New Species : IPC's

[PlaugeWalker]

Because, fuck it we already have the sprites for the IPC [aka synths]. So, why not just go whole hog, and implement them like how they were back in the day of bay? I mean really it'd be more of a hard race, and it would actually give the EMP tools an actual use if there's issues.

Concept if the brain is removed is there would be a positronic brain.

I mean, it's a nice vantage point since they couldn't be cloned, but if destroyed there's unless repaired. So, think of it more of an intermediate between plasma men, and humans. Not strong, but not to over powered they'd have an advantage. Seeing as like I said the emp's would fuck em up big time.

[Armhulen]

I don't know, we already have enough species and they all fill their niche pretty well.

[PlaugeWalker]

I don't know, we already have enough species and they all fill their niche pretty well.

We, don't have that mechanical species, unlike borgs. Truthfully, the fly species is just a sub species of human, really it's only 3 species for more round start.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Snailiens when?

[MMMiracles]

something something slippery slope, cantina station, ect ect.

[Armhulen]

I don't know, we already have enough species and they all fill their niche pretty well.

We, don't have that mechanical species, unlike borgs. Truthfully, the fly species is just a sub species of human, really it's only 3 species for more round start.

We do have robotic limb replacements, what would be the difference between a fully augmented human and one of these? It just seems like bloat tbh.

EDIT: ALSO HAHAHAHA SLIPPERY SLOPE MEME http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Species

[PlaugeWalker]

I don't know, we already have enough species and they all fill their niche pretty well.

We, don't have that mechanical species, unlike borgs. Truthfully, the fly species is just a sub species of human, really it's only 3 species for more round start.

We do have robotic limb replacements, what would be the difference between a fully augmented human and one of these? It just seems like bloat tbh.

EDIT: ALSO HAHAHAHA SLIPPERY SLOPE MEME http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Species

>They can't be cloned and only way they can be revived is by being worked on. They, are literally walking grounding rods.

[DemonFiren]

Oh, great, Bay's TV-heads.

Nah.

[PlaugeWalker]

Oh, great, Bay's TV-heads.

Nah.

We have the sprites demon ingame.

[Screemonster]

If you wanna make a robot race or something just make them like fully augged humans with posibrains.

But they have to follow Asimov.

[Jacough]

Make em an antag. On the surface they look like humans but once they start taking brute damage that synthetic skin starts peeling away revealing machinery. Their goal is to kidnap people and replace them with synth doppelgangers.

I totally didn't steal this idea from anything

[Remie Richards]

Make em an antag. On the surface they look like humans but once they start taking brute damage that synthetic skin starts peeling away revealing machinery

This is actually how the Synth species I added works, the graphics got worse with dismemberment (because they had to be standardised and Phil had to make his own art (we all love coderart)), but they fully function.

SNPCs are actually Synths too.

[Screemonster]

Make em an antag. On the surface they look like humans but once they start taking brute damage that synthetic skin starts peeling away revealing machinery

This is actually how the Synth species I added works, the graphics got worse with dismemberment (because they had to be standardised and Phil had to make his own art (we all love coderart)), but they fully function.

SNPCs are actually Synths too.

Maybe take a look at how Polaris handles their full-body-prosthetics. One of them is humanlike but takes damage and becomes obviously nonhuman, and they're kinda built with dismemberment in mind from the ground up.

[Cheimon]

Only if the plastic people are fragile as fuck. Like, 50hp fragile.

[TheColdTurtle]

>50 hp
Well they will get destroyed by two greytiders hunting for valids in an instant

[Luke Cox]

Robotics could use some late-game content that isn't just mechs. +1 for adding this to robotics. Slightly more resilient, but requires charging, cannot be healed with chems or cloned, and highly vulnerable to EMPs.

[DemonFiren]

Give them the ability to dispense close-range electric shocks at a high hunger/charge cost.
Stungloves must return.

[PKPenguin321]

i'm not crazy about adding more races but honestly if we are to get one i wouldn't be as opposed to robot men as, say, tajarans

[PlaugeWalker]

i'm not crazy about adding more races but honestly if we are to get one i wouldn't be as opposed to robot men as, say, tajarans

PKP agreeing with me for once, stop the fucking presses.

[TehSteveo]

New species: ICPs?

[PlaugeWalker]

New species: ICPs?

bays tv head robots or the sprites that use mil syntbhs

[Cheimon]

I suppose I'm opposed to this because we already have three iterations of this concept in the game.

First off, we have cyborgs. Cut out a human brain, shove it in cyborg parts. They lose hands in exchange for special tools, armour, and laws. Cyborgs used to look a lot more human to reflect this.

