Major Race Overhaul

[fludd12]

 

So, a few recent threads were complaining about how similar most races are, and I agree. I feel like every race should have balanced buffs and debuffs, and unique play styles. So, here's my idea for a major race overhaul! Tell me what you think, and any suggestions you may have.

 

Humans (Finally, they aren't boring):

 

• Here's my biggest change to humans: Adrenaline Rush. Basically, when reaching critical pain, humans have a 25-30% chance of releasing about 5 units of tramadol and hyperzine. There'd be a (hidden) cooldown, of course, but this lets humans have an amazing chance at keeping up with all the other races. Apparently space races evolved without adrenal glands.

Nanotrasen Favoritism: Everyone knows NT likes humans more than everyone else. So, lets represent that! Maybe have humans have more money / a higher salary, or something less superficial like starting with a minor boon related to your job.

 

 

Tajaran:

 

• If you didn't know, the purpose of a prehensile tail is to ensure balance. Let's make Tajaran less likely to be knocked over by air or slipping on water.

Sensitive hearing! Tajaran would be able to hear stuff behind walls, but only three or less spaces away. Perfect spies! Of course, this makes flashbangs a bit more... bang.

 

 

Unathi:

Actually I have no idea what to put here. Suggestions away!

 

Skrell:

 

• Enhanced mind: Skrell supposedly have really good education and mind studies. Not sure what that would entail, but give them a buff related to that!

Amphibians: Skrell are amphibious. Perhaps drinking water acts sort of like oxygen very temporarily and so drinking lots of water can work as a spare oxygen supply? Have fun scarfing down Wish Soup instead of using oxygen tanks.

 

 

Slime People:

 

• Liquid movement: Okay, here's a huge addition/replacement for various ideas. So, slimes could sort of melt/become liquid, which could allow them to go under tables, through grilles/other hole-filled objects, etc. Perhaps also make them portable if someone scoops them into a beaker? Fun idea, especially for jailing naughty ones who try to slip out of their jail cell through a crack in the wall or something.

• Membrane: Slimes should have the possibility (we're talking 10% or less here) to have projectiles/weapons pass through them. This should not apply to energy weapons. Nice to make them able to put up a bit more of a fight than an average joe-schmo.

 

 

Vox:

 

• Keratin featherscales: Somewhere in the vast and overwritten depths of the Vox wiki article it says that vox "scales" or feathers or what have you are keratin. Perhaps make them natural budget insulating gloves, resisting shocks slightly but not completely? Useful idea.

Cybernetic array: Vox are supposed to be wacky, deceptively "stupid" (playing dumb) techno-birds. Let's make the most of that! Vox could have some sort of computer interface allowing them slightly increased computer interaction range (we're not talking much, at most 3 or so tiles). Perhaps make there be a small chance of a minor stun if overused or something?

 

 

Grey:

 

• BBCode formatting. The normal sized blue font is so easy to miss sometimes, and they're talking with their minds, so what's stopping them from changing how you hear it? Hopefully won't be hard to port from paper-writing bbcode.

If their allergy to water was removed, return it, but at least give them immunity to sulfuric acid, please. I liked that idea, having a bottle of "water" that if anyone else drank from, they'd die. MY WATER ACID!

I'd be okay if you removed the unlimited range for grey telepathy, but PLEASE make there zero delay. I prefer to talk that way, and sort of shifting from side to side uncomfortably, waiting for a 10 second timer to go up so I can send my next message is not a very good talking strategy.

Even more wimpy! What are your forearms, greys? Noodles? Give them even less unarmed damage, in exchange for the next suggestion...

Hivemind! I saw this in an earlier post. Sounds like a wonderful cherry-on-the-top for our big-eyed cousins.

 

 

Diona: (Lets play, "Can you guess which race I play the most?")

This suggestion will be insane to program.

 

• Ohh hell, here goes my biggest idea: Gestalt formation. Grow into parts of the station, just like the lore says.

Here's how it'll work in my grand master plan which was totally thought through and is in no way hard to code: Diona can, once every 15-30 minutes, plant themselves into the ground. In doing so, they lose their insane healing and become completely immobile. Here's why you'd do it: You get to become a living factory of sorts.

