Let Xenobiology order alien creatures.

Relatively simple suggestion, so, I kinda hate slimes, Xenobiologist should be renamed to Slime Farmer at this rate, I prefer to RP studying other creatures.

Anyways, to help with that, we should make it so Xenobiology can order alien critters from cargo. Things like.

1. Spider Eggs for a spider colony!

2. Super Illegal Facehugger maybe for antags!

3. Tindalos and other little critters.

4. Plain Tyrants!

5. Cave dwellers

6. So on and so forth.

Practical purpose for them? Not sure, might need a Xenobiology rework, but at the very least this would be interesting for RP and perhaps a few fun scenarios.

This feels like containment breaches, chaos, and general bedlam waiting to happen from this. As well as cool RP which may or may not be connected to the previous point.

I love it.

Well, adding some of that to cargo would easily be possible.

But the question is what are you going to do with that once you have gotten it ?

Well, adding some of that to cargo would easily be possible.

But the question is what are you going to do with that once you have gotten it ?

Well, RP probably, I would ideally like there to be mechanics behind it like, perhaps you can process living creatures in a similiar manner to research in order to make specific items. Something like, process spider, get... something web related, or poisons. Not specifically sure, now that's asking a bit more code work I suppose, I would personally be satisfied even with zero mechanics, because it would still be a fun thing to do for RP. Obviously I suppose there is the risk some asshole will just breed a bunch of monstrous things and let them loose but I suppose the same threat is seemingly there even with slimes. Anyways just being able to order more of the entirety of simple_mob like animals might make xenobio more interesting.

There are a mess of cool animals from space that are in the game's code already. It'd be cool to implement a research system where you can analyze their stats of some sort, selectively breed them to produce X more, be better fighters, be docile..

Have a different lab or off room where you start with a randomized animal crate with something in it, some pens, tools for taming them like muzzles treats leashes and a cattle prod or something, machines that test different stats like a treadmill for speed, a target dummy loaded with meat for attack effectively, and it wouldnt be NanoTrasen if they didn't have an inhumane range for the animals that have tough armor plates to be weapons tested on.

I'm just spitballing on my phone here, but I could definitely see this happen. Maybe even give slimes stats that the cores can be fed to the animals to change something in them genetically, like pink slimes make them more docile to be obvious, metal slimes make armor based animals tougher, I think its purple slime that makes things produce more... Yeah, this sounds TOTALLY plausible.

Mechanics can come at a later point, for now - I personally WANT so badly to not have to ahelp and beg for alien creatures to do xenobio shit with, I hate working with slimes and it's the reason I stopped xenobio'ing.

If this is implemented, I suggest making them in 'cube' form so they can be safely transported between cargo and science.

Mechanics-

Xenobiologists start with a Slime Mutagen Doclier gun.

This Slime Mutagen Doclier uses an ammo system of slime cores to replicate the Doclier effect.

Each different mob only responds when a certain slime core is loaded and used by the Doclier. This is determined randomly at the start of the round.

Example: Spider mob- takes GREEN slime core. Load GREEN slime core into Doclier gun, use on Spider to make Spider Docile and or similar to an attack dog as far as commands go.

This makes a pretty nifty research system of trial and error where the xenobiologist can use slime cores to tame other creatures. You may even add a system to determine what color slime core a mob needs to become docile.

Yes, I shall turn every round into a Xeno round, you will be powerless to stop me.

Why not have them in large steel creates with a big warning sign on them that need to be first welded then crowbarred open or something?

As a person starting to get into Xenobio I would love to have more than just slimes to work with. Though there is useful things that can be done with slimes, it is still incredibly finite and can be done rather quickly. Having more xenobiologica creatures to experiment on and possibly dissect would add a lot of roleplay opportunities and overall fun to the role.

Now I would prefer a cube form, infant form, or egg form for the creatures. That way their growth can be controlled, at least a little by the Xenobiologist.

Why not have them in large steel creates with a big warning sign on them that need to be first welded then crowbarred open or something?

Or just ID lock them to the RD and Xenobiologist only, it's far safer than requiring commonly available tools. But yes, I'd support giving Xenobiology access to more creatures. Further mechanics can be implemented down the line.

I'd like to see Xenobiologists tasked with subduing, restraining and capturing the local cave dwellers for study. Or other local wildlife. Slime based xenobio is old, stale and pointless.

Lock them to the RD/Captain only. Not sure about Aurora, but on Paradise station, virus crates are locked to the CMO/Captain. This presents a similar if not higher level of risk, hence you should lock it to the RD/Cap so you don't have xenobiologists endangering all of science or the station due to stupidity/nefarious motives. Also, the RD/Cap should know what violent creatures are being let loose anywhere aboard, even if in a "controlled" environment.

Personally, as someone who mains sec and science almost exclusively I found myself in xenobio quite a few times. It was good and fresh when I started but now has gotten stale. I would LOVE to actually be a xenobiologist rather than a slime farmer. Maybe randomise the aforementioned crate and randomise the creature's behaviours or sprites to keep it fresh rather than learning that "this sprite means completely docile, just let it out" etc. But that's jist my opinon. I am no code expert or anything so I don't know how viable this actually is or anything but it would sure be fun and make xenobio more used.

At present, the merchant can sort of do this? Xenobiology would need something to do with these aliens, and also go through the research director to purchase them from the merchant. I don't know about this going through, but it could work.

I think the fact that a field that likely represents such a broad range of study as "Xenobiology" has become as dull and basic as "Care for some slimes who will never vary and always do the same thing." is a bit of a shame.

As a regular Research director I think my input here is required.

Every shift I play, no exceptions, the xenobiologist fails to contain the slimes and end up dying, they fail to provide any RP or paperwork or anything of conceret to the round. so giving them more dangerous creatures to contain only adds fuel to the fire, and I'm strongly against it.

As a regular Research director I think my input here is required.

Every shift I play, no exceptions, the xenobiologist fails to contain the slimes and end up dying, they fail to provide any RP or paperwork or anything of conceret to the round. so giving them more dangerous creatures to contain only adds fuel to the fire, and I'm strongly against it.

You must get some shitty xenobiologists

As a Xenobiologist. I feel like working with slimes every day and night it gets very very VERY boring, and have another thing to do in xenobio will be extremely nice as a change of pace. So yeah. And yes if Xenobios die thats their fault, not yours.

As a regular Research director I think my input here is required.

Every shift I play, no exceptions, the xenobiologist fails to contain the slimes and end up dying, they fail to provide any RP or paperwork or anything of concrete to the round. so giving them more dangerous creatures to contain only adds fuel to the fire, and I'm strongly against it.

You must get some shitty xenobiologists

It's the general feeling I get, Xenobiology does not get serious or good players, the majority that play it always release the slimes and end up causing havoc in the sub-level, and I've been playing director for some years now, we rarely get any that actually roleplay.

As a regular Research director I think my input here is required.

Every shift I play, no exceptions, the xenobiologist fails to contain the slimes and end up dying, they fail to provide any RP or paperwork or anything of concrete to the round. so giving them more dangerous creatures to contain only adds fuel to the fire, and I'm strongly against it.

You must get some shitty xenobiologists

 

It's the general feeling I get, Xenobiology does not get serious or good players, the majority that play it always release the slimes and end up causing havoc in the sub-level, and I've been playing director for some years now, we rarely get any that actually roleplay.

I agreed, it's hard to balence multiple jobs at once for someone who mains science