Hulk tide

[XDTM]

Besides the fact that it's overpowered, giving you the ability to destroy every barrier short of 4 shield generators, 15 damage punches, and stun immunity, the issue with it is when the grey tide gets access to hulk, the round is over.

When hulk is spread, then everyone starts making holes until they get to the area they want to get to, which is usually the captain's office, sec, or similarly secure areas, making them very unsecure; the only ways to stop them are either mutadone, which nobody can make/distribute in sufficient amounts, while the mutadone'd greytiders will just go and get hulk again, or lethals, which then prompt self-defense and the hulks kill security thanks to stun immunity and greater numbers.

And, as far as i know, nobody is ever punished for doing this, so everyone treats it as ok-to-do-while-you-don't-get-caught-ic, and even extended rounds go down the drain. I've seen rev rounds less disruptive than a hulk tide.

Since our server culture doesn't really mix well with the powers that hulk gives i'm proposing removing it or at least limiting it to stun immunity.

[InsaneHyena]

Hulk is balanced out by the fact that genetics is so fucking boring, no one ever bothers to research it.

[CPTANT]

Hey look, another hulk thread

[imblyings]

now what if

what if there could only be one hulk

if multiple hulks exist, they will start to take a lot of damage unless they punch each other on harm intent and actual damage is done

in return, hulks get more damage to their punches

[Lumbermancer]

Do it. There can be only one.

[Anonmare]

Make Hulks vulnerable to disablers and confused by tasers by making them even angrier. ("Hulk McGreyshit is hit by the Electrode! It looks like it pissed him off even more!")

[InsaneHyena]

Disablers were supposed to be a counter to hulks, no? Why are they immune to them?

[ShadowDimentio]

They aren't. They get slowed as hell, but don't get stunned because they're immune dummy.

[BeeSting12]

The solution is don't bother with mutadone. Five lasers or a faceful of buckshot does just as good a job of taking care of a hulk. And don't clone them. I've only been bwoinked once for this, and the admin agreed with me on it.

Hulk does suck though. I would rather have it not in the game, but I don't think that'll happen.

[Anonmare]

To be honest, I think the Genetics powers need more downsides. Unlike R&D or even virology, there's no limitations on how many powers they can have or how quick they can get them except RNG and it is easily possible for a Geneticist to have every power within 20 minutes.

X-ray should make you be unable to get any benefit from flash protection. Cold Resistance makes it harder for you to cool off from a fire (it already makes cryo ineffective on you). TK makes you take extra damage from hits to your head. Dwarfism makes you unable to move past things lying on the ground and increases your interaction speed. Chameleon's downside was that it didn't turn off when you're dead but for some reason that got changed.

[DemonFiren]

It got changed because an invisible corpse learned how to code.

[danno]

Genetics is a huge mess. A big fat mess. It's incredibly poor in concept and execution.
The barrier between a player and 5 minute god injectors USED TO be that they would have to do 30~ minutes of really, really boring work to get it
but now people are circumventing that and running around with Hulk/TK/Xray at quite literally the 5 minute mark and even earlier
which is more of a problem than you might expect because it reveals just how powerful and unfun having 10 people running around with all of that is

Things need to change way beyond just nerfing powers. Not only does that need to happen, but the entire job needs a rework. It has to be made into something completely new.
Goonetics is a good start IMO, although the actual research is just a bunch of waiting. At least the minigame is minorly interesting.

[Oldman Robustin]

Youre only going to get powers fast if you get insanely lucky.

Even as a certified genetics power game I won't do genetics research most rounds if I'm the only researcher who knows how to do it effectively. Solo research can take over 20-30 minutes and is incredibly boring.

It's literally never been easier to kill hulks. ONE ROUND OF BUCKSHOT WILL CRIT A HULK. In the time that I'm going hulk research, if you roam maint for a modular receiver, then by the time I get hulk you'll have the ability to instantly kill my hulk - wow!

Hulk rushing toward you? Literally pull a welder out of your bag you pussy, if you go blow for blow you'll kill the hulk easy.

Security flustered by hulk maymays? Use the disabler and they'll be all but useless so you can go in for a kill with a harmbaton, once again armor+harmbaton versus unarmored hulk will have the harmbaton win easily, when the hulk is moving 1 tile per minute after the disabler? The harmbaton officer will have minor bruising after murdering the hulk if they're half-decent at melee combat. Dont even get me started on how easily a borg can dunk hulks.

