PeakPerformance

I really like that idea, it could check if there are valid non-revivable bodies on station - It'd have to be only suicide/DNR's though as to not rob someone's body who's been dead past defib timer but still might be LR revived, and if no/not enough bodies are found it spawns them in maint as a fallback. Without preparation, yes it can be quite hard to decapitate someone, however (arching back to the decap-clings days) all it takes is to have a scalpel, surgical saw (or ghetto equivalent), and table to do it in some 20-30 seconds. To me, zombies reviving is the core of what makes them dangerous and interesting to handle. Bolting could still prevent this, but I agree that it might be something to tweak/experiment with ! That's where the virus part comes into play, zombies are incentivized to fully kill the people they bite instead of doing bite and run maneuvers, to prevent the infected from reaching medbay before the tumor develops and getting the vaccine rolling, as well as turning people into zombies much faster (1 minute revive time instead of the 3.5 minutes the infection takes) Thanks for your feedback, updated the design doc with some of these ideas !

heya I made a zombie outbreak design doc, would love to hear your feedback on it here or at https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/discussions/23131 This suggestion is of a rather large scope. I've been rummaging on how to make a zombie outbreak as a mid-round a fun major event for the station, here's what I came up with : **The outbreak :** The event would start with one-three "Alpha Zombies" (edgy name subject to change) who are pooled from ghosts, spawned randomly in maint, and stronger in many ways to regular zombies (details below). They'll be the prime vector of the zombie outbreak, dolling out the first wave of infections. The infection starts with a disease which takes 3.5 minutes to reach maturity (doesn't affect IPC) : - First stage lasts two and a half minutes - no symptoms, shows up on body scanner (not hud/healthanalyzer) but has no known cure. - Second stage lasts the remainder of the one minute - symptoms are : confusion, blood vomiting, projectile vomiting, necrotizing fasciitis and itching. Some on-brand kinda stuff - Third stage the disease "cures" itself and instead spawns a tumor in the host's torso, that heals them to full and makes them turn into a zombie giving them a notice of their new antag status. The tumor is basically what makes them be a zombie, removing it, or having the brain/head of the host be transplanted onto a new body will cure it. Removing the tumor out of an alpha zombie makes it gib/dust or any other way to make them unrevivable. If an infected person's blood (while they're still within the "diseased" stage and before the tumor shows up) is put in a pandemic machine, it starts a 5 minutes timer after which it'll produce a cure which can be replicated and given out to the crew to prevent further infection (but it won't cure current zombies who need their tumors removed). Edit : Zombies always show up dead on medhuds, (maybe not on examine though) allowing them to play dead, as well as helping identify zombies who are running around in fully covering clothes like modsuits. **The Zombies :** Alpha Zombies are naked random race carbons (or a custom sprite if people are interested), can't wear clothes and have the following traits : - They are a dark shade of green, and glowing red eyes. - They have two no-drops in hand items that represent a claw and a set of teeth for clawing/biting. Clawing makes them do 21-30 brute and lets them bash or pry open doors like jol/fireaxe, biting does only 15 but infects people, and doing so heals 15 brute/burn. This is both to give them weapons that can break doors/windows and prevents them from using anything a regular carbon could use. Clawing could make the sound faithlesses do, biting terror's spider sound and animation. (No armor penetration. 15-10.5/7.5 damage on riot armor) - They Revive upon death with a full aheal akin to a cling after 30 seconds unless they're beheaded/gibbed/incinerated/their tumor has been removed. - they ignore slowdown, don't require oxygen, and can't be stunned. - They regenerate -4 brute/burn/toxins per cycle, twice salglu healing rate + toxins. - Their speech pattern is changed into gurgle (and/or with random shouts as they hit people like hulk) to non-zombies, letting them give orders/coordinate with nearby alpha/regular zeds. - They can leap like the genetic power with twice the cooldown as long as they're not bola'd (which should apply to the jump power in general frankly). Basic Zombies are regular carbon whatever species of the person who got turned and their gear but : - They are a lighter shade of green. - Clawing makes them do 15-21 brute (barely enough to slowly wittle doors) and lets them pry open doors like jol/fireaxe, biting does only 10 but infects people, and makes the zombie heal 10 brute/burn upon doing so. (10.5-7.5/5 damage on riot armor) - They Revive upon death with a full aheal after a minute unless they're beheaded//gibbed/incinerated/their tumor has been removed. - They ignore slowdown, don't require oxygen, and can't be stunned. - They regenerate -2 brute/burn/toxins per cycle, like salglu would + toxins. - Their speech pattern is changed into gurgles (and/or with random shouts as they hit people like hulk). **Why I think it'd work and extra tidbits :** Having ghost roles be part of the infection is fun for observers, and it having both a disease/tumor phase gives a lot of flexibility for incorporation into events, as well as multiple ways to deal with the outbreak depending on the station's state of disarray. First you might just decapitate bodies and preserve them while you work on getting the tumor out, reattach the heads to new bodies, or run the risk of removing a tumor on a potentially soon reviving zombie. You can also quarantine people who've been bit but survived their encounter with the zeds. Then when the cure is out, vaccinated doctors can operate more easily on zombie without decapitating them while having armed supervision. Decapitating all fallen zombies might seem like an easy way out but it might be very risky to get so close to one before you have the vaccine, and you'll quickly widdle out able bodies to fight back against the outbreak. And them being carbons mean that, first - people keep their characters, bolas and aiming to cripple the legs are very effective ways to deal with the zombies, as well as using defenses like sandbags or tables. The vaccine will take some time to develop even after a blood sample has been provided, giving time for the infection to take place a little more. If the outbreak is thwarted early, there'll be no or very little damage to the station/crew. If it takes a while, the damage could be interesting, bring a lot of RP, and change the round's flow without removing people permanently (I'm thinking a full crew of different species' heads on human bodies, sounds like peak ss13 to me !). If it isn't containable, though, it'll be a glorious fight for survival akin to massive xeno/t-spider outbreak, worthy of a nuke or DS. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this, I've been thinking of maybe having armor reduce the chance of bites contaminating the victim, but i'm not sure if it's necessary as i've tried to make it as balanced as my mind can project, numbers would likely have to be tested and tweaked. I've also tried to keep it to mechanics that are somewhat in the game (white t-spider infestation, tumors, vampiric claws, cling rejuv (which it could literally be that), the jump power, very little to sprite) so that it can be implemented as easily as possible.

