# Funny Biologist Jobs.

Penned by Arcanemusic accept not substitutes yadda yadda.

This document currently serves as a design doc for **Genetics**, as I don't think doing both jobs is currently feasable. However, they share a lot of design DNA (pun intended) and make for an interesting case study.

## Problem Statement A:
Damn, Genetics **SUCKS**!
More specifically, the genetics gameplay loop is not interesting.
Genetics job used to be slightly more involved as it is today, as the geneticist was in charge of maintaining the cloning bay, as well as curing and identifying genetic mutations.

Over time, we removed genetics, and now the core of their gameplay loop, finding specific mutations and printing them for the crew, has been severely upgraded with their console UI becoming really effficient. Which... meant that most genetics powers wound up getting severely downgraded in power level as players could steamroll all genetics modifications within 30-45 minutes.
Faster theoretically with luck and some small amount of skill!

As a result, genetics only job obligation locks them in a single, small room, with all instances where they could potentially leave their department room usually resulting in inefficient gameplay.

## Problem Statement B:
Damn, virology also **SUCKS!**
Virology suffers from very much the same symptoms as genetics does. Their jobs are self contained, and while virology was isolated as part of a design choice, they really don't have anything to do outside of their lab. They distribute their designer viruses ONCE, and then following that, they...
Oh god, **virologists don't even have anything** after making their first virus.

In theory we could say that virologists are responsible for also curing viruses spread naturally and dealing with sentient diseases, but lets be honest, anyone with access to a chem dispenser is the one actually treating viruses.

## What went wrong?
Well it's not suprise that in the /tg/ codebase we all agree that these two jobs suck. But lets really take a scientific approach to how these jobs fall apart where nearly all other jobs succeed.

### Isolation as a limiting factor makes for a poor story particpant.
This is fairly obvious, but leads to some interesting conclusions. Both of these jobs over time either started or eventually lead to a reduced need to ever leave their rooms, let along their departments.

In the earlier days, getting the materials to get specific tiers and qualities from blood mutations resulted in the virologist having to leave their department and embark over to cargo for plasma or uranium, as they both wern't standard for medical to have. Then with the advent of departmental lathes, they could just snag them from the locker room. And as plumbing was added, that chemistry space became far less of a chemist's workspace and more the department's free chemistry room. Virologists were at most exposing themselves to only a handful of people who in most cases were only there to get healed, at maximum.

Genetics, as a result of cloning, would work to get part upgrades for their cloning pods, or at bare minimum to get upgrades to their scanner machines. Now I'll admit, I didn't play much classic genetics. the 16 character strings and slow interface and long processing time meant it just wasn't that interesting to me.

### Jobs need to need things, and that goes both ways.
Geneticists had no reason to interact with the crew at large until they were done, which in modern day meant that they didn't engage with the round to the extent that makes them an active participant. If a job just does something, and neither crew nor antagonists have any reason to ask for something in return, then their job amounts to speedrunning solitaire. Really, this broadly even covers stuff like lawyer, a fluff job! As long as security can still arrest crew, a lawyer has a reason to mediate between the accused, and the head of staff, and all that jazz!

### The outcomes of the jobs are really un-nuanced.
Alright, alright. We've covered that the jobs gameplay is good for high level balance, since we want everyone to be playing the game with each other.
But the issue further makes itself known when BOTH examples run into the fact that they're not even fun to powergame towards, OR against?

So lets take virology. You want to make a powerful healing virus that will keep the crew alive as easily as possible. This is a problem as old as the department itself, and has been solved via spreadsheets. Healing effects like starlight fixation, water healing, and a number of weaker effects keep the players health not perfect, but typically above critical. However, the best healing virus is a **known factor**. It doesn't change, and the symptoms remain constant at all times, while being attainable on even a short length round, purely gated by RNG.

New round. You're now a traitor virologist. At least here is where the job gets a tiny bit more nuanced, as making lethal viruses that can still self-propagate is a far more tricky case, and the symptoms to kill the crew can vary and depend.

The issue, however, is that viruses tend to be **Extremely easily hardcountered.** A half-decent chemist can mix all the higher level cures to high level viruses in a matter of moments, with little forethought or prior work. "The cure is saline glucose!" says jerry derpington from the radio. In a matter of seconds a bottle of sal-glu is poured into the mouth of a dying crewmate, and just like that, he's permanently cured of the disease forever after a few seconds. And now produces infinite antibodies that will also cure the crew instantly.

It's an outcome machine that really requires complete incompetence to succeed as a traitor, and complete luck in order to aid the crew.

Genetics, falls in line much the same way so I'll make it shorter. Good geneticist makes all mutations fast and hands them out but requires RNG to get gene strings. Find certain combos and now you get good powers like x-ray (rip) and hulk. smash. Bad geneticst you get similar set of bad genes, but no good way to give player bad genes. genetics powers have either little or no counterplay when used and lack nuiance. You either treat them like the x-men during a cross over event or you barely even hear from them.