Second, we have augmented people. Cut out everything but the brain, and surround that with cyborg parts (they're even the same parts). Armoured and improved, no laws or whatever.

Third, we have synths. Apparently terminator type things that pass the turing test (or rather, the crew fails it). Flesh on top (augmented people don't get this) that peels away with damage.

It's an inconsistent bit of the game that doesn't make a lot of sense. Why are these things so different when the processes/materials to make them are basically identical? I'm sure you could make them different, but at the moment they're not. In the light of that, why add a fourth thing that's near-identical, instead of attempting to create a more original race? I know SS13 is very derivative, but it's not impossible to come up with fresh ideas (or just fresh genre-mashups) that end up being good. I'd be up for mashing the three together, not expanding the concept, but that's a separate concept more related to the idea we have too much bloat.

If almost nobody plays plasmaman or flyman, do we really need something between the two that isn't lizard?

[Luke Cox]

Alright, I have a more fleshed-out suggestion for how these should work. The frame is built in Robotics and finished off with wires, circuit boards, and Plasteel, just like mechs. Perhaps some protolathe implants can be added during the construction process, such as the toolset arm. Like borgs, they have a hatch that can be opened with a valid ID and a crowbar, where you can remove and replace the power cell or cut various wires. Once the body is finished, a brain is required, also like borgs. Mid-high tech levels in materials, engineering, and medium tech levels in bio and energy are required to build the frame.

Gameplay-wise, they are slightly worse than regular humans, albeit with a few perks. Being humanoid, they can interact with objects and wear gear just like humans. Their lack of flesh makes them spaceworthy, immune to radiation, chems, disease, and like borgs they sport light brute resistance and are immune to fire. However, EMPs completely drain their power cell and render them unconscious indefinitely without human intervention, and anything stronger than a light shock is nearly instantly fatal. Since they are almost entirely mechanical, they cannot be healed with chems and forego any benefits from virology or genetics.

Essentially, I see them as an evolution of borgs. Compared to borgs, they benefit from being able to interact directly with everything including gear and weapons. The main drawbacks are the fact that they aren't slaved to the AI, and that they cannot interact with station systems remotely like borgs can. People turned into an IPC retain all memories of their past life, so if you dump an antag's brain into one instead of a borg, you're gonna have a bad time.

@Cheimon: My understanding is that these are meant to replace Synths. I agree that Flymen are dumb but plasmamen are meant to be extremely challenging to play. This is content for robotics, and something that you have to work for.

[PlaugeWalker]

Alright, I have a more fleshed-out suggestion for how these should work. The frame is built in Robotics and finished off with wires, circuit boards, and Plasteel, just like mechs. Perhaps some protolathe implants can be added during the construction process, such as the toolset arm. Like borgs, they have a hatch that can be opened with a valid ID and a crowbar, where you can remove and replace the power cell or cut various wires. Once the body is finished, a brain is required, also like borgs. Mid-high tech levels in materials, engineering, and medium tech levels in bio and energy are required to build the frame.

Gameplay-wise, they are slightly worse than regular humans, albeit with a few perks. Being humanoid, they can interact with objects and wear gear just like humans. Their lack of flesh makes them spaceworthy, immune to radiation, chems, disease, and like borgs they sport light brute resistance and are immune to fire. However, EMPs completely drain their power cell and render them unconscious indefinitely without human intervention, and anything stronger than a light shock is nearly instantly fatal. Since they are almost entirely mechanical, they cannot be healed with chems and forego any benefits from virology or genetics.

Essentially, I see them as an evolution of borgs. Compared to borgs, they benefit from being able to interact directly with everything including gear and weapons. The main drawbacks are the fact that they aren't slaved to the AI, and that they cannot interact with station systems remotely like borgs can. People turned into an IPC retain all memories of their past life, so if you dump an antag's brain into one instead of a borg, you're gonna have a bad time.

@Cheimon: My understanding is that these are meant to replace Synths. I agree that Flymen are dumb but plasmamen are meant to be extremely challenging to play. This is content for robotics, and something that you have to work for.

Ya know what I'm fine with this, though what reasearch levels should they be accessible at luke?

[Luke Cox]

Like I said, medium-high-ish. 4 or 5 in engineering and energy, 3 in bio and materials perhaps?

[PKPenguin321]

i dont think we should really be building these guys, i was under the assumption that they would be a roundstart thing like plasmamen

[PlaugeWalker]

i dont think we should really be building these guys, i was under the assumption that they would be a roundstart thing like plasmamen

well it was the idea pkp, but it's been touch and go here I wanna humor luke a bit i like his concept but my main still stands on round start as a soft version of a way to ease into plasma men if the new players want to

[Luke Cox]

Five rounstart races would be pushing it pretty hard. People would be much more receptive to something they have to actually work towards. Robotics needs end-game content that's actually useful to the station, and these fit the bill perfectly.

