Departmental Gameplay Improvements

[Indie-ana Jones]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I'll admit, I don't really have much room to speak in terms of departmental jobs sans xenobio, so I'll just focus on that.
The list below is my current gripes with the system:

- Xenobio currently is meant to operate with two people, but as OP posted, usually only one person will ever function in there at a time. Honestly, if we split the roles of science up into individual jobs like posted above, we can pretty much solve this issue. You're way more of an asshole if you tell your coworker who can only work in your section of science to fuck off than if you told that to some dude who could work anywhere else, which would hopefully stop people from doing it.

- For being a deparment called xenobio, you don't actually work with many aliens much at all. Gold slime cores are as close as you get, and the best you can do with them is make sentient creatures, most of which can only smash stuff.

- Most of xenobio's slime core creations are self-serving or useless. However, the ones that are useful to other fields (yellow slime cores and speed potions for the most part) usually only leave xenobio if directly asked for.

- running Xenobio isn't as engaging as it used to be. Back before consoles when you had to personally feed slimes (and the larger ones could break containment), being the xenobiologist was a much more involved task. The only thing now that might harm you in xenobio is either an idiot compatriot who teleports living slimes on top of the grinder or if you get lucky enough to spawn with an alien (which usually gets instantly killed by another scientist once the department knows it spawned).

My thoughts on how it could be better:
- If Explorer's were added, having them send animals to xenobio to experiment on could finally inject some more ayy into the job outside of slimes. Any other additions which let xenobio utilize other mobs in a useful manner would be a plus.

- Have xenobio's work actually benefit the station outside of occasionally being the infinite battery easter bunny. One thing I thought about was how xenobiologists can make sentient mobs. Most of the mobs are useless outside of smashing shit, but some like the lightgheist are very useful to certain departments. Perhaps we could look into making xenobio's sentient mobs having utilities which benefit the station? A system which also lets those unused cores circulate to those who could have use them would be godly as well.

- Perhaps make slimes more of a threat. The combination of xenobio becoming super safe to operate and the slimes being made weaker has made xenobio pretty much accident-proof, which is less engaging.

[oranges]

I worry that removing the xenobio console will just cause the usual outrage flash mob though

[Shadowflame909]

I worry that removing the xenobio console will just cause the usual outrage flash mob though

Port Citadel's Xenobio console. Where to make it fully functional it requires tech web upgrades.

Also you just make the slimes prefer humans over monkeys.

Yum Yum slime genetic damage is high risk for high reward

[deedubya]

I worry that removing the xenobio console will just cause the usual outrage flash mob though

As a xenobio main, I can say with certainty that I wouldn't miss the slime console at all. We managed just fine without it in the past, and would function just fine without it today. Remember when you had to take the green kool-aid just to be able to work in 100% safety?

Another suggestion I'd suggest is to set up a disposals chute leading from xenobio to either the RnD room, or robotics lab. This would allow them to send resources(speed pots, charged cores, industrial extracts, etc) to the station without feeling like they're hampering their work and progress by doing so.

[oranges]

the never leaving your department thing is something we're trying to foster out of people deedubs

[deedubya]

Breeding that mindset out of xenobio is going to be extremely difficult. The only reason I suggested the disposal system is to benefit the rest of the station, not the xenobiologists. As it currently stands, slime ranchers never leave their autism hut unless necessary, and nobody ever gets access to their goodies unless they break in. With the change, the slime ranchers still won't leave the hut very often, but the rest of the station has a much higher chance of being able to get access to their hard work, since it'll take little effort on their part to ship it out of their autism fort.

[Indie-ana Jones]

I worry that removing the xenobio console will just cause the usual outrage flash mob though

Honest to God, fuck'em. I don't think I've ever read a good argument on why the xenobio console was a good edition. All it does is make the job way easier and more accessible, which isn't awful but it took a major chunk of the work out of an already simple job. This would also most certainly help fix the issues with people hogging xenobio due to one person being more efficient, as back in the day two people were needed to keep everything flowing as smoothly as possible. It'll also re-lengthen optimal xenobio growing times back to where they should be (currently, you can get to tier 4 slimes within 25 minutes easily, compared to the usually mentioned 40-45 minutes.)

