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Thread: Researcher: An Uneventful Life. [SUGGESTION]

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    Whitelisted Predator MarpleJones's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Researcher: An Uneventful Life. [SUGGESTION]

    After several rounds as my Researcher Character Friedrich 'Ink' Taggart, I come to the conclusion that...
    ...The Researcher is perhaps one of the most boring roles in Colonial Marines you could play as.

    I wouldn't even call it a standalone one, either, since after you're done with whatever you were doing at round-start, you're most likely forced to become a hybrid between a doctor and an intelligence officer. And the things you can do during your playthrough? They're pretty limited. In that regard, I'm opening this suggestion thread. The last update to the researcher role is one year behind, and since there are already many changes happening to CM (Kits, Strains...), I believe this is the right time as any to bring this 'lost job' back to life. I will add my personal suggestions into the thread to which people can comment on, criticizing them, or adding their own ideas into the pot. Any respond is gladly appreciated.


    The Researcher, and his Problems
    Here's a sum up to every round you spend, hoping for NEW REVELATIONS.

    1. You plan your first steps.
    1.1. You make grenades, destroying glass windows and metal chairs because you (for whatever reason) only have an empty autolathe. This is a hassle, extremely time consuming, but it is perhaps (in my opinion) the most worthwhile thing you can do.
    1.2. You make medicine. But then again, that goes to show that you really are only a doctor.
    1.3. You make experimental drugs. Synaptizine with Tricord? That's a thing. Or whatever you come up with. It's pretty fine for a couple of rounds, but that's where it ends.
    1.4. You play and fiddle with hydroponics! [Brand New Addition, let's see how this goes!...]

    2. You think as to what to do with your made products.
    2.1.1. You either give those grenades away to the marines before they even launched their dropship, since once they have already dropped, finding a competent marine is going to be a problem. Or...
    2.1.2. You keep those grenades locked behind a closet as finished, not-to-use, emergency prototypes. Since you wouldn't see the effect these grenades brought to the battlefield, you would have absolutely no idea whether or not they worked as intended, or if it was even worth making them in the first place. (Evidently, OOCly, you would hope for the Xenomorph to crash into the Almayer so that you could use those grenades yourself. But that's powergaming combined with specks of meta.)
    2.2. You give the medicine to medical. That's 'nuff said.
    2.3. You give those drugs to the marines, only to watch them accidentally overdose on them, dying miserably, putting you on an execution order by a firing squad. Giving away those nerve stimulants may have not been the brightest idea.
    2.4. You accidentally prick yourself with a genetically modified nettle; now filled with the deadliest poisons, you keel over and die miserably.

    3. You do absolutely nothing useful in terms of 'research'.
    This goes for all the roundstart options. Except maybe the hydroponics one, since it's new!
    3. After you're done with whatever you were doing, you wait. For what? For an even more boring job which has absolutely nothing to do with research. Until the marines start killing some aliens, you're an idle, mellow guy - but as soon as they start throwing corpses at you? Back-and-forth, back-and-forth... That's exactly the opposite of a fun role. The system in itself screams boredom. It's a design flaw in every way! And there's absolutely no payoff for you. You could roleplay making autopsies on aliens... You could roleplay doing tests with their blood... But for what? This has zero-to-no impact. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy doing those things when I started out being a researcher, but once you realize that you can't do anything with the things you uncover? You stop doing it. And then it returns to the back-and-forth mentality of the whole mid-game researcher situation.

    And that's it! That's the whole round summarized in its entirety (apart from some snowflakes who decide to go planetside themselves).
    Let's get to the chase, the researcher role needs improvements. I'm certain that the developers had it hard coming up with ideas as to how to make this job the tiniest-bit more interesting like it is supposed to be on paper.



