Powergaming with Traits - Wisakedjak robust guide on robust traits and synergies

If you want to be a robust maddafakka, traits are a crucial way to make this happen. This guide will help you look at traits from a gameplay point of view, what synergies work and how some races interact with traits.

Robustness Rating

Positive Traits

Trait Robust Rating Information
Alcohol Tolerance +2 Very Robust As simple as it sounds; you get drunk slower. A good trait if you want to roleplay as a drunk. Many beverages offer good bonuses, with the drawback being drunkenness.
Apathetic +1 Robust Reduces the effects of positive and negative moodlets. At high mood, your guy runs faster. A good trait for the price, but not very good unless you have trouble managing your mood.
Drunken Resilience +2 Very Robust Allows alcohol in your system to heal you over a longer period of time. It’s useful, but it’s nowhere near the potency of a healing chem, even donk pockets make better heals. Rely on alcohol to heal small amounts of damage, but not a significant amount.
Empath -1 Unrobust Although I like this trait, it offers little to no use in-game. It is also very expensive for the little it does, meaning the points generally go wasted.
Freerunning +3 Most Robust Allows you to climb tables easier, and faster escapes. Sure, somewhat situational, but can save your ass more often than not. A little bit costly.
Friendly ~0 Meh Your hugs give other people a positive moodlet, but that’s not very strong. Pretty cheap, but can come in handy.
Jolly +1 Robust A positive moodlet will pop up randomly, boosting your mood. Can come in handy and is pretty neat.
Light Step +3 Most Robust This trait is quite handy; your footsteps are silently and you do not leave a trail of footsteps. Very robust and well worth the money.
Musician ~0 Meh Just like friendly, but you can annoy people with your instruments and apply a positive moodlet in an area around you while you sing. It does allow you to start with an instrument, so that’s pretty neat as well.
NEET -1 Unrobust What this does is, it makes you immune to the negative effects of being dirty. You can remove those by showering/changing clothes, and it should not really occur unless you are a medic or someone messed with you. Generally, not very useful.
Night Vision +1 Robust In the odd eventuality that you lose your flashlight, the Night Vision trait allows you to see 1 tile in the darkness. Quite situational, but rather cheap and very useful, albeit situational.
Photographer -2 Very Unrobust You can take photos faster. You also start with a camera, but these are easy to come by, so not really worth spending a point.
Self-Aware +3 Most Robust Allows you to see brute and burn damage on yourself, without a health analyzer. Good for treating individual limbs with bruise packs.
Skittish +2 Very Robust Self explanatory, hold Ctrl+Shift+Click to hide in a locker, open or closed. Might not seem like a big deal, but concealing yourself into a locker takes place instantly. A bit situational, but if your robuster doesn’t know what he’s dealing with, this is a easy escape.
Spiritual ~0 Meh Depend on the admin, generally admins ignore prayers, or if in a specific mood, you may get turned into a pillar. Hmm…
Tagger +4 Unrobustable You get to use spraycans to paint twice as much. Take it as you will, but also allows you to start with a spray can. When aimed at the eyes, the spraycan can stun. Sure, it’s shorter than a flash, and this trait does not increase the number of stuns with a spraycan, but it sure makes you robust.
Voracious -1 Unrobust Allows you to eat faster, and being fat doesn’t give you a negative moodlet. Still slows you down though.

