Modernizing Radiation (by Mothblocks)

--- tags: Engineering title: Modernizing Radiation (by Mothblocks) --- # Modernizing Radiation (by Mothblocks) [toc] ## Maintainer Design Flows :::warning This section describes design flows that are meant to be upheld in the PR process. **PRs that go against this section are subject to closing.** Please do not edit this section unless you are a maintainer. Comments via sidebar are welcomed. ::: --- ## Abstract Radiation as it exists now is a frustrating, hard to visualize mechanic that does not interact well with SS13 as a game of multiple interlocked mechanics. However, radiation as a basic idea is, in itself, not impossible to fix. Radiation should exist as a looming threat, especially one derived from engineering failures/antagonism, but the extent of its damage and how to recover from it should be obvious. ## Problems with Radiation ### Radiation is hard to visualize While objects can glow green, what this actually means is not clear. It means you are irradiated, yes, but things can be irradiated without glowing green at all. This will also be the one mention of radiation collectors in this document, but seeing lots of bolts of lightning is a much clearer indicator as to having more power than anything rads could've done. ### Radiation is weird to heal Radiation is healed by extremely specific chemicals, most notably cold Seiver and Pentetic Acid. It can also be healed with a hacked suit storage unit. These methods are extremely bespoke, and cannot easily be improvised. While radiation doesn't need to be as easy to improvise a heal for as brute damage, the design space of damage types that are primarily fixed by medical is already filled by toxin damage (though improvised methods exist, they are generally found near medical, such as chugging Multiver) and cloning damage. ### Contamination is frustrating Combined with the last point, it is not uncommon for highly irradiated engineers to step into medbay (because that's the only place they can really be healed), and to irradiate everything around them, including random strangers. This does not do anything interesting that viruses don't already accomplish, but is frustrating nonetheless. ### Radiation contamination affecting the station itself is unbearable Radiation can affect walls, windows, etc. As far as I am aware, the only way to fix this is by completely deconstructing them, if that even *does* work. Unlike other station hazards, such as breaches, radiation essentially makes that part of the station inapproachable, but not in a way that interlocks with the rest of the game like a normal breach would. ### Item radiation is unbearable Radiation affects you, as well as your items, and as well as whatever is in those items. This means your backpack is irradiated, your box is irradiated, the tablet inside your box is irradiated, and the parts inside that tablet are irradiated. While one could argue that needing to strip yourself can open you up to danger, this design space is already nicely filled with surgeries, in a way that is intuitive. ## Problems with Radiation, in comparison to breaches To illustrate how radiation does not interact well with the rest of the game, consider a mechanic that does: breaches. Assume a bomb goes off in the halls. Several things happen after: 1. The breach starts to make the surrounding area colder. This causes firelocks to drop. Firelocks dropping is not an innate behavior of breaches existing, but rather are a side effect of atmospherics as a whole. Firelocks also interact well outside of atmospherics as tools of environmental combat (quickly shutting down fire locks when someone is chasing you). 2. Alongside the area being cold, pressure also starts to drop. This means that anyone who is in this area will start to take **brute/burn damage**. SS13 already has plenty of obvious ways to heal these damage types. You can improvise by getting sutures/regen mesh (especially from nearby closets, which are all around the map), but the best source of healing is often medical, who can heal it through chemicals, surgery, etc. Compare with radiation, where its damage type is extremely specific, and has extremely specific ways of being healed. 3. The breach is not irreversable, and can be fixed later. There are several ways to reconstruct, from placing down metal and repiping yourself to using things like the RCD. These tools of reconstruction exist for means other than breaches, as they are also used for standard construction/replacement. 4. Being near the breach requires some form of generic protection to the environment. This could be a hardsuit, but can also be something like Space Adaptation, or being a race that does not take damage, etc. Breaches do not handle any of their behavior uniquely, but are all side effects of multiple interlocking systems. Radiation should try to achieve similar results. ## Radiation, today Radiation is *important* in a few places: - The supermatter emits regular radiation pulses. While this used to be important for radiation collectors, it now mostly serves as requiring people to use radiation protected suits near the supermatter. - Requiring protective gear near the supermatter is fine. It already exists with meson goggles, but requiring stronger protection helps to make the crystal feel more dangerous and alien. - The new tesla bolts require a hardsuit and insulated gloves, which helps achieve this effect. - Genetics uses radiation, partly so