    Here are my suggestions
    We'll start off small since these problems are most likely the easiest to solve.
    • Give researchers access to the containment lockdown. This is a given. I have absolutely no idea why we, as researchers, wouldn't be able to open that pesky lockdown in containment. We have to ask the CMO every single round. [This has been solved!]
    • Relocate the alien-corpse storage. It's not fun dragging them all the way to the containment cells. Having a separate room for those, which is a lot closer to the hospital ladders, will certainly ease the researcher off the 'dragging' part, and let them concentrate on the 'researching' part. [This issue has been solved!]
    • Drop chutes into the containment. Nobody wants to open those containment cells once there are alien eggs planted inside. Or actual, living aliens roaming about in that 3x3 area. Having an item drop chute to throw in things into would make studying the interactions between things and aliens a bit more worth-while. This goes for the poor souls which play aliens inside the containment cells, as well.
    • Stop the randomization of tool boxes. Why would they store two electrical tool boxes in the same room? It's a hassle to find the right tools for the researchers to use, hence giving them one standard toolbox and one of the electrical kind. [This has been solved!... As far as I'm aware, that is.]
    • Autolathe resources. If you don't want researchers to deconstruct chairs and windows, that's the way to go. [This has been solved!... As far as I'm aware, that is.]
    • Change 'Medical Researcher' to simply 'Researcher'. [Or: Allow them to choose that, themselves.]


    In the end, three of these changes would make the research role a bit less time-consuming in terms of 'time you spend doing absolutely nothing productive', where-as the drop chute would advocate researchers to interact with their pet aliens more. And the last one? Most of us don't want to play as sub-type doctors. We really don't want to be doing surgeries, if we did, we would've gone doctor from the get-go. We don't want the CMO to yell at us for not coming down and helping with all of those internally, eternally bleeding marines. Because we intellectuals? We want to be special. We want to change things on how the round goes.

    Then we have the more impactful things to add, since they would fix how boring this job is.
    • More, easily accessible chemistry recipes. With those, experimentation would actually play a bigger role, and would open up more options for experimental grenades, mixes... you get the point. [With the addition of thermite, and different fire-mixes, I find this has been quite a positive change!]
    • Alien autopsy. It's great that we always get a truckload of aliens at our doorstep, but we never actually do something with them. Perhaps adding experimental upgrades to armor, weaponry, and utility made out of alien chitin, hides, acids and materials would solve this problem. The Burrower's claws could make for an upgrade to the shovels; the Crusher's armor an upgrade to the tank; the Ravager's claws an upgrade to the machetes; the Boiler's ocular organs an upgrade to scopes/binoculars? All of this would certainly give us something to do, perhaps limited to the Defcon, but on-par with the upgrades the aliens get when they mature. [This has been solved in a neat way by adding new Alien substances and involving them in Chemicals!]
    • Protolathe, or something similar. Perhaps connect it to the previous point of Alien autopsy, allowing for those prototypes of weaponry and armor to be made which get sent out to the FOB for those silly marines to try using, blowing themselves up with upgraded versions of C4.


    I'm certain that there are even more things to come up with. And I hope these will get implemented, even if that would mean that we'd have to be whitelisted as a researcher only to be able to play (it's very roleplay-intensive, either way), since I believe that this role holds insane potential.

    Go ahead and tell me what you think about the current state of research, as well. All replies are welcome.
    Last edited by MarpleJones; 09-04-2019 at 01:45 PM. Reason: There have been some **quality of life** changes!

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    My thoughts on the researcher role
    When I started out with CM a year ago, I played almost exclusively researcher before I felt competent enough to main CMO. Back then, all I had to do was practice chemistry, experiment with gamemechanics to the point I knew about everything I could know. Just look at my research archive. And that's just the stuff I've put on the forums, my personal notes extend far beyond that. But once I ran out of experiments to perform, I also ran out of reasons to play researcher. I've made tons of HRP research reports about xenos and experiments, but it takes a lot of effort to make those and get's repetitive quickly. As an RP role, I think the researcher is much more repetitive and boring than the CL. Because unlike the CL, your high effort RP can't really impact the round in any way, unless the CL decides to fax about your research and the off-chance it's taken seriously.

    And after a year, I am truly sad that the researcher is still in this state. Actually, no, they're even worse than a year ago. Researchers have been made even more boring now. While the research department is now much nicer than a year ago, their gameplay have only worsened. They've been reduced to a corpse dragging slave. Even as CMO, I demand that they do that, despite how boring I know it is for them. But noone else can do it and command requires us to do it for the sake of DEFCON. I'm happy the devs gave a reason and reward for dragging dead marines and xenos to the ship. But I believe this has worsened the experience of the researcher even more.

    And at the same time, I can entirely understand why the researcher has been left out. It's 1-2 players out of up to 200. From that perspective, it makes sense to not prioritize them in development. However, I think it's very wrong that they have been completely neglected and even restrained as time went on.

