Proteans make the normal amount of money. (#5690)

# About The Pull Request

This PR removes the reduced paycheck modifier applied to Protean
characters, bringing their income in line with other playable species.

Currently, Proteans receive only 70% of standard station pay despite
having no insanely strong gameplay advantages, lore justification, or
balancing drawbacks that would warrant a permanent economic penalty
_(they do have gameplay differences, but I don't think they justify
"make them poor!")._ This change removes that discrepancy and
standardizes pay across species. It's also not directly mentioned
anywhere in game such as the species description.

This is a web edit but honestly I literally changed one number I will
eat my fucking hat if this breaks anything.

Sharkening says and I quote "It's a balance thing, and I stopped caring
about balance a year ago" which I interpret as a go ahead.

# Why It's Good For The Game

Receiving substantially less pay for identical work is not an
"interesting" mechanic in practice; it mostly creates frustration and
discourages players from engaging with the species. I'm aware this is
kind of a piss take but if I found out I was being paid less than my
coworkers (30% less, even) I would be "burn the building down" livid.

I believe that economic mechanics are generally most compelling when
they emerge from player choice, job selection, risk, faction
affiliation, or gameplay tradeoffs. A flat species-wide pay reduction
instead functions as a passive punishment attached to character
selection with little opportunity for it to have a meaningful
interaction. Technically, protean players are probably not even aware of
this.

Standardizing pay also improves clarity and consistency for players.
Species selection should ideally be driven by roleplay preference,
mechanics, or aesthetics rather than hidden or arbitrary financial
penalties.

Proof Of Testing

Fuck it we'll do it live. If someone REALLY wants me to change one
number in the code and compile it locally I can, but I truly do not
think it is necessary.

Changelog

🆑
balance: Removed the reduced paycheck modifier for Protean characters
/🆑
This commit is contained in:
Aeri
2026-05-28 18:39:41 +02:00
committed by GitHub
parent 9dd1ad63bf
commit bbf8dfbef4
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
sexes = TRUE
siemens_coeff = 1.5 // Electricty messes you up.
payday_modifier = 0.7 // 30 percent poorer
payday_modifier = 1.0 // the normal amount
exotic_bloodtype = BLOOD_TYPE_NANITE_SLURRY
digitigrade_customization = DIGITIGRADE_OPTIONAL