that you need multiple subjects. - Genetics balance is its own can of worms, though nothing about this screams that there's anything that needs to be radiation specific. Toxin damage could work fine. - The HFR emits an absurd amount of radiation, so much so that only plasmamen really approach it. - I (Mothblocks) think that the HFR is a crummy addition in general, but I don't know enough about it to know what this could be replaced with, or if it needs to considering the proposals of new radiation. - Tritium releases radiation when burned. - This helps make tritium fires unique from plasmafires, though I think plasmafires on their own work well enough with other interlocking systems to where I don't think this needs such a large replacement. ## Radiation, tomorrow In order for radiation to stick around, it needs to interact with the rest of the game in the same way better mechanics like breaches do. It also needs to be immediately obvious what is irradiated and what is not. 1. In new radiation, **everything that is irradiated will glow green**. This completely eliminates radiation as an invisible death. 2. Contamination is now no longer an innate property of radiation, but from specific sources. This includes, but is not limited to: - The supermatter - The HFR, I guess - Uranium structures ...but most notably does *not* include other irradiated things as a whole. 3. Items can be irradiated, but only as a tell for when radiation is near. 4. Showering will completely remove irradiation from items. I believe this is already the case, but just to make sure. 5. Contamination will no longer spread to *everything*. Turfs and windows are definitely out of the equation, though small structures like tables and whatnot don't need it either. - Mobs can, of course, be irradiated, but everything else should have a good reason behind it. - Items can be irradiated, though only due to the effects of radiation source items, such as uranium bars. Items that are irradiated serve to irradiate mobs who hold/wear them. 6. Radiation is no longer its own damage type, but will now interact with primarily toxin damage. - When irradiated without protective gear, you will immediately take some amount of toxin damage, and kick off the following: - Radiation will passively deal toxin damage. The speed of this, while undecided by this document, should be over the time needed to escape wherever you are and get to medbay. - Being irradiated can irregularly give you immediate splotches of burn damage (like 10 to 20, or something, enough to pile up but not to kill on its own). By being immediate, and not passive, this means you have time to improvised heal it off when it happens, assuming you are on your way to medbay. This helps to further push people to go to medbay quickly, since they won't be able to predict when the burn splotches happen. - If the toxin damage is being actively healed, the rate of passive toxin damage will lower. - When all toxin damage is gone, you are no longer irradiated. - Being under a shower will halt or slow the effects of radiation, so irradiated players have somewhere to be while they wait for doctors to help, and to make the behavior of items being de-irratiable under showers more intuitive. This system interlocks radiation to the existing intricacies of medical, as we have plenty of ways to heal toxin damage, as well as plenty of room to make it interesting outside of radiation. Medical players already must be knowledgable on how to heal toxin damage, so this reduces the burden of knowledge to memorizing very specific ways of healing radiation. The healing method (removing toxin damage) is intuitive, as medical doctors must do that *anyway* to heal the patient. Outside of medical, players carrying around their own toxin healing is still an acceptable method of play. Not only does this reinforce players preparing to enter irradiated areas, which helps make radiation feel unique, but if they're already in areas where they can be irradiated (there is a radiation source), then they can easily be irradiated again. ## Radiation strength, and protection As radiation is now essentially a status effect, there must be a way to distinguish something like a uranium toilet being less dangerous than the supermatter. This can be done just through having radiation sources specify their radiation range, as well as the % per second for a subject to be irradiated, as well as potentially the time you must be near a radiation source before being affected (so walking by a uranium toilet doesn't need to have a chance to require you to go to medbay). As for protection, as radiation sources are now significantly cut down due to the removal of contamination, and combined with the fact that radiation is now a status effect, protection against radiation should just be binary. That is, hardsuits will completely prevent radiation just like a rad suit. This is because this still preserves the necessity of preparing before going into an irradiated area. ## Non-Maintainer Design Flows :::info This section describes various design flows that are not yet incorporated into the maintainer-approved design. **Working towards these flows does not guarantee merge, nor does going against these flows guarantee close. Please resort to `###` and below for heading tags, and preferably `Title (Author)` for easy reference. Titles can be set with YAML metadata. Ping Cobby on Discord if you need assistance embedding/generating your note.** ::: ---