ITT we brainstorm uses for BZ

[bandit]

This is not a "get rid of it" thread, this is an "improve not remove" thread. BZ is currently used to subdue slimes. What else would it be used for on a space station? Tell me and I will do my best to code it.

Reference Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate

Facepunch is the source of the code but the server doesn't exist anymore; I forget whether Goon has something similar.

[oranges]

We need to add uses for plasma first

A pipe connection for plasma should be required for the engine (the item that sends bolts to start the engines and maintain them)

Same for the radiation collectors.

[Lumbermancer]

It could bind with plasma in the air forming nanofrost.

Pros: deals with plasma removing risk of fire.
Cons: Things get cold as fuck.

[Anonmare]

BZ could act as an accelerant for plasma, helping it burn better than in a regular air or pure O2 environment, though it isn't flammable by itself. So potentially useful for turbine autism and making smaller, more compact bombs.

[Scrub109]

"with regression to primitive, involuntary behaviors such as floccillation and disrobing." ERP Alarm aside how powerful would it be if it moved random clothing to your hand, you can spam equip if you know BZ is around but having an option to disarm clothing could be interesting. It might be too powerful if you get unlucky and grab the jumpsuit, dropping all your shit. Doesn't affect people with hardsuits unless they forgot internals or people with both hands full. And it could make a counter to the living clothing antag that someone was working on. Or another idea was that if you use a universal recorder while you hallucinate you could sell the tape for points or deconstruct it for levels.

[ShadowDimentio]

BZ unlocks ERP verbs

Suddenly all the powergamers rush to get an air tank of BZ gas to huff while they validhunt because the stuns on the ERP verbs last for millenia

[Saegrimr]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

[ShadowDimentio]

I want cryosaline to function like freon.

[TechnoAlchemist]

Not once did I see someone use it on slimes, since xenobiologists don't need to subdue them, and regular crew will just extinguish slimes. Like what oranges said - we should add more abilities to plasma and our existing gasses.

[Cik]

plasma input required for most medical machines when btw

nerf sleepers and make engineering useful wowee

[bandit]

I am still taking suggestions.

The key thing to keep in mind is that SS13, not too long ago, was a game about on-station dangers, not lavaland memes and other things that do not involve a death trap disguised as a space station. A space station with an armory, syndicate opponents, a nuke -- it makes perfect sense for them to keep chemical weapons around. More sense than a leaderboard completely separate from social contact about KOing "Bubblegum" or what the fuck ever is being memed now.

[TechnoAlchemist]

>>chemical weapons that are countered by just wearing internals
>>chemical weapons that are in the atmospherics department
>>complaining about lavaland
>>calling the silly little hallucination gas which is arguably less deadly then CO2, a chemical weapon.

very good

[Luke Cox]

Replace BZ with Freon. Freon has much more potential for practical applications.

>>chemical weapons that are countered by just wearing internals
>>chemical weapons that are in the atmospherics department
>>complaining about lavaland
>>calling the silly little hallucination gas which is arguably less deadly then CO2, a chemical weapon.

very good

This is why I loved Freon. That shit hurt you on contact, no internals box is going to save you.

[Alipheese]

replace anethestic and use bz as it with its side effects

[Cheimon]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

Replace all the bits of the station that have cooled oxygen with freon. Cryo tubes? Powered by freon. Server rooms? Cooled by freon. Tcomms? Freon surrounded.

[Wyzack]

Yes, this. It is an industrial coolant after all, let us use it to cool things

[Cik]

in high doses make it a truth serum

"you feel an irresistible urge to tell the truth!"

nothing can cause more chaos than honest spacemen.

[TheColdTurtle]

But no one will listen to that tho

[Luke Cox]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

Replace all the bits of the station that have cooled oxygen with freon. Cryo tubes? Powered by freon. Server rooms? Cooled by freon. Tcomms? Freon surrounded.

Fuck yes. Only reason Freon got removed in the first place is because admins couldn't be assed to do their jobs and ban non-antags who abused it.

[Aloraydrel]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

Replace all the bits of the station that have cooled oxygen with freon. Cryo tubes? Powered by freon. Server rooms? Cooled by freon. Tcomms? Freon surrounded.

