Why More People Should Play Diona & Request for Racially Diversified Nuclear Operatives/SIT

[Display Name]

Diona, dionae. It was only a little while ago that I really started to enjoy playing diona, as I see them as arguably the most forgivable of all species in terms of gameplay, and objectively one of the best species for new players to play.

That might sound a little weird, but I'll elaborate. Dionae, are one of, I believe, the six species that someone can choose to play as free of charge. But, what really makes dionae optimal as a species choice for newer players is the way that they encourage the game to be played. Dionae are differ from humans with three additional game mechanics. They starve quickly in darkness, are given constant healing and nutrition while exposed to light and take extra heat damage. Assuming that the players in question are familiar with the game mechanics and game itself, which, admittedly, is not always true, this encourages said players to stay out of dark and dangerous maintenance areas, which is always good, to not pick fights with Security, who primarily employ energy or burn weaponry, and to lastly just help out others medically with the knowledge that, given light, diona passively heal and are better suited to play at being a combat medic. Even disregarding all of this, the passive heal afforded to dionae is worth it, so much so that I've voluntarily chosen to retcon some bionic limbs onto my diona character as a sort of balancing mechanism. Given all of this, I just find it a little bit strange that dionae are relatively untouched among the experienced and newer playerbase alike in lieu of the vox/slimeperson/IPC/vulpkanin meta.

On somewhat related note, I'm also a bit confused as to why nukies and SIT are comprised almost solely of humans. Given the allowance of changelings, vampires and traitors of all different races into the ranks of the Syndicate, it seems odd why these specific teams are only humans. I understand that there might be some code limitations, and the few times that I've seen admins attempt to spawn racially diverse SIT teams, what ended up happening was an equal parts hilarious and terrifying mashup of species(in one instance, I was officially a grey, but had the skin tone and model of a human, the black eyes of a grey floating several inches in front of my nose and a dysfunctional headpocket that immediately dropped anything placed in it, not to mention the fact that my character used the clothing model of a grey, making my back and shoulders bulge through my jumpsuit). Simply put, I'd like to see racially(specieally?)diverse nuclear operative and syndicate infiltration teams, or at least some reasonable explanation as to why the Syndicate enlists humans exclusively for their group-work. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Display Name

[BeanOS]

Vox and IPC are very RP heavy, they have some major weaknesses and minor (if can even be considered) strengths.

Slime People and Vulpkanin are mechanic heavy, they have Major Strengths and minor weaknesses, in relation.

 

Vox

They used to be considered OP space faring race, but were heavily nerfed to the point that the only real strength they have is slash damage on basic melee attack, but they have four "boons" which I consider to be, for the most part, utterly irrelevant:

• Immune to decay and will not skeletonise. - If you are dead long enough for this to happen, 99/100 you've either become something else or left the game entirely.
• Internal organs will not accumulate germs or decay even outside the body; external organs do not accumulate germs while attached to the body. - this is pointless due to the fact that in order to revive a vox outside of the 2 minute window, you need to use SR, which causes organs and limbs to become necrotic regardless of germ accumulation, also any surgery which could result in infection is countered by a couple of u of spaceacillin.
• Silent Footsteps - Outside of jackboots, I personally had never noticed footsteps in maint tunnels, it was only when I was told to massively increase my volume that they became noticeable, so if you play at a decibel that footsteps were noticeable, this one may be useful, but again not really.
• Able to process both synthetic and organic reagents. - Now this one on paper seems really good, you'd think that this means you could stack speed chems and the like, however it doesn't. Sure you don't get poisoned by taking synthetic chems, but between them being more of a chore to make and most of them not doing anything for you, this too is utterly pointless.

 

Compared to their maluses:

• Bones break easier. - Due to surgery requirements to fix, along side often malpractice on Vox, this is a massive issue.
• Oxygen is toxic. - Outside of malpractice medical and security, this isn't really an issue most of the time, as vox start with a N2O tank that should last all shift.
• Cannot be cloned. - Yet you will often end up in the cloning machine, then in the morgue when they are unable to clone you.
• -60% alcohol tolerance. - Not really an issue unless you RP an alcoholic.
• +20% brute damage. - Combined with easier bone breaking, this is pretty bad, means that the rolls done to see if a bone breaks, are going to be slightly higher thus more likely to succeed.
• Remain vulnerable to organ death when revived with Strange Reagent. - Essentially nullifying one of the boons.

This puts Vox focus on a solely RP path, with combat being more difficult, along side a greater susceptibility to being griefed or mishandled, which tends to bring Vox players closer together with a general understanding among them that they are going to go out of their way to help each other out.

 

IPC

Ipc are akin to vox in the fact that you play them mainly for RP focused game play, as they are extremely fragile but have a number of unique mechanics which make them interesting.

• Can't process most reagents. - This makes them immune to most chemical damage (outside of acids)
• Brain located in torso. - Means that easily lost head is less important.
• Recharges from APCs. - Never needing to consume food is nice but if the power is out, so is your lunch.
• Has oil for blood. - In my opinion IPC needing "blood" along side the potent malus they have, was uneeded.
• Regains blood by drinking oil. - Unlike slime people, who can get water anywhere, IPC need to have access to either robotics or a chemistry station to replenish.
• Virus immunity. - This is both a boon and malus, as they cannot gain benefit from positive viruses, but also are not vulnerable to negative ones.
• Does not need a jumpsuit to use their inventory slots. - This is a fun mechanic, but currently is a little bugged, IPC are vulnerable to limb loss way beyond other species, and if any limb is removed, if you are utilizing this ability, you will drop everything in your inventory slots aside from your bag.

