The Institute has multiple goals/agendas. The guys on the body development team want to investigate the body and see how it stands up in day to day life. Something like getting pregnant would be a massive point of research for them since you are basically in a lab grown body brining a real child to term. They are all for the science and nothing else. These part of things are not fun to represent in a game like this so it kind of gets ignored for the story. But lore wise this is of huge interest to them
Tucker on the other hand is much more political. He wants an agent who will do his bidding. He is less concerned about the science and more about having an underling he can fully trust.
The morality of the Institute is a bit dubious. On one of the routes in Haven, Sammy might have caused the death of hundreds of people and it is mostly brushed aside to the point where Sammy doesn't even realise what she has done. Their end goal might be noble, but any means to reach that goal is acceptable. As mentioned before, they are a benevolent authoritarian government.
You could probably make a strong argument that the Institute would be happy to provide such services, but also a fairly strong argument that they wouldn't. A backalley clinic though would have zero qualms about it so better to shift some of the questionable services to them.
I feel I must point out any organization that considers the ends always justifies the means is
never benevolent. They might see themselves as benevolent, but they're really anything
but that. It's the epitome of arrogance.
It seems like the Institute is an organization with multiple cells that work independently with their own agendas, but each agenda operates in favor towards a grand scheme, whatever that may be.
If cells are operating independently with different agendas, then it would be in Tucker's best interest to provide contraception even if it means going behind the Body Mod team's back, for two reasons. 1) Tucker wants an obedient underling, and so maintaining the well-being of his underling is a part of his primary objectives. Sammy will trust Tucker if he provides her with things she wants/needs. 2) To Tucker, a pregnant underling is a liability, not an asset capable of assisting him with his agenda.
With a lore friendly way to cut ties and the like. I mostly don't see the point in it. Players who like the Fixer stuff will never trigger it and players who want to ignore fixer stuff won't appreciate being badgered by the game to do it. Since it is extra work to do it on my end, time is better spent elsewhere. The story can easily just be left on the back burner or progressed at the players own pace.
As to which criteria I use to determine a punishment or feature? No criteria and just how I feel about things. Pregnancy stuff rewards those who like pregnancy stuff, those who don't can turn it off. And the broken perk was actually added per request a long time ago. Maybe not quite what the requester was aiming for, but someone wanted to play a meek Sammy but not be locked out of sex scenes and still able to be a slut.
Also, I am responding to the individual points but I am a little lost on the overall topic. Care to clarify for me what it is you are in favour of/against please.
The purpose of lore-friendly consequences is plausibility and logic. Since the standing example is Skyrim, I'll stick with that.
In Skyrim, as has been discussed, you can choose to not follow the main story. Cool! This also means it's in the player's power to delay Armageddon indefinitely by simply not participating. And what is Alduin doing this whole time while the Dragonborn is putting arrows into knees? Is he rubbing himself out to The Lusty Argonian Maid while he waits? He's going to rub his own scales off cuz the Dragonborn ain't playing. The end of the world is stuck in a metaphorical loading screen.
It's very silly.
So with that same logic, how does it make sense for the Institute to allow Sammy run off with a valuable asset, probably worth millions of dollars, and suffer no consequences of any kind? And the Body Dev team and Tucker who are both so very invested in this asset, will never get to achieve their goals, and they're going to sit on their hands and do nothing about it?
It's still quite silly.
We can choose wave this absurdity because The Fixer is an adult game, not a life simulator. It doesn't always
need to be logical or sensible. It's normal for certain kinds standards of common sense to be absent in games. This doesn't mean the alternative is less valid, is all some of us are saying. Just entertain it? Maybe experiment with it? You may see it as a punishment, but it
could instead become a feature, a happy accident, you can take advantage of if you tried. Being in extreme debt would be a very good incentive for Sammy to try more and more lewder things. And because the player is
choosing to play Sammy the Whore instead of Sammy the Fixer, their actions operate in conjunction with gaining money through lewd acts anyways. Nothing is lost, and a new opportunity is present.
The worst thing that could happen is someone gives you a bad rating for either including or excluding it. But as you seem absolutely certain the idea won't add anything to your game, then that's that, and I'll say nothing further on the matter after this post.
- Edit: I just got an idea: You don't have to write any script where the Institution chases after Sammy to do a job. All that you'd need is an choice whenever Sammy meet's with Tucker, "I can't do this anymore, I quit!" Choosing this triggers the debt. Lets go with $1,000,000 for now. Sammy must then make regular payments (she can pay however much she wants as long as it meets a $1,000 minimum) but otherwise lives her normal life. If Sammy fails to make her regular payments 3 times, the Institution takes her and "breaks" her. The Institution gets what they're owed, and the Body Mod team gets their lab babies. They let Sammy go when they're done with her. You could probably reuse those bad Haven ending assets and create an alternative means to achieve the same status outside of the Institution quest line.
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what the topic is either. I was just dropping by and saw something I thought was interesting. As far as I'm aware, we're just mulling over ideas and proposals for you game.
I'm not so much in favor or against anything in particular. I simply like to entertain ideas, and I'm okay with tossing bad ideas after being able to objectively conclude they're too complex, unnecessary, don't fit the game, or w/e else.
