alexslayer30

That's not what I'm arguing, of course that's what you have to do, but doing that can take an hour, and I used to play for like 9 hours plus of just doing this over and over to make drugged tomatoes to use as a chemical weapon, but by the time I'm done, round is half over. Its not a matter of skill, its a matter of luck, and trust me, I have a system for doing this and cutting down on time hard. also, the gene thing, only works if you plant it and bear fruit, then you know its the reagent gene, and that's the only time it tells you.

Xenobotany is extremely long and boring as it is right now. You end up putting 40 minutes to an hour of a two hour round for very unsatisfactory results, oh boy, you made green tomatoes, you want a fucking medal? The problem with Xenobotany right now is the way it works, it has so much potential, I mean SO MUCH POTENTIAL being absolutely wasted on this GARBAGE system. The way it works is you get two seed packets and a disc. Insert the floppy disc into the lysis isolation centrifuge, a seed packet, now you have a choice to copy between 12ish genes, each does something, like makes the plant glow if the plant you're copying glows, makes the plant have the same size or colour, etc. You can only have one per disk. When the round starts, the genes are randomized, the same 12 genes will always be there, one will always switch the colours, one will always make it glow or not, etc, but the name and position of the gene is randomized. So, to find out what EVERY single one of them is every single round is a pain in the ass. Now, you stick that disk into the bioballistic delivery system, throw the seed packet you want modified, hit that modify button and wait. After a bit you have a new mutated seed packet which you can plant. However this means if you want to make a cool specific plant, something really cool that you've had in mind, like a tomato that has corn oil so it can slip people when it splatters and explodes, you would need to find the reagent gene. So how do I find this reagent. Well, you do the process, this is where the problems really start. You have to take twelve seed packets, plant them all, make sure you kept track of what gene was planted with the plant, do the grindy process and wait for them to finish every time you transfer ONE GENE from one plant to another, plant it and the only way to tell if it works, if the fruit of the plant you planted has the reagent you spliced with the other when you use you're plant scanner (this also means you have to wait for it fully grow). OH BOY! By the time you've done the process, done it again to get the corn oil tomatoes, planted them, waited for them to grow. This takes 30 minutes MINIMUM of sitting in the lab playing left click simulator rather then interacting with others, and can take even 1 hour and 20 minutes and that's just for one gene! I once made such evil kudzu that it would kill and infect that station, putting people to sleep, poisoning them, and spreading like a plague, then the shuttle was called so I had to resort to using a revolver to shoot up some sec before round end (creative, huh?). There is a MILLION solutions to this problem I can think of, so here are a few: Make it so that way you know what the genes do. Make it so that the genes are always the same. Make it one machine so its less grindy and you don't need discs. My favourite: Make it one machine, you stick in a seed packet on side, and the other and the other side, in the middle is a list of genes, you click a gene and BOOP other packet gets it, the genes are labelled like : Makes plant glow, or if you click the corn oil adds the corn oil. This is something that if fixed would make aurora that much greater, for several reasons. It would allow Xenobotany to be much more accessible, because its like the only job everyone just sorta scratches there head at, I'm sure of you are at my explanation, but it would allow more players to access it, as its probably lowest played job (except xenobiology, but everyone dies). It would also just make it so it had a purpose, because people do fuck all right now when they do pick it, it would allow creativity to flow, so people could make the tastiest apple ever that is purple and shaped like a fucking banana BUT ITS AN APPLE! But that would take a whole round to do, or create a badass deadly plant as antag and use it to be badass. It wouldn't even be hard, I'm not a coder, but I'm pretty sure it would be pretty simple to just copy one variable to another (I'm not a coder, inb4 dats not how u do it u wud do eet lik dis). Its sad to see so much potential go to waste, but that's the way it is right now. Edit: How the fuck does an advanced race of combined alien species with the power to teleport not understand what fucking genes do what, they clearly have the fucking technology to. TL;DR: Xenobotany is monotonous, no one knows how to play it, system has to be fixed to make the job useful, do it by fixing gene splicing.

I think it should be more of a closer game, like cult. Extended with an event should be extended with an event. Revs should be able to actually do something other then convert one to two people and then get arrested, the amount of RP and stuff that could just bloom of it being a war between the revs and the loyalists, and then having those who are inbetween, could be amazing, the situations that could be created. Also to having the sleeper cell idea would be good, very much like.