    If a researcher properly wants to perform an experiment, I will use my full power to allow them to do so, as long as it doesn't grief anyone. Because that's the only way for them to have fun. This is why I made the research formulas for the wiki, so researchers had a formal way to experiment. But sadly, few researchers put the effort into this. Probably because of fear of being punished for it and because it doesn't actually impact the round.

    On your suggestions
    The suggestion for giving researchers access to containment is something I'm very much for, especially with DEFCON requiring xeno corpses to be dragged in there. And honestly, what harm could the researcher do in there, that he can't do in the rest of the lab? Absolutely nothing, for he has nothing to do other than RP. Opening containment is the first thing I do when I wake up as CMO and walk out of my office. However, this suggestion has already been on gitlab before and was ignored sadly.

    I don't think making chemistry recipes more accessible would change anything for the better. That would just give them even less reason to explore and experiment with chemistry.

    I definitely think adding something else to do with xeno corpses would be good, rather than just dragging them to containment and forget about them. Alien autopsy would be nice and a way to make upgraded research items. Though I think the devs are afraid of research items being too powerful, I highly doubt so because of the difficulty in distributing it after deployment. And perhabs it should be something that takes time to build up, similar to DEFCON, a research level. And I can hardly imagine research items ever impacting the round more than DEFCON already is with how overpowered it often is.

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    I've been maining researcher for around 2 or 3 years by now, and i can say, everything above is relatable. Researchers have been reduced to corpse-dragging gooks for the sake of DEFCON, and they get absolutely nothing out of dragging only dead things in morgue and containment for over 30 minutes.

    Back in the Sulaco days, we did have alien autopsy, basically being able to create chitin things and reinforce armor out of it. Guess what, the old dev team removed it, for some reason. The researcher role has been dead for probably over two years or some similar time period.

    Re-adding the alien autopsy mechanics would give Researchers something to do, develop things out of dead things. But personally, i don't think i want Command yelling at us, researchers, mid-game while RPing with the CL, ''WHERE ARE MY ARMOR REINFORCER THINGIES?''

    After playing so many rounds as researcher, to get some mechanical fun, you need to beg that it's a pred round, and so, marines bring their tech up for you, or if they get an egg. Otherwise, you're just as good as a re-named doctor. A researcher can only create RP situations for so long, that they get repetitive.

    How many times did that CL propose you that ''Super Human'' project that you replace a marine's limbs with robotic ones?

    How many times did a CL just give you ultrazine and sayed, ''Test it''?

    How many times did Command even bothered to read your report about the autopsies, wich could give valuable intel about the enemy?


    In my time as a researcher, i came across these situations so, SO many times. All of them, with similar, if not, the same outcome. Researchers became a repetitive, boring role over time. The reason i stopped playing this role so frequently is that, i ran out of ideas to do. Playing the waiting game after the Marine drop over and over again is sickening.

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    The research update became a meme after a few years.

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    Whitelisted Predator MarpleJones's Avatar
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    Cheers for all the replies, it's great that I'm not the only one thinking that research needs to change for the better!

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    Senior Member SirMandrake's Avatar
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    I played a decent amount of researcher when I first got into cm, but I stopped because it's boring and incredibly unsatisfying. I reached a point where I realized I was only doing illegal shit (ic and ooc). Even then, making space drugs/ethanol is really not that fun. The most fun I had was doing fake autopsies and relaying my information to command, but that's only if they listen. Any ideas I had to mess with xenos never worked as intended (like lubing up the floor, sadly doesn't work). And I don't really enjoy medical, so I felt like I was just dragging ass and hurting the round. I just see no point in going researcher unless you feel like doing weird shit and hoping others rp with you.

    Most of my suggestions work better from regular ss13, not cm, and op made logical suggestions people have been asking for quite a while. Dunno, I would love to do a mad scientist again, but as far as pure rp roles CL is infinitely better as it currently stands
    Last edited by SirMandrake; 03-18-2019 at 06:32 PM.
    Goosen Dagen-casual marine

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    more or less what others have said, back in the old sulaco days I loved having the lab all to myself, tinkering with research, doing autospies to make the anti acid spray type shit, ogling at the xenos in containment (we can still do it now I guess, but it was more of a novelty back then)

    I hope devs have something...anything planned, or research is going the way of HL3

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    Senior Member Madventurer's Avatar
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    I have to agree, researcher is basically just a doctor who fucks around the upper deck, hoping some PFC brings an egg so we can have a Queen on Almayer or something similar silly.

