Synthetic Changes

General Policy Feedback
1

I think that Synthetics have strayed so far away from the movie source material or even the wildly different comics that it isn’t funny.

Part of this is policy, part of this is code, so I’ll address both.

Code:

We have synthetics that can tank tons of bullets without dying, Working Joes that are tankier than actual high quality machines (despite the fact a working joe went down in one good bullet to the head).

The solution to this, which would also naturally prevent combat synthing is to reduce synthetic hp to about 50 or so (from their 200 or so). Synthetics through all of aliens media hit tremendously harder than a human but are an order of magnitude easier to kill. Rook in the first movie was killed in one blow, for example. Andy in the latest movies was downed in one blow also, this is an undeniable consistency. In return for this have every commtech toolbelt have a reset key for free, and have reset keys do some autohealing so even if you’re out of welding fuel the synth will always get up.

Other such useful changes in this regard would be removing the go-go gadget shit that synths have been powercrept with over the last 4 or so years. Smartpack can be removed entirely, and the majority of synthetic tools can be taken by other jobs for points. (Maintenance jack can be taken by MTs but for a synthetic it’d be with their funny coin points, aka free. Plus in Isolation Maintenance Jacks were a human weapon that were sometimes used against you by a joe if you swung at them.)

Items like the autocompressor or backback water tank are artificially held back from jobs that could also use them, and arguably would need them more (autocompressor for a HM is way more important than a synth that can cpr in .1 second)

Plus it doesn’t make sense only synthetics get all of this stuff, including a pipboy coming soon:tm: which gives them a live updating tacmap and thereby entirely independent from command.

Policy:
Policy for Synthetics has changed over the years, where once grabbing and dragging a xeno behind cades was considered a combat synthing slimer move, it’s now considered okay as long as it’s hijack. At least with mechanical changes to be vulnerable as hell, that makes this a tradeoff that you’d die for it. However given that a synthetic councillor proudly posted a clip of another councillor doing this to a queen in hijack I just can’t say that combat synthing hasn’t gotten way worse https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/490668342357786645/1327720693911126036/the_uber_puller.mp4?ex=678417c1&is=6782c641&hm=a1824e050e04c955b8e486c0ca17133c91a1fa7833ddf489a5c5c04082efc310&

The reality is that synthetics from years ago are tankier, repair trivially, and won’t go down if they know how to play at all reasonably. They should be beholden to roleplaying above fragging, like they used to be. Why are clips like that considered acceptable for a predominately roleplaying whitelist?

On that note, applications for synthetics shifted from people’s roleplaying ability to how hard they minmax and play every support job effectively. There are examples of applications being denied because of people not being as quick as humanly possible as doctors in surgery.

There’s other issues too, other whitelists such as Commanding Officers and Predators purge their whitelists of inactive members so that people who come back have to re-read the rules to be let back in. Synthetics are expected to do a ton of support roles at once and do not do purges, we have old synthetics coming back from eons ago and they play synthetic without refreshing themselves in engineering, game flow or the rules. This is mostly because of the toxic Jakk sentiment that the “Synthetic WL is the best WL and can do no wrong” so all synths are just “Better than the other WLs” so they didn’t do purges. Purges should be part of all whitelists for trusted roles. If you can’t trust a new applicant because he isn’t optimal at a task, you can’t trust someone who hasn’t played for three years either.

Onto the next point. Synthetic deployment. Back 4 or so years ago, longer maybe, synthetics didn’t have to deploy just as they don’t now. But back then you also had to have permission to deploy and a good reason to go down, which promoted them as a roleplaying job and interacting shipside/generally helping. Since then we now have a portable surgical bed, with portable surgical tools, we implemented bone gel that only harms fobdocs (synthetics can get unlimited metal rods from the colony without risk), and we have a normalized culture of synthetics being treated like shit by marines for not being surgerybots.

Continuing on from that, synthetics can be ordered to deploy with no reason, and they have to do it. Which means unless you play the newly added shipside support synthetic (which rarely spawns because survivor synthetic is the most popular synth role, due to player freedom), you can have any action you are doing shipside including any noteworthy rp, interrupted to go groundside or you get deWLed. This does also mean Command can order you to do nothing but surgery and if you dare to say no, you’re almost certainly going to have to justify it with the council. After the first time you have to pose it to the council you’ll become afraid and further nullify whatever synth character you are playing to fit the mold because you don’t want to risk more reports.

