Brainmed Update

[furrycactus]

If one more person suggests adding defibs as a way to restart a heart to bring somebody back from death, I will catapult my eyes out with a spoon, because that's not functionally how they work, TV is a liar. Defbis stop a heart when it's beating irregularly, and we just hope that a regular rhythm kicks back in after that on its own. You can't jump-start a dead person's heart with them because it's already stopped.

Anyway, I'd prefer a cloning rework over a cloning removal (har-har yes I unironically said "rework not remove", as much as I hate it too), but I'm aware that means somebody has to think up such a thing. I don't have any ideas myself yet, but I'll start thinking. If it is removed though, ultimately that's fine, I just hope it's only removed mechanically from the station and not removed from the lore. There's a notable chunk of characters that are clones, and many characters have had considerable arcs and character development surrounding it, so removing it from the lore would be an immense disservice to those players; and there's a lot of people that enjoy clone-related RP as well. If we remove it mechanically, I think it'd be a good thing if we could change that previous thing about "Oh the ODIN doesn't clone/won't clone Aurora staff", so that if players do die and want to go ahead with clone stuff, the means are still there to RP it, and it doesn't invalidate characters for whom cloning is a relevant part of their character.

I understand many people are just going to respond "well just don't make deaths canon, delete cloning entirely", but that's not going to work for characters who have already been cloned and for whom it's been a noteworthy part of their character development.

[Natiform]

3 hours ago, KingOfThePing said:

Mechanically from the server or generally in the lore?

This is also my question. Removing from the lore would be a HARD no from me- mechanically I could get, I guess? Though I would be really upset to see it go - we're already super limited on when we can clone people, and recovering-clone RP is really nice to see and experience 

[Doxxmedearly]

57 minutes ago, Lemei said:

(...) and now psych being totally useless.

Before traumas, psych was a roleplay-heavy role, who had to make their own fun. Trauma mechanics sort of killed off the fun for many, which is a part of why they aren't around so much. A psych should not depend on cloning for RP and being "useless" mechanically does not mean the role is bad. I promise you will not see much of a change for psychs without cloning, if that is your concern. 

==

Personally I say begone, cloning. It's already hard to kill someone, and if brainmed makes it harder, we probably don't need it. Would love to see people actually suffer consequences for their dangerous actions on a heavy RP server. And would REALLY love for people to stop pulling the "but we can clone them, GOTCHA" on antag rounds.

[Skull132]

Re: cloning removed from lore or not. Ultimately a detail to be decided when the actual development decisions have been made, and thus irrelevant at present. It could be retconned, though it's far more likely that we'll just either make it unavailable on station or make cloning lose favour due to ISSUES, for example.

Anyways, pretty sure Matt has said he wants to address cloning right after brainmed, since they do kinda interact with each other a lot. But my preference is to presently merge brainmed with cloning as it currently stands. Otherwise, we'll simply keep increasing the size of the PR and it'll all turn into a singular monolith from hell. So, that's what we'll be doing this week.

A discussion about cloning can be had in another thread. But know that it has certainly been marked as a point to review in the near future.

[N8-Toe]

I have liked brainmed as a medical main. I enjoy the fact it feels like it takes thought, and you are helping a person and not just fighting numbers. And to address the cloning I do think it has to go, and I think adding stuff like auto injectors that prevent braindeath or such is even worse than cloning. And on lore, just make it illegal. Say something like maybe new research has shown issue in the technology that there is not a fix for, or maybe it fell out of popular support. 

[MattAtlas]

Okay, I was perhaps a bit too short in how I stated something so sudden. I apologize. Let me reiterate:

1- Cloning was necessary in oldmed because of cheese instant kills and how easy it was to die. These concerns are basically nullified by brainmed. Cloning was born out of a MECHANICAL need.

2- Brainmed as it is removes the need for cloning. It is far harder to die unless you're fighting beyond what is reasonable for your body. As such, an IN-ROUND SOLUTION to death is NOT NECESSARY and detrimental to gameplay and the meaning of death.

3-  I do not make the decision to remove cloning from the lore. For all I care, it can stay, but it has to go from the station. How lore handles that is not my business or my problem nor my prerogative.

4- There is probably a grand total of 2 people who appreciate brain trauma RP, because it's not fun. Most medical players will agree that it's just a pain in the ass.

[KingOfThePing]

as a medical player I agree it's mostly a pain in the ass.

[Scheveningen]

I'd be totally fine with cloning being removed considering the difficulty of death in brainmed.

[Seeli]

I would much rather a rework to cloning than outright removal. Like perhaps people who want cloning have to actively go to medical and get scanned and mapped in the shift, so the cloning pod actually knows how to bring them back. Without it, there's a high chance the clone will be "braindead" (ie ghost does not go in new body and the new clone body has no brain activity). Especially if they have been dead a while, the decay of the brain and neural pathways after death means the cloning pod will not map their brain correctly.

