Unfucking Xenobotany

[Snakebittenn]

What do I mean by this?
Xenobotany is a relatively unupdated department, and has been that way for several thousand years. The current state of it is essentially antags spamming teleporting stinging vine spore gas cyanide peanuts, which absolutely shatters immersion and definitively needs a look at, if not removal. I'm not sure how we could accomplish this, other than removing pretty much half the traits that are abused.

[The7thLain]

The fact that you can weaponise something already arguably bwoinkable like K'ois to the point where it can teleport and explode breaks immersion to the point of just wanting to ghost on the spot. The fact that the entire system is effectively RNG based as well is not a fun mechanic, it's a literal crapshoot with horribly unpredictable and at times seemingly game breaking side effects. 

[Gromnax]

How often is that happening? Because that's something I barely see. I only remember one koi's outbreak gimmick ever. It's not like it's abused every round. Plus, the way xenobotanics is built is one of the most interesting things in science imo. It's actual experimentation and needs trials instead of just being a list of things to do like robotics or RnD are.

Doesn't need a change. -1

[Resilynn]

I’m organizing a project to introduce xenoflora and fauna on a way sites, it should change xenobotany quite a bit. 

[Aphelion]

Yeah

-1

I think Xenobotany could definitely use some new stuff, but removing the fun of creating a little shop of horrors ain't it. Like sure they're griefy, but the majority of the worse stuff is about as griefy as spawning a blob and can easily be handled with an order of plant be gone and a hardsuit.

Plus players should be held accountable if they do anything too overboard. So far this year, as far as I know, we've only had one incident where engineering was given K'ois that grow in the tiles and release clouds of spores. This wasn't even planted by a xenobotanist, but by a Diona thrall that was given the non-descriptive order to "Kill" by their master.  We're not removing the SM because if a traitor blows it up it is kinda griefy, or removing Toxins because if a player plants bombs all over the station it's kinda griefy, We're banning the players who decide it would be fun to exploit these things and kill as many people as possible without RP, as far as I know.

As it stands, Xenobotany is already nerfed in a few ways, the Floral Somataray on this server cannot target and randomize specific genes (on other servers this is used as a fun exploit, where you can mutate and randomize stuff like potency to make plants that have a very large amount of chemicals.), and most of the interesting mutations are usually tied in with other important things like growth speed, not to mention with eachother which means you usually need to choose between stuff like Thorns or Spores and cannot have both unless you are extremely lucky when ordering alien seeds from cargo. Making a killer plant is already balanced. 

If we're gonna just talk about improvements for Xenobotany, there are a few things such as being able to name mutant plants you create would be great.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Aphelion
Added a tangent

[BoryaTheSlayer]

Removing the dumb teleportation stuff is honestly about enough. Adding more is definitely the way to go but we would need ideas.

Honestly, a lot of science could use a rework or something of the sort. There's probably no way of getting rid of all the griefing stuff from it, but we can certainly try and drown it out with stuff that's fun and not as grief-y.

As I said in the lore team, I think introducing flora and fauna into the lore and the game could help a lot with both xenobotany and xenobio.

[Aphelion]

1 minute ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

Removing the dumb teleportation stuff is honestly about enough. Adding more is definitely the way to go but we would need ideas.

I can agree with this...
Accidentally getting teleportation by injecting mutagen into plants right now is so friggen easy. Literally any plant can get the teleportation/exploding/thorny mutation from this method, and usually will after five or so doses. 

I like the teleporting fruits, but it would be nicer if it could only be achieved by extracting the mutation from bluespace tomatoes (Which are at least somewhat less likely to mutate than the teleportation mutation, and would require the player spends time studying the plant's genome to really improve it beyond being just tele-tomatoes), instead of players seemingly always lucking out with teleporting glowshrooms it in a few seconds.

[Randy]

4 hours ago, Aphelion said:

Yeah

-1

I think Xenobotany could definitely use some new stuff, but removing the fun of creating a little shop of horrors ain't it. Like sure they're griefy, but the majority of the worse stuff is about as griefy as spawning a blob and can easily be handled with an order of plant be gone and a hardsuit.

Plus players should be held accountable if they do anything too overboard. So far this year, as far as I know, we've only had one incident where engineering was given K'ois that grow in the tiles and release clouds of spores. This wasn't even planted by a xenobotanist, but by a Diona thrall that was given the non-descriptive order to "Kill" by their master.  We're not removing the SM because if a traitor blows it up it is kinda griefy, or removing Toxins because if a player plants bombs all over the station it's kinda griefy, We're banning the players who decide it would be fun to exploit these things and kill as many people as possible without RP, as far as I know.

As it stands, Xenobotany is already nerfed in a few ways, the Floral Somataray on this server cannot target and randomize specific genes (on other servers this is used as a fun exploit, where you can mutate and randomize stuff like potency to make plants that have a very large amount of chemicals.), and most of the interesting mutations are usually tied in with other important things like growth speed, not to mention with eachother which means you usually need to choose between stuff like Thorns or Spores and cannot have both unless you are extremely lucky when ordering alien seeds from cargo. Making a killer plant is already balanced. 

If we're gonna just talk about improvements for Xenobotany, there are a few things such as being able to name mutant plants you create would be great.

This

 

-1 from me too

[Gangstafary]

On 09/01/2020 at 17:47, ParadoxSpace said:

What do I mean by this?
Xenobotany is a relatively unupdated department, and has been that way for several thousand years. The current state of it is essentially antags spamming teleporting stinging vine spore gas cyanide peanuts, which absolutely shatters immersion and definitively needs a look at, if not removal. I'm not sure how we could accomplish this, other than removing pretty much half the traits that are abused.

I enjoy xenobotanics. I don't see it unupdated: as most, I would suggest some minor changes like mutant fruit now showing named as "mutant x" unless it's obvious (for example, a changed appeareance gene) and in fact, mechanically-wise, I consider it one of the most well polished roles.

I don't want to sound rough at all, but the "antags spamming teleporting stinging vine spore gas cyanide peanuts" is a reductio ad absurdum which isn't really on par with a well-formed argument. Moreover, the "shatters immersion" is really relative. First, cause we have some tropes that allow us to contemplate it as "not-immersion-breaking", such as the "it's bluespace I ain't gotta explain shit" which is also a fundamental part to slimes, xenobio golems and many other "gimmicks" that can involve wizard rounds or the sole fact that the Romanovich Cloud is an anomalous zone. All this is already used as a pretext to justify weird wild stuff, and wether it's liked or not is another discussion.

That being said, bluespace stuff could have some tweaks. It's not really making sense that bluespace anomalies are a genetic stuff. If it was only achievable by mutation and somatic (hence, not transferrible), I wouldn't mind that.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Gangstafary