Negative Traits

Trait Robust Rating Information
Bad Back -3 Tider Chow Forbids you from wearing backpacks, satchels and duffels on your back. Does not offer good reward, and greatly limits your inventory. Not worth it at all
Blind -4 Good Luck Buddy Basically, you cannot see further than one tile away. Really bad trait, as there are not enough positive traits to compensate for this disability. Nothing can counteract the blindness.
Blood Deficiency -2 Very Unrobust This trait will simply drain your blood over time. Over long time, this can have a serious negative impact on the heath of your character.
Brain Tumor -4 Good Luck Buddy Like Blood Deficiency, but acts a lot faster. I think the tumor can be removed, but this is highly situational. If left untreated, and you don’t chug mannitol, you will die from this.
Deaf -3 Tider Chow You are unable to hear people or sounds. You will be unable to communicate with most of your coworkers, and the trait points it gives don’t make up for this. You can still find workarounds (ie paper, PDAs) but curing it is not an option. Makes you immune to Flashbangs tho…
Depression +1 Robust Same with jolly; you get a random negative moodlet. It’s random and quite potent, but you have to work around it, but it’s manageable.
Family Heirloom +4 Unrobustable This is a very good negative trait. The heirloom is often small, so you can hide it and, in some cases, quite useful. For instance, assistants get a backpack fitting toolbox, security officers get a berret, etcetera. On top of that, you get a free trait point too. On the lower hand, miners and janitors get large, clunky tools they have to carry for the rest of the shift.
Frail -2 Very Unrobust Frail makes your limbs break easier from damage. Might not be a big deal in one on one combat, but this will make explosions a lot more deadly.
Heavy Sleeper -3 Tider Chow This makes sleeping from chemicals a little bit longer. For a trait point, this will get you killed more often than not.
Hypersensitive +2 Very Robust Boosts negative AND positive moodlets. It’s quite cheap, but can be worked around. Your mood will drop fast, but recover just as fast.
Junkie -2 Very Unrobust Basically, you start with a pill of drugs, and an addiction. Except, starting with a morphine addiction can be really worrysome and will force you to take short naps at random intervals. You better have a steady supply of your chemicals too, cause your guy will crave the substance every other minute.
Light Drinker -1 Unrobust The opposite of Alcohol Tolerance, you get drunk faster. You’d think that ‘yeah I’ll just avoid alcohol and I’ll be fine’, but keep in mind that one Manly Dorf can pretty much kill you. For 1 trait point, this is a deadly weakness.
Nearsighted -2 Very Unrobust In short, when you don’t wear prescription glasses, you see everything blurry. This can be quite a bad thing early game, because it renders you unable to wear sunglasses or any HUD.
Nyctophobia +2 Very Robust When you enter a dark area, your character will be unable to run. Considering you always wear a flashlight, very good. And not such a bad drawback anyway.
Pacifist -3 Tider Chow Makes you unable to use harm intent, fire lethals, or even throw things that deal damage. Disablers, batons and injections of any kind still work. This disables your ability to robust people with 90% of all items on the station, and offers very little.
Paraplegic -4 Good Luck Buddy You start with a wheelchair and two limp legs. Cyborg legs will still be limp. Not very robust if you walk at a snail’s pace. Your wheelchair will inevitably get stolen by first assistant/clown that walks past you, so you will be basically crawling the entire shift. Nope.
Poor Aim +1 Robust Reduces your aim with guns and lasers. Eh. You can avoid guns or not rely on them so much. Unless you are sec or command, this one won’t bother you so much.
Prosopagnosia +1 Robust Everyone appears as Unknown, as if they are wearing a mask and no ID. Can be circumvented with a Sec HUD. Not very disabilitating, quite inconvenable.
Prosthetic Limb +1 Robust One random limb of yours will always be prosthetic. It will break easily, but some jobs allow you to replace it with something better. Heck, if CMO is in a good mood, you can get it replaced with a proper limb.
Pushover -2 Very Unrobust You need time to escape someone’s grasp. Means people can just take you and do whatever with you. Not so many people know about your weakness, but this is a weakness nevertheless.
Reality Dissociation Syndrome -2 Very Unrobust You constantly hallucinate. This includes but is not limited to death and hardcrit hallucinations. Very robust to be in the middle of a battle and drop dead because of this trait.
Smoker +4 Unrobustable You start with a pack of cigs and a nicotine addiction. While usually you would need to remove your mask to be able to smoke, a robust tider will grind cigars into patches and sustain himself on those.
Social Anxiety +1 Robust You’re half mute; basically you sometimes stutter and are too afraid to speak at all sometimes. Good if you don’t plan on doing much talking.
Unstable -3 Tider Chow This trait here, makes your mood never regenerate. Better keep a good eye on your hunger, never slip, yada yada. A chore to deal with and you cannot combo it with apathetic, so no getting outta this one. Perfect mood management is required, otherwise you will always be insane at the half of the shift, and walk at a snail pace till someone robusts you.

Meh Traits

Trait Robust Rating Information
Ageusia ~0 Meh Removes the useless messages that say how food/drinks/pills taste. Food can still make you sick tho.
Ananas Affinity +2 Very Robust Gain a positive moodlet whenever you eat ananas. And it’s free. Good to have. And pineapple is delicious.
Ananas Aversion -2 Very Unrobust Opposite of Ananas Affinity. What madman doesn’t like pineapple?
Deviant Tastes ~0 Meh Makes you like bad food (eg fast food and burnt stuff). Honestly, not sure if it turns lizards vegetarians or apids carnivore.
Foreigner -4 Good Luck Buddy Basically disables your ability to talk to most of the crew. You can still PDA them, and show them a paper. But not much use beyond roleplaying reasons.
Monochromacy -2 Very Unrobust Makes everything black and white. You cannot see colors. You cannot distinguish people. Good only on noir detectives.
Neat +1 Robust Gives a little moodlet when you are dirty. Good, considering dirty characters can contact diseases easily.
Vegetarian -4 Good Luck Buddy Will force your character to ask the cook for a vegetarian option every shift. The cook, in a fit of (justified) rage, will butcher you and put you on display on a meat rack, to ward off vegetarians that want to ask the same question. Not advised.

Incompatible Traits

Incompatible Traits are traits that simply cannot be taken together. If you have one, you cannot have the other. These are complete opposites of eachother, or one disables the other. These are some that discovered.

