Virology healing viruses and jellypeople

[Striders13]

I'm just gonna make this thread before it becomes an issue. Starlight Condensation symptom heals toxins when it's host is exposed to space. Toxin healing kills jellypeople, which are now a roundstart race. This symptom is common in healing viruses, and is easily made self-spreading on touch.
So are we gonna go with "lol that's what you get for picking slime noob", or with "non-antag virologists shouldn't wipe out 5-10% of the crew every round"? Discuss.

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[Higgin]

that was when I least expected it

on skyrat, with roundstart slimes for a long time, the answer to this was historically: don't make contagious tox-healing viruses. pretty much don't make contagious healing viruses in general but for different reasons, expect IC beef over it.

on here i'd suggest we go with the first one but make it as clear as possible in the species select menu that it's a risk/drawback specifically with certain viruses (on top of all the other sources of tox healing you might stumble into)

[Yulice]

Code issue; shrimply make it so that the toxin healing the virus does is true, like how the toxin healing heretics get is so that it always heals no matter if they're slime or not. (I think I'm not super familiar with heretic but I think I saw that in the code once.)

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I think the issue is not so much that the virologist made a virus that 95% of the crew will be quite happy to acquire, it's that they didn't make a vaccine for the 5% who wouldn't want the virus. Virology gets monkeys and cuffs and isolation rooms for a reason, but virologists only ever seem to focus on making viruses, not on making vaccines for their viruses.

In my opinion, the way this should be treated is that it should only be punished on the condition that they refused to do their job even after specifically being asked to. So, if a slime person sends them a PDA message or yells at them in common to make a vaccine because their virus is killing them, and they either refuse outright, or just wander off to the Bar to drink themselves to death, then THAT should be noted. Obviously not if something else is going on in the shift that is more generally important to the virologist like suddenly a blob attacks or something. And I think this same rule should apply to miners who are upset about regen coma. If you make a virus, fine, but if someone asks you for a vaccine (and has a legitimate reason, just asking the viro for no reason to be a dick should be fine to be ignored), make a vaccine.

And obviously, you don't punish them if they don't know Chemistry to make a cure or don't know how to make a vaccine. This could be a good excuse to teach people and give them a positive note. You could easily use put something like "Round XXX - Took the time to learn chemistry to stop slime people from dying to their beneficial virus, good job!", and you could use that positive note as a sneaky way to verify to admins in the future that if they refuse to make a cure or vaccine in the future, it's not because they don't know how, while also reinforcing good behaviors in newer players.

[DaBoss]

If they want the very strong upside of being immune to toxins they can just deal with it. Like with traits, we don't force clowns to take their masks off around people with phobias or chefs to produce dairy-free food just so people can avoid the negative parts of the stuff they opted into.

on skyrat, with roundstart slimes for a long time, the answer to this was historically: don't make contagious tox-healing viruses. pretty much don't make contagious healing viruses in general but for different reasons, expect IC beef over it.

Skyrat is a drama filled hugbox that kills itself every single week over inane bullshit so I don't think emulating their rules is a good idea.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

If the viro releases a disease that kills jellypeople but won't make a vaccine for the jellypeople then he should be valid to jellypeople, seems simple.

[Timberpoes]

IC issue. Don't roll Jellypeople if you're scared of viruses. For the same reason you shouldn't roll Plasmeme if you're scared of O2. We're not gonna start pumping the station full of plasma so you can breathe if you lose your internals.

[Scriptis]

IC issue. Don't roll Jellypeople if you're scared of viruses. For the same reason you shouldn't roll Plasmeme if you're scared of O2. We're not gonna start pumping the station full of plasma so you can breathe if you lose your internals.

disagree because you can't remotely remove the O2 tanks of all plasmamen on station with virtually no recourse

getting owned by existing is one thing. getting owned by existing by a nonantag is cringe

[DaydreamIQ]

There's been a few times where people have tried to resolve this code wise (https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/79254) and have been shot down for it being intentional mechanics. You could argue that maybe Virologists could be held accountable if someone dies to their poorly made healing virus without giving out the cure alongside it. Though I doubt anyone but the two viro mains in existence are gonna bother with that

[Constellado]

The difference now is that jelly people are now roundstart pickable.
It would suck playing as your jelly man and then just start taking damage because of a virus, with nobody else getting hurt from it so nobody actually spends the time to help you. So much headache. I'd rather it being fixed in code than policy personally.

[Timberpoes]

It's practically unenforcable. Or it is enforcable but would be massive banbait and I highly dislike banbait.

There's nothing in-game telling virologists they can't use a certain beneficial symptom because some people choose to play a snowflake species but dislike its downsides.

That's why I call it an IC issue. The solution to not being killed by a certain beneficial virus symptom as a Slimepeople is to not be a Slimepeople. We don't snowflake things around other species and we shouldn't snowflake around this one.

[Jacquerel]

It's unlikely to be fixed in code as this config change isn't currently supported by the codebase, it was just a thing that the outgoing term felt like doing for kicks on the way out.
The more likely policy fix is that in a few days jellies will be disabled again.

[Justice12354]

This reminds me a bit of airborne regen coma. I made a thread asking if making it airborne was considered grief since it got people killed over becoming vulnerable due to the coma and the ruling was, quite reasonably, that we cannot expect Virologists to know a virus is bad when it has a fucking smiley face and says it's a positive symptom. I would only consider this to be an issue if there were Virologists out there shooting jellypuddings with syringes loaded with Starlight virus. The Virologist being suboptimal/shitty at his job (in this scenario, not making a cure for their virus) is as much of an IC issue imo

[Higgin]

on skyrat,

don't think emulating their rules is a good idea.

point being put a bit more clearly: places that accommodate species with severe drawbacks, and have done so for a long time, generally don't allow other players to inflict those drawbacks on others if they want those species to be equally played and accessible by people who just want the concept or aesthetic.

we make no such promises here, which makes me say: treat this as an IC issue, it's as much a choice as the xenobiologist turning themselves into a slime and getting a virus.

also, positive viruses can be easily killed now by starving yourself or taking basically any spaceacillin, so it's not quite the death sentence it was for you to end up with the funny meta SC pox as it used to be.

[Bmon]

Simply a drawback of the race itself.

I would hate to see changes to how virologists play due to one race being enabled.

[britgrenadier1]

Simply a drawback of the race itself.

I would hate to see changes to how virologists play due to one race being enabled.

Seconded

[spookuni]

Issue of Jelly, if you don't want to occasionally get annihilated by incredibly helpful for everyone else medical tools don't play the species that gets blown out by incredibly helpful for everyone else medical tools.

Also Jellypeople frantically sprinting away from windows as they realise that they have a starlight virus is really funny to me.

[Jackraxxus]

Shouldnt be against the rules but if jellypeople lynch u for it idc
i love lynching viro it's my 3rd favourite thing

[nianjiilical]

as someone whos played jellyperson exclusively since it was enabled i think this is just something that comes with picking the species and doesnt need a code solution

if the viro releases a starlight healing disease named FUCK GOOGIRLS then i think the jellypeople can beat them up but its not exactly hard to get toxin healing as a jellyperson (just chug radium or plasma) long enough to annoy chem for the cure

[kieth4]

We don't think that you should have to change your playstyle around a flavour of the week the meme race. Ultimately, skill issue.

To answer your question, "lol that's what you get for picking slime noob"