Remove eating bodies/devouring them along with decap after death.

[Mitchs98]

I think you grossly overestimate the difference this would make.

Eating corpses causes lag, but it doesn't significantly reduce the amount of cloning that happens.

It..wouldn't really make much of a difference if the corpses were stored in a sealed room instead of eating them. And it DOES significantly reduce cloning, it's hard enough to get corpses back for cloning as is. Eating the corpses also causes game breaking lag at times.

[Toroic]

It..wouldn't really make much of a difference if the corpses were stored in a sealed room instead of eating them. And it DOES significantly reduce cloning, it's hard enough to get corpses back for cloning as is. Eating the corpses also causes game breaking lag at times.

I literally just said it causes lag. Not debating on that point.

Realistically, no corpses that have been dead over 30 minutes are going to be clonable. The player will have logged or ghosted out.

As far as marines being salty, they do that anyway. Trying to prevent marine salt is impossible. For example, I was recently told to "fuck off" in LOOC for guarding nests on uncrippled victims. You know, the way you keep pushing for.

[Mac]

I literally just said it causes lag. Not debating on that point.

Realistically, no corpses that have been dead over 30 minutes are going to be clonable. The player will have logged or ghosted out.

As far as marines being salty, they do that anyway. Trying to prevent marine salt is impossible. For example, I was recently told to "fuck off" in LOOC for guarding nests on uncrippled victims. You know, the way you keep pushing for.

If a player ghosts, it notifies them when they are cloneable. I often ghost to watch the round but if I go into a cloner and get the message I re-enter my body.

[Evilkyle24]

+1. Remove the ability for aliens to do...anything..with dead marines aside from like drag them to a corpse storage 'clean up' area. It causes nothing but lag and salt, it is done for no reason other than to metagame cloning under the guise of 'it makes the hive look better'.
It should also highly be against the rules to de-cap and melt heads.

I think you severely overestimate the amount of cloning that happens in a round.

[Mitchs98]

I think you severely overestimate the amount of cloning that happens in a round.

I..really don't. 5/10 times the person gets cloned if the corpse is recovered, sometimes more.

[Veradox]

reminder to an unspecific user that hasty generalizations are a bad basis for an argument, and that many marines who ARENT salty will observe an entire round on occasion

[Mitchs98]

reminder to an unspecific user that hasty generalizations are a bad basis for an argument, and that many marines who ARENT salty will observe an entire round on occasion

Marines also ghost around on an off chance of cloning if their corpse is intact too.

[Evilkyle24]

The odds of a body being retrieved are incredibly low even if the corpse is not destroyed. 90% of the time that body is buried in the depths of the hive far away from any access, unless one manages to completely annihilate it and rout the aliens.

[Mitchs98]

The odds of a body being retrieved are incredibly low even if the corpse is not destroyed. 90% of the time that body is buried in the depths of the hive far away from any access, unless one manages to completely annihilate it and rout the aliens.

I geuinely usually recover corpses, and 9/10 when my corpse isn't destroyed I get cloned. So. The odds are actually high. At this point it is mostly a issue of it causing lag and not for cloning, really.

[Toroic]

I geuinely usually recover corpses, and 9/10 when my corpse isn't destroyed I get cloned. So. The odds are actually high. At this point it is mostly a issue of it causing lag and not for cloning, really.

I really, really doubt that you get cloned 9/10 deaths if your body isn't destroyed. If you die on the planet, it's pretty likely you'll end up either deep in the caves or marines will get pushed back to the ship. If you die on the ship, it's somewhat likely that it's during a xeno ship assault, and medbay is likely to be overrun.

The vast majority of my xeno rounds everyone who dies in the caves stays in the caves. A few people get cloned, but it's people who die in the FOB before marines evac the planet, or if an attacking squad gets pushed back instead of murdered/forced to flee.

That said, I think if body destruction was less prevalent, it would be a good thing for overall gameplay. So I again voice my support for eliminating devoured creatures being digested, which should be as simple as commenting out some code. Xenos will still cause oxy damage (so they can't devour every monkey in the jungle and then take the tunnel) but it will make everyone happier without significantly affecting xeno/marine balance.

[Mac]

There is a new rule in place regarding this issue in case anyone missed it going up.

[Mitchs98]

The new rule will help immensely. But in all honesty, more needs to be done. 90% of the dead bodies ARE in the main hive. So the rule is next to useless, in all honesty they shouldn't be eaten at all. It'll still cause lag, it'll still cause cloning to be meta'd because as mentioned 90% of the dead bodies ARE in the main hive and they are eaten to prevent cloning only.

