space-wizards
Genetic Design Document
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?
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
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
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)
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
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
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
This is a good start! I like the direction you're going with this although I think conceptually could use a little bit more development. Removing excessive RNG is a good change and integrating salvage into the progression (by getting biological entities from off station) is a good idea and smart way to avoid genetics from "mancaving" as you put it.
That said, I do think that removing stability from mutations isn't a good change. You mentioned that in 13 stability doesn't really matter since players are able to make powerful mutations that fall under the limit, I think this is more of a problem with balance/tuning than the concept of stability/limitations. Removing stability wouldn't solve the problem you brought up, but It's really good that you isolated one of the issues with ss13 genetics to "mutation stacking" and noted that ss13's solution to that problem isn't effective.
In a similar vein I always love the idea of adding more "minigame" style interactions to game mechanics, and wiith genetics being a mostly "stationary" role, it makes perfect sense to create a "minigame" for players to engage with when doing research. I'm not really sure about making the minigame rhythm based as there isn't usually time pressure associated with genetics research. Thematically I think it's really important that we keep the ATGC and pair matching because that fits with the idea of messing with DNA. For a minigame implementation I would lean towards something like Mastermind:
Where the player needs to experiment and "guess" what the correct sequence is, maybe with some added "known patterns".
While I think this proposal needs quite a bit more work, I think that it's a good starting point and your approach so far has been pretty good. Nice work! (The major changes tag just means that you need to develop this out some more, not that it's majorly flawed or anything)
Kinda ideaguysing but more content could possibly include the following:
- Cytology from tg, especially the parts that involve crawling the station or space for DNA
- Assisting forensics with DNA
- Assisting botany with mutations and isolating desired genes (or minimising bad ones)
- Slowly developing a cloning system that is defective at first but becomes either more reliable or faster to use (tradeoff with each other)
This is a good start! I like the direction you're going with this although I think conceptually could use a little bit more development. Removing excessive RNG is a good change and integrating salvage into the progression (by getting biological entities from off station) is a good idea and smart way to avoid genetics from "mancaving" as you put it.
That said, I do think that removing stability from mutations isn't a good change. You mentioned that in 13 stability doesn't really matter since players are able to make powerful mutations that fall under the limit, I think this is more of a problem with balance/tuning than the concept of stability/limitations. Removing stability wouldn't solve the problem you brought up, but It's really good that you isolated one of the issues with ss13 genetics to "mutation stacking" and noted that ss13's solution to that problem isn't effective.
Well talking about this... i don't know if it was because of the nature of the server, or if my geneticist play time, but in 400 hours of geneticist playtime there was.... maybe two or three person that asked for more than 1 mutation, and it was like this both before and after the balance and genetic content update(they normalised mutation instability cost) as a whole you didn't need more than one, thats why i come up with the idea of hard limit but all comes with limited downsides. but i'll clearly continue polishing the rougher parts of this doc!
lookin over the doc again, it looks pretty good but I still dont understand why the genes are department specific? I think it would make sense for them to be completely randomised If you end up keeping stability which is what I recommend I think you should also note all major balance changes for the individual genes if the doc gets developed more. I think jez's Idea of a mastermind minigame sounds incredibly fun (its basically 4 letter wordle with colours and less obvious hints), and thanks for considering some of the ideas I brought up earlier
lookin over the doc again, it looks pretty good but I still dont understand why the genes are department specific? I think it would make sense for them to be completely randomised
Mechanically prevent geneticist from researching mutations from each other/from the science department and go missing for the entire shift and encourage going outside and requesting help from people around the station, if we go and port 13's mutations this limitation wont even be felt on surface level(i suppose Engineer will have it hardest because they will be missing fire and cold adaptation and pressure adaptation)
If you end up keeping stability which is what I recommend I think you should also note all major balance changes for the individual genes if the doc gets developed more. I think jez's Idea of a mastermind minigame sounds incredibly fun (its basically 4 letter wordle with colours and less obvious hints), and thanks for considering some of the ideas I brought up earlier
Beside balancing Stability to require picking negative mutation if you want to use certain powerful combo(for example improved regeneration and mending touch that would allow you to heal others from brute/burn damage and regenerate the damage absorbed given time) i don't see how Stability can be a good system to play with(be it this way or the hard limit of active mutation i believe people will complain because they can be their idolised superspess men and increase said limit or decrease stability cost to the point of irrelevancy) I do love the idea of mastermind genetic minigame!
Mechanically prevent geneticist from researching mutations from each other/from the science department and go missing for the entire shift and encourage going outside and requesting help from people around the station, if we go and port 13's mutations this limitation wont even be felt on surface level(i suppose Engineer will have it hardest because they will be missing fire and cold adaptation and pressure adaptation)
I just don't think this is a required solution in the first place if a singular person would only have a handful of mutations, and socialising within their own department is equal to going out and taking anyone else for testing, not to mention how much of a chore it'd be. I also don't understand what you mean by "if we port 13's mutations the limitations won't be felt", what?
Beside balancing Stability to require picking negative mutation if you want to use certain powerful combo(for example improved regeneration and mending touch that would allow you to heal others from brute/burn damage and regenerate the damage absorbed given time) i don't see how Stability can be a good system to play with(be it this way or the hard limit of active mutation i believe people will complain because they can be their idolised superspess men and increase said limit or decrease stability cost to the point of irrelevancy)
You only provided an example how it can be good for balancing (via adding downsides to regen and mending touch), I'm not sure if you meant to say "can't" but I'm going to assume so based on the context, I don't see how that's an issue at all? Limiting powerful OP combos is the point of balancing the mutations, being a space-hulk with the minor downside of a stutter is just balance done poorly and people who are against it being balanced are stupid. I don't understand what your issues are with it, most of the time I think the solutions can just be through minor changes in changing the amount of stability a gene adds or subtracts, or worst case scenario; never adding the pointless negative genes like colour blindness or clumsy or speech impediments and actually adding new unique disabilities
yes it would be a chore to do it, but genetics is not a vital department to begin with so i don't think their gameplay loop should be easy, department specific mutation wont be much of a limitation factor because it will only affect 5 mutations top per department that can be found elsewhere. and yes these were example, i'm not sure if design document should take care of the global balance of one idea that may or may not be PRed in the first place, if people decide to make the hard limit mutation system then they'll have to come with proper downside for each mutations.
I would also like to know why the labels are getting removed each time i edit the document, this is very annoying
yes it would be a chore to do it, but genetics is not a vital department to begin with so i don't think their gameplay loop should be easy, department specific mutation wont be much of a limitation factor because it will only affect 5 mutations top per department that can be found elsewhere.
Chore doesn't mean hard, it means boring, pointless and unrewarding. You will be effectively kidnapped for a good few minutes and likely not see the results, or find out that the results were not worth your or the geneticists time. I also still don't understand why you chose to do it exactly like this (the departments), it makes no sense and doesn't do anything for the gameplay (despite what NT says, this company is not family).
and yes these were example, i'm not sure if design document should take care of the global balance of one idea that may or may not be PRed in the first place, if people decide to make the hard limit mutation system then they'll have to come with proper downside for each mutations.
Ok we seem to agree that stability is actually a good thing and would be easier to balance than the alternative of hard limits