Though, I still think just removing the consoles themselves won't pose any risk to xenobiologists. Somewhere down the line, slimes lost their kick they used to have, or at least I remember them being much more threatening. I personally wouldn't mind having an aggression + strength buff thrown their way to solve that, though.

[Shadowflame909]

Breeding that mindset out of xenobio is going to be extremely difficult. The only reason I suggested the disposal system is to benefit the rest of the station, not the xenobiologists. As it currently stands, slime ranchers never leave their autism hut unless necessary, and nobody ever gets access to their goodies unless they break in. With the change, the slime ranchers still won't leave the hut very often, but the rest of the station has a much higher chance of being able to get access to their hard work, since it'll take little effort on their part to ship it out of their autism fort.

Doesn't cargo have some sort of parcel system they can hook up to disposals for this

I wouldn't know the only use I've seen out of it is a syndicate engineering borg

[PKPenguin321]

On the topic of techwebs, here's a big question for something I was on hiatus for: Why did the techwebs get changed from actively deconning items to timegated casual trash? In the past, "scientist" or specifically R&D was an actual job. Now it's just cookie clicker.

I've still got the reason in my bookmarks, actually: https://pastebin.com/4k4v5R73

[Tlaltecuhtli]

giving xenobio a remote cam with all xenobio functions so maybe after some techwebs they can do xenobio while being at the bar could easly improve the job without big experimental changes

[deedubya]

Breeding that mindset out of xenobio is going to be extremely difficult. The only reason I suggested the disposal system is to benefit the rest of the station, not the xenobiologists. As it currently stands, slime ranchers never leave their autism hut unless necessary, and nobody ever gets access to their goodies unless they break in. With the change, the slime ranchers still won't leave the hut very often, but the rest of the station has a much higher chance of being able to get access to their hard work, since it'll take little effort on their part to ship it out of their autism fort.

Doesn't cargo have some sort of parcel system they can hook up to disposals for this

I wouldn't know the only use I've seen out of it is a syndicate engineering borg

Xenobio on meta-derived maps isn't connected to the disposals system. Their chute leads directly to space. I've also never actually seen disposals delivery systems as anything other than a novelty, and never actually set one up personally.

This idea does have legs, though. Having a separate chute lead to Cargo (instead of RnD as I suggested earlier) would be good in that respect, since it's legitimately Cargo's job to make sure that supplies go where they're needed to go. However, I think there's one thing that'd be needed for this. A storage unit full of empty bio-bags, or a bio-bag fabricator, in the xenobio wing. Shipping literally hundreds of slime extracts for Cargo to clean up and deliver would be complete asscheeks. Stuffing bio-bags with 25 extracts a piece though? That's more reasonable.

Also a thought for contributing to RnD progress: Perhaps have unused extracts be used in the destructive analyzer, giving points according to their tier? You'd only get the points one for each color of slime obviously, but it would allow them to contribute to the RnD effort more directly, rather than just feeding charged cores to robotics. It'd also give people with the "steal an unused extract" traitor objective more plausible deniability. Currently this is either the easiest or the hardest objective on the whole station.

[Arathian]

Xenobiology is one of the most ok departments in the game right now, to give an opposite opinion. It has a TON of possibilities, and you can't achieve them all in any given round realistically. It has a linear power curve and no massive, sudden power spikes. It gives cool tools.

What xenobio "needs" is incentive to give to the rest of the station. Some kind of delivery system would be nice. Some machine that teleports slime cores over to other departments or at least RnD could be useful.

Xenobio console is a good thing. Xenobiology is already hugely time consuming. Unless you cut back the time you need by an extreme amount (f.ex. slimes could consume monkeys much faster and only 1 monkey would be needed for split instead of 2) the removal of the console would effectively kill xenobiology. Or at least kill advanced xenobiology. No other department is "expected" to be occasionally eaten by default. I don't see why xenobiology should be the exception in that regard. It still has inherent dangers with how isolated it is and when the cages break and slimes go loose.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Xenobiology is one of the most ok departments in the game right now, to give an opposite opinion. It has a TON of possibilities, and you can't achieve them all in any given round realistically. It has a linear power curve and no massive, sudden power spikes. It gives cool tools.

