New Karma Race: Box (a.k.a Shadow) People

[flimflamm]

 

Shadow people - A race (currently available through xenobiology) which takes brute and burn damage when exposed to any light source, and is healed for brute and burn when exposed to darkness. (http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Shadow_people). They are underused and in some ways unfinished, and so they are prime for re-appropriation.

 

Shadow people are a cool race as a concept, but they are pretty much unplayable (or so we thought) for several reasons. The main reason is the constant need for darkness, which results in the smashing of lights, which in turn pisses off the rest of the crew. The solution to this problem is boxes (hence "Box People", which sounds cooler than shadow people). When a shadow person is in a box, they are neither exposed to darkness, nor light, and so they take no damage while being able to move freely in any well lit areas. Boxes can have names applied to them with hand labelers, and can also be colored by colorful reagent, which is useful for identification and roleplay.

 

The second main issue with shadow people is that they have no natural ability to see in the dark. One simple solution to this problem is optical meson scanners. Mesons give shadow people the ability to see perfectly in darkness making them able to navigate freely in dark environments...

 

With only a box (or cardboard sheets for a box) and optical meson scanners as starting items, shadow people would actually be highly playable, albeit more difficult than the average race. They have a narrow and singular advantage of healing brute and burn in darkness, and aside from that being forced to live in a box is a cute but debilitating vulnerability. Balance wise being a box person would be more of a burden than a boon, but roleplay wise it is fun, challenging, and interesting.

 

Using meson scanners and card-board boxes as spawning items would make them instantly playable with a very low amount of coding required. But additionally they could be made more desirable (difference between a 40 karma cost and a 100 karma cost?) by giving them a natural ability to see in the dark, and by somehow modifying basic box technology to make it spawn pre-named and pre-colored.

 

Thoughts?

 

[NTSAM]

I used to say to make Shadow People a 80 KP race with special equipment on their back to keep light from penetrating their exterior layer to operate kind of like a second skin that keeps them from withering away in light and making them spawn with negative glasses which does the opposite of what sunglasses would do (ie brighten up lights instead of dim them), but this is neat too.

[Farya]

Why not just remove their blindness all together? Give them perfect vision in the darkness, but they will see nothing in the light and presence of bright light source nearby will deal significant eye damage to them. So they have to wear sunglasses at very least. Welding googles and helmets are even better - they could not use them for welding however.

[flimflamm]

 

It seems that the vision impairment is not functional on shadow people when exposed to light, which I won't complain about!

 

I started doing some sprite art for boxes for fun, how do they look? (probably hard to see cause of pixel ratios or something)

 

 

[Munks]

 

"They have a narrow and singular advantage of healing brute and burn in darkness"

haha totally, they just passively regenerate the two most prominent damage types in the game, no biggie right?

 

"Balance wise being a box person would be more of a burden than a boon, but roleplay wise it is fun, challenging, and interesting."

This alone would be an automatic "no" on most rp servers. Why, exactly, would people like this be hired? Even in a non-RP sense, you're promoting a race that would be completely fucking useless as most jobs as they'd die without their boxes on. This would just waste job slots.

 

Large karma paywall or not, you're suggesting a race with PASSIVE BRUTE/BURN REGENERATION AND BUILT IN NIGHTVISION. Additionally, cardboard boxes preventing light damage would give the antag shadowlings a way to travel through lit areas without issue, which is a buff they totally do not need. Did you even think about this?

 

[Doukan]

 

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

Good show either way +1

 

Edited May 2, 2016 by Guest

[Lolzyking]

let them wear cardborg suits and not burn?

[flimflamm]

 

haha totally, they just passively regenerate the two most prominent damage types in the game, no biggie right?

It's actually no biggie, that's right!

 

If you think passive brute and burn healing in total darkness is the be all and end all of buffs, try actually playing as a shadow person (it's not very fast healing). If a shadow person robusted you in maintenance or something, i don't know what to say man. Turn on a light?

 

"Balance wise being a box person would be more of a burden than a boon, but roleplay wise it is fun, challenging, and interesting."

This alone would be an automatic "no" on most rp servers. Why, exactly, would people like this be hired? Even in a non-RP sense, you're promoting a race that would be completely fucking useless as most jobs as they'd die without their boxes on. This would just waste job slots.

 

I'm confused now. Is it that shadow people are too strong or is it that they are too useless?

