Proposed Xenobiology Changes

[Saint Pepsi]

 

In an effort to make this job seem more 'updated' and hip with the kids here are a few things that could be changed that would make the job slightly more convenient. None of these would have a huge impact in any way. These are just things to make our Xenobiology system stand out from the crowd. None of these are necessary, or even that great. Just a bunch of things that would make it seem more refined?

 

Monkey Distribution Machine

 

This two piece machine would let you load up monkey cubes into a computer and let you dispense them across the cells.

Part 1: Computer/Factory with an interface that lets you select which factory should output a monkey

Part 2: Machines which dispense living monkeys in the cell, each cell would have one.

Without making it sound complicated: Insert monkey cubes into a computer/machine. Open interface, select output cell dispense monkey.

 

Change the order of the slime core storage from chronological to a set order

 

As it stands the slime cores are sorted on a list on the order of type received for the first time. That means if you don't put in the cores in a specific order you'll have to sort through the list to find the core you want later. I'd recommend making each 'dispense' button the respective color for the core or something.

 

Reversing the spawn rates on Gold Slime, Plasma vs. Blood

 

So when you inject a gold slime with plasma, it spawns a handful of hostile mobs while injecting it with blood only spawns one. I propose this be reversed to make plasma slime cores less powerful as a grief tool and more manageable for more practical purposes. This also helps Xenobiologist RNG their way to a friendly mob they'd like to give sentience.

tl;dr Blood spawns a handful of friendlies instead of one

Plasma spawns a single hostile instead of a handful

 

New Xenobiology Device

 

A device similar to the atmospherics tech power extinguisher that sprays three bursts onto a single tile with 100% accuracy. This ensures a slime will die in one or two sprays.

 

Slimes react to Advanced Mutagen

 

Various harmful or helpful reactions can occur when slimes are injected with advanced mutagen, a few examples being the slime dying, changing type, or becoming hostile

 

 

[Saint Pepsi]

- Xenobiology starts with a 'Lusty Xeno' poster

[Keroman]

 

As one of the players who used to play Xenobio frequently and enjoy it without turning it into a petting zoo full of random creatures I feel pretty qualified to comment on this one.

 

Monkey Distribution Machine

 

This two piece machine would let you load up monkey cubes into a computer and let you dispense them across the cells.

Part 1: Computer/Factory with an interface that lets you select which factory should output a monkey

Part 2: Machines which dispense living monkeys in the cell, each cell would have one.

Without making it sound complicated: Insert monkey cubes into a computer/machine. Open interface, select output cell dispense monkey.

 

 

As nice as this would be it would take a fairly active part of the xenobiology job - feeding slimes - and make it fairly passive. There's 3 main parts to the job:

1 - Feeding slimes

2 - Culling slimes/cage cleanup

3 - Messing with extracts.

 

Xenobiology can already get somewhat repetitive but at least it keeps you moving. Some people prefer jobs that require you to be active, some prefer jobs that require you to be passive. Xenobiology, to me, has always been one of the more active jobs, from shift start to evac.

 

Change the order of the slime core storage from chronological to a set order

 

As it stands the slime cores are sorted on a list on the order of type received for the first time. That means if you don't put in the cores in a specific order you'll have to sort through the list to find the core you want later. I'd recommend making each 'dispense' button the respective color for the core or something.

 

 

Quality of life improvement. I can get on board with this, although the extract storage fridge functions pretty much the same as all the other fridges in the game. Honestly it'd be nice if there was a convenient way to reorganize the slimes using the fridge UI but it's not difficult to reorganize them using the bio bag. You just have to have the fridge dispense all the slimes you don't want near the top of the list, pick 'em up with the bio bag, and put them back in the fridge so they now appear at the bottom of the list.

 

Reversing the spawn rates on Gold Slime, Plasma vs. Blood

 

So when you inject a gold slime with plasma, it spawns a handful of hostile mobs while injecting it with blood only spawns one. I propose this be reversed to make plasma slime cores less powerful as a grief tool and more manageable for more practical purposes. This also helps Xenobiologist RNG their way to a friendly mob they'd like to give sentience.

tl;dr Blood spawns a handful of friendlies instead of one

Plasma spawns a single hostile instead of a handful

 

 

I'm against this only because I'm not a fan of turning xenobiology into a petting zoo in he first place. Sure, if you've got potions to give sentience to creatures go ahead and spawn some stuff using gold extracts. Kill the creatures you don't want, feed the potion to creatures you do. This is an especially good tactic for antag xeniobiologists who want to create a gang of creatures to help them achieve their goals. Making it so you get multiple spawns from one extract is a pretty big buff to antags in that role if you can suddenly spawn 4x the creatures to help with your "hijack the shuttle" objective.

 

New Xenobiology Device

 

A device similar to the atmospherics tech power extinguisher that sprays three bursts onto a single tile with 100% accuracy. This ensures a slime will die in one or two sprays.

 

 

The fire extinguisher kills in two hits, maximum, if you get the slimes into a confined space - i.e. the little airlock that separates each cage from the xenobiology lab itself. If the slime glomps onto someone then you drag 'em into one of those areas and hose 'em down. Also, temperature guns set to the lowest possible setting force an adult slime to split in one hit and kill baby slimes in one hit.

 

Slimes react to Advanced Mutagen

 

Various harmful or helpful reactions can occur when slimes are injected with advanced mutagen, a few examples being the slime dying, changing type, or becoming hostile

 

 

I'm always for seeing more additions to xenobiology. There was talk of adding a wide variety of new slime colors and the ability to feed them different things for different results. From what I understand slime code is a huge hassle to work with, but I'll always support suggestions like this one.

 

[LightFire53]

 

Monkey Dispenser: nice idea, as I am tired of chasing monkeys around before I can feed them to their slimey overlords. However, as Kero said, it does take a big chunk out of xenobio's work.

 

Slime fridge: Yes. A set order would be nice, though I imagine the same argument has been made for the chem fridge at some point.

 

Gold Slime Spawn Ratio: I suggest making the plasma injection one, but also keeping the blood injection one. Just keeps things less crowded. Extract injection flash OP, pls nerf

 

Slime Slayer: I never really have an issue with the fire extinguisher. You pull your desired slime into the mini airlock system, spray them down with the fire extinguisher. 98% of the time I find, the slime is dead. Proceed to grinding the little bastards up. If you aren't a fan, as Kero also said, the temp gun is your new weapon of choice then.

 

Advanced Mutagen: Isn't this what we already do with some of the slime extracts? If you added this, it would pretty much nullify a couple of the current extract abilities. Now, if it RNG changed the slime species (limited to once per slime), this could be an idea.

 

TLDR: I could be down with some of these changes.