[PlaugeWalker]

Five rounstart races would be pushing it pretty hard. People would be much more receptive to something they have to actually work towards. Robotics needs end-game content that's actually useful to the station, and these fit the bill perfectly.

Well, the pod person and the rest wouldn't be round start persay I mean when did we get two other round starts, I mean yeah if you count the free golems though it's more observer. and pod person is way out round start.

edit: I wouldn't count fly as really a round start race seeing as they're a sub mutation of humans that don't calibrate the teleport.

[Luke Cox]

We've already got humans, lizards, plasmamen, and flypeople. IPCs would make five. I'm all for more races, but with the exception of the aforementioned it should be something that you work towards. I love the concept of an android/cybernetic human race, and Robotics is the perfect avenue to introduce it.

[PKPenguin321]

Robotics needs end-game content that's actually useful to the station

>implying mechs arent useful
>implying infinite borgs via posibrains arent useful
>implying 200000 drones arent useful (actually they probably really arent)

[PlaugeWalker]

Robotics needs end-game content that's actually useful to the station

>implying mechs arent useful
>implying infinite borgs via posibrains arent useful
>implying 200000 drones arent useful (actually they probably really arent)

Phazon is literally robotics end game they can literally win a fucking war with durands.

[Screemonster]

clearly the endgame for robotics should be a clownborg

[PlaugeWalker]

clearly the endgame for robotics should be a clownborg

This ,phazon and clownborg are two of the hardest things to build.

Due to the fact finding bananium is rarer than goof not going into a panic attack about sillicons

and phazon really requires the mats and levels so.

[Luke Cox]

Robotics needs end-game content that's actually useful to the station

>implying mechs arent useful
>implying infinite borgs via posibrains arent useful
>implying 200000 drones arent useful (actually they probably really arent)

Mechs are excellent at what they do but they are incredibly niche, and I rarely see them used to full effect if ever. All the late game mechs are almost exclusively geared for direct combat. They're end-game, sure, but they're not terribly useful to the station as a whole. Mechs have a nice progression system as the game goes on, but the borg side of things gets an upgrade module or two and that's it. Science works on making borgs that can house a brain and augments, it's pretty for them to work on combining the two by finding a way to put brains in fully functional cybernetic bodies.

[TehSteveo]

New species: ICPs?

bays tv head robots or the sprites that use mil syntbhs

Well, I guess that joke was missed. RIP.

[PlaugeWalker]

New species: ICPs?

bays tv head robots or the sprites that use mil syntbhs

Well, I guess that joke was missed. RIP.

Shhh

[Luke Cox]

Just had another thought: instead of putting brains into the bodies, we could make it so that you take a dead guy, remove all his limbs, and attach the cybernetic components like you would augments, Robocop style. Either way, I really do think that this would be excellent constructive content for mid-late game Robotics.

[iamgoofball]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLIPPERY SLOPES

[PlaugeWalker]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLIPPERY SLOPES

OH GOD HE'S HAVING A SEIZURE!

[Luke Cox]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLIPPERY SLOPES

Making this a roundstart race is a terrible idea, I agree. That's why I'm proposing it as something for robotics to make.

[iamgoofball]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLIPPERY SLOPES

[iamgoofball]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLIPPERY SLOPES

Making this a roundstart race is a terrible idea, I agree. That's why I'm proposing it as something for robotics to make.

THAT'S WHAT WE SAID ABOUT ALL THE LAST ONES

[Luke Cox]

Because there are hordes of plasmamen roaming the station

[PKPenguin321]

Because there are hordes of plasmamen roaming the station

well i mean we do have at least one guy with a plasmaman fetish so

[TheColdTurtle]

How does that work anyways, the plasmaman fetish

[cocothegogo]

Make em an antag. On the surface they look like humans but once they start taking brute damage that synthetic skin starts peeling away revealing machinery. Their goal is to kidnap people and replace them with synth doppelgangers.

I totally didn't steal this idea from anything

this seems like a nice idea for a new gamemode tbh

[Gun Hog]

I tried something similar to this, but it was not well liked.

[Luke Cox]

By all means keep working on that, it has real potential. As I said before though, I feel like this would be much better received if robotics actually had to manufacture the bodies like mechs after R&D got the appropriate tech levels. They're kind of like the next generation of borgs tech-wise, although I wouldn't necessarily bill them as that since they're not treated like silicons at all and half the server population has an aneurysm if you do anything positive for silicons.

[Slignerd]

Please no, don't bring the #free_synths cancer here.