Boons

• Easy repairs (cable coil/active welder). - The strongest boon for IPC, you can easily repair yourself on the fly if you have the materials to hand.
• Decapitation isn't fatal (blind/deaf) - Most people target heads in combat, so losing yours not being immediately fatal is nice, but happens quickly due to increased damage.
• Welding eye-damage immunity. - A decent boon, you still get a white screen flash on welding, but you don't need to get your eyes repaired afterwards.
• Radiation/toxin immunity. - Good in Niche situations, but generally unimportant.
• Pain immunity. - Nice for doing operations on them, but that's about it.

Maluses

• Low blood incurs stamina damage. - This kicks in at around 20% oil loss, with nothing to mitigate it other than replenishing oil, this can quickly incapacitate you.
• Easier to decapitate.
• EMPs are fatal. - You can survive a direct emp if you are inside a mech, otherwise an EMP is going to apply a tremendous amount of burn damage and instantly kill you.
• +50% brute damage. - That greytider with an extinguisher is doing a solid 15 damage per hit instead of 10, combined with lower part health, means you are going down quickly, or at the very least losing limbs.
• +50% burn damage. - An active welder doing a solid 22.5 damage per hit, you'll be lucky not to lose a limb on the second hit.
• Downed and take continuous brute damage to all body parts while in crit. - Now this is one of the worst Maluses in my opinion, compared to other races who can get up during crit and apply chems to themselves to heal up and survive, IPC when in crit are dead without external assistance, it's just a matter of time.

 

Now we come to slime people and vulps, both of whom have strong bonuses, with Slime People essentially being currently the tankiest race.

Vulpkanin

• Can consume tiny animals. - Niche not really a boon as there is generally plenty actual food on the station.

Boons

• Claws (unarmed is sharp). - Sharp damage on unarmed, causing bleeding, a good buff, not OP but useful.
• Low-light vision (8m). - This is a strong ability, preventing you from needing lights or night vision when traveling around the darkness of maints, allowing you to more easily conceal yourself.

 

Maluses

• Flashes incur extra eye damage. - Pretty bad if you go around welding things without protection, but has no real in combat effect.
• +11% hunger. - Negligible as food is abundant on the station, with or without a chef and a couple of cans of chicken soup will still see you all shift.

As you can see, vulps don't have a large amount of boons, but it is the lack of combat based maluses along side the couple of boons they do posses that make them strong. Vulps are essentially a direct Human+, which makes them a good pick generally speaking.

 

Slime People

• Slime core for brain. - Functions exactly like a brain, no real game play differences.
• They only have a heart "brain" and lungs for internal organs - This is something I would consider a boon personally, as it means they see and hear without eyes or ears, so are immune to damage caused blindness or deafness, also the lack of organs in the lower body means they don't get pain when they are damaged. (A note, lower body organs actually do nothing in all species, but can get damaged and cause pain which inhibits the character.)
• Has water for blood.

Boons

• Regains blood by drinking water. - Can be easily replaced from almost anywhere on the station due to accessibility of water tanks, so doesn't require a raid on medical to replenish.
• Can regrow lost limbs. - Losing a limb doesn't really matter, you can regrow anywhere you can keep still, as long as you are not starving or out of water.
• They Don't have bones. - No bones to break, a slime person who has the means to reduce stamloss becomes an almost unstoppable force.

Maluses

• Lower cold threshold. - Can survive less time exposed in space, otherwise this is a niche malus, watch out for those snow machines.
• +150% brain damage. - Can be mitigated somewhat by helmets, but a pretty serious malus if you are in oxyloss crit, as it takes you less time to expire.
• Cannot be cloned. - Once again becoming a victim to malpractice bay, however unlike Vox, using SR and the subsequent operations to fix that damage is easier because they can wear the anesthetic tank without being poisoned.

Slime people are currently the most combat effective race, between being unable to break bones, easy replenishment of "blood" and the fact that their "blood" causes slipping hazards for any that chase them, means that a slime person essentially becomes more dangerous over time and a robust player can push this to a limit where they are almost unkillable when facing other crew members, with easily accessible saline glucose providing constant healing akin to Diona regeneration.

 

I would also like to point out that Drask, Grey and Kidan although not as significantly played as vox and IPC, are both great candidates for RP gameplay, with mechanics that allow for unique interactions, with Kidan being the only race with actual damage resistance.

Edited December 20, 2019 by BeanOS
altered text colours to make easier to read.

[AzuleUtama]

On 12/19/2019 at 7:37 AM, Display Name said:

On somewhat related note, I'm also a bit confused as to why nukies and SIT are comprised almost solely of humans. Given the allowance of changelings, vampires and traitors of all different races into the ranks of the Syndicate, it seems odd why these specific teams are only humans.

This is more of a gameplay-based reasoning for Nuke Ops being restricted to humans-only. As with BeanOS's list above, many of the races have specific disadvantages which can cause them to hinder the Nuke Ops team if someone were to use them.

Some examples of this are; IPCs due to instantly dying from EMP which makes armor near useless for them, Vox due to the increased brute damage and bonus chance for them to get broken bones and Slime people due to them leaking water onto floor tiles when bleeding, which will slip up their team-mates if they do not have no-slip protection of some sort.

Humans don't have any kind of racial advantage/disadvantage - which is great for Nuke Ops since it means they don't need to pick or avoid certain kinds of Nuke Ops gear to work around their team.

We did have a PR made to allow players to pick a race of their choice rather than playing human only, but this was rejected for the reasoning above - https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/10537.