Nadir changeling rebalance: near-total immunity to aqua tenebrae

[Kubius]

[BALANCE][INPUT][CHEMISTRY][GAMEMODES]

About the PR

Alters aqua tenebrae's interaction with changelings to near-totally remove its ability to affect them. Some details:

• When a changeling would otherwise take damage from aqua tenebrae, they do not.
• This only kicks in at the actual point of damage dealing; gear will still receive decay from the acid.
• The acid is still capable of deforming the changeling's face, alerting them with the message "The acid withers our visage." This does not inherently elicit a scream, as it isn't painful (more of a weird sloppy feeling), as a subtle tell.

Why's this needed?

Nadir is at the moment the only map in which changelings can't reasonably go into breached or exterior areas unsuited, one of their core advantages, and the map's fairly condensed nature exacerbates this issue. Be it in this way or another, their balance could use an upward bump.

Some alternate ideas, if the consensus is that this pushes things too far in changelings' favor:

• Grant changelings a free "Harden / Relax Membranes" ability that gives them total immunity to aqua tenebrae, but prevents them from absorbing other lifeforms while it's active, with a brief cooldown required to toggle.
• Instead of granting total resistance, simply grant partial damage reduction to the acid, cutting the effective amount of applied aqua tenebrae in half.
• Grant changelings a fixed percentage of chemical protection that applies to them globally as a baseline. (This is probably my least favorite idea, but mentioning it in case it sparks a better one.)

Changelog

(u)Kubius
(*)Changelings' biology has adapted to the unique variety of acid surrounding Nadir. Be watchful.

[github-actions]

Created discussion thread: https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=20045

[Tarmunora]

🤷 this works I guess
Though there's also something to be said for just leaving things as-is and having it have a meaningful impact on how some antags play

[Kubius]

Arguably, it still does. Definitely a power increase compared to the previous state (as intended) but there are elements of sidegrade to it.

Acid not affecting you makes you much more resilient (pretty powerful and especially important for shambler), but also poses an increased risk for you being "outed" if a breach happens and somebody noticed you waded through it without caring (contrasted to a space breach or a flood where it's much easier to play off).

Additionally, Nadir's circumstances also have other implications (everyone has suits and re-entry points are limited, but if someone comes out after you, it's dark and you have as much time as you want to hunt).

Not hard to revert if it doesn't play out well, so figured I'd give it a whirl.