Core Species Design Doc Discussion

Development Work Groups
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This post is a summary from the discussion that happened on the 31.03.2025. It is meant to achieve the following:

  • Motivate @Vasilis to write the core design doc.
  • Get the opinions from staff as there are a lot of different ones.

As with any discussions, please keep it cool.

Summary

This summary is without usernames, so there will be conflicts in points raised.

Corner of Shame

When people got off-topic when discussing this.

  • Allergy attacks
  • Headaches from congestion
  • Me shilling Discourse
  • Making the game 18+ causing it to be banned in Germany as a takeover strategy
  • Cries of help over technical debt
  • Flipp was there
  • Signal group chat (There is none)
  • Slime allegations
  • ERP chips

Summary of points raised

Warning: Messages were interpreted by me when they were unclear. This means that some of this may not reflect 100% what the message author intended to say. Please point out any mistakes, I will correct the mistake.

  • Playable species do not need to be unique, they just need to look different.
    • It is a roleplaying game, species do not require major feature differences.
      • People want to express their individuality checks discord message, not because they want to darksouls a spess game
    • This may lead to species bloat.
    • Will make it so design docs would not be needed as the only difference is sprites and names as there is no gameplay implication.
  • Species should be allowed to have niche abilities as long as the combat balance is not horribly destroyed.
    • Example (I do not know if this was a shitpost): “Slimes should be able to pick any body shape and marking and making it slimy, so they can be abominations”
    • Abilities that are not communicated properly are a bad first impression for first time players.
      • Example: Vox N2 tank juggling.
    • Abilities with downsides are forced even though people want to play that species just for the looks.
      • Example: Vox suit storage is blocked, so playing security is more difficult / different as you cannot put a gun in your suit storage slot.
    • It is interesting for species to play differently gameplay wise.
  • Give people the ability to toggle species abilities on or off. Basically traits.
    • Suggested: “Species Points” that everyone can spend how they want
    • There was some disagreement to this.
    • If people can mix and match abilities from a species, what stops someone from only picking upsides if there are granular settings for the abilities?
      • Could just be either no species traits or full traits with all downsides and upsides
        • This could cause confusion if you think a person needs N2 to breathe, but they actually require O2.
      • “I worry it will turn into Project Zomboid where everyone is a slightly underweight smoker”
  • Custom species names
    • Concerns over moderation were raised.
    • Human and human-like species can be put under one general humanoid species.
    • Reptilians and Vulpkanin can be merged into a generic all-encompassing anthropomorphic species, featuring tail pulling (tails would be visually enforced) and claws. Would either need a different downside, or an exclusive warm-blooded/cold-blooded toggle that toggles whether they’re vulnerable to heat or cold.
    • Markings would be used to make the different species, accents would use a selector (Available accents would probably be based on the markings used)
    • Other species can be given their own additional variants in the future
  • Species that have custom mechanics should have exclusive immediately visually identifiable features.
    • Examples include: Vox and their raptor stance, spiders with multiple arms, dionae with their branches
  • In other conversations, a sub-species system was mentioned

Please discuss any further species related things here until a core species design doc is made.

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I’m copy pasting my ideas on subspecies here, which may help address potential species bloat while allowing for more variety that is purely visual without requiring unique mechanics:

On the topic of subspecies:

  • they would need some hard requirements as well, more than “minor difference” or we will get a ton of PRs adding bloat species (elf ears for example)
  • I would suggest something like “a unique (visual) identity”. Sharks for example are different enough from lizards that they should be their own thing, and the two should not share markings to prevent player characters from losing visual coherence. A good test for that could be: Can this species be identified even with a hardsuit and helmet on? Moths/Bees, Lizards/Sharks, and Humans/Dwarfs can be distinguished in these cases due to different shapes or markings that show on the outside
  • In that regard I’m not sure if the echo fighters from smash bros are a good comparison, as these are usually recoloured versions, but have the same character shape (let’s be honest, daisy as a character is bloat, waluigi on the other hand would have been great)
  • Dwarfs being turned either into a subspecies (if we think the alcohol healing is unique enough) or two traits (small size and accent) is a good way to go and logical consequence of the doc

For full species:

  • We need better guidelines on what unique features should be allowed and what not. For the resomi PR we denied we had less health and higher speed, which both were bad for combat balance, and having a brigher flash shader effect, which was bad for accessibility.
  • In general, do we want species to be combat balanced? Or do we allow species that are objectively worse from a metagaming perspective? For example vox can be quite handicapped in some scenarios due to constantly requiring nitrogen, and they were temporarily disabled from certain ghostrole spawns and nukies for that reason.
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Species definitely need some mechanical differances. But it should not be major stuff. Think things like tail pull or their diet, as well as damage resistances.

I’m also against the idea of species points and custom names for them. While the customizability is nice it can lead to a pain of balance and moderation work, as you said.

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things like tail pull

Tail pulling is a very powerful buff. Being able to wield a gun and pull another thing during that is very, very powerful.

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I also want to mention that this is a public topic anyone can read.