Ship operations synthetic should, in an ideal world be removed and normal synthetics simply be allowed to refuse all orders to deploy by default. Synthetics can be a massive boon shipside and that should be enough of a reason to let one stay shipside if the player wants to do so.

There should be a shift in WL expectations away from mechanical proficiency and towards memorable roleplay experiences. I’ve had people tell me from years ago that my Synthetic Karen was the reason they joined the whitelist in the first place, but how many people would say that about minmaxxed powergamer synthetic #55 that barely says a word?

On that note, there is a culture in the synthetic channel of posting your minmaxxed storage builds to be able to handle every situation which perfectly exemplifies my problem with the slow cultural turn. It has become literally normal, if not expected for synthetics to minmax and powergame with engi kits and 500 medkits in their bags for the most possible storage. Despite the fact that a synthetic that takes a camera and a notepad for rp is going to be significantly more interesting to interact with.

I apologise for the length of this thread, but this has been a long brewing issue in my head with a lot of points.

38 Likes
4

you know what i change my mind i agree with everything you said. When i see a synth using a m39 spear and CLF3 spray all I can think of is how powergamey the WL is and I don’t understand how this is acceptable. The WL was intended to be about roleplay, but I see little to none of that. Every time I interact with a synth they clearly don’t even want to be there, they run off and find something else to do. Whats the point of writing a 5000 word essay about your synths personality and quirks if you say 3 sentences in a round.

14 Likes
5

Everything you said was good, just this part alone though is confusing.

When I played years ago, this type of behavior got you instantly dewhitelisted for combat synthing. Yet now it is allowed?

Can a synthetic councilor explain because this was NEVER allowed back when I played around 2016-2020 era as it was arguable known as combat synthing and abuse of synths being given extra privileges such as being able to grab xenos in general.

7 Likes
6

I agree on the matter that some whitelists applications seem to have been denied purely on mechanical skill details/efficiency when everything that mattered was fine (roleplay, story etc), when you take a look at the old forums, that didn’t use to be the case. Of course you shouldn’t be clueless much less incompetent on what you are doing, you should have a good grasp of the mechanics you have access to and know your way around doing things, but asking and expecting of people to be as efficient as humanly possible when doing mechanics seem very toxic in nature as a policy.

5 Likes
7

Heya! I agree with most of these points although not with some of them but thats fine.
I do think that quite a lot of this was also expressed in Synthetic WL Feedback! although sadly nothing has come from that as of yet.

I will give my two cents though.
In the last couple of months where I have started playing CM again I think I had one interaction with a synthetic where I didnt feel like they were trying to actively get away from my RP to go be useful somewhere else.
Thats not for a lack or trying mind you! I try to talk with synths like one in every 5-8 rounds but usually get shot down because they want to go somewhere else to fix a cade, unbreak a bone, clear some weeds, recover a marine, etc.
I dont think that is entirely their fault but it does really hurt the ability to Roleplay for a role that is allegedly all about roleplaying.

My take is that synthetics are just too good. They’re too good at everything. Please god I’m begging you let synths be bad at anything ever.
They have restricted tools that are straight upgrades over anything anyone else has.
They have basically maxed out skills. (Like, have you seen the synth skills tab? Its crazy)
They have the best survivability of anyone besides… idk maybe ravagers, crushers or fortified defenders?
They have access to every part of the ship at all times.
Sometimes they are even magically better at things than other people because??? (Why in gods name is a synthetic better at using the same defib that I was using 2 seconds ago)

If a synthetic is 10 times better at anything than anyone else then of course they arent gonna have time to RP. They are just going to use the limited time they have in a round to do what makes them useful for their team, and for synths that is everything BUT roleplaying.


Anyways yeah hard agree on most stuff, (maybe not the synths need to be paper tigers part) dont let the synth shadow council gaslight you into thinking that doing 3 surgeries at once at the frontline is the peak of CM RP.

