So the viro/xenobio necro seed combo. I want ooh shiny necropolis loot for science reasons. But if I do on MRP, I get beaned for powergaming, and rounds on LRP are short enough that a chance to even get one half of the combo done is next to zero. I have been thinking, and produced a list of five reasons why this should not be considered powergaming, or at least not be bannable
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It makes sense to do IC.
SS13 exists as a research station, first and foremost, at least in the lore anyway. Finding a way to mass produce rare, valuable ancient artefacts certainly constitues research in my book, ethical concerns are a non-entity given the companies track record, and it isn’t like you can just ask the miners to stress test and probably destroy their otherwise one of a kind hardsuit. -
It requires far more effort than most other forms of powergaming
This one is mostly here to pad the list, but it’s still worth considering. It has taken up to two hours to execute this with a competent virologist and xenobiologist, and with proper optimisation could probably be cut down to an hour thirty. Compare and contrast, fusion. Both are powerful techniques, that I personally consider quite high end for their job. An optimised fusion run takes an hour at worst if I have any sense of time, and comes with the rewards of stun immunity (stimulum) massive wealth (just sell the can) and being able to instakill 90% of the station via adding the heat to distro somehow. Fusion is not considered powergaming, last time I checked, and is probably more powerful than haha boat go brrrr -
Xenobio can, or will be able to, do better.
Looking at the wiki entries for planned slime extracts, or just some that already exist, you’ll find a lot of crossbreeds not entirely dissimilar to necro chest loot, which is what we’re farming here. The loot you won’t find is generally considered so niche it doesn’t have a use station-side
Soulstone? Check
Stando? Check
Zero slowdown armored hardsuit? Check
Boat? Try lavaproofing potion mate.
And getting to high end xenobio slimes if you know what to rush takes an hour at worst. -
Most of it isn’t even validhunting supplies
Sure, you can bonk lings with a soulstone shard, hell water can be hillarious, and meat hook is terrifying, but it’s mostly utility, like hardsuits and flight potion, which we can also make anyway. Xenobio can’t even use half the stuff, like KA modkits and the diamond pick. One not uncommon loot drop is the very symptom that got us here in the first place. -
It gives people something to do with Necro Seed.
This is another list padder, but the fact is necro seed sucks to get. The prompt for this post was an antag RD and his borgo army getting cucked by some random viro chainstunning them with necro seed tendrils while the crew lynched them. While it was hillarious, there’s a serious argument for it being self antag in the case of the opposite happening. If that goes through, necro seed will never see use again, due to it being kind of useless for antags, as well as being stupidly obvious, and being self antag in all its forms due to stealth 8 making people unrevivable. Getting a level nine based on recent changes should be an exciting event, not an “oh, it’s necro seed, into the abyss with it!” Making this not powergaming would make necro seed an exciting discovery without being a massive annoyance to literally the entire station and crew.
In conclusion, this list is simply to provoke discussion, which will hopefully result in my agenda being realised and me getting to play with sekrit miner toys more often.
TL;DR : The part of powergaming this supposedly transgresses
“Do not collect dangerous items, weapons, or tools “just in case”.”
is in my eyes rendered entirely mute, as refering to point one there is a valid IC reason to obtain them, being research, as a scientist, whos job it is to do research.
Also necro seed kinda sucks right now and this would change it.