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I would like to point out that humans, slimepeople, skeletons, gingerbread etc are all indistinguishable from each other when armored up and hide their head/hands

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I want to throw my cents in (even though I will be the one writing this in the end of this, soo)

I highly disagree with this, as already explained. This will just support picking all the good stuff. And may lead to confusion in certain cases where two members of the same species can do something different.

At this point, this is just the “positive negative” quirks ss13 servers had, which I would much prefer over enforcing this on a species level.

While it is intresting I don’t believe this to be a really good idea, again player confusion on “How do i play as the scrimblobob species I dont see it”, or people making their species “Lizard” when they are a human.

Do people really mind that much that their fursona species it not mentioned when they are being shift clicked?

I am 50/50 on this, mostly cause I want to somewhat encourage new perks/disadvantages and also cause I dont like the idea of “custom species names” so it would just lead to more confussion then help.

:thistbh:

Actually, echo fighters have minor diffrences. Also based

Yes, please, please discuss this more. This is one of the major parts of my previous design doc I wanted to be addressed, but never got input.

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Ight so I took a little time to put together my thoughts, so hopefully I can write them down in a coherent manner. I apologize if I explained things weirdly or without much sense.

Many of the things raised in the summary are severely overcomplicating what actually needs to be done. Personally I enjoy species as they are right now, so I’ll address few points raised there.

Playable species do not need to be unique, they just need to look different.

While this is an interesting way to view the situation, this is not a good idea. Currently the main points behind people choosing certain species (to my knowledge) is for the looks, however species having their unique interactions and gameplay implications add a lot of depth and make the game more interesting, even if minor. Can you imagine a moth able to eat regular food? Or a lizard without a tail pull? Having everything be purely cosmetic gets rid of interesting gameplay depth.

This may lead to species bloat.

Personally, I do not believe such thing as species bloat exists. Making a species is a lot of effort and has plenty implications for the game itself.

Another point was raised that this may lead to elves who are just humans with long ears, or dwarves who are short humans. But things like this can be made simply into either a trait (ex. “Short” trait) or a marking (ex. “Long ears”). Wanting to play a human with long ears should not warrant making whole new species, and as such, if we have some guidelines, keeping species different enough should definitely be a point in the design doc.

Species should be allowed to have niche abilities as long as the combat balance is not horribly destroyed.

I definitely agree with this. As I said above, some niche abilities is what makes species have gameplay depth, HOWEVER adding said depth should not be something that ruins the balance of the game, or makes another aspect of the game pointless. If any abilities are added they should be something universal and not tied to anything specific that would benefit one department more than another.

Look at it from this perspective. Let’s say we add Vulpkanins with the sniffing ability but centered around forensics (as that was a popular point while talking about a sniff ability). What does it lead to?

  • Security officers who wonna do their job will likely pick Vulps for an easier time doing their job.

  • Leads to a more or less useless ability as nobody else makes use of forensics, meaning it is useful only for security.

What about some scorpion species? Let’s say their ability is injecting people with their tail like a hypopen.

  • Everyone in medical now uses that species as it has something that makes syringes useless

  • This absolutely destroys balance, as we all know instant injections are overpowered.

Now let’s look at some examples we currently have.

  • Lizards are able to pull an object without using a hand for it. While it is a strong ability, it is not neccessarily one that destroys balance. It adds a niche but useful interaction that species would have.

  • Slimes have an extra storage they can use. Having additional inventory slots is always useful, but by no means is it gamebreaking, it serves to give them some unique identity.

  • Vox regenerate poison very easily. While this is more of an accessibility thing due to their oxygen poisoning, this is also something that grants them a unique interaction that adds interesting depth to their gameplay, while not being directly beneficial to any specific job or department.

  • All species have their niche damage reductions or weaknesses. Personally I have not seen them define how species are played, but they still are a very interesting thing that should be kept in mind.

Abilities with downsides are forced even though people want to play that species just for the looks.

I do not see this as a bad thing. Some gameplay variety is definitely interesting between species, which I believe I already explained why it is a good idea.

Give people the ability to toggle species abilities on or off. Basically traits

No. If this was to be a thing, it needs to be more universal if anything. As it was pointed out, what would stop people from choosing simply the best ones? And if we make some sort of point-buy that leads to a positive trait system. And then what stops people from simply choosing the best upsides but very minor downsides? The point about this turning it into Project Zomboid is a very good one.

Custom species names

Now, this sounds very good on paper. But there are many systems in the game that would simply not work well with this.

One of the most important systems we use, namely identities, is based around your gender and species. Even if you conceal your identity being examined will still say things such as “She is a young human.”.

Now… What if we get custom species? “He is a young folf.”. Now this might not be innately bad, but consider this, how many people with such species are on the station? What stops security from immediately knowing it is you simply cause you are the only person with that custom species? Nothing. This would be metagamed terribly and is not worth allowing someone to simply pick a species their OCs are as it would lead to worse gameplay experience, as well as being confusing for everyone else.

Species that have custom mechanics should have exclusive immediately visually identifiable features.