 

In reality shadow people can get away with spending stretches of time in the light, taking damage all the while, and finally retreating to darkness to regenerate. In these periods of time, just about every job becomes feasible. For the jobs that would be very difficult to perform mainly from a box, there is a light switch in just about every room on SS13.

 

For instance, as a box person yesterday, I had to get surgery. The good surgeon darkened one of the surgery rooms for me and we had no problems...

 

Large karma paywall or not, you're suggesting a race with PASSIVE BRUTE/BURN REGENERATION AND BUILT IN NIGHTVISION. Additionally, cardboard boxes preventing light damage would give the antag shadowlings a way to travel through lit areas without issue, which is a buff they totally do not need. Did you even think about this?

 

Currently boxes function as they are described in this thread, yes, even for shadow-lings. Did you not know this?

 

Furthermore, night vision is not an extremely powerful mechanic. Many races, such as vulpakin, have natural degrees of night vision. Giving natural night vision as one of the solitary boons of this proposed race is really not that impactful balance wise.

 

To conclude, you wildly over-estimate both the strength and the weakness of shadow people. They are not completely useless in lit environments and they are also not over powered in darkness. Sure they would win a fist fight in a dark maintenance shaft, or could convalesce from some surface wounds, but if you fight with a weapon of any kind against a shadow person in maintenance then you are going to kill them as easily as any other humanoid. When it comes to light exposure, yes it can be fatal, but you can open and close the box for actions and not be exposed to light for long enough to take any damage at all, or only take absolutely minimal damage, making most jobs I can think of capable of being performed.

 

The point of Box People is not to spend your karma on something powerful. Giving up the 100 karma proves that you're capable of playing such a difficult race to survive as and would be more likely to engage in the kind of RP that makes Box People interesting, mysterious, and enigmatic.

 

[Dumbdumn5]

 

"They have a narrow and singular advantage of healing brute and burn in darkness"

haha totally, they just passively regenerate the two most prominent damage types in the game, no biggie right?

 

 

Diona in light.

 

[flimflamm]

 

Somehow I managed to finish the sprites for every possible job (I think) and managed to format them into a DMI file. Here's a paint image of them all : Can you identify all the jobs related to the boxes below? How do they look? (if anyone wants the DMI file to look at, ask or send a PM)

 

It's a fairly enjoyable to me so i reckon I'm going to try and write the code that would make these boxes working (pretty sure it's a matter of copying many times the code of the original cardboard box and modifying it for each sprite).

 

Seriously though, how do they look!?

 

[Keilden]

The sec box should have a Justice Hat duct-taped to the top.

[saywat_the_15th]

 

Those boxes are so fancy ;_;

 

Edit: we don't need the lamia, shadow people are true snakes.

 

[flimflamm]

 

The sec box is one that I'm iffy about. I used the color pallet from a security closet and until I actually see it brought to life in game, I'm not sure whether or not it will clearly look like a sec box or not. I will see what I can do about putting a hat on it. (actually I tried to find a siren sprite but i could not, and I also need to swap the wardens box with the actual wardens hat decal)

 

I made a lot of these sprites in a relatively short period of time, and as a result I think some of them are un-refined and inadequate. Don't hesitate to point out any box that is not up to the fancy standards i have aimed for with some other boxes, I want to improve them and so I need to identify the unappealing ones. If you have an idea to improve a box, like a sec hat on the sec box, please share your idea!

 

Right now I'm slowly digesting how the existing cardboard code works in order to figure out a way to efficiently adapt it to accommodate the new skins. Any advice or assistance in that regard would be highly welcomed.

 

P.S, regarding the over-the-top fancy-ness of these boxes, given that shadow people must interact with most other people through a box, it needs to really be visually appealing in order to give the player a feeling of prestige. For this reason, don't hesitate to tell me if a box, or even all of them, look ugly. It won't hurt my shadowey feelings!

 

[counterfeitguise]

Oh my sweet lord make this a thing, even if just for the boxes. They are ADORABLE.

[flimflamm]

 

Oh my sweet lord make this a thing, even if just for the boxes. They are ADORABLE.

 

Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE with box people . Their vanity is surpassed only by their emotional fragility!

 

It's evolving into a bit of a pet project of mine. Currently I need to figure out a way to adapt the existing box code in a way that does not involve copy/pasting it for every job.

 

I'm thinking of creating a new item called a compressed box that shadow people would spawn with in their hands and when activated would read their job tag and spawn the appropriate box on-top of them, this way i can theoretically get the boxes in game on a locally hosted station without having to hardcode shadow people as a spawn-able race... I'm totally new to BYOND code so it's a headache at the moment but i'm making progress!

