Plasmemes can now work in command roles (Cap, HoP, HoS) - #39476
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Eneocho
added
Balance
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as the lord intended |
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I predict someone will argue that they shouldn't be on those roles cause asimov and they don't count as human. (just swap the AI to NTD or make plasmemes human i dunno what to say man). |
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Slippery slope, next it's going to be vox because plasmamen got in |
not if it's specifically because they're human |
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Plasmamen are technically mutants |
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the "why it's good" portion doesnt explain why this is good
how do you do that when the AI is allowed to bolt down its upload to keep you from doing anything? antag man has ample time to ask the AI to doorcrush you (which does extra damage lol) before you get someone to change the laws for you. hell even a nukeop or a wizard could ask a borg or the AI to kill you ideally these roles should be the most reliable which is why limiting them to humans makes sense. humans have no special strengths or weaknesses and also they're the most customizable race by far. i think having a unique look is important to being in charge of the entire crew. the same plasmeme suit with a different coat of doesnt really do that. this PR is a horrible idea overall |
Plasmamen can already play the RD and thats his job |
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why wont anyone explain why it's good? |
I made the PR on behalf of tigersfang, not me. I don't really have a horse in this race. My personal "why it's good" opinion is literally only what it says on the OP, i.e: the cool ass plasmeme suits that rarely see use. I could come up with several why it's good and why it's bad reasons to merge or not merge this, but those'd be arbitrary to either side and not my actual opinion. |
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It's good because plasmamen are human |
Do these special suits have any different armor values? |
The plasmamen HOS, Captain and HoP suit all have has the same exact armor as the standard plasmeme secoff suit if memory serves me right |
Makes sense for HOS and Captain, but I'd like to see that removed for HOP since they don't get armor. If it doesn't get merged it doesn't really matter though. |
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make it so that tarjan can join as cap, hos and hop (they're still valid tho) |
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God yes, please. |
I think it would still be within the scope of this PR to remove those armor stats if that's what the concern is. |
Make sure you thumbs up the PR |
its opposite day so he'll have to thumbs down if he supports it |
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the point was never that plasmemes are human enough for asimov (they obviously aren't), the point is that they're human enough for NT'S CORPO CONCERNS, especially since plasmemes can happen if you get owned too hard by plasma. John Nanotrasen himself was lost to the flames long ago, but he still gets to own the company |
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plasmeme hop/hos/captain is either going to force NTD roundstart every round or die instantly to a doorcrush because they take extra brute damage. i dont care about whether or not this PR is accurate to the lore (lol) if it makes the game abysmal |
;ai kill captain |
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Stupid. |
HoP spawns with armor in his locker doesnt he? |
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Anyway I am strongly against this. We have always had human only Captains and should continue to have human only captains. I haven't seen a compelling argument for why this should change, and I agree with sentiments above this will be used to further justify adding more xeno races to command roles. |
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captain might be a bit much admittedly |
revs, traitors, cultists, wizards, and ops can also order the AI around |
non canon |
The cure was mentioned in fallout 1 |
This is such a cope. It's like saying that someone who gets catbeasted by a virus should still count as human because they mutated from one. Plasmamen are far too mutated to be considered human, no one is looking at the purple skeleton that catches fire in normal atmosphere and going, "yep, looks human to me." There is 0 chance that plasmamen being human is going to become a rule because it is completely and utterly unintuitive for the Asimov lawset. I hope this passes so you can play a plasmeme captain, get door crushed by the AI, ahelp, and end up on the wiki page for it. |
Vampires being nonhuman isn't intuitive either, sometimes something can look human and not be human, sometimes something can look inhuman and be human. |
The difference is that mistaking someone for human and helping them is not a violation of the rules but mistaking someone for nonhuman and harming them is. You do not get silicon banned for opening a door for a vampire but you absolutely would for killing a head of staff because a human assistant told you to if both are considered human. |
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No one is going to get banned over this. Changes in policy like that aren't silently implemented, there's generally a big wall of text when you join the server telling you about it. It would also be a big IC conversation across many rounds while it's still a new change. An example of this is spare rushing. There was a new rule implemented years ago about spare rushing being bannable, and they put it on the MOTD. I can't recall anyone nonantag rushing the spare after this was implemented, and eventually the rule was removed and it happens every round now. |