For anyone curious about synth skills (these are Gen 3 btw)

image
image645×666 43.7 KB

9 Likes
8

Been a huge advocate for changes like these since being back, as all of the points mentioned here was a big reason that I burnt out from playing the whitelist in the first place. The reality is that I was super excited to RP a synth character when I applied and when I saw how limited that was, I got turned away. The access to a ton of tools (often upgraded) and the culture of “being a jack of all trades” is simply just not healthy for the whitelist and it should go.

7 Likes
9

Having xenos run up and tailstab you once and you die would make the game significantly less enjoyable. Reducing damage output & removing the god mode button are the way to go here. (This is my personal opinion because the tankiness is frankly what affords me the opportunity to stop and rp without constantly being running around strafing like a marine to avoid attacks, if you die in a single lurker combo you’re going to be locked away from interacting with most of the players in the actual game and left to kinda rot in fobdoc hell.

Imo if you want to fix people abusing this the solution is probably to move away from “well if you didn’t die you preserved yourself so it’s fine.” Mentality, running into the xeno horde to steal a marine off a warrior is currently completely acceptable if you survive doing it, when this kind of thing is a reckless disregard for your importance as an expensive asset for a disposable boot.

The fancy coin vendor could honestly just get tossed, maintenance jack isn’t super practical to carry for a marine but it is a fun lore item that normal people can take in the ARPG. Mesons and the hammer are the only ones that would pose a problem injected into the main gameplay loop imo; the rest of the stuff in there could be in its respective marine vendor for points without much fuss. (Stuff like the baton has no use for rines and the backpack tank would get spammed and be annoying for both teams, though.)

Honestly even back in 2019 or so when I started CM I never really remember synthetics doing much other than being groundside fobdoc+ to the average marine. I do remember instead of the tent they used to make cool little LARP-y mini hospitals which was fun.

Totally agree there’s no reason to make a second roleplay job instead of just letting the normal synth tell CIC to fuck off asking them to power game and go have fun.

Playing a game of what kind of things you can carry is just fun for a lot of people myself included, a lot of normal medics do it and due to the requirements for the wl most synths are well established medic players. Looking at the build thread on the forum for example you can see I have a build with as much supplies as possible but can equally get by with just a lifesaver and a medkit pouch, as well as goofy or unusual builds that I didn’t even show, its just a fun way to add variety to the game instead of taking the same stuff every round.

IMO a good solution to start is just nuking the free surgical tray & webbing to hold every surgical tool, having to dedicate an actually significant amount of space to surgical gear or rely on improvised tools both slows down surgery making synths no longer just doctor+++ but also gives you an RP reason to deny surgery when pfc 2784883 wants their foot fixed.

Apologies for the formatting since mobile

1 Like
10

You should really look at the changes between the generations. GEN3s get fucked by literally anything but are fast as hell. GEN2s are the happy medium. GEN1s are slow but are tanky.

Check out the changes.

7 Likes
11

I am a whitelisted synthetic and have been since longer than you have been in the community.

7 Likes
12

Beep boop, statbot here. Gen 1/2 are equal statwise.

Gen 3: Fast, takes 50% less brute damage, 10% less burn damage. Has 250 health. Has almost-maxed skills.

Gen 1/2: Slower, takes 50% less brute damage, 20% less burn damage. Has 300 health. Gets stunned easier. Has worse skills

(Take into consideration that synths don’t wear armor like a marine does. Yes, spitters hurt)

8 Likes
13

While we’re at it can we also remove the 500 billion clothing items in the snowflake vendor for synth? almost none of them are for synth’s job:
image
“usually employed as drivers, pilots…” if you check the vendor what do you find? Mostly civilian clothes, no VC uniforms or anything for what synth is actually supposed to be doing, yes i know there’s ONE flight suit but come on where’s the other flight suit and all the stuff for that?

7 Likes
15

I’ll be honest. I dont think the synth clothing options have anything to do with the issues around synths.

Removing red suit number 3 isnt going to do anything except for make a synth look less unique.
The lack of job specific clothing should just mean that those kinds of clothing get added. But thats also a huge When You Sprite It moment.

5 Likes
16

The problem is there’s too much.