 

[Citinited]

I'd rather not have a race of sentient boxes aboard the station, thanks. Having a race that would be required to be inside a box would lead to all kinds of abusable situations and would add a tonne of difficulty to the game for the non-box-people players.

[flimflamm]

 

I'd rather not have a race of sentient boxes aboard the station, thanks. Having a race that would be required to be inside a box would lead to all kinds of abusable situations and would add a tonne of difficulty to the game for the non-box-people players.

 

I'm guessing you're referring to the ability of boxes to conceal identities and move around corpses. In a way I agree with you, that boxes can be used for nefarious deeds, but so too can closets, and the boxes that already exist in-game. Concealing your identity is as easy as a borrowed, stolen, or fake ID of any kind and a face mask of many kinds.

 

While I can envision a scenario where a boxed race would make boxes less suspicious and therefore more exploitable in one way, more often I end up envisioning the fact that anyone can open a box to check it's occupants at any time, and whenever a door needs to be opened, or anything interacted with, the box must also open. The most likely avenue of exploitation that I can think of would be people murdering box people in the maintenance shafts that they would all likely frequent in order to simply enter their box and impersonate them.

 

What kind of exploitation do you envision? Perhaps a solution could be that when these fancy boxes are examined, their description would display a list of humanoid occupant visible identities?

 

Keep in mind that this hypothetical boxed race would not be very common.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

I can just imagine the first day of these rolling out.

100 ahelps of "GREYTIDE MCGEE STOLE MY BOX."

 

[flimflamm]

 

I can just imagine the first day of these rolling out.

100 ahelps of "GREYTIDE MCGEE STOLE MY BOX."

 

My reply would be: "Stuff happens you know? That's really an IC issue, hurry up and run into maintenance and break a light bulb! Guess you'll have to live out your days in an old cruddy plain cardboard box that you can make for yourself".

 

IC'ly though, all the shadow person needs to do is inform the crew of the theft and I'm sure they would be more than eager to assist in recovering it. I plan to make it have the name of the original occupant labeled on it's item name and in the description as well.

 

Having a very high karma cost would also ensure that people aren't yoinking boxes left and right and that the players who do choose to inflict boxed life upon themselves would likely be more competent than your average grey-tider and much less likely to want or need to get admin assistance.

 

In the dozen or so rounds that I have made myself into a box person, I have actually had a surprisingly easy time not being box jacked and even in the one case where it did occur, I easily survived and simply made a back up box from maintenance cardboard. To be honest I enjoy the challenge and thrill of such risks, but I can see how not everyone might feel the same. I guess it's important to note that this race is very mechanically challenging to simply survive with. It's honestly simply a curse which challenges your existence and functionality in exchange for an affinity to darkness and a pretty pretty box.

 

[Munks]

 

"Balance wise being a box person would be more of a burden than a boon, but roleplay wise it is fun, challenging, and interesting."

This alone would be an automatic "no" on most rp servers. Why, exactly, would people like this be hired? Even in a non-RP sense, you're promoting a race that would be completely fucking useless as most jobs as they'd die without their boxes on. This would just waste job slots.

 

I'm confused now. Is it that shadow people are too strong or is it that they are too useless?

 

In reality shadow people can get away with spending stretches of time in the light, taking damage all the while, and finally retreating to darkness to regenerate. In these periods of time, just about every job becomes feasible. For the jobs that would be very difficult to perform mainly from a box, there is a light switch in just about every room on SS13.

 

For instance, as a box person yesterday, I had to get surgery. The good surgeon darkened one of the surgery rooms for me and we had no problems...

constantly healing doesn't automatically mean you're not going to be useless. and if they're going to just play normally and duck out of the light every once in a while to heal, what even is the point? (other than to piss off people watching crew monitors) in reality, no, they're not going to do this, they're just going to break all the lights in their workplace and demand that everyone stumble around in darkness, sorta like how shadowpeople already do

 

Large karma paywall or not, you're suggesting a race with PASSIVE BRUTE/BURN REGENERATION AND BUILT IN NIGHTVISION. Additionally, cardboard boxes preventing light damage would give the antag shadowlings a way to travel through lit areas without issue, which is a buff they totally do not need. Did you even think about this?

 

Currently boxes function as they are described in this thread, yes, even for shadow-lings. Did you not know this?

 

Furthermore, night vision is not an extremely powerful mechanic. Many races, such as vulpakin, have natural degrees of night vision. Giving natural night vision as one of the solitary boons of this proposed race is really not that impactful balance wise.

