Changes to cloning

[MoondancerPony]

Random disability, PLEASE. I want something to do as a scientist after I set up the genetics lab.

[Shadebayne]

I would have to say the EASIEST way to begin to tone back cloning, is require a form with the CMO Signature (or captain/major of heads) for approval. Any other cloning is unathorized and will be treated as a crime due to the nature and gravity of creating a clone of somebody.

[Alberyk]

Random disability, PLEASE. I want something to do as a scientist after I set up the genetics lab.

 

This already happens, there is a chance that a clone may get a random disability.

[Pratepresidenten]

I would have to say the EASIEST way to begin to tone back cloning, is require a form with the CMO Signature (or captain/major of heads) for approval. Any other cloning is unathorized and will be treated as a crime due to the nature and gravity of creating a clone of somebody.

 

Unathorized clones gets euthanized. =)

[MoondancerPony]

There are people who proudly declare 'As Medical, I don't require paperwork EVARRRR!!!'

Requiring paperwork sounds like a GREAT idea in theory, and I would love it... but people wouldn't do the paperwork, and unless someone else filed an IR for Neglect of Duty no one would care.

[Jboy2000000]

Im going to agree with Jen, and Sue, and to that extent, Ezuo. Cloning doesn't need to be totally reinvented and changed because some people think med as a clone factory. It'd also probably be the way that would least alienate people who don't use the forums, and have the changes thrust upon them, which no amount of sniggering about how much they should have used the forum would fix.

[TrickingTrapster]

Yeah, Jen, I know. I'm just throwing ideas out there that may or may not work and give other people ideas. And trying to be a bit original while I'm at it, not looking at other servers. How about making the disability chance around 95% instead? Only a loooow chance you get a perfect clone. Even though a solution should be found for the "rebuild the genetics lab then" issue. It should not be that easy. Adding a rule about cloning won't work either, because that would fall under the category "forcing to play a certain way".

[Scheveningen]

I have ideas.

Make it so that anyone that comes out of cloning has unfixable blurry vision and an unremovable (by ryetalyn medicine) clumsy gene for 20-30 minutes after they are cloned. But the counter starts only after they were fully genetically healed in a cryo vat. This simulates the trauma they went through in death and revitalization. Their notes should also be wiped so they cannot remember any details noted down in the past life, even their own account information. They need to go to the HoP or captain for instance to re-receive those details.

People that try to circumvent this will only end up shooting themselves with guns or misusing tools or items instead of waiting out and resting off the trauma.

[Tequilajoe]

Alright there's a few things I'd like to talk about here....

First of all, I'd be totally fine leaving cloning as it is, I don't really see the big issue. But if change is going to happen regardless, lets not do anything too crazy. When it comes to changing things, we don't need to have some massive update that kills cloning, maybe just add one or two limitations and see how it goes.

I'll start by saying making surgery a requirement after cloning is a mistake. Aurora is already critically low on decent surgeons at certain times of the day, and they often find themselves overworked as it is once things get crazy. And it would make cloning such a pain in the ass that it simply wouldn't get done. The defects also sounds like a poor idea.

Fines would be inconsequential and could be added but wouldn't really do much for gameplay purposes.

But I think limiting the amount of cloning in a round is a very good idea. Particularly, if each person is only allowed to be cloned once. This will prevent players from throwing caution to the wind and getting themselves killed. I notice this behavior in some security characters. If they only get cloned once, they will take their safety a little more seriously. As for an IC reason, just say its company policy! After all, if someone is dumb enough to get themselves killed more than once in a two-hour span, why should they being cloned?

To take it a step further, medical could be remapped to not include cloning machines at all. Science would have to build them. That gives science an opportunity to be more useful as well as restricting cloning if you don't have competent staff to build the machines. It would make players think twice about running off to die.

Now for my biggest point: Before we worry about cloning, I really think devs should add defibs. They would give an option before resorting to something "drastic" like cloning, and it just makes IC sense to have them!

[Bokaza]

Most of the things and points have likely been said, so I will just give my understanding and opinion on how things should be.

Basically, implement any or all of these is varying gradients, but not so punishing. The whole point is not to punish players for dying, it's too make medbay less of an infantry factory and more of a player saver. If everything is functioning, there should be no reason to prevent cloning. If the station is falling apart, medbay should be prevented from recycling back into the fight.

