Genetic Lottery proposal and ideas gathering

Suggestions
1

Currently genetics as a department has a similar problem to virology: the job serves no vital function and essentially exists either for antags to utilize or crew to push the boundaries of what is considered powergaming. There’s always been a handful of really good and frequently sought mutations, and these tend to be the only ones that ever see the light of day.

With that in mind, I present the Genetic Lottery system, with the following goals:

  • Kill the perception that engaging with genetics is powergaming
  • Increase meaningful crew engagement by incentivizing (not forcing) live testing over monkey research
  • Maintain the power of individual mutations, instead limiting the freedom to cherry pick exact mutations and combinations of mutations

Basics:

All humans start with 8 “dormant” mutations, very similarly to how they do now.

  • One is their racial mutation that is always static
  • One or two are “Fundamental”
  • One or two are “Traits”
    • Total combination of Fundamental and Traits is always 3
  • Four are neutral/harmful

Racial mutations are exactly as they are now such as lizard fire breath. I don’t plan on making dramatic changes to these at this time.

Fundamental and Trait mutations do little or nothing by themselves, but would be the building blocks toward making potentially powerful combination mutations. Ideally this thread will help generate a couple of acronyms (think SPECIAL in fallout) to sort these out a bit.

Neutral mutations are pretty much just filler. They aren’t especially detrimental or beneficial in any major way, but also aren’t part of a combination toward making something especially powerful. This would include things such as Swedish and Dwarfism.

Negative mutations are actively detrimental in some way other than “mild annoyance”. These can sometimes also combine into more powerful negative traits, as is current behavior.

Combinations will behave very much like now. If you combine two or three other mutations, you get the benefit (or detriment) of an entirely new mutation, just as Hulk is the result of Strength and Radioactive now.

I’m additionally going to look at weighting player-owned genetics toward easier solving than monkey-owned genetics. Less likely to have double blind base-pairs or otherwise to encourage crew cooperation with direct research.

The big twist:

Remove genetic instability, instead limiting players to a single foreign mutation.

This means the combination mutations available to any given player is limited by their innate, dormant mutations plus one additional building block of the geneticist’s choosing. This is why the proposal is called “Genetic Lottery” - you’ll need to have at least one part of any given mutation already dormant within you to unlock its power.

Various implications of this proposal:

Genetics will no longer producers of gamer injectors, instead needing to tailor their care to the individual crew member that comes to see them. As research progresses (more mutations are discovered), geneticists can more readily tell exactly what potential any given crew member is capable of.

Space Adaptation, Telekinesis, Hulk, and such are no longer guaranteed to be available to the people who may want to use them in a given round, and the people that do discover they have them have done so because they chose to interact with genetics and get tested for what compatibilities they had, rather than because they went to genetics expecting a specific outcome.

Becuse of the above, more cool mutations can be added without fear of the effects of power creep. More options and possibilities no longer means genetics is directly more powerful as a whole. This is a big part of where the ideas gathering part of this thread comes in

Unstable Mutagen and radiation storms will both be a bit less catastrophic for players (and will potentially need to have their effects tweaked a bit, to be determined later in development)

And finally, the ideas gathering portion

I need suggestions for new types of mutations - not specific combinations or anything like that, just cool super-powers you’d like to see in some form or another as part of the pool. Be as descriptive as possible and throw caution to the wind when it comes to worrying about game balance.

And also because I’m terrible with them, I need some additional acronym suggestions for use with fundamental and trait mutations. To go into more detail on what I mean with this I’ll explain the fallout acronym I referenced, SPECIAL:

S - Strength
P - Perception
E - Endurance
C - Charisma
I - Intelligence
A - Agility
L - Luck

All of these describe some attribute of the person, but what would be really amazing is if we could get some acronyms that have a little more to do with the SS13 theme, such as the suggestion from @St0rmC4st3r, ROBUST. If you have any creative writing capability give this a go, here’s a list of terminology from our wiki to help

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Handsome - People get a mood boost when they see your face.
Blessed - Able to turn water into wine. Can walk on pool tiles.
Nerd - Junkfood slightly heals you, but you are permanently fat and get a mood debuff around a randomly selected species.