"natural degrees" yes, a microscopic difference that isn't near enough that they don't ultimately end up using an external light source anyway. kinda different versus literal night vision.

 

To conclude, you wildly over-estimate both the strength and the weakness of shadow people. They are not completely useless in lit environments and they are also not over powered in darkness. Sure they would win a fist fight in a dark maintenance shaft, or could convalesce from some surface wounds, but if you fight with a weapon of any kind against a shadow person in maintenance then you are going to kill them as easily as any other humanoid. When it comes to light exposure, yes it can be fatal, but you can open and close the box for actions and not be exposed to light for long enough to take any damage at all, or only take absolutely minimal damage, making most jobs I can think of capable of being performed.

 

The point of Box People is not to spend your karma on something powerful. Giving up the 100 karma proves that you're capable of playing such a difficult race to survive as and would be more likely to engage in the kind of RP that makes Box People interesting, mysterious, and enigmatic.

"we're going to rp it good!"

"no, we're going to constantly damage ourselves because it's literally the only way we're going to contribute to gameplay!"

one or the other. you dont even get to use rp as an excuse because, again, people with such a condition wouldn't even work here. but this is paradise roleplay, or in other words "lets do it because it's cute, tehee~"

 

but if you fight with a weapon of any kind against a shadow person in maintenance then you are going to kill them as easily as any other humanoid.

unless, of course, the shadowling carries around a weapon too, which of course they will because they're going to be in maintenance all the time.

 

Giving up the 100 karma proves that you're capable of playing such a difficult race to survive as and would be more likely to engage in the kind of RP that makes Box People interesting, mysterious, and enigmatic.

LOL

 

just like vox players right? except, no, vox players dont do shit to roleplay it outside a few minor vocal quirks.

 

speaking of, how exactly would one go about arresting one of your shadowpeople? as someone whos had to deal with a shadowperson cultist before, it was fucking awful for everyone involved, and that didn't even involve a brig sentence. Ignoring the blaring issue that we're going to have to break the brig lights just to hold them, which not only will be incredibly agitating (and dangerous as hell) to anyone who doesnt have built in nightvision, are we just going to have to resort to nearly killing them dragging them through the hall (or of course run the length of the station through maint tunnels in pitch darkness which is always delightful)? or should we just expect them to play nice and not run away as we drag their box through the hall, which naturally they won't just so they have something to bitch about (see vox refusing to tell you what pocket their nitrogen is in when searched so when it gets taken off they can scream about us murdering them)

 

all i'm seeing here is Vox 2.0 except even worse to have to deal with and with free nightvision, for no reason other than teehee look at my cute boxes <3. this will be nothing but a hassle for everyone involved to have to put up with, and to be honest i'm reeeeally not looking forward to having to work in complete darkness because I had the misfortune of getting stuck with a shadowperson.

 

Engineering: Completely shit out of luck if you get stuck with one, gonna have to break all the lights because pretty much every engineering action takes a couple of seconds to do.

Cargo: Pretty much the only department shadowpeople could potentially be useful in, as long as they're in mining. Cargo office workers, they'll just sit around and chatroom while someone works the counter.

Medical: Cant pull people in boxes, so sit around and wait for dying people to limp to you. Surgery is the same problem as Engineering with the action timers, so tell all your coworkers to fuck themselves and break the lights and operating console because you absolutely HAVE to play a shadowperson. Medical would be so fun to deal with all the lights being gone, by the way.

Science: This already happens anytime some idiot goes shadowperson, and even with science being as low intensity as it is its still annoying to put up with. But with default race shadowpeople, science will be bathed in darkness all the time, which will work great for when science gets converted to the cult like it does every cult round

Security: YOU ACTUALLY SPRITED SECURITY BOXES. YOU INTEND FOR SHADOWPEOPLE TO PLAY SECURITY. WHY?

Command: Our command regulars are useless enough without the extra excuse of having to be in a box constantly. I'm sure it'll be delightful for Blueshields to look after too.