Fuck yes. Only reason Freon got removed in the first place is because admins couldn't be assed to do their jobs and ban non-antags who abused it.

Gotta pay for bans now kiddo

[onleavedontatme]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

Replace all the bits of the station that have cooled oxygen with freon. Cryo tubes? Powered by freon. Server rooms? Cooled by freon. Tcomms? Freon surrounded.

Fuck yes. Only reason Freon got removed in the first place is because admins couldn't be assed to do their jobs and ban non-antags who abused it.

>teleported people in circles because of slipping + atmos code
>extremely laggy
>crashed the servers repeatedly
>couldn't even find it on air alarms or scrub it properly
>still kills through hardsuits
>still can't be properly removed from the mix tank without remodeling atmos
>more reports of it crashing the server again last night

Damn lazy admins if only they'd banned more people Freon woulda worked fine codewise.

I am still taking suggestions.

The key thing to keep in mind is that SS13, not too long ago, was a game about on-station dangers

And it still largely is! But PVE adventures against aliens and horrors have been a side part of SS13 longer than you've been playing it, and a sci-fi staple longer than either of us have been alive.

Whining about lavaland doesn't actually make BZ any more interesting, nor does it excuse it having basically zero mechanical or IC reason to be thrown into atmos storage. Making it start on station doesn't make it magically good or worthwhile.

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

I think Freon is a nightmare right now, but I genuinely hope it works out if for no other reason than that there's been a lot of love put into the visuals.

[onleavedontatme]

I'd rather find uses for Freon, which was another shitty idea of a memegas but had potential.

Replace all the bits of the station that have cooled oxygen with freon. Cryo tubes? Powered by freon. Server rooms? Cooled by freon. Tcomms? Freon surrounded.

This is a great idea.

[Luke Cox]

@Kor: I say that because I don't think I saw a single person get banned for intentionally releasing it as a non-antag. As for the bugs, Freon just needs to be simplified honestly. Goof got a little carried away. Just make it a gas that is really fucking cold and does damage on contact.

[Armhulen]

Can the freezer have frozen floors and a temp control?

[Cheimon]

There are other things that fit thematically with freon but probably aren't as sensible to add. Cooling oxygen is a classic part of bomb making, but doesn't involve freon. Gas freezers should in theory use some sort of refridgerant chemical ('freon' commonly refers to a particular refrigerant in real life), but at the moment are mechanical. Storage fridges at the moment don't chill at all, but in theory might, and could use small quantities of freon to do so. Nanofrost, used by atmos techs, rapidly cools an area and might conceivably be linked to freon. The temperature gun might conceivably have some sort of built-in freon synthesizer. How exactly do ice peppers/frost oil work? Do they in fact synthesise a solid/liquid form of the gas, and could this be a primary way of manufacturing it in tiny quantities, like there's solid plasma? Also, in real life 'freon' is a trademark for various sorts of CFCs: key chemicals in the production of various aerosols (like spray paint cans) and the destroyers of part of the ozone layer (I have no idea how you'd amp that up to be appropriate for this game).

All of these would be pretty unnecessary additions, but they definitely show there's potential for this gas-thing to be something that's weirdly present in a wide variety of spots. To tie them together thematically, like plasma has for other parts of the game.

As far as BZ goes, you are essentially looking at a gas that only exists to be a weapon. The obvious implementation of it is in various weapons: gas grenades, special bullets, some kind of truth serum, all that...I don't think it has that much potential because a lot of its niches are already filled with things like mindbreaker or n2o.

[Luke Cox]

Freon should be able to cool much more rapidly and better than the electric freezers. Servers should emit tons of heat and break if the air gets too hot (more ways to sabotage, which is a plus in my book).

[iamgoofball]

This is a BZ thread

Re: new crashing, no one could give me details

[Luke Cox]

This is a BZ thread

Re: new crashing, no one could give me details

We decided quickly that BZ is shit. This is now a Freon thread. Fix Freon instead.

