Shadowradar1212

I'd just ditch it honestly, changlings should be monsters that thrive as their own individuals, also hivemind can't be stopped via any means but unconciousness and death, changlings really do not need it, especally as its completely non-interceptable. I'd prefer changlings to move towards being viable solo antagonists that threaten all life aboard the station like the monsters space law claims them to be, rather than just a funny meth speed person with an armblade who can sometimes eat up your stuns and can't revive if you decap them with anything ranging from a glass shard to a circular saw.

so, as it currently, stands EOC, under space law is the following; "Execution/Imprisonment - If an Enemy of the Corporation has not committed any Capital Crimes they are to be placed in Permanent Imprisonment (Permabrig/Solitary/Labor Camp/Exile) without exception." I find several issues with this, while it works for most situations, its implications is that an antagonist will always be round removed to the permabrig without any, exemptions if confirmed as one, now while this works normally and theoretically parole exists *(it usually doesn't get used so good luck), it does have quite a few flaws. 1: new players introduced to antagonistic roles, will be removed from the round without exception if caught with traitor gear, this can even include their starting nuke core kit or the like, especally if they don't know what it is. 2: space explorers/miners with bloodreds pretty much get removed from the round. of course the simple answer is, don't board the station with one but, under the clause "without exception", they're basically in confinement till a CC fax/announcement otherwise. like say one winds up dead from mining fauna in one, but they get recovered and the suit isn't stripped, its impossible to turn in contraband while dead. the same albeit far less likely cirumstances would be during space exploration and drifting to station. 3: continuous reduction of antagonists in a round, as well as absolutely no lee-way for antagonists caught red handed by really, say two antagonists buy a surplus crate but a borg maint wandering rolls in and security see them over cameras, or a vampire outted by starvation while AFK, security are pretty much forced to permabrig them, though to be fair with the very latter its fair enough reasoning considering that vamps are a reasonable threat. 4: not much freedom or leeway in how security gets to handle a confirmed antagonist, barring permabrigging every, single time. it also limits RP quite bit since antagonists will always be extremely hostile towards security as being caught by security, even if you de-escalate non lethally always means perma, surrender has absolutely zero benefit and escalation is only ever higher when sec and antagonists are pitted against eachother. 5: really really, bad/unlucky odds for antagonists can't be handled with leeway ICly currently. basically if you wind up in a really, bad situation. like security walking in on your surplus crate, a very few blood points as a vampire or starving as one or just caught in a random search upon rolling midtraitor/doing your own thing as a traitor/vampire with a nuke core kit in bag but literally haven't managed to do anything else, you're basically removed from the round without any exemption. 6: sentences still last a rather hefty time, especally with 2 hour rounds, 30-15 minutes can really set you quite back. my proposal below could be modified to account for breaking your short-term cell if security lets you off the hook as well. I'd propose the following, changes to the EOC clause, under space law. "If an Enemy of the Corporation has not commited any Capital Crimes, they are subject to Permanent Imprisonment (Permabrig/Solitary/Labor Camp/Exile) for the current or any future arrests, regardless of crimes at the discretion of the magistrate; if no magistate is present then perma confinement is subject to captain/security discretion. An EOC may request a trial for permabrigging which can be declined as long as reasonable circumstances are present (IE, overwhelming threats, low security staffing, ERT present, biohazard present, etc). An EOC is always able to request a trial for contined confinement further down the line if they have not commited any capital offenses. Confirmed EOCs are also subject to random searches regardless of alert level, demotion from any jobs capable of station damages (engineer, atmospheric technician, scientist, security, heads of staff, etc) and are to be tracker implanted and set to parole if not under confinement. Vampires are to be implanted with a chemical implant, loaded with holy water preferably in its entirety while on release as well as marked in records. EOCs with removed tracker implants are to be re-detained and implanted or subject to confinement as per arrest protocol above for EOCs." This gives security a lot more leeway than current EOC treatment, it also encourages antagonists to act towards security in good faith, since skipping to immedately backchatting or spam resisting cuffs can just result in harsh treatment and permabrigging. as well as allowing security to be more relaxed in arrests on quieter rounds if they feel like it. Compared to forcing a yes/no, it also makes security unpredictable to face as an antagonist, especally if circumstances change. It also gives IAAs some potental extra work to investigate into, finding out their exact confirmed crimes during a trial which could finally exist for once on quiet shifts. instead of every EOC goes to perma silently and the rest of the shift is a greenshift, which is the current case. especally as security will need some reason to deny one without anything going on. EOCs are still subject to the rest of the law, so if they crime too hard, they'll still get bapped for it, they just have the chance to remain crew albiet with far less rights and leeway. Surrendering EoCs also is something I've haven't accounted for in this suggestion but eh, one step at a time.