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Maybe this would be also a good chance to introduce a couple of mutations to other species to encourage Geneticits to receive more races and experiment with them rather than the usual ‘‘hey can i clone you moth/lizard person i’ll give you X back in a bit’’

I could dig up some suggestions i wrote a couple of months ago, posted them on discord iirc

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Go for it, variety is good.

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i think having this be a guaranteed part of chaplain genetics could be funny. Would take away from what Ruko is trying to do here but still, I think it’s funny. At least have chaplains have a higher chance of having it

6

I like this idea.

Gene feels like what old Toxins was were you would either use it as an antag or as like you said it can push the edge of power gaming.

And as someone who did their first job as gene its not the most exciting job, and if your any good you can be done in 10 minutes with every gene you need and just sit around the station doing nothing. Would be nice to see some more engaging gameplay as its a much more interesting area to work on.

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Do you have any unwillingness to copy RPG abilities (excluding boring numerical ones) from other games? If not, im sure we can get a long list of games with fun ones in them.

8

As long as they don’t cause copyright issues for Bee

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Please make Elvis attainable through things other than admin involvement, I want it so bad and never have gotten it.

Aside from that, what about a moonwawlk mutation where you face the opposite direction you move

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also known as pulling something that can get pushed out of your grip. minus the something and the pulling.

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I will bring several points, problems or suggestions, about what I feel can be developed in current genetics, but I believe those might be at most tangential to the subject of original post

in terms of utility towards the station objectives in general, I do have to agree that genetics, sadly, cannot play a role in stuff like bounties
unlike virology, which can send virus cultures, genetics has no inherent goal other than to find those often sought for mutations, such as space adaptation, telekinesis, etc

also unlike virology is that genetics don’t offer actual healing, but rather immunities or active abilities
I believe insulated to be a powerful example of immunity, aside from the usual suspect which is space adaptation, because it seems to nullify even a revenant’s shock, which seemed surprising to me

to put shortly, genetics doesn’t get objectives such as bounties or optional objectives such as scientist’s “make sure X is researched”, there’s no motivation other than the mutation itself, which leave annoying or harmful mutations, unless part of an interesting combination, with no purpose other than to be fodder
they get the same objective as usual medbay player where they have to ensure medbay is free of corpses, which seems to promote undertaking other responsibilities rather than those one would expect out of a geneticist

other than handing requested mutations, I don’t think players usually engage with the genetics lab
there are very situational scenarios that may lead to interaction with genetics lab, such as due to changeling transformation sting, or people asked to be returned to at least human species via the monkified mutation toggle, or other changes related to enzymes
or, of course, requesting either monkey, monkey cubes, or humanified monkeys

the other, more mutation related situational event that leads to people asking geneticist related help, is radiation storm, but even then, it’s rather accessible for any doctor to prescribe even one unit of mutadone in order to solve any such issue related to mutations

while I did get ideas about how to improve on value of getting negative mutations, these would have quite an impact on the gameplay of other players
negative mutations are clearly more easy to pinpoint when they are discovered, otherwise you’re looking at a bunch of numbers that aren’t self-explanatory
this way, maybe an event similar to spontaneous brain trauma could activate a random annoying/harmful mutation
but then we’re back to the same point of any mutation being easily treatable with just one unit of mutadone
depending on what’s the playerbase consensus about this, this could be considered either enough or rather too easy, but then slapping a reinforced modifier to such a mutation so that it can only be cured through use of genetics console seems rather drastic to me

another thing I have thought about is whether it wouldn’t make more sense to invert what qualifies an annoying/harmful mutation as activated
what I mean by this is that such a mutation would apply its effect as long as its genome is not solved, opposite to what it currently is; as if the mutation acted rather as a cure to the negative effect, rather than directly causing it
but this doesn’t necessarily make more sense than what currently is, just makes negative mutations more worthwhile to discover, so the idea can be easily dismissed