[iamgoofball]

"BZ has no uses so therefore it's just a grief gas, and so its shit"
"Hey guys suggest BZ uses I'll add them"
"BZ IS SHIT REMOVE"

[Isane]

Shouldn't the process being making sure stuff that is added has a use, instead of adding stuff then trying to make uses for it?

[D&B]

Make it make pests not grow on plants surrounded by it.

[XDTM]

Make it increase the mutation chance of slimes that split near BZ.

[Slignerd]

BZ doesn't need uses, because once a gas is out in the air, there's no way to keep it from spreading - making any practical use of it impossible.

Even plasma has no uses, other than making bombs. It's also a grief gas, but it's around because you can actually use it as antag, and it's well-established enough as a grief gas that non-antags know not to touch. Unlike Freon or BZ, which aren't very useful for antags, but are released for the memes by non-antags.

There is no solution for BZ, and honestly, if we don't get a rework of the atmospheric system that changes gas mechanics to be something more that "I use those two tanks to make bombs" or "lel open the canister/flood distro with teh gas" with no ways of controlling it, where it either gets everywhere or gets scrubbed out and nothing in-between, there will never be any practical use for any atmospheric gas to begin with.

We are better off just removing that dumb hallucination meme.

[Cheimon]

once a gas is out in the air, there's no way to keep it from spreading - making any practical use of it impossible.

Even plasma has no uses, other than making bombs. It's also a grief gas, but it's around because you can actually use it as antag, and it's well-established enough as a grief gas that non-antags know not to touch.

> no uses except bombs

Radiation collectors, turbine engine, essential breathing for plasmamen, flamethrowers, and of course spreading fire in the hallways (for area denial or killing, both of which can be done by non-antagonists if it calls for it). It's also an air-based poison, more detectable but faster at killing than co2 or n2o.

Plasma can also be turned into a liquid, at which point it's essential for use in chemistry (to make cryo, the most-used medicine), virology, and xenobiology. If you spill it from a beaker, it goes into a gas.

It's also a relevant part of mining and can be exported for cash.

Every single department on the station has a non-antag use for plasma except for security. It's much more than a grief gas, which is why it exists in game.

[Saegrimr]

TURBIN BEST ENGIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Also don't be silly, literally nobody floods CO2 because of how fast it filters and how slow it works.

[Wyzack]

I got a use for BZ












gettin removed LMAO

[Slignerd]

Plasma can also be turned into a liquid, at which point it's essential for use in chemistry (to make cryo, the most-used medicine), virology, and xenobiology. If you spill it from a beaker, it goes into a gas.

It's also a relevant part of mining and can be exported for cash.

Irrelevant. Liquid and solid states of plasma don't really matter while we're talking about atmospheric gases.

Radiation collectors, turbine engine, essential breathing for plasmamen, flamethrowers, and of course spreading fire in the hallways (for area denial or killing, both of which can be done by non-antagonists if it calls for it). It's also an air-based poison, more detectable but faster at killing than co2 or n2o.

Fine enough. My point is mostly that most of these uses involve inserting tanks of plasma instead of the actual gas itself. Once you insert a tank of plasma into a radiation collector, you don't have to deal with the gas contained in it ever again. Once you insert it into a flamethrower or use it for internals as a plasmaman, you just gotta refill it once in a while.

Let me address a different thing - when's the last time you saw a canister being opened that didn't involve fucking stuff up? Once a canister is open, or pumped into distro, atmos is fucked until someone takes extra effort to unfuck it. That's the problem with the atmospheric system - it is extremely tricky to handle it efficiently. Once it's in the air, you can barely contain it, and it will cause issues as long as you don't srub it out entirely.

That's why you rarely see plasma rooms. Because even if you set them up perfectly, it'll probably get fucked as soon as someone opens an airlock. Because ironically, this atmospheric simulator actually lacks proper airlocks, let alone the ability to set one for specific gases to be filtered out. Gases just really aren't remotely controllable - it's not like chemistry where you can control each and every unit.

That's why even if BZ does get any useful propertiers, it will still remain hazardous. There is no need to add any use to BZ, because as long as it exists, it will be used as a grief tool by people who consider it funny.