A big reason xenos were so hated was because they gibbed the infected person so I'd tend to stray away from that, and you need a wincon for crew that doen't just involve eradicating everyone who's a zombie. What if instead we focused a bit more on the viral aspect of the outbreak - their virus could have a very very specific cure, like a mix of multiple chems, or more virology work like requiring multiple people's blood or different stages to fully identify it. The goal would be more containment of zombified crew (even dead, as the dead rises !) and experimenting on them to try and cure them a-la I am Legend. Only brain damage means laser to the head won't kill, forcing ballistics and thus broken bones and all, pain in the ass for crew who get de-zombified later and will quickly overwhelm medbay, I think just regular damage with some damage mod, regen or regen mechanics would be good. Maybe giving them matter eater too so they can eat cuffs, and and having them still take like half stamina damage so they're beefy and fairly uncontainable but can be handled nonlethally if sec is good ((or DARING >:D))

About unions making sense ICLY - If you had grievances with your evil company overlord, would you protest them somewhere safe from their reach with a large audience, or on board of their security-controlled, space-faring, nuclear-bomb-rigged, remote metal box ?

I absolutely LOVE the idea of having clings basically be their own "biochemical-dispensor", very on brand with what they are ! You'd defiitinely need to be careful about what kinda chems are produceable/synthesizabe (although we already have a p good blacklist for that) to avoid it becoming a better sleepy pen as you put it. Could add some extra layers too, like if you get hit while having a full loaded chemical bladder it all spews out and splashes everything around (like a chemical grenade without smoke eg). Drank synthflesh ? It heals you and the people around you ! Drank sarin? everyone starts choking. Basically a living chem mine !

If you become a chicken, don't forget to take commander clucky out on a date !

One thing to be considered, too, is that the bluespace plants are not actually the problem here, but their bluespace activity trait. Labelling them as weapon when they could very well be used and harvested and carried without that trait (or you could just put said trait into another plant) could lead to other disagreements and issues. I agree with Quark and Matt that what matters the most is the context within which they're used, as it can be pretty broad, and space law/sop covers most of it.

Besides delamming the engine which defo is a rule break, I think slimes reaaaaaaaallly need a nerf to deal with the mass murdering. Some form of objectives/ROA would be nice too, cuz there's a definitive difference between seeking to feed and unga murderhobbo everything in sight, but if you can somewhat deal with one alone that should be enough to incentivize more careful stealth/ambush gameplay, rather than "I pop out of vent, my first hit stuns you for ten minutes and breaks five bones in your body, even if you can react I can easily tank 2-3 extinguishers and dip."

