I never wanted to restrict nonhuman races from playing as head roles.

[Intigracy]

Discuss / emoticons.

[Megamaw]

Buff the most powerful race in the game even further? Wow, what a fat lot of sense that makes.

You can't make the argument about 'mmmuh lore' when most of the server plays for valids and greentext. You have to think about things from a gameplay balance perspective.

Humans already have the strongest racial trait, have absolutely no downsides, and you want to make them stronger?

[ghost]

@Megamaw actually the most powerful race in the game is plasmaman, next is diona, then skellingtons (though they were nerfed so not sure where they are right now, might be lower.), THEN human

[ihadtoregisterforthis]

Power is not only measured on damage modifiers.

[icantthinkofanameritenow]

@ihadtoregisterforthis Counterpoint- those modifiers are a big factor, and ASIMOV isn't as influential as it seems when you remember how easily sillycone laws can be changed. And while humans have no downsides, they have no upsides either. The advantage to playing one vanishes in the blink of an eye.

[Kurfursten]

I'm not sure about that. There's a reason humans are far-and-away the most-played race.

Don't need to be on a constant drip of hyperzine to move at a reasonable speed so you can get to work right away instead of reporting to chemistry at the start of every shift, good at yakity sax Asimov for easy access to almost anywhere Much easier self-cleaning with showers, almost never start with a genetic defect (Greys have a much higher chance of this but no one ever mentions it) Station atmos caters to them O2 lockers cater to them Everyone starts with two boxes of internals specially designed for humans All around stats with no special instant-death weakness to either burn or brute; tanky enough to survive a shock at roundstart so you can just guess the wires without insulated gloves No one hates you (this is a social game, and let's be real here, no one has ever said "I refuse to help you because you're human" but it does happen to other races)

They really make the the perfect race whether you're a greytiding loner, a position of importance, or just an average joe. No weaknesses, no need to rely on others.

More specifically, in my favorite department of engineering:

You don't have to deal with the "hardsuit problem" of other races where their hardsuit helmets do not provide welder protection so you have to give up an eye slot for welding goggles and a constant hand slot for flashlight Easy access to breach areas via silicone laws Good for collaborating with borgs on engineering projects, for getting AI access to rooms that you want to improve or repair Just imagine having to wait on a chemist for pills before you could set up an engine, or worse getting hit by a stray emitter beam with fire weakness - not to mention an accidental misclick with a welder means you're half dead

It's no surprise that I played human for two years straight.

[icantthinkofanameritenow]

I hate splitting hairs, but most O2 lockers have nitrogen tanks in them too. Genetic defects only happen when a gene for a power triggers a disability too, and since that hardly ever happens even to greys that's not really a plus for humans.

And the "master of none" caveat is still very much in effect- they have no weaknesses, but they also have no strengths. They're simply mediocre in every way.

Sure, a Diona is vaporized by burn damage but when hit with everything else it will NEVER die. Hell, they don't even need radiation suits when working with supermatter because radiation heals them.

As for borgs, in addition to what I said regarding NT default only the most uncooperative of borgs will refuse to listen to you on account of non-human status if you're not doing something blatantly harmful. I acknowledge the hardsuit problem in part because I was responsible for it- the alternative being unstrippable flash protection for those races at roundstart. That said, with the addition of the plasmaman prisoner suit I suppose I could revert it for the engineer equivalents of those races.

[Kurfursten]

@icantthinkofanameritenow In my experience it happens about a third of all rounds you play as a grey (or detective), although maybe someone like Yahir might be able to give more long-term insight. It's probably a bug but it happens all the time - even someone like me who barely plays it gets a defect almost every round as a grey. Multiple times the issue has been brought up. Imagebard commented on it recently and I did too here #6818, but every time it gets "fixed" it doesn't actually get fixed. Some like seizures and cough actually force you to go get treated because they're shift-ruining.

If you want to split hairs, I can too. Where are the backup plasma tanks in those O2 lockers? The extended O2 tanks don't even have an equivalent, but they appear in 20% of all O2 lockers. And let's not forget that there are also twice as many O2 tanks in lockers as well. Inaprovaline and dexalin work properly on humans instead of damaging them, meaning that they can be saved more easily when bloodied and won't get wrecked by the wild ride, but ALSO meaning that O2 locker medkits are far more valuable to them.