Sure some of it is fine but they don’t look like USCM issue synths.

I mean do you remember any USCM synths that wore jeans and a t shirt? because i don’t.

yes i know that the synth is some civilian one we picked up, but that still doesn’t justify it not complying with USCM standards.

2 Likes
17

If we are going from a pure, puritan’s, perspective of what Synthetics are in the Aliens universe (meaning only taking into account the film Alien, Aliens, Alien Isolation and arguably Prometheus :nauseated_face: ). The question now is, what do these Synthetics do?

  1. They are stronger than the average human, usually capable of easily overpowering a single person.
  2. Yet they are also quite vulnerable to damage, while they are hard to “kill”, they are fairly easy to disable or tear apart. Civilian grade weapons such as improvised melee implements or civilian issue firearms are substandard (recall that in Alien Isolation the guns being used are low-velocity/penetration so they don’t cause a hull breach, which is why the guns are useless against the Alien and are very weak against Synths).
  3. They have “decent” social graces, depending on the model. Generally its hard to tell if someone is a Synthetic from how they act, but this varies significantly, this also varies depending if the Synthetic is bothering to maintain the façade, if a Synthetic does not care for it, it is very obvious that they are Synth by their actions.
  4. Synthetics, at least the one’s we see, have an excellent knowledge base on almost anything they do. In Aliens, Bishop was the “only one qualified to remote pilot the dropship”, and was extremely knowledgeable on a range of topics such as biological research (he spent a lot of the movie studying the xenos) and structural engineering (he was the first to notice the Atmo Processor was undergoing a meltdown).
  5. The synthetics we know off, are highly averse to combat functions. Bishop intentionally refused a firearm he was handed for self-defence purposes. Furthermore, Ash (from the 1st film) had no idea how to actually harm/kill a Human, which I would suggest is due to it being a civilian model. Working Joes are also similarly dumb and only know how to grab people and smash them against objects, ironically a normal Synthetic was able to easily counter a hostile Working Joe in melee combat and defeat it.
  6. While I am loath to reference the third film. However it seems implied that repairing a Synthetic is a fairly costly and difficult affair, so if a Synth suffers extreme damage it may simply be shut down.
  7. Final point, but in all movies, Synthetics are totally ignored by Xenomorphs at all times with the exception of the Queen bisecting Bishop at the end of the 2nd film. Even in the video game there is no point where the Xenomorphs will attack any Synthetic. However this is due to no Synthetic ever presenting itself as a threat to the hive. (You could argue the Queen was highly distressed/pissed off over the extermination of its entire hive and that Ripley was standing in front of Bishop, so the Queen may have been trying to stab Ripley not Bishop).

It sounds like the only difference between movie synths and our synths, is that they are too durable to damage, too easy to repair, constantly at risk of being attacked by xenomorphs even if they are doing nothing (I’ve seen Working Joes who are just standing around be ganged up by a hoard of xenos and killed). The issue of how effective a synth is as a combatant I think can be explained away that Ash was a civilian model, not a military model where they may be programmed in close quarter combat techniques.

Furthermore, Synthetics have never been issued unique equipment. They use whatever the locals are using, the only difference being that the Synthetic is trained to use virtually everything so they carry a lot of stuff.

Personally, I feel a few simple changes to Synthetics might encourage less mechanical emphasis and more roleplay emphasis.

I recall a suggestion by some of the councillor/s to remove the ability for the groundside Synthetic to perform surgery, outside of IB. This single change I feel would be a huge boon, it would mean groundside Synthetics are no longer a Surgery-Bot AND it now means shipside Doctors have more to do as critically injured marines are now sent to the Almayer instead of going to the Synth.

I believe that the durability and easy of repair for Synthetics comes down to how they are frequently targeted by xenos to an extreme level, xenos will oft go out of their way to attack a Synth even if said Synth is not doing anything. The amount of times I was wordlessly attacked by Xenos when I tried to communicate with them while I wasn’t doing anything is extreme. I don’t know if there is a solution to this, can you really make a rule that Xenos can’t attack Synths unless the Synth does something to threaten the hive?