You can grow yourself outward through vines, and upgrade them accordingly, but I'll explain upgrades later. Your controls are somewhat like a blobs, except without the omniscience. You can see from your "core" and every tile next to one of your "vines." Vines can be destroyed with anything in a few hits, or one hit from anything involving heat (flamethrowers, welders, etc). They do not obstruct movement on their own.

If you grow onto a space tile, you fill in the space tile with thick roots, sealing it up as if placing a floor. Of course, this is as temporary as you choose.

Here's the biggest reason to become a living botany lovechild: UPGRADES to vines. Vines can be made into "walls", which are functionally a cross between xeno resin (see-through) and metal foam (very easy to break). These walls also trap pressure, meaning you can become a living space station! No AI needed! Each costs 5 nutrients (see below) to upgrade from a normal vine.

Another upgrade allows more nutrient storage, and yet another for more nutrient production. Note, your maximum capacity starts with 25 nutrients, and only your core starts producing them. Each vine grown requires 5, and your core makes 1 nutrient per second. Nutrient growing requires light. Nutrient storages and photosynthesis cells both cost 25, so invest well.

Grass-pers: One vine upgrade makes that vine work like a very stationary single hand. This allows you to manipulate items, but note that weapons will not be usable ("Your vines would tear from the recoil!"). A hand-vine clicking on another attempts to use one item on the other (as if you clicked the item in one hand while selecting the other), and if no item is in the other hand, it passes the item, and moves your selection to that hand. Living conveyor belts! Hand-vines cost 10 to upgrade an existing vine to.

Cycling vine: This is for stuff which decidedly won't be picked up, no matter how hard you try (creatures, large, mobile objects). Essentially, it acts as a conveyor belt. Simple, really. Direction can be changed when selected by right-clicking and choosing the verb.

Livingdoor: Simply a wooden-door style door. Can be opened/closed by anyone, or by clicking it yourself. Also see-through. Vine walls can become this for a simple 5 nutrients.

Machine-roots: Here's where things get interesting. This, when placed next to a machine or computer, allows you to access the gui of the machine and interact with it. Costs a whopping 50 nutrients, so think about what you need. Wonderful for the practicing chemist or telescientist who also wants to become a tree for some reason.

Itempods: This is basically a backpack. Costs 15 nutrient to make, and acts like an inventory for others (dragging to yourself to open it). Hand vines can absorb items to automatically store the item in an itempod, and people can put stuff in easily.

Eyestalks: This is your security camera. Use it to see beyond your roots slightly. Useful for when your annoying co-scientists keep destroying your vines because of "how ugly they are" and "how annoying you being a tree is, we wish you'd just be useful."

The crown jewel of an aspiring living space station: The Ambassador. Costs 150 nutrients, and creates a living mushroom-style diona sapling, with arms and legs, for you to control. Much too small to use weapons, but can walk beyond the gestalt and get more information from the outside world. Easily killed, and drops any items it has on death, instead of leaving a body. When alive, you can hear from it and choose to control it or your gestalt.

 

And here's why you might not become a living factory:

 

• You are super vulnerable, but still don't feel damage. You might not notice when Honks McToolbox is beating up your wonderful tree core until it's too late.

• You can't move until there's just your core left and you recollect yourself. Vines/upgrades can be removed as easily as they are placed and for zero nutrient cost, but they must be removed from the out inward, and only once all of them are gone can you recollect yourself (taking another 5 seconds).

If a large collection of your vines happens to be separated from your core forcibly, you have 5 seconds to get a connection back, or they all wither, dropping any items and decaying any vine walls.

 

 

Machine People:

Again, not sure what to put here. They're already the master race.

 

Kidan:

I am fine with their current state. Perhaps give them some form of grabintent speed buff, though (negating speed loss from using grab intent). Ants carry 10x their own weight, after all.

 

Tell me what you guys think!

 

Side note: I am aware Fox wants to make races more human. Perhaps this will be a viable substitute, balance through buffing everyone instead of debuffing the OP.