I don't think even you believe your claims about Asimov. After all, weren't you in the other thread saying how important it is that heads be human for Asimov protection? Hey, you even know from my thoughts there that I'm with you. I have consistent beliefs that Asimov is important for a certain segment of roles, particularly those with implants. It's the same kind of inconsistency as your views on damage. Diona's and Plasmamen are apparently both "better" than humans because of strength versus brute or burn and weakness to the other. But when fighting any intelligent opponent, especially in a game like this based around surprise attacks, they're always going to use your weakness. If there was a Pokemon type with no resistance and no weakness, it would be the ultimate defensive type. We humans are the master race.

There's a reason 90% of our players of our players play human just like me and you.

TL;DNR This isn't to say I'm totally happy with the state of alien balance, but I think you're not appreciating how good humans are. It sounds like you just choose one for exclusively for roleplaying purposes, which is a pity.

[icantthinkofanameritenow]

Not exactly, I choose to play humans because unlike some people I can mention (_cough_Sawbonescough) I consider it to be beneath me to choose the others simply to gain a mechanical advantage. I don't deny that surprise attacks are vital, but a hard mechanical advantage can't be denied as playing a major part of that.

And I do believe my claims about Asimov. I simply noted that as powerful as Asimov is for humans, it's all too easily taken away by a nonhuman head or someone who just wants the silicons to shut up about human harm so they can have an execution uninterrupted. Asimov would be much better protection for humans if there was an unwritten law forcing silicons to avoid law changes at all costs, but do you really think that would be practical? (Also, as a Pokemon player I'll point out that such a type does exist in Normal-types, but they have the counterbalance that all of THEIR attacks aren't super-effective against anything and in fact are resisted by a wide variety of other types. In a game where offense is the best defense, that's one hell of a weakness.)

As for backup plasma tanks, it's obvious- you don't want some idiot just opening one up and creating a mini-plasmaflood on the spot. And hell, I could code an extended-capacity emergency nitrogen tank right now if I was so inclined.

Inaprovaline and dexalin work properly on humans instead of damaging them, meaning that they can be saved more easily when bloodied and won't get wrecked by the wild ride, but ALSO meaning that O2 locker medkits are far more valuable to them.

Okay, now THAT just sounds like a bug if I've ever heard of one.

[Kurfursten]

Any actual Pokemon player would realize that Fighting is an extremely popular offensive type which is super-effective versus Normal. Are you sure you've played the games?

Bug

It's a special exception to hurt Vox because Oxygen-based. I was actually wrong about Dexalin, that was only talked about, it never got merged, but yes, Inaprovaline will poison Vox. The fact that either of us could play Medbay and not know this by heart kind of proves how rare Vox players are. Just imagine how many Vox have been killed by the wild ride because this isn't wildly known to newbie doctors.

I could code

Yeah, and I could code plasmaman has 1x weakness to burn in about 2 minutes, but that doesn't make it true.

[Intigracy]

One of the chems converts into nitrogen for vox actually.

[Kurfursten]

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but these are all of the snowflake Vox interactions, just checked the code:

Oxygen and Inaprovaline cause toxin damage Nitrogen reduces toxin and suffocation damage Gravy reduces toxin damage

[icantthinkofanameritenow]

I meant that normal types were the closest equivalent to the hypothetical type you spoke of. And really, I can count the number of times anyone uses inaprovaline for anything other than making tricordrazine on one hand.

[Kurfursten]

Normal types don't fit because they are cripplingly weak to a very common type though.

And your statement is really "/vg/ doctors and paramedics are bad" but that's not super compelling because it also means they're just as likely to inject Vox with poison, try to clone Vox and never put on an N2 mask - the whole gamut of reasons you rarely see aliens healed in medbay.

[icantthinkofanameritenow]

And to be fair, that's more medical incompetence than anything else. It would be nice if someone explained to me what the logic was in making inaprovaline toxic to Vox, though. It still gives me the impression that it's some kind of bug since no other alien race is affected badly by medicines like that.

(I realize the mistake I made with normal types, but still Smogon and the other competitive sites all echo similar sentiments about it being perfect defensively except for that fighting weakness. But that's increasingly beside the point now.)

[Blithering]

I've been playing a plasmaman captain for quite a while now, and the only times crew have taken issue with my race it tends to lead to more fun in the round in general; such as the time an atmos traitor ordered a contortionist jumpsuit and became a sort of underground racist tunnel snake, bothering nonhumans and shouting at me from the pipes, and leading to a half excavation half chase trying to track him down.

[Orangerush]

All two non human heads are gonna hate this