4 Likes
18

although most the time i try to not bug synths when i am playing xeno, the issue is that synths are too much of pest to not spook off many of times.

some times i find a synth out in the min of nowhere… and my first thought is the synth is going to fix some thing for the Marines, or is out looking for bodies. The issue really is the meta understanding from the xenos end that synths are too useful for the marines and should be driven off.

you just got to look at how many times xenos run down a synth and try to kill it, while it happens to me i see synths more so get bulled back to fob or the front line.

i don’t think this will stop the attack’s fully but frankly should lower it a good deal, less mechanically useful the less the need for the xenos to attack from a meta perspective.

2 Likes
19

Thank you Steelpoint for your contribution, I don’t agree with you all the time but right now I agree with you on your points completely.

I think on your final point the only way would be if synthetics are part of a secondary faction codewise called synthetics, that are not harmable unless a queen declares war on them like any other faction. But with stipulations of course that synthetics shouldn’t just frag xenos that can’t fight back, in that case. At the very least this should exist for survivor synthetics, so they can stop being extreme fraggers. Surv synths cheesing xenos with shocked doors, dragging them inside and killing them with a baton is really quite common.

Regardless, I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed their opinion thus far, I know we can make positive change and make Synthetics more engaging all around. There will of course be some resistance but there always is with change, worst comes to worst it can be in a lot of testmerges to see how things go.

EDIT:
Cabal your post is similarly quite good, I don’t disagree with anything you said. Working Joes are not really a threat in isolation compared to the xenomorph, they were dumb, vulnerable and not at all smart. They only had brute strength.

The idea of being invisible to xenomorphs is actually kinda cool, I like that idea it’s pretty novel.

4 Likes
20

CM Lore fluff about various synths says they can be from any place and gorrilion companies. Synths have in ther bio’s comming from retirement homes and stuff like that. It is probably hard to find a dedicated military model.
Let me get latest accepted Synth applications:

detectivegoogle: Autumn Synths - Banking and general paperwork, repurposed for USCM needs.
Coreytori - Archeology and stuff, repaired and sold to USCM. “The Waiko line of synthetic models is made in the image of the Ideal Explorer. Strong, smart, perceptive, and able to survive in any conditions.”
Jeremiah_Simpson: “assistance of civilians living in the outback with identifying certain animals or insects to keep aware and safe”
EMiiX: “Athena is a synthetic with an insatiable curiosity for human behavior and an obsession with unraveling the mysteries of the colonies she visits. Created primarily for medical aid and research”
BelleCl: “Pamela’s line of model was originally designed to serve as pediatric assistants to child-care centers and maternity wards across the continental United Americas.”
HappyCrow: “Dier’s are old school frontier robo-docs build to perform medical services in places where injury was expected but the expense of a full medical staff couldn’t be justified.”

(It is not an attack on some random people, it is just to prove a point).
Purpose-built synths for military are a great minority. This can’t explain why CM’s are so tanky.

Make Synths outright invisible to xenos (except T3s and Queen). They should become visible if they are dragging alive marine and shortly afterwards, if they build/repair cade/wall/piece of machinery and for quite some time afterwards. They should become invisible if they have xeno/marine blood on their clothes/body.
Something like that, no idea how it is possible and/or easy to do codewise. The only way, xenos have no roleplaying standards and expecting them to not kill Synths via rule is ridiculous, any xeno player can explain that synth doing *blink emote was a perceived threat to the hive because they were standing 7 tiles close to a door that xneo player thought they were shocking.

Idea for a soul PR: Give Working Joes negative CQC skill.

5 Likes
21

From someone purely playing xeno at the moment, I don’t have much opinion on their medical and engineering skills other than a jack of all trades shouldn’t be the best at all those trades. My main issue is just how goddamn tanky they are. All the bullshit to do with body recovery/body blocking/combat/e.t.c would be less of an issue if you could actually kill them in a reasonable timeframe.

Also that video of a synth grabbing a queen is hilarious and highlights everything I hate about synths. They should not be able to grab any xeno greater than a runner or drone, give em the auto stun that everyone else gets.

4 Likes
22

the reason for this by the way is the generally accepted lore is that the almayer’s dedicated platoon synth(s) were destroyed during the attack that trashed all the HEAP etc. not really of any consequence just for those that are curious.

