JKJudgeX

It seems like the problem of brain death would likely be solved by SS13 times. I like the idea of a defib that brings you back from the dead, but you immediately die again if what killed you hasn't been fixed. I think it adds more realistic continuity to characters than the weird "I was cloned oh no I died that sucks" RP that we usually get. I think it also adds some pressure to medbay to really try to bring someone back, and gives a lot of incentive to stick around and stay in your body even if you are dead, which might do a lot of good for other reasons. The brain should be an easily destructible object once out of the head, but that's something that you intentionally have to do to fully permanently remove someone from the round. I've also always thought that you should be able to go into an MMI, be extracted from it, and transplanted back into a normal body afterwards. Also, a posibrain should be able to go into a normal body. Just sayin'. Let's change the way death works, it'll be fun.

It is clearly the worst game mode, the only thing that comes close is malf. I agree that there should be some kind of limit to it. I would really like it if a gamemode could be taken off the list for a certain number of rounds after it has been played, to prevent it from showing up back to back. Visitors should show up once a day, tops, IMO. The crew transfer is ALWAYS called at exactly 2:00 in this gamemode. In any event, something should be done to reduce the frequency of ninjas and wizards showing up. Or, something in those gamemodes to automatically involve more players would be good. There have been many rounds that as soon as I found out it was wizard or ninja or both, I just immediately went to cryo because I was 100% sure I wouldn't be involved in anything more than an extended round (which I generally do not play) for the next 90 minutes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this.

I like the idea of resurrection through medical science much more than I like cloning. I'm not sure how the proposed system should work because I haven't played on tg in a long time. Do you use protohuman parts to replace damaged organs and limbs, and then resuscitate the victim with a defib when they are livable? I think that would be pretty cool if so. It takes the silly magical-ness out of cloning. If cloning works the way it does now, I should be able to clone living people and just have multiple copies of them. I would definitely do this with competent crewmates.

Oh, this was already done, then . Good. Well, I'm glad I'm not crazy for thinking they were OP. Thanks Arrow.

Yep, frag grenades in real life are nasty. Every firearm is super-weak compared to the amount of damage it does in real life, but, frag grenades aren't. I'm fine if they are kept as powerful but more highly limited in availability, or vice versa. I'm not sure how you can occupy the position that various other, far less lethal things fall into the wrong hands too frequently and are super disruptive, and should require more red-tape to acquire, but are fine with oft-abused, 1-shot kill weapons instantly available to certain roles with no red-tape or "interaction" necessary, but hey, being logically consistent certainly isn't a requirement.

Yeah, most of my experiences with them have been *beep beep* *boom* Hey, am I a ghost? WTF? Why am I a ghost? Was that a-... oh, it was a frag grenade... oh, damn, my buddy is a ghost now too. Weren't we both wearing armor? wtf. I get that there are supposed to be powerful weapons like this, which is why I said pushing them further out of people's hands would also be an acceptable mitigation. ERT guys just up and get them, for example, and this rarely, rarely makes sense. That could easily be changed. Also, something being OP, like the syndie borg, doesn't necessarily mean it should insta-murder people. Just make it tougher or give it more sustained medium-level lethality. Also getting within the blast of a tank transfer bomb that blows out walls and utterly ruins 40+ tiles doesn't usually kill you instantly. I was next to a ninja's self destruct and it didn't insta-ghost me. Any amount of decrease in quantity of grenades, power level of grenades, or general availability of grenades would be an improvement.

Every time I have encountered frag grenades, via ERT or Syndie Borg (or some other ways I'm sure), they have been tremendously overpowered. For that reason I think the damage that they do should be decreased, or the availability of them should be reduced. Seriously one frag even in decent armor and your ghost is blown out of your body. I've just never really seen them be appropriate in power level, and the availability of them to those who get them seems to be pretty much "you spawn with/summon multiple of these" by comparison to similarly powerful things that seem to take some serious doing to acquire. I don't think they facilitate good RP, either, so, let's put them a little further back on the shelf. I'm in no way saying this is the only thing that is OP, just one of the things that it seems like could be toned down or put a bit more out of reach to require certain antags and ERT members to work just a little bit harder for that murderbone.

