Duplicants: Standard, Bionics, And...?

[CrutchPunk]

Ever since Bionic dupes (Boops!) were added to the game my mind's been going crazy thinking of the potential types of dupes they might add, or that I would WANT TO SEE added... but that got me curious, so I'm posting this to the community...

What "type" of specialized/unique duplicants would YOU want to see come to the world of ONI?! 

For me, I keep going back to Aquatic Dupes.

•   Fish-like duplicants that breathe water instead of air
• Build underwater - can perform tasks/errands underwater with no penalty.
• Can't survive in Oxygen - Will suffocate if out of water for too long - like aquatic critters 
  • potential to become semi-aquatic (upgrades/skills)
  • water-filled-fishbowl-helmet for prolonged land stays 
• No toilets needed - waste goes into water naturally, no "accidents"
• Underwater tunnels connect your base without surfacing - aquatic Transit Tubes
  • new swimming skill can be unlocked for all dupes (+waterproofing upgrade for Bionic)
  • aquatic dupes can walk or swim underwater (both are faster than standard dupes)
• Underwater farms - new/unique food/ranching

 

HONORABLE MENTION - slightly unrelated: Duplicant Mutations; potential critter/dupe hybrids. 

[Carlos Lawrence]

In a livestream a few months ago, the developer mentioned about Vampire DLC. dont know if its the next DLC or still idea. but its cool to have a Vampire Duplicant.

[Sebastiangperez]

14 hours ago, CrutchPunk said:

Ever since Bionic dupes (Boops!) were added to the game my mind's been going crazy thinking of the potential types of dupes they might add, or that I would WANT TO SEE added... but that got me curious, so I'm posting this to the community...

What "type" of specialized/unique duplicants would YOU want to see come to the world of ONI?! 

For me, I keep going back to Aquatic Dupes.

•   Fish-like duplicants that breathe water instead of air
• Build underwater - can perform tasks/errands underwater with no penalty.
• Can't survive in Oxygen - Will suffocate if out of water for too long - like aquatic critters 
  • potential to become semi-aquatic (upgrades/skills)
  • water-filled-fishbowl-helmet for prolonged land stays 
• No toilets needed - waste goes into water naturally, no "accidents"
• Underwater tunnels connect your base without surfacing - aquatic Transit Tubes
  • new swimming skill can be unlocked for all dupes (+waterproofing upgrade for Bionic)
  • aquatic dupes can walk or swim underwater (both are faster than standard dupes)
• Underwater farms - new/unique food/ranching

 

HONORABLE MENTION - slightly unrelated: Duplicant Mutations; potential critter/dupe hybrids. 

Seems odd, they have to make the water more transparent .... and, this will work with all liquids?, how do you manage not mixing liquids? this will be hard to manage.

5 hours ago, Carlos Lawrence said:

In a livestream a few months ago, the developer mentioned about Vampire DLC. dont know if its the next DLC or still idea. but its cool to have a Vampire Duplicant.

I don't know if this is a joke or serious, how this Vampire DLC its gonna work ??? they are gonna kill other dupes ? they need blood? there is gonna be a new type of plant or an entire ecosystem? bats? wolfs? absolute darkness? 

Edited November 26, 2025 by Sebastiangperez

[CrutchPunk]

7 hours ago, Carlos Lawrence said:

In a livestream a few months ago, the developer mentioned about Vampire DLC. dont know if its the next DLC or still idea. but its cool to have a Vampire Duplicant.

A supernatural-based DLC would be awesome! Would be perfect for an Oct/Halloween release. Though, aside from novelty not sure how useful any of that might be. xD 

2 hours ago, Sebastiangperez said:

Seems odd, they have to make the water more transparent .... and, this will work with all liquids?, how do you manage not mixing liquids? this will be hard to manage.

Not necessarily. currently you can see aquatic critters, and dupes underwater, just fine. Just think of it as the reverse of regular dupes.
Survive in air - drown in water... survive in water - suffocate on land. Sanishells or gulpfish would be able to help clean the mixed liquids. 

[Primalflower]

Strange request, but I've always wanted duplicants made of fire, with mechanics that would some way or another make them suitable for survival on planets like the flipped asteroid or the niobium asteroid. Would be fun if they had buildings that revolved around this with a steampunky boiler-room-ish aesthetic to go along with bionics having a lite car/pit stop theme to them. dupes themselves maybe could come in different colors and junk

some old doodles of whenever I was rotating this thought in my head a lot (numbers were came up with at random lol probably wouldnt feel good in practice)

They feel a little more realizable in my head now that we live in a world where jet suits dont mean surrendering to 20fps

Edited November 26, 2025 by Primalflower

[CrutchPunk]

On 11/26/2025 at 10:08 AM, Primalflower said:

Strange request, but I've always wanted duplicants made of fire, with mechanics that would some way or another make them suitable for survival on planets like the flipped asteroid or the niobium asteroid. Would be fun if they had buildings that revolved around this with a steampunky boiler-room-ish aesthetic to go along with bionics having a lite car/pit stop theme to them. dupes themselves maybe could come in different colors and junk

some old doodles of whenever I was rotating this thought in my head a lot (numbers were came up with at random lol probably wouldnt feel good in practice)

They feel a little more realizable in my head now that we live in a world where jet suits dont mean surrendering to 20fps

Would definitely be a new challenge... Oxygen would be even more important because they'd go out otherwise. You'd have to manage combustibles and avoid them... I could see the overstressed response being setting stuff on fire or something. XD They'd likely have to avoid liquids entirely. 

Would be interesting dynamic shift for sure. Would they consume something new (a la batteries for Boops?), or an existing resource? 

 

I suppose now we just need a Ground Dupe, and Air/flying and we'd have the elements! 🤣

[Fistleaf]

Too messy. I don't even like the Bionics.