 

[Streaky Haddock]

Some of these sound nice, but they'll take knowledge and time to code, definitely. Regular Diona definitely shouldn't have the ability you described there, but it could make an interesting AI alt title?

[johannhawk]

 

1. be barman

2. scoop up slime person with a beaker and close the beaker.

3. HIDE the slime person in a drink.

4. give drink to grey

5. ???

6. profit

 

alternatively you could sting the drinks with water and nobody would notice thus getting that grey face burns.

 

mix water and potassium in a beaker with a slime person in it :3

 

im totally up for this but it will be alot of coding.

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

I feel like I've seen that Diona suggestion before, and I remember liking it. However, the code needed for it would be immense, and I think that allowing them to control machines in this form would be problematic.

 

The idea that they can literally grow off of the station and create livable areas is cool, but the potential for grief from being able to just build walls everywhere would make it rather problematic.

 

Giving Tajaran a slightly increased sensitivity to sound would be an interesting addition. As it stands, their only real weakness is currently a lower heat tolerance.

 

I know lore-wise, Unathi are unable to digest plants, so if we wanted to work off that, we could have plants either not give them nutriment or (if in large enough amounts) make them sick/throw up.

 

[fludd12]

 

*twiddles fingers* I totally haven't suggested that for diona before...

Anyway, the control of machines was made to have an absurd cost to balance out the fact that you could be a one-man [insertjobhere] given time. Also, the walls are only slightly more solid than the floor vines themselves, and both can be destroyed by hand. Also, added the Unathi suggestion, thanks! Apparently I can't edit the original post. Go figure.

 

Also, because I have a lot of background knowledge in java and some in python, I am planning on getting working examples of these abilities as soon as school lets up a bit.

 

[Fj45]

Meh, keep races as mostly just resprited humans, easier to balance and coding time can be spent on other things.

[TeDGamer]

 

Like the human idea, though it should be a smaller chance so as now to be overpowering, maybe like 10%. Not too sure on the NT favoritism, seems to be an RP idea.

 

Don't think the hearing thing makes any sense. Maybe they can hear outside the map but not through walls that are as thick as a human ( They're not thin at all ). Maybe if the person was right next to the wall you can hear them, but nothing further. Also you would have to press your ears against the wall making it obvious. Shouldn't work on reinforced walls.

 

Water idea isn't so bad. Allows people to finally use the water cooler other than for holy water on cultist / vampire rounds.

 

Like the liquid movement, though as I recommended before, huge delay while reforming/ transforming into liquid form and back so that you can get captured quite easily. Also you leave your stuff as well as a small trail to follow. Shouldn't work for cracks in the wall because the grilles are electrified if I am correct. Membrane idea sounds good but should be ridiculously small. 10% is a lot I would say.

 

Feel like budget insulated gloves are OP and should never happen. Maybe more so the feathers are used to make it harder to raise or lower the temperature so that their body tries to maintain temperature better.

Definitely not on the cybernetic array, they're trying to act dumb. It's way too obvious that you're staring at a screen and eventually, vox secrets will no longer be secret. They're trying to hide their knowledge to other races, not use it blatantly. Most people will use this quite easily to hack things.

 

Grey ideas are pretty good though hivemind should be limited to the z-level. So if you're off the station, goodbye hivemind. Also it reveals who you are like for changelings though they use agent names. IF there is hivemind, get rid of telepathy though.

 

DIona idea is insane. You're going to have a lot of green tide that come in and block off arrivals and play around, taking over the station. Also how fun is it to have no objective but be a none walking tree maker? Ambassador will be definitely hard, being able to be a core and a movable object. Your idea for this is good but like I stated, it's insane. You can't plant yourself in space but planting in certain areas might block people. Seems like something more of an event or something that happens only when very very good conditions are met like the station being 40% destroyed so that you can help repair but once it's at like 90% "repaired". Also nutrient should be super slow to create and the ambassador can only be created when you're big enough if this is even added.

 

I would recommend plant-b-gone not being too toxic to diona because as long as you're on the same tile as plant-b-gone and even wearing internals and full protection, you'll die from 2 sprays. If Fox is really making the other races seem human, plant-b-gone should only work if you do not have full protection against it so that it hits your skin or you breathe it in. As of now, diona are dead the instant they are sprayed twice, wearing anything doesn't make a difference.

