Genetic Design Document

[Aisu9]

This is the design doc i suggest regarding Genetic, i am open to criticism and would also love to know more about any design flaws i may not know Wizden have with SS13's Genetics and will do my best to address them.

TLDR:

_Addressing the lack of interaction with the crew, reducing any progress possible using monkeys/kobolds, removal of Scrambling pushing Geneticist to seek more crews rather than keeping the same player for 10+ minutes.

_Addressing selfish jobtagging(and reinforcing crew interaction) by categorising mutations by Department(each time someone take a job, they will roll mutations that are not specifically oriented for their own department line of work, again rewarding player involvement with the system).

_Addressing powercreep by removing the stability system, and putting in it place a hard limit of mutation activated/mutated(limit linked) including drawbacks with every mutation(no more balancing between beneficial and detrimental mutations or just picking the 2-3 good mutation you could have taken with the Stability system)

_Tying Genetics to Science progress loop, each Mutation researched will grant research points, printing activator and mutator will cost research point(they are upgrades after all and shouldn't come free), and possible link with the Xenobiology design document(biopsie punche) why not making some mutant give specific/unique mutations as well?

[Djungelskog2]

Ive had a conversation with myr about what specifically people don't like about 13's genetics outside of easy-to-follow ideas for more basic problems. Main thing being how they primarily want the gameplay of pressing scramble repeatedly changed, which is where I expect most differences to come from, both social interaction and lack of depth in itself.

Otherwise Devs are fine with 13's core idea of genetics I find alot of your solutions don't exactly solve issues and occasionally even make them worse (the whole department genetics thing) and the stability system works fine. This isn't my design doc and if you want to do something original go for it, but many people like the core loop of 13 genetics

A few of the more minor issues that get often addressed that you might want to add if you ever end up writing something closer to original genetics and my personal solutions

Balance -make instability more strict and punishing -hulk as a lone mutation instantly puts you into a lethal amount of instability

Powergaming -genetics (the place) has a mini fridge for keeping DNA implanters while RND has a larger one to store all your gene implanters (also increasing foot traffick + social Interaction) -gene implanters if not held in a fridge for too long the genes inside will increase cell instability of simply decay to a dud

Mancaving (social interaction) -partially addressed above -main fridge is in RND so people can easily request genes and such if needed -the monkeys die faster from radiation (need to go get monkeys more often)

The actual depth -idk make them play NT block game to mutate the monkey instead of setting up the machine and pressing the same button every time or something (this is a joke, this parts pretty much up to you )

I feel like I missed a few things from what I've gotten from taking with others but here's my take on genetics for 14

[Djungelskog2]

I'll be honest I generally don't like this doc because it feels as if it strays in some odd directions and takes some things away from the original that people largely enjoy, but I hope you find success in the future

[Aisu9]

make instability more strict and punishing

I think pairing mutations(up side with one down side) with the hard limit(2 or 3 mutations at most) but some people might enjoy playing with Stability, the lack of drawback when only picking mutation reducing stability is something that should be present if stability as a system stay(with the presence of negative mutations to serve as the solution of keeping stability high)

-gene implanters if not held in a fridge for too long the genes inside will increase cell instability of simply decay to a dud

so an alternative to food rot but for mutators, and a dynamic one at that

-main fridge is in RND so people can easily request genes and such if needed

i would like to ask why would a fridge be necessary when printing mutators cost research point, this would push people to ask R&D and not Genetics since R&D have the big fridge(removing interaction with Genetic), Genetic that a researching and printing them, one would not print a handfull if they are not needed for fulfilling a request, it could in the other hand be used to waste all the research point just like the tech disk printer.

-the monkeys die faster from radiation (need to go get monkeys more often)

Reducing possible progress with critters is essentially to push geneticist to earn progress via experimentation with the crew(also having monkey die faster from rad remove the utility the rest of science might have with living monkey(life force xenoarch nodes/readily available low-tier soon-to-be mutant) , AND push them to interact with the crew more than they would if they can do all the work using monkeys, requesting monkey cube just cost some time and budget from cargo(that is in most cases not an issue)

(the whole department genetics thing)

This is to push Genetics players to interact with the station as a whole, keep in mind that each department will maybe have 4 or 5 mutations(again WIP numbers because future content may bring more) at most that they can't have that other department will roll where R&D is a small strain on cargo and mining Genetic will be a very small strain on the station as a whole if they do their job right(because they will need one person from a department for a short while, said person may even come out of Genetic with one or two things) If these "useful"mutations should really being part of their shift join mutations than maybe make them a low chance to roll(again to prevent geneticist from working only with science/the other geneticist to get their gamer toy)

idk make them play NT block game to mutate the monkey instead of setting up the machine and pressing the same button every time or something