But a majority here seem to want cloning gone entirely, not reworked.

My only hope then is that cloning is not removed from the lore and options for off-station treatment after the PR. Like perhaps cloning has a station all its own, specialized in proper post-cloning treatment, because too many clones are not treated properly afterward and there are too many risks of traumas. Some other NT station got the exclusive rights to cloning (and related experiments/science). I leave it up to devs.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Seeli
fixed run on sentences

[Shenaanigans]

Getting rid of cloning would involve either retconning the whole technology out of existence (and most of us agree that retconning is to be avoided) or jumping through a lot of logical hoops to justify why it suddenly becomes unavailable/harder to access for NanoTrasen employees and both options are not great in my opinion. Honestly I don't feel like it's super necessary to get rid of the possibility of cloning at all. On high mortality rate rounds people typically aren't getting cloned anyway, because medical is one of the top departments to quickly become a warzone where nothing gets done on code red if you even had the right staff to do it in the first place, and it just means that your character is now permanently dead if you get unlucky on a canon round.

RP on the Aurora isn't typically meant to be high stakes, "your character could permanently die at any time" in my experience here so far, so I don't quite get the reasoning for making death suddenly permanent in a highly futuristic setting. Yes it is harder to die now that brainmed is being implemented but is it necessary to take away the only method of undoing death to compensate?

[Scheveningen]

I mean, the IC loop to jump through is just one. The cloning facilities get compartmentalized into a singular facility on the Odin that specializes, instead. It's not difficult to fathom that different company facilities have different goals in mind, and redundancies/weak subsystems get ripped out to be relocated elsewhere.

[N8-Toe]

I think a solution to what to do lore wise is say that maybe an irreconcilable flaw has been found in the technology. Or some terrible incident has occurred that has caused it to be unilaterally banned in civilized space. if cloning is kept in lore on Odin or such, we will go back to the dreaded "It's ok, they can clone them on Odin" which is fully unacceptable. It should be setup so cloning from the past is not retconned or affected, but there can be no further cloning. 

[Seeli]

1 hour ago, N8-Toe said:

I think a solution to what to do lore wise is say that maybe an irreconcilable flaw has been found in the technology. Or some terrible incident has occurred that has caused it to be unilaterally banned in civilized space. if cloning is kept in lore on Odin or such, we will go back to the dreaded "It's ok, they can clone them on Odin" which is fully unacceptable. It should be setup so cloning from the past is not retconned or affected, but there can be no further cloning. 

Subjectively, you believe that giving the option to clone at all is "unacceptable". And subjectively, I believe that entirely removing the option to clone their character, even off-station, is also "unacceptable". If the character makes the decision to be cloned, there is usually some story reason behind that (such as being a parent & not wanting to orphan their children). Or perhaps the player is attached to the character and has too many unfinished stories or relationships. Whatever the case, it's all subjective and the player's choice.

[Nantei]

The trauma system was both extremely inaccurate, painted mental disorders in a bad way, and about as fun as cutting off your leg with a plastic knife. Seeing it go is a boon.

Cloning is rarely done as of now anyways due to said trauma system, so I'm fine with its removal once brainmed is in. Cloning should however absolutely be a thing off-station. Removing it from the lore is just going to lead to a bunch of headaches, but I suppose we'l cross that bridge when we get to it. I hope if the lore team considers removing it, they make a feedback thread considering how heavily this affects so many characters.

[BearSchwanz]

Having played medical a lot during brainmed I really don't think it's harder to die with brainmed. From instant injuries, sure. But in medical care you chances of death are a lot higher than old/current med.

[GreenBoi]

I am also confused where the notion that Brainmed makes it harder to kill people. It's made it a lot easier. I've seen some 'strong' mobs (mainly creatures) roll RNG well and instantly give AB with the first hit. Lasers also now cause minor organ damage with each shot, which can really fuck you up given how easy it is for sec and certain antags to access some form of them.

 

Dying is not only easier, but it also causes more suffering, and the threshold for succumb isn't exactly all that low in comparison. If anything, I'd say that cloning is fine where it is and the only thing it needs is to have most traumas cut off (the only actually interesting ones are imaginary friend, split personality, and really just the old traumas).

[MattAtlas]

Cloning will be addressed in a separate thread. This is not the thread for it.

[MattAtlas]

 

We did it boys, oldmed is no more.

[Doxxmedearly]

Now take a vacation you absolute madman. Well done. 

[Nantei]

Nice job. I know this took a lot of work, and I think it will all be worth it now that medical is going in a better direction.

 

[Melariara]

Can Medical borgs and Rescue borgs please have Adrenaline added to their hyposprays, and a defib or something to shock someone? That'd be swell, thanks.

[MattAtlas]

Moving to completed projects. All bugs to github please.