Yes. rev needs to be smart, and I do, but it adds up to : Most people are already loyalists without very much reason, sec still tases anyone who identifies as a rev, even if its peaceful, people view revs as antags, bad as cult or tators and are treated such, even if you're peaceful some chucklefuck will start a fight somehow, whether it be sec or rev, and it always ends up in fighting. And the whole be interesting thing, I try to, but people are like "yeah but i don't want to fite the nt's, they 2 stroooooong". The whole brigged thing, really fucks up, because sec just fucking keeps you in processing for five minutes, throws you in brig for 20 and warden stops by every 10 minutes to make sure you haven't broken a window with the mop to escape. Yes you have to be peaceful, but no one fucking interacts properly when you're peaceful, antag=jail or shoot, its as simple as that for some people, I rarely meet some one whose cool with some one being an antag of some sort. Also, of course join or die doesn't fucking work, I've never used it as a rev, it's dumb because you don't have anything to keep them loyal to you once there a rev. Its also a consistent pattern throughout rev, no matter who is playing, that revs end up with very little influence, and all are either dead or brigged at the end of the round.

So this is my first post on the forum, many of you know me through the game as Alex Toner, and usually being an Antag, and filling OOC with salt, whether it be mine or other peoples. And for the most part of it, antag is pretty fun and balanced. However, rev round is so fucking broken, its ridiculous. Revs have no chance of "Winning" (Yes I know theirs no definitive Revs win message and fireworks shoot out of everyone's asses, but when revs have captain hostage and most of the people converted and general control over the station, I consider that winning) So, what is wrong with rev? It seems fair, revs just need to play smart. One word: Loyalists. Yes my friends, loyalists are the problem, they have every advantage over the revolution in every situation, and they generally just fuck the game. They were probably originally created to help with old codes problem with revs being so fucking ridiculous and pretty much having enough people to roflstomp anyone who wasn't rev. The premise of loyalists is that they're loyal to NT... Which I assume you are by default, considering they're your employer. Now this can be interesting because the loyalist faction hates revs and vice versa, leading to some interesting fighting and for the people who have not chosen a side to be caught in between this conflict, leading to some interesting rp, so everything about loyalist seems good, right? But here's the problem: Loyalists are TOO good. Here's a list of things wrong/Advantgaes of Loyalists. -Easier recruiting then revs, no reason not to join, unless you have some form of backstory to say you hate NT, or just generally hate them. -Pretty much every head of department is a loyalist -No punishment for failing to recruit some one -Access to much more the stations supplies, (however this is a direct result of the other ones simply because everyone is a loyalist) -Station by default is in favour of the loyalists. -Revs don't have a reason to be revs. Lets go through the problems: Easier recruiting/No reason not to join: This stems off the loyalist recruitment method of: Why not join? There is no disadvantages if you become loyal to your employer, maybe you'll get promoted, or a raise, there really is no reason not to join, unless the aforementioned you have some form of backstory or reason to just fucking say FUCK YOU NT! It also makes sure you get protection from fellow loyalists. Only benefits and no down sides (other then sucking an evil companies dick, however the evil shit NT does, isn't known to people, so who gives a shit?) So why join a shitty group that could get you killed if they found out you were in it, with no benefits, or be loyal to NT and get a lot of benefits Solutions: I'm actually quite stumped on how to fix this, most people seem fine to trade away there freedom to be loyal to NT, adding some form of discouragement to Loyalist recruiting, like indentured servitude, failure to comply to every order is death, something extreme that NT would pull off. Every head of department is a loyalist: To my knowledge, you can't convert loyalists, nor can you convert heads of staff, nor loyalty implanted people (I could be wrong) So if you can't convert them to Rev, they have two options, just Loyalist (bonuses) or remain neutral (no bonuses) And most just decide off to Loyalist. A lot of the time the first loyalists tend to be heads of department, and sometimes even the captain, and whose going to fucking deny the captain if he asks you to join the loyalists and you tell him to go fuck himself by a rusty hook kindly depart. The captain can pretty much just have you arrested for some vague reason, like denying duty or sedition, (if hes an asshole). But then the heads just convert the whole department and the revs are fucked! They can't convert heads just get fucked. Solution: Make heads and shit convertible ._. Possibly make them rev leaders. No punishment to failing to recruit some one: This is