Smart antags would properly stop their hostage/victim from speaking, it's not fucking antags over, it's making them think things over and be more careful. I see this "justification" frequently. Where's the natural limit for how smart and careful an antagonist should have to be in order to meet with some modicum of success? I think at a certain point it starts to lack a lot of the fun factor. Antags are here to run a gimmick and create a story for people. Requiring them to have Moriarty-level plotting and planning seems to just mean that each round is going to eventually be a series of security officers arresting people and then the shuttle being called when everyone gets bored. Seriously scroll through the suggested changes that have to do with existing antag types and take a look at how many times "antags will just need to be smarter/more careful" type replies there are for obvious nerfs to antags. For what it's worth though, I really like the idea of one ! being an exclamation and !! being a shout, simply because not everything exclaimed is shouted, and it seems goofy when you YELL "nice job!" right in someone's face lol.

I called it a travesty. Hyperbole has this way of instantly improving the quality of every conversation that it's ever been used in, amirite?

I am for a space lube buff. When I used to play traitor chemist I'd get syringes full of really mean stuff, eyedroppers full of chloral hydrate, and a spray bottle of space lube and use it to slip people who were after me, chloral hydrate them in the eye, and then inject them with lots of stuff. I think it would still work with current space lube, but, not quite as well. I remember when clowns would space lube a path right out an airlock, too, that was fun times.

I'd like to bump this idea real quick because I still think it would be great and it hasn't seen much feedback. I hope that's alright.

You're basing the entire fun factor of a job on whether it's potent or effective enough as an antagonist. Hearing that from you is unsurprising to hear, but it'd be honestly nice to hear a viewpoint from another science regular whose priorities weren't solely focused around the antagonist experience. ...snip... You've heard from 3 or 4 people who have been actively playing the role, or who have hundreds of hours invested in playing the role tell you directly that this isn't a great idea. My priorities aren't focused solely around the antagonist experience. I've run a clean R&D scientist and Research Director hundreds of times and used to greatly enjoy those roles. I clearly stated "When I'm talking about a job, I'm talking about it's viability and fun in totality. That includes when you are a traitor. " Key phrase->in totality. Funny how quickly that morphed into basing "the entire fun factor of a job on whether it's potent or effective enough as an antagonist". In any event: "Hearing that from you is unsurprising" - you're trying to get personal and likely evoke a response, so, I will no longer be discussing this topic as a result. Good job. Classy. I'm absolutely sure you'll be making a scientist character as soon as firing pins are implemented so you can go play with them for hours and hours. Peace out.

Complications? You realize you get test-firing pins at your job and can just pop them in willy nilly, right? Ergo, unless you look at large scale weapon manufacturing, your job will be complicated by a whole 2 clicks it would take to pick up a pin and shove it into a gun. When I'm talking about a job, I'm talking about it's viability and fun in totality. That includes when you are a traitor. This change makes being an antag R&D scientist or RD much less fun. Therefore, I will more likely opt to play other roles that are still more fun both for an antag and not, since playing as antag is to me, every bit as important and fun as playing a station role. Just being honest here. If a job generally sucks to have as an antagonist, or makes everything really unnecessarily complicated/super risky to get my gimmick going, I'm not going to play that role very often. This idea pushes R&D scientist onto that list. No, the idea to buy pins via uplink for telecrystals doesn't fix this. No, it still doesn't add anything enjoyable to the role. It also honestly doesn't solve anything that happens with much frequency on the station, either. The stated purpose of the change is to prevent non-antag R&D powergaming, which almost never happens, and certainly almost never happens using guns, which the R&D only gets built up to 1 out of 4 rounds anwyay. How about focusing on changes that purely enhance a department/role/gamemode instead, or creating a new antagonist type or something?

I was being facetious of course, but, 100% honesty, the amount of time I've spent in the research department diminished with the removal of genetics, spiked when it was added back, and diminished again when it was removed again recently. Even less features for non-roboticists without complication? It just doesn't seem like it's adding any appeal.

Sounds like reason #14 to no longer play the research department to me.

