New Quirks Expansion

# Table of Contents [toc] # New Quirky Quirk Ideas ## Some Past Mistakes We've Made Yes, I did jack this from ArcaneMusic's mineral balance doc. It's a good title. Hello. I dislike the current state of quirk balance, and I'm wanting to be adding some new quirks to try and break up an old, stale meta. What do I mean by this? The current balance of the quirk system is that quirks as a whole are meant to be balanced around **points.** **Negative** quirks give points, **neutral** quirks don't do anything to them, and **positive** quirks spend them. So to fit with this model, negative quirks heavily impact your gameplay (sometimes in flavorful ways like disability,) neutral quirks flavor your gameplay, and positive quirks, in theory, are meant to enhance your gameplay while still flavoring it in places. However, this has not been the case, and the point system has been regarded lately as generally unrewarding. Negative quirks as they are right now are split between, essentially, **gameplay-altering quirks** and **'freebie'** quirks. By default, right now, you can get nine 'freebie' quirks from Family Heirloom, Heavy Sleeper, Hypersensitive, Light Drinker, Bad Touch, and six more if you take alexithymia (which is countered by basic gamesense of 'I'm probably hungry.') Meanwhile, other quirks expect either large-scale changes to your character, or detrimental effects to your gameplay. On the other end of the spectrum, positive quirks are for the most part useless unless they're **really good flavor**, or passives such as nightvision; and even then, those passives tend to be heavily map-dependent. On icebox, for example, Spacer becomes a negative quirk unless the user is willing to track down means of anti-gravity, and on other maps, it can see little to no use outside of likely Engineering staff. The point system as a whole is something I want to take a look at later, as I believe that people would be more likely to take negative quirks if they didn't feel like they **had to,** they'd pick ones that they **care to play with**; rather than picking whichever negatives give them points in exchange for whatever good quirk they want. But instead of doing that for now, we'll just be looking at new quirk ideas. ## Goals * The quirks in these PRs should **be impactful choices for players that are worth taking.** * These quirks should be stuff that is worth, often, putting detriments on your gameplay through costly negatives. * They're, likely, going to be what you call a 'roundstart advantage' to fit with this. * The quirks in these PRs should, to an extent, bypass the **'roundstart rat race'** * I believe firmly that everyone spending the first forty five minutes of a round gathering various equipment is a terrible waste of time that could be spent roleplaying. These won't totally replace research and the techfab, but they'll be time-savers. * The quirks in these PRs should **be useful throughout most of a round.** * Spacer is an example of wonderful flavor, sketchy mechanics. These quirks should be able to come up in a variety of situations. * The quirks in these PRs should, **obviously, have well-thought-out balance.** * I will be spending time carefully selecting for balance where at all possible, and will test these quirks in a variety of situations where at all possible. * The quirks in these PRs should **work with policy where needed.** * If corporate regulations for example can be used as a good nerfing stick, it should be. * The quirks in these PRs should ***be flavorful.*** * Good examine texts, good sprites ideally, and good forethought is important for making a quirk feel like a quirk and not just a loadout entry. ## Non-Goals * The quirks in these PRs should **not be things that normally require unique resources.** * I will not be adding, say, stuff from the DNA infuser or stuff you'd get from lavaland. You should have to play the game to get that kind of stuff, as much as it's still 'rat race' content. * The quirks in these PRs should **not overshadow actual job personnel.** * For example, if we add augments, we should have them be weaker than the stuff that you can get from robotics, or be very basic stuff if it's at all there. * The quirks in these PRs should **not be 'must-haves' where able.** * Meta-defining quirks aren't really what I'm after. There should not be such a thing as a quirk everyone feels forced to have as to not be at some disadvantage. * The quirks in these PRs should **not be entirely without downsides.** * Quirks should be balanced similar to items that they're, well, similar to. Stuff like 'having better darkvision' should come with 'you are weaker to flashes and welders.' * The quirks in these PRs should **not overshadow advanced equipment.** * Anything you can get past the like, 1h30m mark should blow right past any quirk, and it shouldn't be stuff you can get **from** a quirk. * Quirks in general should **not offer totally-invisible major combat buffs.** * Stuff like 'brute resistance' without any way of being able to tell someone has it is detrimental to any degree to combat, and it's not something I want to have. ## Sharp Claws ### Summary This quirk is the simplest of them all; it allows you to start with sharp unarmed attacks. This does not increase wound chance, it does not increase damage, and it does not increase stamina. It is for all intents and purposes a punch that rolls on a different wound table. I'm looking for about 1-4 points here. ### Balance Punches are about a 1-10 damage (iirc) random. This equals out to a 5.5 average damage with no wound bonus to it. Additionally, punches do inflated stamina damage on Skyrat, and it's often stamina that gets you out of a scrap far faster than it is any wound. In my testing, it took an average of six to eight swipes on someone to get a bleeding wound, and that was with aiming for their limbs specifically. Due to the properties of a bleeding wound, they are some of the few that can be 'hard countered.' An epipen quickly seals even weeping avulsions, and there are plenty of items that can field-repair a bleed; even nearby felinids. ### Flavor This quirk is for the