more of a rev problem, but its another advantage that Loyalists have over Rev. So let me sum it up like this: A rev and a loyalist attempt to convert Uristmcneutral. The loyalist fails to convert him, maybe the loyalist said something that Urist doesn't like, maybe Urist doesn't like how Loyalists smell, whatever. So life moves on and theirs no repercussions, you can't be arrested for trying to make people like NT more, its not against the space laws. Now, lets run this situation with Rev. Maybe Urist doesn't like the danger of being a rev, or the legality of it, whatever, fuck Urist, but Urist is a piece of tresh, and calls security on Rev for trying to incite a rebellion. Rev is in jail. Run the situation again but Urist belongs to the opposing faction. Loyalist fails to convert him because hes loyal to the rebellion, now he could've figured out Urist was somehow a rev, and that's Urist in jail, or he didn't and just avoided giving it away, no repercussions, other than rev knows hes a loyalist, but how fucking useful is that, right? Not very, other then maybe them getting dragged into maint and disappearing (very unlikely) plus, most loyalists are pretty open about being gay a loyalist. Now Rev tries to convert a loyalist, he could somehow find out that hes a loyalist during a conversation, or the loyalist fails to give him that information, but now Urist mc loyalist knows that rev is a rev, so Rev is dead or in jail for sedition. (FUCK Sedition man) So it off puts revs and loyalists usually just fucking right click r u loyal right click r u loyal on everything that fucking moves. Solution: Also not so sure on how to really fix this, it makes sense that these are the ways it works, but it doesn't work well, and this is usually what ends up making the revs have 3 people and loyalists have 10 at the end of the round. Really need help with thinking of a solution for this Access to more supplies: Come on guys, really. Fuck. You removed uplinks? Well fuck me sideways. So loyalists usually have access to more supplies via the armoury and other things. because they convert so easily, and this is more of a being able to recruit everyone problem, however, why remove Uplinks? They were useful, they let revs who had nothing but there departments shit (gonna go robust some people with that mop there janitor) get a gun and have a fighting chance if they get caught. Solution: Add rev uplinks, BUT: Add some cool gadgets specific to revs, how about a one time use flash that instantly converts some one, (who isn't loyal to NT, which would give some form of positive reinforcement to figuring who is Loyalist and not, making that information NOT, FUCKING, USELESS.) Station by default is in favor of loyalists: Yeah, its true, there's now laws about converting people to help the station but there's laws against converting people to help take over the station, sec by default sides with loyalists, and are usually always converted to loyalists, which sucks because to convert a sec its a high risk, high reward, but for a loyalist to convert its no risk, high reward. So whole sec team gets converted to loyalists, and even if they don't they still are against revs. Solution: This is just a problem with having a faction that is NT supported, they support NT, they get all the help from NT, revs get no help whatsoever. Maybe a detective will be a rev, but one detective who can't make a move without being labelled as rogue and Shoot on Sight is pretty fucking ass. Revs don't have reasons to be revs: Okay so this is gonna be really controversial, because the general accepted thing is to make them up yourself. This might just be failure on my part as a rev to try to convert properly, but I don't really have much power to convert people, (Toner has a backstory which gives him reason) Like you could say NT is gonna planet carve a planet that doesn't want to join them, and kill everyone on the planet. Where is your evidence of this? Do you have anything to back it up? Do people give a shit? There's too many if and's or but's. Loyalist got all the power they need: Join for benefits. No morale cause, which is sorta what rev needs but has no evidence or push to actually showcase this. Solution: Don't do the shitty bars closed, that was retarded, a revolution started because the bar was closed, that's fucking dumb, but why not have like at the beginning of a round documents somehow leak to the public of operation Zeta-Cannon, a planet carving operation, or that NT is using the stations research to create weapons to help them conquer planets with alien life on it and generally be a dickhead power hungry company. Tl;dr Rev was nerfed too hard, loyalist is a great idea, can add some great game play, but they are 2 stronk, and rev got fucked pretty hard with shit like uplink being removed. Have you ever seen a rev round on new code where there was more then 5 revs and less then 10 loyalists? Probably not. And to players who say rev need to just be smart, and they never play there cards right and they just need to get organised *Cough*Alberyk*Cough* These are the reasons why rev round is so fucked, and my ideas to fix them, any criticism, ideas, suggestions, completely fucking welcomed, what do you guys think about rev?