If its *Hulktide which appears to be more myth than reality (most geneticists, myself included, have no fucking interest in peasants crawling all over my workplace while my radio gets flooded with RAAARGHHHH!!!), the first officer to figure out how to put buckshot into the riot shotgun will get to go on a murdering spree that even double agents would be jealous of. If any non-antag hulk tries to hurt the officer, adminhelp and relish the godlike protection that admins extend to security.

Xray has the potential to spoil your antag round without you even knowing it and despite having made no mistakes in your execution - that can be frustrating. Hulk though? An assistant with floor tiles will beat that shit, just pull your head out of your ass and try something outside of your typical stun + murder formula and you'll find that hulks aint shit.

[PKPenguin321]

Back when I played a shitload of geneticist I think my strat was to sneak into chemistry and make a mutagen smoke grenade, then put a monkey man in one of the patients rooms by the CMOs office and smoke him up. It would get all the disabilities and only the powers were left to find.

But yeah, goon genetics WHEN?

[kevinz000]

If a hulk greytided security that's an instant kill or CRIT if I'm nice. Don't take shit from the greytide as security. Who cares about larger numbers take your laser guns and deathsquad the fucks.

[calzilla1]

Can we just remove the job? It brings nothing to others and just seems out of place

[oranges]

>it brings nothing to others and seems out of place
>seems out of place
>out of place

It's a experimental research job on an experimental research station son.

[cedarbridge]

Can we just remove the job? It brings nothing to others and just seems out of place

The job just exists as a "thing to do to get goodies" while waiting to man the cloning pod station. Which MDs do anyway.

[InsaneHyena]

After playing a cult round, where genetics lolnoped the entire cult with their powers 10 minutes in, I join the cry of "REEEE, I DED, REMOVE GENETICS"

[DemonFiren]

Back in my Bay days I was mad as fuck that they axed Genetics altogether.
Now I'd also be mad as fuck, but it's preferable to leaving it in.

[Reece]

Did they remove mutadone and syringe rifles recently?

[XDTM]

Turns out it's hard to mutadone 5-10 hulks before they do significant damage.

[DemonFiren]

I'm guessing they're all wearing gas masks or internals so smoke grenades don't do jack?

[XDTM]

They ain't staying in a tight group for your grenade.

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

This is why as a geneticist, I never, ever leave hulkism in the machine. I'll isolate the full array, put it onto a disc, and make a civillian blend of X-Ray and cold resistance.

Then if assholes start trying to steal hulk, I make a trap gene with every single negative trait on it, and label it "Liquid DIvinity"

[DemonFiren]

They ain't staying in a tight group for your grenade.

Your grenade-making skills are lacking if you can't make smoke that fills two screens and still delivers a dose.

[Grazyn]

Youre only going to get powers fast if you get insanely lucky.

Even as a certified genetics power game I won't do genetics research most rounds if I'm the only researcher who knows how to do it effectively. Solo research can take over 20-30 minutes and is incredibly boring.

It's literally never been easier to kill hulks. ONE ROUND OF BUCKSHOT WILL CRIT A HULK. In the time that I'm going hulk research, if you roam maint for a modular receiver, then by the time I get hulk you'll have the ability to instantly kill my hulk - wow!

Hulk rushing toward you? Literally pull a welder out of your bag you pussy, if you go blow for blow you'll kill the hulk easy.

Security flustered by hulk maymays? Use the disabler and they'll be all but useless so you can go in for a kill with a harmbaton, once again armor+harmbaton versus unarmored hulk will have the harmbaton win easily, when the hulk is moving 1 tile per minute after the disabler? The harmbaton officer will have minor bruising after murdering the hulk if they're half-decent at melee combat. Dont even get me started on how easily a borg can dunk hulks.

If its *Hulktide which appears to be more myth than reality (most geneticists, myself included, have no fucking interest in peasants crawling all over my workplace while my radio gets flooded with RAAARGHHHH!!!), the first officer to figure out how to put buckshot into the riot shotgun will get to go on a murdering spree that even double agents would be jealous of. If any non-antag hulk tries to hurt the officer, adminhelp and relish the godlike protection that admins extend to security.

Xray has the potential to spoil your antag round without you even knowing it and despite having made no mistakes in your execution - that can be frustrating. Hulk though? An assistant with floor tiles will beat that shit, just pull your head out of your ass and try something outside of your typical stun + murder formula and you'll find that hulks aint shit.

