I’ll post this on the github as well, but I’ll put it here for sake of accessibility, and input. Please do note that this is mostly spit-balling. I’ll finish this up on thoughts regarding Lizardpeople, Squidpeople, Mothpeople, and Plasmamen later. Formatting on this post is kinda fucked too, I’ll fix it later. Oh, and bonus points: This post serves as a more comprehensive guide to the strengths, weaknesses, and features of each species than currently exists anywhere else.
It’s lovely that we have access to a large variety of species to choose from. I am of the opinion that each species should provide an extremely varied experience from base human, with appropriate strengths and weaknesses. Currently, there are some species that do not have appropriate strengths, or simply aren’t very different from humans. There should be a stated, intended goal for each species - a gimmick, if you will.
IPC:
The model for all other different species. Extremely different in terms of strengths and weaknesses from base humans. No new features, tweaks, or the like required. The gimmick/purpose of this species is obvious, robot-people.
Strengths:
- Food not required for nutrition instead can utilize power sources such as APC’s, which are far more readily available.
- Immunity to toxic reagents.
- Immunity to facehuggers.
- Immunity to harmful virsues.
- Detached limbs can be easily reattached
- Limbs are easily repaired with welding tools, cable coil
- Immunity to cold atmospheric conditions
- Can be revived from death by healing, no defib required
- Cannot be husked
- Immune to Radiation
- Immune to harmful genetic changes
- Access to the Machine language by default
- Stamina damage reduced by 20%
Weaknesses:
- If no power is available, IPC’s cannot regain nutrition.
- Immunity to healing reagents.
- Immunity to helpful viruses.
- Burn damage is twice as harmful
- Vulnerability to hot atmospheric conditions increased by 50%
- Damage from Shock increased by 50%
- Vulnerability to EMP’s
- Cannot be cloned
- Immune to helpful genetic changes
- Healing certain damage types (brain, toxins) requires a competent Chemist. These reagents must be directly injected with a syringe
- Do not regain health from being well-fed (?)
Apid:
Limited differences to humans. Compare the number of strengths and weaknesses as opposed to base humans, as compared to IPC’s. The purpose/gimmick here is less clear. There is no particular area where Apids shine, given their strengths. I see them occupying a “social” niche as a race, encouraging communication and cooperation.
Strengths:
- Ability to use wings to dash forward in areas with appropriate atmospherics
- Limited night-vision
- Able to tolerate less oxygenated environments
- By default, have the BEEFRIEND trait - making bee mobs generally not hostile
Weaknesses:
- Unable to wear neck slot items, as that slot is taken by wings.
- Hot and Cold atmospheric conditions do twice as much damage
- Burn-type damage is twice as harmful
- Meat and Raw food items are toxic to eat
- Flyswatters deal 30 Brute, instead of 1 Brute
Suggested Strengths:
- Ability on a (very?) long cooldown to generate 10u Honey reagent into a reagent container (or just vomit up, and have to scoop up in a beaker), at the cost of a moderate nutriment drain. This would help offset the larger vulnerability to various damage types. The nutriment gain from eating all the produced honey should be slightly more than the nutriment loss from using the ability. This would help the suggested goal of making them a “social” and/or nutriment based race.
- Ability to toggle a 2-5u Toxin reagent injection on a harm intent attack, with a small-medium cooldown. Deals X# of Brute damage to the Apid on use. Because, they’re bees, and bees have stingers.
- Ability on a medium cooldown to leave “pheromone clouds” that are invisible to other races, at the cost of a minor nutriment drain. Pheromones can be detected by the Sharp Nose genetic trait. When walked through, this cloud sends the Apid a single-word phrase, from a pre-determined wheel. (DANGER, FOOD, etc). Pheromone clouds dissipate after X amount of time. This would also help make them a more “social” race, without the overt strength of telepathy.
- As moths have the ability to eat clothes, give Apids the ability to consume Potted Plants for (a small amount of) nutriment. This helps balances the suggested weaknesses regarding food.
- Ability for Wings to work in any level of atmospheric environment, since they’re SPACE bees. See below for appropriate debuff.
Suggested Weaknesses:
- Tweak the Meat and Raw food item ingestion. Just make them unable to eat Meat or Raw at all
- As with the above, make them unable to eat Dairy food items, instead of just having them filed under Dislike
- Tweak the slot where Wings are present, make it Backpack instead. But - give players the option to toggle whether their particular character has wings or not. For bonus points, give even more selection ability - by being able to keep the original wings which occupy only the neck slot, but can only be used in appropriate atmospheric enviornments.
- Remove night-vision to help balance the above, as it doesn’t really fit in with the intended goal or flavor of the species.
- Starving-level nutrition deals a small toxins damage, at a minor-moderate pace. This would help balance nutriment based abilities. This is the big one, really, and probably the most controversial of the suggested features and tweaks.
- Increase metabolism slightly. This would help balance nutriment based abilities, and could also serve as a contextually minor benefit.
Ethereal:
Mostly gimmick based strengths and weaknesses. Lots of potential in this species that isn’t being explored. I see them as being the “Shock”/Electricity based race.