[Sebastiangperez]

12 hours ago, CrutchPunk said:

Would definitely be a new challenge... Oxygen would be even more important because they'd go out otherwise. You'd have to manage combustibles and avoid them... I could see the overstressed response being setting stuff on fire or something. XD They'd likely have to avoid liquids entirely. 

Would be interesting dynamic shift for sure. Would they consume something new (a la batteries for Boops?), or an existing resource? 

 

I suppose now we just need a Ground Dupe, and Air/flying and we'd have the elements! 🤣

Maybe it will be nice an Anti-Dupe, instead of eat food, eats minerals or materials, Do not Breathe Oxygen , he will be suffocated by it.

[ThatOtherGuy54]

Zombie duplicant, boosted by disease.

[Sebastiangperez]

4 hours ago, ThatOtherGuy54 said:

Zombie duplicant, boosted by disease.

You already have a Zombie duplicant if a dupe is exposed to a sporechild flower, but do not work, only slow down the abilities. 

[Maxposting]

I saw @SGT_Imalas has worked on a plant duplicant mod on his github, would love to play with it sometime.

[CrutchPunk]

10 hours ago, Sebastiangperez said:

You already have a Zombie duplicant if a dupe is exposed to a sporechild flower, but do not work, only slow down the abilities. 

They're more like mindless drones than zombies, though. We need the dead dupes rising from the tasteful memorials and going after dupes! Added reasons to maintain disease exposure. 

 

7 hours ago, Maxposting said:

I saw @SGT_Imalas has worked on a plant duplicant mod on his github, would love to play with it sometime.

I do like the idea of the dupes themselves being able to drop useful resources and essentially ranching/farming themselves - space saver if you don't want dedicated critter ranches, etc. or giving them specific buffs related to the element.

 

Honestly, dupes that offer different/unique behaviors/traits that they get automatically but other dupes could learn/be trained would be really interesting along with those. Say a dupe knows how to swim... that dupe can then teach/train other dupes to swim, etc. 

[BezKa]

On 11/26/2025 at 5:57 AM, Carlos Lawrence said:

In a livestream a few months ago, the developer mentioned about Vampire DLC. dont know if its the next DLC or still idea. but its cool to have a Vampire Duplicant.

If it was Jesse during an art stream, that's a running gag where he turns various doodles into Dracula. Jesse also doesn't leak anything, at most he'd say "There's gonna be some news about <game> soon." but he WILL say random stuff and make up updates and changes as a joke :P 

Either way, I wouldn't mind vampire dupes, it'd be very funny. They could eat critters directly, cannot be exposed to sunlight and get boosts for being in darkness. Maybe hover a little bit and fly across bigger gaps  

[Sebastiangperez]

Mutating Duples like Bugs and Critters? this dupes has the same abilities that critters has ? 

[CrutchPunk]

11 hours ago, Sebastiangperez said:

Mutating Duples like Bugs and Critters? this dupes has the same abilities that critters has ? 

Imagine a dupe with a Drecko mutation... they'd shed the scales every time they showered. Or, a dupe with a puft as a head, able to float around. xD Mutations would unlock so much RNG entertainment and hopefully some relevant benefits, too. haha A dupe with a hatch/shove vole mutation able to burrow/tunnel... the possibilities are endless! 

Edited November 30, 2025 by CrutchPunk

[Sebastiangperez]

12 hours ago, CrutchPunk said:

Imagine a dupe with a Drecko mutation... they'd shed the scales every time they showered. Or, a dupe with a puft as a head, able to float around. xD Mutations would unlock so much RNG entertainment and hopefully some relevant benefits, too. haha A dupe with a hatch/shove vole mutation able to burrow/tunnel... the possibilities are endless! 

Also this could give you a new options for the Doctor / diseases tier that is not very exploited, i mean, i remember that they tried to achieve this but was very harsh, also with slimelungs, dupes could die if they catch it in early game development.

The fun part of this game is try to bring new materials , new mechanics and new buildings.

[6Havok9]

1 hour ago, Sebastiangperez said:

Also this could give you a new options for the Doctor / diseases tier that is not very exploited, i mean, i remember that they tried to achieve this but was very harsh, also with slimelungs, dupes could die if they catch it in early game development.

The fun part of this game is try to bring new materials , new mechanics and new buildings.

I really miss the old diseases with dire consequences. The current diseases are a joke and add nothing to the game, that change was the most unfortunate thing to happen to the game.

For me, the fun part in this game is.. the game. And it's pretty vast as it is. While new, *cough* well thought out *cough* things are always welcome, bloating is around the corner and could "dilute" or ruin the experience. And there's also a sort of power creep to be aware of.

(Iirc there was some super old aquatic trait for duplicants, no penalties underwater?)

[CrutchPunk]

14 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

I really miss the old diseases with dire consequences. The current diseases are a joke and add nothing to the game, that change was the most unfortunate thing to happen to the game.

For me, the fun part in this game is.. the game. And it's pretty vast as it is. While new, *cough* well thought out *cough* things are always welcome, bloating is around the corner and could "dilute" or ruin the experience. And there's also a sort of power creep to be aware of.

(Iirc there was some super old aquatic trait for duplicants, no penalties underwater?)

Agreed! Diseases Restored mod is fun, but it's not the same. Though, I will say, I finally survived 100+ cycles when they DID nerf the OG germs. xD Now, I rarely HAVE TO care about germs/disease in most of my colonies... usually building a Hospital room just to have it. xD

...I miss the cursed colonies of dupes constantly stress vomiting to supply endless water. hahah
 

Spoiler

WE NEED DUPES THAT VOMIT DIFFERENT THINGS. hahahaahahaha

 

Edited December 2, 2025 by CrutchPunk