    Research update really does seem like just a meme at this point though.
    Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere


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    Whenever I play as Researcher I just hope there's a CL that I can get up to evil corporate shenanigans with. If there isn't a CL you may as well stick a gun in your mouth or fuck with the MPs for fun. Researcher has literally nothing to do.

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    *nods with quite some agreement*

    I sympathize with this role a bit. Reasons include that its the one role along with Engineer and maybe Intel the bridge both CM heritage and SS13 heritage in ingenuity.
    The biggest reason I feel the role hasn't grown the isn't enough "call-to-action", in other words there's little interdependence for the role to both stand in its own and be interesting to the 'meta'.

    (hold your breaths people

    That said, Now with Intel, DEFCON, and ground terminals could make for a key synergy loop for Research (*1). See, research needs DATA, and some form of causality in-game. Researchers react to a situation and make solutions, they provide assets to emergent moments allowing the whole of Almayer to adapt. I mean look at the COLONY research facilities of Lambda, Eta, and Prison - all that infrastructure would make a someone writhe in jealousy at the possible fun if that was on Almayer

    Imagine:
    -Intel Officers takes a blank research disk from Almayer, to transport data back to the ship....
    -This action adds to DEFCON and can allow for a new set of points which is Research Clearance.... ( Thus supporting RP play, and exchanges from Command or Req)
    -For the sake of point, a researcher wants a certain supply ordered from Req, and RO decides its better spent on the Marine Defense. In a fit, researcher say screw it, fires up THEIR test fabricator. With the DATA SERVER (*2) on hand using the gained data and clearance to run such, makes a blueprint (say, Armor Coating) or modifies an existing item to make a new one (say, Low-Yield HE Slugs)
    - Marines now have the Force Mulitiplication they need to continus the fight with low squad numbers - because Engineering could fab the new stuffs and Cargo has another avenue to play with

    How much mood and immersion would that add?

    Not only that but:
    -DEFCON 2 can get more expanded, and DEFCON 1 is more achievable
    -Plus, Nuke doesn't have to be the only option at last DEFCON. Why not an Black Ops Clearance internally because Almayer "is facing a threat none have ever known"
    ( this can better support Rare Strains of xeno if ever reached, or current strain mixes prove to have a super-synergy within the ranks )
    -Story wise - we would have new line saying "The Crew of Almayer was the only ship to take risks, rising to the challenge to quiet a surpreme threat to life"
    - Imagine having a Surviving Researcher, with a KEYCARD

    Research, as a role, could get their own vendor and equips - Even Armored coats if groundside. They would make getting to survivors more interesting. the RP with CL would be insane. Research Dept. can be a sub-Requistions via Engineering with a good enough player ( Imagine making cades for a mini Req line in for fun )

    I can't stress enough how playable and playful this role can be given it can BUFF low-pop, and sustain high-pop and untold amounts of supportable RP with some of the notes above. And I feel like the Devs literally could use the role as a midway to test stuff IC'ly/Event wise that would only add a immersion. .

    ---------------------- Sub Topics

    (*1)
    The DATA Server is combo of computers in one suite that passively accrues data "score" to simulate running off of all the items going on in the round. The active parts is where it reads DEFCON and/or completed disk are sent to it. This action creates "usable" data that allows Researchers to perform their task in the game setting. ( not too different from Req nor SS13's Reasearch setup. That's the base function.
    Where Research gains more assets, the act of creatng the items, generates more data, this Data being the one that can add to DEFCON itself. Thus the active data loops repeats, and the data "score" acts like a XP level for the Dept. Even printing on Blueprint paper will confer a "score point"

    (While this is advanced, I'd like to see a computer with slots that accepts mulitple datacards. Mind you, this would add a +1 and +2 to the method, rather than you only have 2/3 cards to complete a function - that's rather deflating in a crucial time. )

    (*2)
    Synergy loop: Have you noticed the key rotation/logistics of Marine, Req, and Pilots? or how the new Intel, Command, Marine play is starting to show its effects?
    that's the synergy loop that Research needs a circle in. That will also be a good proof of health game wise as well.
    I hoping its the Res., Engi., and Intel loop that happens in lieu to Res. becoming a full dept. Even Res, Survivor, Intel would be a nice loop.

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