honestly if changlings are ever to be buffed to stand alone as an antagonist in their own right, clingtot will inevitably have to go anyway, especally now we've moved past stun combat and changlings actually don't have to worry about immedate stunlock in melee before they can crit the secoff batoning them. moreso their stun resist actually does anything now. trust me, a changling with an agent ID is, very very powerful. one with a dsword or literally just a chainsaw is a curbstomp and that was just old balance, new balance with say... a chainsaw and its complete 100% stun resistance plus gibbing plus damage reduction on top of fleshmend, immortality and unstrippable armor that needs a saw to remove is just proof the two don't work together as conventionally rolled antagonists anymore, at least barring hijacks. to be honest, with the old meta I've always been on edge that clingtots used to be usually the only changlings that stood a chance in a round. But now its viable just as a ling to do so anyway.

so, have you ever wondered why the detective's own special set of gloves aren't actually a grand theft objective, seems pretty weird the syndicate wouldn't want state-of-the-art gloves that leave absolutely zero fibres over say a sick-looking pair of gloves the warden has, or say... a jetpack which only has the advantage of being backpack-fitting, especally when said captain probably won't take to space with it even. me too! it would be interesting as well since the detective would have to improvise with another type of gloves like nitriles if they do get mugged which would make evidence gathering more interesting due to contamination risk with the fibres giving false-leads as well as encouraging them to stick to the forensics side of things, knowing they could waltz right into a traitor/changling/vampire wanting their slick gloves. plus, its a weird consistancy flaw that they're not actually a grand theft item to antags despite being a one-of-a-kind item.

while I love the idea of breaking into a certain area, and planting a charge a-la TG weakpoint, the result usually though will be some, robust traitor rushing in with an emag on adrells and just speedrunning it five minutes into the round, another problem is uhh- its VERY easy to just stealth rush it, without being noticed, ESPECALLY *cough atmos tot jumpsuit, ventcrawl over. plus blowing up a lot of the station without escalation usually is a lame objective, but uhh, I would see reasoning if it were like, key interest points of the station, like the PDA server room, the grav gen, SMES units, some part of the AI's sat, the PDA server or blackbox, etc. also random searches already make SM/nuke core objectives hard enough since you can literally be random searched on a whem, whenever security feels like it, without any leads or plausable reasoning to on red alert and if you didn't hide it, you're basically stuffed for the entire round, we don't need more objectives forcing contraband onto people. more minor sabotage objectives however are honestly needed though, like breaking RnD servers/blackbox/secway/destroying all of X item like the autopsy scanners in the morgue, as well as grand theft objectives (because the det's own gloves despite being a one-on-station are not actually a theft objective, pretty weird huh?).

seconded, vulps should keep their quirk, but it should be like, one extra tile, not just flat out low-light NVs, since... all you have to do is turn your screen brightness up, which isn't that difficult honestly speaking.

