Miscellaneous Fixes (#1868)

changes:

Engineering now actually gets engineering-type alert consoles instead of the non-functional base type.
Lighting is no longer broken by shuttles.
The ERT shuttle autoannouncer should no longer cause lighting runtimes.
Fixed some bad newlines in some character setup help texts.
Custom loadout tweaks now properly write to SQL.
Custom loadout is now saved as JSON.
Players are now shown a notice when the server was unable to load their custom loadout.
Drowsyness is now clamped to zero.
Added some new tips to the example.
Tweaked some tips' grammar.
Removed some tips that do not apply to our code base.
Probably fixes embraced vampire thralls not getting vampire verbs.
Fixes #1844.
Fixes #1835.
Probably fixes #1687.
Probably fixes #1824.
Fixes #1839

code/modules/effects/visual_effect.dm

@@ -1,23 +1,22 @@
 /obj/visual_effect
 	name = "effect"
+	icon = 'icons/effects/effects.dmi'
 	anchored = 1
 	simulated = 0
 	mouse_opacity = 0
 	var/life_ticks			// How many ticks this effect will life before it stops processing.
 	var/life_ticks_max		// The high limit for the random tick picker.
 	var/life_ticks_min		// The low limit for the random tick picker.
-	var/live_icon_state		// The icon-state to use when this object is shown to the user.
 
 /obj/visual_effect/New(var/life_min = 3 SECONDS, var/life_max = 5 SECONDS)
 	..()
 	life_ticks_min = life_min
 	life_ticks_max = life_max
 	life_ticks = rand(life_ticks_min, life_ticks_max)
+	flick(icon_state, src)
 
 // Called when the visual_effect is manifested.
 /obj/visual_effect/proc/start()
-	if (live_icon_state)
-		icon_state = live_icon_state
 
 // Called every effects processor tick. Return value determines what the process does to this object.
 /obj/visual_effect/proc/tick()
@@ -30,8 +29,6 @@
 // Called just before the visual_effect is returned to the pool.
 /obj/visual_effect/proc/end()
 	loc = null
-	if (live_icon_state)
-		icon_state = null
 
 /obj/visual_effect/Destroy()
 	// ¯\_(ツ)_/¯