Xenobiology needs a power up

[Grizdale]

 

been playing a lot of xeno lately and I found that pretty much any good slime is no longer usable. I am not sure if this is intentional or a bug but xenobiology does deserve to get at least a few of them back as without them everything else is kinda boring.

 

We do still have golems they are helpful but only to a certain extent, they are real players after all so will get bored if you tell them to do the same task for 30 minutes and half the time the HoP refuses to give them ID's making them even more useless.

 

bluespace slimes don't do anything with there extracts any more with either blood or plasma

gold slimes only react with plasma so they are now useless to try and get a few aliens to experiment with

you can no longer become a slimeperson with green slimes and now instead become a species which is next to useless? surely if slime person was OP it shouldn't be a starting class?

 

it is only these 3 slimes that I have found but they are all in the top 4 most useful slimes to get and pretty much every other slime that I haven't mentioned are either useless, it's effects can be created elsewhere or is only there for messing around.

right now the only useful thing xenobiology can do for the station is create golems which essentially is just another way to bring people back to life

 

[Streaky Haddock]

You can flood the station with platsteel! That's another useful thihng you can do, since it's harder to get via mining.

[Grizdale]

plaststeel has limited usefulness though and if miners are doing there jobs they will most likely get enough for the station by themself.

[Streaky Haddock]

Your points are valid though, Xenobio does need some more meaningful ways to grief contribute to the station

[Combine]

 

If you don't mind, I use this thread instead of making a new one, as it's related.

 

I have a specific suggestion for xenobiology. You may have heard - and maybe rejected - it before, but I'd still like to bring this in and elaborate:

 

What?

Adding one or two xenomorph(s?) to xenobiology - slightly expand the section at best or use existing cells for this.

 

Now hold on! Let me elaborate, put your torches and pitchforks away for now!

 

Elaboration, Details

This idea came to me in a wizard round. I was the ERT leader hunting the wizard, it was a prolonged cat and mouse game. Then, we fought him with two people near science. A mech and me. That is when he shot me. For a second, there was a "mindfuck". For the blue suited ERT commander turned into a purple creature on the spit. From space marine to space alien, kinda. But there was a difference. The thought pattern and memories remained, and so did the ability to communicate with other crew in a normal way. Only the body changed, not the mind.

 

The idea here is that xenobio might incorporate one or two aliens (max) into xenobio that were turned this way. Thus, they are friendly or neutral - no griefing sprees or red alerts because of xenos that break out every time. In addition, there could be reminders just like starting messages for head jobs or specific jobs that remind people of their roles, like "You are a friendly / transformed alien, thus, not hostile by instinct. You are here for research and... (and so on)"

 

 

Result, options?

"Okay, man, you got 1-2 "friendly aliens" that were former crew or humanoid. And then what?"

 

Research! You can tie this in perfectly with the station's theme. Even if we switched to a more multi-purpose station (away from the science focus), you have these weeds that are related to plasma, which you in turn could process into some resources or products via the station's departments and so on. It would expand xenobiology and make it more useful if you could tie this in somehow. If need be, you could set a certain karma limit to these 1-2 roles, maybe 15 points or so? Given how limited the roles may be per round.

 

In short:

 

Add 1-2 playable docile / friendly aliens (former crew that can speak normally or specifically trained / raised / docile aliens) to xenobio. Can be lore friendly if wizard spell was used or if captured elsewhere. Can be useful if plasma and weed research can be combined and if you can get resources out of this.

 

Vital: This does not have to include drones / queens! It can / should include sentinels or hunters, so you don't get an alien armageddon (via eggs / npcs) every round!

 

I understand there could still be some conflicts with other scenarios or gamemodes (such as normal xenos? Or maybe not?), but I'd like to hear more input on this in general. Good or bad?

 

Thanks.