pretty much 100% spot on, in fact ironically, you're better off making an aux telecomms first and shoving it behind a hundred rwalls and putting on a translator to some horrific language nobody understands and ever could, (clownish my beloved) than actually, sabotaging and bombing tcomms. but then you have the issue that nobody can actually find or get to it to fix it, leaving comms out nearly the entire round AND shutting off ERT comms and the like by making it into utter gibberish. plus that's a LOT of investment just to say, kidnap and contract the captain without a sec response only to have tcomms now located in the middle of the brig or the bridge's upload chamber surrounded by turrets before you even got over because the AI yelled about it.

honestly this. also not having prints seems a bit overkill, its already got enough potental in that it buys you time from a short-term glance. thaaat being said, I actually want to see stealth tots try and pull something off with this, we have too many antags focus on riling half of the entire station's sec force too often, plus people can probably do some funny tomfoolery and traitor gear memery with this, like ripping people off for "real" traitor keys. It definitely has potental.

this honestly should be a thing, especally when the blob renders the station unsurvivable via normal means and over 100% irrecoverable, I remember one cult round where a blob grew so massive it not only lagged the server it also somehow managed to outgrow a team of 6 DS including myself as one member and an SOO shooting it at once and it just speedrun style nyroom at our nuke and destroyed it despite taking direct hits, so the admins that round had to just, force instant-explode the station. also if the station hasn't even got any areas left safe from the blob, what's the point in even keeping the round going anyway, while DS can be fun, I think blobs should have a failsafe. maybe to make it a bit more fun, have a team of DS autospawn and have to arm and defend the nuke before X time where the blob just consumes the station TG-style. but yeah, easier said than coded...

I've played this gamemode on TG manuel where it now exists still on TG. don't get me wrong, it can lead to some amazing moments, it does have a few, flaws though... 1: no comms outside of general, although people don't snoop on the PDA messages hardly ever, this can lead to an RD that actually checks it just, instantly getting security suspicious, it can also lead to one brother dying without the other knowing, especally three-person teams and they could wind up doing it solo, or even that and dying themselves even if the other is alive (especally when the PDA server goes down). 2: exclusively based on stolen-gear balance with the only starting advantage being numbers, while this can lead to some interesting situations, IE an engineering knocking out comms while their brother hits a target, this also leads to urm... massive disadvantage sometimes, IE clown and viro for example, as a combo that doesn't get much firepower upfront or long term. traitor gear usually can subvert this, vampires have massive built in power regardless of job, changlings usually rely on their abilities over gear and job as well as blending in. and to be honest, fighting sec with improvised weaponry early-round ain't easy, try a "whoops all mindslaves" traitor loadout for a few rounds and you'll see what I mean, they're disposable too unlike BBs where everyone needs to live and leave. 3: if someone goes SSD near roundend/afk/forgets they're actually an antag, unless something reminds them when the PDA servers die and you can't contact em, you're kinda done for if loud and you need to hide evidence, especally if you don't know its happened to em, urm- yeeeeeah, a good example is if someone crashes out roundstart, you kinda lose a brother till the autocryo mark/reconnect/offering to dchat from administration intervention.. (especally with a new player). 4: no antag hud, while that'll probably change if it were added on paradice, on TG that's the case and oh boy does it make it needlessly more confusing and worse especally with uhh, point 3 where people forget they're an antagonist... yeeah, or if say you're going incognito/genetics fuckery and now you're monkey238 or whatever else that changes your identity, good luck asking your sci bud in RnD and convincing them to print up some gear and tag along with you going loud when sec are trying to kill you for being a "changling" because you murdered an officer with improvised weaponry and they killed a ling beforehand doing the same thing but have no teamwork and you're that """ling""" now. (although BB will probably break away the improvised weaponry gang = changlings meta.) however when you don't get the issue of a team member going SSD/forgetting they're an antag/ignoring you and rushing off to solo the objectives, you can actually get a very very nice run where you have to be creative and use whatever tools are at your disposal to deal with your objectives while making it out alive. while hijack as a team of three blood brothers without anyone dying is probably borderline impossible, its a glorious show though and that's what matters most right? I think blood brothers honestly aren't a bad since people tend to love doing antag objectives over messing around with the gear and the status, they can vary a lot though and probably should always be mixed in with other roundtypes, lest they become extended with violent greytiders. they ARE good in that they can break up the usual meta, but definitely not enough to carry an entire round. it also hurts a LOT more to rush objectives roundstart as a blood brother since you rely on being a parasite off of the crew's own efforts and advances to get your own tools out of theirs to get the job done, which actually might make for some rather interesting traitorious acts to see. although sec's unga attitude and spacelaw's 100% no exceptions RR confirmed antagonists with gear/near successes (class S/high risk items/murder) might make it a bit of a sour taste of creativity to some who nearly succeeded. also, what happens if they just, cryo in perma? or with... the objective item (supermatter kit/nuke core kit, will the new one be provided it? will it sit in cryogenic storage? what if they needed to leave asap but couldn't just leave class S in the open, yeah...) can a blood brother team just infinitely stall security by just, refilling its ranks outside of sec from crew candidates by cryoing? people might not want to deal with being perma'd like me, but would end up giving their team an unfair advantage that security can't counter.