What xenobio "needs" is incentive to give to the rest of the station. Some kind of delivery system would be nice. Some machine that teleports slime cores over to other departments or at least RnD could be useful.

Xenobio console is a good thing. Xenobiology is already hugely time consuming. Unless you cut back the time you need by an extreme amount (f.ex. slimes could consume monkeys much faster and only 1 monkey would be needed for split instead of 2) the removal of the console would effectively kill xenobiology. Or at least kill advanced xenobiology. No other department is "expected" to be occasionally eaten by default. I don't see why xenobiology should be the exception in that regard. It still has inherent dangers with how isolated it is and when the cages break and slimes go loose.

I will agree, xenobio is in one of the better spots than most other jobs right now, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Since I admit I really don't know enough about the other jobs (except maybe mining) to form an opinion, I'll just talk about what I know. If the other departments want to be talked about, someone ought to bring them up.

However, I disagree about your point on console removal though, as of right now Xenobio is able to rush slimes extremely fast. I'm talking having slimes at tier 3 or 4 within 25-30 minutes, mostly because of the fact that slime consoles can cut a slime's feeding cycle short by a good margin. I'd argue it should take longer, around 40-45 minutes, to get that job done. The point about no other department being at risk of being eaten is only true if one ignores Mining, where monsters show up all over. Also, you mention it's isolation being the threat when pens break, however:
1. Only MetaStation features an isolated xenobio
2. Slimes cannot break the pens under any circumstance, even the large ones. The only way they will break is if the local antag fucks with you or you accidentally make plasma gold slime mobs, which is entirely your fault and the mobs will likely kill you before the slimes do.

I still think the regular job routine would be much better if we went back to hand-feeding the slimes instead of using the console. Without the console, it also makes justifying 2 people doing the job much easier and involves the scientist much more in the routine.

[MisterPerson]

Also a thought for contributing to RnD progress: Perhaps have unused extracts be used in the destructive analyzer, giving points according to their tier? You'd only get the points one for each color of slime obviously, but it would allow them to contribute to the RnD effort more directly, rather than just feeding charged cores to robotics. It'd also give people with the "steal an unused extract" traitor objective more plausible deniability. Currently this is either the easiest or the hardest objective on the whole station.

Would be better if it was based off other people using the slime cores outside of Science. Ties back into the earlier stuff about distributing them to the rest of the crew.

EDIT: I mean those uses outside of Science should give points to Science rather than directly getting them from the DA.

[knacker48]

Maybe xenobio's isolation is the problem? If we look at other jobs that give stuff out to the crew (Like chemist, bartender, botany and cook), they're all adjacent to the hall so people can walk up to a desk, peak in and ask for stuff directly.

If you want stuff from xeno you need to message the guy who's doing it directly, which can be awkward since xenobio isn't a standalone job so you need to ask around to find who's doing it

[Qustinnus]

i'm going to work on mining on a downstream so I can test without any of the issues I run into on TG, and port it upstream when I'm satisfied with the job.

[L_Nacho_Chaos_L]

I'll admit, I don't really have much room to speak in terms of departmental jobs sans xenobio, so I'll just focus on that.
The list below is my current gripes with the system:

- Xenobio currently is meant to operate with two people, but as OP posted, usually only one person will ever function in there at a time. Honestly, if we split the roles of science up into individual jobs like posted above, we can pretty much solve this issue. You're way more of an asshole if you tell your coworker who can only work in your section of science to fuck off than if you told that to some dude who could work anywhere else, which would hopefully stop people from doing it.

- For being a deparment called xenobio, you don't actually work with many aliens much at all. Gold slime cores are as close as you get, and the best you can do with them is make sentient creatures, most of which can only smash stuff.