Bro how did I never know you can put ERT armor in backpack my god

Other codebases have ways for changelings to tell/track other changelings and that's something I'd love for us to have, as I do agree antag v antag gameplay is some of the most interesting there is but trying to find a disguised cling can be nigh impossible. Remember there's already a cling discussion thread opened, feel free to add to the discussion there if you have some ideas on how to improve changelings !

It's that time of the year folks, wish you all the best !

In concept, not a bad idea - If you could find ways/ideas to involve and reward more than one crew per item, and avoid self antagging things like the .357 as mentionned prior, it could be a solid addition. Think of the asceiplus rod for the kind of rewards that, imo, would be more fitting. Absolutely love the no-slip one, though, KEEP RUNNING AND NOBODY EXPL- loses their feet??

Could have as a pre-requisite that the person needs to have been blessed by you prior in the shift, so either you have to go through a full blessing + healing cast, or you would've had to have gone to visit the chaplain earlier for his benediction so that they can heal you through faith faster.

I've already spoken about this on another post asking about hiero re-introduction, as well as a quick PR I made about it. If hiero was to be reintroduced, I still think It'd need a major nerf on its crusher trophy ability. The wall stays up for about seven seconds, letting you completely box megafauna in and kill them without much trouble. The Drake's breath going through it would be a good addition to that. Alternatively, if the wall had a max HP, and would break after taking a certain amount of punishment, that could be alright, too.

I've only had the chance to try hemo and garg, one shift each really and here's a couple of my thoughts : I think the general raise in need for blood is alright, especially seeing the powers that come with it, and you definitely do not need to kill all the people you feed of. I managed to get 800 units of blood in thirty minutes without killing anyone. My only problem with it is the possibility of spending upwards of an hour getting all that blood and possibly getting holy watered for 300u blood loss per syringe just before reaching full power and getting detroyed with that. Syringe guns have been problematic for a while but that's another discussion entirely - maybe diminishing the power of holy water (Or making it scale so that it's less and less effective until it's not at all at full power) could help, but I know some people would rather vampires were never even immune to it, so I don't know what the right path for that is. I term of abilities, overall, I think all new vampires are much, MUCH more fun to play and fight than the previous iteration, I just have a few criticism concerning the two that I've played : Garg : - I'll admit that overwhelming force is a bit lacking (Call it underwhelming force). Could maybe open bolted doors at a much higher blood cost ? Like 20-30? Since Gargs don't have much jaunt power and are more about plain physical mobility, it could help with bolting AIs/borgs, or reach bunkered targets easier while still being fair due to the high cost/blood requirements. - Grug smash needs to lock you into it. It's extremely tedious to make sure to stop before using it mid-fight, and very frustrating to cancel by mistake. Would be a major QOL. It could use a little bit of a tell, too, and I remember you saying it was basically throwing yourself at a turf - so I think it could be neat to have the thrown spin animation while you're mid-air ! Hemo : Haven't had the chance to try the full power ability so I won't be able to comment on that much. - Blood eruption either needs a tell and delay, or it needs to be tuned down or converted to burn damage to avoid too much internal damage at the push of a button - but it might need both. It might get a bit better as people learn to avoid exposing themselves too much (and we haven't seen hemo vampires with synthflesh sprays/adv release grenades yet), but it only takes you stepping on blood once, one mistake, to take a ton of damage and the potential of ib/broken bones. Sure, the price is steep, but it doesn't really matter if it pretty much guarantees you a victory 90% of times it's used - or if you're using it in spite just before dying to give internal damage to potentially literally ALL of security or something, which isn't really fun, and you generally run the risk of a lot of unwanted collateral damage, too. Maybe it could be turned into an area denial kind of thing - It could still deal brute damage with the potential of IB/broken bones - but instead of dealing instantaneous damage, it could do damage over time (Or maybe damage when people move ?) as the blood on the floor turns jagged or something - This way even if it's used in a civilian populated area it's not gonna flat out crunch 10+ people, and it could still serve as a powerful damaging ability when fighting sec if they need to push you through blood. This'd require a major overhaul to the entire spell, though, so it might be a little too far fetched. I'll admit it is THE most satisfying spell to use in the game, though. Crunch. - Blood claws seem pretty alright, the attack speed buff means it really can only be used at peak efficiency on downed targets, but downed targets are dead meat regardless, so it's actually pretty balanced in that aspect imho. And - thank you for your hard work bringing us to a new era of vampire gaming !