On Bionics

[GuyPerfect]

Dry land is a myth, so why not bring along some folks who hate the water? I decided to roll with Bionic Duplicants exclusively on Marinea, because with all the emphasis on swimming, I suspected Bionics were not forefront in the minds of the content designers. Two hundred cycles in and with a stable colony, I have some things to say about it!

• It's not the nightmare scenario people kept warning me it would be. Yes, Bionic Duplicants get all bent out of shape when they're in the water, but leveraging the lost art of "don't spend excessive time in the water", it's super manageable. It was a harrowing experience venturing down to the Thimble Reeds initially, but once the Atmo Suits were built, the entire planet opened up. Having extra Athletics from each installed Booster really helped with early game navigation, and more than accounts for the penalty of wearing an Exosuit.
  
  Suggestion: Let me first clarify that I'm a firm believer in the idea that Bionic Duplicants should have to be mindful of water exposure 100% of the time. I disagree with any freebie form of protection prior to Atmo Suit. However, stepping in a puddle on the floor while wearing Rubber Boots still freaks them out, which doesn't make sense thematically. My suggestion is to make Rubber Boots protect Bionic Duplicants from the poorly-named "Liquid Exposure" debuff in situations where Soggy Feet would apply but Sopping Wet would not. Maybe also rename the debuff to "Water Exposure". Swimwear, on the other hand, should not protect Bionics from the debuff--their heads are still exposed, after all!
   
• Food availability is a bit excessive. Like, it's extra extra overabundant. The fish, the snails, the salt plants, it's everywhere. Absolutely none of this is useful to a colony of Bionic Duplicants--can they even benefit from Juicer? On the other hand, Zinc Ore is also extra abundant, and Tidal Turbine is literally free power, so I suppose in the end it all evens out. Marinea is simply a place where you don't have to worry about feeding your Duplicants.
  
  Suggestion: This is more a general thing than pertaining to Marinea specifically... Currently, if you don't have any Bionic Duplicants in a colony, it won't show the "Joules Available" diagnostic in the top-left region of the screen. However, if you don't have any Standard Duplicants, it still shows the "Calories Available" diagnostic and issues "Food has decayed" notifications. My request is that, in the absence of Standard Duplicants, food and calorie related UI nicknacks not be displayed.
   
• We need to talk about Mucin, the snail snot. It has such enormous thematic potential, but in its current state, it doesn't really amount to anything other than "Visco-Gel at home". At 90 ℃ it will cook into Polluted Water and Slime, and the Slime can be further refined into Phyto Oil, so Mucin is not mechanically worthless; it just needs some infrastructure to process it. The big Bammoth in the room is the concept of Mucin itself: it is literally a lubricant and Duplicants can slip and fall down when they walk on it, yet it cannot be used as a lubricant by Duplicants!
  
  Suggestion: The prevailing sentiment on Discord seems to be that Mucin ought to be able to be used with Lubrication Station, even if it doesn't give any ancillary buffs. There'd be no "Fresh Oil" bonus granting a Morale and Stress buff like proper oils, but it would work as an alternative to Gear Balm. Heck, maybe it's worse than Gear Balm and doesn't last as long or something. Just let us use Mucin as a lubricant!
   
• The Latex and Rubber Gasket dynamic is a thematic gold mine. Like Mucin, it has amazing potential as it applies to Bionic Duplicants. I know I said earlier that there should be no cop-outs to counteract the detriments of water exposure, but the idea of sealing the cracks and making a Duplicant water-tight is just too good to pass up. I don't know what specific thing I would suggest to take advantage of this, but one idea I did have is something like a Latex Gear Balm: a topical sealant that provides temporary, consumable water resistance and doesn't depend on a supply of Gunk.

All-in-all, the Marinea scenario looks to be incredibly fleshed out, and it's exciting to see what the new mechanics like swimming and natural backwalls will bring to the table.

Edited May 25 by GuyPerfect
Typo fix

[suicide commando]

Marinea is a great challenge for a boop only run. The start is a littly rocky as you will need to do a bit of underwater construction to get some of the water out of the way, but from there on, if you're careful and have a massage clinic set up, it's quite easy to get going. My main trouble was getting material research up and running, I had to go through the portal to get the wheezeworts for it.

As for the water issues, I totally agree that the boots should protect boops from puddles. And imho, the swimsuit should reduce the penalty from underwater action significantly, though not remove it entirely ( maybe from 200% to 100% stress/cycle ).

[GuyPerfect]

4 minutes ago, suicide commando said:

As for the water issues, I totally agree that the boots should protect boops from puddles. And imho, the swimsuit should reduce the penalty from underwater action significantly, though not remove it entirely ( maybe from 200% to 100% stress/cycle ).

There was another suggestion on Discord to introduce a swimming Booster, granting Bioinc Duplicants access the swimming mechanic but not protecting them from Liquid Exposure.

Even after thorough consideration, I'm still on the side of the fence where any and all forms of water exposure should be devastating to the Bionic Duplicant psyche--that's a core aspect of their design. Imagine some kind of clothing that Standard Duplicants can put on that makes it so they don't have to use the bathroom.

[suicide commando]

Giving them some kind of booster so they can swim ( but not make them waterproof ) should be included, otherwise they cannot ranch aquatic critters. The only other option there would be to allow them to circumvent this requirement, so they can't swim around, but they can ranch aquatic critters with the ranching booster.

Oh, and you can lock a dupe in an atmosuit, and never let them take it off, eventually they will get a 'bit' of a stress debuff, but they won't need to use the bathroom anymore, the suit takes care of that.

Also, Boops with the farming booster should be able to open clampums for their pearls.

[Vertel]

Adding my +1 voice to all these ideas. I know that historically tie-ins to other DLCs have mostly come in the QOL patch after a new DLC release, but at the very least I hope mucin being marked as a basic gear oil and rubber boots preventing wet feet can happen before we see Aquatic release. Thematically it's a great match, and helps tie bionics into the Marinea ecosystem when they're present.

[w0rph]

I do not think a mostly metallic entity should be able to swim, ever.
But at the very least the aquatic grooming and shearing stations should be usable by non swimming workers when they are placed on the ground.