Replica Pod mutation -> Way to bring ghosts back

[hanshansenhansson]

I always liked those tree people (diona?) from the other servers. Why not add them as a lategame botany goal to work towards, a way to bring people back into the round? So far only science get's that magic.
Replica pods get rarely used (honestly, never saw anyone except me use them), why not add a mutation to their seed making them more useful?

The idea:
- Mutate replica pods to get larva seeds
- Larva seeds grow. When harvested, it checks for ghosts (like sentience potion) and spawns one of tree-people-larvas.
- Those larvas are annoying little buggers that need to drink a specific (but high) amount of blood to grow up. They can "clean" the blood from the floor which would take ages (or not, this is /tg after all), or just be a cunt about it.
- Grown up tree people should be similar, but slightly worse than regular pod people, with added fire-weakness. Stop forest fires.
- They are not bound to anyone, except normal "human" server rules and common decency
- They should breath CO2 and produce O2. (Should be changed for pod people, too)

They should be balanced by:
- Larva seeds dont replicate. You either harvest them with a ghost soul, or they just wither over time. They don't produce seed themselves. If you want more seeds, you need to farm more replica pods and mutate them.
- Fire damage is everywhere (welders, lasers, plasma, shocked doors). And of course, Plant-B-Gone.
- They will just be whacked during the larva stage for being cunts (But should not be allowed to be whacked while they are not, though)
- Thousands of unrobust people will suffocate themselves with O2 tanks.
- They are not bound to the botanist, so they are not free antagonists like golems half the time. (They also do not get the free pitstop at R&D on their way out to load up with guns)

[TheNightingale]

Is there enough CO2 in the air that they can breathe without having to use CO2 internals all the time?
(If not, where would they get internals?)

[hanshansenhansson]

Are humans not producing a tiny amount of it? I thought they would just breath the stuff humans produce, and turn it back into O2. But you are right, there might not be enough around of that at all. Just ran through some usually high-pop areas, could not even get 1% of CO2 to show (Other gases were just 99%, though), might have been a silly idea.

(Your friendly atmos tech waiting for your order at his desk, of course!)

[TheNightingale]

You'd think so, but atmospherics is weird like that. It's realistic (and funny), but making the diona tree-person run to atmospherics and get CO2 before they die of oxyloss/toxins is a little harsh. Breathing nitrogen might be interesting (air is 80%, so no worries there, but have fun using internals), but doesn't really fit with the theme of plants.

What if... larva could clean up blood by walking over it, á la Janiborg?

[hanshansenhansson]

That is kinda the idea. But they would have to suckle it up with a slurping noise, of course. Walking over it would make it too fast and easy compared to being a cunt.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Are humans not producing a tiny amount of it? I thought they would just breath the stuff humans produce, and turn it back into O2. But you are right, there might not be enough around of that at all. Just ran through some usually high-pop areas, could not even get 1% of CO2 to show (Other gases were just 99%, though), might have been a silly idea.

(Your friendly atmos tech waiting for your order at his desk, of course!)

Atmospheric CO2 is something like 0.1%, and it's even lower in spessmens (although busy areas can get close on long rounds)

[mosquitoman]

I'm pretty sure dionas are already in the game and they ghosts can already come back as nymphs.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I'm pretty sure dionas are already in the game and they ghosts can already come back as nymphs.

Try bay.

[Miauw]

just enable respawn by default, thats what people seem to want anyway

[Shadowlight213]

Scrubbers are already set to filter co2 by default, so even if there was more co2 in the air, it would just be scrubbed away.

[oranges]

We already have pod people, cloning, robots, drones and a bunch of antag event types.

I'm not sure we need any more ways to bring them back into the round. Maybe switch up pod people for this, since they don't get much love anymore.