Anyway I think a lot of people kind of overestimate how hard synths are to kill; they’re used to their kit being able to stun and pretty much have a marine disabled from paincrit before they ever get up.

IMO the stuff like diving onto a warrior or the queen to yank a body off them is really kinda a policy/WL guideline issue moreso than anything else, like, literally the first line of the synth guidelines is

  1. Your self-preservation comes first. Do not perform any actions which would jeopardize your survival. Self-preservation includes using any means to escape entrapment, and refusing to take risks when critically damaged.

My subjective read is this means you shouldn’t be running into a horde of xenomorphs tanking hits and friendly fire to grab some private off a warrior. The thing is that the current enforcement of this clause is more or less “if you don’t die then you preserved yourself so there’s no problem” which while I suppose isn’t necessarily wrong strikes me as a somewhat willful misunderstanding of both a synthetic’s purpose and the guidelines themselves borne out of a long, long time of toeing the line.

Ultimately I hope that given the right wake-up call the WL can work on the guidelines much like the pred HC rewrites and come to a solution that doesn’t make them insanely frustrating to play against via behavior rather than a change that makes it so a runner can come tailstab you and you die instantly, forcing you into sitting behind cades all round.

TLDR of above; Synth tankiness exists because the WL process is supposed to be a check that you can trust people not to abuse it to “slime” or break the “spirit of the whitelist”, I hope behavioral correction and guideline rewrites can preserve the tankiness while lessening the issues, since without it you’re forced out of a lot of interactions.

removing or forbidding groundside surgery is pretty neutral to me personally as I just don’t do surgery if I don’t feel like it, however I have noticed playing USCM synth there is a pretty strong sorta… peer pressure/cultural obligation you feel to fix people’s fracs and stuff.

This ultimately is just how the whitelist system works in general, the application process serves as a vet but also creates a time investment that you are potentially wasting by doing things that would risk your WL(combat synthing etc) which dissuades you from risking it-- in return for that process you get a role that has vastly expanded capability with the trust that you won’t use that capability to slime people.

If we are at a point where synths can no longer be trusted to do surgery or leave the cades without becoming a problem then there is an issue with the guidelines being enforced and the WL’s self policing system, it is my hope we can correct it before we have to resort to using code to bludgeon synths out of relevance.

In the short term, what can you do about it?

the #1 thing you can do is to report behavior you think is problematic, I don’t mean making a forum report and making it a whole spectacle for people to be toxic about either.

if possible, I recommend clipping your games, if you run an nvidia GPU you can set this up in like 5 minutes with shadowplay, but there’s lots of software to just hit a key and DVR the last x minutes of your game which helps a lot and removes most of the “He said she said”.

But keep in mind reports don’t necessarily have to be big forum WL report ordeals, just pinging a councilor with, or DMing them a video is often enough to have them approach people and talk to them about rectifying undesirable behavior.

There’s a sorta sentiment I see a lot of “well they never accept reports so it doesn’t matter” which-- I get it, looking at all the denied reports does discourage you because it feels like nothing is being done, but even a denied report means a councilor is talking to them about that conduct and everyone has to consider whether that is acceptable, and ultimately, they really just can’t be everywhere at once, if they aren’t having issues told to them they cannot know people are misbehaving.

I’d really like synth to get an explicit “spirit of the whitelist” to enforce like predator for those edge cases where something is within the literal guidelines but still shouldnt be done.

6 Likes
23

The problem is that there are some things that are allowed by the WL rules, my main problems with synths these days is as previously mentioned - running away from RP to do surgery/frag xenos/dive into xenos. I think i have seen shipside synth spawn before hijack once while there is almost always synth surv who has license to frag before marines land.

The second problem i have is delta alert, as far as i understand (correct me if km wrong) synths can do pretty much whatever they want to survive (except harming allies etc.).
I have seen WL councilor literally rushing dropship crashsite to kill larvas, afk xenos and the hive core instead of helping marines (multiple times).Perhaps it should be more restricted, so they focus more on surviving and saving as many marines instead of being license to frag.

4 Likes