  • Neat+NEET
  • Light+Heavy Drinker
  • Hypersensitive+Apathic+Jolly+Depression+Unstable
  • Pineapple Affinity+Aversion

Synergies

Traits Details
Alcohol Tolerance+Drunken Resilience A good combo. Allows you to have a lot of alcohol in your system without the negative effects, while having passive regeneration.
Empath+Friendly/Musician Allows you to see people in low mood, and strangle them with love, if that’s your thing.
Smoker+Apathetic Greatly diminishes the effect Smoker has on your mood.
Paraplegic+Prosthetic This is quite of a gamble; if one of your 2 legs is prosthetic, it doesn’t really make a difference if they are also prosthetic. So it’s a 50/50 gamble you get a free point.
Pacifist+Poor Aim If you plan to avoid combat altogether, might as well take this combo.
Blind+Deaf The most robust. Makes you completely immune to flashbangs AND flashes. Laugh as the entire security force wastes their ammo on you in confusion, while you helplessly run against a wall.

Racial Synergies

If you bother playing anything but human, here are some things to consider.

Moff

  • Voracious allows you to quicky nom on coworker’s clothing items. This can allow you to remove clothing items (including hardsuits) from the game quick, or eat a lot of department jumpsuits and have your hunger always full.
  • Nearsighted can also be easy to deal with; sunglasses are pointless with you, so wearing prescription glasses all the time may be feasible.

Squid

  • Like moth, not many specific interactions, but monochromacy prevents you from seeing the many colors of your squid bretheren.
  • A very robust trait is Light Step. People may use glass shards to disable you. Light step reduces your downtime when walking on shards and salt.

Lighbulb

  • Voracious works different with Etherals, in the sense that it doesn’t. You cannot get fat, or eat. You don’t recharge faster, so this trait is absolutely useless.
  • Since you emit light all the time, you will never be in darkness, making Nyctophobia a must have trait.

Walking Toaster

  • IPCs have many weird interactions with traits. You can’t process reagents, so alcohol related traits offer nothing.
  • Voracious doesn’t make you charge faster, and you cannot get fat, either.
  • If you wanna do Smoker, that is a good idea, as can still inject nicotine into your core. You do not breathe and don’t need a mask, but can still smoke somehow. Beware, walking with a cigar in space will light it off and walking into a room full of plasma, well…
  • You cannot take drugs, but Junkie will still give you an addiction.
  • A good trait for free points is Blood Deficiency, as you have no blood and this trait does nothing.
  • Brain Tumor will still damage your brain, so if you plan to take it, inject mannitol into your torso.
  • Since IPCs are immune to oxy and tox damage, Self Aware makes health analyzers obsolete; you can use this trait to diagnose yourself on the go, and no need to worry about any other kinds of damage.
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:wink:

              20 gang 20 gang 20 gang

I still have PTSD from that shift. I was just a wee lil Research Director, directing my own movie that shift…

The floorcluwne eating people shift, or a different one?

I’m not sure. Could have been a different one.

Not a bad guide. Would love to see more trait options, both positive and negative. They really lend a variance of gameplay that helps make characters distinct - both mechanically, and from an RP perspective.

EDIT: On review, could use some TLC. There is some lacking in specifics, and some flat out misinformation. I’ll do a little code diving and post up later. More than anything, what I first assumed were the actual +/- values of the traits are actually just subjective ratings. Really need to include that. I like the racial interactions with quirks, though. Hadn’t considered those.

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There is some lacking in specifics, and some flat out misinformation.

Which ones, specifically?

Dont take blood deficency even if your a race that has no blood IE plasmaman. You think the free point is cool till your a nuke op who has no blood and will die 10 minutes after they arrive at the station.

You can beg admemes to disable your traits… Or just take a blood bag; I think there are on the ship.

Worse traits to have for nukies. Family Heirloom is bugged and overwrites your pinpointer with a d20.

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Off the top of my head? NEET gives you 20 extra credits per payday. I’ve only given quirks a glance, but I’m sure there’s more.

Necro time
As an oozeling player, I’d like to share some of my interactions with traits.

Light drinker - drinking a lot of alcohol can’t poison you to death (I’m pretty sure), you’ll heal toxin damage instead. Alcohol can still kill your liver though, and liver failure still poisons oozelings to death last time I experienced it.

Prosthetic limb - acquire sharp object (e.g. circular saw, knife), whack your prosthetic with it (it can’t kill you because afaik killing a limb does 50 damage max), prosthetic will fall off, grow new, better organic limb.

Voracious - not much to say but it means I can drink liquids and eat food (a must for oozeling survival) quicker. Also I can easily binge on junk food so no need to find a grinder if there is no chef and you don’t want to keep visiting a vendor.

There was supposed to be a PR that made prosthetics impossible for Oozelings. I wonder what happened to it.

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Make prosthetic limb trait impossible for oozelings?

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“Dude where’s the disk?”
rolls a 1 on the 1d20
“up the captain’s ass, surgically. Get the esword we have to hack him open with something.”

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