When you get biomods installed, they permanently remove your ability to alter the affected naked, essentially displaying a first-order "tattoo" over that particular naked that can never be altered by anything other than coded effects.
What this means is that you buying a biomod essentially permanently locks your nakeds to that one thing forever. Got goose mods and someone lops off your beak in a fit of rage? Nope, no way of showing that on your nakeds, because you can't modify them ever again. If you have a head biomod installed, you can never adjust your hairstyle to anything again outside of doing it via a hairstyler and having it never actually reflect in your naked. If you have an eye biomod installed and you wrote it to reference both your eyes (since you can do this and most people will), you can never have a cybereye installed in one eye without making your initial line look absolutely ridiculous on your look.
Have cat ears or a tail and a foe yanks them off? Nope, because you can't modify them. And the staff can't even modify them either - they have to have a senior member remove the biomod, then schedule an IC way of having a "fixed" biomod installed instead. Yes, you read that right. Staff cannot handwave a fix for it. It requires senior staff and request-service time to just have the mods removed for something as simple as a line alteration.
I have to ask, why are things this way? It makes no sense. My assumption of a biomod purchase was that you had a little RP sequence and paid an assload of chyen to make it happen, and then you were left with the express ability to alter your character's nakeds to make them match the mods you ordered for.
Instead of enhancing possible creativity, it just stifles it. You pay to have an "extraordinary" appearance PERMANENTLY locked to your nakeds without any way for you to alter or add on to it at a later date. It's a disaster, honestly. I would have never had my character modded if I'd have known that it would result in so much clumsy, pointless restriction.
The current system is annoying for staff, annoying for players, and most of all, arguably hampers what is probably one of Sindome's most potentially entertaining ways of direct character customisation.
Here's what I suggest happens instead:
* Biomod naked locking is removed as it currently stands.
* Biomods instead "mark" a naked as being available for "extraordinary" description in tune with whatever the modifications entail. Much like tailoring and other player design aspects, players are largely left to their own devices to determine what these descriptions entail, though they are informed at the purchasing process that they must conform their descriptions to accommodate the alterations their biomodifications provide.
* The rest is left for the player to handle at their discretion. This frees up staff time considerably, and allows biomodded players to assume full freedom in altering aspects of their character that might share their modded naked (hair on the head, eye availability/injury on the eyes, etc) as their environment sees fit.
Please consider doing something about this. It's a serious tragedy to leave things as they currently are.
--By XXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 3:07 AM
Agreed on all points, XXXXXX. I wouldn't call it a disaster as it stands, plenty of people have used the system, but having your nakeds locked to one thing is problematic for all the reasons you suggested.
--By Crooknose at Apr 16, 2019 3:08 PM
People were taking liberties with biomods, and creating characters that were both immersion breaking and un-cyberpunk-- and using the justification that biomods could change whatever you wanted. On top of that, people were getting basic biomods then augmenting their @nakeds with additional messaging to make the biomods seem more than they were. This is something that was very difficult for a small staff to police, thus it is not allowed anymore and biomods are strictly reviewed to prevent people from getting the wrong idea about them again in the future.
--By Slither at Apr 16, 2019 5:39 PM
That's disappointing, but does explain why they're currently so limited.
Is there no chance of reaching some sort of compromise to allow modded players some more freedom to at least alter their nakeds in response to things? Perhaps by changing the way the modded code works to allow all staff to apply naked changes without needing to create new mods, and having players make service-requests or leave notes in order to have said nakeds applied?
Or perhaps have @nakeds changes to 'extraordinary' flagged limbs throw a staff notification for sanity checking/review?
Either of these would allow you to police them at your leisure, and still afford the means for players to you know, not be entirely locked out of their nakeds.
--By XXXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 6:04 PM
Would it be possible to compartmentalize biomods into injections that have a % chance of adding one of multiple permanent @naked markers which are present on individual to multiple limbs?
Injections would be player creatable by cyberdocs with the right tools and be similar to regular artistry materials in design.
I figure we could use corporate players to design a shitload of these that would all be vetted by GM's before given public access. Get paid to test out bio-injections, kids. Biomods could become a cornucopia of GM-vetted but player designed crap. Cat Eyes, curved tip ears, etc. Each injection has a PDS effect per usual. Have a variable which inserts an adjective to reflect skill-level of cyberdoc who did install. Too many injections may cause weird hybrid appearances and be a social stigma of splicers.
A lot to code but if instituted correctly I think it could help resolve the problem.
--By ReeferMadness at Apr 16, 2019 6:24 PM
I'm pretty sure that's not far off from how bio-mods currently work, Reefer. There's a corporation that produces them using special equipment (and I assume skill checks) and then a doctor injects them. The interactions part would be new but the concept of players designing them is like, that's an actual job, I just don't think it gets publicized (and most people understandably want their own custom designed mods, which is probably the reason off-the-shelf ones aren't a thing.)
To address XXXXXX's point, though, is this something that could be done with a service request? Like, let you change the wording for your modded naked and have it be reviewed and applied by a GM?
--By Crooknose at Apr 16, 2019 6:45 PM
I really, really hope some sort of change can be made here. It's really, really bad, especially on a character that relies very heavily on their looks.
When a lot of your Sindome play is altering appearance to make use of the environment and circumstances and stuff, it becomes very distressing when a character goal that you've worked to attain suddenly becomes a very big DETRIMENT to your ability to express your character's appearance instead.
To put this into perspective, I've considered having the mods removed because of how OOCly limiting they are, even though there's nothing "wrong" with them ICly. That's how stifling they are. It's a constant reminder every time I look at my character that I'm physically incapable of altering one of their main traits in any way. No hairstyle changes, no updating to reflect the presence/lack of a controller for any external mods, no way of reflecting injury or other altering factors whatsoever.
It's creating a very uncomfortable situation for me where I essentially have to handwave away one of my character's major outward features. It's really unpleasant. Had I known this would've been the case before purchasing the mods, I never would have bothered.
--By XXXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 9:09 PM
After reading through this thread my suggestion would be to make them behave like tattoos, that is appended to the current naked but without locking the whole thing down.
Maybe we could make the biomod text colored differently than the @skintone's (since we have that sweet 256 color support now!) so they really stand out as something discrete and out of the ordinary from the rest of the description, and it will really call attention if someone is trying to add 'extra details' to their mods.
It won't totally stop the problem Slither mentioned but it will make it much easier to find and point out people who take taking too many liberties and going beyond what was approved by staff.
--By pfh at Apr 16, 2019 9:21 PM
I really agree with them being treated like tattoos. It seems to me that would avoid both the problems that Slither had listed and also the ones that XXXXXX did. I really don't see any downsides to it that would be any worse than what we have currently.
I think that if staff is worried still about people misusing nakeds, then maybe it shouldn't be allowed for naked to reference biomods. It would mean that you can't get damage done to biomods like what XXXXXX wanted, but it would allow people to get new hair.
--By Cinder at Apr 16, 2019 9:48 PM
(Edited by Johnny at 5:12 pm on 3/5/2020)