- Most of xenobio's slime core creations are self-serving or useless. However, the ones that are useful to other fields (yellow slime cores and speed potions for the most part) usually only leave xenobio if directly asked for.

- running Xenobio isn't as engaging as it used to be. Back before consoles when you had to personally feed slimes (and the larger ones could break containment), being the xenobiologist was a much more involved task. The only thing now that might harm you in xenobio is either an idiot compatriot who teleports living slimes on top of the grinder or if you get lucky enough to spawn with an alien (which usually gets instantly killed by another scientist once the department knows it spawned).

My thoughts on how it could be better:
- If Explorer's were added, having them send animals to xenobio to experiment on could finally inject some more ayy into the job outside of slimes. Any other additions which let xenobio utilize other mobs in a useful manner would be a plus.

- Have xenobio's work actually benefit the station outside of occasionally being the infinite battery easter bunny. One thing I thought about was how xenobiologists can make sentient mobs. Most of the mobs are useless outside of smashing shit, but some like the lightgheist are very useful to certain departments. Perhaps we could look into making xenobio's sentient mobs having utilities which benefit the station? A system which also lets those unused cores circulate to those who could have use them would be godly as well.

- Perhaps make slimes more of a threat. The combination of xenobio becoming super safe to operate and the slimes being made weaker has made xenobio pretty much accident-proof, which is less engaging.

Bring back headslugs.
Actually, just generally make the gold slime cores generate more interesting and useful stuff in general instead of generic monsters.
But still, bring back headslugs.

[Cobby]

wizard powers aren't enough, xenobio needs full ling capabilities too to "have fun"

[Shadowflame909]

don't they have a neutered ling antag with less points.

Also what if we bring back headslugs, but with cobby AI headslugs that try to inect a body at every moment and cause a very griefy evil end-game that you didn't want so now you get banned for whatever they do

[nianjiilical]

Bring back headslugs.
Actually, just generally make the gold slime cores generate more interesting and useful stuff in general instead of generic monsters.
But still, bring back headslugs.

on one hand, gold slimes are already one of the most 'interesting' things that xeno can do, and putting more power into them as opposed to trying to make other colors more interesting might not be the best idea

on the other hand, according to the wiki the gold slime pool currently consists of 18-ish possible spawns, and as far as i can tell magicarp are the only ones with any interesting abilities that aren't just 'smash shit'

as someone who loves xeno as is i'd absolutely support work being put into coming up with a revised gold spawn pool that contains creatures that can benefit the station in some way, though there'd also be a need to avoid just giving xeno tons of more actual free shit at no cost, plus actually coming up with ideas for new creatures

some random ideas off the top of my delirious head atm

- plant monsters that provide some benefit like 'attacking' plants to increase their stats randomly, maybe something like the mamutas from pikmin
- enhanced goldgrubs that give miners relevant rewards for feeding them rare ores
- a monster like the nurses from nethack that heal people by attacking them, unless lightgeists are already good enough as a 'medbay alien'
- beholder-like monsters that shoot disabler beams that can be ordered to aggro onto 'marked' targets somehow for security to hang out with
- a clown monster that does something silly and harmless, maybe feed it a crayon and it paints stuff
- a star wars medical robot monster that can help roboticists put together machines

basically let xenobiology actually give departments useful aliens for the rest of the crew to be racist against

[Shadowflame909]

nianjiilical has good ideas

department monsters would be great.

then we come up with antagonist lite monsters. Or the pets those antagonists would have.

You ain't seen nothing until the revenant is chilling with an ectoplasmic gooey glob that just rams into places and causes torture and salt for the janitor and engineering
team

As well as bringing slaughterings back into the game from thy bubblegum removal. Maybe have them able to evolve into an imp if they slurp up enough gibs. But that being it.

With xenobio being whatever bullshit you can get merged. There's a whole lot of potential.

