Jountax

a project I once attempted and nearly completed on two separate occasions was basically this, but with two more steps. 7.) Apply advanced mutagen from a black slime, then frost oil when they become a slime person. 8.) Transplant slime core into new human body. You now have a fully organic human made wholecloth.

I really just need to say I agree that making slimes and dionae change to fit the new system is... not ideal. Slimes are the race I play as so they're the ones I will comment on. Not having organs is the point of playing a slime, and having a heart isn't even unrealistic. Many species in real life have no heart or have a very simple one, and slimes appear to be modeled on essentially being a giant amoeba which don't need to circulate their cytoplasm to get chemicals where they need to be. Additionally, they are entirely immune to respiratory damage, hence taking toxin instead while in crit, and it sounds like either that will change too (in which case why not just play human?) or it won't (in which case why mess with slimes at all?) Also, slimes are already weak to brain damage and can't be cloned. If a brain damage and cloning reliant medical system is applied to them they will need to be reworked.

I just want slime cores to be in the torso and for slimes to be able to regrow their head. Also, how do they internally bleed? All their water is already loose inside of them and they can just drink more when they're low. Maybe make their (cartilegenous) bones even easier to break to balance IB immunity? Chemical vulnerability to drying agent would also make sense. Make it lower their blood level or something.

Fair enough. ETA: the reason I made the connection in the first place was that it would give them control of the PDA flashlight, but their mobile form could indeed use one as well even in that case.

Honestly, unless we want to give them abilities like opening doors and pulling things to run errands for their master, I think it might make more sense to do away with the software system for them and give them direct access to all the functions of the PDA they're slotted into. Or, maybe combine the two. Add a program that lets them interfact with the PDA they are in. Maybe even go further than that. Make more items you can slot them into, like glasses, and then you see their HUD*, or an earpiece which both lets the pAI control the microphone and such, talk over it, and grants their master universal translation if the pAI has it active. All of that still requiring the (probably pretty hefty) interface program to function, but still. Could be pretty neat, or a complete disaster, I'm not too sure what the community wants from pAIs. *I'm not sure if pAIs have access to security/medical records, but I'm pretty sure they can't set arrest levels with the secHUD. Their master should not have access to these things either.

Other than a vague design philosophy we might not even be following that pAI's aren't supposed to have an impact on the round, no, I can't think of a reason.

The thing I envision for kida is actually making their exoskeleton an exoskeleton. The bones are easier to break, but easier to fix because it would only take a topical treatment. Taking more oxyloss from bloodloss is probably pretty doable, and organ resistance already exists for the brain with brain_mod so it should be possible to extend to the other organs with a general organ_mod variable. I always intended to go on to rebalancing them more once I finally got the ore sense working since that was the most glaring flaw in my eyes. My main concern with that PR is that it was just lazy. It is my hope that we can give kida something unique and fun enough to balance out the unique downside of eyewear problems. I'm just having a hell of a time actually learning how byond code works, all I've done so far is minor edits that I could infer from existing code, and this seems like it requires something novel. I do think if paradise ever gets that directional vision thing some servers are experimenting with, kida should definitely keep the 360 degree vision we have now because that's what compound eyes actually do in real life.

Off topic, but for what it's worth I usually try to get somewhat creative. Or at the very least don't do what most antags usually do. On topic, I think Tzo pretty much hit the nail on the head and kept going until he'd built a house, a front porch, a tool-shed and even an above-ground pool in the backyard.

I find botany and robotics breaking SoP on a semi regular basis too. In the botanist's case, it's also a violation of space law: distribution of narcotics. In robotic's case it's borging people without proper forms being filled out beforehand. Both of these are pretty understandable, because I think actually enforcing those two things are pretty unique to us as far as non HRP servers go. A simple reminder is usually enough, but technically you could view earthsblood as a narcotic, and some botanists like to distribute healing plants that include it. However, on the subject of mechanical power and karma unlocks, most karma unlocked jobs are intentionally low power, so that if no one who has them unlocked joins as them it doesn't hurt the round much.