 

Basically, you're taking your own personal gimmick, asking for it to be turned into a whole playable race with the added bonus of night vision, and ignoring the fact that you're going to perform awfully as one and make the round worse for all who have to deal with you. But it has a decent chance of going through, because heehee cute x3

 

[flimflamm]

 

constantly healing doesn't automatically mean you're not going to be useless. and if they're going to just play normally and duck out of the light every once in a while to heal, what even is the point? (other than to piss off people watching crew monitors) in reality, no, they're not going to do this, they're just going to break all the lights in their workplace and demand that everyone stumble around in darkness, sorta like how shadowpeople already do

Depending on the job, not everyone would play "normally", furthermore shadow people don't require every light to be broken, all they need is at least one tile of darkness for regeneration fi theya re unwilling to go to maintenance, and if they're alone in their work-space then this is no grand issue at all...

 

"natural degrees" yes, a microscopic difference that isn't near enough that they don't ultimately end up using an external light source anyway. kinda different versus literal night vision.

Some or even total vision is not a balance breaking buff...

 

 

"we're going to rp it good!"

"no, we're going to constantly damage ourselves because it's literally the only way we're going to contribute to gameplay!"

one or the other. you dont even get to use rp as an excuse because, again, people with such a condition wouldn't even work here. but this is paradise roleplay, or in other words "lets do it because it's cute, tehee~"

Did you know that once injected with shadow mutation enzyme the resulting condition known as "shadow person" is genetically irreversible? After so many years of foolishly greedy Xenobiological research a small population of permanently disabled employees has amassed, and finally in an effort to recuperate monetary losses on all their years of training, they decided to use decorative plasteel boxes in order to enable them some capacity to perform work.

unless, of course, the shadowling carries around a weapon too, which of course they will because they're going to be in maintenance all the time.

So what you're saying is that shadow people are going to spend all their time valid-hunting in maintenance?

Giving up the 100 karma proves that you're capable of playing such a difficult race to survive as and would be more likely to engage in the kind of RP that makes Box People interesting, mysterious, and enigmatic.

LOL

 

just like vox players right? except, no, vox players dont do shit to roleplay it outside a few minor vocal quirks.

 

Clearly you've never heard of the inviolate... I'm faxing the Arkships about this...

speaking of, how exactly would one go about arresting one of your shadowpeople? as someone whos had to deal with a shadowperson cultist before, it was fucking awful for everyone involved, and that didn't even involve a brig sentence. Ignoring the blaring issue that we're going to have to break the brig lights just to hold them, which not only will be incredibly agitating (and dangerous as hell) to anyone who doesnt have built in nightvision, are we just going to have to resort to nearly killing them dragging them through the hall (or of course run the length of the station through maint tunnels in pitch darkness which is always delightful)? or should we just expect them to play nice and not run away as we drag their box through the hall, which naturally they won't just so they have something to bitch about (see vox refusing to tell you what pocket their nitrogen is in when searched so when it gets taken off they can scream about us murdering them)

Well aside from cuffing them and then putting them in their own box for dragging, there's this for the holding!

 

I guess if a box person wants to break the law then they risk shit going wrong for them.

all i'm seeing here is Vox 2.0 except even worse to have to deal with and with free nightvision, for no reason other than teehee look at my cute boxes <3. this will be nothing but a hassle for everyone involved to have to put up with, and to be honest i'm reeeeally not looking forward to having to work in complete darkness because I had the misfortune of getting stuck with a shadowperson.

There's no reason that you have to work in total darkness... The boxes are what enable this to be the case... Obviously nobody is going to expect a majority of their co-workers to suffer to serve only one person... If a security guard winds up killing a shadow person in the process of arrest due to light exposure, then so what? Clone it? Anyone who spends a crap ton of karma on a disabled character is going to be capable of accepting sudden and tragic round endings.

Engineering: Completely shit out of luck if you get stuck with one, gonna have to break all the lights because pretty much every engineering action takes a couple of seconds to do.

Firstly there are light switches located everywhere, secondly a shadow person can endure more than a few seconds of light. I'm quite confident I would set up the engine, albiet in a longer period of time, completely by myself, leaving all the lights on, and with only a box.

Medical: Cant pull people in boxes, so sit around and wait for dying people to limp to you. Surgery is the same problem as Engineering with the action timers, so tell all your coworkers to fuck themselves and break the lights and operating console because you absolutely HAVE to play a shadowperson. Medical would be so fun to deal with all the lights being gone, by the way.

First of all, you can move 20 corpses at once with a box if you want, you simply put them in the box with you, secondly, if a shadow person surgeon wants to do surgery on me in a dark environment, then great, i don't really give a shit, I'm just thankful someone is there to fix me up. A paramedibox would be downright effective.

