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Suggestions and Changes for Shells: A Collaboration


Jennalele

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So, with the recent re-addition of shells, now that the major bugs have been squashed by our glorious dev team, I thought it would be interesting to see what changes and tweaks people want to see with Shells.


Changing skin tone: Currently, synths can't change their skintone from the base number of 35. Pretty self-explanatory.


Allowing the decision between MMI and Posibrain again: The only reason, if I recall, that this was removed, was due to perhaps one or two players that abused the feature. We have a few players at current whom I know would love to have their cyborgs become Shells (Cough, Epsilon, cough), and wouldn't abuse it like a few other people did way back when.


Allow IPC frames to be printed again? Maybe we could do what we did last time, where removing a law-board from the head before attaching it would make the shell an IPC shell. This would avoid that "oops!" we had previously with new roboticists constantly making IPCs because they couldn't into law-board. Useful for chassises that just get waaay too fucked up to repair, no?

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Changing skin tone: Currently, synths can't change their skintone from the base number of 35. Pretty self-explanatory.

This is a bug. Some dev team, huh?

 

Allowing the decision between MMI and Posibrain again: The only reason, if I recall, that this was removed, was due to perhaps one or two players that abused the feature. We have a few players at current whom I know would love to have their cyborgs become Shells (Cough, Epsilon, cough), and wouldn't abuse it like a few other people did way back when.

Not removed for any administrative reason AFAIK, simply removed because Baycode never had it so when we updated in the first BayMerge it was lost and never re-introduced.

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Honestly, if we could bring it back to the old method of being able to pick a particular color, I'd love it even more. But I understand if it's kept off due to the potential for bright fucking pink kawaiibots.


I simply enjoyed being an ever so vaguely off-kilter shade on Felix.

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  • 1 month later...

Bumping this thread because I think it's a good idea to consider re-implementing this. Because one shift relatively recently, a person got asploded, and we had two, maybe three options to revive him from just a brain.


1. Wait for someone /else/ to die, cut their brain out, put his brain in, and clone them, and then deal with the issue for that new person who is bodiless.

2. Find some way to bring back Genetics and fuck around until we can make Protohumans (Which is apparently purposely not a thing right now?)

3. Put the poor bastard in an MMI and make him a permanent slave to NT- just because he had the misfortune of not having a body anymore.


Personally, I think that if no other options are available and the person has to be put in an MMI, there should be more options than just being a slave to NT for the rest of your life, or being a practically useless Spiderbot for the rest of your life- until they decide to take option one because of how useless spiderbots are. Putting the MMI into an IPC chassis would be an interesting solution- and something of a compromise. They'd still remain a (potentially) Legally recognized individual- but would have to work tirelessly for NanoTrasen once they paid off the expenses for whichever type of chassis they got put into.


((Also this is was the solution Jackboot suggested for the whole... Epsilon issue, so....))


Edit: The CMO at the time, Phoebe Essel, did not allow him to be put into an MMI and slaved to NT, on the basis of human rights. Which is a valid response, and, quite probably, the preferable one- but I still get the feeling that, despite Epsilon scrambling to try to find some way to let the guy keep living, he was effectively removed from the round at... what was it, the fifteen, thirty minute mark?

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I honestly personally think that adding the ability for IPCs to have the ability to spawn with guns on their arm as a xeno shell locked behind a double Whitelist. (You need a synth and tajara Whitelist if you want to be a tajaran shell for example)

I think this would be interesting chance for some RP.

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Changing skin tone: Currently, synths can't change their skintone from the base number of 35. Pretty self-explanatory.

Yes please! This extends to eye color as well in my case, as it does not appear to change regardless of what I set it to. Spending exorbitant amounts on cosmetic changes to a frame should allow it to possess irises that aren't a weird milky blue.

 

Allowing the decision between MMI and Posibrain again: The only reason, if I recall, that this was removed, was due to perhaps one or two players that abused the feature.

Also yes please. While there's a lore element involved in the decision-making here, I have a difficult time imagining a future world in which this isn't a choice. If someone does abuse it, individual cases can be addressed, but I think the option is more enabling than it is any kind of risk. And if it really is just gone because Bay doesn't have it, then I'm all for supporting it again on new code.

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Oh, wait, we can't change shell skin tones? Well. That's... disappointing. I was actually looking forward to that.


Also, MMIs, yes please.


Printing IPC frames? Also yes. That would make a lot of the RP I did a lot easier, since I wouldn't have to ask Central to bluespace cannon a chassis onto the station for research.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Shells being locked in as white people is a pretty hilarious oversight. We should probably change that before someone gets uncomfortable.


Giving robotics the ability to transform someone into a shell would also be nice. The only minor sticking point is that shell chassis' are meant to be expensive; buying one is like buying a new car.


MMI's being put into shells (or IPC's in general) opens a massive can of worms: Transhumanism. It's a really messy subject and I'm not really confident in tackling it. Currently being transhuman comes in the trade off of being a very obviously not-human bound cyborg; a form of slavery with a history of being used as criminal justice. Opening it up to every John and Jane Doe is a major thing; usually transhumanism is the thing tackled in a piece of fiction, and we have like, 4 major themes going on at any one time.

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Transhumanism. It's a really messy subject and I'm not really confident in tackling it.

This threatens to get away from the suggestion's OP as posted a bit, but what did we do back when MMI integration was implemented, to address that concern? My default is always to lean toward the more enabling choice on the player side mechanically. Wouldn't we have to put it on them, rather than you, to explain the why and how?


(Also since it bears repeating: skin color AND eye color, please!)

Edited by Guest
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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Transhumanism is a big deal and is always the narrative when it's tackled. Your comment about not deviating from the OP is the primary problem with it: tackling it overshadows everything else. It goes beyond the OP so I won't be addressing it more here.

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It goes beyond the OP so I won't be addressing it more here.

I think your response can still be relevant to the OP as far as explaining why circumstances are different now, compared to the last time we could have MMIs in IPCs. Otherwise, I'm still pretty much of a mind that they should be back, as a decision that's additive rather than restrictive. The questions surrounding its use as a punishment and whatever stigmas or implications we mean for the condition to have can be figured out in another place.



Edit:

 

eb903e43b44c05280c68fffb363522eb.png

 

That's one thing down at least!

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