out-of-rotation stuff - revolutionary brainwashing and its rough history - "do you hear the people sing?" "revolutionaries... we all know them, I'm sure you sure as hell know who they are if you're important enough for NT to give half a damn compared to the rest of those lot eh? well, they didn't come from nowhere... the agreement with the solar federation has its flaws, I know one thing, they don't work entirely for the syndicate either, hell I don't think they give a damn about anyone but the message they send, damned psychos... but their eyes, they don't look with us, they sing a hollow song of freedom, to me though, that's slavery clear as day... eugh- look man, I don't agree with my employers entirely, I just do what I do to get by." ~ transcript of an anonymous traitor librarian during an interview with undercover NAS Trurl staff during a debrief with nanotrasen loyalty affairs agents. revolutionaries, we all know the feared sound of the flash, a distinctive click that overrides a brain, some individuals are implanted with special reflexes that allows them to exploit flashbulb timings to hypnotise people to signals from various distant hijacked satalites, radio signals and the like, turning them into crazed, brainwashed anti corperate slaves, but who the hell are those people that lead the songs of angry men... well the history isn't entirely syndicate, turns out when people from various anti-nanotrasen sentiment to send out enough propaganda it only takes a person skeptical of NT and loyal to the USSP, the Prospero Order or some other group of extreme beliefs to snap. Most revolutionaries stem from USSP extremist cells as well as the Prospero Order, enraged by nanotrasen's position as the largest shareholder in the galactic plasma markets within the sectors of the trans-solar federation, the fact nanotrasen tends to have high levels of equality when it comes to worker rights from other races than just humanity, although this mostly applies to the Prospero Order, as well as the fact nanotrasen feeds into the trans-solar federation as almost its biggest source of profit, unlike the most diplomatic main bodies that make up the USSP and the Prospero Order, these cells tend to strike deals within the syndicate and to corrupt dealers with ties to biological manipulation like BioTech Solutions to create "head revolutionaries", people with their minds so far-altered to the point where termination is the only way to "re-educate" them, due to the risks of them being able to convert people that aren't implanted against such or trained to resist such mind-control hypnosis like nanotrasen heads of staff. one thing is certain, when people go missing from contractors, assassinations, hell even nuclear aftermaths and tradeship raids the syndicate and other pirate groups tend to supply the bodies to these extremist groups under the guise of their own and because they pay fairly well for NT staffing on-records, allowing plausable deniability against nanotrasen and furthering the hostilities between the USSP and the trans-solar federation as well as nanotrasen. While the syndicate does take the majority of the blame and impact of the claims and the USSP's main governing bodies deny any involvement, its 100% certain that the USSP's deserters and syndicate's lesser morally restrained cells are involved within revolutionary efforts. nanotrasen often clamps down on such cells, loyalty implanting inflicted crew to forcefully alter their minds in a way that reduces suspectability to mind-altering hypnosis these flashes operate on and hunting down any unidentified satalites broadcasting revolutionary sleeper signals, unfortunately head revolutionaries due to how far their minds are altered overload these implants, causing them to de-activate via neural signals, nobody knows quite how but there are rumors mindshields have a way to... turn them off, oddly enough... Nanotrasen security staffing and heads of staff are excessively, trained and checked as well as vetted against any sleeper activity, however due to budget cuts and steve spilling his coffee over the employment and loyalty monitoring records for general crew for the seven-hundredth time, solar federation laws, training general NT crew to resist the effects of subversive brainwashing via flashing hypnosis, remains impossible against true revolutionary heads and to this day, revolutionary emergencies remain dealt with primary via loyalty implanting, mass genocide, warcrime levels of security brutality and deathsquads and other means of loyalty ensurance. Another reasoning a majority of the trans-solar federation sources out to nanotrasen as its biggest supplier of counter-revolutionary implants for its military forces and an increasingly convincing scapegoat for the syndicate to blame nanotrasen as the new enemy in the eyes of such, cells of USSP belief extremes. the history isn't entirely USSP either, some cells of the Elysium Republic and Synthetic Union are also known to partake via use of revolutionary brainwashing tactics for political sway rallying against nanotrasen's equality or late-effort on synthetic rights, or whatever other crazed and twisted reasonings on their ideals they can come up with combined with heavy syndicate provocateur involvement. Most of the recent conflicts involving revolutionary brainwashing come from the Prospero Order which uses revolutionary heads and brainwashing to aquire more slaves via use of mass brainwashing employees to overthrow stations, which has in recent years brought nanotrasen and the trans-solar federation towards taking action several times, barely just scraping by plausable deniablity after later investigations revealed syndicate-grade contraband and implants found in such conflicts as well as causing the USSP to take action against such cells within itself and outside, as increasing the global reputation of the syndicate as whole to be widely seen as more than just a malicious paramilitary force. widely based off existing para lore, such as the Prospero Order - see the offical wiki page lore for reference