[Deepwoods]

I've been thinking about some things relating to this topic today. One thought is how to deal with the high chem demand of Hydroponics. The topic is something obvious for anyone who has played Botanist. If you're playing to bring forth botanical wonders and abominations rather than to just grow some lackluster tomatoes, you need the secret of the ooze to accelerate progress so that you don't get blueballed every shift. A dozen 100u containers of it. And then you need three dozen buckets of saltpeter for potency and various other chemicals that may or may not do things. And the need for chemical access stretches into the Chef and the Bartender's work as well. The strongest liquors require it. The Chef always appreciates a 90u tub of cryoxadone meeting 5 90u tubs of mutagen blood and creating a pile of synthmeat. So the question is what to do. Especially now with Chemfactory pushing Chemists back into a corner like Xenobio while Medical often ends up running the machines on Meta. Getting a chem dispenser board and setting up every shift makes the Botanist a menace and contributes to shifts ending just as the job gets rolling. Giving them a chem dispenser is giving up the idea of cross-departmental cooperation entirely and is abandoning the concept of keeping the genie in the bottle. So here's my proposal. Just make Left 4 Zed into Unstable Mutagen that isn't fatally mutagenic if ingested. The problem with Hydroponics is one of acceleration. Left 4 Zed is the chemical you fall back on if you can't get mutagen, but it's painfully slow and comes with downsides. So nobody likes to use it. And then make the potency of plants gradually go up as they are cared for, to represent them thriving. Thus, Ambrosia gaia is even more useful in that it removes the absolute need for the ludicrous amounts of saltpeter. There's still the need for it for acceleration, but perhaps it could cut back on tossing 5 buckets into every tray to reach 100 potency. And then the early start limit of transfer for stats isn't such a hurdle and is actually beneficial because the stats grow naturally.

In addition to this, make the Chem Dispensers link to a network and record every mixture made.

There may be an argument that automating more of the job is a detriment, but here's what it boils down to. The Botanist would rather be growing more stuff and would rather be accomplishing their SCIENCE objectives. The Botanist would love to grow everything the Chef or Bartender could ever ask for. But sometimes if the Botanist is going for things they need every tray. The Science aspect of Botany shafts the Service aspect of Hydroponics. So what the Botanist will do with less of the old micro is to reach towards new micro. Building trays. Digging up plots. Expanding. Growing more things. Maybe they'll help the Chef to cater or set up a small farm or actually create a contained beekeeping room. Maybe they'll create a proper wine shed with barrels of various rare liquors and a stockroom and all that jazz.

Then again, this may all just be me rambling. Growing mutashrooms isn't difficult and gives you ready access to unstable mutagen, but you're still at the mercy of the crap mutation rate of L4Z to get the blumpkins. And you need to hack the machines for the glowshrooms. So the time investment makes it far quicker to break into the board storage and to smash the window to crawl into Science.

[Vekter]

Maybe xenobio's isolation is the problem? If we look at other jobs that give stuff out to the crew (Like chemist, bartender, botany and cook), they're all adjacent to the hall so people can walk up to a desk, peak in and ask for stuff directly.

If you want stuff from xeno you need to message the guy who's doing it directly, which can be awkward since xenobio isn't a standalone job so you need to ask around to find who's doing it

This is a really, really hard sell. Having it that close means it's that much easier for antag xenobiologists to spam gold cores and ruin the station. If anything gets out of hand now, it's much easier to just cut that section off.

[Dr_bee]

Maybe xenobio's isolation is the problem? If we look at other jobs that give stuff out to the crew (Like chemist, bartender, botany and cook), they're all adjacent to the hall so people can walk up to a desk, peak in and ask for stuff directly.

If you want stuff from xeno you need to message the guy who's doing it directly, which can be awkward since xenobio isn't a standalone job so you need to ask around to find who's doing it

This is a really, really hard sell. Having it that close means it's that much easier for antag xenobiologists to spam gold cores and ruin the station. If anything gets out of hand now, it's much easier to just cut that section off.

One of the best parts of Delta-station is the fact you can very easily check up on the xenobiologists to see if they are doing shady shit. Similar to how you can check on toxins. It lets you stop shady shit before it even happens.

Secrecy is more powerful of a tool than any gold slime core.