So a thing was followed when it was in the MOTD and then promptly forgotten about when it wasn't? This is not exactly a compelling argument in your favor. Surely you do not expect "Plasmemes are human actually" to be the MOTD indefinitely to ensure new players do not get confused, because there is 0 chance a player that gets borged and has no silicon experience will assume that plasmamen are considered human. Either way this whole conversation is kind of irrelevant, this pr alone does not change policy and Bathos has stated his intent to not change policy over it. |
No, it was just no longer enforced after a certain point. A server poll should be opened if this PR is merged. |
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i second falcon's argument. silicon roles already have more policies than any other role. most of the players that have learned how to play them (everyone thats willing to touch silicon roles) arent going to adapt very easily even if the motd is changed for a year there's still a chance oldfriend mcstatic will come out of retirement in 2027 and miss out on this change. changing policies out of the blue is irresponsible at best |
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It's fun. Neither this PR, nor the proposal to make plasmamen count as humans to silicon lawsets are out of nowhere. This has been an issue of debate for years, I just don't think anybody bothered to take any action on it. A while back there was a controversy about certain edits made to the wiki and to the code involving plasmamen. Plasmamen were able to speak skellington language, and the wiki was leaning into the TG "alien plasmamen" and skeleton stuff. This bled into the game quite a bit, and it was not uncommon to encounter plasmamen with names ripped from the TG wiki and have conversations to that effect IC. There was a PR opened to trade the skeleton language for sol common, and it was merged because it was decided that they were not skeletons, but a subtype of humans. The edits to the wiki were also reverted and today, there is a heavy emphasis on the humanity of the plasmamen. |
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server poll with individual options or separate into three PRs, too controversial
This was put in place because some more legitimate spareholders (RD especially) could not get to the spare before some spawns could (see #24178, record before this was under 15 seconds iirc). Most sparerushing happens on no command/sec rounds where the rule is kind of moot. |
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The spare gets rushed every single round by the same player. Thank you for the reference |
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this 3 line change gets 21 reactions and 60 comments but my PRs rarely get any thumbs or comments 😔 |
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I think it depends on how much we want to commit to our server's lore for plasmaman origins. I don't know where in the code (besides the wiki I guess) the history of plasmamen is recorded, but if we're saying they're just plasma-mutated human beings with human names then I don't really accept any argument against them being heads. As I understand it plasmamen not being an alien race is somewhat unique to our server so we should embrace it by also treating them correctly as human for Asimov lawset as well. On the other side of that coin perhaps we need to start enforcing human-style names for plasmamen and asking them to avoid the TG style naming convetion like Ulax XVII |
I just kill them |
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I brushed up on the plasmaman canon on the wiki and I think it's worth a read for anyone voting on this: http://ss13.moe/wiki/index.php?title=Plasmamen |
Naming conventions are fine, it's just that the "Amicum XVIII" one is straight up from TG and it was removed from the wiki because of that |
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only those with love in their heart can see the true path forward |
(merging) |
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ICly, I'm not sure that the average spessman would be thrilled with having company property as their boss. |
Plasmamen are human |
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Per wiki lore, admin policy, common player practice, etc: plasmamen are considered non-human, similar to zombies/vampires/other undead who were formerly human. This PR will not change the policy even if merged, confirmed with the current server administration. @wotisjanitor stop saying they are human and confusing the topic. The main reason for this clarification is how default silicons will respond to plasmamen, therefore, how gameplay will be affected by this change. e.g. an assistant ordering the AI to open the way to the spare and to door crush the Plasmacap immediately. For my personal opinion, NT currently do allow plasmamen to hold key roles such as CMO/RD already. Following the slippery slope, it's not unreasonable that they could hold other command positions. That said, being the Captain of a station whose primary station wide silicon assistant doesn't listen to you at all is very unusual. The lower command roles are less likely to be impacted by this, but central jobs like Head of Security or the Captain not being able to reliably command station silicons would be a strange policy choice by NT. My vote is leaning to thumbs down. People will find me and defenestrate me if I just close the PR though so I'll do a server vote instead. Not for the general PR, but for the individual positions. If there's some extreme outlying/barely majority... say as an example: 79% yes HoS but 51% yes HoP 29% Captain I may advise we merge a HoS-only version instead of HoS+HoP and see where we go from there, with the vote able to be used as evidence for a future HoP version if the HoS version works out fine. Anyway go vote see you in a little over a week. |