I would be in favor of making vampires harder to kill if they were also a little less offensively powerful. I think it would facilitate vampire RP.

I just haven't seen enough scientists self-antagging or validhunting with guns from the protolathe to warrant any kind of sweeping change to the entire system that they use for valid reasons when antags themselves or for interesting/fun research that generally doesn't leave the department. I'd understand this if there was an epidemic of misbehavior, but, there's not. Hell, I've seen modified plants coming out of R&D more than anything else lately.

This should be enough to shut this idea down completely for anyone with a truly deep understanding of the game, in my opinion. Resolution: 1 TC firing pin that only fires when in the hands of antagonists, explodes in anyone else's hands. Could also give head revs uplinks with a smaller amount of TC, around 5-10, to purchase antag pins with. Lings and vamps may be out of luck but they have access to different things that make them more powerful anyway. Seems like a lot of unnecessary acrobatics to implement a feature that no one who actually plays R&D wants anything to do with, but yes. I dunno. I get the sense that people that support this idea really do NOT play R&D very often and don't have a grasp of how dry the job becomes when you don't get materials from cargo, and how this would just add another layer of boredom and BS to further make the job suck. Put it this way. Take a job that you do, let's say ... you're a surgeon... and then out of the blue I come along with some SUPER THIN reasoning and go, ya know what, the ORs shouldn't start with a circular saw. I saw a guy kill some folks with a circular saw back in 2015, and one of them was a security officer, and I still find it upsetting to this day. Circular saws don't work until you get the blade for them ordered up from cargo. Now, pretend like half the time someone orders the circular saws, it turns out they had nefarious intentions with them and people end up dead. Good luck getting your circular saws. This is not fun. This just makes your job more lame and adds more points of failure to you getting to do what you wanted/needed to do. How about to unlock the armory, the Warden has to order Armory Keys from cargo? How about to activate a new borg, an MMI activator chip must be ordered from cargo? How about in order to activate the Tesla, a Tesla activation switch must be ordered from cargo? How about in order to open the toxins lab, toxin lab keys must be ordered from cargo? We can interject cargo into anyone's work process aboard. Try playing a few rounds as R&D and come back and tell me if you want to start putting a "mess with cargo" step right in the middle of your already probably hurried round. I just don't see the point, things have been fine this way for years.

This should be enough to shut this idea down completely for anyone with a truly deep understanding of the game, in my opinion.

I don't like loyalty implants, and view them as an RP-crippling mechanic more than anything else. They should still be available, to install by request or to ensure loyalty of seditious elements... but, having the Captain and HoS forced to have them installed at round start is kind of stupid, IMO. So what if the Captain or HoS become cult/rev? I think it enables RP and conflict within the command department, which can lead to some pretty awesome situations. I'm sure this will be outright dismissed, but I just wanted to get this suggestion out here and see some comments on it. I don't think these are necessary, and probably play into why there is often not a Captain or HoS at round start, which is kinda dumb IMO. I say, broaden the field of available antag roles, and, if it becomes super-problematic because Captains and HoSes suddenly start Rev/Culting every round, switch it back on. Hell, it would even be something of a relief if there was a chance the loyalty implant broke sometimes. Or even a loyalty implant removal whitelist system, where you have to prove you are mature enough to come up with a gimmick that isn't super-destructo-mode just because you are captain/HoS antag. I realize they can be surgically extracted and/or broken, but, have you ever seen it happen? I sure as hell haven't. Anyway, yeah, just saying, command is fairly empty sometimes. Maybe spice it up somehow.

