I think this is where this would go. If its in the wrong place feel free to move it.
Hi, Kiki stardew here, One of salamanders most active players in recent months~ Kiki is a dwarf so I have a vested interest in having them stay as their own race so consider my views biased.
It seems in the latest delovper thread there is talk about merging Dwarf into humans. to quote:
Unfortunately Im not a maintainer so… cant talk directly in that thread, but I did want to open a discussion on the race I play as to give them traits so they standout as there own people. I would like to open the floor to people to give suggestions on what things they could be given as well as feedback on others idea’s. Suggestions should try to be inline with the current other races guidelines.
To open I was thinking we could do something with their small size. here is a scattering of potential idea’s based on their size.
While Dragging Dwarfs characters move X% Faster than draging races of other kinds.
Dwarfs Dragging things move Y% Slower.
Dwarfs can be put into pet carriers
Considering balance of the dragging them being easier I feel is net neutral as it would aid parameds and crew getting crit dwarfs back to medbay, but also aid antags moving them out the way and hiding them. Having Dwarfs drag things slower hurts antag dwarfs and recovery of crew making them less suitable for paramed.
Dwarfs being able to hide in pet carriers would give them some advantages when trying to hide as folks may overlook a pet carrier rather than a locker or chest.
Before the baseline removal of all races being able to go into pet carriers I once had sec warn me of a threat on my life and arranged to be carried in a pet carrier by HoP for my own protection to evac where I safely got to CC having dwarfs being unquinely able to hide like this isn’t very strong as the only difference between this and a locker is you can be picked up easy.
Would be great to make them a little more unique rather just being squished humans! And I like dwarves and would like to keep them, that is why I suggested the subspecies thing.
Dwarfs can be put into pet carriers
This one sounds funny, but would be horrible from a technical perspective. We removed players from fitting into them because it came with a never ending list of bugs.
Yeah my hope is we could brain storm as a community ways that could make them more unique so they dont need merging as a subspecies~
Ah I thought it was due to it being unintended behavior (pet carriers are meant to be for pets not people!) I dont know the ins and outs of the devlopment side but right now pets can be put in carriers so im guessing there is some kinda check or flag that says they can go into it, which you’d add into dwarfs. then use the same code for being in a locker. (im unsure what specific bugs was encountered so this is just how i’d apporch it)
Oh yeah I definitely support dwarf being its own species. But we need to make them unique enough to fit into that.
I know many people have ideas, so hopefully those can be expanded upon once we get a species doc.
I mean, it that would not change anything regarding gameplay. They would still show up as a dwarf in the character selection and in-game. It is more intended as a game-design justification on why they are allowed as a species even if they are not as fleshed out mechanically as others.
I thought they were distinct because they could heal from alcohol?
Could they possibly get a form of nightvision like dnd dwarves maybe? Seeing into darkness at hat torch range in black and white without a light, maybe with a narrower cone of view, for example.
I’m waiting on the speciesdoc but I’ll be drafting a dwarf proposal then.
Space dwarf stocks are very high in games now due to Deep Rock Galactic and Warhammer 40,000 re-adding them as the “Leagues of Votann”.
Conceptually, I am intending to propose a species that has two key features:
They’re naturally friendly to engineering and salvage. They have an innate comprehension about machines and maintaining them - they recognize more information about the amount of damage structures have taken, and “know stone”, so they are good at mining for ores.
They pretty much live off of alcohol.
Dwarfs should be the bar species. They should want to go to the bar at least once or twice in the shift to tank up. They appreciate well-made alcohol. It should be common in SS14 to go into the bar and see a small gaggle of dwarf crewmembers sitting around drinking and chatting. Alcohol is culturally important to them and they suffer if they are kept from it for a long while. They also have some unusual tastes for booze - they love mushroom wine, a drink nobody else on the station can drink without throwing up.
Essentially, this would combine common dwarf design pillars into something that feels dwarfy, and would fulfil the fiction of “space dwarf” established by games like DRG.
Im pretty sure folks will react the same way people feel about Pluto not being a planet, but with a more emtional connection… as a dwarf main I dont wanna be changed from a race to a sub-race…
ooh i like the line of thinking you have here, maybe give them a passive ore sense (ore scanner built into them) or a chance when building something to refund some resources.
I feel like if you give a race something specific to a department, you’re gonna get people who optimize playing only that race in that department. I can get why we’d want it, but honestly I’d try to stray away from it.
Though it does make me wonder - maybe a minor t-ray effect could be good. Half the range of a standard t-ray and it’s useful outside of engi for something like finding satchels, doing patch jobs or rerouting disposals to command again.
your completely right, i got a bit carried away there, even the race design stuff says not to do this. ill keep it on thread as a reminder to make sure suggestions dont make them any better for a job than anyone else.
I mean, take a look at Plasmamen on most 13 servers, they are basically built for work like engineering or sci due to radiation immunity (Hell they even gain bonuses when exposed to it), but people still like them as they are enough to use them in other jobs and roles.
i’d say its great for some species to have certain jobs that they can excel at, but not have it just be their only thing. And with dwarves, it shouldnt be that bad giving them a niche.
There’s always gonna be jobs certain species will be good at. Diona can heal faster with robust, making Botany a good pick. Moths fly around better in zero g, making them good for salvage. Lizards can haul objects with their tails, making them good at Cargo. But none of these are direct benefits like what’s being proposed - ore sense would make dwarves far more prevalent as mining salvage and a chance to refund some mats on constructing machines would benefit roles like Engineering and Science a lot more than other roles.
Radiation immunity honestly looks fine to me - engineering has one dedicated threat that you have to choose to activate (and right now, uranium doesn’t irradiate either), and science has a random chance of irradiation from artifacts. It’s situational, it’s not something that’s going to directly affect gameplay constantly nor will it affect the game the same way a random chance to not use materials will. I guarantee, if you gave dwarves that power someone would be sitting there constantly rebuilding a machine for that random chance. It fits the dwarven mindset, sure, but is it fun for the player?
That’s why earlier I asked if some kind of built in personal ‘nightvision’ would be a good idea. It’s situationally useful, and it can be replaced with something like a flashlight, sec lite or other light sources later if you need a better source of vision in darkness.
Another idea I’m bouncing around is being able to deal more structural damage to walls made of rock or steel, but I don’t really like the idea myself.
dwarfs now spawn with a pickaxe and a hard hat. They are given salvage access automatically (they yearn for the mines). And they really dislike apples. (snow white).
down sides.
they now need to drink alcohol like everyone else needs to drink water.
most clothes don’t fit them
they need a stepstool to hop over tables
I do get the “don’t tie things into a job role”, but it’s tough to come up with a mental image of a “space dwarf” that isn’t at least tuned towards things like adventuring, mining and engineering.
But having a natural “machine and stone sense” is useful across the station - an engineer reparing walls, a salvager mining rocks, a scientist maintaining borgs, the AI, their own machines. Even maybe a medical doctor trying to help an IPC - (“dammit Jim I’m a…”)
I’ve heard it as “needing to feel dwarfy” and I like that vibe.
I did just have one idea that i dont think is very powerful with a slight sci learning, What if they had a built in Robotics hud, So they could look at a borg and at a glace know percisely how hurt it is.
I dont think it’d learn them too much towards Sci/Robotics as Robo-Hud is avaiable and sci doesn’t do much else with the eye slot and I don’t see it being a massive impact on Antag or Protag gameplay. but would be a neat thing that ties them to their fantasy root without allowing them something to stand out.