[deedubya]

The influence of the 24/7 meta meta is really showing here. All the other stations just have xenobio as an integrated part of the science wing.

[MisterPerson]

Maybe xenobio's isolation is the problem? If we look at other jobs that give stuff out to the crew (Like chemist, bartender, botany and cook), they're all adjacent to the hall so people can walk up to a desk, peak in and ask for stuff directly.

If you want stuff from xeno you need to message the guy who's doing it directly, which can be awkward since xenobio isn't a standalone job so you need to ask around to find who's doing it

This is a really, really hard sell. Having it that close means it's that much easier for antag xenobiologists to spam gold cores and ruin the station. If anything gets out of hand now, it's much easier to just cut that section off.

Then nerf the gold slimes. Sounds more fun to me to have an integrated, hallway accessible department that can be fun for everyone on any round rather than a single powerful strat that's interesting in the exact scenario that a xenobiologist is an antag. And keep in mind a) there would still be privacy shutters and b) I don't think the slime pens themselves should be visible from the hallway. So it's not like antag xenobiologist is going to be significantly different. Chemists get by and you can literally see their entire workstation from the main hallway.

And that's assuming gold slime cores are actually fun to begin with, which imo they're not.

[Shadowflame909]

Maybe xenobio's isolation is the problem? If we look at other jobs that give stuff out to the crew (Like chemist, bartender, botany and cook), they're all adjacent to the hall so people can walk up to a desk, peak in and ask for stuff directly.

If you want stuff from xeno you need to message the guy who's doing it directly, which can be awkward since xenobio isn't a standalone job so you need to ask around to find who's doing it

Those are service jobs. Designed to service the crew.

Xenobio isn't designed like that and any outside benefits are mere bonuses. Just like RND pre and current tech-webs. Where other departments get the stuff they want because it's bundled with what science wants.

Also how currently Nanites is boosted by more people having it. So it's given out instead of sheltered.

Unless it becomes a core Job-Mechanic. Xenobio will always be isolated.

[AnonymousNow]

Okay, bear with me here - a medical-science shared department focusing on experimental chemical-based technology.
Essentially alchemy for the postmodern age. Combine exotic material components with carefully balanced chemical compounds and solutions. Chemicals react in different ways to being in a physical object with/made of sheets of material - they vary from suits of armour to melee weapons to juicing systems to harnesses.
Equip juicing carapace with adamantium-lined strength-enhancing drugs. Become BANE. Equip your chaplain with a silver mace imbued with medicine and holy water, and their null rod is now their offhand tool. Equip clown with a squirt gun made of bananium filled with ketchup and mustard, because why the hell not.

[delaron]

Good thread, also, while bartender and chef are in a good place, it is always interesting to see new types of things added to each role, i.e bartender gets something new besides just mixin drinks.

Can maybe chatting with the bartender provide a minor brain trauma healing buff?

[Flatulent]

What if we remove cap on passive research generation and make it much more dependent on server operational temperatures? Make servers heat up a lot more and give them a chance to malfunction(stealing a bit of points after a warning) and eventually break, removing the machine completely? Having to set up a cooling loop would give scientists marginally more crew content. Perhaps we could make comm efficiency depend on cooling too, moving telecomm responsibility to science department and creating a Systems Administrator job to manage both. To make roundstart point generation completely not fucking ass we could give crew a set amount of points roundstart while scientists are setting up freezers and heat exchange pipes.

The passive generation of points that happens AFTER all possible technologies are researched could go towards researching locked items like Alien Alloy, money or giving AI more functionality(perhaps nerfed malf powers?), rather than pile up for all eternity after 40-90 minutes.

[Kryson]

What if we remove cap on passive research generation and make it much more dependent on server operational temperatures? Make servers heat up a lot more and give them a chance to malfunction(stealing a bit of points after a warning) and eventually break, removing the machine completely?

I think that would be fun.

The system could be expanded to cool the B.E.P.I.S if it gets merged and maybe some way to use the waste heat maybe for some kind of other science machine(maybe some kind of material science kiln or something?).

[OFQ]

Hmm sooo how about Department level station goals.