A lot of things are ahelp issues. though mechanics generally preventing such behaiviour are better in the long run, less work for the 'mins, and not all things get ahelped. Can't argue with that. Someone who wants to test guns legitimately will take the 5 minutes required to type out a simple conversation for why they need firing pins from cargo. And cargo will take the 0 seconds it requires to not bother with ordering the firing pins, running the request up the command chain to see it denied, or flat out deny it themselves, as they do when random crew comes by and asks for insulated gloves/etc... leaving legit scientist with less to do than they had before, making this proposed change not only unnecessary, but prohibitive. Current steps to making a worthwhile gun: 1) repeat already repetitive research chain for the 500th time you've played 2) Stop. You need materials. Contact cargo. Wait. Maybe the whole round. Maybe 20-30 minutes. Maybe an hour. Good luck finding something else cool to do, since xenobio and xenoarch require special access, and chemistry and telescience are of very limited science use and are probably already being used by the other 1-2 scientists who had nothing to do while you occupied the R&D lab. 3) Oh my. A bored miner decided to be cool and bring you a thing or two. Now you can make more interesting station-stuff, including some guns that might be fun to test on monkeys, or, assist your antaggery, or provide help to a dwindling security force/etc. You got lucky, kid. Let's just go ahead and throw in step 2.5 for no reason) Ask cargo for firing pins and enjoy what I said above stopping you from reaching step 3. Also, now you're kinda suspect, so, if you WERE an antag, that AI is DEFINITELY watching you now, better be super duper extra careful times 3 because that's "fun". Just saying. Adding a point of failure (which is what this is) to someone's normal job RP or antag-gimmick, when it's really not currently a big problem is pretty questionable. I would get it if every couple of rounds a laser cannon found its way out of science and was put to devastating, unstoppable use, but to be honest the times that stuff like that happens tend to be the more interesting SS13 rounds. I'd be willing to hear out a nerf to the availability of force gloves, mechs, borg access, and grenade-enabling chems long before dicking about with the rest of R&D.

I'd like to go ahead and quickly add that if you're considering the captain's access to the station part of why this is too powerful, borgs by default have a much greater set of tools for accessing the station, and they are allowed to malfunction quite frequently and nobody bats an eye.

I am also in support of this because it sucks to join only to find a borg already doing your job with its assortment of ridiculous tools and insane access to the station.

1) So, by your admission, this is a proposed, rather major change, to a department you don't really play all that much - I prefer it when someone with deep department experience weighs in on changes proposed to their department. I played an RD and often an antag RD/Scientist here on Aurora for my first whole year almost exclusively. This change would have been very negative, and, as I mentioned before, I've played under similar circumstances on other servers. The change is unneeded, and takes a way a great deal of the power of the department to make itself useful without requiring permission, help, or extended thievery/trickery they may not be capable of on a given round. 2) Valid-hunting scientists pretty much never happens. A scientist who makes a weapon to defend themselves or to equip sec in a pinch, sure... but I just haven't seen anyone ever scream for this. The amount of R&D needed to make guns that stack up against the armory is ALREADY something that requires cooperation with cargo, and quite often doesn't even happen because no miner, or, no one bothers to bring the materials in the first place. 3) Science-based antags have a really good path to enabling themselves via the protolathe as it stands. This just nerfs that - to no benefit. The station already has to deal with peace antags and boring rounds because antags get robusted by security before having a chance to cause any conflict. This change just makes those holes deeper. When I am a rev in the science department, I arm revs from that protolathe. When I am a rev from another department I seek an R&D collaborator to arm my guys secretly. This change would just get in my way and make a thing more difficult that is already plenty difficult to accomplish without getting caught and ended. I say nay to this, too. 4) Sabotage of guns? Why? This would be something that happened one out of 100 rounds and wouldn't even lead to anything cool. No thanks. This sounds like a valid-hunter's wet dream, to me. "Look, it just got way harder for antags to arm up. lol that means we 'win' more often!". Is your main a security toon? Are you a malf player or someone who would be generally be unaffected by this? It seems like you're throwing a suggestion without really considering the consequences for the department. I'm just not a fan. Thanks for addressing my questions. Firing pins are a bad idea - I've played with similar stuff and it just makes R&D something EVEN LESS people will bother with... making Robotics the only worthwhile job in science besides maybe Toxins, before someone suggests nerfing that, too. "Only RD can unlock phoron canisters" etc.

Okay, let's go with this method then: 1) Is your main character, or a character you play very often directly affected by this proposed change? 2) Under what circumstances does this improve your gameplay? 3) For whom does this improve the game? 4) Doesn't this add extra difficulty to many antagonist roles when assumed by scientists? Nerfing the appeal of a science character for somenoe who wants to play an antagonist?