Pairing A/T C-G get old very fast, it is in the other hand fast to build muscle memories as to how fill them fast. In the other hand a more interactive system that always keep your brain somewhat active would be appreciated(not sure if it does for others by my brain goes off when pairing ATCG/no effort are needed from me to complete the sequences)

[Aisu9]

my design label :c

[Djungelskog2]

make instability more strict and punishing

I think pairing mutations(up side with one down side) with the hard limit(2 or 3 mutations at most) but some people might enjoy playing with Stability, the lack of drawback when only picking mutation reducing stability is something that should be present if stability as a system stay(with the presence of negative mutations to serve as the solution of keeping stability high)

-gene implanters if not held in a fridge for too long the genes inside will increase cell instability of simply decay to a dud

so an alternative to food rot but for mutators, and a dynamic one at that

-main fridge is in RND so people can easily request genes and such if needed

i would like to ask why would a fridge be necessary when printing mutators cost research point, this would push people to ask R&D and not Genetics since R&D have the big fridge(removing interaction with Genetic), Genetic that a researching and printing them, one would not print a handfull if they are not needed for fulfilling a request, it could in the other hand be used to waste all the research point just like the tech disk printer.

-the monkeys die faster from radiation (need to go get monkeys more often)

Reducing possible progress with critters is essentially to push geneticist to earn progress via experimentation with the crew(also having monkey die faster from rad remove the utility the rest of science might have with living monkey(life force xenoarch nodes/readily available low-tier soon-to-be mutant) , AND push them to interact with the crew more than they would if they can do all the work using monkeys, requesting monkey cube just cost some time and budget from cargo(that is in most cases not an issue)

(the whole department genetics thing)

This is to push Genetics players to interact with the station as a whole, keep in mind that each department will maybe have 4 or 5 mutations(again WIP numbers because future content may bring more) at most that they can't have that other department will roll where R&D is a small strain on cargo and mining Genetic will be a very small strain on the station as a whole if they do their job right(because they will need one person from a department for a short while, said person may even come out of Genetic with one or two things) If these "useful"mutations should really being part of their shift join mutations than maybe make them a low chance to roll(again to prevent geneticist from working only with science/the other geneticist to get their gamer toy)

idk make them play NT block game to mutate the monkey instead of setting up the machine and pressing the same button every time or something

Pairing A/T C-G get old very fast, it is in the other hand fast to build muscle memories as to how fill them fast. In the other hand a more interactive system that always keep your brain somewhat active would be appreciated(not sure if it does for others by my brain goes off when pairing ATCG/no effort are needed from me to complete the sequences)

I agree with the first point because I was under assumption negative mutation were already going to be a thing, no?

About the fridge, making the implanters cost research points does nothing to reduce powergaming it basically just makes powergaming geneticists be a detriment to science without anyone knowing, hard enforcement of a system (like the fridge) will reduce powergaming of the DNA implanters

For the actual experimentation, what does the crew get out of being the test subject for genetics? It isn't interactive at all and you would be stuck in a test tube with nothing to talk about while the geneticist is doing work, which is why monkeys are far more favourable, the entire department mutations thing means that mutations can be more predictable to obtain and it would be way better if obtaining mutations were completely random (it also makes no sense why departments are sharing genes), additionally monkey cubes are not an issue if science doesn't waste all of them on a singular artifact and cargo won't be running out of them anytime soon anyways so it's not really a problem

[Aisu9]

For the actual experimentation, what does the crew get out of being the test subject for genetics? It isn't interactive at all and you would be stuck in a test tube with nothing to talk about while the geneticist is doing work

SS14 being a roleplaying game i was goign from the principal that people accepting being experimented upon will have some roleplay to bring to the table

I agree with the first point because I was under assumption negative mutation were already going to be a thing, no?

i was suggesting in the document to remove every negative mutation, but pair each mutation(that are only beneficial) come with a down side you cannot negotiate, without the stability and hard limit of 2 to 3 activated mutations

[Djungelskog2]

For the actual experimentation, what does the crew get out of being the test subject for genetics? It isn't interactive at all and you would be stuck in a test tube with nothing to talk about while the geneticist is doing work

SS14 being a roleplaying game i was goign from the principal that people accepting being experimented upon will have some roleplay to bring to the table

I agree with the first point because I was under assumption negative mutation were already going to be a thing, no?

i was suggesting in the document to remove every negative mutation, but pair each mutation(that are only beneficial) come with a down side you cannot negotiate, without the stability and hard limit of 2 to 3 activated mutations

Ah yea, the first idea is a fine idea but I don't think you fleshed it out enough for it to actually be interesting, on the negative mutations thing I was going under the assumption that it would still use some systems from 13 but your idea might also work well