You probably know this already but if r&d is working, you can upgrade the pod and greatly cut down the time needed to find powers. 100% accuracy on 1 second pulses with no damage to the monkey and you'll find all the powers in 5 minutes tops. This is easier on high pop rounds which are also the ones that most often devolve into greentide

[Arianya]

Suggested changes to hulk that might balance out its upsides:

Sustained hulk form results in gamma ray damage (cellular damage)

Hulks become multitile size (i.e. 2x2) which means they can't enter normal one tile doorways.

Hulks can't wear any clothing other then a casual uniform. This includes backpacks.

Hulks are unable to do fine manipulation.

Hulks get constant hallucinations (an abstraction of the rage)

Hulk only activates when "enraged", 2+ tazes or taking 15+ damage in a short span of time.

[Screemonster]

To be honest, I think the Genetics powers need more downsides. Unlike R&D or even virology, there's no limitations on how many powers they can have or how quick they can get them except RNG and it is easily possible for a Geneticist to have every power within 20 minutes.

X-ray should make you be unable to get any benefit from flash protection. Cold Resistance makes it harder for you to cool off from a fire (it already makes cryo ineffective on you). TK makes you take extra damage from hits to your head. Dwarfism makes you unable to move past things lying on the ground and increases your interaction speed. Chameleon's downside was that it didn't turn off when you're dead but for some reason that got changed.

oddly enough I was discussing this with some folks about half an hour ago before I saw this thread, I'm just gonna copypaste:

[9:57 AM] Scree: Apparently goon genetics has a mechanic for genetic instability where giving yourself powers and fucking around with them comes at a cost
[9:59 AM] Scree: Which is... similar to a thing I had as a showerthought some time ago, which was "store a player's original DNA as a var, and periodically have a check to see how far their current DNA deviates from their original"
[9:59 AM] Scree: which may or may not have consequences if they fuck around too much.
[10:00 AM] Scree: Notably: "overt" genetic superpowers would force checks to happen far more often than just passive changes. Some wouldn't trigger the check at all.
[10:00 AM] Scree: Like - you have TK? Roll the die every time you use it.
[10:01 AM] Scree: If you have TK/Hulk/Xray/Heat-resistance AND have fucked your appearance up this shift, hope you like TUMOURS
[10:02 AM] Scree: the downside of hulk is that you stand a risk of getting what the real side-effect of exposing yourself to a gigantic burst of gamma rays is

[Grazyn]

To be honest, I think the Genetics powers need more downsides. Unlike R&D or even virology, there's no limitations on how many powers they can have or how quick they can get them except RNG and it is easily possible for a Geneticist to have every power within 20 minutes.

X-ray should make you be unable to get any benefit from flash protection. Cold Resistance makes it harder for you to cool off from a fire (it already makes cryo ineffective on you). TK makes you take extra damage from hits to your head. Dwarfism makes you unable to move past things lying on the ground and increases your interaction speed. Chameleon's downside was that it didn't turn off when you're dead but for some reason that got changed.

oddly enough I was discussing this with some folks about half an hour ago before I saw this thread, I'm just gonna copypaste:

[9:57 AM] Scree: Apparently goon genetics has a mechanic for genetic instability where giving yourself powers and fucking around with them comes at a cost
[9:59 AM] Scree: Which is... similar to a thing I had as a showerthought some time ago, which was "store a player's original DNA as a var, and periodically have a check to see how far their current DNA deviates from their original"
[9:59 AM] Scree: which may or may not have consequences if they fuck around too much.
[10:00 AM] Scree: Notably: "overt" genetic superpowers would force checks to happen far more often than just passive changes. Some wouldn't trigger the check at all.
[10:00 AM] Scree: Like - you have TK? Roll the die every time you use it.
[10:01 AM] Scree: If you have TK/Hulk/Xray/Heat-resistance AND have fucked your appearance up this shift, hope you like TUMOURS
[10:02 AM] Scree: the downside of hulk is that you stand a risk of getting what the real side-effect of exposing yourself to a gigantic burst of gamma rays is

These are all generic nerfs to all powers when the only real issue is with hulks. I think the idea of making hulk trigger over a certain threshold of damage (or when stunned) is much better, make it like some sort of temporary berserk like the skill they have in certain RPGs. It also adds to paranoia™ since you can never know if the assistant you're stunning/harmbatoning will suddenly turn into a RAGING MONSTER

[cedarbridge]

Hulks become multitile size (i.e. 2x2) which means they can't enter normal one tile doorways.

