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Removing Lazarus Injector


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I don't see a particularly strong argument for it's removal, since the provided explanation was contesting realism at play. We have countless examples of concepts, mechanics, and narrative themes that don't capture perfect realism. Is there harm in reviving dead department animals? I sincerely don't think so.

 

I'd prefer a better rationale for removing content that seems to be only for the sake of removing it. Unless it's intended to be replaced with something better.

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I have to agree with comrade batman, there seems to be a consistent pattern where realism is said to be relevant or irrelevant depending on whatever option better serves to support the predetermined conclusion the proponent wants to make, if one wants to argue that the lazarus injector is not realistic, there's a plethora of other things that aren't either, including ones purposefully made not realistic for gameplay reasons, or lore reasons, or entertainment reasons, or technical reasons

At the end of the day, Aurora (and SS13 in general) is a game, and as any game, its value relies on the entertainment value it can provide - a lot of things can be forgiven about a game that is entertaining, but if a game is not entertaining, no other redeeming quality can absolve it from such failure, this is as much true for roguelikes fantasy games as it is for simulators (where the entertainment value is also often found in facing the technical complexity they represent)

I do not think this PR is really relevant in either direction for the entertainment value of the game, however, an harm to it or a technical reason that compels to remove something should be demonstrated before it should be permissible to remove content, and I do not think the lazarus injector have demonstrated such thing to justify its removal

It's certainly possible to replace it with something better, ie extending the medical system to animal thus removing it to not have a bypass of said improvement available, but as it stands right now, no improvement would be had from the removal of it, and therefore it should not be removed

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I don't understand exactly what does this improve? It removes to ability to revive pets for...? Realism? Immersion?

I just do not understand what harm this brings, and it being completely unexplained in the PR itself is just confusing. What purpose to this PR serve should be front and center when you are removing items, none of us are psychics, none of us can read into the reasons behind it.

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I don't see the benefit in removing the lazarus injector unless the goal is to increase the amount of grief RP and to make the case stronger for removing pets entirely, since then we'd have to justify why the SCC keeps buying identical replacement animals when Ian or Crusher is inevitably ganked by a greimorian. As someone who enjoys the ship pets as RP props during stressful rounds or when placed in charge of one for the shift, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to avoid dealing with the outcomes of this PR.

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Yeah. This is entirely unnecessary. If the injectors need to be touched at all, it's that they could be reflavored to not be 1:1 copies of other codebases' implementation, or moved somewhere that makes more sense than mining (since the reason they're there is because other servers let miners use them to turn hostile mobs into pets).

Edited by OolongCow
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I mentioned it on the discord but will post here - I am very much against this, personally. For a few main reasons.

1. I feel like if you play a character that likes animals, like most of medical or people who frequently visit medical do, having a Lazarus injector be part of the "world" is your ticket to not having to stop any and all RP you are doing whenever someone announces that Crusher is dead just so you can roleplay intense outrage and grief as if this is the first time this happened. It happens often enough that I feel like it would hurt gameplay and even WITH Lazarus injectors in the game I found myself often going "well, guess we're roleplaying this again... ugh.", but at least with the Lazarus Injector existing it's OPTIONAL. You don't HAVE to stop what you're doing and be upset because whatever, she can just be revived.

2. I hate admitting this, because I'm sure not everyone gets this emotionally invested in their RP,

Spoiler

but as someone who has multiple pets in real life and unfortunately has to deal with pet health issues from time to time, and have lost pets to tragic events in the past - having to roleplay being sad over losing a cat while you're upset over an actual pet of yours that is going/went through health issues or passed away can be heart wrenching and difficult. Once again, having Lazarus injectors just kind of exist in the background of the world lets you opt out if you don't feel like you're in the right mindset for that because "whatever we can just revive them later". Just this week I've had to leave a round in the middle because a certain situation forced my character to deal with animal death and I was not in the right mindspace to play out grief over it and could feel myself getting anxious over it because I wasn't sure if Lazarus Injectors are still in the game or not - to the point where I just had to leave in the middle because I was worried of having to RP the grief any longer. On this note: I recommend editing dead crusher's examine description so it's no longer "you let her down, how could you?". First time I read that was like an absolute gut punch.
I'm against anything that makes this harder than it already is.

3. Also, I get we're a high RP server and we aim for realism but I think this is the point where we're maybe overcorrecting a bit. I like that there's some wackyness to this world and I don't feel like laz injectors existing is pulling anyone out of their immersion any more than anything involving the silliness of animals on the ship just kind of moving in a random direction and emoting would. If the question is why does it work on pets and not bigger more sentient animals - well then there's plenty of tech IRL that works on smaller animals and not larger ones.

So it's a "no" from me, sorry.
 

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I don’t really see a world in which the Lazarus Injector can be adequately explained while there is no equivalent realistic revival method of actual characters. It is one of the most absurd plot holes that feels like it belongs solely on the uplink alongside Sanasomnum.

To that effect, I don’t think it should be anywhere near accessible to the average crew. Admin-spawn or relegated to the uplink. It thoroughly cheapens any animal deaths to seemingly no downside, like a thoughtless parody of Pet Sematary. One’s friends, family or one’s lover are as likely to die in any round as Ian is and yet there is no issue with treating the mourning thereof with the same care every time it happens.

If pets need to be less prone to death then I’d simply suggest an overhaul of their medical system in the future, rather than retaining what may as well be some easily attainable lesser scroll of revival that for some inane reason is given to miners of all people.

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44 minutes ago, Carver said:

One’s friends, family or one’s lover are as likely to die in any round as Ian is and yet there is no issue with treating the mourning thereof with the same care every time it happens.

Player characters can run the opposite direction from simplemobs, guns, and vacuum while treating themselves. Simplemobs can't do either of those things and die very quickly once exposed. It's not a tall ask to keep the injector until some distant, unlikely point in the future that someone extends pet AI and medicine.

 

It could probably do with being produced in another manner, however.

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1 hour ago, Carver said:

It thoroughly cheapens any animal deaths to seemingly no downside.

Even if you can revive them it still sucks that they were hurt. People generlaly don't love it when their pets get hurt even if it's not mortally wounded, let alone if they were hurt THAT badly.

And frankly even just this train of thought is kind of depressing.

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2 hours ago, Carver said:

for some inane reason is given to miners of all people.

It's a holdover from oldcode that exists for miners to revive simplemobs as friendly pets, something I have seen a grand total of 0 times because either server culture doesn't encourage it, or the code to make the mob friendly was removed at some point.

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19 hours ago, OolongCow said:

It's a holdover from oldcode that exists for miners to revive simplemobs as friendly pets, something I have seen a grand total of 0 times because either server culture doesn't encourage it, or the code to make the mob friendly was removed at some point.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen taming ‘work’ unless I count a round where mob AI broke so spiders weren’t aggressive. If it’s to be kept until an animal medical rework I’d really, really like to see it made into something Research has to produce with some effort and use of exotic materials. As miners still having them, for effectively the non-cost of just doing their job, is silly beyond reason.

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In my honest opinion, this depends on whether lore wants it. Do Lazarus Injectors make sense from a lore perspective? If not, remove them. If so, keep them. This does feel to me that it's a big deal lore-wise and should be referred to them. 

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