Identifying Species (it should be /really/ easy)

[Lady_of_Ravens]

I'm not the best at reading 2D spessman pixels and, on more than one occasion, had difficulty identifying someone's species. With the new IPC skins, it's gotten much worse, what with the secret robots living among us. In any case, my suggestion is to add species to the top of a character's examine text, and for IPCs, to specify both that they are IPCs, and what species they're dressed up as.

[jackfractal]

The latter is a little more tricky, as you can have multiple different types of skin on you at once. The other stuff is easy and I agree it should be done.

[SierraKomodo]

The latter is a little more tricky, as you can have multiple different types of skin on you at once. The other stuff is easy and I agree it should be done.

 

Base it on whatever the head is modelled after, as that's the part of the sprite that tells most people the species.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Head makes sense there, or simply list all the different species skins they're wearing. If done on one line it wouldn't take up much space.

[Skull132]

I'm in favour, but to me, half the point of the entire Shell upgrade is to make it a little more difficult to dicern who exactly is human and who isn't (the creeeeeeepy~ factor). My suggestions are to have them spark or something whenever flashed, for example, and add back the metal bob.

To those who don't know what the metal bob is: in ye olden days, all IPCs used to have a metal/golden bob on their back. It even overlayed over clothing. Perhaps introducing this back as something that folks get to use for a faster, more visual identification?

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Well, if the skins are supposed to be good enough to be non-obvious (when not, you know, mismatched), then perhaps add a species line to the data you get when you look at someone with the security or medical HUDs. Both security and medical need to know when they're dealing with IPCs.

[SilverTalismen]

Usually, atleast with my characters, It'seasy to tell they might not be human, usually they have odd colored hair, Such as Sai's pink hair [the same color as from when she was a Screen-Face]

[Xelnagahunter]

I must not examine things enough. I think hiding it in the examine text is the best way to keep the IPCs hard to discern. Unless you can get a good solid click on it, I can't manage to click on someone walking past, then you have to take it at sprite value. If you can get a closer look via examine then you should be able to tell the difference. However, I kind of agree with the sec/med huds having a way to note that something is synthetic.

[Dreamix]

Except, when IPC people really don't want to be seen as synthetic, they don't 'hide' it in their examine/flavor text and talk like a actual organic thing. I even saw IPC's look like tajaras/unathis and talk like them, discovering that they are actually synthetic when they got their head bashed against the wall was always a smaller or bigger shock for me.

And don't say that "creepyness" stuff, creepyness does not work, as you can just shrug it off and go away, or get powergamed to death because you thought that you tried to tase that IPC dressing as a human. There are various shades of stuff between shrugging and powergaming. I just picked the extremes.

I am again "+1'ing" (is this even a thing?) this.

[Killerhurtz]

I, for one, am all for it - and the 'nob' idea I also like very much (seeing it WOULD make sense to have an exposed radiator for cooling)

[Carver]

I like this in every case but IPCs. The idea of indiscernible replicants among the crew add a bit of that sci-fi creepiness that's otherwise sorely lacking. That, and, I enjoy the surprise of smashing a lizard only to find out it's a lizbot.

So if there must be a way to discern them, specifically, make it require a check via MedHUD/SecHUD records or the like. I shouldn't be able to walk up to the Terminator and tell he's a robot immediately.