Science: This already happens anytime some idiot goes shadowperson, and even with science being as low intensity as it is its still annoying to put up with. But with default race shadowpeople, science will be bathed in darkness all the time, which will work great for when science gets converted to the cult like it does every cult round

I've maxed research on my own, with the lights left on, all while doing the cute hello kitty style RP such as you have described about a dozen times, with zero complaints, and no need to smash out any of the lights in science.

Security: YOU ACTUALLY SPRITED SECURITY BOXES. YOU INTEND FOR SHADOWPEOPLE TO PLAY SECURITY. WHY?

Command: Our command regulars are useless enough without the extra excuse of having to be in a box constantly. I'm sure it'll be delightful for Blueshields to look after too.

If people want to go through all the hassle of being box security or box command then let them. It cannot be any worse than the rampant incompetence that is already widespread on the station. Until you've experienced a no-legged blind one armed epileptic captain, I'm not sure you understand how frustrating some people can be as it is already. I'll take a 100+ karma earning box person RD any day over one that doesn't know how to complete research.

 

When it comes to being a box security person, step one, open box, step two, shoot tazer, step three, cuff subject, step four, put subject in box with you, step five, deposit in brig. It's doable if you know what you're doing...

Basically, you're taking your own personal gimmick, asking for it to be turned into a whole playable race with the added bonus of night vision, and ignoring the fact that you're going to perform awfully as one and make the round worse for all who have to deal with you. But it has a decent chance of going through, because heehee cute x3

It might be partly my own gimmick, but really it's just a combination of two pre-existing gimmicks, boxes and shadow persons. It's a kind of compound gimmick, you see! Your doomsday predictions of mass light smashings and robust maintenance valid-ing are not the totally cute and cuddly vision that I had in mind, Tee-hee~

 

[Dinarzad]

 

Ehhhhh.

I guess while a harmless enough Idea, iunno.

It seems weird to me that a space station owned by a corporation would just throw boxes at people who cannot live in light and go "Here, make it work."

NT may not exactly be the most employee-friendly company ever, and in fact can be downright scummy, but I can't help but feel THAT would get them some reputation that they do not publicly want. I mean Tajaran in most lore sets are second class citizens and even then they don't PUBLICLY screw with them.

So why would these Shadow People not just use some form of suit like the Plasma's do?

 

The nearest comaprison I can make would be, imagine of Vox/Plasma people instead of having suits an masks an stuff, just had these little boxes full of Nitrogen/Plasma to breathe in. It'd look and be logically kind of out there.

 

That's really where a major stopping point is for me, what justification is there logically for using just.... ordinary boxes as a life saving device that doesn't even enable this "Disabled" crewmen to properly work their environments, over just some kind of specialized suit that keeps them sheltered from Light and enables them to do whatever NT hired them for with greater ease then a box?

 

[pazneria12]

If you want to be a shadow person, I wouldn't mind balancing them; or finishing them; but as a start race? No. Also, litterally a medieval Suit of armor would be more effective than a box, no offense, I just don't think it's a good idea.

[flimflamm]

 

Ehhhhh.

I guess while a harmless enough Idea, iunno.... -//snip//-

If you want to be a shadow person, I wouldn't mind balancing them; or finishing them; but as a start race? No... -//snip//-

 

 

Moving boxes certainly is a bit silly... Maybe more than a bit silly... Years of SS13 has likely warped my understanding of what even constitutes "silly"...

 

That said, a tiny bit of silliness never hurt SS13. They key point here I guess is "tiny bit", given the fact that most people would not want to inflict boxed life upon themselves, let alone pay 100 karma to do so, it's not as if you would see them very often at all...

 

Logically speaking, sure a suit of armor would keep you dark, but regrettably if we coded that in then shadow people would basically be too strong given that they could walk into maintenance at any time and take off their armor in order to regenerate; there is no cost/risk. Lore wise this could also be answered with some invention; shadow people are able to heal in darkness because they constantly draw energy from dark space in order to survive, not simply because it is touching their skin. When they have no dark space around them at all then they cease to draw energy and their body degrades. Boxes provide just enough dark space around the shadow person that they are able to draw enough energy to maintain their current condition, but not enough to improve it.

 

As for why NT would even hire shadow people in the first place, I was thinking that lore wise they could be explained to be entirely unnatural creations of NT's science department, composed of a collection of once test subjects, and therefore already having been employed...

 

[Bill Chompski]

 

Ivan Ooze and Bill Chompski, original Box People.

 

But on a serious note, you need to open the box to interact with anything, which is an astronomical pain. Maybe you could code something where box people dont have to open their boxes to do anything ever?