn't die as a result of being eaten, meaning they can still fight from the inside). Inaprovaline makes them high. I rarely see the karma requirement races that aren't ipc or vox. Personally I wouldn't find it a satisfying use of the resource. Personally I think that grey would be in a perfect spot if they had a hivemind. Skrell are just boring, and I'm not sure how to make them interesting. Unathi heat resist/Taj cold resist don't seem to be very significant, but claws give a good advantage if disarmed, and they don't have major weaknesses. The furries seem happy enough, and with Vulp. Kidan are tough and have claws, but not being able to wear glasses limits their utility as sec, which would be their natural role otherwise. I would prefer being stronger vs blunt, weaker vs burn or toxic damage. This would be a fair amount of coding work, cater only to snowflakes, and would probably have low use.

So as an alternative to the diona (who aren't OP at all, by the way) you want to re-impliment plantmen, who are basically humans who don't need to eat for a karma cost? I can't imagine that would be a popular race, and they certainly wouldn't have the awesome lore of the Diona. As far as other hybrids, I'm going to disagree because we already have a lot of near-human races in practice. Skrell for example are just slightly nerfed humans.

Adult diona are immune to facehuggers now, because in the facehugger.dm it has a if(ishuman(target)) that checks if the target has a mouth.

I don't believe this has been reverted, and especially in alien rounds, a diona has no mouth, and therefore cannot be infected by a facehugger. Diona have obvious strengths, but also massive weaknesses, largely because they are slow (difficult to respond to all threats), their healing is offset by food and medicine, and their lack of need to breathe/care about pressure is negated by a hardsuit. The logic loop I get caught in playing as diona is that for most things you'd want a hardsuit for, a human would have access to a hardsuit as well. For the times you don't have access to a hardsuit, generally you're performing above what your job is allowed to do. I could be a civilian and repair hull leaks, but construction of reinforced walls is probably beyond what I am allowed to do RP-wise. Pretty much every mechanic a diona can ignore, there are robust solutions for other species, that don't come with a speed penalty. For a new player/player in a lower station role, the benefits shine because they can get away with not using insulated gloves (hand damage heals quickly) or a welding helmet (no eye damage that I've noticed). The only exception I can think of is shenanigans, where you fling yourself off the station and break into some sort of wreck a bit more easily.

My IG and forum handle are the same, and I'm most likely to be that one Diona player on the station in any given game. I generally enjoy more support-oriented roles in-game, such as medical or botany (though I'm still very much an amateur botanist) and I'm still adjusting to the differences between bay and goon base. Still, from what I've seen I'm really enjoying the server so far, and the Diona durability has been quite handy at the end of rounds, when all hell breaks loose, or when I'm fighting a blob with a kitchen knife. I have a lot of years of RP experience, though I'm still finding my feet (and wiki diving) to learn about all the different races and lore. See you in game!