It is indeed a good start though.

[Toroic]

The new rule will help immensely. But in all honesty, more needs to be done. 90% of the dead bodies ARE in the main hive. So the rule is next to useless, in all honesty they shouldn't be eaten at all. It'll still cause lag, it'll still cause cloning to be meta'd because as mentioned 90% of the dead bodies ARE in the main hive and they are eaten to prevent cloning only.

It is indeed a good start though.

Saying the bodies are eaten to prevent cloning only is false. They are also eaten because it is faster and easier than dragging them off.

The rule as it stands will solve 99% of all meta eating to prevent cloning.

However I still believe that xenos should be able to devour everything, but not have it be digested.

Hosts would need to be regurgitated at some point anyway if you want them alive, and then dead bodies fall out if a xeno hasn't reguritated before dying.

[TopHatPenguin]

Just gonna throw my opinion in here and say:
Perhaps just have it as aliens can devour any living mob, but they cannot devour the dead?

I mean wouldn't that just solve both your problems?

Also let's be honest here, most dead bodies are moved 1-4 tiles away from a nest and then dumped or they are devoured so.. it wouldn't exactly make that much of change if code just completely didn't allow the devouring of dead mobs.

[apophis775]

Does the new rule, work to prevent this enough, or should we look more into it?

[TopHatPenguin]

Does the new rule, work to prevent this enough, or should we look more into it?

Yesterday the server lagged awfully due to dead bodies being devoured, so.. I would personally say yes.

EDIT: To be honest it would be fine if when a dead body was devoured it would just be stored inside the xeno until that xeno died, instead of being deleted.

[apophis775]

I'm trying to figure out a possible new method of this actually.

I was thinking, of doing a re-write of our code so that instead of holding "bullets" inside the guns, it just counts the number of rounds.

[WyattH]

I'm trying to figure out a possible new method of this actually.

I was thinking, of doing a re-write of our code so that instead of holding "bullets" inside the guns, it just counts the number of rounds.

If you're thinking of doing any code re-writing would it be possible just to have the same code for body removal as the cryo beds do? Somehow the bodies being removed through cryo don't cause lag while the ones through stomach dissolving do.

[Seehund]

I'm trying to figure out a possible new method of this actually.

I was thinking, of doing a re-write of our code so that instead of holding "bullets" inside the guns, it just counts the number of rounds.

Sounds like the best idea.
I mean, is there even a REASON for the current system, perhaps other than shotguns? As you cannot do anything with the M41's single bullets, it just seems like a waste.

[apophis775]

Actually, Cryo does it the same way, the thing is, typically when someone goes into cryo, they aren't carrying 17 magazines each with 30 rounds of ammo in them.

Thus, the number of Del() procs is SIGNIFICANTLY lower.

[TopHatPenguin]

Actually, Cryo does it the same way, the thing is, typically when someone goes into cryo, they aren't carrying 17 magazines each with 30 rounds of ammo in them.

Thus, the number of Del() procs is SIGNIFICANTLY lower.

How about... Bodies can still be eaten but instead of being deleted they just sit in the xeno until said xeno dies?

[apophis775]

That's a possibility. It would also make it easier to retrieve them later. The xeno dies, all the bodies fall out.

My only worry, would be xenos grabbing the bodies specifically to bring them to the marines, or if they don't fall out, a rando marine C4ing a dead xeno (or gibbing them with a rocket) and having to run 5x as many Del() procs as one marine, becuase that xeno had been feasting.

[Seehund]

To be fair, the only sensible solution is to leave the bodies there, disregard if this and if that. The problem is not the amount of items being deleted, AFAIK, but rather dereferencing them all, something that cannot inherenently be fixed simply because of how BYOND works. Nothing to fix here, is the gist of it.

Now, changing ammo type worries me because, if I understand correctly, it'd mean that projectiles would be spawned in-loco, simply shifting the lag to combat.

I don't think there's a way to FIX this, but rather, mitigate the losses, which, as I've stated, is simply to leave the body in the xenomorph.

Anyhow, this is speculation based on my admittedly limited understanding of BYOND, DM & whatever you will have. Feel free to correct me.

[apophis775]

No, my thought is that, when the magazine is loaded, it spawns 30 rounds in the weapon.

[Derpislav]

Can't we just code the magazines to have a certain ammo count, not be containers? I'm fairly sure there are other items that have a set number of uses that goes down before it has to be swapped/recharged, like the welder.
Or like how energy guns work. Just make the magazines "recharge" all of the gun's charges.