[cha0s5150]

I don't think it should be harder on the cloned person. Well, maybe a bit just to help teach them not to run out and die all the time. But, if the resources to clone were more limited and harder to come by that would greatly slow down the amount of clones coming out of medbay.

I would say some disabilities for a clone could be great for RP, for example: anything from the genetics disabilities list, weak muscles from being freshly cloned and need walking assistance for a while, or maybe a missing limb in extreme cases.

Limiting the amount of clones possible by starving the machine of resources would make the geneticist have to choose who has more priority of being cloned and if those resources are harder to come by they may be out of the game for quite awhile if not the entire round.

[Kaed]

I am a staunch believer that the viability of cloning should be determined by the choices of the players, not simply a mechanical effect. This is why things like cultists auto-gibbing sacrifices and destroying corpses with soul stones bothers me - the cultist might want someone to stay dead, but they never made any conscious effort to destroy the body, it was just built into mechanical effects. If they want to render the body useless or not, that should be within their power to choose.

From a similar standpoint, I think that introducing a slew of new mechanical detriments to everyone who is actually cloned is not the best way to do things. I think a better compromise would be a combination between bureaucracy and rarer, but more intense cloning mishaps. Since I don't know how genetics coding works, I'm only going to address the former.

First of all, the way cloning is treated now is too simplistic and handwavey. People are just given cloning on the vague assumption that it is covered on their 'contract'. People are so used to this that they feel cloning is an obligation and become testy when it doesn't happen. Several important things are never really addressed, such as:

-Isn't cloning expensive? The equipment is presumably very advanced, since it can turn generic 'biomass' into a new person with nearly perfect recollection and traits

-If cloning is expensive, why are doctors permitted to clone anyone they want as many times as they like? Who is paying for it?

-How is Nanotrasen protecting themselves from the liability of failed clonings and/or involuntary cloning lawsuits?

-How does Nanotrasen determine who is worth cloning?

-How do they document who is cloned? They have so much paperwork for simpler things, but nothing for cloning?

With those questions in mind, I came up with an idea - Health plans and mortality insurance. Now, since money in game is currently a largely random, arbitrary number that is not tracked or in any way meaningful, we can't tie it to that. But what we can tie the cloning stuff to is position/job, and an opt in/out setting somewhere. Ideally, the default would be opt OUT - you have to specifically 'fill out the paperwork' to receive mortality insurance. We can't actually force players to fill out a fake health insurance form, but we can certainly require that they click a button somewhere to opt into the plan before they are cloned. This generally will mean that first time players who do not bother to fill out more than a name and some features in their character don't get cloning.

The plans work, ideally and at their most simple, based on your employment categories. This is just workshopping, and obviously can be revised.

Civilian roles (assistants, bartenders, cooks, chaplains, librarians, cargo, etc) are only eligible/paid enough for Emergency Mortality Insurance, the lower rung of this. They are eligible for one(1) workplace cloning, resulting from situations that qualify as a workplace accident - i.e. if they cause their own demise somehow, due to suicide, negligence, or placing themselves in lethal danger, they void their mortality insurance contract and are not to be cloned. For example - if a merc ran into their workplace and shot them, that would be a workplace accident out of their control. If they were wandering the halls during code red (maybe trying to get some valids) instead of hiding in the bar like they're supposed to, they are disqualified.

Departmental roles can receive Premium Mortality Insurance, which is similar to Emergency, but is a little more loose. They still have to die in a workplace accident, and it has to be due to circumstances out of their direct control. Attempting to do something outside of your departmental responsibilities, such as a scientist arming himself up with an advanced laser canon and going valid hunting, will void your insurance contract. Premium Mortality Insurance allots you two(2) clonings. It's worth noting that Security Team members who die in the line of duty are considered to have been fulfilling their departmental responsibilities, and are really the only ones who should be getting defaulted cloning after death in combat. The other departments are expected to stay AWAY from danger, which is literally how Code Red situations are supposed to work, even though it's usually ignored. They should also be cloned before Emergency contract holders.

All heads of staff and the captain can receive Executive Mortality Insurance, which is the most appealing plan available, only for the most important staff. They do not have a cloning limit, and regardless of their cause of death, they are considered to be priority one when it comes time to clone. Other people with less important roles on the station are to be moved to the back of the line if a head's body comes in during a crowded cloning period.