Strengths:
- Vulnerability to shock damage reduced by 50%
- Punch damage is Burn instead of Brute
- Do not use a traditional nutriment system, meaning a complete lack of reliance of traditional food items
- Generate a small amount of light
- Rapid “disco-mode” color shifting when emag is used on body (very useful) for thirty seconds
- Gain “Charge” from being shocked, which replaces traditional nutriment system. Note that this species is not immune to burn damage, they just take less of it
- “liquidelectricity” reagent replaces blood
Weaknesses:
- Unable to gain nutrition normally, from food
- Brute damage vulnerability increased by 25%
- Three levels of total Charge; Full, Normal, Low, and None - instead of Nutrition
- Brute damage vulnerability increased from 25% to 50% when on Low Charge
- Brute damage vulnerability increased from 25% to 75% when on None Charge
- A small amount of Toxins damage if above 10.5 health when on None Charge, at a rapid pace
- Being affected by an EMP stops the Ethereal from emitting light, for a short period
Suggested Strengths:
- Ability to directly transfer electrical power from themselves, to a target. The living battery species. Should be rather inefficient, in terms of power transfer.
- Invulnerability to Shock damage. The reason for this should be clear. Fairly controversial.
- Ability to drain from power sources directly, in a similar manned to IPC’s, instead of having to jury-rig being shocked (by damaging the station). Less efficient means of power transfer than the usual direct-shock.
- Small percent chance for a (very) brief shock-based stun if attacked by a melee weapon that can conduct electricity, or has a power cell. If the weapon does have a cell, it is recharged slightly if this effect triggers. This helps offset the suggested weakness of having more Brute vulnerability.
- (Very) small Brute and Burn regeneration when between Full and Almost Full Charge.
Suggested Weaknesses:
- Increase base Brute vulnerability to 50%, increasing to 75% on Low Charge, and double base Brute damage on None Charge. This reflects the suggested change to total Shock invulnerability, and being a species that is essentially well-formed electricity being physically disrupted.
- Allow death by Toxins in the case of an extended period of None Charge, instead of capping damage from this source.
- Deal Burn damage and a stun when affected by an EMP, instead of just not producing light for a while.
- Double Charge drain on tick, from 0.1 to 0.2. This reflects the excellent boon of shock immunity, and other abilities.
Felinid:
The most meme race to date. Almost completely identical to base humans. The suggested changes would reflect a more nimble, but less sturdy and less sociable (or more independent, depending on one’s perspective) race than humans.
Strengths:
- Has a tail, which the player can toggle to wagging or not
- Has cat ears
Weaknesses:
- Unable to select certain jobs (Command?)
- Various ill effects if the Coco reagent is present in body, ranging from an annoying message, to 20 Disgust, to 15 damage to a random organ.
Suggested Strengths:
- Light Step and Freerunning quirks by default. Cats are nimble.
- Low level Night-Vision eyes, identical to current Apid eyes functionally
- Ability to eat mice raw for some nutriment
Suggested Weaknesses:
- Internal counter based on number of food items eaten, when this counter reaches a certain point - chance for a brief stun every tick as the Felinid coughs up a “hairball”, which then reduces the counter to 0. When this effect is triggered, raise nausea by a significant amount. This internal counter is drastically increased when eating dead mice.
- Unable to, or are disgusted by, eating non-meat based foods. These foods increase the “hairball” counter drastically, if they are able to eat them. Cats are carnivorous.
- (Very?) small chance per tick to force 1-3u of Histamine into an adjacent non-Felinid not wearing internals. When this effect is triggered, medium-long cooldown. May result in minor lynchings.
- Total of only 85-90 max health. Helps offset the default quirks and low level night-vision. Cats are not as sturdy as humans. This is the big debuff that justifies the suggested strengths.
- Minor disgust if the Water reagent is applied by Touch or Spray
Flypeople:
Code for this species is currently minorly borked, and could use a look. For example, Flypeople are immune to all Changeling stings, since they just vomit up any and all reagents placed in their bodies by a method other than vomit consumption. Any viruses or other effects which cause internal reagent creation stun-lock flypeople, locking them into an infinite vomit loop. Suggested strengths and weaknesses are based on code that would be repaired. The vision for this species is a maint-dwelling sub-human, created as a direct result of genetic tampering.
Strengths:
- Can consume vomit directly off a tile
- Vomit upon consumption of any reagent (?)
- Do not dislike any food, including Raw
Weaknesses:
- Must consume vomit directly off a tile
- Flyswatters deal 30 Brute instead of 1 Brute
- Move 30% more slowly
- Vulnerability to Brute and Burn damage increased by 40%
Suggested Strengths:
- Ability to vomit as an action, on a minor-moderate cooldown. This would replace force-vomiting, and additionally serve to potentially help fix broken code.
- Minor Night-Vision. Flies have compound eyes.
- Minor Apid wings, which only function with appropriate atmospheric conditions. This helps offset the movement speed debuff.
- Invulnerability to acquiring diseases through eaten food
- Invulnerability to acquiring diseases through being dirty
Suggested Weaknesses:
- Unable to take certain positions (Command), as Felinids are
- Reduce movement hampering to 10-15%
- Reduce Brute and Burn vulnerability to 15-20%
- Increase Shock vulnerability by 10-15%. Mostly for the meme, Flies like to get shocked by running into electric lights. Helps offset the reduction in overall damage vulnerability.
- Max health set to 80-90. Flies aren’t as sturdy as normal humans.