quite a while ago, I think last year round? >be ranged holopara in an IPC >somehow get my master to get all they need to greentext >doing fairly well, nothing is wron- "Level 5 biohazard aboard the station, all personnel must contain the outbreak" >okay, alright... my master wants to know the situation, they're currently in a pod knowing if they should move to space or not. >alright, scout mode, lets move over a bit... >move over blob tile for a split second to look at a blob situation.. >instantly ghosted... huh? that ain't right... what just happened, did the blob delete me or something...? >click orbit see master in dchat from halfway across the station >well fuck...

vampires hold allegences to ancient vampires who raise them canonically, they raise them from redspace to take over deceased or sickly individuals, mostly likely victims of vampires stealing their souls through the medium of blood, various morgues, crashes, incidents, previous victims of vampires, hospitaliation, or even deals with entities past mortal understanding can """resurrect""" people into vamps. vampires drain the very souls of those they feed off of, most notably through biting them in the neck and sucking their blood, this canonically reduces the lifespan of the individual, by quite a substancal amount of years, which furthered by how ancient vampires can raise the deceased into their own, kin a gradually snowballing threat that isn't a galaxy wide issue just yet. they don't want your blood itself though, no no, they want your soul. to exaggerate the damage vampires cause by draining the lifeforce of others, they also gain powers of various kinds, albeit their weaknesses tend to increase as they gather more, with most fledglings on nanotrasen stations being weak to holy water and the very presence of space. Sunlight absolutely obliterates them, forcing vampires into the one situation that only exemplifies their damaging presence, stations and other places shielded from the hostile light of space. vampires also starve pretty quickly without feeding their everdraining craving for the life force of others, their vessel bodies crumbling down within seconds on starvation and being very difficult to sustain alive, however any normal means of food consumption have minimal effect on them, as for where it goes, when a vamp eats a 100+ burgers, nobody knows! vampires don't get powered by non sentient beings, but they can still... sustain themselves on lesser lifeforms like monkeys, they just don't grow more powerful from such but its enough to keep their vessel bodies intact. probably best to ignore that for lore. as you can imagine, vampires aggressively feed and kidnap people to survive, which really doesn't help their acceptance into society and is the no1 reasoning their existance is usually considered a threat and why diplomacy is borderline impossible long-term, alongside the fact they're addicts to power, they want it, they crave it, they need it. due to this, most corperations, including that which the syndicate are made up of, tend to class vampires as illegal from the act of existing to counteract this everbuilding threat of vampires killing people though soul theft and the redspace breaches that ancients create that possess the fallen, rising them as fellow vampires as well as the fact vampires cause employees to survive MANY less years, and they feed a lot which results in a massive loss of employees. as for the greater motives of vampires, entirely unknown, they don't seem entirely focused on spreading but they share similar interests to the syndicate, mocking corperations that pose a threat to them via grand theft, reverse engineering state of the art tech or probably taking it as a status symbol, that or using it as a bargin to