#### Alright I just needed to make sure this was on record. I will stop bitching about the most bitched about jobs now.

## What do we want to keep?
Ahh, the smell of salvage.
Well, I think we all agree that viruses and diseases are a cool concept on a small, enclosed environment like a space station. From alien diseases, to biological sabotage, or even just the chef's cooking, it's a common part of life.
> Author's note: This document was written on 8/26/2022. If Covid-19 gets worse, please note that this wasn't written in poor taste. It already sucks enough.

As odd as it sounds, I also kind of want to keep the mechanics for virus mixing. I know it's not as useful as just isolating the perfect virus one step at a time, but the idea of introducing bacteria to each other to make them interact and breed or see what kind of wacky effects they cause on each other seems interesting.

It is no longer used anywhere in modern day virology or in disease code, but I want virology to need to test their diseases on live beings. It always struck me as a little odd that virology had monkies in their mini-sat, and yet monkies didn't behave any differently than a human would if they were sick. If that was the case, then why wouldn't they just use robots or rats or something? Live testing seems interesting and shoudl see more effects in-game than just the human symptoms.
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Genetics should absolutely exist to explore the human genome and to give players ability to modify their mob with science. Whether this means super powers, or more, depends on what powers can be worked into the system cleanly.

Now I'm going to say something slightly controversial here since I lack the station to make it happen or the power to enforce this, but genetics is the **exception** to the **rule** about *species being a template, not a powerset*. If you wanted to make a cool species with a specific power or trait, than I'd say those qualities would fit right in as a genetics power over being a specific mob unless the design is super SUPER unique.
> Author's note: If you follow this advice you may suffer consequences. Get maintainer approval before making a species change.

## Let's design a new Job and Gameplay loop for at least one or both.
Oh boy making a new gameplay loop in ss13 that doesn't suck tremendous ass!
Look, I'm going to level with you here. I probably shouldn't be trusted to do this. I'm the guy who reworked botany, and has repeatedly failed to make the economy work for an embarassingly long time. I'd like to say that I learned a lot from doing that, but in truth, I'm not really sure. If you're this far down the document, I'm going to wrongly assume that **you have read this and know the consequences of my actions**.

### Genetics Gameplay
New Genetics (henceforth gene**arc**tics) is a science job where the player spawns in the genetics lab. The genetics office will hopefully find some space to have a hallway-desk for reasons I will elaborate on later.
Genetics comes with a few monkeys to experiment on, as monkeys are human's nearest genetic ancestor. However, the core loop of this design document will involve different mobs having different genetic roots.

Each genetic root will have a handful of unique genetic traits, like how humans have different blood types or speach patterns, while plasmamen have a genetic trait that's evolved their lungs to breathe plasma gas. These traits are non-removable so as to not make racial choices moot. However, other genetic traits exist as a result of mutations of that base genetic template.

Think about it like this. Felenids exist (Whether you like it or not). Their species-bound traits are their mutated ears and their fixation on laser pointers. However, as a result of their latent cat DNA, they would have a recessive gene that could be discovered to protract claws like ashwalkers. Once those latent genes have been discovered, that mutation would need to be activated into the recipient, which could be of any race, but would take additional time to correctly modify into someone without that latent gene.

There would be a few limiting factors on genes behaving this way. To start with, a part of me wants to move to having genetics slots over simply complexity, as complexity and genetic meltdowns were effectively a form of severe debilitation that had no way to be treated. Considering that genetics already has a list of disabilities and genetic maladies to apply, that's not super useful.

So at roundstart, you start with a set of 6 latent, undiscovered genes as before. However, to acquire powers, you need a specific set of latent genes similar to combo powers in modern genetics. Latent genes, regardless of species, are entirely and innoculous, with no effect on gameplay, and roundstart genes should not cause someone to start the shift with any kind of powers either way.

This means that when a player uses some kind of gene modifier, without science goggles or performing it at a machine, it will randomly replace a gene with the desired results. A gene activator can only hold 1-3 genes, undecided, which means that a single injector may have one or two changes on it, but without care that opens up the possibilty to randomly inherit a disability with your latent traits.

Now, how does a player discover specific genetic traits? This is where things get tricky. All living mobs, using a system similar to that used with cytology, have dna samples that can be taken and examined by a new machine, called the CHIP-R (Pun on the real-life CRISPR). A single sample can be placed in the CHIP-R and will actively scan the dna sample for undiscovered genetic samples. These would have low discovery rates, but the process would loop over time, and discovery rate could be increased through both sample-specific changes, node research, and how many machines are scanning the samples.

The machine would work down all the different genes within a single sample, adding them to the research database to be used at all connected genetics machines. However, due to the time it takes to process a sample, and depending on what genes you're able to find, it gives the user time to collect new samples from the crew and to look/aquire new things that might have unique dna strains.

However, your job also places you on the front lines of curing genetic disabilities that the crew may fall victim to. While at roundstart a player won't have any complete gene sets, exposure to radiation, random events, or any number of wounds or trauma can result in changes to a player's latent genes, randomly causing them to need to come to you for aid. Mutadone and unstable mutagen would be changed to passively shift the player's latent genes closer or farther respectively from their starting point. However, by having a geneticist work on you for a few moments, not only will they be able to cure your disability, but they'll be able to identify the genes that caused the issue, and add those genes to the research server.

**Here's a quick image to showcase how this should work, as an example.**
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