Personally I see nothing wrong with this. But this may lead to questions like “How visually different should this species be? How do we show a specific mechanic through the looks of this species?”. If we have this as a requirement it should be a more soft one than a hard one, because it leads to more general confusion during development.

In other conversations, a sub-species system was mentioned

Subspecies is a good idea. But I think things that make subspecies can be simply made into traits and markings. A dwarf could be a “Short” human with an applied accent. An elf could be “Tall” with a pointy ear marking. There is really no need to make “subspecies” for such minor differances.

As Slarti said, if we take an idea like this further it will need some hard requirements, but personally I think traits/markings is the way to go instead.

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Replying to above

This is how I basically wrote my initial design doc at first. I personally also don’t see an issue with the way species are now

The whole point I want on my core design doc is what should be REQUIREMENTS for anything new. And what my previous design doc needed input from maintainers to be put in earlier then this.

How do we want the art style to look? Do we allow elf ears on humans? Or make them need to be a sub species?
What should count as a sub species?
What should not be used as a unique ability?
What can and can’t you nerf for a species?

THESE are some of the stuff I wish this thread will answer. Otherwise this thread does not help me much other then be shopping trip ideas.

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As an example here, we denied a species doc idea once since it lowered the max HP you could have to trade off being faster and made you more suspectable to flashes.

We denied the first parts since we thought it ruined game balance. Second for accessibility.

This is what I wish this thread to discuss.

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So basically the way I see this.

How do we want the art style to look?

This is a tough thing that an arttainer should be able to answer. Personally I do not see issues with species looking more “goofy” or “serious” or along that matter, but I do not understand what we mean by “artstyle” in this case. Their general posture? Looks? Actually the way they are drawn?

What should count as a sub species?

Now I said I believe this should be instead be traits and markings, but if the idea of subspecies does go through, they should be a simple variation of the main species. That being minor statistic wise(More heat damage taken, less cold resistance, maybe swapping one up/downside for another). They should not differ from their main species beyond those parts, and definitely not looks wise (at least in the bigger picture). The moment we want to start changing looks it should either be selectable marking or a whole new species.

What should not be used as a unique ability?

Things that be used to essentially minmax how you play the game, or lead to it being more annyoing than fun. Vox are currently enjoyable and fun due to their aspects fitting together well. They aren’t too strong, too weak, and while they may be less than ideal at combat it is not anything major.
What you said about denying a previous doc for a species: Lowering the max HP is a huge deal all across the board. This can lead to being overly squishy or not fitting for many aspects of the game. HP is overall a very delicate stat that we should not play with often, especially for a roundstart species.
Now being faster, while fun on paper, can lead to similiar things. Movement speed increases are very powerful in the game as it is. I’m sure everyone had a situation where they cannot catch up to a ninja due to their movement speed, or having an antagonist run away on speed boots(although, this being justified as it is essentially a “endgame” thing). Are you sure we want to give a secoff the power to outrun everyone? Or allow an antag to outrun a secoff out of the box? I don’t think this is a good idea.
And about the flash vulnerability. Yeah this is just an accessibility thing. I do not think much needs to be said about it. Maybe could be considered once we make the flash shader less annoying.

Instead, what I think fits well for unique abilities is minor things that do not control why someone would want to play a species.
Tail pull is great, but it is definitely not the defining factor behind why people choose to play lizard.
Slimes get their storage, but does anyone play slime just for the storage? I do not believe so.
I think this is the mindset we should keep while making abilities for species. (My own example was giving Vulps a sniff ability to allow them to sense chemicals in a solution. But itself this is not something powerful or defining why someone would play a vulpkanin, but if it allowed sensing forensics then it would be too much cause then every security officer would try to abuse that ability)

What can and can’t you nerf for a species?

Now this will sound very broad, but we definitely don’t want species to be annoying to play. Slightly lowered or increased damage resistances sounds like a very nice way to keep things unique enough while not outright being a dealbreaker for playing something.
General statistics as HP, Speed, Stamina should not be affected as that leads to unbalanced behaviour, while a 10% pierce resistance will not make people go “Oh I’m so taking this for secoff, ill be destroying nukies in no time!”
What is changed should not be big, and if it is, the change should be minor enough to not be extremely noticable by everyone.

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I largely agree with Scar’s points in this thread.

In terms of traits, we want to avoid a species to have upsides that make them dominant for a particular role’s main gameplay loop. Where that line is drawn is hazy and depends on the gameplay impacted, but as-is I think we’ve struck a good balance where the traits of species make them largely general-purpose. Scar has already given good examples of the dangers of making traits dominant for specific purposes, so I do not have much more to add there.

I think species having more specific downsides is less of a concern, though careful consideration with balancing should be done nonetheless. This is because downsides can still be engaging; Vox may be pretty much only downsides, but having to manage the nitrogen supply is interesting gameplay.

Species shouldn’t fundamentally change how you play and downsides should generally be possible to mitigate somehow (jackets for Lizards, spare tanks/supercooled nitrogen for Vox, water and unique healing for Dionas etc.), but I do think species should always have something beyond visuals that make the stand out from the basic “human” prototype.

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