Now, this new process should also introduce several new forms available in medical, such as:

-Notice of Insured Cloning (including name, Time, cause of death, which plan they had)

-Notice of Uninsured Death (For uninsured people, or disqualified insurance situations)

-Testament of Incompetence (A special extra form for situation where someone is technically qualified to be cloned, but the captain and/or several heads have chosen to intervene and declare the individual unfit for their position and not to be cloned. This will mainly apply to security personnel and heads who die stupidly, and will require a certain level of authority (stamps/signatures) to be valid)

-Testament of Extenuating Circumstances (The reverse of the ToI, where someone should NOT be qualified for cloning in the station, but due to head intervention, they have chosen to elect them to receive an uninsured cloning. Examples of this include 'exemplary heroism', 'desire to interrogate a station threat', and similar. This should be considered carefully and be a special event, not a +1up document. Requires head of staff authority)

-Unidentified Cloning Exemption (A special form attached to the regular cloning form only for situations where the corpse being cloned cannot be identified - such as a naked changeling victim - so they are given the benefit of the doubt. This probably requires a CMO stamp of approval if available)

With this new system, cloning is a regimented process that requires more investment and effort than having a corpse thrown at you that you silently shove into the DNA scanner before wandering away. Security has a specific protocol to follow for their job, so I don't see why medical shouldn't have one. Here is my rough idea of how the process of cloning would work.

-A corpse is brought into the medbay and is recovered by the doctors.

-The doctors identify the person if possible, and the cause of death.

-A Notice of Insured Cloning or Notice of Uninsured Death form is filled out, along with any additional forms required for the situation

-The person's body is prepared for cloning (stripped, all of their items placed in a secure storage location)

-They are put into the cloning machine and actually cloned

-During cloning, their corpse is moved by body bag into the morgue.

-After cloning, they are moved to cryogenics for recovery from cloning sickness

-After they are at their most optimal health, they are given their belongings back, whereupon they re-dress.

-A series of tests to determine their readiness for release (this should be standardized, and involve things like testing their vision with a penlight, having them test their coordination , and similar). They should not be considered fit for release until these tests are completed and they are judged physically and mentally fit. There is NO exception to this, cloned people should not be hopping out of the cryo tube and charging right back into battle until they have been tested. Even if the medbay is under attack, they should be considered patients until they are verified healthy, and should be evacuated, not sent off under potential disorientation to die again.

-Official release

Overall, this will cause cloning to take more time, and be considered more carefully. It also will require significantly left effort to code something that is based on roleplay and in-character regulations than create an entirely new genetics and cloning system.

Some things to also consider are adding additional policies to the medbay and corpses. For instance, people tend to drag corpses around and let them smear blood all over the floor because it's faster. They should be put on a roller bed when they are being moved, alive or dead, and people who ignore this should be subject to fines, demotions, or similar charges. It is also encouraged that medical personnel always be called out to retrieve bodies unless the body is in an dangerous area - people should be calling for medical to retrieve them, too, rather than dragging a bleeding corpse 10 miles and making the station disgusting. Blood and filth lingering in the medbay should NEVER be acceptable, and should be cleaned up at the soonest opportunity.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Guest

[ForgottenTraveller]

I had a small thought on a solution that combines a few things others suggested.

Clones have a random chance of a few tumors throughout the body, acting a little like shrapnel but instead of doing damage as you move with them causing a random chance of dropping stuff (arm tumor) falling over (leg) one of the brain damage effects/blurry vision (head) vomiting/coughing blood (for lower and upper body)

To fix, it needs surgery to remove. And the IC reason behind it. Errors made during the flash growing procedure. Effectively scar tissue nodules that cause issues.

But don't have the chance of drop fall over too high, so without surgery, some people could carry on with some jobs and just be inconvenienced. But enough that active jobs like being an officer it is potentially crippling.

And in a last thought a work around for if there is no surgeon, synaptizine to counter the arm, leg and head effects. Not fix, just counter the effects while it slowly poisons them. So even avoiding surgery is possibly but has a cost.

[sdtwbaj]

I like the way cloning is fleshed out now, especially since rounds can last upwards of 2 1/2 hours. If it really needs to be limited, we could up the decay rate and make decayed bodies unable to clone, forcing you to find that body and clone it in short order.

[SomeoneOutTher3]

https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7589&p=73623&hilit=medbay+overhaul#p73623

See the last few posts for a better idea.

[Pacmandevil]

The (supposed) problem With cloning is not that it is Too easy, or that there are no effects to it. The (supposed) problem is that it is too common place, and players feel like Medbay is more of a clone bay.