And suddenly the station has even less doors.

[Arianya]

Hulks become multitile size (i.e. 2x2) which means they can't enter normal one tile doorways.

And suddenly the station has even less doors.

Thats actually kind of the intent. The point is that by forcing hulks to rip the station apart to get around, it no longer becomes a "I'm a regular crew member when I feel like it and a destructive asshole when I want to be.", but rather that hulk is a power boost in return for inconvenience. You can still dish out hulk to everyone during cult to rip up the station looking for their base, but you might be more reticent to give it out to assistants when you know for a fact they're going to smash up every room they try to go into/out of.

[XDTM]

Hulks become multitile size (i.e. 2x2) which means they can't enter normal one tile doorways.

And suddenly the station has even less doors.

Thats actually kind of the intent. The point is that by forcing hulks to rip the station apart to get around, it no longer becomes a "I'm a regular crew member when I feel like it and a destructive asshole when I want to be.", but rather that hulk is a power boost in return for inconvenience. You can still dish out hulk to everyone during cult to rip up the station looking for their base, but you might be more reticent to give it out to assistants when you know for a fact they're going to smash up every room they try to go into/out of.

If you give it to assistants you already know they're going to smash up every room they try to go into, 2x2 or not, geneticists who do it just don't care.

[Arianya]

Hulks become multitile size (i.e. 2x2) which means they can't enter normal one tile doorways.

And suddenly the station has even less doors.

Thats actually kind of the intent. The point is that by forcing hulks to rip the station apart to get around, it no longer becomes a "I'm a regular crew member when I feel like it and a destructive asshole when I want to be.", but rather that hulk is a power boost in return for inconvenience. You can still dish out hulk to everyone during cult to rip up the station looking for their base, but you might be more reticent to give it out to assistants when you know for a fact they're going to smash up every room they try to go into/out of.

If you give it to assistants you already know they're going to smash up every room they try to go into, 2x2 or not, geneticists who do it just don't care.

I mean, theres also the policy issue that geneticists giving out hulk aren't treated the same as toxins scientists giving out bombs, but I figured discussing that in coding feedback wasn't helpful.

[calzilla1]

Make hulks valid

[Dr_bee]

Make hulks valid

it would definitely would make it easier to deal with them if there was no ambiguity in just murdering the jackass, plus it would be a major disadvantage to being a stun immune murder machine.

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Hulks are not human, allowing AIs to shock the fuck out of them, chew them up with doors, or have borgs attempt to robust it.

Hulks can not use any ranged weapon, making it surprisingly easy for an accurate sec officer to drop them.

Having problems getting them to take their mutagone? Shotgun syringes are a thing, you can make them from a hacked autolathe.

The "Act like an antag, get treated like an antag" rule should definitely apply. If you are running around, punching down walls into secure areas, stealing shit, and fighting with security officers, you deserve a laser hole bored through your head, and a quick trip to the roboticist.

Have the CMO watch over genetics, and don't let them give out powers. This problem isn't with the greytide, it's with asshole splicers who decide to give all the powers to everyone, or who forget to remove power gene serums from the machine with the stack of discs sitting next to them. A half competent geneticist will make sure to regulate what powers they give out to the crew. Thermal resistance and X-Ray are the two I will happily give to anyone and everyone onboard without a second thought.

[ShadowDimentio]

X-ray should make you be unable to get any benefit from flash protection. Cold Resistance makes it harder for you to cool off from a fire (it already makes cryo ineffective on you). TK makes you take extra damage from hits to your head. Dwarfism makes you unable to move past things lying on the ground and increases your interaction speed. Chameleon's downside was that it didn't turn off when you're dead but for some reason that got changed.

>Get lit on fire
>Be physically incapable of not dying
>Inevitably die

What an excellent idea

[Luke Cox]

Shotguns are neat

[kevinz000]

Make hulks valid

it would definitely would make it easier to deal with them if there was no ambiguity in just murdering the jackass, plus it would be a major disadvantage to being a stun immune murder machine.

Get a flash and a baton and melee the fuck.

[ShadowDimentio]

It's a job that rarely gets done and when it's done well it's OP episode again

[cedarbridge]

It's a job that rarely gets done and when it's done well it's OP episode again

>rarely gets done
You're more likely to find a geneticist than a CMO in medbay every round. Really makes you think.