creatures. The monsters, the anthros, the catgirls, people that are meant to be more 'beastly' than the relative civility of simply throwing regular fisticuffs with someone. "Whether it's a hunter's inherent biology, or your stubborn refusal to clip your nails ahead of your Jiu-Jitsu classes, your unarmed attacks are sharper and will make people bleed." gain_text = span_notice("Your palms hurt a bit from the sharpness of your nails.") lose_text = span_danger("You feel a distinct emptiness as your nails dull; good luck scratching that itch.") medical_record_text = "Patient ended up scratching through the examination table's cushions; recommended they look into clipping their claws." ## Razorgirl ### Summary This quirk spawns you with an XV8 'Wolverine' claw augment, flavored as blades extending from the fingers. Mechanically, this augment will be the same damage-wise as a kitchen knife, and I'm thinking there will be a goodie whetstone that upgrades them to the level of a cleaver. They will also either additionally function as wirecutters, or have a mode that transforms them into such. It will be in your left hand. I'm looking for about 6-8 points here. ### Balance These bad boys will do precisely ten force with a sharp edge, five wound bonus, and a bare wound bonus of fifteen. With some local (dubious) testing, I discovered that they will wound on the first strike on an unarmored opponent, disembowel them at twenty, and kill them at twenty four. Against someone with Security Officer-level armor, it will wound them on the thirty fourth strike, and kill them on the thirty sixth, due to most of the wound bonus being in the bare wound category. With the upgrade that will give it cleaver-level stats of fifteen force and a wound bonus of fifteen, the 'naked' opponent is wounded at the first hit, disemboweled at the fifteenth, and is killed at the seventeenth. The Officer is wounded at the tenth hit, and killed at the twenty fifth. These statistics are against an unmoving opponent that is not fighting back. It will, ideally, still be weak to EMPs and disabled from coming out by one. ### Flavor The flavor is predominantly inspired by the character of Molly Millions from Johnny Mnemonic, but we have also seen similar stuff in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. "Through a series of painful and expensive surgeries you became a walking bionic weapon; of sorts, your only augment allowed by corporate law being the blades in your fingers. However, with it being Sector 13, this one blade might be the difference between life and death." You can use this blade not just for combat, but for cutting stuff, butchering, or as a more badass alternative for wirecutters/slicing up a pizza with the girls. Additionally, the need to go to Cargo to upgrade them will ensure that other departments are both aware of it, and still interacting with you about the quirk. ## Gadget Hand ### Summary You start with a weakened version of the toolset augment. This one will have the same toolspeed as a regular set of tools, and a lower capacity for welding fuel. It will be in your right hand. I'm looking for about 4-6 points here. ### Balance A full toolset is often something someone can get within the first minute of a round, and 'please print it for me' is something that Cargo Technicians and their customers can both struggle to care about. The primary benefit of a toolset arm from Robotics, which would absolutely remain, is that the tools have 0.5 toolspeed; that's double the speed, and the welder has a large tank with double the fuel. This would simply be the normal tools that are still much slower than even power tools. ### Flavor This is, also, for auggers. Robots. Cyborgs. People cosplaying as Fives from Bad Batch. There's not a whole lot that's cooler than being able to hack into something using your hands. ## Regulation Thoughts For Above Quirks Given that Security and criminals are an issue, I have two thoughts about this. One is having an 'implant used in a crime' modifier that has it taken out of you and an injunction on you getting more for a set amount of time, or an implant Security can put in you that disables augments for a spell, that was JungleRat's idea. We'll see if either are needed. ## Field Medic ### Summary This quirk, simple as it is, spawns you with a small medical kit containing a full stack of sutures, a full stack of regenerative mesh for burns, one full stack of splints, and one first aid/wound analyzer. It is not big enough to hold anything more than that. I'm looking for about 1-4 points. ### Balance These are common items that you could get easily within the first five minutes of a round, especially by simply raiding the base on lavaland. The first aid analyzer recently got a rework where its main use is simply identifying what wounds you have, and mildly speeding up the process of healing them. It's far weaker than a health analyzer, and something I think is suitable for the common rabble to have. An actual Doctor/Paramedic would be 900% better-equipped. ### Flavor I'll probably get someone to give me a cute sprite for the first aid kit itself, but I think this is flavorful for the rough-and-tumble deep space frontier image we're trying to cultivate. Plenty of jobs would have use for a kit like this, and I like the idea of someone rushing to a knife fight in the bar and pulling out their little baby home medkit. ## Nightcrawler ### Summary This quirk, also quite a simplistic one, is an upgrade to nightvision; it gives you about the same level of nightvision as the glasses options do, but with the red tint that Hearthkin have. I'm probably looking for 6-8 points here. ### Balance To compensate for this, the quirk will give you light sensitivity like the glasses do, or maybe even a level above that so that not even welding goggles help that much. It will also be a steady level, no switching it to full-brightness as per usual. ### Flavor This is for people like Akula (from the deep seas), Hemophages (literal vampires), or characters like nocturnal animal anthros where it really, really would make sense for them to not require a tech option to see better.