letting aside current quirks/flaws of genetics and/or lack of maintenance for it,
after reading the SOP on geneticist from the beestation wiki, I find it to be quite out of date, even to the point of mentioning the old SE (Structural Enzymes, I think) injectors, and I think many points require clarification
the current SOP seems to place the geneticist entirely under the CMO’s authority, while currently the game instructs them on roundstart that they are serving both under the CMO and the RD, receives paychecks from and has access to both departments
the guide, although being considered unofficial, seems to present more actual information and makes the distinction that CMO oversees cloning while RD oversees mutations
however, this separation of concerns is sometimes disputed invoking mapping arguments, such as RD not always being able to (at least easily) access the mutation lab despite having access rights to it due to mutation labs being placed deep into medbay on some maps (corg and kilo being most extreme examples of separating medbay and R&D), or that the CMO could solely fire the geneticist as they work in medbay area
I would like these points, along with the extent to which the CMO or RD might give orders relating the mutations part of genetics, and maybe other points the players consider relevant, to be addressed, so that we have a fresh vision of what a geneticist should or should not do during shifts
Geneticist SOP is fine as is, it’s there to stop the geneticist from completely fucking over every single antag in the game by handing out mutations left and right. CMO is in charge of anything relating to human experimentation, the whole science arguement falls flat when medical doctors can make you not need a heart, and virology exists.
Having genetics under the RD would give the average RD another thing to oversee that they don’t understand due to a lot of RD players not even knowing toxins.
Genetics isn’t very complicated, especially in its current state. Taking away genetics just hurts RD even more, since science already dries up in terms of things to do as the round progresses.
How about I fix this instead.
Exactly move genetics to only science. The science bit of genetics is the only bit anyone cares about at the moment, since people treat the cloning lab as being up for use by any doctor that can’t/doesn’t want to deal with standard revival.
If the server rules and staff say it’s under medical, and only medical, I’m updating the code to reflect this, not making the code even more of a mismatch from what SOP outlines.
Some old set of sentences shouldn’t make you further diminish science as a department. Science needs more in it, not less, while medbay has plenty to do because people don’t stop dying.
Or if you’re going to be messing with things like this actually evaluate the science situation as a whole and host a discussion on how to ammend the issues with science.
Don’t get me wrong, I do agree with you - Science is pretty lacking and could use more within it. I think making the geneticist exclusively science would be better in the long term, but I have no control over the long term for this.
The code change I’m making is as easy as flipping a switch later, and I’m already done with the change now. Getting rules and policy updates on the other hand is excruciatingly slow, so it makes more sense for the current situation to have the code reflect the rules/policies.
This is all that had to be changed to bring the code in line with SOP.
Reversing what got removed with what got kept will be just as easy if/when SOP gets updated.
Also geneticist had a nutty amount of potential access for a low level job that tends to attract shitters
The way geneticist is going to begin with it’s more likely to be outright removed before getting any form of meaningful rework, and to be honest it really is just a power game job that gets done in 5 minutes before the geneticist goes and breaks SOP.
Might as well remove their science radio key while you’re at it, and make them get paid only from the medical budget. nvm you’re already removed the payment.
That’s a problem with the rest of science too. (And virology) They’re built to improve the general power level of the station, but because of the way the threats scale, that isn’t really a thing. You speedrun enabling all the other departments to do their things properly and after that just fuck with gamer gear for the rest of the shift.
Viro gets the short end of the stick because even though we need more player free threats viruses of any note almost never spawn naturally.
Robotics is probably the best role out of the lot in terms of constantly having stuff to do, but can still get messed up by having no posi brain candidates, mining getting game ended or just nobody wanting mechs or implants. (Again because of the way threats scale)
The difference between science jobs and geneticist is that geneticist has immediate access to mutations that essentially allow them to valid hunt, remove the threat of a lot of hazards such as space. Nanites and Xenobio can’t get to that point in even a fraction of the time, as it stands genetics doesn’t add anything to improve an RP environment, not to mention it hasn’t been maintained in years.
Make sure to edit scientist, roboticist, and RD access because they have genetics access on skeleton crew.
I don’t think that’s quite fair. Things like dwarf and strengthened wings are absolutely roleplay friendly. There just needs to be more, also to bloat the gene list to make the good stuff harder to get.
Strengthened wings and dwarfism do not add anything, dwarfism literally makes you harder to click so that’s another annoying one, and strengthened wings doesn’t really do much to create interactions.
Geneticist as it is, stands still not interacting with anyone for 5-10 minutes until they unlock all the mutations, then proceed to have the entire crew have space adapt, which should be removed IMO, or heavily nerfed.
Believe me, I’ve been trying to slow down the rate at which departments reach endgame for a while.
thought the SOP would have been updated to reflect current state of game, not the other way around
well oof, suppose I dug my own grave, nerfing geneticists in the process
also being part of R&D is what brought me some roleplay opportunities such as telepathically communicating with that one xeno larva in safe xenobio pen
guess it’s just a medical role now, if it can be called that
as @Ice_Type said in case of virology, it’s often not the case that the geneticist has to do something about negative mutations, except administer mutadone probably to people caught out in a radiation storm
As I said above, moving them to science is definitely preferable and I’ll gladly flip the switch in the opposite direction if your suggested change happens.
My adjustment is intended as a bandage to patch a glaring oversight and disconnect between code and rules.
in retrospect I had been a tad bit dramatic regarding the changes
at least in terms of access, I believe it’s probably the right way to act about it, as geneticist shouldn’t be able to naturally drop in as a replacement of a roboticist or full-blown xenobiologist and the likes, but perhaps act as a complementary aid in treating some of the more unique research situations in R&D such as potentially telepathic communication with the xeno larva in secure containment or remotely manipulating a dangerous xenoartifact
specifically, I see that the basic science access is kept, at least in skeleton crew situation, which I salute