Every mention of human on the wiki page |
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@jwhitak giving plasmemes the hop/hos position is basically the same as letting them be a captain. in the absence of a real captain (99.99% of our rounds nowadays) hop/hos grabs the spare and takes over as acting captain. most rounds that only have cmo/rd/ce end up being all access rounds so id argue that this is unique to hop and hos for the most part
i feel like this is the inevitable conclusion to merging this PR. collabs must decide if they're prepared to do this for other races in the (near) future. i dont feel like a half measure is possible here. if players see plasmemes in the captain's office they're going to start wondering why other non-human races dont have access to those roles |
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This is a real actual slippery slope fallacy. Can I add a box of two tenders combo regular and mashed potatoes sweet tea |
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What do we gain from this anyway? Has anyone not played the game because they couldn't play a Plasman HoS or something? No. Will more people play the game if we add this? No. Our biggest thing here on on /vg/ is that we are the last 'oldschool' server. That is in part due to things like only human command roles (eroded with things like CMO/RD but they aren't real players anyway). |
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Yeah, I am keeping all of this in mind as I watch the polls. I also spoke with several players about the PR and the opinions mostly varied. And by varied, I mean almost nobody wants plasmacap/plasmahop. The polls at time of posting reflect this. But! There's actually some interest in plasmahoss. We already accept giving the former humans lesser command roles after all. And those roles are already supposed to assume Captain duties (or delegate them/etc) in absence of someone in that spot. The good ol' Hoss is even supposed to place themselves lower on the totem poll if the others are around who can do the job. I can see a robust argument here. Mind you, this PR turned server poll is only happening because plasmamen are "former humans". Walking, burning, human corpses. NT employees at time of burning, possibly, and not demoted after said burning. That argument is strong enough to see what We, The Players, want. If this PR was for any other species, I'd close it if only @Inorien wasn't more active than me and therefore would beat me to it. |
Highly disagree with these arguments, the HoS is not only not supposed to not place himself lower than other heads of staff (they're supposed to be equal) but in practice it's almost tied with HoP as a step above the 'lesser' heads of staff as they have control of the station's weaponry at the start of a round and often have a team of mooks who are glad to do whatever he wants, like stealing the spare from another head of staff (not an uncommon occurrence). It's very much a more crucial and trusted role in the real totem pole. The way I see it, the human/non-human divide is binary and practical. You play a non-human by accepting that you are a second-class citizen and void the default AI law protection. This wasn't always the case but it was a decision that was earnestly supported by most of the server and shaped its culture thoroughly. Starting a discussion to determine that some non-humans should be more human than others backed by nothing but headcanon and cool 32x32 sprites strikes me as very odd. Thought admittedly vox are an exception in opposite argument: server culture evolved to understand that they're even less human than other non-humans. |
i still think letting wiki articles that a lot of players havent even read dictate gameplay changes is horrid. gameplay wise a plasmeme head would be no different than an alien head. if we decide that the asimov debuff is irrelevant, then theres no reason why other species should not be in those positions. and, to be honest, i care more about the game being consistent than anything else. according to the wiki they've mutated into an entirely new species so i fail to understand why this PR exists. if anything the wiki states their memory is either hazy or completely gone. they cant remember any of their human experiences, so id argue they're equal to any other non-human species even if you take the lore into account |
Meds, now. It does not say this anywhere, but it does call them human in the present tense more than once. |
17 participants
What this does
Plasmamen, being formerly human, are still considered human enough for NT's hiring protocols, and have been allowed to sign up as Captains, Heads of Personnel and Heads of Security.
I don't have a horse in this race, I PR'd this on behalf of Tigersfang.
Why it's good
Any argument aside from this one would be dishonest since that'd not be my real opinion.
You get the rare chance to see the never seen Captain/Hop/HoS plasmeme softsuit and I think that's pretty neat.
How it was tested
It was not, but it follows the schema so it should work.
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