a final note that I have on this is that some annoying mutations are actually sought by some players
you’d expect something like telepathy to bring RP value, such as being able to communicate with a xeno back and forth
but some seek “speech disorder” type of mutations because they find the lisps caused by them appealing

last piece of regret I have in the current genetics system is how chromosomes are used
many times it feels like chromosomes you’d expect to be appliable aren’t actually compatible, such as energetic (reduce cooldown) on geladikinesis
but sometimes, some mutations report apparently unrelated chromosomes as compatible, which furthers the confusion (can’t bring a concrete example currently though)

and my biggest nitpick is with the synchronizer chromosome, which reduces, but doesn’t remove the negative effects of the few mutations which have mixed effects, namely Void Magnet and Fiery Sweat
Void Magnet has situational potential to be a powerful ability, and so is the burn resistance coming from Fiery Sweat, but not being able to nullify their side effects even with synchronizer chromosome seems underwhelming

although, considering the powerful benefits they would bring, I suppose it’s acceptable that the negative effects aren’t totally nullable, just like how enzymes are probably semi-random so that one cannot easily impersonate others without use of explicit enzyme saving

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R easonable
O bservant
B rawny
U nusual
S turdy
T ranscendant

Reasonable - tied to all forms of mind-oriented mutations (Telepathy, Telekinesis)
Observant - tied to sight, sound and smell mutations (Heat vision)
Brawny - tied to mutations that involve physical strength or athleticism (Hulk for instance)
Unusual - general catch-all for mutations that don’t fit into another category
Sturdy - tied to immunity based mutations like space adapt and insulated (Passives, always active)
Transcendant - tied to magical, paranormal or otherwise exceptional mutations (Generally abilities with a cooldown)

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One cool thing you could add is a way to falsify a gene. Say, for example you were a traitor and your target walks into genetics asking for space adapt. It would be sweet if you could buy a fake injector that gives the activation text and appearance of a gene, in this case space adapt, but in reality you swapped it for clumsy without them knowing.

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Technically you can do it with advancer injectors that lets you re-name them

Also i’ll post the mutations ideas when i wake up, found the old message, will probably edit it out a bit to keep it more up to date(it mentions suggestions for squid people… F)

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Ruko that’s obviously false.

1 Like
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Seems like a fun idea, I look forward to seeing the PR!
Here are some suggestions for genes:

R easonable
Clumsiness + Wacky = Joke enjoyer: the user has a much faster get-up time from being slipped and is able to walk(not run) over space lube.

O bservant
Coughing + antenna = sonar: every time you do *snap gives you 1 second of X-Ray vision. (The noise from the snap gives you away, so it becomes an offensive tool rather than a godlike avoidance tool.)

B rawny
Insulated + Strength = Handy: Slightly reduces the time to use tools like welder etc for construction.

U nusual
Telekinesis + Space Adaptation = Zero-G Locomotion: Allows the user to move themselves in zero-G (basically gives the user a jetpack) but whenever used it causes minor brain damage (very minor. maybe like half a point?), to limit its use. Don’t forget mannitol!

S turdy
Nervousness + Paranoia = Hider: Allows the user to run into closets, like the perk!

T ranscendant
Transcendent Olfaction + Gigantism = Werecreature: Allows you to shift form into a beast depedent on your race.
humans > Gorilla
Moths > tarantula
Lizards > no-skills xenomorph (not sure about this one.)
etc etc

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I wonder if roleplay inspiring mutations can be conceived, given this is often a point against genetics, namely powergaming

given that there are players who actually enjoy lisps given by “speech disorder” mutations, maybe consider a mutation based around this discussion?

could be annoying/harmful or whatever other ideas you get
perhaps either felinid specific or rather only naturally occuring in felinids

if I’m not wrong, strengthened wings is an example of mutation that can only be found in mothpeople but can benefit other species such as apids (but apparently not humans with transplanted wings?)
(although if I’m wrong please do correct me)

worth talking about, does the proposed change intend to keep the notion of species-specific mutations?

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