Proposal: Add Stress Penalty for Long-Term Atmosuit Use

[X_mumu]

Atmosuits are an essential part of the game, but Duplicants often wear them all day long—especially Bionics. To avoid wear and tear, once equipped, they rarely take them off.

Would it be possible to introduce a mechanic where prolonged use of an Atmosuit increases stress? For example, a 20% stress gain per cycle when continuously worn?

This would encourage players to let Duplicants remove their suits during meals, sleep, bathroom breaks, and recreational activities—allowing them to enjoy these moments in a comfortable environment.

[Gurgel]

Personally, the only thing this would make me do is not use bionic dupes anymore. Something I am considering anyways. 

[gigamoi]

I don't perma-suit them as I deem this to be an abuse of game mechanics and dislike it (and I like this proposed fix as a result), but I too consider bionics to be vastly inferior to regular dupes when late game comes. They then make great hyper-specialist for a few niches like ranching, but they otherwise suck as generalists because regular dupes' attributes all eventually rise to 20 when bionics are limited to what you can do with boosters which is much less overall. You can max out their boosters by midgame and that's it. They won't ever get better. Perhaps better boosters should be introduced. I could see those better boosters requiring late game materials as to both gate-keep their acquisition and incentivize collection of late game materials. To prevent single attribute stacking going further than already possible, they must also provide a wider variety of attribute points instead of mostly a single one plus athletics as the current boosters do, so they must be fewer in number and provide less specialized boosts. I could see one (or more) requiring insulite and super coolant providing atmosuit like protection, and others requiring niobium, viscogel and brackwax providing general attributes boosts (like one with +5 ranching +5 farming and +2 athletics). Additional power consumption may also be involved. That way, you can get your super dupe, but you pay for it.

[Gurgel]

Yes, that is the problem. They start off really strong because they do not need to breath when exploring. But then they get weaker and weaker in comparison. 

[Paperbag]

Honestly, this feels kind of pointless as anything other than a Bionics nerf. Regular dupes don't care because they unsuit every cycle. Bionics are already worse than regular Dupes after enough cycles, and honestly I don't like them for earlygame anyway because of their water discharge mechanic

If the Bionics didn't want to wear a suit 24/7 they shouldn't have come with a built in airtank and liquid vulnerability :V

[Gurgel]

34 minutes ago, Paperbag said:

If the Bionics didn't want to wear a suit 24/7 they shouldn't have come with a built in airtank and liquid vulnerability :V

Agreed. Well, I think bionics are a nice addition, but they need some more work at some time in the future to become "core game". I am confident they will be getting that. 

[Pproy]

5 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Agreed. Well, I think bionics are a nice addition, but they need some more work at some time in the future to become "core game". I am confident they will be getting that. 

Honestly, I do apreciate that we can now upgrade them to be imune to eye sore and pop ear drum. I think its a step in the right direction that could be further expanded.

I think it was suggested before, but it woukd be really neat if we could craft them part to upgrade them further. Like, instead of equiping them with atmo suit, we could craft them water proof parts in the soldering station. In the late game, they could even get upgrade for increased mobility (like being able to jump over 3 or more tiles up) or even bigger air tank. However, they would require more and more power in proportion of the number of upgrade they have.

[Bluefoxfire]

Or even better idea, make it so when the suit hits 0 durability, it'll gain a sort of "Wearing out" debuff. The dupe will try to dock the suit, similar to low O2 or fuel. If they can't, the suit automatically de-equips after 30s of game time.

 

"However, they would require more and more power in proportion of the number of upgrades they have"

Failing that, have it to where they can equip more boosters beyond what they can carry, but each additional one increases power usage.

Edited November 22, 2025 by Bluefoxfire

[PowerPowerPower]

I don’t know what you guys are talking about with bionics being weaker than dupes, they’re balanced but definitely pushing the threshold of being too strong

[gigamoi]

On 11/22/2025 at 7:03 PM, PowerPowerPower said:

I don’t know what you guys are talking about with bionics being weaker than dupes, they’re balanced but definitely pushing the threshold of being too strong

While very good from early to mid game, a biological dupe old enough to have all/most of its attributes leveled-up will outperform bionics on most tasks. Late game, my bionics are either poor generalists, or VERY good specialists that occasionally snatch tasks they suck at (and will always suck at) from better qualified dupes.

Edited November 24, 2025 by gigamoi

[Henlikuoth]

On 11/19/2025 at 9:57 PM, gigamoi said:

I could see one (or more) requiring insulite and super coolant providing atmosuit like protection, and others requiring niobium, viscogel and brackwax providing general attributes boosts

I would like this. This would give more reason and motivation to create such elements to begin with, and it could grant mid- or late-game immunity to fluids for bionics, making them more useful and thematically interesting.

On 11/22/2025 at 3:55 PM, Paperbag said:

If the Bionics didn't want to wear a suit 24/7 they shouldn't have come with a built in airtank and liquid vulnerability

In my view, bionics shouldn't even be able to wear an atmo suit, let alone an oxygen mask. It does not fit thematically at all. They have inbuilt oxygen tanks that they are supposed to use (what else). So, any reliance or usage of external suits violates this whole bionic idea already. 

I like that Klei added bionic skills that render them immune to irritants and cold/warm temperatures. That is already a first step and aligns with the idea of a bionic that relies on its bionic technologies rather than an atmo suit (again). 

Let's hope Klei will do something about this. 

[Kderosa]

the main advantage of boops is that they only need air (ie, water) and power. Farming and ranching are space and dupe intensive, reducing/eliminating them also eliminates other supply chains as well. this is helpful on the moonlet starts since it reduces the amount of material you have to move between planets, especially solid materials which need the most micromanaging unlike liquid and gases once you have launchers. Food in particular is a hassle to transport since it spoils quickly. 

Bionics are also useful as caretakers, especially on planets with little food. 

I’ll use them on planets where I just put a dupe or two to make sure things run smoothly and to fix things when they break. I’ll leave them there with a set off boosters that can be switched out as needed. Often I’ll pair them with a dupe as a backup failsafe. 

Now all you need is a water supply and you can keep the boop alive forever with a spom. The hydrogen from the spom is typically enough to keep the boop powered. If the colony needs more power you can ship over extra hydrogen (or any other source of power).  

So usually once I have plenty of power on my main colonies I’ll start taking on boops and train them up for the inevitable outer colony expansion. 

[Bluefoxfire]

On 11/24/2025 at 5:30 AM, gigamoi said:

While very good from early to mid game, a biological dupe old enough to have all/most of its attributes leveled-up will outperform bionics on most tasks. Late game, my bionics are either poor generalists, or VERY good specialists that occasionally snatch tasks they suck at (and will always suck at) from better qualified dupes.

Even if it had 8 strength boosters on it? +6.4kg capacity from the bonus alone.

On 11/24/2025 at 5:44 PM, Kderosa said:

If the colony needs more power you can ship over extra hydrogen (or any other source of power).  

I find about 3-4 solar panels sufficient for power usage. Except for the ice planetoid (due to lack of light) and regolith planetoid (due to, well, regolith).

[gigamoi]

7 hours ago, Bluefoxfire said:

Even if it had 8 strength boosters on it? +6.4kg capacity from the bonus alone.

As I said, IMO, a VERY good specialists that occasionally snatch tasks they suck at (or idles). If I need such large quantities of materials transported on a regular basis, I'd rather build rails.