The solution to this is Not to make Cloning harder, as that only fucks you over if you get a shitty doctor. Nor is it to give you crippling disabilities, as That just makes things Tedious, and not fun to play.

Currently, Cloning Just Requires Meat to function. So Paying Credits To get cloned is just stupid, and doesn't make sense. However, my Hypothetical solution is to Make cloning Either: A: Require Significant amounts of meat to function, and give medical a Way to gather meat, whether it be a gibber, or otherwise. or B: Make cloning require some form of outside resource, Metallic Hydrogen I don't think even has a use. so that could be another solution, or just give it to Plasma to make it more of a "wonder material".

The Other suggestions I see, like Missing Limbs; Doesn't really make sense, unless the limbs missing Can either be Grown somehow, or Cloned, as there's currently No way to Get organs, so what would happen is you would get someone cloned, say without a heart, then Die. (Unless Either a mechanical one is provided, or the one is taken from the corpse, which I doubt is sanitary)

Another way to reduce clone usage is to provide another way for Dead people to re-enter the round. Whether it be through a "Defib" type machine that you put the corpse in and it res's it. Or some other way. The Defib route would Require treatment after the Defib. so they don't die again instantly.

[Scheveningen]

Most folks really seem to want to debate on the subject rather than finding apt solutions to the issue outlined in the OP.

It's nice to write paragraphs and all just to get some of that negative energy out to write something seemingly productive but this isn't really a situation that mandates we write essays on right and wrong here.

A vote should be called on some supplied solutions here.

[Chada1]

I was very against this at first, but after thinking about it for a bit, this will fix a Lot of problems.

Since it's 100% that we're getting changes to Cloning, my favorite options are these.

1; Make Limbs/Organs have a very, Very rare chance to not be there. The reason this is important to be rare is because Organs can't easily be replaced right now, although, Limbs can.

2; Make Bones and Organs be able to grow with fractures/damage. The Logic behind it is that they grew malformed. They can still be repaired by Peridaxon and Surgery.

3; Make Blindness and Brain damage a bit more common, it seems like it's a 1/3 Cloning type of thing.

So long as one of these 3 things happen every time you Clone, Cloning will be extremely more taxing and difficult.

[Fire and Glory]

I don't really like the idea of just making it take longer to treat clones, that'd just make things take a bit longer and be a bit more of a pain in the ass before we can shit out the clone to take part in the clone army.

I do like Delta's and in part Ezuo's line of thinking where clones are disorientated and otherwise not working at 100% for some time, which can't be fixed with a magic shot of the medicine drug or a special operation.

[Hackie]

Making a clone very expensive to produce seems like a decent balance. Make the genetics spare room into a butcher chamber where they have to slaughter animals like Runtime and dozens of monkeys/corgis to make sure their clone army is still moving. I suppose, it would also give antagonists a way of disabling cloning by destroying cargo and hampering Medical's ability to get more meat for the slaughter.

[Chada1]

I don't really like the idea of just making it take longer to treat clones, that'd just make things take a bit longer and be a bit more of a pain in the ass before we can shit out the clone to take part in the clone army.

I do like Delta's and in part Ezuo's line of thinking where clones are disorientated and otherwise not working at 100% for some time, which can't be fixed with a magic shot of the medicine drug or a special operation.

The issue is what you just suggested will end with everyone still getting Cloned because it would just be a minimal 'Disoriented' debuff that goes away. If restoring a Clone to working shape is made more difficult, it will have the desired effect of making it not something done all the time for everyone and only for the more important roles on the Station, because it would be time intensive and resource intensive to actually restore a problem Clone. Isn't that what this change is meant to do? It's meant to make the Station less of a 'Mass Cloning facility'. A good way to do that is to reduce the base effectiveness and automated nature of Cloning, and I think that's the intention behind the OP.

Having both the Disoriented and making Cloning more difficult would work fine, though.

[Fire and Glory]

...

...Isn't that what this change is meant to do? It's meant to make the Station less of a 'Mass Cloning facility'.

Hell, I don't know, never mind.

[Jennalele]

I like deltas idea of a timed debuff of disorientation and mechanical enforcement. It'll help enforce proper RP of "holy shit I just DIED," prevent clone armies, and still allow people to do things. Even if someone is mentally okay with it or whatever, they're still physically recovering and will have to wait it out unless they want to accidentally shoot their dick off in a firefight.

It's a nice balance. If we make cloning more mechanically convoluted its only going to annoy and stress out medical.

