People are born with different genetic disabilities, reflect that in-game!

[rako]

Coding Difficulty: I'd say medium?

Have people enter shifts with their randomly generated "base genes" (as it is now), but make it so you have like, a 20% chance to spawn with a disability. If you fall within that 20%, then roll another check for how many disabilities you should get - 80% for 1 disability, 15% for 2 disabilities - 5% for 3 disabilities.

No EXTREME disabilities should be able to be randomly assigned on shift start to avoid people being mutes/have non-working legs/being radioactive at round start. They should be mild, but not major, annoyances - Like chronic cough, being Swedish, having a constant twitch.

This would make it so genetics have a little more to do than experimenting with monkeys - People would turn up at their doorstep wanting to be fixed. Additionally, it'd help genetics identify which blocks are disabilities, which would introduce another gene-meta other than the unstable mutagen one.

Also, to avoid cheesing of this mechanic - Mutadone should not be able to flush all of your genes to get rid of all of your disabilities. It'd instead revert your genes to the state of which you got at the round start - So if you have chronic cough at round start randomly generated, popping mutadone would reset everything else but that chronic cough, so only way to get it removed is by going to genetics.

Justification: A bit more to do for genetics, and nobody is created perfect, every human is more or less imperfect in their own way and everybody got a "quirk" to their character. Sure it is annoying a bit, but we don't get to chooses how they turn out when they're born - Right now disabilities are defects of rads causing mutation, nobody willingly will choose to be color-blind - Now imagine an engineer spawning with the color-blindness trait and him having to rush to genetics, would make a fun (for genetics) and emergent gameplay moment

[MattTheFicus]

Honestly, from a gameplay perspective, I dislike being forced to do anything with my character that I didnt choose for it.

From an RP perspective, we work on a Station where Genetic Manipulation is a common thing, so the idea that you couldnt just get your issues "fixed" pre-shift isnt too hard to assume.

This would be a big no-no for me due to it only giving genetics a VERY minor thing to add to the round

 

PS: Genetics moved rightfully to Science when?

[Spacemanspark]

If this was opt in and not forced on the player I'd be fine with it, although it's not very great for a static character.

[Abydos]

30 minutes ago, MattTheFicus said:

PS: Genetics moved rightfully to Science when?

Genetics are under both Science, with the Research Director and Medical, with the Chief Medical Officer (As genetics is both a science and medical thing).

And second with Sparks. People have the option to choose genetic issues if they want for the character they envision, forcing them into genetics for absolutely no reason other than it should happen isn't what anyone would like.

In-game, the year is 2563. Space travel, nanites, genetics and such are all wide spread and common place. Such as Vulp, who usually start out color-blind.

Quote

 Finally, most are born with Deuteranopia, also known as red-green color blindness, though it is often corrected with modern science.

There's no point in forcing anyone to have stuff they never asked for, merely so genetics has something to do. It'd be like asking for people to start with broken bones or some other medical condition so medical doctors have something to do.

[rako]

Ah this classic "year is XXXX" argument - Yeah, it is, but we're still using tape cassettes, our computers are ancient and our primary method of data storage are floppy disks... This argument can be applied both ways.

The argument with doctors is straw picking at best, doctors have constant flood of interaction with people all over the station simply because people get hurt every minute, people only get disabilities in game if they're caught in rad-storm or entered the SM bay and got irradiated, and even then they get a mutadone pill and off on their merry way.

When people have the choice to spawn with a disability or not, of course they pick to spawn without one. I am not talking about huge game-changer disabilities, like spawning with your legs paralyzed.

I'd make a "power-gaming" argument here for people who chose to be perfect-humans with no flaws-what-so-ever but that'd be also straw picking to be fair.

Edited March 11, 2021 by rako

[Spacemanspark]

We generally crack down on special snowflake mary sue characters if they're overbearing. That said, not having a genetic disability is not an immediate hallmark of a mary sue or a powergamer. What makes a character goes beyond having a 20% chance to have a disability. Forcing that onto players won't be fun for the mass majority of them that are subjected to it.

The 'year is xxxx' argument goes both ways, too--while some things seem outdated, we have the ability to make full body clones, build literal artificial intelligence almost trivially, make rifles that fire laser beams, make and implant/ place mechanical limbs/ internal organs that function near perfectly to their organic counterparts... you get the idea.

[Gaty]

>but we dont get to choose how they turn out when they are born

Yes we do, we are the creators of our characters, we create them from scratch and we do choose every single characteristic they might have at roundstart.

Giving people's characters random and annoying genetic issues just so genetica have something to do is not something I would like, why my mercenary veteran human now has to be colorblind, it just makes no sense and heavily screws up what we want our characters to be, without considering the boredom of "heck I started with a disease now I gotta walk to genetics and hope they are not missing so I can play the round as normal"

[MarsMond]

On 3/11/2021 at 6:46 PM, rako said:

When people have the choice to spawn with a disability or not, of course they pick to spawn without one.

But people DO pick disabilities, we have the character settings to pick a few of them, and they do get used.

Given the roundstart disabilities are already a thing, and i think making it random isn't suited for this server, the only thing left would be adding the different baseline mutations. Would stop roundstart disabilities from being mutadoned, or allow some disabilities to appear by using mutadone.

[JosephRutter]

On 3/11/2021 at 11:39 AM, rako said:

 They should be mild, but not major, annoyances - Like chronic cough, being Swedish, having a constant twitch.
 

"being Swedish" 

[Mitchs98]

I couldn't really truthfully see this adding anything to the game other than one long headache, especially if genetics is bald. Having your character that normally has no disabilities suddenly get infected with space swedishism or other 'minor' disabilities isn't very immersive in the slightest just because RNG deemed you worthy of a disability.

[Sirryan2002]

I think suggestion fails to take into account how people feel about having a certain trait forced upon them. I play my character, Edgar Cook, because I love his backstory and it's very personal to me. Most people will include negative traits that their characters have in order to give them a bit of flavor. This makes playing the character more fun and overall the gameplay is enjoyable. However, if you force someone to have a negative trait it messes with that backstory that was personally created.

My character is from Boston on Earth and therefor speaks with a bit of an accent. It makes no sense to have him have a swedish accent. He practices law, which a terrets disability would ruin. 1/12 of men on earth are colorblind and not even to the extent of how our server interprets colorblindness feature wise. It make my gameplay less fun. 

If Genetics needs to be reworked to be more fun and engaging, it's because how genetics is designed to interact with the station, not the other way around.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Sirryan2002

[Carthusia]

Yeaaaa, I also wouldnt really want random genetic things applied to me at round start either.

Ive already got it written into my characters backstory and via the menu to pick stuff the ones that they have, and suddenly having torretes, a stutter, or even being mute at random on rounds, that force me to go to genetics to get it fixed before i can begin the round proper at the start, just does not sound fun.

 

That being said, Im all for more things being added to the character creator for people who wish to add them to themselves by choice.

Edited March 13, 2021 by BlackDog

[Kyet]

Getting roundstart random disabilities would suck.

Especially if you're in an important crew position.

Even more so if you can't just fix them with mutadone.

It would be extremely annoying. No thanks.