So far I've managed to put a new organ in their heads, but I'm still working out the actually sensing ores through walls bit. I plan to do this in chunks, but I would like to get a better list on what the community actually thinks might make kidans more interesting, less frustrating, or otherwise just more enjoyable to play so I know what to work on next. ... If me taking on this project isn't too presumptuous, that is.

Think I'll poke around the code later, then. Need something to distract me from the tweak to kidans I've been failing to get to work for a bit.

Are IPCs immune to surgical pain fail chances? If not I feel they really should be and that that is more of an oversight to be fixed than a buff to be applied. People have been pointing out that you can fix an IPC on any old random table, which is still technically true, but in ghetto surgery environments AND with no anesthesia fail chances those are some long odds for every step.

I thought the standard way of fixing internal components (use a screwdriver) worked for the posibrain. That's how you fix every other internal component, I don't see why the posibrain would be different.

Now that I'm actually looking at the code, bleed vulnerability and organ damage resistance are both slightly more difficult to achieve than I thought. Anyway, had a thought. What if you could treat a kidan's broken bones by just slapping the affected body part with bone gel topically, since their skin is, well, their bones?

Fair point, then. Maybe another buff they could get would be a kind of ore sense. Similar code already exists for thermal vision seeing living things through walls, and it makes sense that the species renowned for being miners has something to make them better miners. And I doubt anyone would claim something like that to be overpowered. Might even try to PR that myself if you had no objections to it.

Science tends to have welding shield implants by 12:30, and the hud implants aren't much harder than that to get. I wasn't offering this as a reason for not buffing them in the first place, just trying to offer any kidans out there some advice, really. I'm not sure why the lack of mesons would render someone incapable of mining, however, rather than (possibly greatly) inconvenienced. They still get mining scanners that work just like everyone else's, and mesons don't let you see a monster coming from outside the range you'd be able to see it anyway. As far as your proposed nerfed and buffs, based on my understanding of the code all it would take would be to change a couple of variables, not at all hard to implement.

As far as I know kidans can still receive eye implants, and those should solve most of the issues with lack of the glasses slot. It's still a hoop to jump through though.

If this happens I would love if slimes got terperone instead of internals. Anyway, I've always found it silly that species that the box items are useless for still spawn with the box items.

I hope the recent change to IAAs will make them able to be more proactive at this sort of thing, so they don't need to just sit in their office and wait for a crewmember to have a complaint.

I for one, would find working with an AI to get the captain who approved a second AI for no reason demoted to be an immensely fun RP experience were I working as an IAA/Rep. I'm sorry to hear you wouldn't feel the same. As for rectifying the situation, the second AI can always be carded, or given laws to essentially make it a slightly more ethereal borg slaved to you (thus making all borgs slaved to it slaved to you as well). They can also be given laws that forbid them from being 'outside' of an exosuit for any period of time unless none exist that they can pilot, and of course, they can be simply terminated while a few posibrains are 'conveniently' being created and activated simultaneously. If they don't end up in one of the brains, then oh well. Becoming an AI, in most cases, means they actively sought it out or were a freshly activated posibrain anyway. The random civilian who happens to be the target of a tator has much less input on why they're being removed from the round.

Actually it's more that the NT Rep is the IAA for command positions. It's their job to make sure command is doing their job.

Completely appropriate response. It's actually the NT Rep you'd PDA about it :P

Having AIs be subservient to other AIs is actually a pretty cool idea.

I was once turned into an AI during a nukie round specifically to pilot an exosuit without its destruction meaning I'd have to be retrieved. I feel like if this is going to be a thing that is to be enforced, edge cases like this should be thought about ahead of time.

In the git I suggested that since IAAs are taking on a more HR-ish aspect, it would make sense to give them the ability to initiate payday for any departments they see are doing their jobs well. They would likely accomplish this by pressing an ID locked button in their office or something, and then everyone in the relevant department receives some sweet sweet useless spacecash. If it was deemed that that is something that people wanted IAAs to be doing, I wouldn't be opposed to making a PR to give them that ability. Would give them more to do, and maybe make people more receptive to having the little beurocrats running around, since it means they might be able to hit up the vending machine full of annoying toys in the near future.