[PKPenguin321]

buff BZ to make your vision hazy and deal stamina damage in addition to hallucinations, then put some canisters of it on the nuke op base

[TechnoAlchemist]

everyone having internals makes toxins with only inhalation drawbacks pretty useless.

[Cheimon]

Off-topic and unnecessary arguing:

Spoiler:

Irrelevant. Liquid and solid states of plasma don't really matter while we're talking about atmospheric gases.

Ah, I see. I thought we were talking about BZ as a feature, where conceivably it could have another more useful state of matter that the gas was a necessary prerequisite to (thus explaining the need for deadly tanks of the stuff to sit around).

this atmospheric simulator actually lacks proper airlocks, let alone the ability to set one for specific gases to be filtered out. Gases just really aren't remotely controllable - it's not like chemistry where you can control each and every unit.

I agree that proper airlocks might be a fine feature.

Fine enough. My point is mostly that most of these uses involve inserting tanks of plasma instead of the actual gas itself. Once you insert a tank of plasma into a radiation collector, you don't have to deal with the gas contained in it ever again. Once you insert it into a flamethrower or use it for internals as a plasmaman, you just gotta refill it once in a while.

Let me address a different thing - when's the last time you saw a canister being opened that didn't involve fucking stuff up?

Flamethrowers are actually kind of neat in that they produce a spurt of the gas that is then lit, but anyway:

The key to plasma being useful is not that it's useful as a released gas. That is intentionally hazardous. The point is that plasma is useful anyway (as a fuel, as a catalyst, etc) and there are lots of opportunities for it to be *accidentally* released. Plasma therefore fits the game's theme well, where apparently sensible technologies are presented in a needlessly dangerous way. It is important that it is a gas because it makes an otherwise great material actually hazardous. Apart from in toxins, I most commonly see a canister being opened in engineering, where it's unclear whether the engineer deliberately sabotaged things or just accidentally poisoned the room.

This is also why Freon has a lot of potential, because it's a gas which could have legitimate uses (cooling, maybe propellant) that are dangerous and could be sabotaged.

It's why BZ (back on topic!) is harder to think of uses for. It is not a legitimate thing: it's purposefully designed as a weapon only, and that means it's got no obvious role on the station. If you want it to make sense, you need to give it legitimate uses that are easily sabotaged. Here are some ideas (obviously if you added all of them it'd be over the top):

* BZ makes humans say things and gibber about their genetic condition. This makes it standard kit in genetics, where BZ-based internals allow geneticists to test blocks more easily.

* BZ having a robotics application: some sort of buff for cyborgs like faster recharging that makes stationing it wrenched up to their chargers as a necessity. What's good for the machine is bad for the man, perhaps. In the future, mech-hydraulics require super-pressurised gas, but it turns out the necessary gas is a powerful hallucinogenic. That makes it necessary to have wrenched up by the mech bay.

* BZ's hallucination is just an odd side-effect of its main vocation: gravity generation. It turns out this is *the* gas for making stations not-shit, so it's wrenched into the gravgen room/pumped in on a minute-by-minute basis with a careful decontamination airlock.

* BZ turns out to be very fun in minute doses. It's hooked up to special hookahs that don't fuck up the player screen but instead give them a temporary boost or something, like being less hungry and more stun-resistant (nicotine already does this). Of course, they're easily fucked up, releasing far too much, and require restocking from time to time.

* BZ has some kind of lavaland application: it turns out shooting big gas-loads of the stuff at otherworldly creatures messes them up, too, and that's a good thing. A weapon, but a useful one. I don't mine, but you can see the concept, it's a flamethrower equivalent.

[Dagdammit]

-Small doses of BZ could mitigate both the performance reduction of injuries and the awareness thereof, a la miner's salve.

-Wiki specifically says BZ has a high safety margin, making it "incapacitating rather than a toxic chemical warfare agent". Given the peripheral nervous system effects, maybe BZ dosage renders people more susceptible to *nonlethal* subdual tactics- increasing recovery times for physical stuns, knockdown, possibly lowers threshold for falling unconscious.


And then I started thinking bigger....