 

[TheDemonic]

I was thinking something like the diona but with permanent and far more fragile buildings but with a new race that are mushrooms. now that I think about it maybe I will make a separate forum post for it instead of putting a wall of text here and getting off topic.

[nachomeep]

 

Perhaps make it so if you get chosen as a malf ai or blob as a diona character it does that?

 

And, also, I'd like to say, I was planning on donating, but the humanizing made me not want to.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

Meh, keep races as mostly just resprited humans, easier to balance and coding time can be spent on other things.

 

Pretty much this. The more snowflake a race is, the more of a pain it is to balance and the more problems it causes for future features. Perfect example of this is IPCs; there's tons of snowflake here and there because they're synthetic to prevent X, Y, and Z from happening when every other race is impacted by it.

 

Much easier, code wise (and balance wise!) to make small passive abilities here and there. More fragility/robustness to a particular damage type, slower movement speed, increased/decreased melee damage, etc. When you start involving active abilities, it's not only a lot of snowflake, but makes balancing an absolute nightmare.

 

Side note: I am aware Fox wants to make races more human. Perhaps this will be a viable substitute, balance through buffing everyone instead of debuffing the OP.

 

That's recipe for powercreep.

 

[Spacemanspark]

I'd put this under the 'listen to the community' category.

[Earthdivine]

 

I'd put this under the 'listen to the community' category.

Except it really isn't. I'm going to borrow a phrase from Riot games about this called "the burden of knowledge". SS13 is already notorious for the massively high skill ceiling just to be MEDIOCORE at the game. Adding in active abilities, different specialities, on top of what they are weak against, and how to counter X just adds more to that ceiling. Not to mention how dumb BYOND coding is, adding anything as warping as this stuff could massively break something we didn't expect. Remember text to speech? We had to shut the server down all because of a bug with it and there was no one able to fix it. That is a SMALL addition that put the server down for a week. When Goons genetic powers were added Cyrotouch instantly killed whoever got hit by it because BYOND wasn't told how to handle cold damage.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

Appearently my phone doesn't display the edit button.

 

Another thing is that all these are awarded by Karma, which is currently governed more on a popularity standpoint then a good player standpoint. Such massive changes of power will throw it into the corner of who has the biggest standing with the community rather then go being a good player

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

The general vibe I get, and keep getting, is that the community's words fall on deaf ears.

We say 'Please don't remove this', and it somehow gets taken out anyways.

We say 'Please, don't change this.' yet, it gets changed anyways.

We say 'we'd like to try something new'. It gets rejected, time and time again.

I understand everyone that codes for us is trying, but listening to the community is key.

I don't see why we can't try new ideas, and if it doesn't work out, remove it again.

We shouldn't be scared to do so because of past failures.

Edit: Only three of those species are karma species.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

Then how about this. Why? Why take the time to add something like this in when it might break far more in the game? Why should the time be taken to code and add something as massive as this as a "test" only to watch it be rejected. Why should the coders and admins devote themselves to something that will add far more headache to the game trying to keep good for the players to play and be fun.

 

And the bigger one, Why is this a problem? I don't see any reason to ignore massive bugs, more fun jobs and equipment for something like this when it's not a problem to begin with at all. Every race is already diverse enough as is. Skrell/unathi/humans need some more love but that's about it.

 

[Plotron]

 

Skrell/unathi/humans need some more love but that's about it.

 

Humans are fine. They're the baseline and their uniqueness lies simply in their averageness. No serious handicaps, no buffs, just plain old jack-of-all-trades.

 

Skrell(s?) are ugly and definitely need some love. And Unathi are too similar to humans.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

Skrell/unathi/humans need some more love but that's about it.

 

Humans are fine. They're the baseline and their uniqueness lies simply in their averageness. No serious handicaps, no buffs, just plain old jack-of-all-trades.

 

Skrell(s?) are ugly and definitely need some love. And Unathi are too similar to humans.

Indeed, I would love for them to get some love, both are underutilized dispite being the first races in, though Unathi hardsuits are kick ass.