[K0NFL1QT]

While I don't agree that anything needs to be done with cloning, I'm not on staff and will concede to the fact that you and others do want cloning to change. Just be aware that this will have a big effect on the flow of the game, and you should make a change that's both mechanically and thematically appropriate.

 

You have to pay x000 credits every time you get cloned.

Probably the best solution proposed from your list. It solves the unanswered question of 'are cloning procedures free for nanotrasen crew?', because some people just write off that they have 'full clone coverage in their medical insurance plans'. Which would cost a lost, by all accounts. So, expressly stating that no, those procedures aren't free or covered by off screen insurance is a good way to front load the cloning cost and make it far less appealing. But without a greater economic system, which I know is/was incoming, a fee on its own won't have any gravity to it.

 

You are missing some limbs/organs when you get cloned.

Pointlessly crippling. As was explained to me back when I was asking about the cloning process (here), the current technology basically reconstructs your body like a 3d bioprinter. Having that technology suddenly and inexplicably forget to print your organs defeats the whole point of cloning, because you die very quickly without organs. Any cloning technology that creates clones with a high probability of dying due to missing organs would not be supported for public medical use due to the waste of resources and the ethical ramifications of making clones that are physically incomplete and missing vital organs to the point that they just die again. This makes it nonviable technology.

 

Add a random disability.

In the vein of diminishing cloning capability by increasing repercussions, this seems like an acceptable middle-ground. It's not having clones missing entire vital organs so much as replicating them with some imperfection. But this outcome is usually easily cured by a tiny dose of mutadone, so it doesn't really have the sort of lasting repercussions you seem to want.

 

Stuff that requires surgery after the process.

Maybe. This again seems counter to the point of cloning if the resultant clone isn't even capable of surviving without serious aftercare.

 

Limited clonings per shift.

Pointless arbitrary restrictions are bad.

My suggestion;

Firstly, make it absolutely clear that cloning is the Geneticists job; ID lock the cloning room, and restrict use of the cloning console to Geneticists and the CMO. This can easily be explained as a legal restriction due to the ramifications of creating fully sentient human life with the identity of a previously living person.

Secondly and most importantly, given that the cloned body is composed of flesh, muscle and bone that's literally a few minutes old and hastily knitted together by a flesh-crafting machine, make clones incur a massively debilitating debuff that's incurable by genetics or chemistry and only resolved by aging the body in. You could reduce the move speed of clone bodies, reduce their unarmed damage, increase the damage they take from all sources, make bones break more easily and make them more susceptible to viruses and infections. This would represent the fact that these bodies are fresh and weak, but will harden up to a normal standard over time. This means that clones come out vulnerable, but fully capable of surviving without urgent surgical aftercare. The only cure for this post cloning condition is living in the body for a while, building up strength through regular resistance training, building up physical endurance through cardio, strengthening the immune system through exposure, etc.

Making clones very vulnerable, but not in any immediate danger of death due to faulty technology should have the effect you want; Cloning gets treated as a procedure with serious ramifications. Those who get cloned will be encouraged to take less dangerous or physically intensive roles, like some pleasant and emotionally therapeutic botanical work, thus reducing the revolving door of clones for the security meat grinder. Of course, this post cloning debuff will not persist on the character beyond that round so it's down to the player how long they want to play their characters recovery period; but the point is that, at least during the shift in which they are cloned, there actually is a recovery period where you're not 100%.

You could also do the following, in addition;

Remove the mutadone chemical and give clone bodies a high chance of disability on top of the previous post clone debuff, ensuring that clones require aftercare from a skilled Geneticist and not just a 0.1 unit pill of mutadone and out the door.

Charge for the procedure. While I like this idea, it would be awkward to implement. Firstly, it requires a larger economic system to add gravity to the fee, and the fee itself should be large enough to encourage avoiding it without rendering a clone backrupt from a single procedure. The best method for actually charging the fee would probably be having it process the bill automatically from the characters bank account when the clone process starts, as part of the coded process for creating the clone, and if you have insufficient funds to cover the cost then the clone process aborts before starting. This would lock poor employees out of endless clone cycles, but it could lead to interesting situations where people have to donate money into someones account to cover the fee and get the deceased person cloned. Or it could charge them straight into debt, but I don't like that idea so much.

[K0NFL1QT]

Oh, and bring back defibs so there's actually a way to revive recently dead characters without going through the cloning process.