-One angle I really like is the idea that BZ is this subtle gas which makes you *suggestible*, primarily to auditory stimuli. For starters, say that people with BZ dosage freeze up for about a second (longer for higher doses?) anytime they hear a Compli-O-Nator message or Beepsky alert. NT's actually looking into BZ's effectiveness as a subtle way of making the crew more compliant; those atmos BZ canisters could instead be stored in the Engineering security office, to be deployed when the Captain or HoS sees fit.

Spoiler:

--If you want to get more ambitious, you could build all kinds of suggestibility effects around hearing key phrases, and even have BZ hallucinations only occur in response to suggestions- traitor feeds BZ gas into system, then starts shouting about, say, "Cult" on telecomms and grins as other crew members soon also report sightings. The odds of an effect triggering increase based on BZ dosage and LOUDNESS (both the font-size "volume" and whether the phrase was in all caps or accompanied by any exclamation points).
---Phrases like "stop", "freeze" and "hold" can cause the same momentary hesitation effect that NT has primed their Beepskies and comply-o-nators to produce.
---Antag references like "traitor", "syndie", "ling", "xenos", etc. can make you hallucinate fake instances of those enemies. Similar for "monkeys", "clowns", "deathsquad", "greytide", "space carp" and maybe "shitcurity". Phrases like "Malf AI" or "AI Rogue" can cause APCs to appear blue...
---"Murder", "Kill", "Lynch" and "Blood" could have a chance to make you see bloodstains, see blood on people's hands, and even switch your intent to aggressive. (by same token, phrases with "Help" could switch your intent to helpful.)
---"Drop" or "Put" followed by "down" could make you drop what you're holding.

-One more thing, running with the "chemical weapon" angle. Wiki entry notes that BZ settles on things and lingers, with a half-life of 3 *weeks* in water and soil. Say that high levels of the BZ gas in a tile (same "overkill" point at which you get visible particles?) could "taint" beakers, food, sinks, hydroponic trays, patches & pills, etc. so that they contain trace amounts of reagent form of BZ.

Spoiler:

-might be simpler to say that food, beakers and other handheld objects get one-off BZ reagent doses while objects like sinks and trays get a binary "tainted" state.
--Tables and floors get "tainted" by gas too, they'll add reagent BZ to food, patches & pills that get set on them (unless said food was on a plate.)
--Oh, and gloves! If you're standing in a tile with visible BZ levels, don gloves that were in a tainted tile, or wash gloves in a tainted sink then those gloves become tainted until they're washed in a clean sink. Wearing tainted gloves gives you a dose of BZ anytime you consume pills or food (from your hands), as well as any time you use your hands to feed something to someone else. To be extra mean (possibly to the coder), say that bare hands can get tainted too.
--Detecting lingering effects of BZ gas: BZ reagent shows up to chem scans like anything else. "Tainted" tables, sinks, floors, etc. can be tested (fill clean beaker from sink and scan, put clean orange on table and scan). Forensic scanner detects tainted things and maybe even sees whether glove fibres have trace BZ amounts.
--Countering effects of "lingering" version of BZ: Wiki entry says it has a straight-up antidote, which in SS13 could be synaptizine- maybe having it in system just automatically suppresses BZ symptoms? Synaptizine could also cleanse BZ-tainted objects, just mix a little of it into water or the janitor's space cleaner.

WOW this got long. Hope any/all of it's useful.

[PKPenguin321]

Do my nuke ops idea but also make it permeate regular breath masks and require an actual gas mask to be filtered

[Armhulen]

Do my nuke ops idea but also make it permeate regular breath masks and require an actual gas mask to be filtered

I actually really like your idea of bioterrorism

[420goslingboy69]

We need to add uses for plasma first

A pipe connection for plasma should be required for the engine (the item that sends bolts to start the engines and maintain them)

Same for the radiation collectors.

Plasma should be changed lorewise to be a reactant. It being flammable is it's reaction to oxygen. Plasma seems to react to things based on the other things compounds, rather than the plasma itself (slimes and shit.) You could just extend it's reactivity to make it react to other gasses and the such besides just oxygen and it's flammability. Make plasma an actual resource, rather than just another gas.