draw in influencial buyers for power or as a lure to enthrall them to grow influence where they're outlawed. it probably varies a lot, might even be using some of it to bypass wards against their power, rituals or anything really. either way, forces beyond most mortal comprehension have motives past that of lesser megacorperations... from the blood cults of nar`sie to the reaper, to dark gods, the crazed and powerflex hungry lunatics of the wizard federation or even the necropolis and its twisted champions and loot. TLDR: probably a majority of reasonings, they're an outcast force of redspace entities possesing the bodies of the fallen and people don't like em, so much they're usually killed and contained on sight. naturally this forces them to make due, as time passes and they drain the life sources of sentient beings, they grow stronger. All vampires seem addicted to this power too, judging by the blood objectives which further pushes the cycle of vamps killing people raising vamps and people hating their existance for it, probably the only power of diplomacy outside of brainwashing they possess considering how much their existance is a threat to all life.. who even knows how many of those things are in redspace just waiting to cross over via bluespace means... but they want in.

CQC parrying is very handy to keep on passively, during converations and escapes, because if someone tries to pull a wordless baton on you while you have something conspicious and contra, it'll always have that chance to react, and it does it instantly and silently. CQC users that know that, are very hard to get the upper hand on with dirty tactics, especally now that bolas aren't instant. sadly you need to rely on syndicate bundles as a traitor to actually get CQC, but its very handy, especally that it mixes with firearms. no idea if teleshield stacks with CQC block parry, but its definitely scary to consider the amount of stuff you can combo with it, afterall it is a nukie-exclusive balanced art and longer shifts with more gear add to the potental. unlike sleeping carp, which almost completely locks you into melee outside of throwing weapons from the lack of ability to use firearms. throwing kits with sleeping carp are very, very lethal. as they can be used to weaken, slow, stun and even kill from a distance, albeit limited. very limited. martal arts, as one can probably guess, are better in chokepoints, fighting security in an open hallway with a melee art tends to be... difficult. (especally CQC) fighting them in maints, where they can't dodge a kicked body is very lethal, pre-emptively creating these points in maintenance isn't a bad idea either, since well, security can't really stop you until the alert rises if you're not an engineer as long as its not too blatently sabotage. timing is key too, martal arts are better when used at the right time. pulling it out from the get go, while good for getting used to it fast, tends to tip off security into countering it more. especally carpfu users, where security will start to just, pre-emptively carry bolas and use batons instead of wasting shots and CQC where they'll stop running into baton range and start using lethals from a distance more.

thermite being appliable in such low quantities is another issue. like... a small beaker and two large ones is enough to melt through half of the station... for spending like, less than a minute in front of a chem machine. compare to this... one, irreplacable telecrystal's worth of C4 for a single Rwall and waiting 10 seconds and being highly conspicious and perma-able... or just greytiding into scichem for a five-ten minute sentencing and being able to level half of the station with two beakers and a welder with minimal risk, and yeeeeeeah. oh no.